Frostie

Ok me old chum even though you have everything at your disposal to test this I've done it for you. The Su27 has a 240 knot and 6500ft advantage over the Mirage, I've set it up so the Mirage and Flanker don't crank just continue forward to show only missile performance. R27R vs 530D.zip.rar

Not sure how many times you want me to make this clear, i'm not advocating adding ERs, where are you getting that idea from? I don't need to prove to you that 530D is superior to R-27R it has been done to death already just take my word for it or better still use tacview and test yourself. To put it in simple terms to you, a mach 4.5 missile (530D) will always beat a mach 3.5 missile (R-27R) to the target with equal starting. I thought it was pretty clear that killing the AI be it MiG15 or Flanker is as you say with weather and climate etc. No this below is what you stated and still stand by it seems.

I'm sorry but where is it personal? I made valid points and provided evidence that the AI is not worthy for discussion. If you don't have an answer to the contrary please don't try and turn the discussion on its head by calling foul. There is no bug report needed as there is no bug, i've already stated I don't have a problem with this setup but generally it's harder for newcomers to choose Flanker.

Really sorry for my curt response it was late and I was tired. You can't maintain a lock and notch this is impossible, perhaps you mean crank (F-pole). Most experienced pilots do this so nothing of note can be improved on. This is where I think we are talking a different calibre of opponent, a good Mirage pilot will close down to 10km-15km (5-7nm) before firing, this is where the strength of the 530D will devastate any R-27R, if the Flanker fires earlier his missile is easily defeated by a simple crank, snake etc. if you notch this shot in a Flanker you're basically conceding the advantage to him and then relying on your R73 to be spoofed by countermeasures which it will easily, to do this you have to start turning your nose towards him which puts you out of the notch and due the 2nd 530, you may get your 73 off but flares make it the lesser of the two so the best you're hoping is a mutual kill, in a nose to nose situation the best missile choice is always radar guided. Your other option (other than running away where you might as well eject) is just to stay in the notch and defeat his 530s by notch/chaff and magics with flare then try and win the merge but if he has any grain of ability he will have already gunned you before the pass. Of course these tactics all work but given equal ability in this scenario the Mirage trumps all. The only tactic viable to deal with this is more numbers using drag and bait. Just to be clear, I haven't got a problem flying in this scenario but it seems hardly anyone wants to fly the Flanker because of its poor position in this setup, imo it is better to have more variation of aircraft flying around so looking into making this happen is what we need. This is why you can't rely on AI for anything useful. Haven't flown the MiG15 for over a year but first time no problem against the AI, real players don't fire max range and don't give you a chance to be so casual. I didn't realise that the first encounter was on high so switched him over to excellent. Mirage vs Mig15.zip.rar Mirage Exc vs MiG15.zip.rar

By now agreeing with what most have been saying for the last few pages a way of saying that you're orignal thoughts on the Flanker being superior were wrong. Keep practicing, you should be able to kill the AI using only guns.

Probably one of the best players on Blue Flag 'Varayag' a staunch Russian traded in his Flanker for the Mirage well over a year ago, that speaks volumes for me.

Not only that but you can't rely on sneaking around in BF, this isn't a rack up the kills and ignore the mission server. Performing CAP and controlling airspace is paramount to the push, to do that you need the best BVR platform or one that has equal footing otherwise you have to rely on outnumbering. The Flanker just isn't competitive enough for most, this is why they choose Mirage amongst other reasons such as full fidelity. It doesn't deserve to be in such a position. You can't put ERs on because it will dominate the boot will be totally on the other foot and they'd have to put Flankers on blue:D

I've already touched on that. I think that is the point most are making here in that the Flanker could do with datalink, that is all, no need for people to go falsely claiming the Flanker should be hands down winning otherwise it is pilot error or wrongly claiming the gimbal limits are better etc.

You think.

Yes I worded it incorrectly, launching then notching is impossible unless you have a +90 deg gimbal limit is the point I was making, do you understand what a notch is? The rest you are basically saying behave like a Su25T which is what I said. In other words defend to the merge because from what i've seen in BF a lot of pilots loose all control of the fight at that point, the problem is the experienced ones won't let you get away with that and that is more my concern than dealing with the average joes. You haven't understood. The point in avoiding a shot head on is to maintain a lock while the bandit must maintain a lock on you or go defensive, there is no need for engaging again because you are always on the offensive. The Flanker, MiG29 and F-15 gimbal limits in DCS are +/-60 degrees.

Exactly and it is nowhere near as tough as 27R vs 530D.

I'd say ER would make the Flanker too overpowered.

Such bad info here, Flanker gimbals? Notching while launching. Have you been reading about Su35 by any chance. At 5nm range the 530 will reach the Flanker before the R27R is halfway, also the radar gimbal is the same. I don't want to sound too cocky but I can avoid any SARH missile head on in the Mirage far easier than any other aircraft, the FM lets me. In a Flanker i'm used to dominating bvr fights against amraams but in this battle I need to behave more like a 25T and be defensive that is how unthreatening the R27R is.

The Flanker is in the same boat, it currently has a dl in mp like the Mirage would have, just standard gci/awacs contact info. What the Flanker is missing in mp the Mirage lacks in rl, that is flight of four dl which is far more valuable in a tactical sense.

What you want is for the devs to put a missile on an aircraft that has never been put on said aircraft. The Su27S has never been able to carry R-77, not because of historical accuracy but because of technology accuracy. It's no different to asking for R-77s be put on the Su25 because the Su25TM could carry them or asking for an F1 Ferrari engine put in your 1960s Dino, in a simulation sense it's a daft request. Modding for fun or balanced mission reasons is all well and good but asking for the default sim to be mixed up when it is supposed to be a sim based on realism is a non starter here.

No matey, when probing strange places real men wear protection.;)

Fantastic wall of text Ciribob, amazing work. Unless someone objects, can we have the kb pod on grounded Viggens as an interim fix.

It was only the other day he claimed how important for sales youtube vids are, now he has done a great service for many modules in the past but this uneducated bashing of the Mirage will leave many wrongly believing it's a buggy waste of monies. Bad form, a bad day at the office I think. On the contrary I think many people like yourself are going to be shocked at how close FC3 A2A system procedures are to reality.

That is a problem but what would solve this is my other pretty please wish and that is more focus on attrition. I know the resource manager in DCS handles weapon and aircraft stocks and you can move these stocks to different airbases by flying them there. In a mission we had running on the 51st server I modified C130s to carry 20 AIM120s and had two of them deliver them to Batumi at a trigger this needed escorting by players of course. I also coincided a base capture with a cargo plane bringing 25mpus to the base. What i'd love to see is the ability to transit say Su27s and weapons to Sochi or even Senaki, just a simple player task of flying a fully loaded Su27 to Sochi and landing. If Sochi was taken back those Flankers would be lost and where ever they came from would be short also. This would work for all, so Mi8s could be stockpiled at forward airbases to save long journeys from farps, Anapa and Krasnodar for example could maybe have infinity aircraft and weapons and then let the war of attrition begin. Weapon and ac stocks would get low so flying 21s and F5s would be much more effective and popular.

Full fuel and fourth gen aircraft pushed right out to the outskirts of the map is what i'd like to see. Transitioning from one base to a more forward one gives justification to refuelling and just feels right, less airquake and more mission planning. Therefore instant action happens in the MiG21 and F5, it's win, win in my book. Blue flag shouldn't be about 4th gen vs 4th gen there are other servers for that. If you can't handle a bit of transit then you're in the wrong server. This is the sort of mission style that has been lost and replaced with quick action gaming, people just can't wait to get shotdown rather than concentrate on mission specifics such as CAP and escort they choose to go all out 1 v many.

Plus 17 Su27M (Su35) before the turn of the century. Russia currently has Su30SM, M2 plus the single seat 27 variants Su35S, Su27S, Su27SM and Su27SM3 (new build SM). Su35S being the top dog. The thing with this Russia vs USA thing is that the cold war was virtually over in the late eighties, USSR was about to collapse and funding for military hardware was on the back burner. The technology and production lines were there but the requirement and funding wasn't. If we choose to create nonsensical fantasy scenarios in DCS then we need a fantasy Soviet Union to go with it.

It is not just the guidance issues and cm rejection which make the FC missiles weaker but the speed of the 530D which is much faster than the R-27R and AIM-7M, Mach 4.5 vs Mach3. And besides I think guidance problems affect all missiles.

The AIM-120C5 which is the deadliest missile in DCS is a 2003 missile, the 120B is no more deadly than EDs R-77. Russia already had a Flanker with AMRAAMSKI in 1990, the Su30, if people want parity for multiplayer enjoyment I don't see why that is an issue.

Blue flag set up is the Mirages ideal set up, facing much weaker radar missiles they're able to control the fight. On the face of it picking the Mirage is not only because of fuel and the more enjoyment you get against FC aircraft in this scenario but mainly because it is full fidelity which adds ten fold the enjoyment. It's ticking all the boxes. Fuel balance and adding datalink may sway some but in the scheme of simming, flying full fidelity trumps all.

In the restricted missions, Bison I think, the Viggen is missing stuff in the airbase resource like the KB countermeasure pod and fuel tanks. I haven't checked yet whether this is a Viggen issue or an update issue. If it is an update issue I know this is a pita, from what I remember I think the work arounds are 1. resetting one airbase back to unlimited 2. saving the mission to get the updated weapon etc. list applied to that unlimited base 3. setting the weapon restrictions back up at that same airbase and copying it to all the others 4. save I think the alternate is editing the mission file.