Grim_Smiles

Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure it was confirmed that we're getting the 30 and not the 28.

I think you misunderstood what he was mentioning. He's talking about putting door gunners on the slick (unarmed) model which it appears there is no way to do currently, not switching which guns for door gunner on the gunship version.

I can't get door gunners on the slick either, so likely it isn't an option. Hopefully at some point in the future we'll get the option of selecting M60 gunners for that older Vietnam feel on the Huey.

Edit: I'm assuming you are being sarcastic BTW based on your smiley:D, but I figured I'd answer this anyway for the benefit of the OP. Even that wouldn't be enough, certainly not something the size of a tanker IRL. It isn't enough to just poke holes in the side of the shell, you have to rupture enough compartments inside the ship that she can no longer remain afloat. 7.62 rounds from miniguns won't penetrate very far in. Unless she loses main and emergency power and the crew is too dumb to dog down all the water tight doors and hatches, she's not going down from lots of little poke holes that size. Even if something like that scenario did happen (though I can't see a crew not closing the WT doors) it would take her a long time to sink from that. Even with the rockets fired by the Huey at the waterline, the Huey doesn't carry many and I don't see them penetrating far enough to rupture enough bulkheads inside. Even if it did, and I kind of doubt it, it wouldn't cause the ship to sink anywhere near as quick as it does in DCS. Unfortunately in DCS a vehicle or ship is simply destroyed or not. You don't have to sink her to take a ship out, but that isn't modeled in the sim. I would say in a real scenario the best option for the Huey would be to spray the deck and bridge to kill crew - but in real life I don't see a Huey being sent after a ship that size, they would hit her with something made for it. My understanding is the the Elnya is a replenishment tanker for military vessels, so she's likely much hardier than a regular civilian ship. This is a tanker that collided with a bulk carrier ship. You can see the gash goes below the waterline. I don't see anything the Huey carries that can cause worse than this:

A tanker IRL? No, you'd run out of rounds in the Huey first. Definitely a damage system issue.

Couldn't help but think of the drone delivery service from Cowboy Bebop when hearing of this. I'm sure that losing drones/packages will happen, but I don't see that being much different than merchandise getting lost/damaged/stolen now. I think they would stand to lose far more money due to the realities of our sue happy society. One can easily see all the lawsuits on the horizon when these occasionally drop out of the sky and cause injury and/or a vehicle accident, or when it lands like in the video and Fido gets hurt by the propellers when going up to it. Not trying to be a pessimist here, just a realist - we know these things are going to happen and I'm sure Amazon does as well. Guess we'll see if they can pull it off and how long it lasts, though I agree with Sobek that it'll pretty much just be a gimmick for the foreseeable future.

So much bacon...so...beautiful...

I told you, you have to shoot it in the head or it'll come back!

IIRC, one of the rewards from DCS WWII stated a beta of 190D9 estimated to be out on Q1 2014. So I'm not anticipating any real news on the Dora until after the holiday season. They have shown us the eye candy with the cockpit renders and the model in DCS, so now comes the coding side (like what SithSpawn brought up). So we might be waiting until they are ready for beta before geting any additional news. Although I'll admit I'm hoping I'll be pleasantly surprised by some news prior to then. With all the Edge updates we've been getting though, I have to wonder if the guys at ED got tired of the "Whatever...now what about Edge?" comments and are going "Here you savages, here's your Edge updates!":D

Like Fifi said, Huey has agility and I try to use it. What T0x1s does is the same tactics I use. I'll move as fast and low as I can and take out as many as possible as I pass, then on the run out I start jinking left and right as rapidly as I can while avoiding mast bump. Once I'm clear I check what damage I have and evaluate how I want to proceed if I need to do another run. I don't even bother with the copilot flex sight right now, it goes out if someone so much as farts in my direction. The Mi-8 is quite a bit different for me not only due to the size but some of the issues it has right now in beta. Biggest issue is that a shot through the windshield takes out everyone in the Mi-8, something I don't have to worry about in the Huey. But that is a beta issue and should not be a problem down the road. Granted I'm sure that taking one through the windshield will still happen since you have the huge bubble with little protection. But at least then it'll switch over to the copilot, instead of losing the entire chopper because one guy took a round. One of the other differences I've noticed is how quick you can lose an engine in the Mi-8. The position of the engine in the Huey seems to be an advantage since you have a lot of the fuselage in the way depending on where the shots are coming from. In the Mi-8 I'll lose an engine from enemy fire far more than I ever do with the Huey. Whether this is a beta damage model issue (like the pilot death issue) I'm not sure, I would think the Mi-8 would have a bit more in the way for a round to travel through before it hits something vital. Getting hit with a round from something like an M242 is going to ruin your engine's day no matter what, but I've lost an engine to infantry far quicker than I expected. Again, that might be a beta issue, I don't know for sure. My tactic with the Mi-8 is same as yours, I keep as much distance as possible and empty the pods. I really have no choice it seems at the moment. I can't really do that in the Huey since the rockets are much more limited in number and I'm definitely not the most accurate with them at the moment, but with the Mi-8 and four rocket pods you can afford to spray rockets. I really hope Belsimtec gives an option for bringing along spare rockets to reload in the field, as I've heard of Russian crews doing this in real life. I have no idea if Huey crews have ever done it, but that may be due to problems with finding a safe spot to set down in Vietnam. It would certainly be great if I could land somewhere and just wait for my crew to reload more rockets, rather than have to RTB every time. Since it would be a field reload and more potential for being attacked while you are on the ground, hopefully you wouldn't be required to shut down your engine like you are with the ground crews back at base. Put a timer for it and if you take off before it finishes (because of enemy incoming) then you don't get any rockets replaced - or a certain number replaced depending on how much time you gave the reload. I agree as well that the grenade pods are a little underwhelming. I really loved the idea of an automatic grenade launcher on an aircraft, but at the moment more needs to be done for the damage model on them. My understanding is that fragmentation is not modeled in the game, so this would definitely decrease the effectiveness of a grenade on infantry. At the moment I only do practice flights with the Mi-8, I haven't bothered with any combat for awhile until some things get fixed and added in. Not bashing Belsimtek at all, I know this is beta and I know they will get these things taken care of down the road.

I would also like to see the gunners have a view camera separate from the gun movement, so you could look with trackIR but aim with the mouse. I think it is better for immersion, not to mention that someone might not want to have their gun pointing in the direction they are looking (such as looking at a friendly).

I saw that on the update as well, don't know if it's a typo or not either since the kickstarter page still says block 28. Guess we won't know until they mention it or we see the external model. I would prefer the block 30 over the 28, but of course that all depends on the level of documentation they find. Same boat as you. I knew a little information on her but it was never really my favorite aircraft. Since DCS WWII got funded, I've done more looking into all the planes as well and I am definitely looking forward to the P-47 just as much as the others. It will ultimately depend on how I feel about her handling once this project is completed, but I'm thinking that whenever I fly as Allies I'll likely be behind the controls of the P-47 more than any of the other Allied aircraft (especially since I don't care for some of the Mustang's characteristics).

There might be SAMs in DCS that can do it, unsure at this point as I haven't had the time to experiment. But someone mentioned in another section that they had a Roland SAM launcher shutting off the radar and then launching, and that it must be really, really good with its visual tracking because it never failed to hit him. When he brought up that he was leaving his ECM on, that led me to believe that the unusual accuracy without the radar guidance might be due to the missile homing in on his jamming. I haven't seen anything that suggests the real life Roland has HoJ, but if it is guiding it visually in DCS it sounds like it is pretty skilled at it based on what was said. I've been meaning to try this out with the Roland, but what time I do get on DCS lately I've been in the Mustang or Huey/Mi-8. Might try this weekend. But for me, common practice is that once something burns through and acquires me, I shut the jammer off regardless of what it is.

I understand that AI gunners aren't going to be a priority for everyone, especially those who like civvy and transport flying. But we can't say the AI wouldn't work better either, because there are different people programming the AI for the gunners in this case. Not to mention that I doubt infantry AI was a priority for ED. The infantry in the game are pretty helpless without support (MANPADS being the exception) against most aircraft in DCS after all. Having the gunners shooting back would be something at least, even if they aren't better than the infantry AI right now they can still hit things and take out some enemy infantry. Even if they suck anything is better than having them staring into space until they are shot. Not to mention that it is an immersion killer right now to not hear those gunners shooting at the enemy. Having human players, while great and something I'm looking forward to, is not a sure thing either. If they have "drop-in" players able to man your guns, there is a good chance of getting people who couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. Unless you have friends who practice and you always have those same people manning your guns, it would be a toss up in MP that the random guy who jumped into your chopper is worth anything.

I think it will be the best WW2 sim ever. And yes it will be a long, long wait. I'm jonesing over here at so many great modules that just aren't coming quick enough.

The ground crew:

Glad someone opened up a 109 thread. Interesting reading, I was worried that the 109 might be at a disadvantage, but it looks like she'll be roughly on par with the other aircraft being introduced (though obviously not the Me-262). I imagine the 262 would have reliability problems with those engines right? That could help keep some of the numbers down on them, as if you really want to fly her you have to deal with the possibility of losing an engine or both. Hopefully they also model the engine flameouts if one isn't light on the throttle changes. If you have someone hop on straight from FC3 thinking they will just be flying a slower F-15, that could result in some comical dogfights and raging as their engines keep flaming out. I can fly the Mustang fine but when it comes to Mustang gunnery at the moment I couldn't hit water if I fell out of a boat, so basically same situation. Have been using a four ship of Hueys for target practice. I'm getting better, each time I'm getting more metal on target. Though at the moment the only time I consistently bring them down is through the occasional unintended midair love taps with my Mustang when I'm darting through the group.

Frankly I'm amazed this is still going, I keep scratching my head when I see it pop up as the latest commented thread, thought the argument was settled awhile back. I guess this dead horse is going to get whacked forever no matter what.

Happens with me as well. Even though the shot clearly only killed the pilot, I'll watch helplessly as the unpiloted chopper flails around and crashes. That happens a decent amount as well, seems that windshield is a bullet magnet and I lose the pilot in the Mi-8 more than I do in the Uh-1H. In the Huey it'll switch to the copilot if the pilot's killed. Not so in the Mi-8, and the crew doesn't slump over like in the Huey. Of course with this being beta I can't get annoyed about it, just cross my fingers and hope they get this taken care of in the next update.

Agreed, not a pleasant experience, though nothing involving a court room is ever pleasant. I think this will explain it well enough for even the simplest of people. Imagine instead the bus is the ex-wife and the courts.

Can't wait to fly that 109

It's on the Eagle Dynamics FB page, just posted two hours ago. It didn't show up in my news feed so something might be screwy with FB at the moment if you aren't seeing it. https://www.facebook.com/eagle.dynamics

Looks great. Here's hoping this means there is a big gunner update coming soon. Meaning things like crewmen AI implemented (so those miniguns are lighting up the target while I focus on flying) and hopefully an option to just have door gunners on a slick (but keeping unarmed slick option for those who want to just fly civvy/transport).