CheckGear

I can't wait to fly VF-1/2 off Ranger and VF-21/154 off Independence!

That's the mother lode right thurr!!!

I wasn't aware they did that (I was out of the country at the time). That's a big misstep on their part.

That's all I'm saying, albeit more bluntly. ED is going to lengths no other simulation developer has ever gone. Very little in the way of trade-offs; the aircraft they simulate is pretty much the aircraft IRL. This takes time and a level of expertise that, sometimes, can only be acquired through trial-and-error.

To save space, I'm going to address both of you at once. The way I see it, the devs are constantly between a rock and a hard place. They're under pressure from you, the players, to deliver the product on timeline of your convenience. If they're not able to do so, then they still have to satisfy your insatiable desire for progress. But they can never seem to satisfy anyone, because nothing less than a totally perfect release sooner rather than later seems to be acceptable for the DCS fan base. Do you see the contradiction here? Now, imagine if DCS took up your suggestion and simply never reported any news or engaged in a little hype-train every now and then. You think the fans would remain silent? Of course not. They'd be rabble-rousing all year long about why it's taking so long and if we're ever going to see any progress. The devs have no choice but deliver updates and hype things up a bit every once in a while just to assuage the fans. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like it's enough. Remember, DCS isn't developed the same way other games are by big studios. Slow-and-steady really is their mantra, due to the logistical realities of their development environment and their emphasis on fidelity. The fact is, it's going to get done when it gets done, so unless you have some big money invested into the project, there's absolutely nothing to get upset over, no matter how "disappointing" the October 7 announcement may be.

Textbook DCS fan base. The developers are doing their darndest to deliver the absolute best product imaginable, the F-14 sim to end all F-14 sims, and this is what you have to say? You're going to get angry? Do us all a favor - go on Steam, buy Fleet Defender and pretend you never heard about DCS: F-14.

I wonder if DCS will consider putting out a boxed promotional package like the one EA released for Jane's F-15 20 years ago. I wouldn't mind a collection of F-14 squadron patches to go along with it! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Janes-F-15-Officers-Edition-1998-Big-Box-PC-w-huge-Promo-Standee/132793063218?epid=170312438&hash=item1eeb155732:g:YoMAAOSwr8tbmdQi

It really is! That's one of my favorite documentaries. It was produced at a time when the Tomcat's best days were still ahead of it. Even TARPS was still years away from fielding.

:smilewink:

The Forrestal-class carriers had three jet blast deflectors (JBDs). The incident you speak of occurred April 18, 1995 aboard USS Independence. The Forrestal-class carriers had no JBD behind Catapult #4 because it was position so close to the edge of the flight deck and was actually positioned at an angle away from the aft end of the flight deck. The assumption was the open space directly behind Cat 4 would be more than sufficient to prevent jet blast from being an issue, but stuff happens. There shouldn't have been a Tomcat on Cat 4 in the first place; that catapult is probably better off launching non-afterburning aircraft like Corsairs and Intruders.

I like that because it's total realism. In today's threat environment, nobody's flying without SEAD/DEAD support. It's no longer an option.

Do the Iranians have the logistics train for the F-14 like the U.S. did? What about the technical back-up? The U.S. often tapped civilians to resolve issues with the F-14, sometimes in-theater. Did the Iranians have access to this as well? If they did, was it anywhere close to the quality that the U.S. was privileged to? At some point, you stop overthinking the matter and employ a little simple logic. I also don't see how the D-variant is relevant, given that it was a more sophisticated platform which, by the way, the Iranians didn't possess. Nobody underestimated anybody. You can keep saying it, but it won't make it true. Give it a rest, you and your compatriots are starting to sound like you've got OCD. I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Are you conceding that Iranians don't fly anywhere near enough to remain proficient? Unless we know for a fact Russians are flying IRIAF planes, this means nothing. Psh... facts. The DCS fan base has no use for such things. :lol:

I think "peaceful" and "undisturbed." We should have the permanent military installations, but battle wrecks, combat outposts, etc., are ultimately temporary, plus it's less work to build an unmolested map. Besides, it's our job as players to bring the destruction. :devil_2: I'm really looking forward to a Syria map so I can simulate playing missions as an F/A-18C pilot during Inherent Resolve.

-1 It is a strawman because you're suggesting I'm underestimating the enemy. I'm simply delivering an honest, factual assessment of their capabilities. Shall we no longer analyze threats out of fear of underestimating the adversary or hurting somebody's feelings? Come on now. It's embarrassing to see someone unable to distinguish the difference. If you feel as though the "data on the MiG is incorrect" (as Maverick put it in Top Gun) then show me where I'm wrong using data and facts of your own to counter my analysis instead of simply assuming they've got some creative tactics up their sleeves. There's a big difference between making assumptions and being able to actually argue for them. As for the whole "nationalism" matter, you're the one evoking it, not me. I can say another air force will lose to my air force without it being rooted in nationalism. So why has the U.S. and the West far-and-away outperformed every Third World opponent following the Vietnam War? Surely it isn't luck. Besides, if the threat is as dire as you insist, the better option is to simply not fight. And if we do have to fight, the U.S./West possess capabilities these other air forces simply don't have. What similar capabilities they do have, they possess in smaller quantities, in less capable forms, and they haven't anywhere close to the same skills. AWACS, for example, provides an edge that even the DCS crowd seems to have a hard time appreciating, despite being in service for over 40 years now. Except no computer simulation, DCS included, has ever truly been able to realistically simulate the human element of war, nor the competencies of actual fighter pilots to any degree of authenticity, so what DCS shows is possible isn't anything worth taking too seriously. Available data suggests the Iranians have a very difficult time getting their Tomcats in the air. The powerful AWG-9 radar is overmatched by even more potent radars available today utilized by better-trained pilots, who are assisted by platforms possessing even more powerful airborne and shipborne radars. The Tomcat aces of Iran probably haven't flown in a long time, given that the Iran-Iraq War over 30 years ago. The likelihood those same pilots are still flying today isn't very high.

One can give them all the credibility in the world and the balance still shows they don't stand a chance against the better air arms of the world. This is fact, not a feeling. It means nothing to say how well they might perform against another low-skill opponent. Nobody's talking about footmen, we're talking fighter pilots. Big difference. I respect my adversary; I'm not going to make them better than they are. Quit building strawmen, that's an easy way to lose respect.

Nobody's underestimating the enemy here, that's a straw-man. I'm talking less about what the enemy's capable of and more about how the U.S. and West trains its pilots. Can you or anyone say with any confidence that IRIAF or any other Third World fighter pilot is trained to the level of depth and professionalism that U.S. and Western pilots are? No, you cannot. The available literature out there suggests those guys don't train as much as we do, nor do they train the way we do. At some point, it doesn't become so much of a guessing game. The U.S. and the West also have access to capabilities these other air forces simply don't have. None of this is to say they couldn't inflict any damage on us, but in the big picture, those would just amount to small victories that won't change strategic picture. It's like the saying "Smart men learn from history; stupid men learn from experience." More often than not, U.S. and Western pilots are the former rather than the latter. And do you ever get tired of bringing up the the Vietnam example? That wasn't just a matter of underestimating North Vietnamese pilots. That was also making a conscious decision to allow dogfighting skills to atrophy because of the advent of missiles. And now that we've learned those lessons, the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy have hammered them into every proceeding generation of fighter pilots so we emerge victorious every time. And we have.

Just an idea, one that's probably not feasible - it'd be nice if DCS utilized databases the same way the old Harpoon games and its most recent iteration, Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations does. Basically, you load a database and only certain platforms and specific variants available during that time period are available for use in a scenario. It's likely too much to ask to actually develop earlier variants of the F/A-18, but maybe there's a way to "disable" certain features to simulate what was actually available during a certain timeframe?

I can't wait to use the ATFLIR and fire laser-guided Mavericks and GBU-12 LGBs.

Not harsh at all. The Iran-Iraq War ended 30 years ago. The question is, what are those remaining Tomcats like now? What are the IRIAF pilots like today? I'll give you a hint: it's probably not good: Even those who like to play up the IRIAF Tomcats' performance in the Iran-Iraq War forget how devastating the conflict was to both sides. Neither country truly recovered from it and there is a near-unanimous consensus Iran now poses little to no conventional military threat to the region nor the world (this is not the same as saying they pose no threat overall, mind you). Give this a read: https://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/30/islamic-republic-f14-feature/ But it's not even about how low-skill the Iranian pilots are, it's more about how U.S./Western pilots are educated and trained. Simply put, they know how to get the most out of their aircraft, know the latest in tactics, and sometimes know the enemy better than the enemy knows themselves. It's not just about hardware, it's the people operating the hardware that makes the difference. That said, I look forward to splashing Iran's F-14s in the air or dropping bombs on them while they're still on the ground. If we can't have them, neither can they.:pilotfly:

I won't lie; I couldn't help but smile when I saw the video from 2016 where the Iranian F-14s were escorting Russian Tu-95 'Bear' bombers on their way to a target in Syria. But I also know those Tomcats are dead meat if they were to ever square off against U.S. or Western fighters.

Except the F-14s flown by Iran aren't what you think they are. Few are in decent flying condition and most are poorly-maintained. Most important, the pilots are like most Middle East pilots - not great. When faced against U.S. and Western pilots, they're screwed. Nobody should be in awe of Persian cats in the least bit.

Today was the 17th anniversary of 9/11. Despite being seen as the king of air-to-air, I think the F-14's finest hour came not in the '70s, '80s, or '90s, but rather in the '00s, when it was the spearhead in the War on Terror. The F-14 was among the first to strike Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom, something even most fans of the F-14, for some reason, have a hard time embracing I highly recommend people read the book F-14 Tomcat Units of Operation Enduring Freedom, which you can find at the link below. The F-14 executed some incredible missions during the war in Afghanistan and dropped an unbelievable amount of ordnance. Every mission pushed the pilots to their limits, but they didn't miss a beat. I sincerely hope an Afghanistan map for DCS will come out so we can play historical campaigns of when we struck back at the heart of terror. http://a.co/d/1TKlhgJ

Yes! I love the SLUF!!! For a moment, I thought I read "Their Harrier has been nothing that spectacular" and I nearly responded by saying, "Funny. That's what a lot of people concluded about the real-life Harrier!!!" :megalol:

I'd love to have both the TRAM and SWIP variants. The TRAM would be in use for the '80s scenarios, while the SWIP for the '90s. The SWIP was the ultimate version of the Intruder, which is another reason why I want to see both variants in play!

If they didn't announce release dates, you'd be criticizing them for not making progress or not keeping you all posted. :dunno: When it comes to the vocal DCS fan base, there's just no winning.