esb77
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Posts posted by esb77
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I threw together a quick test mission for the Kh-25MPU and the Kh-29T.
Targets were a single OSA for the MPU, a column of M1A2 Abrams MBTs and a tanker ship for the Kh-29T.
Kh-25MPUs I had no problems with. No changes as far as I can tell since 1.2.4? when the missile aerodynamic models changed resulting in much shorter (and in most cases more realistic) effective ranges. Remember, a max range launch will only hit under very unusual circumstances. Effective range is usually a great deal less than max range. Accuracy left something to be desired, but in the past my experience has been that 2-4 MPUs fired per kill is not unusual. They may have been changed, but there wasn't enough difference for me to be sure if they changed or not.
Kh-29T appears to have undergone a change in target acquisition. On the tanks the Shkval would lock the tank at ranges of up to about 12 km, and at 11 to 9 km the cockpit voice system would give launch authorization, the HUD would give launch authorization at 9 to 7 km, however the missile would not fire. When using launch override after the voice and HUD range tape indicated a valid target lock, the missile would fire, however it would not guide to a moving target.
Definitely a bit odd to get two systems telling you that you have valid launch parameters, but not being able to launch successfully. However, the voice system and HUD are both aircraft systems, and for a fire and forget missile what counts is whether or not the missile's guidance system has a good lock. Not sure how the Su-25T deals with Shkval target locks vs. munition guidance system target locks when dealing with fire and forget munitions.
When targeting a stationary tanker ship with the targeting box set to 60m, a valid target lock was achieved at about 9.5 km and the Kh-29 launched and guided properly.
It's worth noting that the Kh-29 is designed primarily for large and stationary targets, and in some past versions of DCS it has been difficult/impossible to get it to guide on moving vehicular targets. This seems to be a reversion to behavior similar to those versions.
I did some further testing with the Kh-29T. With a stationary tank as a target on a high contrast background (Sochi-Adler aircraft parking area), The Kh-29 locked at about 10 km, and fired at about 9.3 km guiding successfully to target.
It would appear that the guidance has been changed to be more realistic for older (1970s - 1980s era) TV guided missiles. They have a reputation for difficulty with guiding on low contrast targets and/or locking on high contrast non-target objects (for instance locking on a bush or boulder instead of the APC the pilot wants to destroy).
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If you don't have an EO system with high resolution and zoom, for example in the Su-25 and the A-10A, you have to use other methods to deal with air defenses.
You can stand off using the Mavs for everything, and just accept really high munition costs and low kill numbers as the price of safety.
You can send a wingman in ahead to bait the air defenses, and target the ones that shoot. The downside is that this is hard on wingmen and you may run out of them pretty quickly.
You can go in and bait the air defenses yourself, but this is risky, and it forces you to fly with a light load.
You can go in using terrain masking, make one high speed pass while popping countermeasures, and then run for safety.
Extreme high altitude attacks might also work against AAA and short range SAMs, but without the wind correction function of the A-10C DCS module accuracy is likely to be poor at best for the unguided munitions.
You can use the mission editor to throw in a SEAD flight ahead of you in single player missions.
You can have a JTAC call the targets for you. This involves either some moderately complex scripting in single player, or a JTAC slot and a player willing to be a JTAC in multiplayer.
There are probably a few others that I'm not thinking of at the moment.
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True, it does need a little finesse for absolute accuracy, but "feet off" is good advice for those suffering from wild rudder gyrations, as seen all too frequently in YouTube videos of Su-27 pilotage. There is a good argument to be made that performing proper co-ordinated turns is part of 'getting the basics right', but I think the default behaviour is close enough that concentrating on other things like maintaining steady altitude in turns is more important to start with :)
Coordinating will give some pretty good returns in both turn rate and energy retention at low speeds in the Su-27. The problem is that where in a real plane you'd FEEL sideslip, we only have the gauges in DCS, so it's not very practical to coordinate and have eyes out of the cockpit at the same time.
I think probably the ideal procedure for DCS is to coordinate your turns if either of the gauges are in your field of view, but don't change zoom or look into the pit just for the sake of coordinating. In general there are more important things to be looking at.
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Plan is to perform level bombing run at high altitude, so no dipping involved I'm afraid :)
In the CCRP mode the previous poster described you don't actually need to dive when selecting the target point, it's just a quick way to designate the target and get the plane lined up for the bombing run.
You can select the target by just slewing the target designator box on the Shkval and then fly to the HUD cues.
In respect to the windage corrections, as far as I know the Su-25 has no windage compensation for standard bombs and rockets. The A-10 C has windage correction for unguided munitions (if you learn how to set it up correctly, which involves knowing what the wind conditions are).
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I searched the Su-27 forums here. Cannot find anything to explain what this does. Is in FC3 1.5 Open Beta and Final Release versions; 2.0 ; and is in my 1.2.16 archive.
Action / "Toggle Console"
Category / Debug
Keyboard / LAlt + ` (tilde)
Thanks for any help
Didn't do anything for me in a release version of 1.5, but I assume that in the developer's versions alpha/beta it opens up a text console window for debugging while the program is running so you can see the result of changes and/or control settings as you try to duplicate a bug reported by testers.
You'd typically use it to type code or commands in if you were testing.
Say for example you wanted to test a Level of Detail function.
Instead of having a model at a fixed point and flying or using camera commands in the normal interface to see if the different meshes are being switched properly, you'd have a console window open and input something like
let TestObject1.LOD = veryfar
let TestObject1.LOD = far
let TestObject1.LOD = med
let TestObject1.LOD = near
to run through all your level of detail settings.
That's not actual code, but it's the sort of thing that you'd use a console window for.
Think command line computing in general, DOS, Unix, late 1970's computing in general (but without the reel to reel tape drives or punch cards).
If you ever make your own 3rd party module for DCS you'll probably get to know and love/hate the console, but otherwise it's not something you'll ever really need.
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So I spent some time looking at the fuel system diagram and the fuel system sections of the manuals codefox linked.
Based on that, I strongly suspect that operating burners for takeoff drew down the engine feed tanks below the minimum combined engine feed tank level, which is 900 lbs of fuel.
The external tanks feed into the internal wing tanks and internal tank 1. They do this with bleed air pressure that is not available until after gear are up. From those tanks transfer pumps feed the engine feed tanks. Because of a check valve, as long as the engine feed tank pumps are operating it's improbable that the externals could feed directly to tanks 2 and 3.
From the engine tanks, some of the fuel is sent to the engines, but some is diverted to the fuel system radiators after which it cycles back to the internal wing tanks.
So there was heavy draw from tanks 2 and 3, but the feed flows would have been split up into 3 to 7 streams (depending on what you want to count as feed) that had some detours to go through before arriving at tanks 2 and 3.
So operator error is a plausible explanation, as is a modelling error. Without knowing what the normal flow rates (or pump outputs and system head loss) are it's not really possible to tell for sure.
I'm guessing the F-15C module doesn't let you operate the fuel gauge selector? I don't fly it enough to know without checking.
The feed tank fuel levels would be the ones you'd really need to know. In general if the low fuel warning light comes on then it means that you're down to a 600 lb margin above the combined engine feed tank minimum. If you kept the burners on after that lit up, you probably drew down the engine feed tanks too much.
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FLOW RATE
Where the plumbing is routed doesn't mean much if the output rate of what is feeding the engine is greater than the input rate from the external tanks.
To know if there's a problem you first need to know the fuel consumption rates of the engines for the flight profile you flew, then you need to know the max rate that the external tanks can output, then you need to know all the internal flow rates once the fuel is in the plane's internal system.
Then you can look for problems.
To answer, "should I have had flameout due to lack of fuel," you'd also need to know the tank contents for your starting point.
Impossible to tell without the relevant documentation.
From an engineering standpoint though, there's no reason that you'd need the feed rate of the external tanks to be greater than the consumption rate of the engines at AB, Mil, or even cruise. As long as the externals get emptied before the plane reaches the point in a "normal" flight plan where the pilot might want to jettison them, then they have enough flow rate.
Flow rate has a cost in mass, power, volume, and money. So in a lot of ways aiming for the minimum practical flow rate is optimal. A military jet is probably more likely to have excess flow rate capacity than a civilian design, but you shouldn't automatically assume that the excess capacity exists.
That's why this sort of thing is included in real aircraft manuals. It's stuff the pilot really needs to know before flying.
There'd be a chart or table where you could look up tank capacities and transfer rates, and calculate what engine throttle settings you could handle pulling from different tanks.
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Could not find an answer anywhere that clarified this to the point. Aren't the Kh58 and 25mpu's supposed to be radar homing weapons? IE won't they hit the target even when the vehicle is moving, or are they not designed to be maneuverable after launch or after a certain point? I am trying to complete the 25T's Instant Mission's CAS medium level with a better or perfect score and there are a bunch of radar AA's (forgot exactly what) that are running up the road, and no matter what I do I cannot hit them until they stop. If I wait till they stop, my mission gets so behind that I cannot get the perfect score I'm trying to get, since the mission is contingent on hitting the enemy ground units before they kill our ground units. I actually have better results forgetting about the Anti Radar missiles and trying to get those AA's with regular laser missiles instead. I just want a closure so that I can stop trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, are the Anti Radar missiles not designed to hit moving targets?
The Kh 58 and Kh 25MPUs are primarily meant for stationary medium to long range SAM emplacements.
Kub, Buk, S300, Hawk, Patriot, etc. For a short range radar SAM such as the Osa or Tor, they can work but aren't always reliable. They're really not meant for AAA units such as the Shilka, Tunguska, Vulcan, etc.
A lot also depends on how good your launch parameters are. A shot from the edge of the envelope can even miss a stationary Hawk search radar by 5 to 50 meters.
For a dangerous short range target like an Osa, Tor, Tunguska, or Roland I might use several 25MPUs just to stay out of the dangerous portion of their envelope, but in most cases with things like MANPADS or AAA you're better served using something like a Vikhr. The HMMWVs and Bradley Linebacker units also basically use modified Stingers and count in the AAA/MANPADS category in terms of using Vikhrs in preference to ARMs.
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In some ways the Su-25T is my favorite, just from having so many hours in it. It takes ridiculous amounts of abuse and still gets you home. Despite people calling it fat and slow it can pull out surprising amounts of speed and agility if you treat it right (hanging the heaviest possible munition on every pylon and trying break turns at 250 km/h IAS is not treating it right).
I like the L-39 because every time I fly it my flying in every other fixed wing becomes noticeably better. It makes me a more disciplined pilot, not quite sure why. It just likes being flown in a more professional manner?
Mi-8. My favorite heli. This despite the fact that I have a talent for expending the entire payload without hitting a single target. Giant gobs of excess power and a cockpit that I find friendly. It sounds silly, but one of my favorite parts is performing engine start-up from the flight engineer's seat. Also the only helicopter that I have successfully landed more than one time while flying backward, without a tail-boom, and in excess of 50 km/h (it was not pretty, and I still don't know how I managed it).
Su-27. I've loved Flankers since I was a kid. A fully modelled version would be a dream come true, but in the meantime I'll take what I can get.
F-18C Hornet. The only reason it's not at the top of the list is that it's not out yet.
Combined Arms. The Inta Humar MP missions that VF-113 put together were great, and live air defense can be a lot of fun. The post mission tank battles were also a blast. For mindless pleasure in DCS it's hard to beat a firing range mission where you use a Shilka or Tunguska to turn a fuel convoy of tanker HEMTTs into smoking ruin. Or using a Bradley to do the same to a bunch of Urals.
A-10C. I would like this plane more if I took it less seriously. As in not trying to have all the checklists filled out correctly. I also run into issues with not having enough inputs on my HOTAS. It feels too much like flying an office instead of flying an airplane, but I'll revisit it if I ever get around to a serious input hardware upgrade, I have fond memories of the Hog from a long ago "sim."
Ka-50 has the same issues as the A-10C, but I like the twin rotor design. It would come ahead of the A-10C if I didn't have a strong preference for fixed wing over rotorcraft.
I also have the Hawk, Huey, Su-25A, F-15C and TF-51 which I fly on occasion.
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I mostly fly the MiG-29, this is not a biased discussion of "my favourite plane the F-15C is missing a feature". Im just having a hard time to belive that non-amraam F-15s would take
R-27s to the face all day long.
Well, that's a matter of the F-15 pilot either having terrible Situational Awareness or not knowing the aircraft well enough to be able to hit the control bound to "dispense chaff" in a timely manner. Or possibly both.
If you know where the missile is and you know where your countermeasures buttons are, then you really shouldn't be taking R-27s or R-27ERs to the face in DCS. At all.
You also shouldn't be taking them from above, from below, from the sides or from the rear.
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According to the -1 you should maintain the crab until touchdown. My concern is almost entirely in regards to taxi and take off though. Is there a difference in weather effects from SP to MP? Such as dynamic weather?
You can select dynamic or static weather in both SP and MP missions, it's part of the weather options for the mission editor. I make a lot of MP missions so that I can choose between multiple aircraft/vehicles at the start, and in a situation where the MP mission is running on the computer you're playing on, there's no apparent difference between MP and SP weather that I can detect from experience with copy-paste mission creation where I make MP and SP versions of the same mission and run them on my computer.
The interesting question is what happens if you're a client with high ping to a MP server? Even if weather is handled the same internally between SP and MP, the difference between 0 ping and lots of ping might produce a significant effect, just as it can for aircraft and missile positions.
I've never really seen the effect, but I typically look for MP servers with 200 ms or less ping in my connection.
What sort of ping do you usually get the Virtual Aerobatics server SinusoidDelta? Is it stable, or does it fluctuate a lot? Does the problem show up for you on severs where you have a stable connection at less than 100-150 ms ping?
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rather get the remaining western front fighters and some pacific stuff (and a b-25), all potentially years away, first...
agreed, im not opposed to mismatched planes and maps, but this is supposed to be DCS WWII and if players of WWII sims are going to be attracted to DCS then we need a bonfide WWII sim...
I like your location description zantron
. :thumbup:rebel occupied british north americaSo if we're simming then Soviet forces should be doing most of the heavy lifting in Europe and work on Combined Arms vehicles and improved infantry should be the primary focus of development for DCS WWII. Not to mention that the Normandy map should be put on hold until the Battle of Stalingrad is done.
We're all keen for the DCS World T-34 full fidelity advanced tank model right? ;)
Hmm, actually that would be pretty cool.
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In the interest of research I tried 4 m/s and 8 m/s crosswind takeoffs offline and then got on the Virtual Aerobatics server to test taking of there (Kras-Pash).
While the F-15 does seem to be touchier than the Su-27 or Su-25 when it comes to crosswinds, I had no issues taxiing at 4 m/s crosswinds. At 8 m/s taxiing again was no problem, but the weathervaning and roll are potentially dangerous if you're not expecting them. It only starts to show up around 50 kts IAS though.
I should note that my latency to the VA server was only 50 ms. If the single player/multi-player difference people are seeing is due to latency issues, then it's possible that my latency was not enough to cause a noticeable effect.
In particular, I wonder if wind forces are sent back and forth between server and client and maybe people are getting "gusts" of wind force when the server and client synchronize?
At any rate, I could not reproduce the effect that the thread is talking about.
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I understand the theory of how the wings break, but currently in the sim when we approach these limits we don't have a tightening of the controls or vibration warning as is documented in the real world manual.
I've misplaced my copy of the Su-27 manual (and it's EASC myrmidon's translation which I occasionally have trouble deciphering the technical terms in Spanish), so I should ask if anyone with a copy that they know they're reading correctly knows:
In the transsonic range where the Su-27's structural limits are the easiest to exceed does the control system trigger the stick feedback warnings before the aircraft reaches a dangerous level of loading? If so for what aircraft weight(s)?
After all it's possible that the designers assumed that the pilots would combat maneuver only in certain speed ranges and therefore only need the warnings in certain speed ranges.
At the speeds and weights where the Su-27 should be fighting to maximize the advantages inherent in its design it's just hard to overstress the plane short of flying into something. So what's the envelope of, "acceptable mild airframe abuse," that actually triggers the stick to, "fight back," against a pilot trying to fly into the suicidal part of the flight envelope?
If people are serious about playing the realism card on either side of this argument that's critical information to have.
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If at proper combat loads and speeds, it's not much of a problem. So in a sense, this is an issue that is entirely solvable with Russian style piloting (be a competent professional instead of a Westerner who thinks that the laws of physics only apply to other people).
There are a couple of reasonable complaints though.
In the game design sense, the FC3 modules are supposed to be a bit more forgiving for people who would never normally be allowed to touch the controls of a flying aircraft in the real world. So it's a bit out of place if the FC3 version of a plane has some parts of the envelope where it's even more likely to crash than the real thing would be.
In the realism sense, most accounts of the Su-27 describe the control system as having a force feedback element that while possible to override, makes it almost impossible for the pilot to inadvertently overstress the plane in large parts of the flight envelope.
So clearly in terms of pilot friendliness there's a bit of a gap in realism for both documentation of what constitutes safe operation, and the flight control system's ability to warn about or prevent going past the point of catastrophic overstress.
Personally, I could probably live with just better documentation, but a little work on the control interface would be appreciated by many.
"You can kill yourself by abusing the controls, but you have to work at it and it shouldn't come as a surprise," is the end state that I think would be a good place. Though the, "no surprise," part could be contingent on having read a revised manual.
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Well, for Bluefor you have all the various flavors of HMWVs, and for Redfor you have at least one armored car, and the truck (Kamaz? Ural?) with a ZSU-23 on the back.
So there are soft armed vehicles in game if you want them.
Not as fast and light as a technical, but DCS really aims more at high intensity warfare than at counter-insurgency.
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However, a great deal of aircraft information, such as g limits for various aircraft masses and speeds are not included in the DCS manual.
That's one of the reasons people have been snapping off wings a lot lately. We're missing aircraft information that if it were absent in a real aircraft, law would require that the aircraft be grounded as unflyable (at least in the US). The pilot's manual is considered a critical flight system, and it is required to have the information needed to fly the aircraft safely. The DCS manual is missing almost all of that information.
Fortunately, that information is available here on the forums, though it helps a lot if you can fluently read either Russian or Spanish.
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As Bushmanni previously stated, bending moments is the cause of wings falling off at high load factors. This means that weapons hanging off the 6 wing pylons actually reduces the bending moments at the root, allowing for higher load factors (if we assume that failures occur at the wing root). This means that the increased gross weight might actually work in favor of higher load factors, depending on where it is located.
Has anyone seen that this would be the case in the sim (only carrying missiles/bombs on wing pylons to increase load factor before failure)?
P.S.
One note on this is that while bending moments are reduced, shear stresses in the wing might be increased and could probably also be a cause of failure. And then also the case of the weapon attachments failure as happens with the MiG-21, but I guess this is not implemented on the SU-27?
I've seen this behavior for sure in the Su-25T, and I think maybe also in the A-10C. I would guess that the model for the Su-27 works similarly, though it generally flies with much lighter munitions and pulls harder turns than the ground pounders, so the effect might be harder to detect with it.
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Tried it in the latest version of 1.5 and had no problems, aside from only hitting two trucks.
You might check your control configuration, make sure things aren't double bound, or incorrectly bound.
Entered air to ground mode, pressed V four times to get to the KMGU/bomb rack release mode, flew through the gates at about 780 km/h, put the pipper about 50 m ahead of the nearest truck, pulled and held trigger until I heard the last of the submunitions release.
Are you using 1.5 or 2.0 by the way? Just because something works in 1.5 doesn't mean the same is true in 2.0.
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That plus a few seconds.
It's been ages since I've asked for repairs and had forgotten how long it used to take. I remembered it wasn't much. Waiting several minutes with nothing happening, I used time advance to speed things up. Let the clock advance 25 minutes and dropped back into real time. I concluded that nothing was being repaired.
But I was low on fuel and asked for 40%. Sat there for a bit while refueling was taking place and decided that would be a great time to grab a 2nd cup of coffee. Came back in time to see Repairs Complete on the screen.
So it could be that the refueling, come to think of it, delayed the completion of repairs. But it did take a l-o-n-g time regardless.
Hm, I dunno. If we're simulating here, I'm surprised they even got the airframe inspection done in just 32 min.
I would think that an over-g resulting in airframe damage would be more like, "Come back next week if you've finished the paperwork by then, and remember to bring us[the ground crew] a case of vodka when you do."
"More realism," is a doubled edged battle cry in some cases. ;)
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F key view controls stopped working for me in current (as of today) version of 1.5.
F1 through F6 at least, don't normally use the higher number ones.
Numberpad in cockpit views still work fine.
This was in the base Su-25T module, have not tried payware modules or payware FC3 planes.
Edit: in further testing I was unable to reproduce the effect, even in the Mozdok landing mission where it originally occurred. Restart of DCS and/or removing and reattaching HOTAS controller possibly fixed issue?
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I had this happen to me when trying to configure controls for the Su-25T on a thrustmaster X flight hotas. It took long and/or repeated presses to register keybinds.
Also had an issue where none of the F key view commands worked, even when rebound several times.
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I can see at least two potential technical problems with implementation of this without good source materials.
As far as we know the Su-25 and Su-25T don't have a means of displaying JTAC lasing dots for the pilot. This creates a challenge, as the JTAC and Pilot must establish the precise target, the azimuth of the side of the target that is painted by the lasing, and then the pilot would have to launch the laser guided munition with incomplete information as to whether the launch was well within good launch parameters.
Depending on the coding of the missile seeker logic (in real life), and whether the ground lasing unit has an ID built into the designator system, there also might be problems convincing the missile to accept the dot as a target, or even to launch at all.
Source material for Russian systems seems to be generally harder to obtain than source material for NATO systems, so if it's not implemented it may just be due to lack of details about the specifics of how it works.
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So, what I'd really like to see is some posted flight plans from these flights where wings came off. You did have flight plans, right?
I'd especially like to see the source or authority that was the basis for entering combat or performing BFM training at loads massively beyond what the manual states is allowable. Who signed off on that as an acceptable practice? This is aviation, there has to be traceable documentation somewhere, so where's the authorization for the overweight maneuvering?
The Russian Airforce typically does not load up every possible station with R-27 E versions. I'd guess that they also don't start pulling high g turns with full tanks.
The mass and speed for which the Su-27 is rated to pull 9 g is about what one would expect for a well planned and executed air combat mission that had closed to WVR. Are we supposed to be assuming that this is purely coincidence?
I mean really when it comes to problems with the aircraft simulations in DCS, the biggest most glaring flaw is that completely unqualified people are allowed to operate the aircraft with no qualified supervision.
On the other hand, having pilot error be the primary cause of aircraft loss means the folks at Eagle Dynamics must be doing something right. ;)
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Ferris Skin Missing Textures
in F-15C for DCS World
Posted
For further reading try using the forum search feature and "1.5.5 missing texture", the thread is several pages at this point.