Scrim

Me wants. What's there stopping anyone? No AG radar AFAIK, and the F-15C is a module, and I doubt there's more knowledge available on that than on the F-4.

The autopilot isn't all straight forward, and the lack of a manual doesn't help. I was informed by someone that exceeding 250 kph would cause this instability, and it seems true.

If we look solely to the explosive force of an atomic weapon and disregard the radiation, then so are nukes ;) Or is it a big regular bomb meant to be used in lieu of atomic weapons in training?

You want to believe this is some false flag operation, don't you? Why would everything be burnt? A SAM not even 10% the size of the plane it takes down isn't going to make it evaporate in a ball of flames. It doesn't even contain enough explosives to destroy itself completely. And if you look at pictures of that plane, you'll clearly see that ~90% of it isn't burnt at all. Christ, not even most of the poor souls on board are if you've seen those horrific pictures, unworthy of any respected news outlet.

In both Vietnam and Korea more planes and helicopters were downed by low level ground fire than any other weapon, so it's not about MANPADs. It's to do with the simple fact that the outcome of planes facing each other is depending on the skills and tactics employed, and only occurs that often as there's a very limited amount of them on both sides compared to grunts. Whereas when planes face ground fire at low level, they have few means of putting an end to it. Even if they strafe/bomb some guys, they'll expose themselves to others doing it, and they won't stop. They're hard to see, and they won't have to leave because they reach Bingo fuel. To some extent it can be compared to an elephant and ants. The elephant can try to stomp on some of them, but there's still going to be about 99.95% of them left at least. But if he and another elephant tried to kill each other for some reason, things would be somewhat different.

I don't understand why there should be much speculation about who did it. Occam's razor: An idiot who had positively no idea what he was doing decided to shoot down an airliner, because it flew into "his sky", and as a result will one day sooner or later have to answer to someone just why he reckoned killing ~300 civilians was a good thing to do.

Why would he know what hit him, other than maybe that it was a missile fired from the ground? Older WP aircraft don't have Western style RWRs that tell them what sort of weapons system is targeting them, and even those work way too well in simulators if you ask people who actually have to rely on them IRL. It was the separatists, who else? Would the Russians shoot down a random plane out of the sky because "hey, we're the bad guys or whatever"? Would the Ukrainians do it because "hey, the separatists have really been pounding us lately with their airforce"? No and no. There's only one faction in that area that has shot down aircraft. Saying "no no no, that's political" is nonsense. In that case it's political to say that water is a liquid.

Link? I just saw a clip with some analyst from that place being interviewed by the BBC, and he didn't say anything dumb along the lines of how a long range SAM system "might have been radar guided".

Know the thing I wrote about whiskey? I just took another mouthful of it, but I seriously can't make myself read all of that. No offense, it's just nothing that I find relevant to a (Tellus) flight sim forum. We got it, you believe in aliens. Don't think a wall of text is going to persuade anyone who doesn't otherwise.

Yeah, but when they say that an "expert" said that it was "possibly radar guided" it's different. I mean, if they were just trying to tell Joe Average who believes there are other things to life than knowing the range of SA-# system (I pity the fool :P), I reckon they'd just have written something along the lines of "long range radar guided", as opposed to the silly thing they actually wrote.

...I need more whiskey. Whatever, it was a joking post. Still don't believe in aliens until an Marsian introduces him/herself to me. That means I have a weak conscience or that I'm fearful, or both?

If they say that a long range SAM is "possibly guided by radar" I wouldn't be surprised if their definition of a long range SAM system is "does it reach the other end of this room?". Crying out loud, even a short range SA-3 could've taken down that airliner. I seriously don't understand how such a large, world wide news company as the BBC can't get above amateur knowledge on e.g. military technology, but still insists on reporting on it. Nvm, just saw it in the article.

Do you guys want to buy some tinfoil hats from me? $4.99US a piece, 2 for the price of one. ;)

Like, seriously? Are there any long range SAMs that aren't radar guided? Where does the BBC go to find these "experts"? Any survivors?

In what manner? I'm not very good at details about WW2 planes.

IIRC, yeah, it was 1.2.8. But I'll take a look in TacView (awesome purchase) based on Game_On's post, since I've not really looked at many DCS recordings in TacView. I've only played default missions with the F-15, and who knows, they might have an easy AI level or something.

Weird, never had issues scoring kills or enough damage to force an RTB with first hits using -120s. Rarely have much issue scoring an ~1/0.8 shot/hit ratio.

Whilst I would definitely take the word of the American pilots over that of people living under oppressive regimes, I sort of agree with Reagan. It's an established fact that since the birth of SAMs, even to this day most planes and helicopters are shot down by relatively unsophisticated weapons on the ground. The combined threat of small arms, MANPADs and optically guided AAA and short range SAM systems are still the most dangerous, because they're small, mobile and there's no radar emission to target with ARMs. Despite all technological advances, it's still the relatively simple technologies that down more planes and helicopters than anyone else on the battlefield.

Just to make a point I thought of today: After not doing DCS for quite a bit now, I ran an old A-10C mission. Getting used to the layout, the small HUD text and HOTAS setup took a while, but what really made its mark was the attempts at strafing. Due to the lack of smart scaling, it quickly turned into shambles. To actually see a rather large target, like 4 tents or half a dozen parked vehicles, I had to chose between labels, or using the TGP to set up strafe runs. Neither of that is a particularly realistic thing to do (before anyone points it out, yeah, there's plenty of films of A-10s using TGPs for strafing, but that's COIN warfare where misplaced rounds can kill civilians or friendlies. In a conventional war where there's no friendlies anywhere close, you're just not going to use a TGP for that as it takes far too long. Nor can you assume that one will be available for every single plane). The A-10 is basically a flying cannon, so the inability to do proper strafing without relying on unrealistic means is quite flawed.

Lol, was going to make a comment to that effect. That awesome situational awareness with a narrowness periscope to see behind you, and now that insanely badly placed panel. Doesn't really shout functionality or user friendliness :D

No, actually missed out on when it went from "imminent release" to "indefinite delay". Edit: That's how I interpreted the latest turn of events. If there's no mentionable delay in release I have misunderstood.

I might've missed it, but what's the reason behind the delay? Eagerly awaiting your beautiful module's release :)

In a way, but in the wrong arena. It's in DCS that there's just nothing else to do. I've learnt everything I want to about the modules I'm interested in, the horrible MP experiences (not players, but lag that can make people appear to be hundreds of miles away doing something else than what they're doing right next to you) and the hopelessly boring campaigns aren't that funny. I don't give a hoot about somewhat better graphics, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I've picked up on BMS to the extent that I'm just not starting DCS until there's a new module that I'm interested in (the MiG-21 or the Sabre) simply because it's actually fun in the long run. There's more to it than just learning how to use something, and then spending 1% of the time spent learning it playing boring campaigns before giving up on it. If there can't be any dynamic campaigns or such in DCS, at least don't delay the already very late modules that spark a genuine wide spread interest, outside these forums.

It went from being "ironing out the rough edges for an imminent 1.2.8 release" to "still ironing out the rough edges, and those that came with EDGE for a release in who knows when".

Teh teh teh, have you been indoctrinated into believing that the PC sits in the left seat now? We all know that the PC sits in the right seat, that's why the right seat has the Doppler navigator in the Mi-8, and the left seat has the bulky sight. It's just scared of confessing its true PC seat :P