ChickenSim

This will probably fall on obstinately deaf ears but you'd probably have an aneurysm if you knew how the manuals were actually written so here we go. Each manual actually has two effective "sponsors." One at CNAF that deals with administrative issues (such as notifying the fleet of policy changes and physically producing the manuals) and a service sponsor (both a squadron and a person in that squadron) who is the final authority on matters pertaining to operational safety and standardization. This is not this person's primary job, it is a "collateral duty" outside of their primary flying job. This person changes to a new guy every 18-36 months who generally has no experience doing it and needs to be taught or learn independently. Each manual is typically on a two or three year revision cycle, offset from other mostly adjacent (not necessarily higher or lower) manuals from other communities. At a revision working group (a "NATOPS conference") representatives from all over the fleet are in attendance. These individuals are supposed to be the experts but most of the time it's whoever is available due to operational constraints. Changes to manuals have to pass a popular vote. The "experts" don't vote, their Wing representatives do. Sometimes the Wing representatives vote against the "experts." You get one week (usually only three working days factoring in opening and closing administrivia) to implement all the proposed changes for the past two years. In many cases there isn't even enough time to field all the issues and so they are prioritized. Lower priority changes may not get voted on at all. Some manuals are updated in accordance with constantly changing command guidance out of sequence with manuals that haven't hit their revision cycle timeline yet. To implement new procedures that don't align with existing older manuals, you definitionally have to make changes that don't match what other manuals say. Sometimes the guidance that influenced that change gets reversed and now you have to change your manual back in two years. When they say "the NATOPS is written in blood," it means both that it is incredibly difficult to make changes merely for precision's sake and that the procedures exist until an accident or fatality necessitates a change. Off-cycle updates are rare and are typically initiated by fleet "hazreps" (hazard reports) for matters of safety only. When a procedure is written or changed that has any necessary tolerance, it's often presented to the conference in the form of "eh, plus or minus ten seconds sounds good" if it's not something driven by avionics or some external influence. If that tolerance was "good enough" or fleet procedures were more strict so as never to generate a hazrep, a change to the original tolerance (no matter how arbitrary its genesis) may never be reviewed or made. In many cases it doesn't matter because the tolerances are often for training purposes and needing to have some objective metric for passing or failing a student in training. The actual targets and techniques used seek far more precision than the bare minimum standard. So it's nice to think that there exists a world where the manuals are perfect and scientific, but the military operates in reality and "an 80% solution executed now is better than a perfect solution executed too late/never." There are diagrams and entire paragraphs in some of these manuals that are years out of date and there just isn't the time or urgency for literally whoever is available to fix them. Maybe if we had people whose primary duties were to write manuals then they would execute those duties with the precision expected of the aviators flying their airplanes, but we don't. And that's why the opening paragraph says "Take this all with a grain of salt. Know this information. Know your airplane/community. Use sound judgment and know when and where to deviate."

You're still missing the point. It doesn't matter if it's a CAS attack, you're being paid to hit a TOT precisely and being late can have negative or dangerous consequences particularly if the guy behind you is early, and vice versa. A TOT is a TOT. "Barely unacceptable" is barely acceptable or flat out unacceptable in practice. Having helped write these kinds of documents and sponsored changes, revisions, and rewrites, it's not an appeal to authority to say that you don't have a clue what the precepts of these working groups actually are or what sound judgment applies to (it's not just uncharted territory), and much less what changes are actually worth making that won't potentially be in conflict with tens of other publications that you don't have any individual control over. They aren't designed like you think they are.

=4c=Nikola fails to realize that ± values are given to measure the bare minimum standards of success rather than the actual goals or targets, and don't often give consideration to the real world situation. Just because the book says you can be ±15 seconds from TOT for a CAS attack doesn't mean you should be. If you're 15 seconds late, that's 15 additional seconds some poor guy on the ground has to be exposed to enemy fire observing the target waiting for someone who thought their attack was "good enough" to pat themselves on the back. Tell that to the guys on the ground triple-checking their watches after the TOT comes and goes. Or the guy pushing precisely 30 seconds behind what your push time was supposed to be to ensure they could capture the target without debris from the first attack obscuring their view of the target area. It's one thing to DCS-ify things for the game's sake. It's another to claim you know better about the real procedures than the folks who actually did them. There's a reason that every NATOPS begins with the phrase that it cannot "address every situation completely or be a substitute for sound judgment."

The Harrier can't carry Harpoons. Wikipedia (and its cited source) is wrong about that one. JDAMs (32/38/54) are in development, but given that the module is in early access other supporting avionics systems have to be completed before those weapons can be integrated.

OV-10D/G Bronco please, before someone unqualified calls dibs.

LCOS may not be implemented in DCS yet. I'm just saying to expect a (little) more robust sight in the future. I know one of the current challenges with the gun is getting the alignment correct first, as it currently doesn't give the 2 degrees of depression it's supposed to due to a DCS-is with pylon stores. I imagine once this is fixed the rest will sort of come together.

No, it's literally an air drive motor in the Harrier. Bleed air hits the forward duct assembly. When the gun is selected and armed, a shutoff valve opens allowing bleed air to hit the regulator assembly (where it seeks 60-90 psi). When the trigger is pulled, the electronic control unit allows bleed air through the regulator assembly and valve and duct assembly into the pneumatic drive unit that converts the bleed air into (15-)35 hp of mechanical power and cycles the weapon. Block diagrams from A1-AV8BB-TAC-050 pgs. 2-508 - 2-510.

The AV-8B NA does have an LCOS sight but not a gun funnel. The LCOS sight is derived from ownship INS at either a long (2,400 feet) or short (1,200 feet) target range, selectable with the cage/uncage switch.

The thing you might be thinking of is the Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance System (ATARS) pod, but unfortunately only F/A-18Ds carry them. They replace the gun.

That's possible. I know Harrier PGU-20/U was still DU as recent as last year, but there's plenty out there indicating that "Enhanced PGU-20" was on the horizon with Tungsten instead. This may just be for the F-35 gun though.

Not exactly. The AGM-65F is an AGM-65E (complete with 300-lb. warhead) with the modified D seeker slapped on. Meaning it's basically a G with a maritime attack mode that aims for the waterline of ships.

The GAU-12 is actually pneumatic driven. An air motor uses 8th-stage bleed air to maintain 60-90 psi air pressure and generate 35 hp, but the rate of fire is somewhat dependent on engine RPM. 15 hp is required to operate it at all (there is a minimum RPM chart, but generally >60%), and it varies between 3600-4200 rounds per minute. The rounds are 25x137mm M790 ammunition redesignated by type, but the only variants used by Harriers are: PGU-20/U Armor Piercing Incendiary (Depleted Uranium Penetrator - not a SABOT though) PGU-22/U High Explosive Incendiary/Self-Destruct PGU-23/U Target Practice PGU-24/U Dummy PGU-25/U High Explosive Incendiary PGU-25 A/U High Explosive Incendiary PGU-32/U Semi-Armor Piercing High Explosive Incendiary PGU-33/U Target Practice Frangible

Yes, this is normal. The Harrier can't use Ds. Just Es and Fs (Gs are stand-ins for Fs until ED makes Fs).

Claiming that multiplayer isn't popular when netcode, stability, and lack of dedicated servers all but ensure that's true seems like a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy. Most of us don't want to be using our limited free time reporting already-existing bugs or issues just to bump threads. Fixing things that are clearly broken shouldn't require a popularity contest first. As someone who has taken a break from public multiplayer servers for reasons related to these issues, I implore you guys to give the issue due diligence.

The pilot has to tell the aircraft which rocket motors the loaded rockets are equipped with so that the CCIP symbology adjusts itself properly. There are two theories right now about what M4 and M66 mean. M66 is obviously the Mk66 motor. M4 could be referring to the really ****ing old Mk4/40 rockets. Mk4s were the first FFARs, referred to as Mighty Mouse, and entered service in the 40s. These evolved into the more modern Mk40s used in Korea and Vietnam. Manuals in the 90s and early 2000s still reference these rockets, but usually just to explain how old they are and that modern jets and their standard LAUs can't fire them. M4 could also be referring to the Mk66 Mod 4s. The Mod 2s used by the Navy, Marines, and Air Force were the standard for a long time but put out a lot of smoke. Mod 4 upgrades increased the average thrust from 1,335 lbs. to 1,415 lbs. and incorporated a salt rod that reduced the amount of smoke they generated. This thrust increase means that CCIP symbology for the older Mod 2s (which would have just been referred to as "Mk66s" in the absence of other variants) would be incorrect so you'd need the aircraft computers to adjust the pipper. All the 2.75" rockets in the Hornet use Mk66 motors, leading me to believe it's the latter option, but I'm not sure if there is an in-game distinction between the two motors or which one (Mod 2 or Mod 4) they actually have. Side note, I'm also not sure what the in-game "Mk5" type of rocket even is - I've never heard of that warhead before and can't find any reference to it. Would need ED or someone who's actually flown the Hornet to confirm what the settings refer to.

Maybe? That's the problem when the weapon FMs aren't synchronized with the aircraft symbology. There are a ton of varying reports of people making 15+ NM shots but then others (and a developer) say that the Mavericks have a 60 second lifetime. A Maverick shouldn't be traveling 15 NM in 60 seconds, it should be more like 100 seconds. Some people are having their LMAVs detect laser spots at ranges of 25 NM, through hills and buildings, despite a nominal 10 NM DCS laser range. It's nice that it sounds like the INRNG symbology is based on the actual altitude:Mach charts, but if the weapons themselves don't follow the same logic because ED didn't code them that way, then it's unfortunately just a bandaid solution that is liable to fail as often as it succeeds. And it's not just the Mavericks that feel the pain here. Technically the Harrier gun angle issue still lets you produce the effect of rounds hitting a target, but since it's angled much higher than it should be it reduces the amount of time you should have to track a target (especially once they implement the fact that you can't go Idle and fire the gun in the Harrier - you have to have it >60% to produce the bleed air required to operate it). The A-10C JDAM FM lets you produce the effect of bombs hitting grid coordinates, but if the bombs are decelerating to 230 KTS and taking twice as long as a Mk82 or GBU-12 would to get there, then we don't know what effect that's going to have on an aircraft flying much higher and faster with an allegedly better loft capability (both Harrier and Hornet). Hopefully these stock pylon and weapon modules get some love from ED soon, because the cracks in the system and FMs are starting to become much more visible.

Not just the stock laser, but the stock laser seekers and missile profiles too. It doesn't seem right now that any of the stock SALH seekers are treated differently, regardless of whether they are fixed (APKWS), fairing (GBU-12), or gimbaled (AGM-65/114), which when combined with stock propulsion modules and stock Maverick guidance/flight profiles are bound to produce some... interesting results. Meaning that it's not just Maverick Es that don't work properly. Technically nothing works properly, not even the stock IR/TV Mavericks or GBUs (LGB or JDAM variants) dropped by any module.

In real life lasers don't have a single max range. Each laser has its own power output designed with enough juice to "get the job done" from that system's usual fighting range. A ground-based laser is generally a much lower power output than a helicopter or jet aircraft, for example. The environmentals have a vote. Low visibility conditions (high humidity, haze, visible moisture, etc.) are going to produce a correspondingly lower range for the laser due to attenuation. Not to mention the potential for obscurants (fire smoke, tactical smoke, dust...) or physical obstructions (buildings, trees, terrain...) hiding the spot from the detector. Or the reflectivity of the target focusing or diffusing the energy. And then you have to factor in that the laser doesn't just need to get to the target, it needs to bounce off and be detected by the weapon. In this case the energy is much like a rope and pulley. The closer one end is to the target, the further away the other can be. So IRL, it depends. You might be seeing the spot from 10 NM away, you might not see it at all.

Honestly no idea on Spanish/Italian Harriers. I can only assume it does since the U.S. Navy program office manages their Harrier programs too, but I don't know for sure.

Adding the option for outrigger pylons would be less far-fetched than loading the Air Force suite of Mavericks. The wiring and software is technically there, they would simply need to be attached and connected for both Night Attack and (non-remanufactured) Radar aircraft. Anecdotally, the Marines didn't use them because of the risk of the missile exhaust melting the outrigger tires. Operating strictly off of a ship or airbase this might not be an issue, but spare tires aren't always readily available at the austere forward arming points the Marine Corps makes use of. That said, I'm not sure the presence of unlimited spare parts in DCS outweighs the lack of actual outrigger pylons ever owned by the service operating this particular aircraft.

Operating from a FARP is intended to solve the combat radius and response time problems to begin with. But that's not the point, the AV-8B computers only recognize LMAV and IRMV as available stores options, of which the specific USN/USMC variants (their weights, aerodynamic qualities, etc.) are accounted for when providing weapon/HUD symbology and by VREST stores weight and asymmetry calculations. There are more factors to consider when determining which weapons Razbam decides to include than you may think. You'd be asking them to just make things up from scratch if they wanted to include CCD or non-USN/USMC weapons on the Harrier.

The Harrier does have an integrated INS + GPS system. In NAV mode the INS is the primary source and does not receive inputs from the GPS (loosely coupled) and in IFA mode the GPS is the primary source and the INS does accept GPS position updates (tightly coupled). I agree that it's important that these things are modeled, especially for carrier aircraft, although even if we get them I'm not sure how well-integrated those inaccuracies are going to be modeled when it comes to things like their effect on computed/degraded weapons delivery modes, altitude sources (CCIP/GCIP/RCIP), or grid coordinates and elevations pulled from the targeting pod. In the A-10's EGI you can set it to INS only and the aircraft will display no apparent drift because ED never modeled it, and that has been their flagship module since 2011. I'm unsure if the F/A-18C is going to get the same "perfect world" treatment where GPS never fails. Having INS drift is cool, but for aircraft with integrated INS+GPS or EGI systems, the juice may not be worth the squeeze for developers - especially to a standard that not even ED thinks is important enough to meet.

The older NATOPS and checklists are from a time when -406 and pre-AFC-392 -408s were around. On -408B engines (and in newer pubs) the default position to use is POS 2, because in the newer engines that DECU lane has a permanent magnetic alternator that would reduce battery drainage on the system in the event of a main generator failure. It may not matter much in DCS without random system failures but that's the reason the switch is in POS 2 now.

It's worth noting here that the aircraft having a functional Inertial Navigation System (INS) has nothing to do with whether the aircraft can do manual coordinate entry. Two completely different things, and in DCS having an INS on an aircraft equipped with a GPS is functionally equivalent to just wanting a countdown timer to complete before you can taxi/takeoff (unless you're Heatblur and are modeling actual INS drift). Not even A-10C has a truly functional INS. It's unlikely that F/A-18C will either.

In DCS you can probably do both (for now). In reality, they require a lock prior to firing to ensure the missile is correlated on the correct target and enters an appropriate loft profile. Nothing will stop you from rifling the missile without a lock, but in the absence of laser energy the missile safes the warhead and enters a shallow loft until it reacquires the spot (unlikely), runs out of electrical power and goes ballistic (also unlikely), or hits the ground.