Sleksa

There is a bug in operation Leopard. Blue has several mig-21 CAP slots on Beslan airfield, however the airfield doesn't house any AA weaponry for the migs, only fueltanks and aso/sprd.

Pretty much, A good moviemaker can also make things very dramatic and interesting, even though nothing's really going on:

That comparison of the mig and the f-16 seems really biased from the get go. The variant discussion for example is comparing the earliest mig-29 versions sold to warsaw pact nations to a post-cold war update of the f-16. To me it makes about as much sense as comparing the latest versions of the mig sold to India with updated r-77's and other systems, against the very first versions of the f-16 which would've gone to combat with nothing but sidewinders on them. Secondly comes the boastful argument about the combat experience between the mig-29 and the f-15/16 and how the mig-29's were solidly beaten. However what this argument doesn't take into question is that in all of these situations the scenario was a single small, wartorn country's airforce whose bulk was still made of third generation planes and ~20 mig29's at various states of repair(balkans/iraq). On the other hand what the few dozens migs were up against was the collective might of nato's thousands of fighters, perpetual smartbombing, satellite intel/assitance, hundreds of jamming aircraft, thousands of cruise missiles, tens of thousands of smartbombs and dozens of awacs planes running the show. From this perspective I'd say it's not really valid to say the f16's combat experience is saying all you need to know, when the said experience is equivalent to ganging with your friends to kick a midget on the ground who's been stabbed repeatedly before the "fight".

I've got a logitech extreme 3d stick, which has 2 trigger buttons and 4 buttons on the top and I'm doing quite fine with it by using the main trigger as a modifier button to be able to assign and use 2 actions on 1 button with ease. The most important ones that I use are: 1) fire weapon 2) lock target 3) radar on 4) radar off 5) cockpit cursor mode 6) center view 7) IFF 8) fire cannon I've also mapped the following out of a strong personal preference: kneeboard on/off kneeboard mark position Things like countermeasures, fix beam toggles, afterburner (+ emergency burner) on/off and weapon dials are things that are certainly useful, but I don't really think are used that much on the mig that they need to be mapped on the stick if there's not much room. Also regarding countermeasures my philosophy is that If you're radar locked, the best way to defeat the incoming attack has nothing to do with chaff and everything to do with afterburning behind mountains and away from the likely direction of the attack. With some luck the attacker'll become target fixated and burn his fuel and ammo while chasing you well into friendly teammate's noses. Another way to save space on a stick (as well as to avoid incorrect weapons settings that prevent firing) is to always use a default loadout where the radar missiles are on the outer pylons (most likely to be used first) and ir missiles on the inner pylons (least likely to rip off in a dogfight) with ir/pylon 1-2 selectors mapped on one button with trigger modifier and sar/3-4 mapped on another with the same.

Yes, and I'd wholeheartedly support the argument if the mig-21 in the report was a newer version than the bis, however it is not. It simply seems odd to assume that upon making a newer and improved version of the aircraft, the soviets had purposefully gotten rid of a feature that was obviously rather valuable in the aircraft and had been in use already on the the mig-17. The smoke that is also sometimes seen on the aircraft in real life footage of the aircraft is also considerably harder to spot than the aircraft producing it, however in dcs this is opposite like iLOVEwindmills pointed out. It's absurd that the smoke itself is easier to find when distance to the mig goes beyond 2-3 miles and to me sounds even more absurd that this would be the case in real life as well It might also be possible that the smoke trail's visibility is affected by things like meteoroloical conditions, engine age/ maintenance, fuel quality and other such factors, however in dcs the smoke generated by the mig-21 is a non-changing value and it uses the same value as every other aircraft in the game (excluding the huey).

The visibility at distance is the most significant problem yes. However the original post also included the US evaluation of the defected Iraqi mig-21 which quite clearly stated that the plane wasn't producing a detectable smoketrail at page 1-46

The likely culprit is the Southern side of the map iLOVEwindmills, especially if you run the morevisibility mod at higher-extreme settings. Spesifically, looking at the area Between Gudalauta and Tbilisi the fps drops drastically when the cities and buildings come to the view. The problem atleast for me was partially circumventable by changing the structures value in graphics.lua to around 10, 10000 in the distance setting I was using

The difference is in the distance and aspect. At quite close ranges and forward aspect the smoke trail isn't readily visible as your pictures as well as these examples show However when we add distance or look at the mig from the rear, it becomes possible to see the mig's exhaust trail from 20-100km with relative ease, and I doubt this is the case in real life:

This is an argument that came to my mind as well, however since the Bis is a newer version, I see no reason why they would've gone and removed/not used this feature from the newer engines as well. And the exhaust trails from the Bis-version of the mig in the videos attached aren't really visible even when the aircraft is flying really close by unless you really focus on trying to see them.

Unsure whether to report this under the bug section, but anyway, the have doughnut report from 1969 (found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eyh14uxc89acs4j/AAA_hvGC0C9A_OyO23mQEMSua?dl=0#/ ) reports that the MiG's engines during testing did not produce a visible exhaust trail at any power setting. However in dcs the smoke trail is quite visible even 20+ km away like on the middle right side of this picture: Or from behind like this: In similiar fashion these videos of mig-21 in flight show that the engine exhaust is really hard to see even from close up, and certainly nowhere near the telltale mark from dozens of miles away present in dcs currently:

The aircraft I want this for is the same as this subforum, mig-21 ;). I hadn't heard about the helios before, but I'll check it out. I have exported the radar screen before through a right_mfcd viewport so I assumed the gauges would also be workable in similiar fashion. But all I basically want is to be able to have some of the gauges on screen (attitude/altitude/npp/kpp), how this is achieved doesn't really matter to me as long as the end result works.

Hello, is there any way to export things like mach/altitude meters or kpp/npp as viewports in similiar fashion as the radar (RIGHT_MFCD)? I've done some digging and the closest equivalent I found was this thread : http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=70716 However the poster is referring to a a-10 which seems to have the gauges already set in individual folders, unlike the mig-21's.

My reaction is not of anger but disappointment, and I do understand that the decision obviously had nothing to do with me personally (I can't imagine highway getting that angry over me trailing his su-25 for ages with busted gears ;) ) I can understand the rationale and your point of view completely, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. In my opinion the best pvp server in DCS also deserves to have high fidelity fighters on it for the best possible experience However I can't do much else than protest against it's exclusion and hope for the best

With the 104'th pretty much having a monopoly on populated multiplayer servers, the decision to remove the mig-21 has singlehandledly put a complete stop for dcs to me and my friends and I can only hope that it comes back on monday, instead of getting a death sentence based on subjective, non-quantifiable performance issues/gains.

It is true that some nations value different military capabilities more than others due to various geographical or political circumstances, but that's just the nature of things. Austrians don't much care for marines or naval forces, but nva, Soviets and Poland did care about their helicopter's air to air capability to give atleast a portion of their fleet a capability to fire air-air missiles. I'm not too sure about the vikhr's anti-air capability being a happy accident either since it's also got a proximity fuze, whereas as far as I know the hellfire for example uses a impact fuze. Test fire footage also features it being used against aircraft, although admittedly I'm by no means an expert on the subject, and it's an anecdotal argument based on a single public video that I've seen ( ). Looking at other nation's purchases, the trend certainly was going towards the way of aa-missile armed combat helicopters before (although the scope and size can be argued to infinity), during and after the collapse. This development is evidenced by the asian apaches, Japanese OH-1's, European mangustas and eurocopters all being fitted with the capability to use air-air missiles from the design phase onwards, and I don't see any special reason why Soviets/Russia wouldn't want to keep up with the joneses in this regard, especially since the layout had already been put to use on hinds.

The arguments that you make are somewhat true, however I'd argue that there's very little relevance of what was or wasn't standard armament on a experimental aircraft that only saw limited combat, especially from ingame perspective where we can have russian a-10's next to turkey, strafing american helicopters that are taking off from Russia in DCS. Instead I'd say that a more sensible option would be to look at how the ka-50's development, as well as overall helicopter use was faring during the end of the cold war and how the ka-50 would've likely been used had it replaced the hinds in the quantities that it was expected to without the soviet fall putting a near 20 year long halt on freeze on Russian arms development. From my perspective, the use of helicopters as interceptors had already been done extensively (and yes I'm using that word to describe something that was done along the nato-warsaw border repeatedly), especially at the end of cold war. The air-air missiles did start appearing on helicopters during the late 80's and I see no reason why the use of them would've dwindled, considering the large amount of interceptions done during those days. Likewise, in an all out ww3 scenario the amount and existance of cleared airspace was likely to be very minimal and the chances of meeting hostile aircraft was likely to be much higher than the wars Russia and the west have found themselves in after the iron curtain and the nuclear duckwaving went away. Modern helicopters as well, like you said, do feature air-air missiles nowadays. However I'd say the development of this kind of weaponry on helicopters was likely globally affected at the time of the ka50's design and construction, and with the fall of the soviets creating the subsequent de-escalation lowering the chances of a helicopter meeting another combat aircraft compared to a cold war gone hot-scenario. This also had a huge effect on weapons development and procurement on a massive scale (some notable examples being the g11, eurofighter, yak-141's as well as the kamov). The fragmentation sleeve of the vikhrs themselves also denote that the soviets/Russia were thinking that helicopters ending up in a situation where they need to combat other aircraft was atleast such a likely scenario that it directly affected the missile's design.

This sounds wrong to me. air-air taskings for helicopters were rather commonplace from what I've read, especially in the border between the Germanies. The East-German hinds for example used to intercept nato helicopters (like the cobra in the picture below), as well as civilian airplanes pretty much constantly throughout the cold war, and were seen armed with both molniyas as well as strelas numerous times. Poland also used strelas extensively on their helicopters, especially on the mi-2 and sokol- series of helicopters. http://combatace.com/topic/71958-mi-2-made-in-swidnik/

So if I'm reading you right, the US navy's phantoms didn't have rear cockpit controls, but other users migh've had? Though, I distinctively remember reading a story on this forum about a radar officer who made a backseat landing on a carrier with the phantom but I can't find the article anywhere now. However this virtual cockpit also seems to have throttle controls and a possible control stick on the back seat, but maybe it's from another phantom version than the one used by the US navy? http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/media/070/F-4G%20Rear%20Cockpit.html No matter though, it just struck me as a oddity since I imagined the risk reduction from a redundant set of controls quite worth it if it might save a multi-million dollar fighter, but on further thinking, considering the extra wirings/maintenance and training involved it might have a bigger pricetag than what my educated mind can think of :). In respect to the INS mapping system, I really have no reference to the quality of the system, but would love to hear more about it and it's capabilities. Did it have the capacity to show other aircraft's positions through a datalink such as the a-10 we have in dcs (I remember reading that the f-14's had a capability to link with eachother to increase the range of the radar, but I'm unsure if that's related at all), or did it have preprogrammed routes/targets and such akin to the abris system of the ka50, or was it 'just' a navigational map? I'm also unsure what the term fishbowl means, but if I had to guess it means the round radar screen? with a quick googling of a 'rio tactical display', this picture came up: http://media.nara.gov/stillpix/330-cfd/1992/DN-SC-92-04276.jpeg So the pilot would also have the ability to see similiar output on his display screen? Thanks for your answers.

With the news about the leatherneck simulations developing the tomcat, I've started to do some research on the capabilities and functionality of the plane. With that in mind I have some questions that I'm hoping other people could answer: 1) The tomcat is said to have a navigation system, a gyro based one in the older models and a gps-using one in the later ones, however when I'm looking at the cockpit photos of the A-model, I don't see a screen for the system anywhere, so the question is: How accurate is the gyro-based system, are both the pilot and the radar operator able to access it, and where on the plane is it located? 2) Is there any way for the pilot to see what the radar operator is seeing on his radar? This question comes to mind when considering for example a situation where a f-14 wants to put a enemy aircraft that he's locked onto at the edge of his radar cone but not turn too much to break the lock. I imagine such a functionality should be crucial lest the pilot's and radar operator's interaction be turned into a game of 'warmer/colder/ohcrapwelosther'. 3) Is it true that the radar operator has no way of controlling the aircraft? If I remember correctly, the phantom had backup controls for the radar operator and it seems weird to not have such a safety system on a multi-million dollar plane

Speaking of, why does the blue side with 104'th reserved aircraft have dozens of sam sites spread around their ground attacker's active TA's in operation timberland, while red side's ground attackers have none?

Hello. Does anyone here know whether dcs has a function that allows a viewport such as mfcd's to be toggled on/off. From a cursory search through the forums I've seen that some people've added a following line to their viewport lua files: " if unit_type == 'A-10C' then " However there is next to none official documentation on what inputs are accepted for these lua files, and what I'm basically trying to achieve is instead of the if unit_type, something like this: " if key_pressed == 'rshift+enter' then "

I nearly had a doublekill earlier on 104. First kill was a head-on kill against a distracted su-27, and moments later I started chasing his buddy. At one point I have 10 or so seconds of perfect firing position but I forgot to switch off my pylon selector from 3-4 (r-3's) into 1-2 (r-13's), and while I'm wondering why the missiles won't fire, the guy gets enough turn rate to dodge the missile when I eventually do get it off, after which his second buddy comes to rescue him. http://www.twitch.tv/sleksa/b/643745284 The mig really doesn't forgive the slightest mechanical errors :joystick:

Looks like a helmet to me

One thing to keep in mind is that you have to hold your plane level while slewing the laser designator on the locked mode, to get the target crosshair on top of the target. If you're leaning slightly to the left/right, the crosshairs will also dip slightly left/right and downwards, making precise targeting impossible as trying to correct a ill-placed lock will only make things worse. As soon as the crosshair is on top of the target, you don't have to worry about it and can maneuver the plane slightly (+- 10 degrees) while still retaining the laser at the same location. Thus the process for me is roughly like this: 1) Find the target 2) Slew the laser designator close to the target while leveling the plane out and flying towards the target 3) fine-tune the designator on top of the target once the plane's level to avoid the designator crapping out due to the sideway-slewing effect 4) Fire and maneuver slightly to either side to avoid possible aa fire while waiting for impact Due to the size of the designator on the hud, precise targeting is still rather impossible unless you want to modify the center of the targeting reticle to be a lot smaller, but with the default setup I've been able to kill 2-3 tanks per one run with 4-6 missiles carried in a relatively stress free environment, with some practice and repetition I'm sure the number could go even higher. As for finding the targets, I suggest using morevisibility- mod at a very high-extreme setting, it's a must have for dcs in my opinion.

To some extent the complexity and even the difficulty can also be influenced by the user with more or less community-approved ways. Things such as exporting the radar/rwr viewport are pretty much a standard, but I bet many would get their jimmies rustled if they knew that the pilot that shot them down was using a AHK script which would turn the radar on for a few seconds to scan the entire radar cone in tws mode systematically while keying the lock button with a sleep timer of a couple of milliseconds. The mig's radar itself would in my opinion be the second strongest radar in dcs for the simple reason of being able to perform IFF at ECM'd targets. If the radar would be longer ranged, it'd be a pretty strong wingman for a eagle/flanker for this capacity alone, as nearly all of the popular player vs player servers seem to be built upon a principle of drawing a bullseye in the middle between the red/blue airfields, with the majority of players flying straight towards a wall of ecm noise originating from the people who turn their jamming on as a part of the takeoff procedure.