Northstar98

It installs a white phosphorous marker which will produce white smoke to mark where the missile impacted. This can then be used to provide a visual reference to other DEAD flights.

Yeah, but 3-point guidance only requires angular information.

The SA-11 is SARH - it must use the radar to illuminate the target at some stage in its flight, regardless of whether the target is being tracked via TV or via radar. Most of the time optical systems only provide angle-tracking as a way to defeat jamming. Not sure this is correct. Aside from transmitting radio command guidance to the missiles, the SA-3's 3-point guidance method only requires that the target and missile(s) be tracked in angle, this can be done passively with the target being tracked by the TV camera and the missile's radio beacon(s) being tracked by the 2 UV-11 antennas, which are receive-only. It's only for the SA-3's lead-guidance method where target and missile range needs to measured which requires the radar transmit. The missiles on the SA-3 (and command-guided systems in general) do not have seekers - they are command guided. The only thing they have is a radio proximity fuse.

Yeah looks like it still guides even when there's nothing available to provide said guidance. If you set up your Rapier unit to only have the optical tracker or to only have Blindfire (less realistic set up but is a viable way of forcing Blindfire guidance mode) if after the missile is fired the optical tracker/Blindfire is disabled/destroyed or is set to stop emitting. In the tracks below the missile remains in guided flight despite the optical tracker/Blindfire being disabled, destroyed or Blindfire set to stop transmitting. As mentioned above, Rapier is a command-guided system, requiring either the optical tracker or Blindfire to track the target and the missile - if neither are operational, the missile should stop being guided. RapierGuidanceWhenOTDestroyed.trk RapierGuidanceWhenBlindfireAIOff.trk RapierGuidanceWhenBlindfireDestroyed.trk RapierGuidanceWhenBlindfireNotTransmitting.trk RapierGuidanceWhenOTAIOff.trk

This is likely correct as-is. Rapier FSA w/ Blindfire provides for 2 guidance modes: Optical Guidance Mode - uses the optical tracker to track the target manually and to track the missile via a TV system (SACLOS). Blindfire Guidance Mode - uses Blindfire to automatically track the target and missile (ACLOS). The whole idea behind Blindfire is that it enables the system to fire when the optical tracker is blind and can't see the target (hence the name). You can also see that Blindfire includes a TV system, which is mounted coaxially to the antenna. A BAe Dynamics brochure on Rapier FSA describes it as a "gathering unit", which implies it's for missile tracking. EDIT: Also, having the optical tracker's TV system track the missile and Blindfire track the target introduces further complexity (though not insurmountable as after all, Nike Hercules does a similar thing (at least in principle). The launcher also contains the computer for generating steering commands based on data from either the optical tracker or Blindfire and includes the J-band command antenna which transmits steering commands to the missile. Based on that - I'm not sure where the optical tracker is involved when the system is using Blindfire, if anywhere. Blindfire is not an acquisition radar - it's a fire-control radar. The acquisition radar, which I've only ever seen referred to as "Rapier Surveillance Radar" (not to be confused with the later Dagger system used in Rapier FSC) is under the cylindrical radome on the launcher (and also includes an IFF interrogator).

I don't know - not a developer. But somehow I doubt that all of the development time went into adding a blur filter and a resolution-limited picture... Why couldn't it be reused? So if something takes a year (just going by your numbers) it's impossible? What? Which still wouldn't result in AN/AAQ-33 being better than the magical AAQ-28... Again - 9x magical lossless digital zoom.

It's also cited here as the resolution for LITENING II FLIR (and LITENING II is what's stated in the manual for the F-16CM and F/A-18C - the A-10Cs however mention LITENING AT). Why is it impossible? And why should the inferior pod have magical digital zoom? We've already got people saying that LITENING is superior in image quality, when the exact opposite should be true, at least in part because AAQ-28s limitations aren't being modelled. Absolutely agreed - this game should be about simulating aircraft and their systems as accurately as possible - that means depicting capabilities and limitations. Yes but more to the point about small screens - in DCS we're more than capable of zooming in beyond what you'd be able to see with the naked eye. Depending on the size of your display you can make the MFDs appear larger than their true size. As for me, I'll probably be using Sniper from now on - higher fidelity and completeness is what I gravitate to and at the moment Sniper is superior when it comes to both.

Yes would absolutely love to assign a trigger zone to be the zone the AI searches in, instead of being limited to a circle.

Yep and even if you're not a texture artist - when using "X: COCKPIT PERFORM CLICKABLE ACTION" action on certain rotary switches, the modelviewer is useful for determining what the value should be for the selection you want without having to resort to trial and error.

Reproduced. I don't have an issue the first time going into the loadout editor and running a mission. However, if I subsequently exit the mission, return to the mission editor and open up the loadout editor, I'm sometimes left with this: I am unable to interact with just about everything, though closing via the taskbar does cause "do you want to save" and "are you sure" pop-ups to immediately open, but clicking on them achieves nothing. The only way to close the game from this state appears to be via the task manager.

Hi everyone, Ever since the Samuel Chase released (though this also applies to 5-inch/38 guns on the recently released Essex), the 3-inch/50 and 5-inch/38 guns only fire time-fused projectiles. This is appropriate to aircraft, but not to surface/land-targets, especially hard ones - where frequent airbursts are observed, which have little-to-no effect. As such these guns should also have a point-detonating shell (common shell type with AA, but with a different fuse) or an armour-piercing/semi-armour piercing round available. The AI, at least for some ground vehicles, already seems to select ammunition more-or-less appropriately for whatever target they're engaging. In the track below, while the target was eventually sunk, many of the rounds airburst short of the target. It's only when the round impacts before the time-fuse goes off when significant damage is done. Another issue seen in the track below is that the 3-inch/50 guns do not track or engage the target at all, despite it being well within their range. I would also recommend visiting this thread for dual-purpose naval guns more generally - IMO it's plenty relevant now (with nearly every naval gun with a calibre ≥76 mm/3 inch only engaging surface targets with only a point detonating/impact-fused shell available - lacking a proximity or time-fused shell). SamuelChase_AirburstAgainstST.trk

Hi everyone, Despite the following being in the changelog: I am still experiencing issues with 5-inch/38 calibre guns, as fitted to the USS Samuel Chase and Essex-class. In the below tracks I have a single aircraft approaching the USS Samuel Chase from the starboard rear-quarter. Wind is calm, the ship is not in motion and I've set the weather to clear skies. In both cases the aircraft approaches from the same direction and remains in level flight, the only difference between the 2 tracks is the altitude the aircraft flies at. While the 3-inch/50 guns engage more-or-less as expected (when the aircraft briefly exits their engagement zone, they cease tracking and reset to their default positions instead of attempting to continue tracking the target - so far only the KS-19 appears to do this) in the 6kft track the 5-inch gun never engages, despite doing so in the 2kft track. 6000 ft should be more than within the capability of 5-inch gun (in-fact it outranges and has a higher ceiling than the 3-inch guns - compare this table (5"/38) with this table (3"/50)). With the Essex (which I've separately reported here) the guns track the target in both cases (the directors though do not), but only in the 2kft track do they actually engage. However, even so, they take a long time to commence firing (the Bofors 40 mm actually opening fire first) and they only get a single salvo off before resetting(-ish) and no 5-inch gun further attempts to engage the aircraft. In the 6kft track, they track the target, but never engage and simply reset, pretty much exactly mirroring this bug report for ground-based AAA - where so far only the KS-19 behaves as expected. SamuelChase_5-inch38_Engage_2kft.trk SamuelChase_5-inch38_NoEngage_6kft.trk Essex_5-inch38_Engage-ish_2kft.trk Essex_5-inch38_NoEngage_6kft.trk

Now that the B-1B and B-52H have got most of their loadouts fleshed out (still some things missing however) I wanted to bump this one - in the above post I've got a mostly complete set, with some combinations missing. @NineLine @BIGNEWY

Very nice to see this has now been implemented, ditto for the B-1B (though I believe AGM-154Cs are inaccurate). However, we still cannot carry AGM-86C externally, only the D. We are still however missing the AGM-158A JASSM and the AGM-142 w/ AN/MSW-55.

Well, in terms of what it's been defined as having maybe - the radar ranges are quite severely under-represented, even for a mid 80s Group 0 E-2C which would've had the older-style, 4-bladed propellers and almost certainly wouldn't have Link 16 capability. The current radar has the same instrumented range as the AN/APS-82 from the E-1B Tracer - even the AN/APS-96 from the E-2A/E-2B has a slightly longer range. The model (with its propellers) most fits a Hawkeye 2000 (though the non-functional CEC antenna is still present and quite noticeable IMO), this should have an AN/APS-145 should have at least a 350 nmi instrumented range (at the moment DCS, the -138 is defined as having a ~180 nmi range).

Yeah have now got the Mk 36, Mk 49 Mod 0 and Mk 49 Mod 1 tracking the 1S31 (with the Mk 37 tracking the 1S11 as before, albeit without a tone or ADI steering). However, if the radar is by itself the Shrike does not track, this is unlike other fire-control radars like the SNR-75V or the SNR-125M.

I wonder - had we gone with the realistic option in the first place, I wonder how much of an issue people grumbling about a display light or targeting pods not having far beyond the resolution they should have would be, or if there'd be much grumbling at all.

Well, isn't this supposed to be one of the reasons multiple targeting pod options exist? I'd argue that if current targeting pods are kept in their current state, that negates some of the effort going into newer, more advanced sensors like AN/AAQ-33. Also, shouldn't this game be about depicting stuff accurately? Of course where it's feasible and practical to do so? Of course, but no image enhancement can perfectly replace data that's necessarily lost when using digital zoom (considering what digital zoom does is take a crop of the image and then enlarge it to fit the display).

+1, would definitely like an AGM-88B though one may come for the Tornado anyway.

Yeah, but you do 9x digital zoom and (minus any post-processing enhancement, which won't be perfect), that gets cut down to 29x29 and yet in DCS it seems perfectly lossless.

According to the DCS F-16 manual, the LITENING variant we should have is the II, which has a 256×256 resolution for FLIR. To me, most targeting pods in-game seem to be overperforming, especially when it comes to digital zooms which appear perfectly lossless. Something that seems to be changing with Sniper.

The problem though is when the wrong HAS model is so wrong to the point it bears very little resemblance to the real place (e.g. Gütersloh) or even worse, stops you from basing aircraft that were really based there (such as A-10s at Spangdahlem).

Yeah, 5"/38 guns have been dual-purpose-ish since the introduction of the Samuel Chase, with the Essex I seem to have mixed results, where the same threat setup in 2 different missions leads to inconsistent results. See here. I haven't tested since the initial update though, so this may be out of date. EDIT: Nope and the Samuel Chase appears to be affected also, just less so. Why -ish? Because at the moment these guns only have one type of shell, which is time-fused - against aircraft this is mostly fine (though VT, i.e. proximity-fused shells were in circulation from at least '43 onwards) but for surface/land targets that aren't soft, these rounds (unless they impact before the time-fuse functions) are mostly ineffective. What we need are multiple shell types for ships - a point detonating round (at least, though some guns should also have AP/SAP rounds that offer post-impact detonation) and a time-fused round or a proximity-fused round (though ideally both, where applicable - though illumination should also be on the table, less relevant for this thread though). However, just about every post-WWII naval artillery should receive multiple round types, where applicable.

Yeah and not just for German bases, but USAFE and RAFG bases too - all but Bitburg (though even then one of the shelter types, despite being accurate, is the wrong shape) have incorrect shelter types.

They're still there - the issue is what Zabuzard describes. The list simply has too many entries for them to all be included (at least on my end). Personally I get around this by using weapons restrictions and removing weapons not in USAF inventory (such as the SAMP Type 25 bombs and the BL775). Unfortunately as these aren't persistent (even optionally so - something I requested here), this has to be done every single time I want to use bombs cut off by the length of the list, which further isn't helped by the fact that the list sometimes has duplicate entries for the same thing on a different station. The other thing is that historical mode doesn't filter payloads by operator, only by date - that would also alleviate this issue in lieu of a scrollbar (which I also separately requested here).