Northstar98

Fantastic stuff @Rick Mave

Also getting clouds wobbling around all over the place. They've done so since the initial 2.7 launch over 4 years ago. Pay attention to the more distant set of clouds, initially they seem to wobbling, like a pressure wave is going through them, then with very small movements on the stick they can be seen to be moving up and down Performance, as you can see in the video is an incredibly stable 60 FPS (the limit I've defined in both DCS and the NVIDIA control panel). My settings are: System specs are in my signature. dcs.log

And if I'm not mistaken, these bunkers are for fuel storage - so an object that's relevant not just for eye-candy and accuracy, but one that actually has an impact on gameplay (as destroying these can result in fuel being unavailable at this airbase). Unfortunately, like most DCS maps, these warehouses are usually in random places (especially ammunition). It isn't relevant to Gütersloh, but Wiesbaden had quite a few fuel bunkers which seem to be absent in DCS, with fictional tanks being made instead (where IRL there seems to be some small buildings and a car park).

Don't know about more common, but these images are circa 2009 and have Sniper: Here's an article about Sniper integration onto A-10Cs, again circa 2009: https://www.dm.af.mil/Media/Article-View/Article/314052/lockheed-martin-completes-targeting-pod-site-activation-at-d-m/

Hi everyone, There's a couple of threads on the incorrect hardened shelters at Luftwaffe airbases, so here's one concentrating on the shelters at USAFE and RAFG airbases. This principally concerns Ramstein AB, Spangdahlem AB and Hahn AB, as well as RAF Gütersloh. These airbases currently have a modified generation one shelter, with an external siding door. An example can be found in this first post of this thread, but you can see that this same type of shelter is also present at the following airbases: Ramstein AB: However, this kind of shelter is only present at Bitburg AB IRL. The smaller kind of shelter that's actually present at these airbases is the original TAB-VEE shelter, which is broadly similar to the mod. generation one shelter (they do have the same external dimensions and configuration) but has clamshell doors internal to the shelter. Here's one such example (at Spangdahlem): Here's an example at Ramstein: Here's a drawing of one with an F-15 for scale, measurements are metric: Apart from Gütersloh, the other type of shelter found at all these airbases is the generation 3 shelter, suitable for aircraft like A-10. While Ugra have done a decent attempt at recreating it, it's the wrong shape. The real thing is elliptical, Ugra's version is semi-circular, making quite a bit taller than the real thing. Compared to: This example is at RAF Upper Heyford, so it may be a gen. 2 shelter which is a little larger than the 3, but the overall shape and configuration is pretty similar with gen. 3. Here are some drawings of a gen. 3 shelter, sourced from this website: The airbase where the current mod. gen. 1 shelter is the most incorrect is RAF Gütersloh, which IRL has a shelter that looks like this: Though note, only RAF Bruggen and Laarbuch have the annex building, seen on the left of this image: Gütersloh and Wildenrath instead, look like this (Gütersloh): Wildenrath: The OP of this thread has already done a pretty good job of modelling this type of shelter.

Yep, looks like most NATO airbases have the wrong shelters. The only exception seems to be Bitburg.

Looks excellent as always!

Okay, that's fair enough. I was just interested because I saw what appeared to me as an inconsistency with in-game behaviour and what's defined in the files I can see and what was being said on the matter. I did try experimenting with scripting to see if I can tell when the isJamming flag gets set to true - not just for the sake of my curiosity, but it opens up a few mission editing opportunities - like having it influence AI behaviour etc, but was unsuccessful. Will do. Thank you.

+1 would be nice to override the sea state (and in general have sea states that go beyond 4-5)

Okay, in what way? Because if ships do use the same jamming flag that aircraft do, why aren't they defined as such in their respective .luas (the same way aircraft are), why does no other module account for it - even for very high fidelity radars like the F-4E?

Excellent! Now we're just missing the bridge across it (there's actually 3 more to the west) and for Gütersloh itself to have more appropriate structures.

Then: Why is there no definition for ship ECM in the .lua files defining them? There is for aircraft, there isn't for ships (see line 36-37 for the B-52H here, look at any naval unit though and no such entry exists). Why is this jamming effect only present on the Viggen and nothing else? Why aren't there any controls for "ECM using" for ships? Why are there ships that IRL don't have jammers, jamming the radar?

Ships don't have jammers for any other aircraft and there's no option in the mission editor for ECM using, which leads me to suspect #2 is the case. There also examples of the Viggen being jammed by vessels which IRL do not feature jammers (like the Grisha V). The Viggen is however also susceptible to jamming from aircraft, which works in the same way it does for anything else.

I might not say skip, but personally, the accuracy problems around airbases is enough to put me off for the time being and it's far from just the textures - shelters are wrong, plenty of buildings are wrong etc. Your thread on improving Gütersloh is a perfect example/. There's a lot of trivial details, and while such details are appreciated, I think we're kinda missing the forest for the trees if much more noticeable structures are inaccurate. I'm sorry but this just isn't reflected in satellite imagery. I'm seeing grass right up to paved surfaces in the vast majority of cases. The exceptions are usually concentrated around shelters and obvious tracks/paths etc. It certainly doesn't surround paved surfaces to the degree it does in DCS. For the western airbases, it looks very wrong, to the point I would say that it fails to capture the look of the real airbases. For some more examples, here's Haina (though post reunification): Apart from the clear tracks it looks pretty damn tidy to me. This a close-up of the western edge. The grass clearly goes all the way up to the runway and taxiway, the exception is a clear track. Here's Damgarten: Apart from where shelters are, what are obvious paths etc and at the south tip (which includes a SAM site that isn't present in DCS), I'm not really seeing it. Again, looks like grass up to the runway and taxiways. The exception is the area around 2 (where shelters are) and 3 (where the SAM site that isn't present in DCS is). I did find some shots of aircraft actually at Damgarten, here's a MiG-29, taken April 1994: There is some brown grass, but it goes right up to the taxiway, it certainly doesn't look like the taxiway was recently constructed, with the immediate vicinity of paved surfaces looking dug up, as it does in DCS. Here's some shots of MiG-21s, taken from here, not sure of the season, but the post has these as "early 80s": I don't know about you, but this to me doesn't look like the opposite of untidy. It's grass up to paved surfaces with a tiny amount of mud/dirt in some cases. The grass isn't the best kept but it's not what I'd describe as untidy. Here's Wittstock, though further into spring rather than summer: Where exactly is all the sand/mud/dirt surrounding the runway, taxiways and other paved areas? Most of the airbase showns nothing at all apart from the bottom of this image (east of the runway). ??? Here's Altes Lager/Jüteborg, this is one of the only exceptions I can find so far - it looks like the shelters and taxiways were recently constructed (which is backed up by the source): Fast forward though to summer 1980 and: Looks pretty tidy apart from the track off the western edge of the runway. Neubrandenburg: Where is the sand/mud/dirt surrounding paved surfaces? This isn't summer but it doesn't look particularly patchy. Where it does look patchy looks to be grass and the straightness of the lines suggest it's being maintained.

The lights should be mounted on tall towers (towers that appear to be at least as tall as the surrounding trees) and they should be within a narrow clearing - none of the lights should be obscured by trees. Overhead view of the ALS (the towers are clearly visible here), streetview of the ALS. Looking towards the runway: Looking away from the runway: The same should be true for runway 03 - here the clearing is larger and is slightly more clear compared to runway 21.

And yeah, just for some Cold War shots. This is Hahn circa 77, season unknown (again, the hardened aircraft shelters are the wrong type in DCS): There's a slight smidge of sand-coloured mud/dirt around the taxiway in a few select areas - nothing like as extensive as what's seen in DCS. In this shot though, there's fairly dark grass all the way up to the paved surfaces. Ramstein, from mid August 1988: It's essentially grass right up to the runways, taxiways, parking areas etc. Though again, I'd also like to point out that the smaller variety of hardened shelter is the wrong type in DCS. Mid September 1982, again, grass is seen all the way up to paved surfaces, ditto with the shelter. Weisbaden, September 1983: Note how short the grass is as well, it looks very well kept and goes right up to the taxiway. Airbases in the GDR are harder to come by there's very few images apart from much older monochrome satellite photos. Here's Finow taken in early June 1966: Again, looks like the grass goes all the way to paved surfaces, exceptions are pretty rare. For another example here's Groß Dölln/Templin taken in late July 1980: The low resolution of these images makes it much harder, but if it was like DCS, I would expect to see light areas bordering the runway and taxiway - I don't. I see more-or-less the same shade right up to paved areas. The areas that are darker still are likely trees. I could go on, but I think we get the message. Suffice to say, even modern day satellite imagery almost always show grass right up to paved surfaces and around fences/walls etc. The exceptions are rare and are only resemble what's seen in DCS around construction works. I know some described these areas as being dried/sun-baked grass, but if that's the case, it should be far more uniform and not look like sand right next to bright green grass.

This may be true, but the 9M38 remains the only missile of its configuration, propulsion and use case in DCS that exhibits this behaviour. It also doesn't feature any form of air-breathing propulsion. I don't have any specific evidence to hand one way or the other - searches are drawing a blank. But at the moment, it is the odd one out. I guess I'll have to wait for it to be properly investigated though it's not like BTT is adversely affecting performance.

Hi everyone, It's been discussed (though has not yet been a topic of) several other threads but I thought this could really do with its own. Currently quite a number of runways, taxiways, aprons and a fair few roads have this prominent sand-like texture surrounding them like a border. For example, here's promotional material of Spangdahlem, taken from this post. There's a number of other errors clearly visible in these images also (for instance, all of the hardened aircraft shelters are the wrong type and the open parking spots are marked as helipads when they aren't, several other structures look like they were taken from Syria and aren't that accurate either). The layout however is broadly correct. By comparison, here's a satellite photo, taken summer 2018 (the lighter area is actually from March 2017): And here are a few close-up shots: It can clearly be seen that areas of mud/dirt/sand are few and far between and in the overwhelming majority of areas, the grass goes right up to taxiways, runways, aprons etc. This is further backed up by photos taken on the airbase (these from mid May 2023, sourced from here) These from the end of May 2020: This from May 2024 It should be very clear that the sand-coloured boundary surrounding the paved surfaces is incorrect - at the very least it should be made much more sparse, as IRL, nearly every image shows more-or-less uniform grass right up to them. With these you could also make the argument that the grass texture should be darker. You could make very similar analysis at the majority of airbases, not just Spangdahlem. Yes, you sometimes see brown/dry grass, but it'll be much more uniform and not patchy (it's not like the sun only illuminates certain areas of grass). Sometimes, there is mud/dirt/sand but unless significant construction work is going it's few and far between, not all over the place as it is currently. Personally, fixing this would fairly dramatically improve the realism of these airbases.

Agree with this, but personally, there shouldn't be fictional air defence sites or training ranges in the first place. Instead, those should be up to mission editors to make. This would not only make the map more accurate, it would help remove clutter in certain areas. The other thing with the map is that aerodromes have a large, bold-faced font. If the font was smaller and not bold-faced, clutter would be less of an issue. Though obviously this is something for ED to fix.

What fire-control problem? Oerlikon Mk 7, Bofors 40 mm, AK-630, AK-725, numerous small-arms etc, even the 5"/38 on the Samuel Chase - all are capable of engaging air targets. All are capable of leading targets and compensating for elevation/range differences, why should larger calibre guns be any different? And it's not like we don't have naval gun calibre-like land-based AAA. Unless you mean realistically depicting ship fire-control, radars and the such like. The same issue is true for ground units so that's not really here nor there as far as in-game functionality is concerned.

With the Essex in the newsletter this could probably do with a bump. The Essex has 5"/38 guns, which one of, if not the most, prolific dual purpose gun of the war. The AI is already capable of engaging both aerial and land/surface targets with the same gun (easily seen with land-based AAA) and the AI appears to be able to select appropriate ammunition for appropriate targets (BTR-82A for instance will switch to APCBC-T to engage targets that the HE-T round won't damage). Even if its timed fuses in the interim, while we wait for proximity fused ammunition.

Hi everyone, Small issue, with the late January update, the 9M38M1 as fired by the Buk-M1 rolls to turn. While I don't know if the 9M38M1 actually does, rolling to turn would be quite unusual given its conventional cruciform layout (a layout it shares with most missiles in-game) - it's the only missile with a cruciform layout in-game that does so - no other missile with the same configuration exhibits this behavior and the only missiles in-game that do, are missiles with prominent wings (such as cruise and certain gliding munitions like the JSOW) where rolling to turn is expected. The only SAMs IRL that I'm aware of that roll to turn are the British Thunderbird and Bloodhound SAMs, which don't feature in DCS. 9M38M1_roll2turn.trk

Yes, this seems to be fixed, though the plume from the exhaust no longer appears to vector as it once did (presumably WIP?)

Looks like the topography is wrong compared to the real place and fwiw, the real facility is a forge.