arneh

Yes, techically it must be rifled to be a recoilless rifle, but as Wikipedia says: " Technically, only devices that use a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles. Smoothbore variants (those devoid of rifling) are termed recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles." Yes, a rocket launcher is not techincally a recoilless rifle. It has a smooth barrel, it uses fins, and often have a rocket engine which continues firing after it has left the barrel. But it uses the same principle as a recoilless rifle, i.e. that it's open in the back so that the gases can escape backwards without having to be slowed by something (though some work by the principle of firing something else than just gas out the back to counter the force). It's usually not very safe to stand right behind such a gun :) It's having to slow the gases which causes recoil on the gun. And having shock absorbers doesn't remove the recoil, it just spreads it out over a little longer time, so that it's not such a high sudden force. Another disadvantage of a recoilless rifle is that it's hard to propel the projectile to very high speeds. The buildup of gas pressure is one of the ways to give it high speed, and if you just let that escape out the back then it won't have as high a velocity.

I might. Though I would try my best to make it up to ED's standard :) But still unlikely to be payware, so none of the options fit :P

Yes, velocity matters. But that doesn't really help the 30mm round's chances, as tank rounds have a muzzle velocity of around 1500 m/s, while 30mm rounds usually have a muzzle velocity of around 1000 m/s. So it loses on velocity too. Of course, the projectile doesn't hit the target at muzzle velocity, it loses quite a bit along the way. But I somehow doubt that 30 mm round loses velocity that much slower than the 120 mm round that it hits at a higher velocity.

I don't think you quite understood what I meant. I'm not asking them to make simpler or less accurate models. What I'm saying is that they cannot have an absolute rule of no classified information about any of the system on the aircraft they model, because then they won't be able to model any modern aircraft. It's a scale, where some aircraft have many classified systems, while others have only a few. And I can perfectly understand and support ED's decision of only modelling aircraft with as few classified systems as possible. But that doesn't mean that even those aircraft have a few classified systems.

It's not as black and white that you have classified aircraft and non-classified aircraft (if you want to take it litterally a classified aircraft would be an aircraft which existence is secret, like the F-117 used to be). There is usually some or more systems in the aircraft which are classified. Hardly any modern combat aircraft contains no classified information. IFF, jammers and radars are among the systems commonly classified (at least in part). And I'm convinced most of the planes ED already have planned to make include some such classified systems. So I guess it's more of a grey area, they want to have as much public information as possible, and as little unknown (classified) as possible. But if they ruled out every plane which contains some classified information then there wouldn't be many modern planes to model, so they will have to be a little less strict than that ;)

Do you have a link with some reference to that, apart from "search on youtube"? I haven't heard anything about common jamming problems for the M230, so I would like to know more. Wikipedia does mention the jamming problem of the Cobra's M197, but doesn't say anything about M230 problems. But then wikipedia isn't perfect, so if you have other references that would be useful :)

Uhm, the Russians don't use US produced ammunition ;) But it's about the same size and weight as the A-10 round. Never heard about an Apache with an M242. And the link you provide doesn't say anything about it. The Apache's M230 is closely related to the M242 (basicly a bigger version of it). Neither have I heard anything about the M230 being prone to jamming. It's a chain gun, and one of it's strong sides is that the chain makes it less prone to jamming. Maybe you're thinking of the Cobra? The M197 has been very prone to jamming, and they did test Cobras with M242. Though didn't go through with it for production, so even the AH-1Z still uses the M197. Edit: correction, the 25mm gun tested on the Cobra wasn't the M242, but the GAU-12 (also used on the AV-8B).

You have to consider he used almost all the 64 flares on the left side within a couple of minutes. Won't be able to stay over the battlefield for long with that kind of usage.

Which tail rotor? :)

I think gun duels against AAA is a bad trouble in any case ;) The Ka-50 gun is movable, so the same workload is already there. It just doesn't move as much as a turreted gun. And the Ka-50 has an autopilot mode for turning the aircraft at the target. Don't you think it's easier to make an automated system which just moves the gun, and not the entire helicopter? :) The Mi-28 uses the exact same gun and ammunition as the Ka-50. But yes, the AH-64 fires lighter projectiles at a lower muzzle velocity, so hence less powerful, even if the caliber is the same.

Well, the Mi-28 uses the exact same gun in a turret under the nose. So it's certainly possible to do it that way with that gun. But from what I understand the side mounting has more stability, and gives better accuracy. It's a trade off.

Cool video. But if I'm not mistaken it's not the Vikhr which is refered to as the AT-9 in the west, it's the Ataka. The Vikhr has the NATO reporting name AT-16 Scallion. But it's easy to confuse those missiles as they are basically competitors for the same mission. And I also get the impression that their russian names are used much more instead of the NATO names even in the west. Compared to earlier missiles.

Another limiting factor for helicopter top speed is that such high aspect ratio wings as a rotor blade cannot go supersonic. And as speed builds up (and the retreating blade reaches stall speed) the advancing blade tips reaches supersonic speed.

Well, you're comparing to specially modified helicopters (in the case of the AH-56 the entire helicopter was built for speed). A regular Lynx is much slower. And even if the Mi-24 was built for speed, the regular models don't go much above 300 kph. 300 kph is in fact quite fast for a helicopter. More normal helicopters like a Huey or Jet Ranger are barely faster than 200 kph.

That may be the case for Black Shark, but I imagine they are able to come up with something more advanced by the time DSC:Hind comes out. It's still at least a couple of years away.

Its capacity is usually listed as 8 infantry or 4 stretchers. Although I can imagine four stretchers in there would be very tight!

It is indeed a modified Lynx which has the current helicopter speed record at 400.87 kph. The previous record holder though was a modified Mi-24 (called A-10) at 368.4 kph. Interestingly this Hind had its wings removed to reduce weight. It was also one of the earlier models with the greenhouse-cockpit, not the bubble-canopies. The Comanche wasn't particulary fast, but you're maybe thinking of the AH-56 Cheyenne, which at least on paper was capable of maximum speeds of over 400 kph. But it never ran for the speed record before it got cancelled, and in any case wasn't eligible in the helicopter class as it was a compound. It used fairly big wings and a pusher-propeller to give it higher top speed. In fact, at higher speeds only one fifth of the engine power went to the rotor, the rest going to the pusher propeller.

There are some problems with the cockpit relative pointer, which needs to be resolved. Like what do you do when the view position changes (e.g. when moving in TrackIR)? E.g. the switch you were hovering may now be blocked by some other piece of cockpit. Do you still let the cursor stay at the now blocked instrument, or do you move it someplace else (onto what is now blocking the cursor?)? If you move it to the front then it's no longer completely cockpit relative, and moving the head may move the cursor as well, which somewhat defeats the purpose of it (though not completely, having it stabilized in rotation is still useful, even if it won't be in stabilized movement). But you can't put the cursor somewhere and count on it staying there unless you also let the cursor be blocked behind something else.

That's not quite true, at high speed the wings do provide up to a quarter of the total lift for the Mi-24. But it's not able to fly on the wings alone.

Once previously when the topic came up I quoted the pilots from that flight that found the hovering helicopter with AA-radar and then dropped a LGB on it: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=437835&postcount=52

Found this picture which is almost the same, but they've switched the Vikhrs and Iglas on the right. Here you can clearly see that the Vikhrs are quite a bit bigger than the Iglas.

It's a bit small on the picture to be absolutely sure, but it does look like a twin Igla launcher. Like this one (well, this one is a quad):

Igla V missiles.

Thanks, that's all I wanted to know :)

Fine, except in this case you already announced that it would be the V-model. Then the screenshot shows a P-model cockpit, so I was a little curious if the plans had changed. Look, if we got a answer to clear it up like V, P or "announcing V was premature, we haven't decided yet" then I'm sure we'll all be satisfied with the answer. It's the contradicting information we have now which has started the curiousity. And it's not as if it makes a huge difference, I'm just curious.