arneh

I notice that the Mi-24 (co-pilot's) cockpit is a Mi-24P, while the earlier announcement said you were modelling the Mi-24V. Has there been a change in plans?

I think you're confusing it with reactive armor, which works by detonating small charges just before being hit, creating a counter blast. And as far as I know the Abrams doesn't use reactive armor for its front armor, it uses Chobham armor which is a ceramic composite. As for the radiation injuries you allude to, the suggestion is that is caused by depleted uranium(DU) used in the shells, which is then released into the air when they hit something hard. So it's dangerous to be hit by a DU shell, but obviously if you are hit by it you have more to worry about than radiation poisoning :) However, the radiation may remain long afterwards, so it could be dangerous to breath close to something hit by a DU shell, and it's suggested that may be one of the causes of "Gulf War Syndrome". But it's not "radioactive armor" which is the cause.

I thought it was just in peacetime/training missions where they didn't carry flares for fear of brushfires. I'm sure they'll carry them if they're going to war somewhere with a high threat of IR-missiles. They're certainly able to carry flares. Also some other nations using Apaches have added new countermeassures on the wing tips. Don't know the details of those though.

It was just as much NATO's policy, due to the Warsaw Pact's bigger conventional force they figured the only way to stop them was to use nukes. E.g. from wikipedia: "Small teams of the Atomic Battle Group would be stationed every few kilometers to guard against Soviet attack, using the power of their nuclear artillery shells to kill or incapacitate advancing troop formations and irradiate the area so that it was uninhabitable for up to 48 hours, long enough to mobilize NATO forces."

You'll have a hard time finding a conventional bomb twice the size of even the smallest nuclear warheads. The biggest conventional bomb the US has ever used, the infamous "Mother of all bombs" has a yield of about 11 tons of TNT. The smallest nuclear warhead ever made was the Davy Crockett with a variable yield which at its lowest setting was about 10 tons of TNT. So just barely smaller than the biggest conventional bomb the US has. Really, compared to conventional weapons there are no small nuclear weapons. They are only small compared to bigger nuclear weapons.

Well, having networked PCs is a little more than just having multiple cores. That gives you multiple video cards, multiple memory, multiple harddrives etc. If ED can make a second PC be used for TV-view that's fine, but I doubt it's going to help the majority of users. And as I said, I'm sure there are lots of ways to optimize both rendering and other parts for multiple cores. But it's not an easy optimization. It takes a lot of work to optimize the code for that if it wasn't written with it in mind in the first place. Interesting. But I would like to know how they did it.

OK, please inform me how to do a TV-rendering without it affecting framerates. I'm asking because I actually want to learn how to do it, if there really is a good, working solution for that.

It's not like monochrome and poor image quality is going to make it any less framerate intensive. Basic rendering on computers is full colour and clear quality. To e.g. simulate a black/white TV it has to actively remove the colour, so it's more work than doing just a basic rendering. The same with adding effects to simulate a poor quality TV. Warning: technical talk And it's not as simple as just "letting the second core render TV". First of all, most of the rendering happens on the GFX card, so you would have to have dual-core or multiple GFX cards to see much improvement. Second the main rendering and TV-rendering still have to share a lot of data. Like the position/rotation/animation etc. of every unit it has to render must be the same for both views. This creates a bottleneck where both renderings must wait for the same code to update all of that. I'm sure there are lot's of possibilites for optimizing the rendering over several cores, but it's not as simple as just pushing it on the second core, and everything will run smooth. End of tech talk So in general I think letting the TV run at a lower frame rate is good compromise if it increases frame rates for the main view. It's not like you need as high FPS for the TV. I actually experimented a little with this in EECH, but the problem was that it couldn't just do rendering every other frame, or the gaps between frames would be uneven, which would feel like stuttering frame rates, which is in many ways worse than low FPS. You need to find a way to split the work of one rendering evenly between two (or more) frames, and I didn't find an easy and reliable way of doing that. But if ED's managed it for Black Shark, then all the better for that sim :)

If having the TV at a lower frame rate gives the rest of the sim better frame rate then I think it's totally worth it. The TV has to do a independent rendering, so if it was going to do it at the same detail and frame rate as the main view then that would pretty much halve the frame rates everytime the TV was turned on. Everything which reduces that impact is good in my eyes, and running the TV at lower frame rates seems like an acceptable solution to me.

Yes, I agree, and I've said it before. I hate missions where you stand no chance of succeeding on the first try. And when you finally do succeed it's because you know exactly what is going to happen at each point, rather than because of the skills you would need in real life where you get only one chance. And I would probably hate it even more if I had to spend an hour to get to the target zone, only to discover when I get there that it's a suicide mission with no chance of succeeding on first try.

Don't forget the cyanid pills! :)

From the same website I linked to the last time: So no, they were not armored, and unlikely to be any more bulletproof than the old canopy. And from what I can find about the Augusta A129 in the Illustrated History of Helicopters, which goes on for half a page about the survivability of the A129, only has this to say about the cockpit-protection: I would think they would mention it if the glass was armored. And I cannot find any information about the Tiger's glass being armored either. So I'm very interested in any documentation you have to the contrary. As for the Hind it's easy to find information: And for the Mi-28 I found that even the side windows are supposed to be able to withstand .50 cal projectiles. In general, "bulletproof" glass needs to be very tick, and with such thick glass it has to be flat (or very close to flat), otherwise the light refraction is going to create too much distortion when looking through it. In addition, having such thick glass is heavy, and as a result such windows are usually small. So any canopy which has big rounded glass is very unlikely to have bulletproof glass. Like e.g. the Cobra, A129, Tiger or Rooivalk. So until I see any documentation to the contrary I'll assume they don't have it.

No Cobra have any armored glass and rely on bulletproof vests and armored seats for pilot protection. And not so sure about those other helicopters you mention in the same breath either, but please provide documentation if you have any. About Cobra protection:

Maiden flight in 1975. But most of the ones still in use are AH-64Ds, which is a major upgrade and first flew in the mid 90s.

The S-66 was designed in 1964, and although the S-67 share many similarities, it's not very similar to the Mi-24. The S-66 did not have a troop compartment, and it had a tail rotor which swiveled and turned into a pusher-prop at high speed. It was a competitor to the AH-56, and like it built for high speed, not as an armed troop gunship like the Mi-24. Narrow fuselage, tandem cockpit, wings and armament describe pretty much every attack helicopter made :) (and the Mi-24 wasn't a tandem seat until the D-model) A gunship with a troop compartment is really the only unique thing these helicopters have in common, but to say the Mi-24 was a rip-off because of that is pushing it very far IMO. I think most would agree that it was fortunate the Soviets weren't involved in more conflicts ;) Air-to-air wasn't a role neither helicopter was designed for, so it's not very relevant as a comparison for their main roles. And I think it's generally agreed that the Mi-24 did well in Afghanistan as well. It was certainly one of the most feared weapons by the Mujahedin. Yes, that I've understood :) But it was a capable helicopter in its day, it just hasn't been kept up to date, and hence its 30-year-old technology cannot compete with modern helicopters. But it's still useful in low-intensity conflicts.

I think that's pushing it, the S-67 Black Hawk and Mi-24 were developed about at the same time (the S-67 had first flight in 1970, the Mi-24 in 1969. But both obviously starting design years earlier). I have a hard time seeing how the Mi-24 can be a rip-off of the S-67, even though they both turned out to be relatively similar. But if you can name some sources which explains how the Mi-24 design was influenced by the S-67 then I would surely be very interested to know about them!

Sounds like a huge improvement over the Lock-On campaigns! Very glad to hear I won't have to refly the same missions to advance the campaign. If the missions are interesting as well it should be fun :)

There exists many AH-64Ds without radar as well, and they are known as Apaches, like the AH-64As. Only the AH-64Ds which have radar are called Longbows (or Apache Longbow), as it's the radar itself which is named Longbow. Read about the different D-variants here: http://members.aol.com/ah64info/difference.htm

I've heard the same story. Except it was East Germany during the cold war, and the US helicopter was a Cobra...

Read here for a description of all the worlds biggest helicopters: http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/helicopters/q0284.shtml

My guess would be the Mi-12. Empty weight: 69,100 kg, max TO 105,000 kg. For comparison the CH-47 has an empty weight of just 10,185 kg, max TO 22,680 kg (and the CH-53 is heavier and can lift more than the CH-47 among US helicopters, ).

From http://www.vectorsite.net/avlynx.html#m2: So it was no regular Lynx.

A specially modified Lynx did reach that speed, but the regular Lynxes in service are no way near that fast. According to http://www.vectorsite.net/avlynx.html the Lynx AH.1 has a maximum speed of 140 kts (250 kph), and the Lynx HAS.2 125 kts (230 kph). While http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=94 says the Lynx AH.9 has a maximum speed of 138 kts. Which is slower than most other modern attack helicopters.

Ah, thanks, I think I got it. But to illustrate with an example, say the collective is at max which gives the blade an AOA of 20° (the number is just an example), and the pedals can then increase the AOA even beyond that (for one rotor), to e.g. 25°? And the other rotor then at 15°. I don't know if this is the case for the Ka-50, but some helicopters can have negative AOA on the blades at lowest collective level. I.e. the blades actually produce a downforce instead of lift. But I can imagine that would cause problems with differential collective. Negative lift should produce more torque than no lift (and in the same direction as torque from positive lift, since it still rotates in the same direction). So if the collective is in such a position that the blades produce no lift, then applying differential collective so that one produces negative and the other equal positive lift, then the torque from both would also cancel each other out, and we don't get the twist we wanted by pressing the pedals... If my musings are correct :) But guess the Ka-50s rotors cannot do negative AOA? I bet it would cause all sorts of aerodynamic problems as well, with the downwash/upwash between the rotors interfering if one was creating positive and the other negative lift. Sounds like a bad idea :)

A quick follow-up. What happens if you already have the collective at max or min, so that one of the rotors cannot change collective anymore? Does it just change it for the one rotor and let you lose or gain some total lift?