xvii-Dietrich

I like the idea of more "civilian aircraft", but it would be better to have "combat aircraft, that can be used in a civilian role". For example, the UH-1H Iroquois/Huey is a combat helicopter, but you can remove the hardpoints and use the civilian livery and you get a civilian helicopter. Something like that could be done with a AC-208 Caravan or similar, for example. But it does need to be relevant to combat... it is DCS after all. Or maybe it could be from a 3rd party Dev. But just a random civilian from ED may well be unprofitable, and thus suffer a similar fate to the Yak52.

Deployment started in July. The earliest reference to a bombing mission I can find is for Einsatzkommando Schenk (I./KG 51) which flew its first Me 262s against Allied ground forces along the Seine River on 25 August 1944. There may be earlier ones, but I don't have references for those. Due to the collapse at Falais, Luftwaffe forces retreated soon after, but that applies to all aircraft, not just the jet bombers. To be clear, I am not stating that this is overly significant, but I am challenging the assertion that it is "completely irrelevant to the theatres we have". References: http://www.ww2.dk/air/kampf/kg51.htm http://www.ww2.dk/air/kampf/schenck.html http://www.ghostbombers.com/kf4/KG%2051/schenck_02.html http://www.ghostbombers.com/kf4/KG%2051/schenck_05.html https://ww2.dk/Airfields%20-%20France.pdf

It is not "completely irrelevant to the theatres we have". Me 262 aircraft flew over Normandy. They were operated by I.Gruppe / Kampfgeschwader 51 from Châteaudun in July 1944 and then Étampes in August 1944. Ref: https://ww2.dk/air/kampf/kg51.htm . The Me 262 is more relevant to the Normandy campaign than, say, the Bf 109 K4. While I agree with you that there are airframes that are more relevant than the Me 262 (such as the FW 190 F-8), it is disingenuous to claim it is "completely irrelevant".

It's obvious that @The_Fragger is back from his summer break and pouring fresh effort into the model. Today he posted up some screenshots showing the detail on the weapon racks... right down to the tiny label detail. He also wrote that he will be moving on to the fuselage next.

@The_Fraggerposted up some new images on Discord this evening. HOT weapon tubes.

Totally agree. It serves for WW2, Cold War and Modern. And, as there is a lot of wilderness, it is not going to be too heavy on the building-objects. Ref: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/218217-arctic-map/?do=findComment&comment=4070482 Also, most map projections make "the North" look really huge. It the map projection is done properly centred on the Lat/Long of the map centre, it is not nearly so onerous. And DCS already has some large maps. Ref: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/277533-a-size-comparison-of-dcs-maps/

Well, Nick Grey is not a big fan of the LW aircraft (ref), so I doubt it will ever be a high priority. At one point, there was talk about an F8/G8 variant, but that went quiet, and then the A8 moved from EA to released. We can't even get bugs fixed, so I think a new variant seems, sadly, overly-optimistic. I agree with you. It would be a great thing to have and it would increase the range of the aircraft (which, in the absence of an F8/G8, is something I would appreciate). I'd even go as far as to request the option to remove _all_ the guns, but as far as I know, there is only historical evidence for the outer wing guns being removed.

Very classy! This is a really nice feature. I am so looking forward to flying this aircraft in DCS.

Superb! Thank you very much. This is greatly appreciated!!

At the moment, the C-101 (both EB and CC) are available to both the Combined Joint Task Forces. However, there are no skins with that allocation, which means that a default is used, which has numbers all over it and only one skin selection (see screenshot). What I was wondering, was whether it would be possible for the developers to consider adding the CJTFB and CJTFR factions to a selection of existing skins for both the C-101EB and C-101CC, please? Doing so, would allow us to include the C-101 variants in CJTF missions (for either blue or red), as opposed to the current method which is to have "CJTF + Spain". Of particular value would be both the "CLAEX Desert Camu Skin - Centro Logístico de Armamento y Experimentación" and "CLAEX Green Camu Skin - Centro Logístico de Armamento y Experimentación" for the C-101CC, but of course others would also be appreciated. As the change is modifying and existing configuration file to access existing skins, this (to me) does not seem like a lot of work, so perhaps it could be considered? While I realise that it is possible to mod this ourselves, having it officially available as part of the module would make it possible to use this in multiplayer. Thanks.

I understand if they want to leave the RNAS or RAF or whatever tags off. I mean, you could have hypothetical scenarios where these are not UK airfields, right? The others are all fine (in my opinion). It was just Ford that seemed to be the odd one out, and which had been inexplicably changed in the recent patch. Regarding the codes: these strike me as being similar to the ALG codes for the airstrips in France (e.g. Carpiquet = ALG-B-17). Possibly less important, but mMaybe the AAF-codes could be handled in the same way as those, and displayed on the resources overlay window?

Recently we've had crashes in the Storm of War statistics, which we traced back to an unannounced name-change of Ford airfield on the Normandy Map. It seems that the airfield name was altered in the DCS 2.7.4.9632 Open Beta - 21.07.2021 patch from "Ford_AF" to "Ford AB". What is puzzling is why this is the only airfield on the entire map which has AF, or now AB, after the name at all? All the others have no suffices. For example, Tangmere, Barville, Carpiquet, etc. are all just the names. .

I prefer typical variants or more-widely-used variants, than any special, best or last versions. So, I'd go for a J35F (incl. J35FS) in the first instance. But, really, any J35 Draken would be good; it is such a cool plane. Once there's a flyable J35, HB can move onto their other projects

` NORTH CAPE This region includes parts of the Norwegian and Barrents Sea and Arctic Fennoscanida, incl. Lapland, Kola Peninsula, down to the Gulf of Bothnia. The area is sparse, so there are no huge city-areas to model. Non-urban areas make it more "timeless", permitting both WW2, Cold War and Modern scenarios. It is NOT another desert map. It suits a large range of currently-available, and planned, DCS modules. It has large areas of both land and sea. Landscape is varied: towering mountains, lakes, fjords, open tundra, forest. Winter snow and the possibility for road-based cold-war runways. It is a battle-area (WW2), stand-off area (Cold War) and exercise area (modern NATO Arctic exercises). More reasons listed in this thread: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/218217-arctic-map/?do=findComment&comment=4070482 Region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_of_the_North

These look excellent @The_Fragger. Thanks for constantly keeping us up-to-date with the Bo-105 progress it is very much appreciated.

The ETC 501 carrier rack on the FW 190 A-8 seems to have no mass. The rack (referred to as "pylon" in the mission editor) can be removed using the drop-down menu for the central position. Regardless whether the rack is present or not, the total mass of the aircraft (shown on the right-hand side bar) remains unchanged. Attached are screenshots showing the discrepancy.

All publicity for TrueGrit (+ MilTech5, + HeatBlur) and the Eurofighter is a good thing. I agree with @kseremakthat the GR videos have evolved immensely over the last years. These days they are putting out reasonable quality content with revised tutorials on many of the modules. Sure, there are still errors and there is still crass and racist content too. But there is nevertheless a lot of good stuff and it's improving. However, the fact is that GR are publishing a lot of material. This is obviously reaching a wider audience and is raising the profile of DCS, and combat flight simming generally. GR are doing a good job in that, they are getting better, and they serve an important outreach role. That brings it back to TrueGrit (+ MilTech5, + HeatBlur) and the Eurofighter. Getting publicity through all possible channels is excellent, as it will help advertise the module, which in turn will boost sales and the attractiveness of DCS to 3rd parties. DCS is a challenging development environment. But if it can grow, then that will benefit us all. Perhaps GR could do another interview with TrueGrit and Heatblur as the release date approaches?

WOW! This came as a complete surprise. Mind you, I must admit I've somewhat mixed feelings. HB+TG... excellent for the EF! The EF will be finished faster (or even at all). But what happens to the A6 and J35? Will they be delayed while HB work on the EF? I also thought it was good to have lots of separate 3rd party devs working on their own projects. That makes them more passion projects and there is a better chance of attention to detail and ongoing support. When it starts to be a conglomeration, it might be more production than passion? Would quality suffer? I hope that's not the case here. I also hope that TG keep using MilTech5 to do their 3D model work, which is the best in the class. Still, it is by far better to have TG subsumed into HB, than to see the project fail. So, this is definitely the right move for the EF. Best wishes for the project! And, yeah, that was a very, very, classy trailer video! EDIT: It was a classy trailer. For some reason it has been pulled off YouTube. But HB... please don't forget that *cough* flyable *cough* J35.

From the Server FAQ... Ref: https://stormofwar.net/dcs/

We've taken a look at the scale of the all DCS maps and how they relate to each other. Nevada and Marianas are completely separate from all the others. The Channel and Normandy overlap each other. The Caucasus, Syria and Persian Gulf maps are near each other, but there is no overlap. But these are spaced at the correct distance apart on the image. The "populated" (in a scenery sense) areas of each map are not the same. It is pretty obvious on the Caucasus where the filled-in area is. The Persian Gulf has detail for the Strait of Hormuz, while Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq are coastlines only. The Syria map actually has the most scenery-populated land area. And, of course, water is water... the Marianas has a minuscule landmass but is still, in a sense, the largest map. A link to the full article (and hi-res downloads) is here if anyone is interested: https://stormofwar.net/2021/07/19/july-2021-dcs-map-comparison/ .

Have you had a look at this yet? The original post seems to show exactly how to deal with the problem, and has carefully provided the historical references. It would be really good if this could be passed on to the team to get it implemented. Superficially, from the outside, it looks like this would be a moderately straight-forward thing to rectify, and it would be also relatively easy for a pair of beta-testers to check it in a coop mission, so it could be rolled out into the sim. Thanks.

It was absolute minimum, I agree. The list in Section 8 of the report are units in addition to those already being developed. Magnitude3 are developing an Essex-class carrier. (They could also put that unit on the Japanese roster with a rising-sun-flag and a huge red-circle on the flight deck and you have a stand-in for the Taiho, I suppose.) American landing craft are already in the WW2 assets pack, or are being developed by Mag3, and they are not needed for Japanese forces, who are on the defensive at this stage. Also, we know the difficulty of getting any WW2 assets. While it is easy to draft up a massive list of hundreds of unit types, that section really was trying to keep it to an absolute minimum to make it tractable for any development effort, whether ED or a 3rd party. Another point for that report was that it was from an historical perspective. So, trying to get the bare minimum to create a series of historical missions. In any case, we don't think we could make it work for Storm of War. Hence the conclusion that we will not use Marianas on our server. That said, it would still make a nice coop or SP map.

There are multiple WW2 servers, but they are all on the Open-Beta version of DCS. Some to watch out for are: "Clash of Wings" is one good place to get started. It is set on the Channel map, with a more localised area to help get you started and find action quickly. See their website for details: https://www.clashofwings.com/ Then there is "Les Faucheurs de Marguerites" (LFDM) which has both Normandy and Channel-Map servers. You can find their website here: https://lfdm.online/index.php/fr/ For "Storm of War", check the briefings to find ground targets (= action). There are radar-callouts for contacts. And, use SRS to get live voice-comms with fellow pilots. (Or check the SoW discord.)

These look super! I find the periscope intriguing. I think this will be a really fine feature on the machine.

This seems easy to make. Within DCS, we already have an "effect" category, which includes small-fire-with-smoke, medium-fire-with-smoke, large-fire-with-smoke and huge-fire-with-smoke. They seem to be the same effect... merely scaled. Would it be possible to add another one? ... tiny-fire-with-smoke? In the mission editor you could even co-locate it with a drum or other cargo object if you really wanted a drum fire effect.