SuperEtendard

It depends on what scenario you want to portray. If you want Germany 1985 it will be this massive mix of planes meeting and doing their different tasks, older and newer like I talked before. If you want to go for a bit of an extreme example, on the favor of the 23, you could have MiG-23MLA with R-24 vs Mirage F1 with Magics only (no radar missiles) as that's what happened in the Angolan War, or an extreme example against the 23, post desert storm 90s Iraq vs UN no fly zone enforcement against amraam equipped F-16C / F-15C. A setting I'm quite the fan of is Iran-Iraq war, with a mix of different 23 models (MF + ML), MiG-21bis, Mirage F1 with Super 530 vs F-5E, F-4E (slat + non slat), F-14A with AIM-9J/P / AIM-7E / AIM-54A. 23MLD vs F-16A for Soviet - Pakistani tensions in Afghanistan is interesting too. There's lots of possible scenarios, both real, plausible what ifs, etc. Depends on what people want to do. Trying to go for absolute match ups is more of a team deatchmatch arena / war thunder view than anything.

By that point they should be fairly common, think that mass production of the ML/MLA ended in 82, with a bit over a thousand made, and by 85 they were finishing the 23MLD fleet conversions. In regards to the earlier versions a tad over 1000 23Ms were made in the decade prior so it would depend on how many of those were still left in frontline service. There were the warsaw pact countries with 23MFs too which were similar to 23Ms, and some others with 23MLs but with R-23s for the most part iirc, and then the older stock of MiG-21s for both vvs/pvo and warpac, which could go as old as 21PFs or maybe F-13s even. European nato allies also had some older planes like F-5As, F-104s, E.E. Lightnings, Mirage IIIs / 5s too. That's the interesting thing about a cold war gone hot scenario specially in the late 70s / early 80s there would be a lot of mixing of planes of different generations duking it out and ideally that would be featured in missions with their proper ratios rather than just go with the newest thing only and unrestricted. Also a reason I really wish razbam went with a 23M or MF to be bundled with the MLA to have this earlier version that goes better along with the '74 F-4E and the Mirage F1 with R.530. A 23M/MF would have a more hands on radar management and trickier flight characteristics because of the higher weight and lower stability. Higher skill ceiling always appreciated

One thing to note with Phantom air to air missiles in the 80s is that they didn't get prioritized with the latest stuff, they kept up with their older stocks while the new missiles were for the 4th gens for the most part You can find plenty of photos of in service F-4E/Gs still equipped with live rear aspect AIM-9J/Ps and AIM-7E throughout the 80s and even the 90s

Hopefully the mid 80s J-8II that is no longer in service in that configuration is in the cards

Yeah it's true it will depend on the propellant specific heat and their total mass (I guess also the chamber diameter and lenght ratio) This PMBT change you mention of hours for which example would it be, something like an ICBM / satellite launch rocket? Maybe there are studies that show how this scales down to the sizes of air to air missiles.

Burn rate and thrust varies depending on the temperature of the propellant, and this will be affected depending on the altitude of launch (external ambient temperature) and speed of the launching plane (heat caused by air drag). Air densitiy also seems to cause slight differences. Here is an example for the rocket motor in the Soviet R-3S missile: Thrust in Kgf in the y axis, seconds of burn time in the x axis. While -54ºC to +60ºC is a big temperature range, you can see that say +15ºC at sea level in a standard day and -40ºC at 30K feet (standard day as well) would mean a rather different thrust profile for the same missile, you would also have to add the drag heating on top of it, which would also be different based on altitude. Currently in DCS we have fixed thrust and burn time values, so this imposes a limitation on rocket motor modelling.

1450 km/h for top speed clean at sea level is plausible, after all other fast fighters of the era had speed limits around that (MiG-23, JA 37). However 1620 km/h surpasses that by a fair amount. Also, the 1984 Soviet intelligence technical report places the Mirage F1 top speed with two Magics at around 1300 km/h at sea level, as drag limited, a bit higher up is where it becomes dynamic pressure limited (10,000 kgf/m^2) and then Mach limited. It's not about the mass, but about removing those external components and sealing/fairing over the fuselage and wing leading edge which would present a significant drag reduction. Even if these components are retractable, tolerances aren't perfect so you will always have seam lines causing some level of drag. It was a very cleaned up plane In regards to the modifications same as what I said above. About area rule, it helps reduce the drag of a given design, but then it's speed will be the result of the interaction of it's total drag (including lift induced drag) and engine thrust. MiG fighters weren't area ruled yet they still were among the fastest fighters of their times, the MiG-21 reaching Mach 2, the MiG-23 being able to reach up to Mach 2.6, the MiG-25 being able to surpass Mach 3. A plane being area ruled or not without further analysis shouldn't be indicative of it's speed characteristics. Also you can see in that second photo of the RB F-104, the F-104 does seem to be area ruled, the fuselage decreases it's diameter at the mid point where the wings are present. And here in this photo you can see the intake duct volume decreasing as it reaches the mid point of the wings too.

Nice, do you know when exactly did the F-4Es start to get the chaff and flares countermeasures retrofitted? I have heard it was around 1976 for chaff and then 1977 for flares but I haven't found concrete proof of it. The 1979 F-4E manual mentions the retrofit but it doesn't list a date from what I could see. If this is correct I guess the early 74 version of the module wouldn't have them but they should be there for the late DMAS version?

Afaik the 21bis has an updated encripted IFF transponder, the MiG-19P has the old one so it should work on it.

@Kirk66 In which year did you start your career on the F-4E?

F-4J sustained turns at 37.5k pounds, lighter but also draggier loadout with sidewinders. With sidewinders mounted you have to pay attention to the G limit as for example at sea level you can sustain a regime that will overstress the pylons / airframe (and the limit decreases significantly at higher fuel loads/gross weight). This also applies to the F-4E if you mount sidewinders.

After reading the FAQ, could there be a chance to have the option for a Vietnam conflict F4E with the original leading edge flaps wings?

Though DCS does support radar guided anti ship missiles, used in both playable, AI, ED and third party modules (Harpoon, Kh-22, Silkworm, C-802 come to mind). I know the RB 15 is a complex weapon, but couldn't we have proper radar guidance implemented for the RB 04 at least given it's an older gen missile similar to the other ones in the game? Thanks

The Merlin 25 in the Mosquito FB Mk VI was based on the Merlin XX (used in the Hurricane Mk II), this description indicates the Merlin XX shared the same carburettor as the Merlin 45, which was the Merlin used in the Spitfire Mk V with the stop gap Shilling's orifice to help with the negative G cut out issue.

I think that's because it's not properly focused, look at this photo for example, it's much more sharp