HWasp

Ah, ok I guess it was stricty forbidden for soviets to move their air defenses around, especially since most their 1980s stuff was mobile, even the SA-10 has a deployment time of 5 minutes. But I guess they'll just use them as static defense in depth, because reasons... They certainly did not think about trying to make highly mobile and redundant systems, like the SA-11, all the launchers having their own fcr. Just everything static.

Well, I think that is the point here, that they were able to adapt to the situation, use their equipment the best way possible. In those other often mentioned conflicts it is usually the opposite, like not moving a mobile SAM unit for days, firing a lot of missiles on fake drone targets, shooting down their own aircrafts all the time, etc... Maybe there was a bit of difference in training standards, who knows? Telling mobile SA-6 units to just stay there and form a wall is not something I would consider very clever.... Also being able to set up a SAM trap means, that they knew where to look and when (they allowed themself 20 seconds of radar emission at a time, then relocate as fast as possible afaik), so NATO wasn't really able to completely disrupt their "system". In 1999.

It's a bit off-topic, but I think it might be important to keep in mind, when those middle-east conflicts are quoted as proof for total western superiority, that while syrian mobile SA-6 systems were destroyed with ease there in the 1980s, much more recently, in 1999 a shitty old SA-3 unit managed to stay alive with no losses in the NATO-Serbia war and scored 2:0 with all the ECM and harms flying around. I think that should be kept in mind before going to the very convenient conclusion that it would have been an easy fight in the 1980s in Europe

The initial claim here, that I jumped on was that Su-27 vs F-15 the exchange ratio would be 6 to 1 in favor of the F-15. Now we are talking about SPO-10 and MiG-21/23. Going 6:1 against the 21 and 23 sounds realistic and tbh it is close to the minimum requirement for an F-15 (or 14) given the numbers and the price difference between those aircraft. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that about a half squadron worth of 23s could be bought for the price of the F-15. And production numbers reflect that. (Let's not even talk about 21s) In DCS a 15 nm Sparrow shot from 20k ft is absolutely no reason to splitS or break lock in any way. If you claim, that missile kinematics are modeled wrong for aim-7, then please post report to have them fix it. I have only seen charts for the 7F. It might be considered otherwise IRL because, well it is IRL and they would respect any weapon launch much much more as it life or death. But that also means, that an R-27 launch would be treated with much more respect, as well, and could cause the enemy to break lock. (BTW I've read it here often, that the R-27 is considered a shit missile because it scored almost 0 in the Ethiopia-Eritrea war without anyone knowing what happened there. Never read anyone thinking about the possibilty, that maybe those mercenary pilots did not want to press a deadly head-on and rather broke lock trashing both missiles. It's easy to turn a 100% pk fox1 to 0% if they break lock....)

Ok, so WW3 over Europe were to be nice, clean 4v4s, with perfect picture, it is no problem that they loose a bit of SA and can only engage one target at a time, from a rather close range, against an enemy with superior numbers... there are tactics to deal with all that, easy 6:1 kill ratio. Sure. I'm talking talking about the threat of the all aspect IR missiles at close ranges, because (US) experiments have shown that when they are used by both sides, exchange ratio tends to gravitate towards 1:1 regardless of the aircraft types. That sounds like a very realistic expectation to me, and it is the reason the US went really heavy on BVR. My point is that the Aim-7 is not enough (the 120 is). There are flares in DCS and IRL. Question is: do you have perfect SA to notice the launch or not? So the reason I think 1:6 or 1:4 is ridiculous is that I suspect the fight to get close and chaotic, simple as that.

How do you clean up BVR with Aim-7s (or R-27R) ? At medium altitudes any shot beyond 10 nm with either of those has around 0% hit chance (unless the target flies like a target drone just straight into the missile...). If you have data, that the DCS Aim-7 is completely wrong, please share. I get it, the F-15 has a very good radar, and that gives good SA, but if the weapon is the Aim-7, they'll have to get quite close to actually kill something, and that good SA will degrade quickly as they need to stay in STT to guide the missiles. At those 20-10 nm ranges where the real fight starts both 29/27 or even a MiG-23 should be able to get a lock on the F-15 and shoot missiles with comparable range, that are even faster. Are the F-15s going to just stay on target all the way, while their Aim-7s finally hit, hoping that the R-27 is just a shitty missile, and won't hit them anyway? Because if both break lock fearing the enemy missile at some point, then the F-15s just found themself somewhere less than 5 nm to those IR missiles, and their superior radar does not do much at those ranges. And btw, what about the numbers in the 1980s? It would be quite realistic to have something like a 4v1 against GCI guided MiG-23s. How were they going to manage that if the range of their primary weapons are that close? So I think, that 1 to 6 ratio sounds like whishful thinking.

That exchange ratio is just ridiculous. With Sparrows? Really? Even if we consider Su-27/MiG-29 radar and R-27 trash, they would have to get close to get the kills, and then anything can happen with all those deadly all-aspect IR missiles flying around. I'm not talking about 1v1 obviously.

My speculation is, that if the G vs AoA in DCS was closer to what is shown in the video (17,4 vs 23 AoA seems too much for me even with all the unknown variables), that would mean that both the lift vs aoa and the drag vs aoa curves would get a little flatter, and that would cause, I think, a decrease in sustained turn rates, but increased nose authority, and that would be in line with their feedback. Do you have any links to where this was discussed?

Your original post is unfortunately quite pointless, because there is no way to accurately measure and test dynamic things like speed loss in a turn based on that couple of seconds of hud footage, where they fly with all kinds of attitudes, but the video is very good, thanks for posting that. What we can easily match to DCS are values on the HUD in a given situation, and that shows that you get more Gs for the AoA in DCS There is one point in the video at 7:50 where the instructor takes over and pulls 5.2 Gs max at 15 degrees pitch down at 310 kts, and ends up at 260 kts a bit later as he pulls on target. You can certainly do better in DCS with around 7000 lbs of fuel on board. You get 5.2 Gs in that situation in DCS just for little over 17 degrees AoA and you can almost sustain it. Track included this time F-18min15degturn.trk

Where did I say I was sustaining it?? lol These are 2 separate subjects. The screens simply show the plane in a situation, that matches a screen from the video. Simple as that.

IRL if an aircraft registers an exceedance, there is usually some explaining to do by the crew later on, and people tend to try to avoid that. Are you sure, that it is a common occurance that F-18 pilots exceed the FCS limiter by accident? Do you have any source on that?

I checked with your fuel values, then its is 3Gs at 250 kts horizontal at 10k feet With that much fuel max G is limited to 6.5, but in the video they have max G of 7.3, so they must be lighter We really can't measure speed loss form those vids, but what we can see, is that they certainly get less Gs for a given AoA, so there is a clear difference between DCS and the videos, but in this case DCS is clearly overperforming not under. this certainly depends on weight, but they can't be too heavy if max G shows 7.3

at 300 kts 4,6 Gs horizontal at 250 kts 3,4 Gs horizontal that it what the 18 sustains for me with 2x aim9s center tank and pylons on with total fuel of 7000 - 6000 lbs in horizontal flight at 10000 feet

Managed to get a screen at exactly AoA= 22,4 in DCS (3 kts slower though) config : 2x AiM-9s + 1 center tank, no pylons, total fuel : 7000 lbs Video : 4,6 G DCS : 5,5 G (with the pylons it is only 5,4G at 293 btw)

I could not open your track for some reason, but for me the F-18 can sustain 4,6 G in horizontal flight at 10000 feet easily with a center tank (total fuel between 7000 and 6000) (and around 3,8 Gs at 20000 feet horizontal ...) What altitude did you try that? Also comparing the DCS AoA vs G and the video's AoA vs G, it turns out they get less Gs for the AoA compared to DCS: Video: 290 kts at 13800 feet ---- AoA 22,4 degrees ----> 4.6 G (or 4,8 its blurred) DCS: 290 kts at 13700 feet ---- AoA 20,4 degrees ------> 5,3 G This can vary with weight a lot of course, but they can't be too heavy in the video since they have 7.3 as max G on the hud

Ok, so here is the old, already reported thread about the problem. Is there any way to fix this without complete redesign? One idea: What if chaff would disappear in 0.5 to 1 sec after release? This would simulate stationary chaff being filtered out. Chaff would still have an effect but missiles would not do such large turns away from the target. After how much time does chaff disappear in game currently?

I would not say, that it is worse than before. Overall higher top speed, less drag, would not trade it for the old one. Fix the guidance problems, by all means. It should be more reliable. I don't think that pushing for further changes in kinmatics makes sense until guidance is fixed.

I see, now this is marked "reported earlier", so just disregard this thread.

I did not argue about the Hornet's radar, I just said, that it's range was decreased in 2.7 by ED and afaik it was intentional. My point is that the F-16 radar should not have more range than either the F-15 or the 18.

Hornet radar range was decreased this patch, it is more comparable to the F-15 now. F-16 having more range than the F-15 makes no sense imo.

In the current patch DCS F-16s radar has more range, than the Hornet and the F-15 (that has been the case for a long time with the F-15) Some sources, and the fact, that it has a smaller size, indicate, that it should have less range, than the other two. Are there any plans to review the radar performance of this plane in the near future?

Current R-27R top speed at 1000m is around 820 m/s launched at 1150 km/h Current R-27ER top speed at 1000m is aroud 1020 m/s launched at 1150 km/h (at 3 second after launch) and 950 m/s when fuel is depleted. R-27R deceleration between 770 and 720 m/s is 74,9 m/s2 average R-27ER decel. between same speeds is 53,1 m/s2 average Empty 27R is 185 kg and empty 27ER is 210 kg So 27R has 40% more deceleration while only about 12% lighter and aerodynamically better ---- > R-27R drag can be improved a lot, it has a lot more drag than the 27ER

ER could do maybe even 5000km/h down low, if all the fuel was used by the first stage only. (I'd like to try that tbh ) Probably the missile would even fall apart at those speeds, no idea how much heating and pressure that thing could even tolerate...

I've tried to do some very rough basic calculations: (320 m/s at launch at 1000m) - Current situation with the 3/7 setup : missile reaches around 1040 m/s, 3 seconds after launch, then 7 seconds later it ends up flying at around 935 m/s when fuel runs out - With the 2/8 setup based on this doc: the missile would be around 800 m/s at 2 seconds with the 1st stage, then it would continue to accelerate reaching 1050 m/s 8 sec later. trying to calculate the distances: -currently missile is out of fuel 9 km from launch at 935 m/s speed - I think with 2/8 setup: it would be out of fuel at 8,7 km from launch, but traveling at 1050 m/s -----> the missile would travel around 1,2 km while decelerating from 1050 to 935 m/s So overall I guess the missile would burn out at 0,3 km less distance from launch, but gain +1,2 km glide, so overall it could be around 0,9 km + flyout distance. It seems DCS uses a constant average acceleration for the first 3 seconds, and I used that to guess the speeds for the 2/8 config, so maybe the 1st stage speed would be lower still with the 2/8 setup, only around 760 m/s instead of 800 m/s In this case gain would be lower, maybe just a couple hundred meters flyout distance.

Thank you!