RShackleford

Love the "Check master arm" at 4:07 then seeing the gun cross appear a second later. Would have been a shame to MEZ pen only to go through dry because you were on safe....

I don't see any reason for them to use the -220 vs. the -229. I think most of the DCS community would ditch the module if they had a jet that refuses to go supersonic under 30,000ft (unless it's the hawg, of course.) But still, don't expect going supersonic with a full bomb load to be the norm. Also don't expect to BFM a flanker and win. The thing is a pig compared to the C model.

Please realize that not all missiles are launched to down an enemy aircraft. An AIM-120, AIM-54, etc. isn't always launched for the exact purpose of hitting the enemy. a .5pk for a missile means literally nothing. If the aircraft shooting the missile has the duty of defending a strike asset and that missile loses due to kinematics (enemy aircraft running away) but the strike asset puts bombs on target, it is still a victory. Air to air is still ultimately for air to ground jets to support the ground assets. Even a defensive counter air flight over ground units protecting those guys, if they launch all their AMRAAMs and nothing hits due to enemy turning away to defeat the missiles, it is still a success because the enemy jets turned away and didn't bomb the friendlies. Basically, there's really no "Pk" of a missile unless you tag it with every single variable. No missile has had that much testing. The air force "shot kill" pub divides everything into a high Pk table and medium Pk table for training and separates the two on jamming and kinematic related things, and uses excel to randomize spreadsheets for the training. Still, in the end, if you are flying a defensive counter air sortie and the hostiles turn away, you are winning.

Usually the targets will have mensurated category I coordinates (0-6m accuracy) so you can just use that as the designation. Realize that other things can effect this (such as GPS jamming) which might require you to self-target JDAMs or use laser guided bombs instead (which put the aircraft at higher risk because they can't simply drop then use max AB to get away from the target area and threats.)

APG-82 has far more in common with APG-63(v3) than APG-70.

WAMPUM On the Warpath!

Any idea if it is certified for the approaches requiring glidepath assistance (LPV) that allows you to go down to 200' mins? I foresee most military aircraft upgrading to RNAV in the near future. The FAA is getting rid of a ton of NAVAIDS such as NDB, VORTACs, and even ILS in the next few years. NDBs are pretty much all gone already. Most fighters can already use RNAV for point to point navigation but aren't certified for terminal area navigation yet (STARs or GPS approaches.)

My experience is F-15E side. Our equivalent is the SIT page. You scale the SIT page for what you're doing, it has some nice HOTAS so you can scale in and out, change the focus, etc. while you're in command of the A2A radar. I'll generally have a small size for transit and admin, then scale out to 80-160nm de-centered/centered for tactical portion. Having the JHMCS helps a lot, because I can look towards donors and see where people are down to .1nm accuracy. Little circle around (or at least near, because the alignment isn't perfect) flight lead and a number next to it to give range. Before having JHCMS, I would work things to make sense for the mission (and still do.) Air to air, the cursors on the SIT match where my cursors on the radar are. Air to ground, I make it so the cursors don't match, so I can latch flight lead on the SIT page, change command to air to air radar, and my cursors stay latched to flight lead for BRAA/bullseye info while I work air to air radar independently. I guess the simple answer to your question is that if you can see you're roughly line abreast to your element lead with A/A TACAN also on to give decently good measurements, you don't really need to see anyone. Done some "IMC Rules" fights where I haven't seen my flight lead the entire time just by using A/A TACAN and Link16.

It actually works pretty much like that. Line of sight is required for everything, but there has to be one entity that is the net time reference (NTR) to keep everything connected correctly and it's usually a C2 platform. There's also platforms that connect link16 and SADL players together (gateways.) If you can't get network data directly from another link16 player but the C2 platform does, you'll get the info from the C2. Disregarding this whole airborne C2 discussion, Link16 works a lot farther away than 5-6 miles fighter to fighter only. Of course it doesn't work from one side of a mountain to the other (LOS blocked) but at 20k ft you should be able to see most of what your wingman sees in the DCS maps. A 4-ship eagle commit usually makes the formation spread apart by 10-20nm for the initial push, relying on datalink for position keeping. 5th gens spread even wider apart.

You might damage them enough to be combat ineffective, but GP bombs are not at all designed to kill tanks. A 500lbs bomb might not kill a truck if it misses by a few meters and the truck gets lucky (Specific circumstances.) Shaped charges are what you use to kill tanks.

Ah, I think the VSRD is our "attack display." It is basically that that top down view pie format. You can use either that or the normal b-scope we're all used to. I don't know anyone who uses the attack display because it gives nothing useful over the b-scope unless it is on a color screen, and everyone generally reserves the center color screen for the SIT which gives far more data. The 82 feels like arcade mode and it's the same thought I had the first time I flew in a jet that has one.

M56 (M50 series) is a kinda low velocity high explosive incendiary (HEI) ammo. Good for air to ground because it doesn't penetrate too low into the ground before exploding, bad for air to air. PGU-28 is a much higher velocity HEI ammo, a little bit less effective for air to ground but much better for air to air. IDK if DCS models both or just one. Usually you select what you have actually loaded so the gun reticle is accurate (jet doesn't auto-identify.) No idea if it makes a difference in DCS

This is exactly how I feel. All of DCS "realism" as far as air to air goes is just to make it a game. DCS air to air priority is to make things even. The priority isn't to make it realistic combat. This game isn't a sim until the missiles do things realistically. Everything up to now is complete bulls*** Edit time.You're really a complete idiot on air to air weapons if you think there's a set course to take on another air to air fighter. There's algorithms that prevent energy bleed. You absolutely have never been in aero engineering or in a fighter world. Sorry, friend, but the DCS missiles are just f***ing bad

Come on, dude. We both know the missiles in DCS have very inaccurate guidance and aerodynamic models. You should know that guidance algorithms for missiles are more complicated than an equation to hit a target flying straight and level through time of flight, and those things are classified. Guidance alone is why the AIM-120D has such a such a better range over an AIM-120C5. If you know IASGATG, who acknowledges that DCS missiles suck (from the video), yet you say that there are no plans to change it, my question is: Does ED know it sucks but just can't get good info on missiles, so it won't implement data from shady sources? Or is it that ED knows it will be kind of gameplay ruining for Russian jet fliers? I really expect the latter, because Russian jet's just really don't have a WEZ with an AA-10C (R-27ER) to fight a realistic AIM-120 threat on even grounds. If there's a roadmap to make more realistic missiles, ED should put that out in a newsletter. If there isn't ever a roadmap to it and the missiles keep performing like s***, I really just assume ED's focus is to make things "balanced" instead of realistic.

Dodging an SA-15 from 8 miles isn't that difficult... You could probably just turn away instead of doing a full up SAM threat reaction. I guess it is more situation dependent than I meant earlier. If you're at the far edges of max intercept range (MIR,) you're going to turn away in full burner to kinematically defeat the missile. Most real life SAM operators won't shoot you at MIR. They'll keep their radars turned off until you're getting closer, turn on their acq and TTR radars, then shoot within seconds. That's when you punch the tanks immediately, because even if that tank is empty and only a few hundred pounds, that could mean the difference between life and death.