RShackleford

The formations used IRL are pretty different from DCS, mainly due to graphics and resolution (fighters are tiny on your screen, hard to keep track.) Tactical line abreast is the standard for air to air, with >1 mile separation between fighters. With datalink, that formation spread goes beyond 3 miles apart. For 4th gen, mutual support is always a big item so you want to be close enough to back up your wingman, which means maintaining 3/9 line and being close enough to delouse your wingman if needed. For BVR the wingman is supposed to be in position near the flight lead. In BVR to WVR transition, tactics and formation changes so you need situational awareness on which fighter is friendly and which is enemy because beyond a mile or so all two engine jets look about the same to the Mk1 eyeball. I hope that once F-18 goes full up with link16 that we can stop this welded wingman mentality. Most fights I have in DCS I end up just looking at flight lead the 90% of the time rather than crosschecking between formation position and radar with spacing that allows it for a good 50/50%. Can't beat the actual real life looking over to your flight lead to see where they are because it's just not possible until full super high res VR is there, but sensor formations (via link16) are definitely possible when it is implemented.

VMAX is just what it was tested to, right? :smilewink: Good luck getting there in a 220 or even 229 jet with CFTs though haha. Even going super in the 220s with CFTs takes a lot of time, I doubt it is even possible to reach the VMAX. My max in a 220 was Mach 1.335 after a lot of time and fuel starting above 40k' and in a shallow dive. The CFTs are just a huge factor in transonic/supersonic flight. Meanwhile the fighter that should have never had its production line cancelled can sprint/cruise in mil power at Mach 1.5... I'm pretty envious about that. Can we just get better engines in the F-15E fleet-wide?

The F-15SG model has an even more powerful GE engine with about 32k lbs of thrust per engine in AB... an F-15 without CFTs using those engines would be insane, pretty much crush the pilot in BFM but absolutely dominate rate and vertical fights. Not enough fuel to do anything with unless doctrine goes back to high speed interceptors for taking out strategic bombers but for a jet that routinely takes off with CFTs, 2xfuel tanks, and a full load of bombs, it is awesome. Would be nice having engines that you don't have to worry about TOLD with at high temperature regions.

F-15E is far less maneuverable and fast as the F-15C. If razbam is putting the 229 motor into the strike eagle it will be a bit better for high speed and altitude, but the CFTs add a ton of drag in the transonic region and make it lose a lot of speed in high G turns. It will not be as good as F-15C in PvP. Now if you had the unrealistic option of flying them with no CFTs and 229 motors... that would be a beast

Didn't think they did... shows how often I look at the back seat area. I feel like there is some flight control system they don't have though, but I could be wrong.

This is correct. Obviously less response than the full hydro-mechanical + stick force sensor, but it works for small inputs. WSO doesn't have the stick force sensor though, just pilot. Basically it's there to fine tune the controls, if I remember my systems knowledge correctly.

It seems that the current thrust and drag models can be fixed pretty easy though. Guidance won't have a huge effect on a guy running away 5 miles in front of me, yet the AMRAAM without fail will still fall short. If the kinematic side can be changed, I would be happy enough. I don't expect guidance part to ever be close to correct just because of the lack of open source data on that. Edit: Just some additional thoughts/remarks. I'm perfectly fine with ED never making a perfect or even good guidance model. I understand it is really difficult, especially with the limited data they can get on that. I love this sim for what it is but generally enjoy WVR fights more than anything else because the BVR literally cannot be realistic unless ED is read in on programs in both Russia and USA then violates the NDAs immediately lol. Missile modder used some CFD to figure out realistic drag models on the missiles and it appears from his thread that no change was made on the motor simulated in game. If that's all we get, it would still be better than the model in game.

I'm hoping the development of the AV-8 and F-18 expedite the development for the F-15E. Now when will ED take the simple missile mod and implement it into the game? Such a simple fix for the horrendous missile model in game right now, and the fix is already done by the modder. I worry about this because the strike eagle is NOT good in a dogfight, so it would be nice to have defensive missiles that can hit someone from farther than 5nm away.

I'm talking all from experience with F-15E, not F-18. From F-15E side, even if you put a FMU-152 electronic fuze into a mk82, you still can't change anything from the cockpit. Everything is set on the ground and all you can change in the jet is which arming wires are pulled when released. JDAMs are different because it communicates to the jet via the mil-std-1760 bus so you can change the settings in FMU-152 fuzed bombs. Any other bomb you have to tell the PACs what bomb is on the station, with JDAMS they self-identify in the PACs because it's communicating to the jet. Can F-18s connect to electronic fuzes other than JDAMs?

Essentially that is correct. I can't say how well it is modeled in DCS yet though. MK-82, MK-84, GBU-10, GBU-12, GBU-16 are going to all be using FMU-139s for the most part and you should set nose/tail unless using AR variants as mentioned before. GBU-31, GBU-32, and GBU-38s are generally using the FMU-152 electronic fuzes.

MFuze: On bombs such as general purpose (unguided) or laser guided, you can always set nose/tail and it will work but you only need to pick one if it only has one fuze. Where it becomes more important is if you have the MK-82AIR. If you pick nose only, it will drop the bomb in the low drag option without the chute coming out. If you pick nose/tail then the arming wire for the chute will be pulled so the bomb comes off high drag. Electronic fuzes are generally in JDAMs so your GBU-31, GBU-32, and GBU-38s. It makes the delay cockpit selectable, so good for a dynamic targeting environment or close air support. For hitting vehicles or small buildings, you want instantaneous set. For larger buildings or bunkers, you want something like 5ms set, and add as a rule of thumb add 10ms for every extra floor you want it to go through before exploding. I don't know what the DLY1/2 correspond to in timing, and don't know what VT does, but I don't think any of this is modeled yet.

A strike eagle with two bags can still carry 5 GBU-31s + 2x2 AAM... if a 4-ship of those can't get the job done, you should probably just launch a crapload of cruise missiles at the area lol. There's also been some 4-ship sorties full of SDBS (20 SDBs per jet, so 80 total, so much destruction.) Current AOR loadout is sometimes mixed for swingload stuff, such as 2x2 on the rails + 2 amraams on one side of the CFTs, with the other CFT holding JDAMS or GBU-12s. If you want to do a serious deep strike mission with strike eagles you can do a 6x2 loadout with a single bomb on centerline for the target. When integrated with 5th gen assets, the strike eagle is an insanely awesome jet.

Makes sense. Today we can carry AMRAAMS on the rails so can go with 2x2 or 3x1 loadout depending on how maintenance is feeling about offloading external fuel tanks to load a missile (AIM-9s can be loaded on the internal rail side without offloading the external tank, AMRAAMS can't.) Es aren't ever forced into different configs for bags, standard thing is two bags and the centerline open for being empty, a blu-109 bomb body (gbu-31 or gbu-24), or some SDBs.

I imagine not much use for it then, especially considering how accurate JDAMs can be. Even without JDAMs, GBU-24s do the job just fine. No weaponeering required in DCS because every 2000lbs class weapon does the same damage as any other 2000lbs class weapon despite impact angle, velocity, fuze delay, etc. Would be cool to have some sort of weaponeering required in DCS with a basic guide in the game for how to figure out what to do against different targets, but I think that would be a bit advanced.

Unfortunately not in active use anymore, I think the frequencies it used to datalink back to the aircraft for the WSO to steer it were taken by the FCC for cellphones or something lol. I think most of the old OIF videos you saw of weapons hitting pinpoint targets are with the agm-130, since no other weapon we use gives that video feed to the aircraft. Would be a cool feature for DCS though.

F-15E JUST got the capability to utilize AIM-9X with Suite 8 upgrade, which was given to operational units just this year.

Do hornets not have cockpit selectable fuzing? Air Force GP bombs and LGBs are all mechanical so you set the fuze settings on the ground with a screwdriver then set nose, tail, or nose/tail in the cockpit to set which solenoids pull arming wires when you drop them (useful for high drag bombs when you want to drop them low drag.) It's doesn't pull any arming wires when you jettison, so the bombs come off without exploding. All the JDAMs have the FMU-152 fuze that give cockpit selectable options like arm time, delay for explosion (useful for dynamic targeting/CAS when you want the bomb to explode in the first floor of a larger building or want to select it for instantaneous on small buildings), and you can turn the proximity sensor on or off. JDAMs also self-identify to the jet because the bombs are sending data to the jet, whereas GPs and GBU-12s etc you have to tell the jet what is on the station. Another great JDAM feature is you can setup impact angle and velocity so the bomb tells the jet when you are in the zone to drop for those parameters. You can preload the programs into the data cartridges but everything is also cockpit selectable.

Make sure there aren't another other controllers connected to your PC with the axis set for pitch control. Make sure you press the T/O trim button prior to taking off.

I get that every time, so do others. I don't have trouble keeping contact when I get into the basket, so I don't think it's user error. Also general advice for others that I'm having success with, reference the tanker itself rather than the basket for making smooth corrections. Get lined up and slowly move into the basket watching primarily the tanker with the basket in your peripheral vision. Try to make corrections in one direction at a time (don't go up and left at the same time, etc.)

Pocket sand! Lift vector is basically a line going straight up from your jet. It's different than plane of motion, but both start becoming closer to the same with increasing G's. For example, at 89degrees of bank and 9 Gs, you're going to be turning almost horizontal but it will still be slightly descending because of gravity. Generally you want to use your lift vector to set your plane of motion in a way that the bandit has the least amount of turning room to use against you. Hornet does really well at denying turning room because the low speed turn radius is so small.

Be near corner velocity at the merge, which I think is around 380-400 knots unless you plan to go vertical at the merge. Blow all your energy at the merge for a 1-circle fight (turning into the enemy fighter vs away) and you should be setup well, after that try to maintain energy and cash in energy for nose position wisely. If they go vertical and you are horizontal just keep lift vector going towards predicted control zone, don't let them gain turning room on you outside of the vertical turning room they have and you can try a slight climb into them to deny some of that as well. The largest error I see happening online is people getting too fast and making their turn circle enormous with low turn rate... When someone is circling at 450kts I can sit 100 kts slower inside the turn using angles to close distance (my radius is smaller.) Hornet vs hornet you always have to fight what the bandit is trying to do, but against pretty much every other adversary in DCS you want to make it a minimum radius fight, making aggressive moves as fast as you can to be threatening and force the bandit into a mistake

Yup, each aircraft has their own name for different things. Like in a viper or hawg they have CCIP (continuously computing impact point) whereas the strike eagle has CDIP (continuously displayed impact point.) It's literally the same thing with a different name, as CCRP and Auto (F-15Es also call it Auto) is the same. Yup, 6-ship going through is difficult, especially if all the targets are in the same area. Need plans so your bombs aren't going to frag the trailing jet, and if it is LGBs you need a plan to have either near-simultaneous impacts or spacing enough for smoke to clear for follow-on bombs. Low altitude CCRP used to be pretty difficult in pre-GPS days because even though you could designate on coordinates, it might not be accurate after drift. Strike Eagles are able to do it really well with A2G radar using offset designations. If you have Cat1 coordinates on the target and Cat1 coordinates on a tower that you can see on radar from low altitude really well, just make an offset designation on the tower and it will update your nav system and the designation together for an accurate hit. Only useful today for GPS jamming environments, but still pretty cool ability.

Depends on the type of jamming. Continuous noise jamming sure, but if it uses deception techniques (would be amazing if this was modeled) then you really want to be using it at all times.

You need to be dropping in CCRP mode rather than CCIP, or have a CCIP mode where if you hold the pickle and the reticle is HUD limited that it holds the bomb at the bottom of the HUD where you pickled and basically becomes CCRP from there. Now sure how the F-18 does it, but you aren't going to get a non-HUD limited pipper with high drag option unless you're pretty much pointing straight at the ground, which defeats the purpose of the high drag bomb.

This pic was posted in another thread, good idea of how it all works. NWS button is the red one that basically changes it from low to high gain, paddle switch can disengage NWS though.