TLTeo

Yeah we can't just get those numbers (even without factoring in all the propaganda that went in that particular incident) and pretend we can just compare them to DCS numbers. My gut feeling is it probably should be toned down a bit to ~APG 73 levels-ish but obviously when if the only data available are a fancy brochure and politically-charged statements, it's hard to have a well motivated opinion.

Yeah I haven't been mentioning the FC3 jets because those are really, really old and really, really simple (and really, really wrong). Yeah, especially the 73 since it's part of a flagship module and it recently was updated. That comparison shows that both the Viper and Jeff need some double checking at the very least

Fair enough. This still only side steps the question though - if we go by DCS, why exactly should the Jeff have so much more power/cooling available to it than a Viper, Hornet or Mirage? That suggests the 68v9 is a massive improvement over the 68v5, which is interesting (and begs the question of why the USAF would give it up when the F-35 was delayed for that long, but that's a whole other can of worms). But yeah, a brochure like that should by no means be considered "good enough" as reference material for DCS.

I'm not saying the KLJ-7 should be 100% worse than, or similar to, the APG-68. I'm saying at the very least it should be in the ballpark of the RDI and/or APG-73, both of which use high PRF, and clearly right now it's much better than either.

Again, as Harlikwin said, the main parameter that determines that is the antenna size. Fancy signal processing can only give you so much - for example, going from the oldschool APG 68v9 to its AESA equivalent (the APG 83, which is far, far more advanced than any mechanically scanned radar except perhaps CAPTOR on Typhoon) only increases detection range by ~15% - ish to about 50nm (source: https://www.matec-conferences.org/articles/matecconf/pdf/2019/53/matecconf_easn2019_04001.pdf ). Obviously with better signal processing and/or AESA/PESA you get other benefits beyond sheer range, but that's not captured in DCS anyway. It is just not possible for the KLJ-7 to be some ~70% better than Western radars which have similar (or larger, in the case of the Hornet) antennae. It's not how the laws of physics work.

The brochure doesn't specify either mode (VS generally should have longer range than RWS) nor closure though, so it makes no sense to compare a claim on a brochure with actual DCS numbers. You could bring the VS range down to ~65nm where RWS is now, bring RWS range down to e.g. the RDI range of ~50nm in high PRF and ~35nm in medium PRF, and you could still say "hey this works exactly like the brochure says!" It's one of two things - either the KLJ-7 is currently over performing for whatever reason (and the Viper is spot on, and the Hornet was spot on but was made to under perform with 2.7), or every other radar in the game is grossly under performing.

Yeah if the Viper gets brought in line with what you would expect (ie, a bit worse than the Hornet), then the Tomcat, Viper, Hornet, Mirage, Tiger and Fishbed all will be where you expect them to be. Assuming that happens, it's really hard to believe that the Jeff being such an outlier is realistic.

AC-130 confirmed then!

I thought the "fighters" comment referred to the two "next gen" modules though, not the A-6. But yeah obviously it's intentionally vague

To code this you would basically need to assign each track a humor/no humor label. Then you adjust the probability distribution you use to randomly select each voice line based on that slider. The problem with that is, it's one step beyond the boring Jester idea, where you just rule out the "humor" lines when selecting what to play. If a simple boring Jester isn't feasible, this isn't a solution either.

The Magic works perfectly well for me tbh. Even if it had worse performance than the AIM-9L/M (and I never felt like it does), the better acquisition modes more than make up for it.

From what I've heard, the Spanish F1s by the early 90s were mostly doing interception and air policing, while the newer Hornets were more a2g platforms, almost like in Italy with the F104 and Tornado IDS, so it would make sense if they did carry the 530F. Ironically the other similar thing with the Italian 104 and Spanish F1 fleets is that it's really hard to find pictures of them with anything but a basic a2a loadout, so it's really hard to tell what they actually would have used, especially for a2g.

Two more modules other than the A-6, uh...if I had to guess, the one with the "2022" tag is the Draken (or riot!) because it's going to be simpler to code than the A-6. The third one is anyone's guess though!

If the A-6 is not coming first, I highly doubt that it will be preceded by something almost as complex, even if they do have some code base already available from the Tomcat. In other words, Draken or riot.

If the base jet can't use BVR weapons I would expect the -M to be upgraded to carry them rather than the -EE. As far as I know the -EE was tailored more towards a2g.

It wasn't some random person on Hoggit though, it was Cobra himself iirc.

What can I say, I'm a bad person and my soul will burn in flight sim hell, where I will be forced to fly bombers in War Thunder exclusively for the rest of eternity. Speaking of WIP stuff, I wonder when the terrain avoidance radar mode will be released, it will be really useful with the new clouds.

But I thought HD bomb delivery was done in a 30 degree dive, nearly unloading the jet to keep the pipper on target, and then pulling out of the dive at only a couple hundred feet! On a serious note, glad to see this fixed!

I imagine the main issue the SPO-10 would have is that it locates emitters so poorly that the picture perfect notches DCS players are used to would not be possible (without GCI control at least, which is very much part of RL ops, but that's besides the point...), which would definitely make any Phoenix shot really scary. Otherwise yeah, there is no reason why the AWG-9 would magically be able to "overwhelm" a RWR, whatever that means...

What's happening other than the small changes in symbology (and what do those mean)?

Eh, considering the C-101 can carry the Sea Eagle, I'm sure they'll be open to slightly "what if" loadouts. 530s on some F1 variant is going to be considerably more likely than the Sea Eagle tbh.

Also the areas where the -C would be a large improvement over the -A are mostly in the EW domain, which is not simulated well (or at all) in DCS anyway

Yeah I feel like HB have learnt not to give deadlines for major projects (e.g. Jester Lantirn, the initial -A release), but not for more minor things (like the roadmap or the ALR-45). Eventually they'll get there, hopefully. On the bright side, things like showing the A-6 model in the 2.7 trailers mean that whatever it is they announce, is very likely to come at some point (minus the Draken who knows what happened to that). Things could definitely get better, but that's not the worst start all things considered.

Yea the -K is really cool, although between the AMX, Hawk, L-39 etc it was a bit of a tough sell at the time imo. I do wish they'd saved the Veltro 2 name for something that actually went in mass production though (like the AMX).

Knowing how chaff is implemented in DCS, that is beyond bizarre!