TLTeo

No Naval (or British) Phantom did, minus gunpods of course. Also it might be the Viggen driver in me speaking, but guns are over rated anyway.

It is now, but years ago it was significantly less informative.

I'm guessing something in AM-7E/F territory ish.

The EE will not have CCIP and CCRP to my knowledge, that will only come with the F1M. What it will have is an INS (which really helps in navigating to your target) and improved RWR (which obviously is more useful for a strike aircraft than an interceptor).

Yeah it's been debated to death. The documents necessary to make the JA also include lots of information on the datalink that applies to the Gripen, and therefore they are not available for the public (even though the details of the datalink itself don't matter because DCS models those quite simply).

Some Naval Phantom (either J or S) would be great, as would some of the early ones (B/C). If we ever get a better EW environment the G would be fun too. Otherwise I don't really care for the modernized variants.

And also even if the angle of the stick was the same, real aircraft sticks are longer so for a given angle you have more physical travel. There's a reason why joystick extensions are so popular.

Nop, it was a progression of Mirage 3/5 (introduce in 1961) > Mirage F1 (1973) > Mirage 2000 (1984). Just because the Mirage 3 and 2000 are both pure delta doesn't mean that Dassault took everything from the 3 and nothing from the F1 when they designed the 2000.

Also the Viggen carries anti-ship missiles, unlike the Mirage. Also to be nitpicky, the Viggen does not carry an INS, it carries a Doppler dead reckoning navigation system

The first variant released (the CE), as well as the two seater (BE) will not have air to air refueling. The EE and M which will follow the CE will though.

Tbh I don't think that's particularly meaningful given that a) the development version on a released module doesn't have to be identical to some legacy code already present and b) whether something is all aspect or not in DCS is super messy, see e.g. the R60M/AIM-9M doing their own thing on the L-39/C-101.

It's pretty standard for modules to not have a campaign at release tbh

My bad!

They are not working on the EQ variant, AI or otherwise

Today's newsletter also states that the -CE (and therefore all other variants) will receive the Super 530F eventually.

If we're going with only aircraft that served in Spain, another fun option might be a first gen Harrier, since the Spanish flew the AV8S before they got Harrier 2s. I realize Razbam has also called first gen harriers, but to be honest that list is so long it's a bit pointless anyway.

Yeah the same goes for the F-100 and RF-101 - both flew with the Guard until the late 70s iirc, which is also when the F-106 left ADC (but it remained with the guard until the late 80s).

I believe Link 4A should be OK with an E-3 as well. At least, the manual does not mention it being E-2 only, it simply states that you can get a list of possible hosts from the kneeboard. As I understand it yes, it is indeed a one way datalink from AWACS to fighter rather than the two way. As to real life - I suppose they just used common sense and didn't rely exclusively on the datalink for situational awareness. It's not like the Tomcat is the only outlier either; USMC Harriers didn't have Link 16 for a while (and some may not have it yet?), A-10s and some USAF F-16s use SADL instead of Link 16, etc.

For DCS only, personally I just use 4A if there's a Hawkeye in the mission and 4C otherwise. And yeah, you can't compare it to Link 16. It's like asking why would fighters carry Sparrows when AMRAAMs exist.

I mean it kinda helps that it flew so many combat missions, but generally didn't carry the missiles in them.

Dogfighting is over rated anyway. And I think it may actually be better than what people think in a 3rd gen rate fight.

Assuming Spanish-only aircraft, either a Mirage 3 or F-104G (Spain didn't fly the C). I have a slight preference towards the Mirage purely because if we're doing only Spanish-specific variants then the F-104 wouldn't get much, seeing as Canada, Italy and Germany to name a few all invested more in their Starfighter fleets than Spain.

There are four radar modes for close combat - VSL hi/low, PAL, PLM: http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#transitional-modes

Avionics are completely different (radar especially, but also nav/bombing systems, lack of IRST, early ACLS), rear cockpit on USAF aircraft has flight controls, USN vs USAF Sidewinders and/or Falcon capability, slats vs no slats, just to name the obvious ones off the top of my head. The F-4B and C are fairly similar. The D and J/S are not, and the latter are also a big change over the B.

They never did. They said they will likely look at some sort of Naval J/S Phantom after the E is done, which are only superficially similar to the C/D.