TLTeo

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.

RB have not submitted a single module for ED to evaluate since 2019, it's not like they have sent a bunch of planes that ED are holding back. The MB-339 and Mirage F1 are taking a while to be approved, but I'd rather have that than whatever the Mig-19 or F-16 releases were. RB have done a great job on the Harrier and Mirage, but they still have a million modelers and artists and not enough coders to actually complete all the project they have announced. Hence all the pretty 3d models and zero coding done for said models. But we're going off topic so let's just drop it there.

Razbam is "working" on almost a dozen modules. Out of those at least the F-15E, Mig-23, EE Lightning, Pucara, A-29 and Bo-105 all have shown more progress. Assuming optimistically one release every two years, that still means waiting about 10 years. Assuming that the Mirage 3 gets done immediately after the Strike Eagle and Foxbat, you're still looking at about 5 years worth of wait. Hence my claim that Aerges will likely release a module after the F1, whatever that may be, before RB release a full fidelity Mirage 3.

At the end of the day DCS is full of these placeholders, we already have Mig-21bis and F-5E being used in "Vietnam-era missions" despite both first flying in 1972, Cold-war era Mig-29s, brand new JF-17s, mid-2000s Vipers and Hornets and 1990s Tomcats all fighting each other in various settings, etc etc. Is it realistic? Obvoiusly not, but it's the best we can do in the short and intermediate future. It's not surprising that people try extra hard to get placeholders for stuff that's not in the game, even though that stuff is a huge stretch.

That doesn't mean the engine is different though. The Israeli A-4s also received a different exhaust by the end of their service, but they were not re-engined afaik.

The engine of all Mirage III and 5 is some variation of the ATAR, including the Israeli ones. You are probably thinking of the Kfir, which was a Mirage 5 re-engined with the J79 among other modifications.

Aerges also have the advantage that unlike RB they don't have a huge backlog of modules. Doing four F1 variants is ambitious but it's nowhere near doing the F-15E/Mig-23/whatever else. I could 100% see them getting the Mirage III done before RB.

Yeah true, but I don't think that using e.g. the F-5 or Mig-21 as a placeholder would be significantly better. Plus the Harriers on the other side may not get radar, but they do get a more modern airframe and avionics, including an RWR.

I would expect the center of lift would also move with wing sweep.

I guess you could close-ish by forcing the F1 to fly without external tanks?

And PTID. HB have stated this over and over again, much like they have stated they have no plans or intentions do do an F-14D.

I guess it depends on what the radar gain and scale is like. If all you have available is a logarithmic gain then it won't be nearly as good as the Viggen (which definitely over-performs because DCSism), if you have a linear scale as well it may be comparable.

But somebody *has* to put stuff aside to make a modernized F-4. Whether that's HB or some other 3rd party that may not even be in DCS yet, they would have to make a choice between a modernized F-4 and some other module, which obviously includes aircraft that aren't anywhere near DCS yet.

You don't magically get more planes. Developers and other resources are finite and therefore the number of planes that can be made in DCS is limited. Just look at how long HB took to release the F-14A. By asking for a modernized Phantom in top of the already announced 80s ones you are asking to delay the A-6, or the Navy Phantoms, or the Typhoon, or the Iranian Tomcats, or whatever else HB might do eventually. You would end up with less variety, not more.

Considering the Mediterranean is one of the theaters where the Tomcat would have been most likely to face Soviet bombers had the Cold War gone hot, that seems extremely unlikely.

The Thunderstreak didn't really fly in Korea though, it wasn't ready in time to replace the Thunderjet. Syria is super performance hungry as is so I'm not sure how feasible it would be to enlarge it vs just having a separate map placeholder with the Sinai (which, yeah, would be a really good map for late 40s-mid 60s modules), but either way between the close ties between Israel and France in the 50s, and how much Greece and Turkey used theirs, it would fit the current Syria map perfectly well.

Hype! And those teases are both epic!