Yoda967

Just remember that they should orbit on the starboard side of the carrier, at least 1 NM out, and below 400 feet.

Thanks for the head's up, DeepDrummer! Got my tix!

As a quick-and-dirty work around...you can add bullseye to the WPT list in ME as part of your flight plan and delete it from the sequence once you're in the cockpit. Then, you can select it on the HSI and read your own range and bearing to bullseye in the upper right of the HSI. I name it BULL in the ME so that the WPT name is displayed on the HSI as well.

It works fine with the Hornet. You just can't drop precision-guided munitions or use the laser spot tracker in the Hornet yet. BUT--you can use the JTAC to mark targets with smoke and talk you on to the target from there. It's quite a challenge.

Yeah, I knew you didn't have anything to do with it directly...it's just cool to see it working right. The time feature is fantastic, and I can't wait to play with the tanker feature. Brilliant!

Glad you got it sorted. Happy to help!

When placing the carrier, I change the name from "unit 001" to "USS JOHN C STENNIS" to make it more recognizable when I'm working with it in the ME. Not necessary, it just saves me from having to keep track on paper. If you don't want to do that, and assuming that "unit 001" is your carrier, select "unit 001" in your LINK UNIT dropdown menu. That should keep the static planes from falling into the water.

Hey, Wrench... One of the cooler details I've noticed in using your script (at least for THIS old sailor) is that when I place a planeguard ship three quarters of a mile astern of the carrier, it maneuvers exactly how it should when the carrier turns--by turning opposite the carrier's turn and then coming around to resume station as the carrier completes her turn.

Smoke, Are you selecting the JOHN C STENNIS from the LINK UNIT dropdown? When I place a ship, I set its unit name to the ship's actual name: USS JOHN C STENNIS. That makes it more recognizable in other parts of the ME.

The landing signal proword is CHARLIE. CHARLIE [time] is the scheduled recovery time. CHARLIE [minutes] is a delay in recovery time. Launch and recovery times are scheduled and briefed, and a hard-copy air plan gets published every day (this is a spread sheet that tells the launch and recovery time for every aircraft in the air wing for the entire flying day. (There's a lot more to it, and you can find the requirements in the CV NATOPS.) When a returning aircraft gets within 50 NM of the carrier, they check in with Carrier Air Traffic Control Center (CATCC) which will tell them the BRC, altimeter, and give them a Charlie time. It's possible to do a Case I recovery Zip Lip (radio silent), as long as the carrier is maneuvering as briefed.

I've tried to use static templates, but the problem is that it saves everything, including the carrier, in the template, and then won't let you load it because two units are superimposed.

:thumbup: Definitely glad I can help. I kinda had a hunch you'd see my post as a challenge.:book:

You're welcome. I certainly don't mean to horn in. You're right about the max 10NM leg. IRL, when a carrier is operating in restricted waters like the Persian Gulf (the Navy calls it "The Arabian Gulf" for some reason), they can't stay on course into the wind for long periods. There are simply too many obstacles: other shipping, oil platforms, territorial waters and airspace, etc. They often do pretty much exactly what your script does: drive into the wind for launch and recovery, then reset downwind and do it again. Still, time is more of a consideration than distance. If you're flying an F/A-18 off a carrier, you're generally going to launch at a specific time a few minutes into one upwind leg, fly your mission while the carrier completes the upwind leg and resets, then be back in the marshall stack around the time that the carrier is turning back into the wind. If your mission is longer than that, it'll be planned out for you to return to the marshall stack as the carrier turns into the wind for a third or fourth time. (Some of the missions over Afghanistan have been as long as seven or eight hours in duration.) In any case, the carrier flight cycle begins with the launch of all the aircraft heading outbound, and finishes with a prior cycle's aircraft recovering. The cycle length is determined by (among other things) the endurance of the F/A-18C, since it's got the shortest legs in the air wing and the available airborne tanking. With one external tank, Hornets can fly for about an hour and a half and still have enough fuel for a safe recovery without refueling, so the carrier launch cycle would be an hour and fifteen minutes, because you launch in the front half of the upwind leg and recover at the back half. With two tanks, the Hornet's unrefueled endurance goes up to about an hour and forty-five minutes with a safe reserve, and the launch/recovery cycle can extend to 90 minutes. Cycle times can go longer, but they're heavily dependent on the availability of tanking. The air wing itself might have enough tankers to launch two in a particular cycle, but one of those will be a mission tanker assigned to a specific package. Each S-3B tanker will have about 10 or 11 thousand pounds to give, so if there's only one tanker airborne, he'll likely be a "recovery tanker" whose job it is to give a small amount of gas to aircraft returning low on fuel. It's possible to have an alert tanker on deck for emergencies, as well. You can see why the question was asked about setting the carrier to turn into the wind at a certain time and remain on BRC for a specific period of time rather than a distance. It's possible to make it look like the carrier is maneuvering for cycling flight operations, but as I posted earlier, it takes some forethought. Your script is the best thing available to make it happen. Hope that wasn't too long-winded.

There doesn't seem to be any way to do that. The carrier templates available from user downloads seem to be base missions for you to build on top of. Have you tried adding statics to your carrier yourself? The process is very simple, now that the Top Down view of models is available. Click on the tank icon at the bottom of the ME screen to see the Top Down view, then zoom in on your carrier until you see the flight deck. I usually zoom in as far as I can go and still be able to see the whole deck. Click on the Add Statics button (the bridge icon on the left panel). Select USA and planes or helicopters. Select your desired aircraft. Click on the flight deck where you want the aircraft placed. Check the box marked OFFSET FIXATION and select the carrier unit name from the LINK UNIT drop-down menu. Change the static model's heading to face the static aircraft appropriately relative to the flight deck. Some tips: You're probably going to want to land on the carrier at the end of your mission, so put all your statics between the red-and-white dashed lines on either side of the landing area and the edge of the deck. Forward of the island, you'll want to avoid putting statics on the Number 2 (port side, forward) catapult, since that's the easiest one to get to from the player spawn point. One of the changes that came this week is that AI aircraft will no longer try to launch from the same catapult the player is on. I don't know if this means that the AI won't push its nose through the jet blast deflector like it used to or if the AI will go find another catapult. If it goes to find another catapult, it might do so without considering the statics placed on the deck, so you might want to keep your statics placed forward of the island as far aft as possible, but again, close to the deck edge. There are LOADS of pictures on the web to give you examples of how they park aircraft on the flight deck, so use those for ideas. Good luck!

By default, DCS puts .acmi files into a Tacview folder in your Documents folder. Viewing doesn't require much setup...just double-click on the most recent .acmi file. The viewpoint defaults to player aircraft, and control of the playback is by "VCR" style controls below the viewing area.

You are absolutely correct. The Mk118 bomblet is a shaped charge. I stand corrected.

LOL, Cik! I was replying to backspace340's comment about VT height not affecting the spread. I've read in a number of places on the forum that fragmentation damage is borked, so it stands to reason that fragmentation weapons (like the -87, -99, and Mk20) would also be busted.

It's been posted elsewhere that the burst height isn't fully implemented yet. Whatever you set it for, it'll be 1500 ft.

Not sure what you mean by a carrier template. Generally, you make your own templates. What do you want the carrier to do?

Waypoint accuracy as it stands in the EA Hornet isn't very good for target designation. Wags uses the TGT diamond for cueing, which is just to get your eyes in the ballpark, not to drop a bomb on. Currently, waypoints are accurate to the second, which is about 100 feet. Targeting quality coordinates need to be to the hundredth of a second (two decimal places to the right of seconds) to be of any use at all.

I should add that those numbers are for 8 knots of wind.

(Celebrating the fifth anniversary of this thread by adding to the recent bumps.) I'd be really happy with land-based mobile Silkworm and C-802 launchers. Arleigh Burke-class DDGs (Flight I and II, which I know are available as mods), an AOE, and a couple Gators to round out both a Carrier Strike Group and an Amphibious Ready Group. Minesweepers. Warships from UK, France, Italy, and the UAE. Iranian surface warships. Editable hull numbers. (Thank you for the TACAN change!) Smaller bow waves.

Decibel_dB, Have you updated to the latest version? After the latest update, I've been getting spot-on accuracy with CBUs.

Frederf, Yes, to all of that. My post wasn't a complaint so much as a PIREP for other folks using this mod with the current early access F/A-18C. Because of the non-standard punctuation used to present lat/long, I might not have realized what was happening if the last set of numbers hadn't been ".88". The multiple decimals were definitely misleading. Six-digit grids are definitely not good enough for BOC. (I'm guessing that updating the JTAC to provide eight- or even ten-digit grids is on ED's list of things to do.) I was "playing" with the coordinate entry to see how useful it is for cueing. At the end of the day, the mission setup was strictly Type 3, BOT.

So Morpheus was right after all.