Eddie

Just picking up on this (a bit behind on this thread) in the A-10C C/RAD 2 encrypts the VHF/FM radio, not the VHF/AM radio. VHF/AM cannot be secured. Have you/are you implementing the audio tones when KY-58 is active?

Correct. Each kill fill is an entirely independent crypto key, if you're not on the same key as someone else you won't be able to descramble their transmissions and vice versa if you're encrypting using a different key to someone they won't hear yours either. In case it's not clear the key 1/2/3/4/5/6 selection on the KY-58 panel are not fixed channels or modifiers of a single key as has been implemented in other solutions, they are entirely independent key loads. The perfect implementation would be 6 seperate number/letter fields for keys in the control panel for the user to enter they own key fills. Aircraft having a minimum of one secure voice radio is a NATO requirement, so yes, the Mirage and every complaint other tactical aircraft in service with a NATO member today does. Again yes, NATO standard, assuming they have the same key fill. This is where the live keys themselves are generated by NATO C2 IRL and distributed to all units. It's worth noting (as DCS modelling may not make it clear) that while the A-10C and some others have separate physical cockpit control panels for secure comms, many more modern aircraft have the control functions embedded in their UFC/DED/MFD etc. along with Havequick and the other radio controls so their presence will not be obvious.

As already said 8-10 radios for the AWACS/ATC role (it is how many radios an E-3 mission crew has after all). As for secure comms, again definatly yes. But as an additional thought it would be good to be able to chose which radios are secured and which aren't on an individual basis. Eg you'd want your package comm channels secure, but your guard channel open. Another note on secure comms, the KY-58 used on the A-10 is pretty much common to all NATO aircraft so I'd suggest adding it to all the western airframes where practical. As for the PTT discussion, yes individual radio PTT as in real aircraft are essential, while a single PTT and a button to switch between radio may seem simple it really isn't. We wouldn't be able to operate with that model as comms are just too damn busy. If I think about many of the FAC(A) flight I've flown where I'm talking on three separate radios to three separate entities almost constantly that's would be impossible.

Regarding Radio Data for the A-10C Min Max Guard Channel Radio Power (dBm) AN/ARC-164 UHF 225.00 399.975 243.00 40 AN/ARC-186(V) 116.000 151.975 121.5 40 AN/ARC-186(V)FM 30 87.975 40.5 42

The big difference between realistic secure comms, such as in Aries and UR and only hearing your coalition is that with realistic secure comms you can only secure certain radios and certain frequencies (normally only a single radio) and everyone can still hear that you're transmitting, they just can hear what you're saying unless they have the right key (they just hear static). So in short a coalition based system is far too good in a sense. For example, even if you can't hear what's being said, you can still transmit on the same frequency and either spoof others (they will hear you fine) or jam comms by saturating the frequency.

Not so much a special system, just a different one. The KC-135 and most tactical aircraft use either the same TACAN set installed in the F-5E/A-10C etc. or the MIDS LVT for their TACAN functionality. These systems are only capable of sending the non directional ranging pulses. The KC-10 and some other tankers (the now retired UK Tristar and VC-10 amongst them) have TACAN sets (AN/ARN-153(V) for the KC-10) able to transmit both the raging pulses and the directional beam required to derive bearing. Essentially it all boils down to the fact that bearing is dependant on only a received signal, whereas range requires both a transmitted and a received signal to calculate distance using speed/time calculations. Bearing is based on the time delta between the receiving the ranging pulse from the transmitting station and receiving the bearing beam from the transmitting station, the more time that passes between the two, the larger your bearing to the station (the bearing pulse rotates clockwise starting at 000 degrees when the range pulse is transmitted). Range is based on the timing of a range pulse being sent out, received by the other station, and then a reply sent back. So requires no directional signal.

Dispensers certainly don't have to be full no. You have to load tubes in a specific order, but not all of them. But the exact procedures and capabilities vary between different systems.

Will there be any way to change the initial settings by editing a Lua file, as with the A-10C for example?

In the context of the whole aircraft I'd say so yes, although it does not specify. Most fast jets land with some kind of fault more often than not, sometimes noticeable to the pilot, sometimes not. It's what happens when you take a highly tuned system and throw it around the sky. In most cases only major aircraft/mission system faults will result in a caption in the cockpit. Many things that could be noticed by the pilot won't trigger a warning caption, you'd only see them in the BIT pages or through abnormal system performance.

No, it isn't.

1. What are your planned release parameters? 2. What are your base parameters? 3. How are you moving the jet between the two? Your problem is that 2. is not correct for 1., and/or 3. isn't allowing you to transition between the two, therefore you delivery goes wrong at the start. There are quite a few threads already in this forum discussing unguided bomb delivery in some depth where I and a few others have answered many questions on the subject. Rather than starting again, I'd recommend reading through them and then asking any extra questions you think of. Two threads to get started with http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=99688 http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=117350 And lastly, take a look at the various weapon delivery example videos in the youtube channel in my sig.

Because it doesn't. Not unless the cooperating station is able to provide bearing data. Which aside from the KC-10 other aircraft cannot do. The bearing element of TACAN requires a rotating signal synchronised with the ranging pulses in order for the receiver to derive bearing to the station. Aircraft only have the ranging portion of the system. In short the F-5E, A-10, and I any other tactical aircraft you care to name with TACAN can receive and display range and bearing via TACAN, but they can only provide range to others.

The INS and DIR GYRO captions will light up on a lamp test, even though neither system us installed on the aircraft. As said above, they were optiona available for export customers. And as such they are provided for on the caution panel.

The IFF caption refers to the IFF transponder, which allows the aircraft to reply to IFF interrogations. The F-5E has no IFF interrogator and as such can't perform IFF interrogation on other aircraft.

Because the real aircraft doesn't have them.

Range only.

I/we will for sure, it is very promising indeed. We're just waiting for a few more features to be implemented really. We've been flying with radio plugins since the beginning with TARS, now using UniversRadio. So nothing new, we flat out couldn't fly without done kind of radio plugin/utility. Which makes this all the more appealing given the standalone nature and the fact that ciribob is doing such a great job supporting and advancing it. Fingers crossed in the near future. There are still a lot of stability and feature issues with Aries & UR that are quite frustrating, despite the effort the devs of each put in.

Still haven't had chance to test this yet, is UHF Guard monitoring implemented for aircraft with a dedicated guard receiver?

Yep. The main thing to remember is that ECM and other countermeasures don't, and aren't intended, to make you invunerable to any given threat or to make a threat system useless, that's impractical. What they are there to do, when combined with relevant tactics, techniques, and procedures, is give you enough time and/or space to get in, employ weapons, and get out. That time could be minutes, it could be seconds. And distance wise it could shrink a SAM WEZ just enough to allow you to slip through a small gap between two systems. This gives you the chance to get in and do your job before the threat operators can take a shot against you.

Oh those systems are absolutely employed heavily in just about every modern communication system and RADAR. But again, the defensive countermeasures are also designed to counter those counters as well. When you start looking at frequency agile systems things do get difficult, but certainly not impossible. It all depends if you know how the system you're trying to counter does its frequency hopping etc., if you do then you can identify/counter it. If you don't you can employ brute force broad spectrum jamming, chaff corridors, and others to help mitigate the threat. No countermeasure is 100% effective, just as no weapon is 100% effective. Nothing is black and white, it's all various shades of grey on an always changing scale.

Absolutely, the most effective countermeasure is always to not give the enemy a chance to fire upon you in the first place. A large element of ECM is designed to do exactly that.

Yes, however the optical system requires being able to see the target, moving unpredictably at speed, and maintain contact with it through a very small aperture. Significantly less effective than automatic tracking. Not to mention the fact that without range data you can't compute a lead pursuit course and have to rely instead on flying pure pursuit, costing energy and therefore range. You can see this clearly with the SA-19. Being a SACLOS system it flies pure pursuit, and if you have the SA-19 on the beam with any more than 250 knots of ground speed your line of sight rate is too high for the missile to deal with an it'll fly harmlessly behind you. No chaff, no flare, no ECM, no manoeuvring required (try it in DCS yourself). Of course you're not jamming the "missile", you're jamming the tracking system itself. And no, these things are not at all represented in DCS, or any sim. Hint: if you can easily shut off GPS/Voice Comms/Mobile Phone Coverage/You name it with ECM, what makes you think that jamming a guidance radio signal to a missile would be impossible (not saying it's easy though of course). If it doesn't work, we're wasting an awful lot of money and effort on this stuff and a lot of people I work with go to the office everyday for no reason. ;)

Every SAM, AAM, Acquisition, and Tracking RADAR is built to "defeat" ECM. Equally every ECM system (be they SPJs, Chaff, towed decoys, aircraft EW systems, or others) is built to defeat the hardware and software those threat systems employ to counter the counter. The electronic battlefield is an endless arms race between threat and defence that is never ending. The SA-15 is indeed resistant to both chaff and other ECM systems, but not invulnerable, especially to modern systems backed up by modern software and threat data. There is a reasons that most Russian system have an optical backup guidance option in addition to their primary RADAR/Radio Command system. In reality there is a lot of aspects of the electronic battlefield not covered in DCS or any other sim. Even something as simple as a chaff corridor used since WWII canremove a modern RADAR based system's ability to engage aircraft protected by that corridor. Have a read: (best public doc I know of on the subject, apart from buying a text book or three). [ame]http://falcon.blu3wolf.com/Docs/Electronic-Warfare-Fundamentals.pdf[/ame]

You can't in reality (not an optically tracked one at least), or in DCS. The post you reference is about the SA-15 which is Radio Command, not the SA-19 which is SACLOS. Chaff/ECM will of course work against a Radio Comand system such as the SA-15.

There isn't, only the relevant gen captions on the warning panel.