Eddie

Weight, drag, cost, practicality. If you don't often need more than two in reality, why go the hassle of configuring the aircraft to carry more? Especially when it would require a redesign of the wing structure and hard points. And that's ignoring the tactics & procedures aspect.

No. In fact more often than not, things covered by ITAR are not "classified" in the colloquial sense of the word. ITAR covers hardware, software, or knowledge with originates in whole or part, in the US. So, potentially everything, for example if a major avionics component were covered by ITAR, its design documents and specifications may well be to. If something just contains a tiny subcomponent that is subject to ITAR, then the whole thing becomes subject to ITAR. Hell my notebook at work it covered by ITAR, simply because some of the material I deal with and discuss is covered by ITAR and therefore any notes I make on such matters are also by extension ITAR controlled, even the conversations that led to those notes are subject to ITAR. In short, ITAR is a royal pain in the arse.

No, containing material/information subject to ITAR would cause it to fall under ITAR restrictions. DCS doesn't contain any such material, and ED wouldn't have been given access to such material when developing it, hence it is not subject to ITAR.

Pretty simple tbh. Exactly the same way, but you use a geographical/manmade feature as your reference. You don't really want to be referencing the "target" at all when running in, because such small things are easy to lose sight of, instead you are looking for more visible features that you can use as aiming references. For example, you could "drop your weapons 100m east of the t-junction". Such things may not sound all that scientific or precise, and they are not, but that's how it all works. Essentially, when employing unguided munitions in a 21st century aircraft you have all the same problems when it comes to locating the target that pilot's had in WWII/Korea/Vietnam etc, you just have better targeting systems than they did. There are other things you can do to help out in some situations as well. Illumination flares dawn/dusk (when it's not dark enough for NVGs), IR Pointers/LASER at night, and white phos rockets or LASER during the day. Of course most of the tactics, techniques, and procedures than can be employed can only be used when flying with other people in MP.

The normal (automatic) IFFCC wind correction is more than enough in 90% of situations. In the other 10% (high altitude/high winds) even entering wind data won't lead to magic, and given that DCS does not provide accurate wind data during briefing you won't know what to enter anyway. As long as you employ the principles discussed here, you'll be low enough, fast enough, and steep enough that it won't make much difference anyway.

One day......

Yep.

No. The AI behaviour in DCS isn't exactly the best as far as real world tactics, techniques, and procedures go. For the A-10C with any free fall live ordnance a 20 second delayed takeoff is the standard procedure. Other aircraft types vary from 5 to 30 second delays between each aircraft. Although as Paul say formation takeoffs do happen, but they are quite rare.

It allows you to use a higher power setting, which means less time for the engines to spool upto max power, which in turn gives faster acceleration/climb out in the case of a missed approach/go around.

At the moment there isn't. Until we get some form of DTC functionality from ED entering stuffin the pit and/or mission prepare is all we've got.

That's becuase of the angle, or lack thereof, you are approaching the target. Essentially you're outside of the launch limits of the Maverick (as set in DCS). However you're so far beyond the real launch limits of the Maverick it's scary. There is a limit of 30 degrees from boresight for the Maverick. If you can't even see the pointing cross on the MFCD, it's bad. Ideally you should be able to see the wagon wheel in the HUD, that means you'll be diving toward the target.

Adding the missing stations to the Strike Eagle would be the best option I agree, but until that's done, the existing stations can't carry AAMs. This means that for now at least we have a Strike Eagle configured for the AG role, which is afterall its primary tasking. Adding and removing weapons from stations is pretty easy, changing the 3d models may not be, especially if the modellers are busy with other tasks. Hopefully though such things can be added to the ever growing "to do" list, along with similar issues on other AI aircraft.

You all need to read up on this a bit more. With the aircraft in the role configuration (air-ground) seen in DCS, it cannot load AIM-7 or AIM-120 on the inner CFT stations. And when I say cannot, I don't mean "it's not authorised" I mean it is physically impossible to do so. The stations that can be loaded on the Strike Eagles inner CFT racks in DCS are the BRU-47/A Ejector Release Units (ERUs) on stations LCT-1, 2, & 3 and RCT 1, 2, & 3. They carry free fall stores which are attached via a pair of suspension lugs (loops basically) and held by the hooks on the ERUs. These ERUs cannot carry or launch any missile (again physically). The Strike Eagle also has 2 LAU-106/A Missile Ejector Launchers on the inner CFT racks, Station 3C, 4C, 6C, & 7C. These are not modelled in DCS at present. The real F-15E has 23 weapon stations, the DCS F-15E only has 19. When in the AA role config, the forward LAU-106/As for stations 3C and 7C are switched with the BRU-47/A ERUs for the forward AG stations RCT-3 and LCT-3. Meaning you either have a Strike Eagle in AA config, or AG config. Again, the DCS Strike Eagle is currently setup in AG config. The read MELs (STN-6C and 4C) are always in place, so this means that they could in theory be used. However if you load a missile onto either station the centre and rear ERUs (RCT-1 , RCT-2, LCT-1, and LCT-2) cannot be used. In addition if you load any stores on RCT-3 or LCT-3 those stores must be released before a missile loaded on STN-6C or 4C can be fired. Essentially this means that while physically possible, it's not practical to do so. Quick illustration showing the stations on the DCS F-15E model. Also see the two links below for more information. http://www.f-15e.info/joomla/en/weapons/weapons-stores/122-external-stores http://www.f-15e.info/joomla/en/weapons/weapons-stores/121-ejector-launcher

Yes, all the sleds in the battle book are setup for a target at 0 ft MSL. So they are essentially in AGL meaning you have to add target elevation "on the fly" to perform the delivery correctly. I'm the 476th we'd generally plan a specific delivery for a known target to give MSL altitudes on the sled valid for that target. The battle book deliveries are for use when you don't know your target in advance, such as On-Call CAS/FAC(A) controlled sorties.

Be careful with any delivery sleds you find online, remember the altitudes will be in MSL and will allow for the elevation of the target. So if the target the attack was planned for was several thousand feet above MSL, you'd be too high using it in DCS unless your target was at the same elevation.

Yes, and no. Real world examples can be found online if you look hard enough, but the delivery planner we use in the 476th can't do LAT/MAT yet so they are not in the battle book for now. Yes, LAT/MAT are Low/Medium Altitude Toss.

MBot, Is it possible to assign more than one EWR to a group? And if not can that functionality be added?

It's a momentary PTT switch that only causes the radio to transmit as long as it is held.

For a single point target like a vehicle you'd most likely want to be dropping two in a ripple. Three would also be an option depending how many you are carrying. But ultimately there is no single answer as with many things it depends on a long list of factors , some of which apply to DCS and some that don't.

I have no idea what is being referred to in that post, but I'll simply say learn to do it right from the start. Learning things the wrong way is not easier or more effective, or a good stepping stone. As far as negative g, the only time you'd use a pushover is a bump up attack with forward firing ordnance, but that's a whole other thing you really shouldn't worry about until you've learnt, and become reasonably proficient with a normal dive delivery.

They certainly can. I'll put a few sleds together in the next few days, if nobody else gets there first of course.

For canopy references, have a look at this image (note they are rough "rule of thumb" guides and will take some practice to get it right).

You shouldn't need pre-planned lineup points at all (waypoints etc). So yes, you should be able to do it all based on canopy references. It's much easier than it sounds.

Indeed. One of my biggest criticisms of DCS is the absence of any information & instruction on how to actually fly and fight the aircraft that are featured. DCS, and its manuals and tutorials are great at telling you which button to click when, but not great when it comes to telling people why they are clicking them, or how it all applies to air combat. Back in the days of Falcon, half of the manaul was dedicated to tactics, formations, BFM, etc. DCS doesn't have any of that at all. So it's not entirely surprising that people simply don't know even the basics.