vanir

The initially exclusive Soviet variant, -23M started deliveries to the VVS in 1973 and the lightweight variant followed right on behind them from 1975, in fact the -23ML avionics is identical to the -23M except for the improved, lightweight fire control set mainly to do with the original set using valve electronics and a switch to solid state, which in the late-60s were considered still unreliable and prone to failures for high powered systems, compared to valves so those had persisted in Soviet materiel. Basically, solid state Phazetron N003 Sapfir for the ML and N006 Ametist for the P and its datalink. As far as I know the -23MLA designation actually refers to the radar set and not the aircraft, which is a -23ML and the late version with the ECM and another fire control and systems update is the MLD or "ML-Doribortannyy, derivative/modified" as it makes changes to the aircraft itself and has a different, newer radar again. The -23ML has the N003 or Sapfir-23ML and MLA fire control systems which differentiates a change in cockpit panelling, so I assume they're referring to this layout for the RAZBAM -23ML, the later -23MLA N003 setup. The MLD uses N008 or -23MLA2 Ametist which has a datalink and core improvements, can use R73, etc., although almost all the VVS -23ML were actually updated to -23MLD standard from 82. Now the interesting thing here is the early production MiG-29 also used the Phazetron N008 before it got the N019. It's still a little different, more advanced to the -23MLA but in the BVR and detection/tracking phase it's the same avionics package as a MiG-23MLD basically the main frontline type at the time of introduction. Still you'd have to say the MLA remains pretty early 70s and the early -29 pretty late 70s on the avionics side, or about ten years behind in tech deployment. Their information handling was terrible, lookdown/shootdown is more of a hopeful circumstance. Soviet avionics lagged by holding onto valve and vacuum into the 1970s, whilst American warplanes had solid state reliability issues in the 60s the Soviet ones ran like a quartz watch but the payoff was American processors were increasingly outstripping Soviet ones in the late 70s-80s and right during a paradigm shift in electronics capabilities in aerial warfare, whilst keep in mind the USSR was a closed state of isolated development. Only dedicated projects like the MiG-31 were bringing them up to speed but these were hugely expensive and difficult projects, like a mini-space program but that did give them AESA in the 80s where the Valkyrie gave the Americans honeycomb/composites. It's all such an expensive game, a Cold War but damn if the military deep states don't love the power.

Anybody else have this problem? I haven't played for a while and the profile I had saved uses the mode switches for the X56. On a recent start up the key mapping isn't recognising the modes switch. I vaguely remember having this problem before but I can't remember the fix.

Sorry if I'm necrothreading but I was hunting around for any free MiG-29K mods I could download and came across this thread. As it turns out I have a 93-94 Janes with some information on all four, original MiG-29K prototypes right in front of me. The first was just a regular 9.12 with an arrestor hook fitted for training purposes. The two important ones were converted from two more 9.12 airframes starting in November 1989 for the purposes of flight trials aboard the Admiral Kuznetsov. These were the ones publicly displayed in Minsk in February 1992 carrying antiship missiles. Modifications to the 9.12 airframe included enlarged, folding wings with 8 hardpoints, slightly raised LERX, increased chord horizontal stabilizers with dog toothed edge, FOD solid intake doors replaced by retractable grids and intake louvres deleted, removed ducting provides increased fuel tankage, in-flight refuelling added, arrestor hook, strengthened landing gear, airbrake changed to a large single panel, APU intake deleted, IRST changed, radar set is new N010 with single curvature profile, 2 new RD-33K engines. Then there is a third prototype which is a ground up construction and not a modified 9.12 which is designated the 9.18 or MiG-29KVP technology demonstrator for the MiG-29K as opposed to a test airframe and its role kept that one land based. It was during this period when the Su-33 was selected ahead of the MiG-29K for carrier operations although the two test trial airframes remained aboard Kuznetsov for a time since it was always under equipped with its design accommodation of fixed wing aircraft (up to 4 squadrons), mainly to retain a purpose as a technology trials platform which we also saw with Su-25 navalisation and the later revival of a MiG-29M based MiG-29K (9.31) for export interest following transfer of Admiral Kuznetsov class carriers and their Kiev class conversions. In the 90s however the MiG-29K is basically a modified 9.12 derivative designated 9.18 and the MiG-29M (9.15) is, in fact based upon this with FBW added and not the other way around, which is the same with the Su-33 and original Su-35 relationship, take the navalised initial production basic fighter-interceptor type, add glass pit and FBW with weapons upgrades and there's your advanced multirole fighter proposal. The revived millenial MiG-29K (9.31) is the one based upon the MiG-29M, which is turn is basically an original MiG-29K or modified 9.12 as above, with a glass pit, HOTAS and FBW added. Got it all right here in print.

Thanks trois-pas, that seems to have fixed it.

My original HD was only 500Mb and ran out of space to update DCS with add ons. I copypasted it over to a new 1Tb HD 'drive F' and used the updater from that folder, worked for a while. I had to free up space on 'C drive' so removed modules from the original install, now using the 'F drive' copy for play but it wouldn't update after that. So I've uninstalled the original 'C drive' installation. There is still an 'F drive' copy. I pay by the Gig for downloads using a metered connection, a new full installation plus all the mods I purchased from scratch may cost a couple of hundred bucks to the ISP. Is there a way I can just repair the copied installation to 'F drive'? When I tried to reinstall using the vanilla 'DCS World Web (installer)' it gives me a popup saying an existing installation already exists and to select a repair option. But where is this option, how do I select it or is it a separate download executable? Thank you for your help.

I turned them completely off. Same message with all firewalls and antivirus disabled. Previously updated from 2.5 to 2.7 no problem with them on a while ago, but can't update since then and haven't really done anything different nor installed anything since. Same story last couple of updates. I get about 500Mb into the update (which is 61 gig), and it stops with this message. Tried ticking "run as administrator" for the updater properties, same deal. Game is stable version. Any ideas?

I ran out of C drive space for my DCS installation. I fitted a new SSD F drive into my PC. I copied the C drive 250GB DCS file in program files over to the new F drive and replaced the desktop updater link with one pointed at F drive file. I ran the updater and it downloads into the F drive which is perfect. I noticed however that it still checks the C drive DCS files when the updater is run. I would like to delete the C drive DCS folder to free up space on that drive for Windows and just use the copy in F drive. What config ini or other file edits do I need to make so that the game treats the transfer to F drive as the original C drive DCS folder installation and I can delete that folder from my C drive?

How do I turn on external views during track replays? :(

The original SSD C drive is only 500GB but I thought it would be enough since Windows 10 Home and DCS are the only things I have on that. I use a 1TB HDD D drive I put all other files and programs on. So now I only have 80GB of SSD space left and I'm getting worried about future patches and I did pre-purchase the Syria map so that might be a problem. What I don't want to have to do is buy a 1TB C drive replacement and have to do a full system reinstall, I would rather stick a compass needle into my eye. My question is, to prepare for when I get an updater message that tells me I've run out of C drive space, how do I redirect all further DCS downloads into another drive, will it prompt me for an alternative drive selection or will it just return an error and tell me about my poor life choices? Can I simply buy a second SSD when Melbourne's stage 4 covid lockdown ends and install that as an E drive and redirect future downloads there, whilst keeping the existing C drive worth of DCS? If Syria comes out before lockdown ends and I only have my HDD D drive can I redirect it there with the rest of DCS on the SSD or will this cause problems loading between two different types of drives? I also have an external storage device WD Elements SE 1TB USB 3.0 and I'm not exactly clear on whether that might be considered an SSD or is something else again? Should I direct further DCS files to that and just keep it plugged in when I want to play? Would the USB drive load quicker than a HDD? I get the SSD is best of all, but like I said, lockdown big time around here, can't buy anything but food/essentials within 5km of home, night curfew, fines of up to 10 grand, won't be buying a new drive just yet... So, is there a prompt to redirect a DCS download if there isn't enough space on C? Just hit D drive or the USB drive and good to go? Or will a clock appear on the screen and begin counting down to a motherboard fry in a fit of Russian humour? Do I need to make some registry entries to make a split drive DCS installation? What will happen, basically? What do I need to do?

Cheers. I've got them under Insurgents when kept neutral with the period restriction set to "off", a grey bullseye appears in Crimea. What are the bullseye's anyway? The blue one at Poti, red one at Krasnodar and now a grey one in Crimea? Are they a capture the flag deal, put an opposing ground force there and what happens?

Very useful streamlining what I was doing trying to make a realistic environment for what starts out as a simple fighter mission with some other stuff going on around it. Might be fairly straightforward to detail a relatively isolated battlefield scenario on the Gulf map but the Caucasus are a whole different ball game where even if you say the Russian economy is so bad there's only a trickle of equipment updates and vastly reduced unit strength you're still talking about one of the most heavily fortified regions of the cold war, an area so disconcerting to NATO that even at the low point of Russian military strength in the 90s and height of black market arms trade throughout the region the big concern was southern district local commanders effectively comprising a rogue state in precisely the scenario of a Tom Clancy novel. And I don't know exactly what the deal is but some local commanders both army and navy have a serious hard on for the Tblisi government, in fact referring to them as the Tblisi government, certainly not the Georgian government illegitimizing the very state, meanwhile Moscow handed over Vaziani airbase whilst the military district still occupies Batumi army base and regards that sovereign territory, no wonder NATO rejected the Tblisi application, throw Abkhazia and South Ossetia into all this and the place is an out and out can of worms. At its simplest, air operations in Georgia seeking to avoid nuclear escalation between parent nations and allies still face some conditions created during the height of the cold war, such as the almost suicidal prospect of crossing the mountains into Russian airspace with anything shy of several hundreds of warplanes. In the modern environment you'd be better off on the Ukrainian approach which they'd have been up for but then Moscow blocked that with its rook move in the Crimea, probably for the exact reason. In mission construction I try to recreate that knife edge sense of terror for fighter operations in Georgia, whilst the mud slingers have it a little easier with a more confined combat environment, but whose complexities are nevertheless as layered as the skin of an onion with CAS having to wear the hats of force interdiction of support units and SEAD with the ever constant threat of having to contend with interceptors which may come over those mountains at the drop of a politically justified hat mid mission. "Oh there was a Russian peacekeeper unit from the 554th marines of the BSF with the Abkhazian incursion? Our bad so that's why the MiGs came over the mountains and shot down our CAS." Okay so you can just imagine the map population of both static clutter and active AI units I'm laying out there and keep in mind this all started out as a simple fighter mission, haven't even started populating the conditions for that, this is just the setup. But also some client options of doing some CAS, insertion/combat support, SEAD and force interdiction with choppers and attack aircraft given that all has to be going on anyway to justify the fighter operations, my main focus of the mission. Why do anything by halves? The setup is Abkhazian incursion at Zugdidi followed by conventional escalation of Russian occupation at Senaki and Poti with a fictional NATO partner intervention, keeping in mind a Russian army base at Batumi and an airbase in Armenia, along with the no fly zone along the Caucasus border, an EWR and home defence fortification of the overkill variety specifically aimed at a NATO pincer arm through Turkey, as it always was upon the strategy of defence in depth in those Soviet days through to now. For the fighter units themselves I'm trying to recreate that cold war generated sense of extreme tenuous footing operating close to that Russian border along the Caucasus, since let's face it, the cold war might be over but its themes very much prevail in this region. Picture this: it's 1983, the world could explode into nuclear holocaust at any moment, with both sides trying to maintain their territorial interests whilst both avoiding that scenario yet necessarily threatening just such escalation. At the tactical side you have ridiculously reinforced defence networks tasked with at least reducing the total number of delivery systems, useful also for prohibiting conventional penetrations and a national security environment which necessitates a totalitarian state which stretches across provincial regions into satellites, but some of these provinces like Georgia and Ukraine are inherently dissatisfied by a long history of disparaging service/support ratio with the centralised government. Local sentiments reminisce historical ancestry of independent empires, long before Moscow fought off Muslim dominance to create the Russian state Ukraine was a Viking colony taking control of the ancient Greek trade ports, agriculturally developing the interior in true Nordic fashion, whilst Georgia was a lot like feudal Romania/Hungary. These are proud traditions entirely dismissed by the Tsars and their secret police and furthered, not improved by Soviet control. Yes if KGB in Soviet era makes you apprehensive you haven't even read of the Tsarist royal security force upon which it is essentially based and entirely more polite. Now you, the American spy Colonel Gant in a Firefox scenario are inserted into Georgia and the entire political environment is oppressive, a Soviet border territory with the looming bear just across the mountain peaks, the intrusive glances of plain clothes KGB agents at every hotel you stay, Soviet collaborators at every tavern you dine at watching your every move, the outsider, a latent sense of both rebellious independence and totalitarian enforcement hanging in the air of every shop you enter or marketplace you browse, the outsider in a place where everyone is an outsider within their own homes. Remarkably you blend in but the threat is overwhelming. Fast forward to the post Soviet and the main thing that really changed is the veil removed and the KGB left, the political situation isn't really that much different. For one thing the threat, across those mountains is just the same. So you, now the NATO peacekeeping force in post Soviet Georgia flying fighter cover for ground support operations preserving Tblisi control of its sovereign territory, aside Abkhazian and Ossetian secession but predictable incursions from those regions whilst those matters are reviewed by the international courts as opposed to Russian determination (personally I'm apolitical on this, talking entirely about fictional mission scenario). Let's say you're Spanish Hornets to avoid the controversy of US forces operating so close to the Russian border proper. You do not want to cross those mountains into Russian airspace no matter what the circumstances, even if it means taking down Russian MiGs coming from those very mountains to intercept CAS supporting defending Georgian ground forces against Abkhazians sporting old Soviet surplus somebody gave them the warehouse access keys to, not mentioning any names. Fighters range in combat, which can take them far from the green zone and on this particular map that's gotta be a terrifying prospect for those pilots and I'm also trying to recreate that sense of dread in the cockpit, which hopefully might give a distracting immersion but adds many more dimensions to an already entirely overpopulated map a good computer would have trouble numbers crunching without a significant fps decrease. A simple fighter mission on the NATO side in Georgia isn't so simple, one wrong move and a couple of MiGs turns into a home defence escalation at full conventional capabilities already massed on the border the way a Great White shark identifies objects with its mouth, a place you just don't stick your hand. So, what I'm trying to say is these tutorials are giving me ideas about streamlining my tendency to overpopulate, without compromising the atmosphere I'm trying to create, in the simplest manner and oh boy did I need it.

I get a thumbnail for CAM on the welcome screen but nothing in the mission editor. No country called CAM and none of the CAM aircraft are in any of the national aircraft lists. Is there a secret button? There was a secret button! Yeah didn't think of looking under Insurgents. Who would? Found them.

No luck, but I don't have open beta installed. I only have the stable version. I tried ...\DCS\Mods\aircraft as well as ...\DCS.openbeta\Mods\aircraft but doesn't show up in the mission editor either way.

Yeah, when I move it from there to user/savegames I no longer get it disabled but it doesn't show up in game. If I put it in mods/aircraft or coremods it gets disabled. It's only in one place at a time, but doesn't work in any of the three places. The last time I installed mods was FC2/modman a long time ago. I just have the stable DCS version installed. Do mods only work with open beta? I have downloaded OvGME just now, that won't break stable or anything will it? Do I just use that?

Only just discovered this, not having much luck getting it to show up in game. Following the instructions and putting it in C:DCS World/Mods/Aircraft just gets it disabled as unauthorised DLC on start up. Searched for ideas and tried C:user/savegames/DCS/Mods/Aircraft as per "how to use mods" thread, doesn't show up in game. Tried putting the folder in core mods too and that gets disabled also. Is it incompatibility with 2.5.6 or am I doing it wrong?