Hazardpro

These systems have actually been getting quite a bit of combat experience lately, and there's been very little indication they actually perform so effectively as so many here are quick to believe against something as small and fast moving as an ARM. A lot of them have been destroyed by bombs. On another note, the HARM has a blast frag warhead which means its effect on target isn't purely a question of distance but also trajectory. From what I understand, one of the major benefits of the known range modes IRL is not just a more efficient flight path but also a better pk of the warhead. I don't know if this is represented in DCS or not.

From the perspective of someone who works in aircraft engineering, IRL a failure of the gear doors that causes them to actually separate from the aircraft is kind of a big deal for the fleet just being airworthy and no one is thinking about the question 100 steps down of "well can it still drop bombs like this?". Not saying ED is wrong to model it the way they do, just want to provide maybe a little perspective on the "realism" discussion.

I haven't had the chance to play in a while so not sure if it works this way currently in the game, but the workflow you are supposed to follow in the hornet to STT a raw hit in RWS is to put the cursor over the hit and SCS right (to the radar page) which should trigger what's called "fast acquisition" mode. Kind of counter-intuitive at first but there's really no mode where you want to use TDC depress over SCS right to "get a lock ASAP".

This topic has also come up on the Hornet board and I'll contribute my 2c here like I did there, as an aerospace engineer. The way these aircraft fail in DCS by regularly and predictably ripping their wings off in high G maneuvers really is not realistic at all. But frankly, I think realistic damage modeling of this kind is probably beyond the scope of what's reasonable to expect in a flight sim. I don't really expect ED to do sophisticated structural and material analysis of every element of our virtual airframes every time I go out of limits with it because it's a game and not a professional design product. So I suppose it's an acceptable DCS-ism for me.

The Apache and Blackhawk are two engined helicopters, so some performance loss in one engine isn't the same kind of emergency as in a single engined helicopter like the Kiowa.

DCS "simulates" target RCS by looking up a single value from a table that's often not even realistic. I don't want to make this thread into competition between sims but I expect the other one to do at least that much.

I think the intended weapon for use against a column of tanks for most of the hornet's service life would have been mk20s. And they certainly seem to perform rather anemically in DCS compared to their real life service history. I believe AGM-65F is primarily an anti-ship weapon, not sure how often it's been used for ground attack. And laser guided weapons were more of a specialized capability early on and not the go-to strike option until later into the 2000s.

The truth is that IRL there isn't going to be a consistent loading that when you go beyond the wings always snap off, there's always uncertainty which is why aircraft are designed with safety factors (and a lot of testing) to establish the safety below a certain specified limit. Can DCS perfectly simulate this? No, so in that sense it's not very realistic, just like our engines perform exactly the same every single flight in DCS when in real life they are always degrading. On the other hand, it's also very unrealistic when DCS players engage the g-limit override in combat, as numerous SMEs have already explained that that isn't the intended use and they don't train to use it that way. And doing so certainly has the potential to damage the jet and make it combat ineffective even if it doesn't result in the wings ripping off. So in that sense having a mechanism that effectively dissuades players in DCS from using the switch actually results in more realistic outcomes. So there is no easy answer of just saying "it's a sim, we want realism" but rather a trade-off between 2 different realisms.

This is nonsense. First of all, there is no g-limiter in the Viper. Second of all, its highly unlikely that any aircraft, military or civilian, will have anything mounted to the wings in such a way that the mounts can take a stronger load than what the wing can actually handle before failing. That would be a gross engineering negligence.

AIM-7P block II does incorporate a midcourse up-link upgrade to the rear receiver according to a book source I have.

Yes, that's what I meant. Technically there is a shaped charge which forms the EFP, but we were talking in the context of the effect on target.

The SFW is not a shaped charge, it's a kinetic armor piercing weapon. It does not need to cause any kind of explosion to kill a vehicle, but as been demonstrated over and over again in actual warfare lots of vehicles are liable to suffer fires or even explosions when they are penetrated in vital compartments.

I don't think it's surprising at all that APG-73 could detect and track an A2A missile, especially at look-up and at high closure, but keep in mind that tactically actually trying to intercept enemy A2A missiles with your own missiles really only makes sense in the last 5-10 years with the proliferation of longer ranged and more advanced ARH weapons. I would almost say its out of the scope of DCS and our circa 2005 Hornet sim except that the scope has never been really defined.

You need to uncage the seeker if you want it to track an acquired target. Also even if implemented the IR COOL switch won't be applicable for AIM-9X because it has an internal cooling system that doesn't require aircraft support.

Not really sure what the point of this thread is since it seems like your questions were addressed in multiple replies already, but I chuckled at this bit: Unless your computer desk is set up atop an actual rocket sled, I'm afraid you're stuck with the rest of us judging performance in DCS through numbers and not by "feel".

Anti-ship missiles like Harpoon can absolutely sink ships on their own without any torpedoes required, but like other posters have said that probably won't happen until after the ship is already aflame and crippled. Given that we're just now getting a real damage model for aircraft it's not really that surprising that the damage model for ships in DCS is still pretty basic, but I hope they can look at implementing something more comprehensive in the future.

It blows my mind how some people think playing a lot of DCS or watching youtube videos makes them some kind of authority. :doh:

If you calculate the fuel flow ratio correctly using the SFC ratio and the max thrust ratio you get that the single GE-129 does indeed consume about 11% less fuel than the 2 F404's at max thrust. Of course, since the F16 has 34% less internal fuel available that still means it will exhaust its internal fuel first. Works out to about 25% less endurance for the F16.

The Hornet's onboard CLC is specifically designed to couple the HARM and RWR and can cue the missile to active threats. The F16's ALIC doesn't have this capability. You have to keep in mind the HARM was first and foremost a navy weapon and integration on the Hornet was a lot earlier than in the Viper.

You don't understand the difference between "self protection" and "offensive attack" against a target of interest?

Please read again. I know we probably aren't going to get any real SMEs to come in here and comment on weapon employment, but everything I can find publicly on how HARMs are employed in the USN agrees that the RWR is used to cue the missile seeker.

Again, source?

Literally took 10 seconds of google to find multiple sources that the hornets CLC automatically queues the HARM seeker based on RWR detection. https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-88.htm Please keep in mind that the F16 DOES NOT have this same capability and cannot queue the HARM sensor with the RWR.

So you don't have a source, just making things up because you THINK that's how it should work? I really hope ED sticks with the documentation on this and ignore people who have no idea what they are talking about on the forums.

Do you have a source for this?