kseremak

I understand you, but do you really want to fly 2021 standard Meteor Eurofighter P2Eb software against 15 years older F/16 or F/A-18? The first Meteor missile is being integrated with German Eurofighter in 2021 together with P2Eb software. Hornet has been retired from US Navy long before the first German Meteor Eurofighter fly. Not mentioning our 2006 F-16 and F/A-18 had different systems and avionics later on. This kind of mission would be a final fantasy. If some server set Eurofighter with Meteor and i.e. Hornet it's probably some so called "airQuake module soup", for fun. If you want you can set a mission with WWII Mustang and 15 years more modern 1960 MiG-21 with missiles and say it's not balanced, but it would be the case only because the mission would be a complete fantasy, only for fun. Some countries, like Canada, still used P-51 in 1960 for special duties, but it doesn't mean such scenario would be even remotely realistic. If HB will make some 2004-2007 early German A/A Eurofighter it will kind of fit few the most modern DCS modules, including F-16C CCIP and F/A-18 Lot 20, but if they make some 2021 version with Meteor, I agree it will not fit anything. But i.e. I-16 Rata also doesn't fit anything. That's the disadvantage of sandbox comparad to chosen historical period/war with proper map, assets, aircraft versions and so on like in example Flaming Cliffs 3 where everything fits each other; map, aircrafts, asssets, timeline.

But is Heatblur already confirmed 100% they are doing Meteor? German Eurofighters will receive Meteor implementation only THIS year. Regardless of Meteor, AMRAAM already made air combat shallower and easier. Adding some super modern unrealistic AIM-120D, without access to any data, giving it even bigger range, will make the air to air even more monotonous and even less authentic.

Yes, I'm afraid something like this might lower the whole DCS standard. On the other hand both ED and Heatblur are passionate i doubt they would find any satisfaction beyound some short term revenues in making something completely unrealistic. But knowing the very first German Eurofighter receives Meteor missile capability summer this year (2021) with P2Eb software needed to use them and HB want to make a Meteor. Does it mean we are going to have 2021 standard Eurofighter with P2Eb software? Well. Due to HB involved and real life pilot in TG i can believe they could make fairly realistic around 2004-2006 early German pure A/A Eurofighter. But I'm at least sceptic when it comes to possibility to model 2021 totally classified today's guardian of European sky and Meteor missile in a way it would resemble the real capabilities at all. I propose 2 versions, by making a checkpoint during the developement. At some point stop adding features having highly realistic A/A German Eurofighter around 2006 standard with AMRAAM and IRIS-T. This is our F-16 and F-18 timeline. Then develop further second far more classified 2021 Meteor capable P2Eb standard or something and adding different murky stuff, at the same time not including other real life systems we are not allowed to know they even exist (and i bet there is plenty of them in 2021 Eurofighter). Still leaving classic 2006 standard to choose like F-14A and B.

I hope you are kidding. In case you don't, Rafale and Eurofighter started as a common project at the very early stage. Then France separated and both aircrafts have literaly everything different except the most general layout of delta cannard, but even this aerodynamic configuration is very different with specific configuration low wing vs medium wing, different canards configuration and role, different size and mass. Different engines, very different radars, completely different ECM, completely different armament, different pylons configuration, totally different cockpit and avionics. Literally everything what can be different is different in this two. Making EF means 0% Rafale work is done.

Agree. MANPADs would be relatively easy model anyway, '70 and '80 models are declassified, and they would add a lot of realism and another danger element to consider to Cold War scenarios.

I'm waiting for the Integrated Air Defense module 3rd party is developing for the DCS and what it will bring in terms of SAM fidelity. Simpler Cold War systems you mentioned would not be particularly hard to model in a quite realistic way and they would be very useful in DCS. But some more modern are classified and i'm afraid what we would have would be only a very simplified guestimated system. +1

Overall you are right, but to do MiG-25 justice things were not as black and white in reality. What you have described is classic early '70s MiG-25P with massive 1100 lb I-band Smerch pulse radar, very hard to jam and resistant to nuclear EMP, but with limited capabilities outside the simple high altitude interception, name it one trick pony. But Soviet doctrine evolved in the early '80s. MiG-25PD in early '80s received Saphir-25 pulse-doppler radar capable of shooting down lower flying targets, SPO-15 Beryoza RWR, KDS-155 flare/chaff dispensers, IRST sensor. Some MiG-25PD units trained an air combat, It received short range highly maneuverable R-60M missiles for close engagements. It was never a dogfighter like an Eagle, but it had more tricks in the sleeve than '70s MiG-25P. US F-15 pilot said, in specific circumstances they met during Gulf War, Foxbat turned out to be a tougher opponent for them then Fulcrum, typical tactical dogfighter. Two MiG-25s put up quite a fight against two F-15C, dodging few missiles, confusing their radars. Other day MiG-25 managed to shoot down US Navy Hornet and was in a position to attack the next, but it has been called off by the Iraqi GCI not to attack other Iraqi aircraft operating in the area by accident. After shooting down the Hornet the MiG-25 managed to fly away safely and land on Iraqi airfield. Another day Iraqi MiG-25 managed to attack and probably damage Saudi Arab F-15C. And it's good to remember Iraqi air force were practically blind and at severe disadvantage in every possible aspect, from big numerical NATO advantage, through intel, training and so on, F-15C was the best fighter aircraft in the world at that time. MiG-25PD also shoot down few Iranian tactical fighters during '80s Iraq-Iran war. MiG-25PD was a good aircraft when pilots were able to use its specific advantages. MiG-25PD cruising above Ma2 at 60,000ft, with PD radar and huge R-40 missiles locked on was the last situation an enemy pilot wanted to encounter. MiG-25PD wasn't to be easily defeated energetically by flying faster, higher and boosting the longer range missiles more and this was one of the the basic F-15C Cold War tactics against most Soviet aircrafts, using pure kinematic advantage of the aircraft/missile set. F-15C has the tools to defeat MiG-25PD but it had to be a bit creative, trying to break the lock by maneuvering or using superior ECM, create chaotic situation to use an advantage of NCTR, fly in a tight formation braking it after launch warning to use RAID mode processing power, trying to lure the MiG lower into denser atmosphere or make him slow down and bleed the energy in a turn and so on. But not a simple go Ma2 at 50,000 firing Sparrow and exert the dominance. Evan for the extremely well trained and strictly selected F-15C pilots air superiority community in the '80s a fight against mixed formation of high/fast/big missile MiG-25PD and agile MiG-29A wouldn't be a comfortable situation because F-15 could outmaneuver the MiG-25 and outshoot the MiG-29 but it couldn't do both things easily at once. Add Sidewinder armed super nimble F-16A to the equation and it's really exciting combat.

I would like to recreate all of this 104:0. From F-15A in Lebanon war '79-'82, Beqaa valley, Mole cricket untill F-15C in a Gulf War Desert Shield/Desert Storm 1991.

Maybe because AH-64A was the one which destroyed hundreds of enemy tanks and even more other armored vehilces in real all out war during Desert Storm Gulf War and proved to be extremally effective in it's designed role during that time. In comparison AH-64D in second Iraq war performed quite average, destroying only a handful of tanks, suffering considerable losses in the process. Even though Iraqi military in 2000 was only a demoralised, broken pale shadow of 1991 Army. After the Gulf War Apache simply didn't have many opportunities to be used in it's designed role. AH-64Ds typically flew in Afghanistan and Iraq without the Longbow Radar in the absence of armored threats.

Meteor is a kind of revolution, practically every pilot asked about it say so. It has ramjet air breathing engine with variable thrust so it's overall theoreticall max range is not that much greater than conventional missile, but true difference is Meteor's; - no escape zone against maneuvering target because having air breathing engine it doesn't need heavy loft profile like conventional missile i.e. AIM-120 to fly a long distance (in AIM-120 or other conventional missile there is only a few seconds impulse and that's it, if missile didn't loft outside the dense atmosphere it will bleed the whole energy rapidly flying like a glider. And if did loft but enemy changed its course the missile is wasted as well) - next is Meteor engine, contrary to AIM-120 and other conventional missiles, still burns even during the last part of the interception, this gives Meteor much higher maneuverability in the final phase But without having an access to "NATO restricted" documents we can't tell anything really. It's only a wild guessing. Commercials and publically available information are not only scarce and very rough estimates without any conditions specified, but very ofter they are intentionally misleading not to give any usefull hint to the potential opponents, especially in areas that are really important. It's good to remember about this before starting an argument.

A-10 pilot compares Desert Storm 1991 and Afganistan in 2000s. Flying at minimun altitude, at night, without NVG or TFR during Desert Storm tells something about their training level during the Regan's Cold War period - they were prepared to fight full blown Soviet armored assault in Fulda Gap in the '80s.

16 April 2021 German Luftwaffe has begun equipping Eurofighter with Meteor BVRAAM missile. The Meteor missile requires P2Eb software upgrade (Phase 2 Enhancements B) to be used, Luftwaffe plans to make the first Eurofighters armed with Meteor to be operational in June this year. The first Eurofighter serial number 31+35 (c/n GS095) has been equipped with the P2Eb software on April 26. For the first time on Eurofighter Meteor missile become operational in December 2018 in British RAF. https://www.key.aero/article/germanys-first-eurofighter-receives-p2eb-software-upgrade https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/luftwaffe-eurofighters-get-meteor-bvraam

Multi-threading and Vulkan because all other improvements in the list can be done ONLY after this new foundation exists. If not, adding anything else from the list like sophisticated AI, detailed ground/sea combat, dynamic campaign, would kill the frames totally overloading the one primary CPU core.

"MODERN" ? There are no modern things in DCS, only historicall stuff, because modern things are strictly classified and imposible/illegal to disclose. I.e. Hornet has been retired by US Navy many years ago. In practice it has been replaced/supplemented by more modern Super Hornet some 15 years ago and next directly replaced by F-35C few years ago. Hornet stands in US aviation museums. Hornet is a historical aircraft with historical context AND I LOVE IT but i'm not trying (or need) to pretend it's modern: '80s Hornet being modern top dog '90s still capable aircraft '00s older less capable supplement of Superhornets '10s practically retired from carriers and the Navy, replaced by the F-35C '20s museum exponate

I understand your argumentation (even if i wouldn't sacrifice raalism for artificial increase of capability), but the other thing is more important. To saturate this SA-10 site (and we are talking about '80s Soviet SA-10 since this is what is modeled in DCS) 2 or 4 HARM missiles are equally helpless. Ommiting the fact this things are classified and we can only guess i would say you should aim in 10-ish times bigger number. 20-40 missiles should do the trick. But 2 or 4 lonely HARM missiles flying from the same direction fired by just one lonely aircraft would be dealt with relatively easily, probably without even turning off the seach radar. It looks like other aspects like HTS, ECM and cleaner airframe energy were more important. If taking 4 HARMs would be so important USAF would ensure F-16 was able to fire 4 of them. I thing DCS Integrated Air Defense module will change many things in this aspect and add a lot of depth, tactics, realism and common sense to SEAD missions. Lot more than dice rolling 2 additional HARMs.

I don't know if ED plan to add other versions in the future but considering the most modern RED side aircrafts are '80s Su-27, MiG-29, Mi-24 (and ff MiG-29, MiG-23MLA and Su-17 in the future) adding F-16A or C Block 30 and F/A-18A or early C from '80s would most definitely "balance" things. They would't have Link16, JHMCS, SA page, AMRAAMS, GPS guided munitions, but they would have better maneuverability than later versions, it looks like perfect balance and realism at once. Tell me why did you say F-16A or F/A-18A "wont balance anything"? (I agree with the rest of your statement it would take resources to make them, but this is different topic)

This would be great! Extreme high altitude performance, pulse-doppler look down radar, gigantic missiles capable of maneuvering in a thin > 40,000ft atmosphere with oversize fins. It was used by USSR, India, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt. Very interesting combat record, Israeli-Arab wars, Iraq-Iran war, up to Desert Storm when it was dogfighting with Eagles and managed to shoot down US Navy Hornet.

As i said, there are exception. But i don't think this was the case since F/A-18A was lighter. According to pilot's interview Big Motor Charlie, so our version, just regained T/W ratio of the F/A-18A because Charlie was gaining more weight through the years together with additional equipement. But it didn't regain it's original F/A-18A nose authority and low wing loading which were even better in A model. Especially nose authority because the big part of Charlie additional mass was placed inside the nose, the worst place from nose authority point of view. It was even more pronounced with F-16A and C which gained A LOT more weight then the Hornet what significantly changed it's performance.

I would definitely eagerly pay for i.e. F/A-18A add-on just like A-10C II or Black Shark 3, but i think starting from the early model and only then developing later will be even more consistent approach for the future.

General scheme (there are some exceptions) is: "A models" are the lightest, the most nimble and exciting to fly, have the best performance and maneuverability. When later models are gaining more and more weight, kinematic performance and maneuverability are gradually decreasing but avionics is more and more sophisticated and automated. I prefer early models in nearly every case, they are more entertaining and generally more realistic since developers don't have to exclude many classified sytems used by the real life later version of the aircraft.

^ ^ The best looking early hotrod version with concave fuselage.

I think the same. Air-to-ground is exciting with dedicated ground pounders like A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair, Su-17, Su-25A, analog A-10, F-111, '80s Tornado IDS and so on, where it requires skill, taking risk and fight. Modern fighter releasing automatic guided Storm Shadow from 300 miles from the target and RTB, not doing anything or risking anything, please.. Eurofighter is going to be exciting as a fighter in air combat.

No it will destroy ONLY post '80s PVP play. Everything since WW2, through Korea, Vietnam, Middle Eastern wars, Falklands, Afganistan up to 1991 Desert Storm is, and will remain, balanced and competitive. Post Desert Storm already is, and will remain, one sideded due to Russian law. We are getting many '80s Soviet aircrafts in the near future to DCS. This.