Trident

Only the Tu-95MS, but I'm sure the Iranians could fit it to their Su-24MK's if they put their minds to it. The Fencer can carry external fuel tanks that are a lot heavier than a Kh-55, so structurally there should be little trouble.

Agree, as it stands now 90% of all LOMAC BFM will be among SFM aircraft, as only the Frogfeet have an AFM. Hence my comment about it mostly affecting immersion (which is also a function of realism in this case) in that other thread. The thing to keep in mind is that there's a lot of middle ground between made-up avionics and some educated guesses regarding a few classified systems ;) With the TAC-manuals of several (?) USAF aircraft available and quite a few human sources (like Matt) to fall back on the latter should be a distinct possibility.

Strictly speaking you make a very good point of course, but ED doesn't seem to have any qualms about modelling SFM aircraft alongside AFM aircraft. Not to mention the obvious differences in avionics fidelity (where the Su-25T surpasses all others) we see in LOMAC today. I somehow fail to see how a non-TAC-manual aircraft which is never the less thoroughly well-designed would be that much 'worse', so to speak. My favourites for future LOMAC fly-ables would be, in order of priority, the F/A-18C (with the APG-65), MiG-29K (the original version) the Mirage2000C (with the RDI radar) and the HarrierII (with FLIR but no radar). In other words, I agree with D-Scythe :)

I agree that the difference between SFM and AFM aircraft is such that it will not appreciably affect comparative performance and thus multiplayer results. It is true that the discrepancy will severely cut down on suspension of disbelief, however.

Russian combat-aircraft usually do not, which is probably why they are not modelled in LOMAC (Flanker heritage).

Nice! Any screens showing the winter version?

Your English is fine, and your avatar is hilarious :D

It is - it's a captive training round for practising the lockon procedure for that homing head without carrying the actual weapon.

Not really, it's a workaround for not having E-8 JOINTSTARS in the sim, I suppose.

The pod on the centre-line of the Su-30MKK is the Kupol and contains a high-resolution SAR radar and provisions for other sensors such as IIR AFAIK. It is primarily a reconnaissance system. The one below the intake next to it is the Sapsan-E, a laser-designation pod.

Another point to consider about range is not only maximum but also minimum ballistic range. Place it inside that distance to the target and the launcher will be physically incapable of hitting it and thus won't fire. This is particularly important with the Smerch, the minimum range of which covers the better part of the Grad's maximum reach (i.e. placing a Smerch where a Grad used to be for engaging the same target may not work)! Place Smerchs about 40km from their target and they should do fine.

Russian: http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~animal/military.pl/smiglowce/mi-24_hind/mi-24-3.jpg Located directly above the Red Star in this image. http://passionavionsdechasse.ifrance.com/photos/mi24_hind/descente.jpg http://www.airforce.ru/aircraft/mil/mi-24/rybalchenko/mi-24p_15.jpg http://212.158.133.3/hwa/vladimir_cereba/mi-24v%20(ciaf2000)/mi-24v_11.jpg Also found on the Ka-28 and some military Mi-8 versions: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/952732/L/ Designation is L166 IIRC. American: http://www.ausairpower.net/ALQ-144-IRCM-S.jpg http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/an-alq-144-cms.gif http://public.andrews.amc.af.mil/jsoh/images/planes/AH-1W_large.jpg http://airpower.callihan.cc/images/Helicoptr/AH64/ah64eng.jpg http://www.us-aircraft.com/images/MH-60/Dscf0024.jpg The location is similar to that on the Russian helos. The designation of the system and the carrier aircraft may be guessed from the file names ;)

I'm pretty sure these are IR sensors for detecting approaching missiles. The IR jammer is usually located in a cylindrical contraption on the fuselage spine on both American and Russian helos.

It's not primarily the replica that most people are after with the F-15/F/A-18 throttle, there's simply a demand for independent engine control in twin-engine aircraft. Think about it, LOMAC already supports this as we speak but right now there is NO throttle in production to take advantage of it. And it's not just LOMAC either, as far as I'm aware the sims that implement this technology actually outnumber those that don't among the current crop of titles.

Russia no longer uses Scuds nowadays and its successor, the SS-21, is lethally accurate. There is a second, much longer range (600km vs. 120km) missile called SS-23 but it was banned by the INF treaty and its shorter ranged (400+km, complying with the 500km restriction of the treaty) replacement only entered service recently. I agree that it would be cool to have such weapons, the US should field ATACMS Block1 as a counterpart. Oh, and give the Russians the S-300V back, for intercepting those pesky missiles ;)

No, I'm talking about their existing MiG fleet, not the MiG-29K and perhaps MiG-29M (now called MiG-35) that they are getting in future.

Agree, I'm not convinced that all they did to the R-77 capable MiG-29S's (which for Russia means only those based at Kursk as per SK) was to add the ability to carry and fire the missile. I believe SK said something about an additional, improved SNP mode on the Malaysian MiGs, which use an export version of the radar that could be expected in the Russian R-77 airframes. Maybe there is some info to be found in Indian sources, their MiGs have been upgraded to a similar standard? EDIT: Forgot to add that I'm with D-Scythe on these issues :)

The situation with the MiG-29K was simple - Sukhoi was faster. They had already started production by the time the Soviet Union collapsed, and so the desicion was made to concentrate on the available Su-33. Which from a simming point of view is a pity, because the MiG-29K was probably the closest Russia came to operating a western-style multirole airframe until the Su-27SM recently ;)

What I hope is that this second project will not bring AFM and a clickable cockpit to just one existing flyable - it's just agonizing to fly the SFM aircraft alongside in the same sim. Yes, I know this is a monumental undertaking, but I too think that the payoff for this effort would be immense. I'm sure many people would be more than happy to pay good money for such a fundamental overhaul to LOMAC.

Quickdraw sounds very interesting, should be a very handy feature indeed! BTW, could the presence of an enemy AWACS be another factor in the widely differing results that people are obtaining with this new feature? It probably shouldn't, given the small RCS of a Maverick or typical ARM, but I seem to recall that AWACS used to make the difference when you wanted to have S300s engage cruise missiles in older versions of Flanker. Maybe this somehow got carried over inspite of the smaller missiles?

Same here, I don't have the source(s) available right now. Anyway, as far as I can remember it was due to more accurate distance measuring. The warhead was more likely to be detonated at the ideal moment in high closure situations with small targets. OTOH, this may require an advanced implementation that is not commonplace today (?). Past experience dictates that your sources are usually the best :) but a fuze emitting pencil beams seems too prone to missing the target to be used in practise IMHO. About 12 seconds from detection until the missile can be intercepted - maybe one or two seconds more to allow for sufficient separation from the launcher for a range resolution of 400m (a speed of 400m/s sound about right for the Mav). Assuming the Tunguska missile flies at 600m/s we get a minimum range of roughly 2000m which in turn means that the Maverick launch must have occured about 7km away from the launcher for an interception to be possible. Interesting :) OTOH the guns have no practical minimum range, so they could fire on a missile launched from within 3-4km.

Actually everything I've read seems to suggest that laser fuzes are actually better suited to intercepting missiles due to their presicion. The fact that the Tunguska missiles are closely related to those on the Kashtan CIWS seems to support this assumption. As for Mavericks, they shouldn't be too challenging a target for modern SAMs, as they are neither that much smaller than ARMs nor faster (in fact, I'd say they're substantially slower than most ARMs, with such a large diameter and a blunt glass seeker dome they are probably just barely supersonic). I do agree that Strela (with or without radar, IMHO!) and Osa should not be able to achieve such a feat. This probably similar to the tank vs. helo problem, the capability definately exists in reality (atleast in some systems, see above) but is somewhat exaggerated in LOMAC. However I'm not so sure about Osa, it has a naval counterpart too and SACLOS guidance is used on SeaWolf aswell, IIRC. A Maverick is probably stretching it a bit though, I don't think its fuzing should be good enough to deal with such a relatively small object (it's a rather old missile).

Pretty ominous name :D This would make a rather cool feature for LOMAC, come to think of it.

What he said. Actually I seem to remember an article mentioning that the Kuz also has a net barrier.

I think that was an arrestor-wire failure though ;)