GGTharos

The F-15E -1 specifies that the performance for the F-15E is estimated and assumed (they use those specific words) based on the previous models. That should be a red flag. Any other sources you'll have to find yourself. Razbam probably won't have any trouble getting the relevant information from their SMEs.

And you're not going to see it. That doesn't mean the facts aren't as I said.

The canopy is extra heavy, the additional life support and avionics are extra heavy. Yep, you're going to have a significant effect on the 15Es agility. Even without CFTs, it will have marginal advantages in STR in some cases, but it will lack ITR, AoA handling and the minimum stall speed will be higher. In other words, a light grey flown in BFM with techniques other than benign attempts to out-STR it should win every time if both aircraft are flown perfectly. I hope you can't, otherwise it's not really an F-15E. They're part of the package of what the aircraft is and does.

They should not and are not. And yet it does. It will fly similar, and more so to the 15D, but it will not and absolutely should not be the same as a 15C. You will lose AoA capability at minimum.

The nose affects the CG, as well as the moment of arm for high AoA (read: low yaw stability) regimes, thus changing behavior significantly enough for it to be notable.

Don't even need to go to the CFTs right away, you can start with the long nose.

In fact they are not. Because in fact it is not.

Yeah, it's fighter ace alright, you're a total fighter ace when you blow all your energy on a 13g spike, black out and go into the drink. Yep, if you pull 12.5g for a few seconds you'll damage the airframe IRL at some GW, at much higher GW you will disintegrate it. In DCS that won't happen, but you will disintegrate your smash or your SA or both. IMHO you picked a pretty poor hill to die on.

How does your chainsaw work when you're SARH-only?

That's not how it works. That MiG-25 might be going at 'stupid speeds' too.

It means homing missiles. All homing missiles are self-guiding. It doesn't matter if you have to illuminate the target, the point is the missile does its own thing. Now it denies loft and generally reduces Pk, but keeping your ECM on at all times isn't necessarily a good thing. But no, DCS can't model all of the nuances ... or even really part of them right now. Old ECM vs new digital missile ... not a bet you should want to take.

AIM-120D has two way datalink. With most missiles until recently, the plane send information to the missile. AIM-120D sends information back to the plane. There also appears to be an link-16 capability or something similar in AIM-120D

They are completely dependent on geometry, but maybe not closure - geometry is a close enough approximation although not entirely correct. The problem is that you can spike up the retarget probability high as there's no limit to the cumulative probability for this.

@NineLine @BIGNEWY While this is not a bug (working as designed), it is not correct. I think the devs will understand this if you bring this information to them: Currently: 1) Every CM release triggers a 'die roll' 2) The probability of retargeting rises with certain factors such a look down and number of chaff in the view of the missile - the 'incorrectish' part is is bolded (it should be based on chaff RCS) Therefore: Cap the maximum probability of switching regardless of how many CMs are in view for RADAR only (heat seekers resolve things differently, so this is important) - this can be done in a number of ways: 1) Allow only a maximum number of chaff to be considered in the field of view (in other words, your target may drop 100 but you would only consider 3) 2) Cap the maximum number of 'die rolls' to a specific time frame, meaning specifically a delay between each die roll. 3) If possible ensure the chaff effectiveness is based on closure, not aspect (currently based on aspect I believe) Or some combination of the above. These measures should deal with the problem of raising the probability of retargeting to nearly 100% when dumping high numbers of chaff in a short amount of time For reference: We have the probability of a very old missile, an AIM-7E or perhaps older, switching to chaff on a graph. The cumulative retarget probability due to chaff is less than 2% at all aspects other than within some 5 degrees of the beam. While reality is a little more complicated, newer missiles really shouldn't be spoofable head-on, at least not without proper ECM which we don't have in DCS anyway. So to be clear, R-27Rs, AIM-7Ms, cumulative (this word is important) probability of retarget in any aspect but the beam should be well under 1% IMHO. It should be there but no one should even be pretending to point at their target if they want to avoid the missile guiding on them. Basically, if the missile doesn't force you to the beam to evade it, the CM retargeting probability is not right. Edit: Removed the reference to 'jaff' after getting better informed on the subject.

You are correct, but the only opportunity is if the chaff is in the missile's flight path. In DCS this has very little application since chaff doesn't stay in the air long and most trajectories don't go near enough the chaff.

The AIM-7M entered service in 82, the F-18A entered service in 83. If any version of the F-18 is capable of using the 7F, it's going to be for training. You'd never see it in combat and I would have doubts that it exists in inventory at all by the time the Block 20 came along.

Out of the relevant time frame. I can't be sure that the APG-73 can't guide it, but I doubt it would be available in the stores programming. It operates on different principles than the 7M and basically it would have been completely phased out IMHO by the time the 18C came along.

It probably shouldn't even be available on the hornet.

No, that's a game thing. A real missile will angle/range/speed gate the target it wants to find, and the AIM-54 (or anything other than the intended target) is very unlikely to match any of those. There are circumstances where this could happen, but it is 'reasonable to a tiny degree' that it would track the missile. An F-14 at M0.88 ... ie the thing closest to the doppler gate at the time of autonomous search.

I'll be very happy with a 90's eagle. It'll do the 80's stuff in a pinch by loading AIM-7s. As for endless boring of holes ... A2G aircraft do the same, and scenario design can easily make the air to air mission very relevant. The joke is people wanting to swing-role A2A and A2G ... that may work with 'lower capability' opponents. And that's why when a multi-role aircraft takes off for a mission, it's going to be either A2A with no A2G payload, or A2G with a limited self-escort payload meant to help keep them safe while the A2A flights deal with whatever's thrown at them.

There's no machinery simulated for this anywhere, and it's not eagle specific so ... why saddle just the eagle with it? There are two effects here: 1) The antenna trying to keep up with the target during a very high-speed pass through the HuD (so, angle rate issue that you identified) 2) Scintillation - see how the F-5 rolls and causes the box to change positions? This is because different parts of the aircraft will reflect the radar with different strength, and that location can change based on angle - basically if you recall RCS diagrams and how RCS is different based on angle, when you get closer to the aircraft it becomes very location dependent. 3) Personally, there is enough wiggling of everything in the game to make my eyes go bleah, I don't need any more. But that's a personal thing Anyway, I don't think adding this detracts from anything, just why add it here when it's not added anywhere else? It's a radar thing, not an eagle thing.

When radar scintillation is implemented (possibly never) then this 'stutter' would indeed apply to anything tracking a target with radar up close.

You need the other side's track as well. The desync here isn't just the 54.

Ok, so a specific case of multipath. I know it's been a 'issue to be solved' since the 50's for the USN's SAMs. That is, they were definitely aware of it and they were working on ways to deal with it ... in some cases there are hints on how the accomplished it. I'm sure there are papers written on it, maybe I'll google them later. Interesting topics as always but I don't know if we'll see specifics for missiles.

This is correct. Chaff rejection and FM parameters are the only things that HB controls, and those are within the parameters of what DCS provides, but basically those complaints can be directed at HB - anything they can configure in the FM/missile definition files. Everything 'behind closed doors' ie missile data link operation, the actual guidance itself and other fun stuff for which there is no possibility of configuration by HB rests with ED. This covers desync, RWRs and other things.