GGTharos

If that's how you want to phrase it, I like to study the flying part, so I don't miss FF too much. Still want it, but not necessary as long as there's enough systems and a great FM.

Initially start with what you said - determine the choice of one or two circle based on the merge parameters, then fly your best one/two circle. You're right, the plan 'does not survive' if the other aircraft decides to change things - then you also change things based on what that other aircraft is doing. All of this is fluid and dynamic. So I guess you might say you need lots of plans and you have to change which one you're using depending on how the situation develops. The thing about having those already thought out and practiced is that you'll be able to know what to do and how to do it at the drop of a hat, and if you're faster at recognition/execution than the other guy, you can put him in a place where he can no longer counter you. Sure, he can go in whatever direction but the end result will always be you in the control zone. Outside the turn circle you're flying a collision course, with the goal to enter the bandit's turn circle. You can adjust the details of this geometry base don what exactly you want to achieve - simplest thing, collision with your target ie. get there as soon as you can. As you can imagine this is basically a triangle sort of problem (the case where he's always head on is trivial). From there you can decide to have offset so you can turn directly onto his 6 without overshooting it (try intercepting a tanker) and whatever other scenario you can imagine. Inside the turn circle it's nearly the same but you're manipulating where in the circle you are and where you're going to do by manipulating speed, distance and aspect from the target. You do this by using lead/pure/lag pursuit with your nose OR lift vector, and of course throttle and g.

Google and the search on this forum are at your fingertips. This is at least half a decade if not more old subject for me, so I won't be repeating that homework

The plan wins BFM, period. You have to have a completely inferior machine to lose if your planning (and execution) is superior or you could be very unlucky. I don't know how much this will help you, but here goes: All maneuvering is done in relation to the bandit - meaning, you need to know his distance, speed, aspect, altitude. The maneuvers descriptions usually don't help because they usually don't describe things in this context, and in the vast majority of cases this context is everything that matters. So having said that we now have: Outside of the turn circle (you and your opponent are further than a turn circle away - not misaligned turn circles, but outside) all geometry is intercept geometry where you seek to enter the other guy's turn circle with advantage - this could be completely severe such as a stern conversion (you drop on his six right away) or getting a significant lead turn. Once inside the turn circle, you seek to enter his control zone and stay there (of course he will be doing the same). You need to be able to judge relative speed (is he slower or faster than me?), aspect and distance from you by sight. You then maneuver to position the bandit in a specific place in relation to your visual cues within your cockpit, ie. your lift vector (Straight up) offset from your canopy rail or HUD or other elements, depending on which part of the fight you're in. You're always trying to manipulate aspect speed and distance to your advantage, so basically you're really manipulating the turn circle and you need to understand how to recognize what he is doing to it as well. Energy fighting adds another dimension to this (I think a typical way to think of energy fighting is zooming vertically, but that's just not it) but it is much harder, so stick with horizontal/out of plane maneuvering that isn't too severe. Read the resources that are out there, they will usually give you good guidance.

Sure. Here's a bunch of vague answers. Ground school: You need to read up on and understand the basics of geometry for BFM against a single aircraft and get that right first. When you practice, you should have a fairly detailed plan for your designated learning objectives and you should analyze how you did with respect to those. Eg. practice your turn-circle entry against an opponent starting from his 6. The goal isn't to gun them, it's to saddle up in the control zone and stay there (As you can imagine, the opposite is the goal when you're defensive - to neutralize the fight) Before flying combat, learn how to fly the aircraft. Learn to recognize behavior by listening to the rumble, the engines, and seeing the aircraft shake. Those correspond to the AoA you're at and help you understand how you're changing your speed and other bits of information without having to look down. Devise exercises to help you learn all this - you can probably google handling characterstics instruction manuals for aircraft. The only additional thing I'd mention is that you learn to turn your aircraft deliberately - ie. steady vs bleeding (doesn't have to be instantaneous, just like your throttle isn't just idle or MAX) or accelerating turns at various altitudes and so on. The first part of this (learning AoA cues) helps you with the next part, ie. recognizing what you're doing to your speed without looking at the instruments. Ground-school your weapons. Understand how and why they work, what parameters they should be launched in (ie. the WEZ) and same for your opponents. Put them in yoru WEZ, be out of theirs - but to accomplish this you need to have knowledge. Ground-school and then practice range and aspect recognition of your target without radars or other sensors etc. This is critical in BFM. Don't practice against multiple aircraft. The educational worth is zero, it teaches you nothing since you lack the above basics. A half-trained human 2-ship would end you within 30 seconds of the merge unless you were blowing through, and that's with skill levels being more or less at equal levels of competency - we're not talking BFM gods or anything. The information you need can be googled - there are basic IRL air force/navy BFM manuals out there and there's a bunch of information about the weapons you use inside and outside of the game. This stuff is dry and is best practiced with an instructor, but with dedication you can do this on your own. I don't promise you'll get better - BFM is not easy and some people never get it, but these things above should help. It doesn't mean anything in terms of skill other than you can beat up on a bunch of AI

There are plenty of in-game indicators that you can use already: Cockpit shake, rumble sound etc. You could turn up your subwoofer or buy a buttkicker etc. You could (should) also fly handling characteristics sorties and calibrate yourself to understand and notice these things.

Other sims are not a benchmark of realism, whether they agree or not. IRL manuals are benchmarks of realism.

You can believe whatever you want to believe.

It isn't, and besides it's a range against a specific RCS target with designation from a specific radar. Both of which are not present in the excerpts you posted.

-gz are not useful. They will destroy your +gz tolerance as well ... keep the gz positive.

Because it is fuel starvation. The engine feed tanks are not designed to feed the engines for all (-gz) conditions.

You didn't see what you think you saw. The F-15 airframe is -3g rated and they're not going to exceed that in an airshow, nor are they going to fly something they don't train, which is -gz. I don't know where you got -6G.

It is correct behavior, and it applies to most jets.

Then try recording the shortest track possible. Is this happening in MP only?

They should be. Issues with fuzes etc. aside, it does not mean that the attempt and guidance would not work. Just have the 'attack bombs' option deselected by default, since the SAM AI right now lacks the ability to properly prioritize, missiles lacks the proper fidelity to simulate fuzing with greater detail that could make this less practical and so on. If you had a single aircraft and a JDAM on the scope, shooting the JDAM wouldn't be a big deal, IMHO. Real warfware presents a lot more challenges.

There's a significant difference in terms of distributing something via EDSA that the programmers in Russia did not program, and them actually programming it.

Well, 7.33x1.5=11g, or just under. That's not what's being complained about. As far as RAZBAM goes, if you over-g the F-15E hard and long enough, you bend the wings (in theory, the airframe also) and they stay that way, imposing a squirrelicious FM. Other modules also break weapon stations etc, and it would be nice to see all of those things exist together in a module, as 'over-g' has different values for various things attached to the aircraft, or the aircraft itself.

Sustained operations. These don't really exist in DCS or in most flight sims. But it's still a sim and you can get a fresh aircraft every time so you don't really get to draw a line. Just because you don't like that they can pull 34920349g one time doesn't mean that they can't, or that this is wrong. This already exists. Like I said, RAZBAM raised the bar here. And again, the feedback IMHO as I suggested - log aircraft fatigue in the debrief so that people know what they've done to the aircraft and since understanding fatigue requires serious undertaking IRL I would object to having some sort of 'fatigue bar' that can be referenced during flight. So to put it another way - if the wings breaking is the result of fatigue (this aircraft's limits would be low compared to modern fighters, so easier to fatigue), the result is correct and what's needed is feedback so that it is understood that this is the result of mistreating your aircraft. If, on the other hand, it's the result of say wake turbulence? Fix that stuff - wake turbulence has had issues in DCS so just turn that off.

Consider that there might not be a problem: People are flying with combat loads, exceeding 6g (or having a higher than allowable entry g for a loaded roll, which results in higher g due to roll coupling) - and slowly fatiguing their aircraft. They then break the aircraft an 'unexpectedly low g'. But there could also be other issues as well. This is why fatigue output into the debrief would be great - log it as if taking damage.

@BIGNEWY @NineLine are we allowed to post parts from the F-5E-1 here? It's from August 1978.

There's no realistic way to punish them, and you shouldn't try. You're not flying a realistic scenario, but your aircraft is supposed to be simulated as realistically as it can be. For everything else, there's WarThunder - I mean MasterCard The idea here is that you're not going to maintain an airframe in-game realistically anyway, even if there was a campaign where you could accumulate fatigue and lose the airframe to it, how hard you use it up would have more to do with the intensity of the campaign than anything else. In the game though you just get a new airframe every single time. I doubt this will change. I haven't been able to break it so far so I'm not sure what's going on either. Admittedly I didn't try very hard, but I yanked 10G until GLOC and the needle indicated that this is what I maxed out at. I did it more than one in a row and the wings didn't break - so I think what we need is some output from the game, even if just in the log, to tell us that we're fatiguing the airframe and how much, and/or a record of this in the debrief you see after you exit the mission. This would probably help identify where exactly all this breakage is happening.

As far as we know, they are. They have stated numerous times that they do not wish to get politically entangled for the sake of gamers.

Did you roll while pulling? The transonic zone is the most vulnerable zone for g tolerance, coupled with the loss of several g when applying asymmetric g.

Stick to 5-6 g

It is supposed to vary according to many things. It's not simple, so I assume it's WIP.