Bozon

The problem with WWII is that the entry fee is very high. For your first module you have to buy: Plane + WWII assets + Normandy. In normal days at full price this is a very high bar for someone who wants to start with WWII - even more so if he is from another WWII game and completely new to DCS (the free trial helps a lot to make such transition and deciding to shell out the $$!) There definitely should be a starter’s bundle of the map, assets and plane of choice. Later, it could also be map of choice when we have more of them.

A real P47 is a razorback. The others are plastic toys. Just give us a good one that includes water injection and the paddle blade prop. Models D15–D23 I believe (earlier models were retro fitted).

Watch the youtube vids they help, to a degree. However, at least in my case the problem was in my way of thinking. My experience is nearly 100% WWII era, and I don’t fly modern fighters, so take it for what it’s worth: 1. Don’t think too much about shooting the enemy - fight for advantageous position, THEN think about guns solution. 2. To gain a better position don’t fly to where the opponent is now - imagine where he is going to be and maneuver to get there. 3. Keep maneuvers simple - you don’t win by fancy moves, you win by executing the correct move at the right time. 4. Prepare to die. A lot. Then die some more. In the mean time ravel in the little victories like surviving a difficult situation (even if you die later), making the enemy disengage and run, etc.

Israel had mostly A4E and A4H and two-seats trainers since 1967 after the 6-days war. In early 70s They were upgraded to be equivalent to American A4N, with some differences (e.g., 30 mm Defa cannons instead of the US 20mm). The trainers doubled as EW platform carrying EW pods in support of other aircraft operations, with the pod operator in the back seat. The single seaters by the 80’s had the capability to act as porters and drop laser guided bombs on another plane’s mark. They also could carry decoy drones such as Delilah. Their avionics while improved during the long service did not add significant new capabilities. They retired from service in 2015 - that is 48 years of service! Such a cute little plane. The looks of one fully loaded with ordnance is so ridiculous that it is hard to believe it would get off the ground. Somehow it does :thumbup:

I was not talking about the game, I meant historically. The P51 was not much of an attack plane - the best thing about it was that after it released the ordnance you had a decent fighter in your hands. In the last stages of the war the escort fighters did not have much of an opposition in the air so many of them were used as fighter bombers - spits too. Flying low over intense small calibre fire with your radiator hanging underneath is not good for your chances of returning home.

That is not a very high bar to reach... :music_whistling:

There are a few historical documents here: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/mosquito.html The problem with them is that none are in the configuration that we want: Merlin 25s, clean airframe (no external stores), no flame dampers, not the saxophone exhausts, +18 boost data points at sea level. Therefore we must interpolate a bit between them in order to estimate the sea level speed at the configuration we want. This gives 350+something mph at sea level. The “something” depends on your interpolation method.

You will have to get to 30,000 feet to claim that. Down low it will be a struggle against 190D and 109K. That does not mean that the jug is helpless, but those two are clearly superior and it is up to the pilot skill to compensate for that. It should handle the 190A8 quite well though. The P-47D30 entered service when nearly all P-47s were being replaced by P51Ds in the 8th AF. It was meant to act as a fighter-bomber. 56th FG, the last fighter group in the 8AF to use Jugs as escort fighters till the end of the war (and were fighting 109K and 190D) were overboosting their P47Ds to the level that made them equivalent to P47M.

Please allow in the mission planning to remove the outer wing cannons. For us that want to dogfight with the Anton, this would be a great option. I don’t own the Anton - I am testing it in this free month trying to decide which FW to buy. The radial FWs are so much cooler than the Dora, but our particular A8 is one of the worst dogfighters of the bunch. Without the belly rack and no outboard guns, it will be a bit more viable in that role (based on experience from other games, for what it’s worth).

Spit IX was rushed as a stop gap while Spit VIII was still not ready. Initially it faced FW-190A3 variants and later 190-A5s. These were much lighter and nimbler than the FW-190A8. So the classic matchup is Spit IX vs FW190A3–A7. The FW-190A8 is a later model, that by the time it entered service, the Spit IX was being partly replaced by Spit XIV (though IX sub variants lasted till the end of the war). The A8 was not meant to be a better fighter - it was meant to be a better bomber destroyer after it was clear that ME-110/210/410 were not up to the task. It would be nice if we could opt to remove the outer wing guns in order to lighten it for a pure fighter role. While the Dora is a wonderful fighter, a real classic FW is a radial.

So this does not reduce CPU load, but does reduce HD workload? May help my system a bit. Thanks.

There were no Mirage III news in ages. Even if it is in the works it will be years before it is released. Too bad. After the Mosquito FB.VI this is the module I want the most.

According to Wikipedia R-60 production started in 1973. It may have reached N. Vietnam before the end of the war in 1975. That does not mean that the scenario must represent the last day of the war. Our Mig21bis is a post Vietnam model anyway, so balancing restrictions are legit. This is especially true since the US side is missing its most significant planes: F4, F8 (supposedly modeling is in progress), A6. The KH-66 Grom entered service in 1968 (wiki). I have no idea if it was used by N. Vietnam in the war or if older Mig21 models could even carry it.

Rule of thumb - if you can buy a game directly from its developer do so and do not buy from steam/Epic/other. These platforms (steam in particular) grab a sizable chunk of the sale, instead of going 100% to the people who made the game. Cut out the middleman.

F-20 is much more modern than the Kfir. It also enjoys a significant more thrust than the F-5, about 70% more (Wikipedia) and that is huge. The Kfir is a Mirage V equivalent with the F-4 Phantom’s engine in it. By the early 80s, the development era of the F-20, this was already an old engine. The “competitor” of the F-20 was the IAI Lavi - the latter enjoyed an unstable delta + moving Kanards design similar to Eurofighter / Rafael / Grippen and was extremely maneverable. When the Lavi was cancelled, Northrop proposed the F-20 as a substitute. Eventually, the F-16 manufacturer won the bribes war and shot down both the Lavi and F-20 programs, thus eliminating all its alternatives and cementing the F16s status as the greatest fighter of its era.

Excellent! I’d love to fly the A-4 online :thumbup:

Mirage III

Release it already: 1. I want to buy it. 2. Get cracking on my Mossie!

Next Corona outbreak.

The F4U-4 is a very late war model. It’s comparable to the Bearcat, not the hellcat, and the Bearcat is vastly superior as a fighter, but completely neglected the ability to act as fighter-bomber. The F6F vs F4U argument is nearly 80 years old. While it is generally agreed that the F4U is a slightly superior fighter, the Hellcat is a vastly superior carrier plane - and for naval aviation this is extremely important. F6F was easier and safer to operate from a carrier, took less space in the hangar, was easier to maintain, was cheaper. But the most important and critical advantage for the hellcat at the time was the ability to mass produce it - while Vought were struggling to get the F4U approved for carrier operations and producing them at a snail pace, Grumman were producing hellcats at a rate exceeding 300 planes a month - enough to equip a full squadron every 2 days. At the end of the day, it does not matter how good you are if you do not there when the fight happens. The F6F was so successful that it remained nearly unchanged throughout its service, with only 2 models in service (-3 and -5, the -N night fighter being a small side branch) and only minor upgrades between them - Grumann got it right the first time.

Both these incidents ended very badly for the migs, without any Aim54. Regardless of pilot skills, the migs were badly outclassed. The mig 21 at least gave a good fight in the 60s/early 70s conflicts.

Mig 21 is currently the only module I own, while waiting for the new WWII modules. I don’t regret buying it. Beautiful plane in real life and well modeled in DCS. This is when fighter jets were still a manly thing, before they turned into flying SAM sites. Love it.

I will pay subscription for a dedicated WWII or cold war servers with all the whistles and bells, active development of missions or dynamic campaigns and a proper in-game voice communication system. The online gameplay of DCS leaves a lot of room for improvement. Sure, we have player run servers with a mess of external voice software like SRS and team speak. As a new player to DCS I can tell you they SUCK. Sure if I log in with friends we can use teamspeak, but as a single player PUG there is 0 communication.

Probably so. From experience in other games, differential throttles are useful only in rare cases - extreme stall maneuvers with power on, and when the rudder is damaged. For takeoffs my guess is that starting to roll with half power and then going to full after some speed has been acquired will work just fine. Runways are long enough.

Twin engines can use differential throttling to control yaw. The yaw tendencies on takeoffs were a problem only to inexperienced pilots and those who transitioned from single engines and were not used to control the plane this way.