D-Scythe

Obviously not GG. You forgot about the F-14's ion thrusters that give it fantastic energy in every concievable portion of ANY flight envelope (i.e. extends to missile and space envelopes). Factor in it's magnetic forcefield shielding that protects it from AMRAAMs and SA-10s as well as its AIM-54 proton missiles and the F/A-18 is no competition. What was the USN thinking, giving up such cutting edge technology for such a conventional fighter like the Hornet. Even the Chuck Norris of air supremacy fighters, the F-22 Raptor itself, would be hard-pressed to deal with the formidable Tomcat.

And what, an aging bunch of fleet defenders optimized for air-to-air is gonna be sooooo much more threatening to terrorism? What would be even more productive ways of spending money is developing and fielding a Hummer replacement out in Iraq pronto, or upgrades like TUSK for the M1.

I meant experience for him, the shooter, not the target - it takes some experience to get your opponent defensive with your first 7 missiles and then finally get 'em with your eighth ;) Or you can just get them in heater range and smack 'em with the -ET. The only weakness for a heater are flares, while radar AAMs just plain suck cause you can beam them, chaff them, jam them, etc.

Well, there's a learning curve involved here - you probably just had the bad luck of going up against an experienced LOMAC pilot. And you probably should play at 100% offline.

If you know what you're doing, you can exploit the weaknesses in LOMAC's missile modelling no matter what effectiveness it's at. Chances are that your opponent simply knew his stuff. And FYI, the AI is useless for evading ETs offline. The missile is already overmodelled - and the AI still tries to dodge them with AB on.

What Su-27s? AFAIK there are 2 flights of MiG-23s in the area. Just work out your radar and target the MiGs first. Whether you kill the MiGs then go after the AWACs or kill both with TWS, you should be able to do it in one pass easy. Cut your wingman loose too.

...Not according to most sources. Anyway, any idea what type of weapons these birds can be dressed in?

Yeah, love the look.

You don't know the actual story behind that photo? IIRC, apparently, the cop driver was getting "lucky" with a female "accomplice" ;)

Japanese F-2s are powered by General Electric GE-129 engines, not Pratt and Whitney ones. Furthermore, the advanced F-15/16 engines from both GE and PW, that is, the GE-129 EFE/132 and the PW-229A, all offer about the same level of thrust, around 32 000 lb AB with potential for growth to thrusts in excess of 35 000lb.

Yeah, that's basically what it is.

No, you didn't, and yes, I'm perfectly calm. *Everything* you stated you disagreed with is what *I* wrote. Stand-off weapons, active radar missiles, etc. And by stating that you're ONLY disagreeing with the idea that "Taiwan hardware is enough to withstand any attack and that invasions are technically not possible," you're IMPLYING that *I* have that belief, which I clearly *don't*. Don't say you weren't putting words in my mouth; your " F-16+Mirage+indigenous aircraft with amramm mica" and "a landing would a transoceanic operation so it would be incredibly difficult because of the ocean and of the distance and the stand-off weapons used by taiwan" are ALL *my* arguments. Obviously a well equipped eastern air force can match a well equipped western air force. But the key word is match - how can you expect a successful ground invasion when you're air/sea forces simply *match* the enemy's? You're gonna lose thousands of soldiers in your landing boats before they can even fire a shot. Exactly - so why are *you* doing it? Your "evaluation" that the Chinese military can easily over-run Taiwan is absolutely contradictory to what you just posted. Too bad in 1944 the Allies had naval AND air supremacy. And it took them some FIVE years to achieve that. FIVE. YEARS. Not an afternoon. Hmm, I thought you don't like "evaluations of air forces or complex weapons systems are given just reading parameters on official company leaflets"? Guess not huh?

Well, the J-11B itself is quite boring - there's really nothing "new" about it (some firsts for the Chinese aircraft industry, but that's it). I'd be more interested in its missile armament, but that again is also diverting from the J-11B topic. What do you wanna talk about it?

Um, what? How does "China cannot invade Taiwan in an afternoon" translate to "Taiwan hardware is enough to withstand any attack and that invasions are technically not possible..."? Read other people's posts more carefully. And if you don't, at least have the decency not to put words in other people's mouths.

You could just....install/back up the water files manually? IIRC, the water mod was made for LOMAN 2.1, and being installed in a different folder than standard add ons - there might be problems with incompatibility.

And what if you're in a supersonic F-16 loaded with JSOWs and HARMs? You gonna let those boats land on your country *without* taking a few in the teeth? Furthermore, it doesn't matter if they train for an invasion every day. The fact is that a transocean invasion is an extremely dangerous operation and heavy casualties are expected even when air and sea supremacy is secured. And on top of that, you think China can win control of the skies and the sea within one afternoon? Even the Allies in Desert Storm, Allied Force and the Freedoms didn't manage it over Iraq, Serbia or Afghanistan, and the capability over-match was *huge*. Like it or not, simply dominating another, *entire* country in one afternoon is just not a realistic military operation. An F-16 bristling with AMRAAMs backed up by Mirage 2000-9s bristling with MICA AR/IR AAMs all supported by AWACs, indigenous fighters and Standard/Patriot SAMs? In a single afternoon?

I don't agree - especially the invasion part. They have to cross a sea to get to Taiwan - it's impossible to miss to build up for the invasion, let alone the actual invasion. And keep in mind the RoCAF is fully equipped with AMRAAMs, MICAs and indigenous active radar AAMs (Sky Sword 2 or something....) The Su-27s that China has aren't really that great. They don't compare to the Su-27SM at all.

Actually, Taiwan got their MICAs before even the French did. It's an expensive missile, hence the lack of customers, but Taiwan wasn't willing to wait for the U.S. to decide whether to sell them AMRAAMs or not in case they piss off China.

K, I could honestly care less about your opinion of me...but don't jump to conclusions about the ED beta team on my behalf. All views expressed here are my own. They invest tons of their OWN time for free, and contrary to what you might think, beta testing is not all sunshine and puppies - it's *work.*

That's what I'm talking about! Thank you :thumbdown: So...how bout them rivets on the -35?

In Jane's F-15, the MiG-35 was always my favorite thing to hunt. I'd go up every MiGCAP and just float around, letting my wingmen kill all the other bandits while I perched above the battle. Then the -35s eventually showed up and I would jump 'em :)

That's a bit unfair - I doubt any body carpet bombed a city in '99. Carpet bombing (eps. with MK84s) used against army positions in the field is a psychological tactic...carpet bombing in a city just kills people, maybe even galvanize people (including your countries public) to stop supporting your war.

Given two options to complete the same end, people will always take the shorter/simpler one. It's human nature. Thus, so long as radar missiles suck when employed properly (while looking down, while in the NEZ, etc.), people will always find other, simpler but less realistic means to get their kills. Unfortunately, mad-dogging is one of them. Even more unfortunate is that nobody recognizes the possibility that if radar missiles were properly modelled (less autonomous search capability but much, much higher PK when cued by mothership radar) nobody will "spam" anything, since you'll just be wasting your next 7 missiles after your first one hits. Look at the people who play Falcon 4.0 - everyone respects the rules of BVR combat, even though that aspect of modern air combat is arguably more realistic in Lock On.

Let's see: Technology back then (1960s) - Sparrow was never proven to work - in fact, IIRC it was put into production before it even hit anything in tests Technology Now (2000s) - Stealth is proven to work (F-117) - AMRAAM is proven to work (F-15/16) - AESA is proven to work (F-15) - datalinks are proven to work (F-15/Viggen/Gripen) - Thrust vectoring/advanced FBW has been proven to work (F-15/Su-3X) - Super agility has been around for a while (Su-3X) - HMD/off boresight SRAAMs...also work (Python 4, R-73) - Really fast speed also works (F-15, SR-71, MiG-25/31) - Computers/Sensor Fusion...haven't been proven in combat, but the pilots seem to like it - Stand-off GPS weapons checked (JDAM, SDB, JASSM) - Chaff/Flares/ECM - nothing new there either - M61 20 mm cannon - been around for a while too Now that's only the non-new stuff...put it all together, and you still get a pretty unbeatable fighter. Even if we consider the things that are not "new", it still has the best that current proven technology has to offer and just blended it all together in a very expensive package. Yes, nothing is certain, but from the looks of it, the F-22 is prepared for *any* contingency.

I think you need to go back to elementary school, cause you definitely cannot count. There aren't even 40 "holes" (38 to be exact, 39 if you count the 'faded' holes) in the longest "row" on that AESA plate, and 9 of the rows (top and bottom-most) have a significantly lower number of holes (~26). In total, that's only about ~1200 T/R modules. Furthermore, can you please explain what you mean by "could easily be 2 T/R modules for each hole"? If we're just gonna be pulling out random numbers, why not pick 10? Then you have an AESA with 12 000 T/R modules - surely that would put the APG-77 to shame if that's what you're after. How is the F-22 overhyped?