Bushmanni

ECM in DCS is overly simplified. There are more than one kind of ECM in use but DCS has only one type. And I can say with confidence that we all do not know how they work although some might have better understanding than others.

I have run into problems when removing elements from table inside event handler. The way I fixed it was to build a custom scheduler that runs tasks in series and then make the element removal in a function that is scheduled to execute in series. No more mysterious impossible situations during table iteration.

If anyone is interested in higher level tactics Red flags are a perfect opportunity to learn to plan and run a multi flight multi sortie operation. Although the opponents are probably more skilled you will have numerical superiority to play with so it's not impossible mission. Although being a commander is a tough job it can be rewarding (at least if your plan works out in the end). Organizing a mass take-off and multi flight fighter sweep followed by escort CAP is not rocket science but depends heavily on how seriously and competently the flights will organize themselves and stick to the plan (how competent and commited to the plan the flight leads are). One thing that helps with commitment is being respected by the other pilots for your skills and knowledge but for a new commander that might not be an option as you might have yet to earn that respect. In this situation having effective teamplay requires the others to give the new commander a chance to prove himself and at least not be a source of extra friction. The commander should also have faith in himself and take charge of the situation instead of being passive observer but remembering to focus on the big picture and not micromanage. Other thing that helps with commitment to the plan is to make the plan with others, preferably with the flight leads and come up with a plan that everyone can agree to or even believe in.

I really hope we can have GCI also in the future but I agree that LotAtc would be better solution. Especially the "see all" observer mode takes away a lot from the tactics and prodedures employment. F10 with Fog of War is better than nothing though.

Thanks for the organizers and participants for an entertaining tournament. I'd also like to give thanks to Sykloni, Oberst Zeisig, Sweeper and FinnMack who helped us with practice. 104th put up a good fight and we are looking forward to meeting them again and hopefully beat them also in BVR. I think the drag race format was a nice change of pace but I agree that it gets old pretty quick as the novelty wears off. F-15 is also so much superior in a fighter jet drag race that it's unfair to every other plane. With some tweaking of the mission the BVR and SRM rounds would probably work well but in guns only round just concentrating on the ground units is going to be always a tough tactic to beat as if you just keep your speed up (at least in the F-15) it's relatively easy to just fly around the battlefield and do drive by shooting on the ground targets to get at least 2-3 targets before someone gets close enough to bring you down. Tournament tactics are always going to be off from "real world" tactics as the closest real world scenario would be one involving WMDs that are fortunately extremely rare. Basically pilots mission would be to accomplish the mission regardless of the risks or costs incurred (ie. kamikaze if necessary would not be a bad move) as alternative would be many times worse (not necessarily only for you but for the people you are protecting). The tactic in the third round (heaters) was selected simply because missiles and especially wing pylons that they are attached to create enough drag that not equipping them gives you enough lead to take out the ground targets with relative safety as long as you don't screw up the first strafing pass (which we did). The only way to get to the target fast enough to intercept is to not take the wing pylons which means no missiles either so the round reverts to guns only in which the best tactic is to engage ground targets only. All of this implies that you can get to the target area in fastest time possible or you are taking a huge gamble. Fortunately we had some science to help us out to find a flight profile that would provide the absolutely fastest flight to the target that others would be able to only match at best and hence confidence to try it out.

The only publicly know CM that works against imaging seeker is a big dense smokecloud (created by flares) that obscures the target long enough for the target to fly out of the missile FOV before the missile has flown past the smoke screen. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4783/4ec45f24453d1263b94f633aa6e6bc7e2387.pdf

I think DCS World has enough depth to it that it can be enjoyed in many ways and hence by many kind of people.

These kind of personality tests aren't very reliable in categorizing people as it might put the same person randomly in two or three of the types depending on some random factors like time of day, mood or alertness. Nevertheless it still gives great insight on how you and other people think and what you and they consider important.

F-15 systems modeling is good enough that you can learn and execute proper tactics with it. Simplified modeling mostly means that you have harder time navigating around, can't modify systems settings as much and lack some smart functionality in the weapons systems that would make it even more simple to use or more effective in certain situations.

According to the advertisement materials it uses something called Broad Spectrum Thin Film Array. Reading through the materials gave me the impression it's a multi layer CMOS sensor with very little empty space between pixels and some kind of nanoparticle film improving it's sensitivity. It's also paired with very capable image processors but it's unclear if it's any better than state of the art image processors from Canon or Sony for example but certainly not worse. Essentially everyday camera sensor technology doped up to the absolute edge of performance that is possible with current knowledge. I think this patent could be just the thing, at least it descibes an imaging sensor with the same kind of performance as we can see in the videos. https://www.google.com/patents/US20050104089

The low noise is the amazing thing and I'm also really wondering how it's possible. Stating that there's nothing amazing here as it just has low noise bause the the year in the calendar is 2017 is like saying that there's nothing special about Einstein, he's only really smart.

Modern avionics add more variables to the fight and active missiles make combat even more complex. Missiles are like bullets, they follow the laws of physics and nothing else. It's the pilot and his skill behind the firing button and the skill of the pilot in the receiving end that ultimately dictates if the missile is going to hit or not, just like with bullets. I like the complexity as you need to know a lot about the technology you are using and keep tabs on a lot more things and think ahead a lot farther both in space and time to beat your oppponent than compared to older planes. I'm not saying combat in WW2 planes isn't complex also but it's more intuition and skill while modern planes allow (thus require) more deliberate stategic thinking. Modern combat planes represent the pinnacle of the human ingenuinety and knowledge and learning to use one properly really highlits the hard work, dedication and genius of the people who have been involved in the history of combat aviation. Flying the F-15C really gives you the sense of being in control of a machine that has been evolved to the top of the food chain of all planes past and present. You have very few things to nitpick about it's design compared to older planes (only problem is that FC level modeling doesn't do it justice). Although F-15 is old stuff already the F-22 is still so secret that you don't really know what you are missing.

That is a video editing trick as said in the video description ie. he doesn't see his hands while playing.

Using single player to test missile guidance and physics prevents you from having a realistically behaving target who will take advantage of every flaw in the missile, realistic or not.

You can only escape from enemy equipped with short range missiles. If the enemy has BVR missiles terrain masking is the only hope. Bug out is done from neutral tight merge (very little room between the fighters at the merge) and then just flying away from the bandit. If the bandit already has angles on you he will get his nose in firing position before you have enough separation. Also if you are slow and bandit is fast neutral merge isn't enough. Also if you are at mountain top altitude (10k feet) you might not be able to bug out as missiles have more range at higher altitude. If you don't get the tight neutral merge right from the start it can be challenging to arrange it and against better turning opponent you need to know exactly what you are doing as once the bandit gains upper hand your escape window has closed. So it's better to get the tight merge right from the start if you know you are in for a trouble.

Thanks for all the blue side for doing exellent job executing the plan even if we were a bit slow at the beginning. If I'm commander in the future I try to streamline the briefing and the plan more but this was the best I could do this time. I think the fundamentals of the plan were pretty good but the realisation of it still needs a bit work. Strikers did a great job also taking out the targets. Aggressors put up a really tough fight despite inferior numbers and we really had to fight for the control of the air with all we got. Good Fight! S!

I put google doc version of the blue side plan at the 104th forums. We will finalise it in the 1700z session and hopefully produce a kneeboard version also.

Any Challangers who can attend, lets have a planning and briefing session 1700z at 104th TS to work out the final details of the plan. I'll also try to squeese in a short briefing for everyone between general briefing and mission start but I'm not sure how much time timetable allows for that.

Not preparing for the worst is bad strategy as if you leave a power vacuum something is going to fill it eventually and scraping army and new weapons together in a hurry has been historically slower than a build-up of a new threat.

I have written up a more detailed but still very general plan at the planning forum. I will go through it before the match at the Blue briefing but it would be good to familiarize yourself with it beforehand. I can take the command responsibility if there are no objections. I don't want to micromanage anyone but just provide some coordination between flights so we can have more immersive experience and effective teamwork.

Btw. I highly recommend everyone to install Crosstalk plugin to Teamspeak if not already installed. With Crosstalk you can set own channel sound and whisper to opposite ears so you can listen in both more easily. Whisper will be essential to communicating between groups.

I have opened up a strategy discussion at the 104th forums. I hope at least squadron flight leads would share their thoughts about it so we can work something out in time before the event.

Thanks for the organizers for relentless attitude to pull this event through despite all the usual problems with DCS and some extra problems with Teamspeak. Watching the stream it seems like it might have been the ghost plane bug (can happen when spawning in while mission is paused) that gave me an easy victory which is really unfortunate. Despite all the problems I and also the SF squadron had a good time in the actual fights.

At least typical Ukrainian house (the most numerous older ones built maybe in the 80s) is very small (something like a Finnish cottage) and that might apply to Georgia and Russian Caucasus also.

+1