zzzspace

I've seen the same thing. I thought the Tunguska couldn't do this any more in DCSw (except navalised SA-19 system, which does it all the time to ASMs), so I immediately checked the AMCI to make sure that's what I saw. And it was a perfect head to head 9M331 to AGM88 kill. So there does exist a potential, a much less probable potential than before, asin FC2.1 I Tunguska regularly killed ALARMs, but it can still do this, but apparently only rarely. I saw this only in the past couple of days, so I may still have the ACMI. I'll check.

The newer the better, a true multirole fastjet, good range, air and ground radar modes, IR targeting on MFDs with PGMs, please. Should be plenty of them, as jets like this have been common place for 30 years ... ... so I'm a bit disappointed to see the Su-34 with day/night all-WX PGM delivery, and modern AESA BVR and high speed terrain following is not an option, as it's the only Russian fastjet that can do it all. :( Didn't vote ... yeah, I know ... too 'new', thing is, it's not.

Ai low-level aircraft are still exposing themselves far too much, for too long, when making their attack runs. This problem is being compounded by the fact that they have no 'memory', and right away forget the rough locations where AAA and MANPADs came from, that have already fired at them. So if they do successfully get past the first missile shots, or AAA bursts, then move forwards so that another launcher or AAA unit fires at them, they will often then turn away, but back towards where the first missile launches or AAA came from, and then get nailed by them ... doh! :D Any basically competent pilot would be very unlikely to do that in real life. So the Ai pilots need to 'remember' where SAMs and AAA fire roughly came from in recent minutes, so that if you set Ai aircraft to "Evade Fire" within the Mission Editor's advanced waypoint settings, then they should evade all known recent locations of such fire, within say the past 10 mins. And to not just turn-away, from current firing zones, just to fly right back over an area they were fired at from, seconds or minutes before. For a low-level approach and attack, "Evade Fire" to me involves: (1) Dispensing CMS with a break-turn away, between 90 to 135 degrees from the source of the fire, (2) Once the heading change has been achieved, to dive for any nearby low terrain depression, for cover, or between buildings for clutter, but only within a forward 30 to 45 degree arc off the nose, for 3 nm or so, whilst bobbing up and down 100 feet or so, plus weaving or yawing. (3) Once clear, come back around for the next attack, but from a new direction, where the Ai aircraft has not been getting fired upon previously, or at least, not recently/ (4) For coming off a target, and the egress see # (1). Climbing slowly and cruising back out again at 2,000 feet for 250 kts straight-and-level, is not compatible with longevity or reduced airframe hits and low systems damage. The complication to that is that the locked or otherwise assigned target may also be firing at you, but in that case the Ai aircraft must use "Passive Defense", and not evasion, to just keep prosecuting the actual target, regardless. This I think would greatly improve the Ai aircraft's ability to survive attacks that they make, and this is very much needed, so that both the Ai behaviours, and attack results, and the suffered losses approach more realistic outcomes. (get that about 'right' and the SIM will finally be approaching the pre-requisite behaviour and results, in which a dynamic campaign would actually work ... and fairly credibly)

z-axis CH fido-schtick. ;)

See pics

Just need to add that this prosecution of the dead is not just between other Ai aircraft, that are treating dead aircraft as if they were still alive, and in the fight. The SAMs are also continually trying to double, triple and even hextuple-kill an already obviously destroyed aircraft. Today I saw an F-16, that was already dead, hit by another 6 SAMs on the way down, some of them launching even after the target was clearly a wreck. The necessary rounds to kill follow-on aircraft are thus not available due to this waste. If an aircraft is visibly breaking apart and falling, then both the radar SAMs and MANPADs should 'know' not to launch more missiles. EDIT: oh yeah, the AAA are doing it as well, the Ai AAA is hosing down already destroyed aircraft all the way down to the ground.

Can we just call it an involuntary squint-blink reflex, that's been brilliantly modelled and included as a FEATURE, from looking at the sun for much too long already. :D

Remember before you learned to use a modern jet flight sim? It was a very steep learning curve, on the way. I learned from increasingly more capable sims appearing for two decades. I can't imagine how daunting it would be to start from scratch, right now. That is why a trainer option (in 3rd party development) may seem meaningless if not useless to regular DCS flyers, but it is highly relevant to noobs, or for someone transitioning to this level of flight sim from something much simpler. So a lower-level of FC type avionics complexity will probably always remain relevant and needed for this reason. As for these sharing the airspace in DCS, it's only an issue if in m/p, and if the mission-builder provided those options. In s/p it makes little practical difference ... well, until the IADS and missiles get smarter anyway. But with better Ai and mission planning within DCS, the FC3 inclusion could be a whole lot of fun. And where's the alleged competition between DCS and FC anyway? DCS is almost entirely CAS/FAC, and FC has to-date, excelled with the A2A dimension, so they don't really specifically compete in roles. But when that really does become a practical matter, particularly in m/p (and this won't occur when FC3 is released), it'll only be because we finally have a genuine multirole fastjet in DCS, at a high level of development that can actually do both. Two years ... at best. If any of this is a problem, then it's a good problem to have. 2c

The flight model, when released, was the show-piece addition within FC1.1. And at the time it was presented by ED as the state of the art in realistic PC-based advanced flight modelling. It was purportedly developed and constrained by data-logged real-world flight envelope data, and was considered particularly representative of the real aircraft's flight characteristics and performance.

I've seen video of a hellfire engagement of a ground target where the terminal dive-down maneuver and change in direction was stunningly abrupt. These missiles apparently do have the baseline manoeuvre performance to do what the sim depicts. Whether they can shootdown aircraft or not, I don't know.

Just to clarify what I'm getting at, about AAM applications of such a terrain avoidance capability (in whatever way or technique it is implemented). I'm not concerned about the perspective of the target's pilot trying to drive the AAM into the ground, because this, as you rightly say, is unlikely and fairly hard to do, especially if over flat terrain. What I was getting at instead, is the resulting effect on missile trajectory, of the (DCS) AAM deciding not to follow a PN trajectory, because it's logic has realised that it would intercept below ground level, so therefore takes a predictive flight path that's far more likely and optimal to intercept the target above ground, in the most probable location that target will turn to, if manoeuvring at low level (so again a DTM could help the system's logic to evaluate and predict the most likely direction the target will turn to, to evade). This is the way in which I would see it being applicable to AAMs, in look-down / shoot-down engagements. Which is why I originally called this thread a missile navigation question. Again, I would be surprised if AAMs also don't have a similar capability for that reason (however it's technically implemented as an algo), to optimise their navigation and POK.

It was a case of an F-16 that had already been hit on approach to a column, at around 4k feet up by an 9M330, and had started to go down, still about 3 to 4 km away from the TOR and it was beginning to break apart and fall more steeply. The TOR launched again as it was starting to fall more steeply, and the missile quickly arced up then just as quickly nosed over into the ground, while still short of the falling F-16 which also hit the ground seconds after. There was a low rise in the land between the TOR and where the F-16 and the missile crashed. It just got me thinking about why it would do that.

Yes, I agree, a totally different pardigm then.

Good point! ... and stuff like optically-guided Tunguska ...

Which is fine, and possibly so, but as GG also points out, the real situation can easily be far nastier than what's modelled now, (and that missiles don't and won't be face-planting all the time), and that's the point of my question, to tease that possibility out a bit. One thing I do know about capability change though, is the rate of change is getting faster/shorter, and new code and capabilities in existing systems are often invisible to the eye ... until it kills you (the TOW B2 discussion in the CA forum is a good example).

Yes, sure, I would readily agree with that, and I like your reason - a change in tactics, to something more real. And that's also what causes me to ask about this, because I think the tactics, weapons and teamwork of beating that threat is where the fun is.

Then we'll see how well we can dodge missiles ... :D

Fair enough on the first bit, if/i] they can react that fast. I doubt they can, to a manoeuvring fastjet, with little warning, and situational awareness in very short supply. The implication of long-range missiles not lead navigating and loosing range and energy prior to interception, is that the software system is not allowing it to follow and inefficient and self defeating trajectory that lowers POK. At least not until the terminal phase of flight. So why would a system like the TOR not do the same thing, especially given the TOR's greatest asset and bragging-rights, is it's extraordinary range for a mobile SHORAD? So why would systems competing with TOR not do the same thing? i.e. try to increase range and lethally using such code and DTM implementations? I've come to the view that they do, simply because they must, just to get the job done effectively.

Good point, I've thought much the same thing for a while. The first thing a designer of an MLU upgrade is going to do is to work out what tactics and techniques have been developed or would be used to defeat the system, then devise ways to circumvent all such attempts to lower POK. Thereby raising it, to keep the system fresh and competitive until retired. Given advanced systems like TOR and Tunguska carry a small number of missiles and support reloads, and say, two are launched at each target engaged, why would you ever accept into operation a software logic that fires them into the ground, needlessly?

The logic of it also applies to look-down shoot-down engagement.

Forgive my snips, I just want to keep focused on this for a bit. The thing is I don't see where the great expense and complexity necessarily is. It's basically software comparing a vector (that it already has) to database in memory, and deciding if the missile flying along the intervening track can hit the object, if its projected to go under the ground. Digital terrain models are comparatively cheap-as-chips to acquire and these days using long ago fielded digital recon systems able to record then create high-res stereoscopic 3-D imagery on the fly. So I don't think that presents a technical impediment or onerous costs. Indeed, I think a small team could have the bare bones of such an adjunct to existing SAMs worked out very quickly and cheaply. I don't see any major changes in hardware here, for the command system. As all you'd be doing is telling the missile where not to fly to, and then adjusting navigation profiles and altitude, to suit where it definitely can't get to. I take you're point about mission-kills of course, but, isn't this like comparing SEAD to DEAD? Isn't DEAD the more ideal outcome and doctrine. The TOR crew might agree with me here, regards the desirable logic of killing DEAD-capable aircraft. So would it not be better for the SAM to kill an F-16, rather than just go for giving it a tactical setback, that it will bounce back from, fast? And given the missile system can't hit targets, by driving missiles into the ground, why is the risk of lower-reliability a dominant consideration, if the missiles are cheaply and reliably aiming a large number of missiles to collide with targets under the ground? I won't do that, and I suspect the designers and those setting the goals and requirements of such systems wouldn't want it to do that either, especially if they are trying to improve the statistical POK of their system. Plus how would it be easier to defeat the missile if such a system never opted to point the missile into a steep angle towards the ground when near to low altitude, in the first place. Would it not make rational sense to gather some altitude and wait to see what the target will most likely go, and then drop in on that area, with the energy conserved, rather than to just immediately crash (dangerously) into the deck near to where your own ground forces will be distributed? I can't see why this is necessarily prohibitively complex, or expensive, nor less than a far more desirable capability in a cheap and reliable SAM system (or in an expensive and heavy SAM)

A missile navigation question. Watching a lots of missiles bite the dirt via trying to lead-nav on diving targets. I just saw a TOR fire, and the missile arced up then immediately arced-down at a steep angle, and it hit dirt about 1.5 km away from its launcher. Fine, that's not a gripe, just an observation of what the Ai does. But what occurs to me about this behaviour is, if the TOR system designer (or any other GBAD designer for that matter) already knows that defeating a SAMs is often done in conjunction with the target diving for the deck, wouldn't the designers quickly realise they need to equip the missile engagement system on the SAMs, with a 3-D digital terrain-model, for the current area of operations, that automatically predictively anticipates, from the concurrence of that terrain's surface, and the observed vector of the target, where therefore that target is next most likely to fly or turn to. Or to at least, and at a minimum, determine which direction and intercept location a valid target track definitely won't turn towards. i.e. The system decides that F-16C will definitely not be flying towards an intercept point BELOW the surface of the digital terrain model, that it's pointed at right this moment of the missiles flight, so therefore (says the TOR to itself) I won't aim this missile to intercept a point where I already know a valid target will never reach. Therefore, concludes the TOR's logic, I will navigate this missile in flight to place where this target is most likely to turn toward, if the F-16C in fact misses the ground. It would seem to me that this sort of navigation logic would have been integrated on all these systems a very long time ago. Or is this not the case? I strongly suspect this will be the case, in actual operation.

And said realism is why simulating real-world light and color should always be aimed for, as well. ;)

I just put your settings back in, and tried it with HDR off, and then on. The first time I tried the mod I used HDR warm colors, and that looks pretty bad (which is what got me playing with the light level), but I put it on HDR 'Normal' this time, and got much better results. :D A small sun and good contrast with a good color range. You're a genious Pete! :) EDIT: Just tried it with HDR Warm colours and it was fine. I must have had a corrupted file in my folders, because your mod now works fine on either HDR setting.

lol, hmm, I installed it and the lighting and shadows looked all wrong to me, so I played with it until it looked right. So I guess I want the crisp clear lighting more than the small sun. :)