PoorOldSpike

Then they begin diving as they approach the Tico (circled) which begins rocking and rolling and launching SM-2 SAMs- Below-An SM-2 knocks out a Kitchen with a proximity airburst, and in the next pic The Tico's Gatling accounts for another- Below-But eventually a Kitchen gets through the Tico's defences-

RUSSIAN Kh-22 (AS-4 Kitchen) supersonic antiship missile test. I couldn't resist tossing this one into the test playpen because its got the biggest warhead in the game (1000kg) and is supersonic, (its the standard HE version as the nuke version is not in the game)- The Tu-22's reach the launch waypoint and begin letting their Kitchens fly at a Ticonderoga 90 nm (167 kms) away. (The encyclo says their max range is 400 km, but the best I could get in the tests was 90nm / 167 km)- After launching, the Kitchens fly to 80,000 feet and level out-

Let me know what type of unit was firing the TOW and i'll run some tests..

Nah mate, I've only ever flown 3 times in my life as a joyride passenger, once in a Taylorcraft Auster, once in a Cessna 172 and once in a glider, and I was nearly airsick each time, I suppose I'm just not a born flier. Here's a carrier landing of mine in DCS-

A note on Russian Tunguska/Gatling dual launchers- Below- They're on the two Kusnetsov Carriers and the Neustrashimy Frigate, and sometimes the Gatlings fire (top pic) and sometimes the Tunguska SAMs fire (bottom pic)-

AIR-LAUNCHED ANTISHIP MISSILE TESTS I tested the 3 most common missiles, namely the American AGM-84D Harpoon, and the Russian KH-31A Krypton and KH-35 Kayak. As always, I did the tests to help me when scen-building, and post them here in case anybody might be interested.. Conclusion- ALL American warships will engage incoming Russian KH-31A's and KH-35's with their SAMs and Gatlings. Conclusion- ALL Russian warships will engage incoming American AGM-84D Harpoons with their SAMs and Gatlings. Below: AGM-84D Harpoon, warhead=225kg, Range 80nm A Pyotr Velikiy engages incoming Harpoons with its Tors and Gatlings But some Harpoons get through- Below: KH-31A (AS-17 Krypton) warhead=90kg, Range 30nm, supersonic (here launched from an SU-30) A Tico fights for its life against incoming supersonic Kryptons- But some Kryptons get through- Below: KH-35 (AS-20 Kayak), warhead=145kg, Range 70nm, (nicknamed 'Harpoonski' by the West) (Note: at the aircraft loading screen it's called 'KH-35', but in the 3D game (below) it's confusingly partly-labelled 'KH-31A' like the Krypton. Like the other Russian and American sea-skimmers, some get shot down and some get through) NOTE: the 3 missiles above are the main antiship missiles used by NATO and Russia, and their long range means they can be launched well outside the defending ships SAM range. But there are smaller missiles that can be used against ships (eg Maverick F and Russian KH-29T) but they have a much shorter range which means they have to fly into ships SAM range to launch.

Well I'm 72 years old but chose my screenie 20 years ago when I happened to see an item on the net about a chinchilla named Spike that got it's toe caught in the corner of its cage and needed a vet's attention, so I took its name as a gesture of sympathy and have been trundling around the game forums ever since..

No, the SA-15 Tor can also intercept it..:) I just spent 4 hours testing every Russian AAA/SAM unit currently in the game (March 2nd 2021) and found that only the SA-10 and Tor would engage the AGM-88C HARM. Below- A Hornet lets one fly- And up comes an SA-10 to take it out- And in this next test up comes a Tor with the same result.. All the units below (including IR missiles) did NOT engage the HARMs- ZSU-23-4 Shilka, SA-2, SA-3, SA-6 Kub, all 4 AAA guns, SA-8 Osa, SA-9 Strela 1, SA-13 Strela, SA-11 Buk SA-18 Igla, SA-18 Igla-S, SA-19 Tunguska.

Depends if you're talking about the real world or DCS, as the two can behave very differently. All wargames have their own odd little happenings so we can only grit our teeth and share Alice in Wonderland's observation- "Oh I do wish something would make sense for a change"..:) PS- Some games (eg Harpoon) model radar-jamming to break missile locks or prevent them getting a lock in the first place but I don't know if DCS models it too. DCS aircraft pop chaff which can decoy radar-missiles but apparently DCS ships don't pop it which is a glaring omission, as other game's ships (eg Fleet Command) do pop it.

I've only just seen this thread and I don't know if anybody's already mentioned it, but from observation I know that radar-guided SAMs (of all nations) will self-destruct for several reasons- A- If they lose their lock on their target at any time after firing. B- if the target they were locked onto is destroyed by something before they reach it. C- If they reach their extreme range without hitting anything. So I don't think it's a bug. For example here an SM-2 SAM fired from a Tico self-destructs soon after launch because of A or B, I don't know which, but if it tried to hold its lock on that incoming Chinese YJ-83 sea-skimming anti-ship missile, no wonder it self-destructed because incoming missiles are usually harder to keep locked- Radar guided SAM's losing their lock is real-world-realistic of course and that's good. I've also observed that the better and more modern a ships radar is, the less likely that their SAM's will lose their lock. And also they're more likely to lose their locks if the target aircraft (and target missiles) are small. Apart from self-destructing if they lose their lock, radar-SAMs might hit the ground or sea like these Perry-fired SM-2's are doing when they tried to engage incoming Russian 'Krypton' supersonic antiship sea-skimmers (the 4 dots) as the poor old Perry's ancient fire-control radar wasn't up to it- PS- As regards heatseeking SAM's that don't need a radar-lock, I think the only time i've seen them self-destruct is if they reach their max range without hitting anything.

Thanks, and speaking of IL-2, I've got a few photogallery threads going at the Mission4Today forum which might interest you and anybody interested in WW1, Interwar and WW2 planes..:)- https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=ForumsPro&file=viewforum&f=105 Jan Zumbach (left), Polish fighter pilot in RAF, 1942

Thanks, and another question- Steam game/sim downloads for me have always been horrendously slow (even on broadband with my high-endish PC), so as a matter of interest is it better to buy games direct from their own websites in the hope of getting a faster download time? For example would DCS World have downloaded quicker if I'd bought it direct from ED instead of from Steam?

Thanks, I've just began a clean re-install which according to the in-progress graph below will take over a day! Is there any way I can speed up the download process? And what's the graph for, what does the wavy green line mean? Can I play other games and surf the net while the download is in progress without messing it up? And does the download continue in the background somehow even if I switch off my PC overnight?

Hi, I was playing my Steam-purchased game normally like i've been doing for months, but today the screen froze and I couldn't escape with Ctrl-Alt-Del, so I had to switch off my PC (Win 10). When I rebooted and clicked the 'Play DCS' desktop icon, it said "Install game, 164GB disk space required, but you only have 143GB free. Free up some disk space to install" i don't understand because the game has been playing fine for months and I haven't installed any new programs to eat up disk space. So why does the game suddenly tell me I haven't got enough disk space? What happened? I don't want to uninstall any of my other games, so do I have to take my PC down the shop to get a bigger hard drive fitted or what? Thanks

Yes a swivel head option would be welcome but in the meantime at least we can hit F7 to go to external view and swivel our POV from there..:)

If you bought it from Steam and haven't tried to play it for more than 2 hours, you can get a refund if you're still stuck. But it sounds to me as if you simply need to click the correct buttons in the game setup and your monitor display to get it working. Try setting the game resolution to the same reso as your monitor, and maybe check that your vid card is the same too. Another trick is to click 'Default settings' to see if your system will choose its own preferences. PS- but once you're into the game it's as easy as pie to learn providing you don't jump into scenarios. Personally I find the best way by far with this game and many others is to create a tiny scen in the editor inside 5 minutes (with just one tank or one plane) and learn to drive and fly them like the back of your hand before adding more units bit by bit..:)

Yeah I ran multiple tests, here's another I just did- 1- I set a 50 mph wind from the left, confirmed by the way the B-52 is crabbing sideways along the blue arrow to counteract the drift. I also placed a smoke marker (circled) which is being blown almost horizontally by the gale, and note how the wind is churning up the sea.. 2- I released 2 Mk82's and they both smacked into the tanker, confirming again that 2 bombs never miss despite the raging gale.. 3- For good measure I then dropped the whole bombload on the next run, the first few bombs almost hit the tanker, but the wind pushed the rest out to sea, confirming again what we saw in earlier tests that a whole stick is not guaranteed to hit anything in a crosswind, but releasing just 1 or 2 bombs will score hits, I never saw them miss any time.

There are two ways round the wind drift thing.. Pic 1- if we know which way the wind's blowing in a scenario we can make our attack directly into the wind like this. Pic 2- And that's a bingo, the stick of bombs straddles the tanker. (we could also attack downwind with the same no-drift result.) (Note: there's no guarantee that any bombs in a stick will actually hit depending how far apart each individual bomb is, but in this test the tanker was unlucky) Below: Pic 1- The other way to overcome wind drift is to place the targetting triangle slightly upwind like in Pic 1, and keep your fingers crossed that you've guessed the distance correctly. Pic 2- I guessed right (after about 4 attempts)..

Firstly, these new tests show that wind direction does affect iron bombs drift. Pic 1- I targetted our old friend the Tanker with a B-523H's mk82 bombs. Pic 2- I dropped the whole stick at once and the wind (12 knots) pushed them to the right. Pic 3- Then I changed the wind direction and ran the test again and the wind pushed the stick to the left. Pic 4- Then I set wind speed to zero and the stick straddled the tanker without any drift. (Incidentally I also found that the pilot and bomb aimer don't learn to correct for drift, so if you make two bomb runs in wind, dropping half the load each time, the first stick will drift but they won't correct for the second run, and that stick will drift too.) Below: Secondly some good news Pic 1- If only 1 or 2 bombs are released in each bomb run, they never miss even if there's wind. Pic 2- But if a stick of 4 or a quarter of the bomb load is released in each bomb run, wind drift begins to set in, and they usually miss. Incidentally, if half or more of the load is released, all will miss if there's any wind. SUMMARY (remember the tests were with a B-52H and Mk82 iron bombs) 1- If there's no wind, iron bombs won't drift. 2- If there is wind, dropping half or the entire bomb load at once will see them all drift and miss the target. 3- To guarantee a hit, only drop 1 or 2 bombs and make multiple runs, dropping 1 or 2 each run. (Note: 1 bomb didn't always sink a tanker, but 2 always did)

I dropped 51 x Mk 82's in my earlier post, did you see?

Well heed Livers sage advice and don't hit the Set button..:) Your original question was about clobbering a runway with B-52H-launched cruise missiles, so here's how I've just done it- 1- Select 'Ground Attack' in the editor.. 2- Load for bear with 8 x cruise missiles.. 3- Start the scen and you'll see something like this.. 4- PAUSE the game and hit 'Add target' 8 times to place 8 target markers along the runway (or on anything else you want to clobber).. 5- Hit Unpause to start the game and the cruise missiles will begin dropping out of the bomb bay at intervals of a few seconds. (i've red circled the target runway)... 6- Birds away! Having done its job, the B-52 turns to head off home for tea and medals.. 7- the birds hit home..:)

Okay mate see if you can pick up any clues from this; I haven't got a B-2 Spirit so I used the B-52H and loaded it with 51 x Mk82 iron bombs. 1- The AI B-52H is at bottom left, and I've placed a tanker in the harbour to drop the eggs on.. 2- A closeup of the tanker, I placed the targetting triangle smack on it. The great thing about the 'Ground Attack' task is that your bomber will simply drop iron bombs on the triangle wherever it happens to be, such as on a ship, bridge, building, fish and chip shop or whatever without the hassle of having to lock on.. 3- The bomb doors automatically open, I set 'Release quantity=ALL', hehe..:) 4- Eggs away..:) 5- Near miss, there's unguided dumb bombs for you, grrr.. 6- In this next test I dragged the targetting triangle over the runway and the stick of bombs just missed, grrr again.. 7- And finally I dragged the triangle into the middle of the town, eat this Charlie because dumb unguided bombs can't miss a town..:) TACTICAL NOTE- I don't know why the bombs missed the tanker and runway, the B-52 skill was 'veteran' so maybe I should have used 'Ace'. Also there was a 10-knot wind from the north (left is north in the shots) which might have pushed the bombs to the right. Or the wind might have been making the plane itself drift right. And there might be a 'random accuracy' factor built into the game's dumb bombs to differentiate them from smart munitions, which makes sense. No sweat, because when scen-designing we can use more than 1 bomber and place each triangle at a slightly different spot so that at least one stick of bombs will hopefully straddle the target. And of course we can always use smart bombs and guided weapons to guarantee an almost certain hit on point targets..:)

Tell us exactly- Which aircraft type is doing the attacking. What weapons it's carrying. What the target is. Then I can run a simple tutorial..:)

Is the Harpoon the most powerful air-launched antiship missile NATO has got in the game and in the real world? Likewise, what are the most powerful Russian and Chinese ones ingame and inworld? I want to run some tests but the Encyclopaedia only lists 7 missiles that are labelled "antiship" and also lists a lot more that are labelled "air to ground" but which I know from experience also have antiship capabilities, so I'm confused which ones to test against ships. I want to test the most powerful ones. Any suggestions?

Nah, in Armed Assault and in the real world vehs take time to cool off, but even if they're stone cold and invisible on IR they still give their position away if they fire..:)