MBot

Great to see the S-60 57 mm AAA in the newsletter. The most important anti-aircraft gun of the Cold War. I first asked for it on this forum 15 years ago, so it is nice to finally get it

Which I figured is not viable when performing a deck launched intercept.

As I have learned through DCS, the carrier can introduce a significant error on your magnetic heading. How did you deal with this when launching towards a specified intercept heading and subsequently held it during the time the compass corrected itself?

Remind me again why everyone is discounting the Apache? Because it is supposedly already announced? Please show me a link to the newsletter where the Apache is officially announced as a module. A "not if, when" in some interview is not a module announcement, it is/was simply the stance of ED on a number of aircraft since the beginning of DCS.

I'd assume that carrier magazine Phoenix loads depended a lot on theater threat level. Carriers sent into the North Pacific or Norwegian Sea probably stocked more Phoenixes than in the Indian Ocean. The more interesting question about the 6-Phoenix loadout is in my oppionion, whether it included removing the Sidewinders or even the gun ammo to improve the weight margin. Both weapons were of limited or no use at all against bombers and missiles, but downloading gun ammo might be more trouble than it is worth.

I know Iraqi F1EQ-5/6 were pretty advanced, but how did the earlier blocks (EQ-1 to 4) compare with the F1EE? Were they comparable?

I think it is important to keep an eye on scale. According to Soviet doctrine, US carrier battle groups were to be attacked with one maritime missile strike division (2-3 bomber regiments) per carrier. So we are talking of a simultaneous attack of up to 60 Backfire and Badger missile carriers per CV. While the "shoot the archer, not the arrow" tactic was to decimate as many bombers as possible in the outer air battle, in my opinion it would have been almost certain that a number of bombers would reach a missile launch point. A single carrier could simply not keep a sufficient number of Tomcats with a sufficient number of missiles airborne to prevent that. That is why the strategy was to operate multiple carriers per theater for mutual protection. For example it was planned to use 3-4 CVBG to operate in the Norwegian Sea, and at least 2 (better 3) in the East Mediterranean. But then again, the Soviets would have assembled additional maritime missile strike divisions to attack such forces. In my opinion, the outer CAP would probably fly a loadout of 2 SW, 2 SP and 4 PH as a balance between firepower and loiter time. I think the 6 Phoenix loadout makes sense for alert aircraft, which are launched during an attack to intercept the missiles which are launched by the bombers that leaked through the outer air battle. They would not need to loiter and were certain the expend their missiles, so fuel burn and recovery weight is not an issue. Any ASM that would make it through that would then be engaged by Standard-ER and Standard-MR SAM from the cruisers and destroyers in the battle group, and ultimately by Sea Sparrow and Phalanx from each ship in self-defense.

My buddy and me having fun with the new F-14A, doing some 2v2 ACM training. Thanks HB for another wonderful Tomcat!

As mentioned in my post, this is reproduced from the pilot seat and not as RIO.

The point is I have heard "use the force sorry I had to do for Star Wars come on plug it in there oopsie I blame that one on turbulence use the force sorry I had to do for Star Wars come on plug it in there oopsie I blame that one on turbulence use the force sorry I had to do for Star Wars come on plug it in there oopsie I blame that one on turbulence" in a loop for a hundred times. That is what I call compromised. I have no desire to ever hear any of those samples again. The funny Jester option in the game setting does nothing as far as I know. In any case, I have no problem with his funny landing calls, because I have not heard all of them at once in a loop for 100 times. They are not compromised. Having to manually mute and un-mute Jester for any refueling is no definite solution. I want to forget about these samples, not being reminded to avoid them every time I refuel.

I also still get this super annoying bug pretty much every time I refuel in MP. At this point I don't think any more resources to fix this bug should be wasted, just disable the AAR comments all together. Even if this was fixed, I don't want to hear these comments ever again. It was a fun idea and a good initiative by HB that was spoiled by this unfortunate bug. For me these sound samples are compromised beyond redemption. Remove them or at least give us the option to disable them. And no, fiddling with Jester to circumnavigate this is not a satisfactionary solution.

It seems that F-14A engine temperatures are not reset when starting a new mission. If I end a mission with the engines burning and then start a new mission, my engines will be overheated and immediately start to burn at mission start.

I know this is a know issue, but I couldn't find the appropriate threat to put this in. I have the impression that HB was so far not able to reproduce the bug where the AWG-9 switches from TWS-A to RWS when launching an AIM-54, thus loosing the missile. Attached is a small sample mission with which I can 100% reproduce the problem. In this mission, there is a Backfire ahead of you which will launch an AS-4 missile. Try to destroy the AS-4 with a AIM-54. Steps to reproduce (all from the pilot seat): 1. Switch radar to 200 NM range 2. Switch radar elevation to 70'000 ft at 75 NM distance 3. Switch radar to TWS 4. Wait a little for the AS-4 to appear on radar (at 80'000 ft) and for a TWS track to be generated. Should take about a minute. 5. Launch AIM-54 For me, upon AIM-54 launch the radar goes to RWS every time. Hope that helps with this bug. TWS-A_to_RWS.miz

I haven't had any problems with lack of power in the pattern with the F-14A either. In fact I have the impression that it has way more thrust in this regime than the B. Apparently coming in to the overhead break, the TF30 can squeeze 200 additional knots out of the same amount of fuel burnt than the F110. Still not sure if this is right...

Yes, I get the same. The plane comes to a stop and then immediately rolls forward.

For me only official skins matter because these are the only ones I can use when making missions/campaigns. I don't want to make missions/campaigns that require users to download additional external 3rd party content. As such I would like developers, which will provide a number of skins anyway, to concentrate as far as possible on liveries that tie in with other assets available in the game.

I had the opportunity to lead a flight yesterday and during our descend towards the carrier, we noticed that it is very difficult to slow the F-14A down. Despite me reducing throttle to idle eventually, the plane kept on accelerating and increasing thrust/fuel flow while doing so. We ended up descending at mach 0.9 with the engines each burning 3000 lb/h despite me being in full idle. In fact, moving the throttle in the rear quarter of movement had no impact on fuel flow whatsoever. Of course under these circumstances it was impossible for my wingman to stay in formation.

Let's break this even further down: USS Forrestal: F-14A, VF-11 F-14A, VF-31 USS Saratoga: F-14A, VF-74, only low-viz TPS F-14A, VF-103, only low-viz TPS F-14B, VF-74, only low-viz TPS (already in game) F-14B, VF-103, only low-viz TPS (already in game) USS Ranger: F-14A, VF-1 F-14A, VF-2 F-14A, VF-211 F-14A, VF-24 USS Independence: F-14A, VF-14 F-14A, VF-32 F-14A, VF-21 F-14A, VF-154 Most squadrons had high-viz and low-viz schemes over the given period, but there are also various other variations (big/small national markings, color/grey national markings, color/grey squadron markings, light grey/TPS baseline color etc.).

I agree, this is something I wish DCS developers in general would pay more attention to. When the Nevada map and the F-5E were released, I was rather confused that the majority of F-5E skins were Navy, while Nellis was the actual home base of a real USAF Aggressor squadron. I think there ever was only a single official USAF Aggressor skin. With the recent F-14A release I noted that the VF-21 skin is from USS Constellation, even though VF-21 actually deployed with exactly the same livery on USS Independence in 1990 (a Forrestal-class). A strange choice. For the F-14A I hope that HB will priorities skins for squadrons that deployed on Forrestal, Saratoga, Ranger and Independence. Of course certain iconic skins can't be missed out, like Nimitz 1979 VF-84, even though we do not have the right ships. As a side note, it is interesting that the Forrestal class carriers didn't deploy with Tomcats all that long, so the number of squadrons is limited. From the supercarriers they kept the Phantom the longest (only Midway and Coral Sea switched their F-4 later) and were decommissioned soon afterwards (being the oldest supercarriers). Forrestal-class deployments with F-14A/B: USS Forrestal: 1986-1991 USS Saratoga: 1984-1994 USS Ranger: 1980-1993 USS Independence: 1982-1998

I would like to mention power and fuel flow. One of the first things I noticed with the F-14A is that I need to re-learn my baseline fuel flow settings and that they change opposite to what I expected. My baseline starting-point FF for the overhead break with the F-14B is 4000 lb/h for 350 kts with the wings swept aft. But in the F-14A a fuel flow of 4000 lb/h yields 550 kts in the overhead at the same weight. I have also the impression that the F-14A cruises extremely well with fuel flows down to 1500 lb/h and in the groove you are almost down to idle, especially with DLC disengaged. Is the is characteristic of the TF30 that is to be expected or is there something off?

Thanks a lot Heatblur for the fantastic F-14A. I love it!

Interesting, the new Freya EWR released in today's patch is not limited to 120 km (it has 160 km range). Again it seems that 1L13 and 55G6 are set up incorrectly.

Wonderful, today's patch fixed this. Now the AI is murdering bomber formations like it is supposed to :)

Fantastic update! So much great things are to come, even more than we expected. I can't wait for the F-14A, this is the variant I really wanted and soon I am going to get it.