rossmum

I had the same problem for a long time. Don't pull like you would in a 21. Try and hold as close to 800km/h as possible, at that speed it becomes an absolute rate monster and is almost untouchable to F-5s. It's also currently affected too much by higher AoA (acknowledged and hopefully remedied soon), so its performance should only improve in the future, but this should mostly help with the little bit extra you need to get a guns solution (which is still hard even if you fly it right). Bear in mind when a real pilot calls something a good dogfighter, it doesn't necessarily mean it turns in a small radius. They could be referring to climb or dive performance, roll rate, or sustained turn. The 21 has a bit of all of these, while the 19 really emphasises sustained turn rate over anything else in DCS. It's like a 1950s F-16.

The problem with weapon restriction scripts is that they're enforced by blowing people up, and a lot of people don't read briefings OR the ingame messages and wonder why they're blowing up, then leave. With a core group of players like BF or DDCS have, it's easier to do, but even though we do have a core group here there are also a lot of transient players who would probably not understand why they keep exploding. If only the script could actually stop people from loading the weapons to begin with, it'd be a lot easier to bring in, I think.

How long does the mission typically last? I might be between 30-60 mins late since my ArmA group are running an event just before, but hopefully there'll still be stuff left to do :joystick:

The nosewheel shimmy on landing rollout can be pretty brutal too, especially with the chute still attached.

Warehousing seems fine on Battle for Sukhumi, at least - glad I came back on, I got to fight some F-14s. Earlier was frustrating, but you shouldn't have to clean up ED's mess every patch :|

It is a Mach 2 jet, at high altitude. No piloted aircraft I know of will do Mach 2 on the deck, the air is too dense and the aircraft either lacks the excess thrust or lacks the structural integrity, usually the latter. Your maximum speed is 1,300km/h IAS. At high altitude, this allows you to reach about Mach 2.05, or 2.1 if you feel like pushing your luck. Here's how to avoid flameouts in the 21: - Don't exceed 1,300km/h IAS at any altitude. - Don't make rapid throttle movements at high altitude, especially cutting to idle. - Don't force the nose down for more than a second or two. Zero or negative G stops the main fuel tanks feeding into the service tank properly and the engine will suck it dry in a matter of seconds. - Don't mess with the nose cone, the automated system is there for a reason. Tailslides can cause some issues too, I think, but that might be another manifestation of the negative/zero G fuel flow problems.

Just as a heads-up, Alpen, the FARPs on When The Mountains Cry still have 9Ms warehoused. Shout out to the Harrier who flew direct to a FARP to arm up with all-aspect CAP goodness, only for Hiro to strafe him as he loaded his first missile. He wasn't very happy :megalol:

Might actually be available for this one! Every other time I've been away from home, or worn out from a long haul the day before. Pretty eager to try this out, there are only a few servers where I can get my late Cold War fix and most of them are always empty.

Huge improvement, and I actually think my game is running a little better, too. Slick work.

Couldn't fly this one (neck still sore from yesterday's circus over Beslan, lol) but I was watching it on a friend's stream. Looks like a solid mission, can't wait to try it out!

Having to ferry missiles would be interesting, if possible - maybe only R-3S/GAR-8/Rb 24 available at airfields by default, with supply runs from the rear area (say a factory or depot) bringing out small batches of the more advanced weapons and heavier A/G ordnance. Using actual slinging for this would make it challenging but rewarding. Really I'd love to see road and rail logistics to resupply airfields, but the former is bugged (invisible, un-interdictable convoys to repair/resupply) and the latter doesn't really seem possible at the moment (DCS treats trains as traffic clutter AFAIK, they don't actually do anything and spawn in at random).

They're very closely matched. A well-flown F-5 is very hard to get a shot on if he gets into a slow, 1-circle kind of fight, but the longer the fight lasts, the higher the MiG's odds of winning become. The reverse is true if the F-5 flies more technically 'perfect' BFM and just focuses on rating the MiG, in my experience - but not many F-5 pilots are disciplined enough to do this. I have a deep suspicion this is what Soviet test pilots were talking about when describing the F-5 as routinely beating the MiG-21 and even 23 within 4-6 minutes - the kinds of crazy, edge-of-the-stall flying a lot of us do in DCS would be very opposed to continuing to be alive in real life. The MiG theoretically dominates the vertical in DCS, but that also depends on what speeds the two aircraft enter the maneouvre at - the F-5 is light enough and slick enough to carry some speed up if it doesn't get too greedy, but he can't sustain it through multiple loops. You can run them out of energy by abusing your thrust and then fall on them as they extend away to regain it.

I like the sounds of this new mission! Just came off a wild run on Phone Booth, probably the best session I've had since the start of the year. Fantastic teamwork and an absolutely wild defence of Beslan.

MiG gang :wub: There have been some bumps along the ride here and there, but the 21 is still my favourite thing to fly, by a long margin. She has real character, and rewards those who take the time to learn her limits and hidden talents. I've yet to master the fight with a human opponent in a gen 4 1v1, but I've managed to ambush a few of them in PvP servers and get some dirty kills, including a pair of Hornets with the gun. Crucially they dumped all their speed, and then not even their high AoA capability could help them - because the 21 can do that little trick, too.

The R-60 does not have a frontal aspect capability unless there is now a bug, because it should have been patched out nearly a week ago now. This was referenced (though not explicitly as a loss of all-aspect capability IIRC) in patch notes and confirmed by devs, one of whom you quoted in your post. If there is a bug, and the R-60 is tracking targets from frontal aspects, then please go ahead and demonstrate it - like we found performance graphs for the 24J. Replays, Tacviews, whatever - show us. The R-60M is limited all-aspect, as it always has been, and crucially has not been available in any mission in this server for something like six months, nor is it now. The R-60 and R-60M are two separate missiles, they do not have the same engagement capability. AIM-9P agility is fine. Learn to respect your weapon's launch envelope and you will almost never miss with it. The uncage function even allows you to effectively destroy one target while beginning a turn to engage a second - something the MiGs cannot even dream of doing, and something I capitalised on hugely last night in the F-5. It also has about twice the reach of an R-60, perhaps a little more depending on aspect and whether the target makes much effort to evade or not. There is no argument to be had here, you're conflating two separate variants of a missile as being the same thing while also downplaying a critical close combat feature (don't even start me on the F-5's radar at low altitude - you know, the radar most people call 'useless' and don't turn on). Either you aren't aware of the full capabilities of the aircraft in question and their weapons, or you do know and you're trying to move the goalposts to get what you want, which is an all-aspect missile for the F-5 while red have only the R-3R, which can't be effectively used at low altitude. The decision's already been made, it's all academic at this point. I don't think there are any "dramatic slippery slope fallacies" being made when people repeatedly argue in bad faith, but maybe that's just me. In the meantime, I certainly had a whale of a time swatting MiGs left, right, and centre last night with the oh-so-terrible 9P, and was only shot down by SAMs - not once by any of said MiGs, from any aspect. 8 of my 9 AIM-9 shots hit :)

I don't remember if it was 30km/h or 30kts. I often taxi the 21 at speeds politely described as highly irresponsible, so I'm usually above both.

I was sitting on its tail well within range, and he'd stopped flaring. It flew straight off the rail like a rocket. I'll have to do some testing to see if it's consistent or if I just somehow messed something up with the R-13s and then my guns killed his engine so there wasn't enough heat or something.

A very important note to the guys in the 29s: you cannot IFF without your radar. If you subscribe to the "low altitude EO only" meme, and you shouldn't because it's pretty dumb and not what the aircraft is designed to do, at least pulse your radar when you lock someone and check for "A" return in the bottom left of the HUD (for Russian; I don't know what the English HUD displays, maybe "A" as well). "ASV" - looks like "ACB" if you can't read Cyrillic - means friendly. Default radar IFF symbology is the same as the MiG-21, - means unknown/hostile and = means friendly. The width indicates size (e.g. -- is an enemy fighter, ==== is a friendly tanker/AWACS, and a single - is usually a HARM, AGM-84, JSOW, or similar). EO mode will not give you IFF returns and will display all contacts as hostile regardless of actual identity, and its contact sizing is based on heat signature rather than radar return (= approx. contact size). The best bet to avoid teamkills is use the radar (like Mikoyan intended), use both sensors in cooperative mode (you need to lock something first to turn on the second system in DCS, it's very annoying but worth it), or as said above, strobe the radar to get IFF. Cooperative mode is king, because the WCS will decide based on its current radar and EO status which sensor is best to track the target. If the EO lock is strong enough it will go essentially radar silent, using it only for limited ranging data and IFF, and the enemy aircraft will not get a lock tone.

It is worth noting that per US evalutation, the aircraft's rudder becomes effective at such a low speed that it can be used to keep roughly straight during a fast taxi. I can't tell for sure if it's overmodelled or I just taxi so fast it isn't a factor anyway, though.

Normandy's runways may well be too short for most jets - the 15 and Sabre have gargantuan takeoff and landing rolls and the Su-25/A-10 are even worse. The 21 and 19 can both cope with quite short runways, not sure about the F-5 - but I assume it can. Obviously, the Viggen will have no issues. I will spare the offending party the drama as long as he doesn't tell anyone what I accidentally did moments before he placed the Gudauta runway EWR. :doh: I will also say - it wasn't Floyd, who apparently got blamed for it later on after the actual culprit switched aircraft. I'll see if I can reproduce this later, but by rights the only thing that should now track hot aspect is the R-3R or the R-60M. I did have a front 3/4 shot look like it was tracking an F-5 (I shot it at 90 deg and he turned into me), but it went dumb and I don't know if it did so due to aspect or flares. Worth note: several of us could not get IR missiles to even attempt to track Harriers. At all. I fired three within perfect parameters and they went dead off the rail - others had the same experience. Another thing that needs testing, but maybe it was just dumb luck.

I tend to fly a single bag on the F-5 just to avoid installing the extra pylons, myself. It sips fuel anyway so it's not a big deal. When the F-4 comes we'll probably have had the MiG-23 for at least a while. I'm somewhat worried about what the 23 will do (as in, salt generation) as the MLA is significantly better than most people are expecting and should trounce even a slatted Phantom assuming equal pilot skill (and a passable RIO/WSO, for the Phantom). I guess the big balancing factor there is that its BVR load is limited to only two missiles versus the Phantom's four, and the Phantom may get better Sparrows to compete with or better the R-24, but it's faster, more agile, has a better and easier to use radar, and accelerates like a rocket. The only way I really see the Phantom redressing the balance, particularly close-in, is if it comes with VTAS - but then that will make life particularly unpleasant for everything else. The idea of trying to balance aerial combat of this era is a real tug-o-war with pulls this way or that. The point about the ecosystem these aircraft exist in is spot on. It's worth noting that AAA/MANPADS and particularly SAM coverage in the server is far, far, far watered down from what you'd actually expect - mostly because we don't really have period-correct SEAD (yet) and a lot of people get frustrated and quit if they're hampered by SAMs over and over again. In a realistic scenario, particularly one where red are playing the part of an actual Warsaw Pact nation or the USSR itself, it would be pretty intense - especially with the S-200 coming. Can't use your fancy AWACS if it can't come anywhere within 200km of the defensive belt... Overall the server does a good job of having simple, well-optimised, easily-remembered missions where each type of aircraft gets to feel useful and important but which also allows for a lot of the quick action people enjoy. It's just important to remember that it's not what these aircraft were designed to do, not how they were historically employed, and nor should we aspire to reach the perpetual PG islands stalemate Blue Flag did because the balance police decided to start going to the accountants with weapon data. As long as an overall asymmetrical balance is achieved, one aircraft having two or four extra (but weaker) missiles, or one missile turning better but lacking punch and range, isn't a big problem. One side being able to engage where the other cannot retaliate - now that would be a problem, and that's why the R-60 went on vacation in the first place.

Do they still lag the server when enabled? I remember that being a major problem when they came out :noexpression:

Cheers Alpen. Look, guys, let me put it like this: I would happily see the entire server restricted to R-3S/GAR-8 only, or even guns only, because then neither team will have any latitude to whinge and that's all a good pilot needs. It would be no skin off my nose, especially with how much guns practice I've had while dealing with the R-3S and R-13. But at the end of the day someone will always find a reason to say the other team has it better, and the more toys we have to play with I think the happier people will be. Guns only would certainly be totally equal, but if I want that I can go to JDF or the Korea 1952 server. IMO blue's biggest problem on the times I've played on it was comms. There either were none, or there was no GCI, or the GCI had severe tunnel vision (understandable, I do the same when I've tried it). By contrast red usually has a lot of people on comms, one or several experienced GCIs, and we try and drag enemies into each other and set up traps and ambushes where we can. Fly in pairs, guys. Encourage your friends to come on and GCI. Find some clever tactics like using feints to facilitate fighter sweeps or bait greedy MiGs (like me probably) in front of a trailing, unseen pair of fighters. There's a lot more to be gained through that than asking for this or that missile or more of a given type of aircraft.

Firefly: the R-60 no longer has all-aspect capability, not even the very limited one it had before. Only the R-60M does, now. The 9P5 will acquire a front-aspect target further than a 60M, let alone the pre-fix R-60. Both missiles can be defeated frontally, if they're seen. Nobody is going around carrying 8 R-60s. I mean nobody. To do so requires a pair of double R-60 rails and a pair of double R-60M rails and I have seen this done exactly once, by two players flying together, in two years of playing DCS. They were not successful with this 500IQ loadout. The weight and drag penalty is enormous and you are better off taking 2 or 4 missiles and relying on the gun for the rest. If I am expecting a tussle with F-5s I take less missiles, not more. Frontal R-3R shots are effectively countered by staying low, which almost everyone on the server already does. Even the fixed beam lock exploit will not work consistently against a small target, and will not work at all if said target is below the horizon from the radar's perspective. If you waste your 9P5 on a frontal aspect shot, that's your problem. Giving that front-on shot to the F-5 but not to the MiG just means that F-5 pilots can make front-quarter engagements that may be outside the MiG pilot's cone of vision, or can fire into an engagement from any aspect, which the MiGs cannot retaliate against. Did you miss the bit where the R-60 lost its front-aspect capability altogether? Now instead of having a 50/50 chance of connecting an Rmin shot taken a split second before a merge, the R-60 will not track a front-aspect target at all. I don't know where you're getting the idea an all-aspect missile is broadly equivalent to a missile with about half the destructive power and which is rear-aspect only. You're assigning capabilities to the R-60 which have literally just been removed, while ignoring the fact that both the Viggen and F-5 can uncage their seekers to lead shots (no red platform can do this except the MiG-29, with any of our available missiles), while ignoring the fact it frequently takes a pair of R-60s to actually kill something rather than damage it, or that nobody in their right mind is willingly lugging 8 missiles into a dogfight. The best loadout for close combat in the MiG-21 is two to four missiles (two only, for the larger Sidewinder derivatives) and the gun. The balance of weapons is not skewed at all. You are ignoring the fact that an F-5 can uncage its seeker, lead, and make a shot while every single red aircraft has to hold the target in its boresight for several seconds. For a bonus round, the MiG-19 can't fire its missiles above 2G, and the R-13M and M1 also have launch G limits. The R-60 doesn't, but the fact you have to hold the target in boresight means that you can't use its full potential like you can with the uncaged Sidewinders on the blue jets. As for the guns... yes, the 21 tanks 20mm. Meanwhile Viggens consistently fly with no lift surfaces at all and fire coming out of every orifice, as well as being able to outrun everything else (even the MiG-29) at low level, making them not only extremely hard to intercept in their actual interdictor role, but extremely successful hit-and-run fighters. Let's not pretend the MiG's damage model is even close to the worst offender right now. They can be killed and if you're having trouble with the dispersion, just don't open fire from so far away. If you're still having trouble, fly in pairs (which people should be doing anyway) or just know that you've likely forced the 21 down short of his airbase or caused him to have to RTB early. In two years of hitting a lot of things with R-60s, it is not uncommon to see F-5s continuing to fight for several more minutes (longer, if they close their crossfeed to the leaking wing tank), and the aforementioned invincible Viggens. "Debilitating" to me means "totally unable to fight back". In my experience flying both the F-5 and Viggen, there is no damage state short of an outright kill that prevents them launching their missiles. In the 21, almost any missile hit will kill your electrical system and you can't even jettison your missiles, let alone fire them. The Rb 24J can have its seeker uncaged. The R-60 cannot. This is a hugely important distinction and I can't help but feel you're either unaware of the capability, or you're deliberately not mentioning it. I can make shots in the F-5 and Viggen that I would not even dream of in the 21, because the R-60 still has to be boresighted to get a lock and doing so against a high aspect target usually means dumping so much energy that the missile is then easily outrun. Perhaps basing your opinions on more than one short session would be a start. Unfair was the R-60 having a front-aspect ability (albeit a very tight one) when blue didn't have any. The R-60 is not magic. It is easily run out of energy, it is easily decoyed, and it can only make shots when the launching aircraft holds its nose on the target for ~2 seconds. What would actually help blue a lot more than leaning on the 9P5 (and almost certainly taking every opportunity to make front quarter attacks, especially knowing the MiG has relatively poor forwards visibility by comparison and the 9P5 has better flare rejection) would be learning what shots they can and can't take, flying together cooperatively, and realising that the MiGs they should really be worrying about are the ones carrying less missiles, because they're the ones who are generally aware of what they're doing and will be much more dangerous in a close-quarters fight. If you guys couldn't capitalise on having better missiles before the R-60 was reintroduced, couldn't capitalise (at least, not all of you) on having something that could run down MiGs at will and then accelerate away too quickly to be retaliated against, couldn't capitalise on having the only all-aspect, instant-lock missile in the server attached to a helicopter with all the inertia of an RC drone, and still want to somehow lay the blame at the feet of red having some inexplicable advantage, then I don't even know what to tell you. I've spent enough time on both teams to know that both the F-5 and the MiG have their strong and weak suits, and the R-60 only goes so far. More often than not F-5s waste both missiles in a salvo at half Rmin, spray their guns in all directions because they aren't using the sight correctly, then easily get baited into stalling themselves out as they try and match the MiG's instantaneous turn rate rather than letting it get slow and exploiting its poor energy state. I've said it before, but if every time I feel red does actually have an unfair advantage somewhere it turns into "All I Want For Christmas" for blue players, I'm not even going to bother suggesting they be removed. Right up until the point the R-60 was removed on our request, nobody seemed to have any issues with it, and suddenly everyone's an expert in its performance after the one thing that did make it unfair has been addressed.

I have a flat inspection tomorrow morning, so won't be around for this one. I'll have to see how it plays out by checking out Mustang's VOD afterwards, hopefully I can catch the mission on a future playthrough. Dealing with 4th gens is hard, and dealing with a large number of 4th gens with active missiles is even harder, but there are a number of things you can exploit against less experienced players to give them a rough time. It's been quite a long time since I last claimed a Hornet in my 21 but it can be done - ideally with a couple of good GCIs coordinating a few players each so they can focus their attention while someone else handles CA stuff. Syria is arguably the best map for this kind of thing thanks to its ridges and valleys, so red has that going for them. I really like the concept of limited airframes and I hope to see it migrate back to the regular missions as well - I just wish there was a way to preserve a belly-landed (but not destroyed) aircraft for helicopters to come sling it home, either to go back into the pool after a repair timer or count as half an airframe so two retrieved birds give you one available. It would definitely spice up the helicopter guys' lives and make both teamwork, and trying to bring a plane down at least in one piece, a lot more valuable.