rossmum

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.

The R-60 came back specifically because it is no longer all-aspect capable. It was only removed in the first place because red players felt it was unfair to have a weapon that could sometimes make head-on kills (right on the edge of its Rmin) while blue was stuck with 9Ps. The R-60 is an agile missile but has a weak warhead, often taking 2-3 hits to definitively kill something, and a relatively short range. The AIM-9P doesn't turn as well close-in, but reaches out a bit better and will almost always kill or at least cripple an aircraft in a single hit. The solution to the 9P not turning as well is learning not to ripple off your missiles at less than half their minimum range, which is something F-5 pilots do so predictably that deliberately baiting them into wasting their missiles is a common tactic for MiGs in the server. Just like we need to avoid firing R-60s at longer-range targets because they won't catch them, blue pilots need to learn some actual trigger discipline. The 9P is fine when you use it at its intended range, and in the F-5's case, you have two fairly decent guns and an excellent radar gunsight for shots inside that range.

Magnitude R-3S and Razbam R-3S aren't synchronised AFAIK (or at least, they weren't before, not sure about now). The 19's missiles refuse to launch above 2G and frequently fail to track. They're not totally useless, I'd rate them above a GAR-8, but they're hardly fantastic either. Your best bet is catching someone unawares, or slipping in as they're engaged with someone else. Timing is everything.

For reference, the MiG-21 was the first module I flew, and out of ~2000 hours in DCS I think probably a bit over half are in the 21. I adjusted to it before I adjusted to any other modules, so if I hit switches the wrong way it's in the other modules rather than the MiG :D

That would definitely be a really nice feature. I find that some of the day ones can be a bit hard to read, while others are good enough - an analogue dimmer axis would fix that. It affects a bunch of modules but having it in the 21 would really set it apart. As for changing the switch direction... that might be a special options job. I've spent so long in the 21 that I've adjusted to it and any change would seriously screw my muscle memory up, but I definitely see how it can trip up people who fly it less or spend more time in other modules.

It's the ground clutter. At higher altitudes or with the radar off, it won't be an issue (or older drivers). As you stalled the nose probably dipped low enough to fill the scope with clutter.

The M2K does have washout, IIRC.

I glance back and forth if I have to. You develop a feel for the correct stick deflection to ride the edge after a while, but it's not foolproof and I find the less I glance back at the UUA, the more I wobble. It's worth noting though, the 21 was known to not develop a stall buffet at low speeds - it only did so at higher speeds, well beyond where you're likely to be running into problems in DCS. Really, it seems like one of those things you just won't quite get until you're holding the real stick in your hands, with the correct position for trim and such. Without a FFB stick to trim it's really annoying as trim position can throw out your sense of how much you can pull.

I think you've misunderstood him. He was stating that he was unable to pass 15 and that real pilots attest to 20, but Czech syntax and English syntax are a bit different and so the word order appears reversed. e/ reading is hard. Looks like most questions have been answered here so my input beyond the above is not really adding anything.

I've noticed that when I kill player-controlled ground units, either with another CA unit or with an aircraft, they often teleport about 20-50 metres and then catch fire. It's very strange but seems to happen pretty consistently. Just DCS things, I guess. :doh:

Above 800km/h, she shakes violently and sheds parts. Below 800km/h, she stalls out and flicks into spins. At precisely 800km/h she turns like a thing possessed and out-rates F-5s with ease :lol: Apparently there's an FM issue which means speed bleedoff is too rapid with an AoA above 12 degrees, which means that soon it should be a little more forgiving. Definitely a very challenging bird though.

Had an incredible time yesterday, finally figured out how to not be useless in the MiG-19 in Catch Me If You Can and then there was a massive, ~5-6 hour play of Hold The Line. The server was absolutely packed to the gills and didn't empty out until Red finally won, just shy of noon Sydney time. Incredible teamwork from everbody involved and some really unbelievable furballs forming around Blue's middle FARP as both team's GCIs directed fighters to try and get air superiority. It seems more and more people are starting to try out the server, which can only be a good thing! Even some of the guys I usually see in modern jets are turning up regularly.

I actually flew the module for a full year and a half before I found out about it (by being told) :lol: It was like discovering a whole new plane. R-3R as a dogfight missile was hilarious.

Not sure if this is actually a bug, or if the fix was finally implemented. The radar should not be able to enter a locked state in fixed-beam mode. You have to fly it on by keeping the pipper on the target now, as you would need to in a real MiG (albeit one with an RP-21 radar, as the 21bis' RP-22 isn't actually compatible with the Grom at all, but was handwaved to give us more toys to play with). The ability to lock the beam before was not a realistic feature, and could actually be exploited to act as a boresight lock for air-to-air use as well. On a real bis your fixed beam is for slant ranging during A/G attacks.

Wake is only a minor inconvenience to the Cold War birds, unless the 21 now rips from it (I haven't tested). It's stronger than it should be but it's a worse problem in the M2K, which we don't have anymore. Don't feel you have to remove it, Alpen - just brought it up as the topic was mentioned. It doesn't seem to be affected enough, then - the turbulence that comes off a normal-sized fighter (say, a Hornet or 16) is pretty lethal to a similarly sized jet flying at a similar speed, which doesn't quite seem right. I could be wrong on that, though. The reason the Mirage breaks is because the wake turbulence frequently causes it accelerations exceeding 12G.

For what it's worth, in every instance where I saw this happen I would be surprised if the aircraft was less damaged than it looked - we're talking direct missile hits, bursts of cannonfire right down the wing, etc. Perhaps a desync between the actual FM/systems and the DM proper, rather than the visual model? It seems very similar to the issues the MiG-21 used to have with FM not being affected much or at all by evident severe damage (although systems were affected as you would expect). I'll have to keep an eye out for the next time this happens and see if I can get you guys a trackfile, so far it's been several hours into a MP session. It seems to have been less consistent recently (I'm still seeing it, but it feels like it's less often), but it could also be from encountering less Viggens in the servers I frequent.

Over 10. In order to get it to do this, you need to either manually override the ARU, or make a very vicious pull as the ARU is transitioning modes, but speed is still relatively high. The MiG-21bis is rated to 8.5, so you weren't really stressing it at all there.

Wake turbulence seems to have the same intensity regardless of source aircraft size or configuration. It's known to be lethal to Mirages - getting behind, say, a Hornet cornering at 350kts while over that speed yourself is a fast ticket to losing one or both wings. The Cold War birds are thrown around a bit but I don't think I've seen one rip from it yet.

My bad, it was a touch-and-go without the nose dropping. Memory's getting hazy. :doh: I'll have to muck around and see if I can get it to work myself. I haven't had much luck aerobraking anything, though. It's a little awkward with no stick extension and the risk of a tailstrike.