Search the Community

Hi everyone, The 5" mounts on the Essex appear to track aircraft but, in the majority of tests I've run, only actually engage below 2500 ft. In the tracks below I have a single Ju 88 A-4 at various altitudes that should be well within the engagement envelope of the guns. The only track where the guns engage reliably is the 2.4k ft track. The other thing is the range at which the guns start firing - according to the linked trajectory chart, the upper-limit of the range should be around 15000 yards (~13.7 km) for a target flying at 10,000 ft and around 16000-17000 yards (~14.5-15.5 km) maximum for a target at 2500 ft. In DCS however, the guns first start firing at around 1.5 nautical miles (or about 3000 yards or about 2.8 km) and only get a single salvo off (and even then, not all the mounts engage) before the carrier is overflown. Each gun should be able to fire at a rate of 15-22 rounds per minute (or 30-44 rounds per Mk 32 mount, as used on the Essex). Part of the range issue may be down to the directors (Mk 37 GFCS), whose radar ranges (for the Mark 12) are half of what they should be (they also are defined with the wrong frequency range). In Essex_Class_Carrier_1944.lua, the director's "distanceMax" is set to 25 km. The Mark 12 radar (the rectangular antenna on top of the director, mark 22 is the elliptical antenna beside it) should be able to track bomber-sized targets out to ~41 km [source] Suffice to say, these issues drastically limit the effectiveness of these guns. Essex_5-inch38_Engage_2.4kft.trk Essex_5-inch38_NoEngage_2.5kft.trk Essex_5-inch38_NoEngage_5kft.trk Essex_5-inch38_NoEngage_10kft.trk

The ZPU series is the last missing piece of post-war soviet AAA. It's a 14,5*114 gun and comes in single, dual or quad-barreled versions. Somewhat related to this, DCS also needs blufor "equivalents", namely GPMGs or HMGs in AAA mounts. For example the M2 or MG3 (Picture below: MG3 in "Zwillingslafette" AAA mount) Thanks!

So the upcoming KS-19 seems to have animations for shell ejection ( https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/upload/iblock/ef3/cf1wugyh9urt302bgtk31f0kjggt0p01/In_Dev_15.07.2022.7.jpg ) but like with all recent additions it is lacking its crew. This is mind boggling to me. I appreciate the highly detailed models, but the lack of crew really nullifies all this. I'd honestly prefer the lower fidelity models that at least have the (ugly) crew models. ZSU-23-2 for example. The suepr high details and animations are nice to have, but the missing crew is actually notable in gameplay: I remember one instance where my human wingman reported all enemy AAA netralized in the area. Only when i came under heavy fire, he realized that unmanned guns will still fight. >This is stupid!< Honestly ED, we don't need super detailed crew with compelx body temperature and behaviourial simulation. For all i care, put those old ugly crew models in and give them the treatment for the new FLIR. Please!

The S-60 57mm gun and the KS-19 100mm gun still lack their crew after being in the sim for many years now. It looks really stupid seeing these guns traverse and fire without crew and it also makes it difficult to judge if a gun is disabled or not. Both the guns are vital assets for many missions and the missing crew is a very obvious shortcoming of the current implementation.

After the update I opened the mission editor to make use of the new AAA features. I immediately noticed the much smaller range of the 8.8cm Flak as I had already arranged them to have intersecting arcs. I then placed an S-60 battery in the middle of the group of 8.8cm and notice the S-60 now has quite a bit more range. Picture below shows the 8.8cm Flak on the left with S-60 to the right.

One of the ways I set up ground units so as not to be so deadly that they make attacking imposable. This setup can be replicated multiple times with larger groups. Just do the steps for each AAA unit in that group. It uses the stock scripting so no mods needed but I suspect that you can get very creative with it and mods. So lets start with a single gun unit. Will pick one that is particularly problematic in its normal form. Having the ability to pinpoint shoot once you get inside its fire zone no matter how fast your going. Amazing how the two man team can move hand crank elevation and traverse like that. Note the two rings. The outer one is its detection zone. without editing that is the distance that it will start to track you. We will be disabling that with the fallowing steps. The red ring is its fire distance. We will be using that as a guide but limiting its area. So lets make a trigger zone the size of that red ring and attach it to the unit And to fallow up with a smaller zone. You will want to adjust that small ring tell you find a size that works for you and the situation. Now we need to add some things to the unit itself. Or rather to the group that the unit is part of. We need add a weapons hold, weapons free and a fire at point. null Now we add the mission triggers. The Weapons Hold will keep the unit at a passive state tell the moment you get inside its weapons range. only then will it start to track and maybe get a shot off. But soon as you get inside its Min zone it will switch back to hold state. Now by its self that would be fine but we want some firing to keep up the look like its attacking so that is when the Wild trigger comes in. for that few seconds it will fire blindly into the zone. It still may hit you but its no longer 100%. Once your on your way out it will switch back to tracking for a parting shot. Then its back to hold state. No more tracking tell you come back in again. This can be used for any ground to air capable unit. As long as you link the zones to the unit. You can have the unit move and the zone will be moving zones.