MiG 21 vs modern fighters

[JorgeIII]

This is wat I usually do in the 104th:

 

First get to know the mission. Find the general flight path and combat area of enemy fighters and attack airplanes (airport to bulls eye for fighters and air port to TA for ground attack planes).

Chose if your going hunting for A-10s and SU-25s or FC3 F-15s and Su-27s.

 

For hunting ground attack planes:

 

1)Know their target areas. (taking picture with your phone from their briefing map works excellent).

2)Plan a flight plan to their TA going arround the bulls eye and avoiding enemy fighters. Calculate Bingo Fuel. Usually flanking the bulls eye at 80-150 km distance is enough, depends of the mission. You can fly to TA low and using terrain for masking, I usually climb to over 12000 and fly about 200 km to target area at 2100 km/h TAS. Its only 10' a flight. You will condensate (white smoke trail) and be seen from a great distance at an altitude from 8000 m to 12000 m. So or stay under 8000m or be very carefull when descending from 12000m, do it fast and parallel to enemy planes expected bearing. You can overfly at high altitude the enemy target areas and find which on is on fire and smoking. Then you go down and look for targets. Take care of SAMs and enemy fighters doing CAP.

 

 

For hunting FC 3 level Fighters:

 

1) Find their general path and a nice corredor in the mountains to ambush them, between their base and the bulls eye. (It only works fine is you can hide with terrain masking). If you get closer to their base is usually safer for you as long as you stay away from their air defenses.

2)Make a flight plan to this corredor, flying safely around the bulls eye, low and with as much cover as you can get.

3) On the ambush zone, "behind enemy lines", fly low in the valles and hide from any signal you get in the "RWR". Keep looking at the horizon and up while zooming. You will eventually see a FC3 F-15, Su-27 or Mig-29 flying by. If he is not to far away or facing you, get at his six trying to save fuel, IFF him (if youre uncertain) and fire. Sometimes you are lucky and you get a pair of F-15s in formation.

When they are flying high they are easily spotted if are popping black smoke (no AFT, sub mach speed), and easily reached with your Mig-21 with afterburner on. Buy you will burn precious fuel and might be exposed to other fighter sensor field of view. I found that good FC3 pilots usually fly in pairs, at high altitude but just under condensation zone and a few km away from the usual path to bulleye.

Edited February 23, 2015 by JorgeIII

[coldViPer]

Good info Jorge, thanks. Step by step learning new things against these monsters! Already have killed three F-15 :thumbup: Can I somehow save a track on 104th server? Tried MSI afterburner but it's soo fps killer.

[kmstewart64]

I agree, great info Jorge. Never thought of using my phone to take a picture. I feel a few more kills coming my way!

 

MORG

[coldViPer]

Wondering one thing, if I scan the sky with my sapphire radar, how far can e.g. F-15 detect this radar signal? Made a quick offline test, mig-21 vs F-15 head on and the Mig-21 RWR started to ping after the distance was ~50km so this is some kind of max range for SPO-10 RWR?

[JorgeIII]

Thanks.

Im not sure about SPO detection distance for F-15 radar, maybe between 50 to 100 km. I think F-15 can see our radar in its RWR at about 30 km, it should be much more but maybe I´m wrong, none of my squad mates usually fly FC3 level planes. F-15 radar can see you at 100 km.

But I always try NOT TO USE THE RADAR for searching, it makes the ambush pointless, FC 3 fighters have a much better and over simplified RWR, search radar, target info, long range missiles, more engine power and extra fuel for combat manuvers. You will became the prey rather than the hunter.

The exception for me for using the radar is when hunting for A-10s, and, maybe, when I´m behind enemy lines, haven't seen a target for a while and im flying from the enemy base to bulleye: I might turn it on for I few seconds, If your quick enough maybe the enemy wont see the "U" in its RWR and If it dose it might think your a friendly Mig-21 coming from his base and be too lazy to turn around and check. But usually is better to continue searching visually. That black smoke is easy to spot, especially if you have an AMD card.

Edited February 23, 2015 by JorgeIII

[Hadwell]

when i first started flying the 21 on the 104th I used to be really cautious with the radar, but now I use my radar to search because (no AWACS)... don't you ever wonder how many times someones flown right past you and you had no idea, simply because you had your radar off?

 

sure people can spot you, but all you gotta do is duck behind a mountain again and you're invisible again, with or without radar turned on...

 

the key is, to act like a u-boat, put the parascope up, search, then drop it below the surface, that is... turn sideways with your pipper below the top of a mountain, or if you don't wanna go sideways, point the pipperbelow a mountain.... only shutting your radar off when your traveling to and from the target area.

 

you'll get a lot more kills that way, risk vs. reward...

 

but if you wanna fly around blind, hoping to find a contrail, or someones going to randomly show up within 10km of you, and in your line of sight, go ahead, kills are fewer and far between, also with the radar, even if something is in visual range, it'll likely pick it up before your eyes do.

 

it's also about picking and choosing targets based on what they do, if someone goes offensive on you, put the closest mountain to you between you and him till your rwr shuts up, then once your rwr stops going off, do some drastic direction change that couldn't be obvious, so if he was following you, he'll have a tough time figuring out what direction you turned and re-acquiring you, assuming you stay in cover anyway.

 

guess what I'm saying is... the radar lets you see pretty much at all, while it really doesn't let him see you that much better, except 30 km directly infront of you, and only if you're not in cover, or... the amount it helps you is far more than the amount it helps him, so it's worth it to have the radar on.

 

again, if you don't want to use radar, no problems, but it feels like I can only see 3 feet in front of me with it off, and I'm sure there's a happy medium between using and not using radar, guess I just travel on the more agressive side.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Hadwell

[coldViPer]

Yeah I like to use both tactics, mainly I fly the radar off but regularly scanning and checking bogeys. Hunting A10s must be fun, have to try this also :)

[Frostie]

The great thing with flying the MiG-21 online is that with the inclusion of steam there is now an unbelievable amount of guys that can't wait to get shot down, too many seem to have an FPS mentality of rush to the fight. You can fly around in the same manner in an Su25 and get kills.

[JorgeIII]

Thanks for sharing Hadwell. I will try using a little more the radar, sometimes it takes too long to find targets using only your eyes.

[kmstewart64]

At first I flew around with my radar off about 99% of the time. I could fly all over the place and never get caught but I also never got a kill. Now, I fly with the radar on much of the time. It's true I get killed more but I also do more killing. It's all part of the learning process.

 

MORG

[JorgeIII]

But you can get good kills without using the radar for searching. Check this. Of course is a very lucky day and after at least a pair of hours flying:

 

[kmstewart64]

Jorge,

 

Great day of flying! I need to start following you and Hadwell around on the 104th. I'll be glad to have any leftovers you might throw my way LOL! How do you pull up that screen in multiplay?

 

MORG

[WinterH]

Alright, long in short : Today I flew for the first time online in about a year or so, on 104th phoenix, against some regulars, in 4th gen fighters. I flew with the MiG-21 obviously :):

 

This was supposed to be a post here, but turned out to be ginormously long. Moral of the story, even though I didn't get any kills, I got pretty close a few times and this was the most enjoyable DCS experience I had in a long time even with zero kills.

 

It was 3 sorties of adrenaline, mishaps, treetops flying, and not so good situational awareness :D

 

Like I've said, it was supposed to be post in this thread but turned gigantic in the end, so I've put it on my site instead. If you feel like reading it :) :

http://whmilsimflyer.blogspot.com.tr/2015/02/aar-dcs-mig-21bis-first-time-on-104th.html

[Hadwell]

nice AAR, good read.

 

yeah it took me a few months of playing on 104th and 77th, and practicing on the VA server before I started getting kills, but at that time there was pretty much nobody else out there even really trying, so I had to figure it out on my own, with nothing but the provided tutorials and trial and error, till some nice person (lucien) started this thread and gave me a place to converse :D

 

I remember getting so frustrated, saying to myself "I'm only flying the mig-21 till I freaking get a kill!", and after the first one, it got so much easier.

 

it's like... if something works once, you know it'll work again, so at least you now have a starting point.

 

eventually you'll either get the hang of it and your kill/death ratio starts getting better, or not...

 

 

to pull up the scoreboard in multiplayer is the ' key i believe, or if not that the ; but i think ' lol

Edited February 26, 2015 by Hadwell

[kmstewart64]

WinterH,

 

Great story! I've had a few similar sorties when I first began flying the Mig 21 due mostly to me fumbling the switchology and not having something setup correctly. I do remember flying down low in a valley and having an F-15C fly directly across my path at my altitude. I turned into trail and had my R60 tracking when I decided to IFF him ... sure enough it was a friendly! I knew it was too good to be true.

[JorgeIII]

Thanks for sharing Winter. Most of us have been or will be in each of dose epic situations. Good read.

[kmstewart64]

3 more kills tonight on the 104th. Found a pack of A10's. If I would have had TrackIR I would have gotten more kills. Too hard to see using the hat key on my stick.

 

I want to record my flights. Can I do that from the trk files saved to my computer? If so, how? Thanks,

 

MORG

[tsb47]

3 more kills tonight on the 104th. Found a pack of A10's. If I would have had TrackIR I would have gotten more kills. Too hard to see using the hat key on my stick.

 

I want to record my flights. Can I do that from the trk files saved to my computer? If so, how? Thanks,

 

MORG

 

I've been told your multiplayer tracks get automatically saved. I can't remember where, but probably somewhere in your saved games folder. I would take a look and hunt around as you might have those tracks saved already!

[kmstewart64]

2 more kills today plus 1 damaged A10 on the 104th this afternoon. I had 2 other aircraft locked but couldn't get the missile to shoot. Hard for me to see them but I did make a gun run on 1 A10 but missed. Lots of fun!

 

MORG

[tsb47]

Kudos to you guys. I'm yet to even lock an enemy on 104th! I just fly, get locked, then either evade or die. And the SAMs around the enemy bases are BRUTAL, you get locked and they fire at like 50km away!

[coldViPer]

Kudos to you guys. I'm yet to even lock an enemy on 104th! I just fly, get locked, then either evade or die. And the SAMs around the enemy bases are BRUTAL, you get locked and they fire at like 50km away!

 

I never fly near the enemy base, too risky and too far from my airbase :D Almost every time I have faced the enemy between the bullseye and the enemy base or around the bullseye. And yes, usually enemy gets the lock first but I evade, hide in mountains and start playing cat and mouse game :P

[tsb47]

I never fly near the enemy base, too risky and too far from my airbase :D Almost every time I have faced the enemy between the bullseye and the enemy base or around the bullseye. And yes, usually enemy gets the lock first but I evade, hide in mountains and start playing cat and mouse game :P

 

First kill today. I think it was an F15. He tried to go for the high speed pass + gun kill, but I out turned him with my lower speed, he zoomed and extended but I locked him with radar and he ate a couple of R-3Rs at short range.

[kmstewart64]

Nice job tsb47! It took me a lot of flights before I got my first kill. It gets easier the more you fly and sometimes it helps to be in the right place at the right time!

 

MORG

[mattebubben]

I got nailed by a 21 the other day while flying my 27.

I was nearing the bullseye and i had a headon encounter with an enemy fighter (Su27) we exhange several missiles and i end up getting the kill on close range with a 73.

And just as the enemy goes down and i start typing in chat to thank him for a good fight i get a R3S up my tailpipe.

Apparently there was a lowflying Mig-21 that had seen our massive missile exchange (atleast 4 missiles each)

and snuck up on me with nose cold.

First time i got shot down by a 21 i was both Embarresed by it but also as a fellow 21 pilot it had to congratulate him for a nice victory.

[Fixxxer46]

Really nice thread this. Interesting read.

 

First outing on the 104th with the 21 i only had basic understanding of the systems and workorder. That quickly resulted in a death after i got too eager to find enemies with no SA so to speak.

 

I then focused on the 21 for most of my DCS flying, and flew lots of training missions against AI.

Just to get used to ID'ing and pressing switches correctly. Also fidning out the most logical position for the switches.

Then last weekend, i felt i was good enough to take it online again. Kept low within the mountain range between Maykop and bulls on the coast.

For some stupid reason i had mapped the IFF check away from my HOTAS, which made it hell trying to ID jets when i accuired them.

 

I chased a couple of jets around (most of them friendlies), getting locked i hid low and inside crevices. After making a small run north again,

i got a lock i thought was low. Made a u-turn and started to snake my way south. Saw an opening to turn back and engage.

Just as i got my eye on the enemy jet he had already turned around from following me,

i quickly engaged IR missiles (think i had R13-M1) and fired off both 2 seconds apart.

Then i tried diving down again, saw the kill, but got tagged by (wierdly enough the same guy who got me last time :megalol:) another enemy jet.