ED plz give us an updated Su27

[BattleAxes Skinner]

This is how useless the R-27s in reality are.

 

Operational service[edit]

Ethiopia and Eritrea[edit]

In the 1999 Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Eritrean MiG-29s fought Ethiopian Su-27s both piloted by Russian mercenaries.[6] There were possibly as many as 24 R-27s fired by both sides. Only one R-27 fired by an Ethiopian Su-27 at an Eritrean MiG-29 proximity-fuzed near enough the MiG that the damaged aircraft eventually crashed on landing, giving the R-27 a hit ratio of only 4%.[7][8]

 

And we don't have a choice but to carry 4 of these dead weights. Highly disadvantageous being a Su27 driver in DCS when you're going up against F15s,16s & 18s with AMRAAMs. We need the AMRAAMSKIs.

[Fri13]

And pilots never had any skills to avoid the missiles....

[BattleAxes Skinner]

The point is to have a fighting chance when one merges. Obviously the pilot's skill matters but the odds are stacked against the Su27 drivers in BVR currently in DCS.

[pepin1234]

R-27 is still a good missile. You can use the R-77 with Mig-29S, but don't expect nothing special.

[BattleAxes Skinner]

R-27 is still a good missile. You can use the R-77 with Mig-29S, but don't expect nothing special.

 

Well I did use the r-77 with the mig29s and the difference was stark! That's why the rant :)

[fyaruny]

I dont know if its just me but i find myself beeing much more efficient on-line flying the flanker than flying the eagle.

The 27ER is quite easy to defeat tho.

That beeing said, i use the 27ER mostly to spook my enemy so that i can close in for the 27ET shot or maybe even the r73

[BattleAxes Skinner]

I dont know if its just me but i find myself beeing much more efficient on-line flying the flanker than flying the eagle.

The 27ER is quite easy to defeat tho.

That beeing said, i use the 27ER mostly to spook my enemy so that i can close in for the 27ET shot or maybe even the r73

 

Exactly! 27's job is to strike not just spook...and it doesn't do it's job at all...AMRAAMSKIs plz; I guess with it the Su27s will be quite formidable!

[Stuge]

My assessment is that ER is most effective when fired from front aspect, 8 km range, slightly uphill (look up against sky), against a target who is unaware of your presence. This way I find the kill probability to be higher than 90%, also better than ET because here the ER cannot be reliably defeated without at least beaming it, and there is not much reaction time for the target to do so.

 

Firing closer than 8 km risks the missile not having enough speed to maneuver hard enough in the terminal phase.

 

Firing further than 8 km gives the target too much time to react, enabling beaming or even escape, wasting the missile, and possibly letting the target escape.

 

Return fire is unlikely in this scenario because the target is in a panic situation and will be toast in just a few seconds. Just in case though it's good to dive and crank, and get ready to beam that AMRAAM if it comes :)

[fyaruny]

My assessment is that ER is most effective when fired from front aspect, 8 km range, slightly uphill (look up against sky), against a target who is unaware of your presence. This way I find the kill probability to be higher than 90%, also better than ET because here the ER cannot be reliably defeated without at least beaming it, and there is not much reaction time for the target to do so.

 

Firing closer than 8 km risks the missile not having enough speed to maneuver hard enough in the terminal phase.

 

Firing further than 8 km gives the target too much time to react, enabling beaming or even escape, wasting the missile, and possibly letting the target escape.

 

Return fire is unlikely in this scenario because the target is in a panic situation and will be toast in just a few seconds. Just in case though it's good to dive and crank, and get ready to beam that AMRAAM if it comes :)

 

Yea but firing a 27ER to an eagle at 8km distance means you already have 20 spamraams from him inbound :D

[ShuRugal]

My assessment is that ER is most effective when fired from front aspect, 8 km range, slightly uphill (look up against sky), against a target who is unaware of your presence. This way I find the kill probability to be higher than 90%, also better than ET because here the ER cannot be reliably defeated without at least beaming it, and there is not much reaction time for the target to do so.

 

Firing closer than 8 km risks the missile not having enough speed to maneuver hard enough in the terminal phase.

 

Firing further than 8 km gives the target too much time to react, enabling beaming or even escape, wasting the missile, and possibly letting the target escape.

 

Return fire is unlikely in this scenario because the target is in a panic situation and will be toast in just a few seconds. Just in case though it's good to dive and crank, and get ready to beam that AMRAAM if it comes :)

 

would be interested to know how you get within 8km of an Eagle without him shooting at you?

 

Would also be interested to know how it is that a WVR shot is considered the best usage of a dedicated BVR missile.

[fyaruny]

would be interested to know how you get within 8km of an Eagle without him shooting at you?

 

Would also be interested to know how it is that a WVR shot is considered the best usage of a dedicated BVR missile.

 

Yea lol this :D

[BattleAxes Skinner]

Yea but firing a 27ER to an eagle at 8km distance means you already have 20 spamraams from him inbound :D

 

Hahaha...true...SPAMRAAMs...hahhahaha

 

Also, 8KMS? Why the hell do I need 20KM BVR capable 27ER??? See...how useless this thing is!

[BattleAxes Skinner]

would be interested to know how you get within 8km of an Eagle without him shooting at you?

 

Would also be interested to know how it is that a WVR shot is considered the best usage of a dedicated BVR missile.

 

Exactly!

[*Rage*]

Pay no attention to the E-E missile pK stats. Its been discussed before and deemed irrelevant. The issue in game is that the missile is too vulnerable to chaff (and netcode).

 

Instead of a more modern variant I would argue for the proper implementation of the Su27 datalink we already have.

[BattleAxes Skinner]

Pay no attention to the E-E missile pK stats. Its been discussed before and deemed irrelevant. The issue in game is that the missile is too vulnerable to chaff (and netcode).

 

Instead of a more modern variant I would argue for the proper implementation of the Su27 datalink we already have.

 

Sorry but what is E-E; pK & netcode? Also, proper implementation of the Su27 datalink? What's missing/erroneous?

[AussieGhost789]

Sorry but what is E-E; pK & netcode? Also, proper implementation of the Su27 datalink? What's missing/erroneous?

 

The fighter - fighter capability for starters.

 

E-E is the war that was referenced in the OP, pK is the probability of kill and netcode is... online connection stuff.

Edited July 14, 2016 by AussieGhost789

[Stuge]

would be interested to know how you get within 8km of an Eagle without him shooting at you?

 

Would also be interested to know how it is that a WVR shot is considered the best usage of a dedicated BVR missile.

 

Happens all the time. Maybe the eagle driver is focused on someone else. Maybe he is just scanning in the wrong place. Maybe he just appeared from behind a hill. Maybe I can post a track :) Not many flights are needed for such scenario to occur.

 

Of course if you want to pull off a stealth attack you can't use your radar, you have to go EOS only. Which is no problem, since afterburning targets especially are picked up from afar. As long as your RWR is silent, you pretty much know you have not been detected.

 

Keep in mind that Active Radar Homing missiles are inherently superior to the Semi-Actives, and thus engaging an AMRAAM-equipped Eagle 1 vs 1 openly with your Flanker using ERs only with the intent to push til the end is a very bad judgement call and you should fully expect to be destroyed. Combine ERs with ETs you have better fighting chance, but you are still at a large disadvantage. In these cases you can either poke the bandit with your shots (but don't expect a kill if he fires back!) or if possible shoot a long/max range ET shot and run, these reach their unsuspecting targets surprisingly often! Regardless of what you do, you have to turn back before those AMRAAMs reach you if you want to play it safe.

 

Against equal or inferior Semi-Active opponents (like an AIM-7 equipped Eagle) the chances go up, and using superior launch timings and snaking maneuvers you can push your attack until the end and come out victorious, forcing the bandit to either turn back and run or be destroyed.

 

The discussion about what should or should not be the best use is something I am not interested in discussing. It's up to the game developers to create the most realistic representation, not me. I just say what works in the sim that we have, I can't give an opinion on what's correct and what's not. Because I really don't have the expertise to do so, I have never worked with real world air forces, I have never seen a live fire missile test, nor missile flight parameters from such tests.

 

Now if someone could provide a Tacview-level quality replay of a real test fire of a missile we have in the sim, complete with flight path and airspeeds, and also for SARH missiles the parameters of the launch platform during missile flight, then I could compare the performances and start saying what's wrong with the sim model. To say anything about countermeasure effectiveness, these countermeasures would also need to have been executed in such a test fire scenario.

 

I think real world stats for modern fighters are pretty worthless because a) there are too many unknown variables that affect the outcomes and b) there have not been enough engagements to draw any real conclusions. You would need hundreds of combat events with relatively known parameters to draw any meaningful conclusions from them.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Stuge

[FLANKERATOR]

Firing upward and switching PRF along the way helped me a bit with the R-27. It seems to me that the radar does not change PRF automatically in STT or when there is an M-link.

[0xDEADBEEF]

While I do understand your frustration JSF, it does not particularly fill your request with sense. From the year I've been here, I understood that ED makes the missiles fit into the information they have about their performance. While this indeed creates some discrepancy, I have no reason to believe that I have the ability to collect better or more reliable information than ED has, who have been working in this industry for decades, and I would frankly assume the same for you.

 

Yes I agree, in terms of gameplay-balance the Su is not exactly on par with the F15, the Amraam is out of question superior to the 27 and its variants, and probably the same will happen with the Mirage in the hands of a capable pilot. But DCS is not a game per se, it is a Simulator, it's primary purpose is to simulate RL as best as it can based on the Information available, which is - with all due respect - quite thin.

 

That said, from my personal experience especially in the past 6 months after I got some practice and tried a bunch of different tactical approaches, I find myself to have a PK of about 70-80% with 27ER missiles. I have learned which kind of shooting solution works and which one doesn't, and I usually fire only when I am certain I am not wasting the missile. Yes, I usually fire from within 10km or less, and in 50% of the time the enemy is unaware of my presence and/or location while I am aware of his presence since 50km or more.

 

The point I am trying to make is, it is not about what kind of weapons you carry, it is about how you employ them. This goes along with the fight-report you are quoting. We do not know about the experience of those pilots (a russian mercenary might be an experienced retired combat pilot or someone who dropped of the airforce soon after he got his badge with no experience). We do not know what kind of solution they had and what their intentions have been when they fired. The only thing we have is those numbers, but we do not have enough information to judge about the quality of the missile, as there's more factors in that than how many hit and how many missed.

[Mamba]

A new 27 variant would be most welcome, but it is not going to happen before DCS F22 arrives. And an update to allow the current 27 to carry Adder is never going to happen. If it did, we'd see the calls for EOS variants in F15s, updates to their radar suite and so on.

 

You can complain. Most have grown tired of it though.

[Sweep]

A new 27 variant would be most welcome, but it is not going to happen before DCS F22 arrives. And an update to allow the current 27 to carry Adder is never going to happen. If it did, we'd see the calls for EOS variants in F15s, updates to their radar suite and so on.

 

You can complain. Most have grown tired of it though.

 

That pod, the shape, the drag..nope, not worth it!

 

:P

 

How about a fake/generic Flanker that gives you guys all the capabilities you want but doesn't simulate any specific variant? Pick *whatever* Flanker cockpit that could support those capabilities, even keep the current FM for all I care, and you're done - Fun, competitive Flanker and its somewhat realistic. Or in other words, its probably as realistic as we'll get for a long time.

[DarkFire]

The problem with the Ethiopia - Eritrea border conflict is that the performance of the R-27 missiles fired can't be isolated from other parameters, e.g. missiles deliberately fired outside of acceptable parameters, missiles fired as 'warning shots' instead of as intended kill shots; the maintenance state of the launch aircraft; the maintenance state of the missiles themselves; the list goes on.

 

More reliable data from Gulf War 1 and British testing of their now-retired Sky Flash both provide a solid argument for SARH missiles being more effective than they are in DCS, but the reasons for DCS SARH missiles under-achieving are well known, exactly as Rage commented.

 

Moving on to a more advanced Su-27, I think there's a good case to be made for changing the DCS Su-27 from the Su-27S to the Su-27SM. This would give the Su-27 the ability to carry the R-77 as well as a small selection of PGMs and the Kh-31 ARM, giving it a little bit more multi-role capability. This would not however make it a bleeding-edge UFO aircraft (e.g. the Su-30MKi, Su-35 or Su-37) which would be entirely guess work anyway.

 

Personally I'd like to have the Su-27SM: upgraded just a little bit to bring it a little closer to parity with current & forthcoming NATO DCS aircraft but not to the point where modelling all the systems would be entirely guesswork due to them still being massively classified. Plus, the Russian AF currently has 70 SM's in service, so it would still be a realistic service aircraft to have.

[FLANKERATOR]

The R-77 is game is currently a joke to be honest. I'd rather use that speedy ER. Out off all the dcs A2A missiles, the Adder is the one that bleeds energy the most, it's deceleration once the engine is off is ridiculous to say the least.

[TheJay15]

Hasn't it already been established plenty of times that getting information on more advanced versions of the Su-27 is nearly impossible due to much of the technology being classified.

[Stuge]

The R-77 is game is currently a joke to be honest. I'd rather use that speedy ER. Out off all the dcs A2A missiles, the Adder is the one that bleeds energy the most, it's deceleration once the engine is off is ridiculous to say the least.

 

Yes and also last I tested is much more susceptible to chaff than pretty much any other missile - beaming not required..?