Weapons weight, a nightmare...

[diditopgun]

Hi all ! :)

 

My problem is generic to the whole game's weapons inventory but I will focus mainly to the F-5E3 weapons.

 

I am making an Excel flight planner for the Belsimtek F-5E3 using the real manual.

 

But after checking my file and mission editor i found that a lot of weapons weight match...

 

So I spend all my day to cross check manual, mission editor, internet, and 4 lua files from game directory.

 

They all have different values for most of weapons (even lua files not match together).... a real nightmare !

 

And even for the same weapon the mission editor has some strange behaviours.

Some exemples in this old thread: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=94083&highlight=mission+editor+weight

And mission editor doesn't take into count pylons weight in the total weight displayed too...

 

Here is weapons weight as per real manual:

 

 

Now I will compare F-5E3 weapons weight (in lbs) between manual and mission editor:

 

Mk-82: 531, ok it matches.

 

Mk-82 Snakeye: 570 vs 511, ED snakeye is less heavy than standard mk82...

 

Mk-83: 985 it matches.

Mk-84: 1971 it matches.

 

M117: 824 vs 750. According to internet nominal weight is 750 pounds, its actual weight, depending on fuze and retardation options, is around 820. So ED use old version, it's fine.

 

CBU-52: 785 it matches.

 

GBU-12: 610 vs 785.... lot of different weights according to sources..... most are in 600 lbs range but I found more than 700 lbs range too.... not easy.

 

SUU-25: about 497 full and 262 empty vs 286. So does the game consider 286 as full or empty ??? If I look into lua and internet (I found empty suu-25e/f: 260lbs) a LUU-2 is 28.66 lbs, so x8+286=515. It could match if in game LUU-2 weight is taken into count. And 260vs286 is maybe due to the nose cone addition to the pod.

 

AIM-9B/P/P5: the manual is not very clear and doesn't have P5 version. A lua file give 163 for B and 187 for P/P5. But in mission editor all 3 are 187... So ?

 

AIS pod T50: 136, not in manual but game and internet match.

 

150 Gal Fuel Tank empty: 148 it matches and fuel quantity too.

275 Gal Fuel Tank empty: 229 it matches and fuel quantity too.

 

MXU-648 travel pod: 2 versions in manual... which one in DCS ? Internet and manual say a maximum payload of 300lbs so full it's maximum 430 lbs as per manual. In mission editor it's 661 lbs !!! So ???

 

I will not talk about rockets because it's a nightmare, too much numbers... but mission editor doesn't care of warhead types for not FFAR rockets but it cares for FFAR rockets... and manual's FFAR don't match with mission editor weights...

 

To conclude, it's a big mix of everything and I have spent hours today to try to understand that nightmare.

 

So my question is simple: How to know the reals weapons weights used in-game by the "flight model" to be use in my flight planner ? :detective:

Edited August 4, 2016 by diditopgun

[diditopgun]

I did some in-flight test (to compare weapons weight and see which wing go down), and more manuals ans internet research:

 

_DCS's Mk-82 Snakeye is definitely too light and lighter than Mk82LD, it should be 570 lbs:

 

_In flight, full SUU-25 is 286lbs as per mission editor and lose weight when launch LUU-2.

So it's wrong, it should be at least 478lbs full:

 

_In flight GAR-8 is lighter than AIM-9P/P5. So values in aim9_family.lua seems to be used and not mission editor value (witch is the same for all AIM-9, 190lbs)....

 

_About MXU-648:

 

 

Yep its in the -34:

•MXU-648

•Length 10 ft 10 in

•Diameter 19 in

•Door Size 12 x 22.6 in

•Two Variants A/A & C/A, three versions of each variant.

•Some versions have removeable tail cones.

•Weight from 98 lb to 140 lb, dep. on version

•Non-jettisonable

•max cargo weight 300 lb, distributed evenly

•max bank 90 deg, max accel G +4.0 roll

•CAT III

•WPN ID 250, Mnemonic TRVL

•Carried on STA 3/4/6/7 on TER-9A or STA 5 on MAU-12

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=535

 

So in DCS 611 lbs is far too heavy.

 

I am still in research for GBU-12 weight...

[diditopgun]

According to this manual GBU-12 weight is 610lbs too:

[ame]https://file.wikileaks.org/file/f18-pocket-guide.pdf[/ame]

[diditopgun]

 

:music_whistling::D

Edited October 8, 2019 by diditopgun