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Balancing the F-14


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DCS is a flightsim, balancing is for the Battlefield-series.

 

Couldn't be more well said. Any kind of "balancing" or "nerfing" absolutely discredits DCS as a simulator. The whole idea of a simulator is to depict the performance of the a/c and systems as close as possible to the real thing.

 

The term overpowered should not exist in simulators, expertly engineered would be more correct.

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Couldn't be more well said. Any kind of "balancing" or "nerfing" absolutely discredits DCS as a simulator. The whole idea of a simulator is to depict the performance of the a/c and systems as close as possible to the real thing.

 

The term overpowered should not exist in simulators, expertly engineered would be more correct.

 

I don't think anyone has said anything regarding nerfing.

If you read the OP he suggests having a MiG-31 added to counter the range of the Tomcat that is all.

I'd rather see some hardcore EW modeling, the old AWG-9 would surely have some problems against modern jammers especially drfm.

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The main problem has get the authorisation from the russian military stament the necessary approval to build a module, remember the ban with the military secret law by the "Official Secrets Act of the Russian Federation" without military and government catalogue you a traitor send to jail by reveal secret military info.

 

The only logical solution to this problem is for ED to move the company abroad. They can never be the "go to" flight sim if they leave a hole in russian aircraft design from 1970 onwards.

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So, i understand that you are a gamer, and you look at it from that perspective. However, ED claims to be a flight simulator. This means that if they bring a F14/FA-18 module to market, the simulator remains flawed, as the contemporary adversaries of these aircraft are not offered. They can of course nerf the AIM-54. But if they do, they can strike the word SIMULATOR from their offer.

In a simulator, you can develop tactics by using the advantages of you aircraft against the aircraft that were developed to counter them.

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The only logical solution to this problem is for ED to move the company abroad. They can never be the "go to" flight sim if they leave a hole in russian aircraft design from 1970 onwards.

 

unrealistic. You cant move a company only you like "get my X aircraft", the same situation has on some 4th and 5th generation aircraft on european / USA market.

 

Move a company to other country dont exime you to make legal agreements to get a IP about a trademark or a legal law.

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Do you think ED has a licence from Boeing for the F/A-18 ?

 

The point i am trying to make is that the F-14 will be a sealclubber or nerfed. How many times do you want to get farmed online before you get this ? Mig-31 has the speed to mitigate the AIM-54 range. This means that against it, the F-14 has to turn and leave its missiles unguided. It is the only SIMULATOR nerf you can put on the AIM-54/F-14 combo.

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Do you think ED has a licence from Boeing for the F/A-18 ?

 

The point i am trying to make is that the F-14 will be a sealclubber or nerfed.

 

It could end up a sealclubber, but it will not be nerfed. It will be modeled as accurately as LNS can manage, and the majority of us expect no less.

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This kind of bs argument has been the bane of flight simulators for 30 years. Oh this or that plane is going to be the end of the world. Guess what, the pilot makes the plane. You have a Pheonix that shoot 50 miles? Right now on any given server, its barely clear who are fighting who at 20 miles and people are rightfully cautious about launching missiles into the fray. Mig29 worried about an F14? Fine use terrain masking and EO to lure him into your fight. There's no need to soil ones drawers over what might happen.

 

And anyway its clear that ED and the third party vendors have a schedule of what they are doing in mind and are sticking to it.

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A full fidelity f-14 has nothing to do with the fc3 fighters to which many people see it as a successor or addition.

It had a crew of 2 and fighting in it was a full time job for the both of them.

 

A lot of hearts are going to break when people find out that even with the fancy jester ai fighting in the tomcat will be challenging for multicrew and pretty damn hard for 1 player.

Also since most of the buyers of the tomcat will be fc3 fighter players i can see a steep curve there;-)

So no there you have it. No need for nerfing.

 

I'd still give my right nut for a proper full fidelity soviet fighter to pit it up against.

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simulators don't need to get nerfed, war was never balanced

 

if you want to keep up with the F-14, use guerillia tactics, like MiG-21 do against F-15 and F-5 against Flankers

 

its not quite the same because the technological gap is not nearly as big between Flanker and the F14. as there is between the Mig21 and F5 Vs F15C and Su27 respectively.

 

Frankly thats why we have cold war F5E vs Mig21 servers ( even Belsimtek admited one of the reasons they decided to develop the F5 was for "Balance" so the Mig21 wouldn't be an Orphan aircraft, so your welcome) , Most want to fight an aircraft from same generation and relatively comparable capabilities and not Be a target practice Pinyata.

 

Those who do take on them machostitc challenge of flying old fighters against modern ones die far often then they do get kills against these older fighters, than they care too admit.

 

 

In any case it up to mission designers to Balance aircraft. Without the Phoenix the F14 isn't anything special just may as well be just a NAval F15 with only Aim7s instead of Aim120s So in that way itl be less of a threat than the F15 due to not having active Radar guided missiles, and the phoenix Whilst it does have exceptionally long range is Not ideal against fighter sized maneuvering targets anyhow.=, and those heavy missiles will make the F14 more draggy if a WVR merge does occur.


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THE PHOENIX WAS NOT MADE FOR, OR INTENDED TO BE USED AGAINST, FIGHTERS... End of story.

 

Why did the US Navy retire it? Because the threat of long range Soviet bombers was non existent...

 

 

1. "was not made for" yes... but it was upgraded specifically to combat *low sea skimming missiles*

 

2. "nor intended to be used against fighters" maybe not at first, but the navy did very much intend to use it for that purpose later, hence why they opted out of the AIM-120 for the cat.

 

3. "The threat of long range soviet bombers was non existent" really? I thought escorting Russian bombers back to the motherland was a regular event by 2004 or am i wrong?

 

4. Could BlackLion stop by and help again? So that we can have some sources here? :D

 

5. The vid is poking fun at your ALL CAPS. Sorry if it was condescending. :)


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Incorrect ... end of story.

 

Why? One of the main anti-ship missiles back in the day was a pilot-less MiG-19 drone. Yes, it was radar guided. Yes, it was launched from Tu-95's.

 

THE PHOENIX WAS NOT MADE FOR, OR INTENDED TO BE USED AGAINST, FIGHTERS... End of story.

 

Why did the US Navy retire it? Because the threat of long range Soviet bombers was non existent...

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How many times do you want to get farmed online before you get this?

 

 

This sounds like not dealing with taking a loss like champ issue more than anything else. So ego based. I see no reason to nerf a weapon to keep cyber pilots feeling like they got skills and can log off feeling like a winner. Either adapt or adopt and survive or fail and perish. A new weapon shows up on the battlefield, the other side can't request they dial it down a bit to make it less effective.

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Could BlackLion stop by and help again? So that we can have some sources here? :D

 

Sure, if you wish. :)

 

THE PHOENIX WAS NOT MADE FOR, OR INTENDED TO BE USED AGAINST, FIGHTERS... End of story.

 

This is in fact the wrong story, but it is a widely held myth so it's also no surprise here.

 

The AIM-54 was designed for the same mission as the AIM-7 and AIM-120: to destroy any air target that needed to be destroyed. It did have some unique capabilities to enhance its ability to shoot down bombers threatening the CVBG (namely the very long range and BIG warhead), but its other unique characteristic were desirable in any A-A missile, but could not be packaged into a smaller missile during the 1970s or 80s.

 

The AIM-54 was tested against maneuvering targets from the get go and its performance against maneuvering targets (end game performance) was one of the biggest improvements over the AIM-7 sparrow.

 

But better yet, here is an article and quote from a long-time Tomcat RIO:

 

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/thi...cat-1725012279

 

When I joined my first F-14 squadron in 1981 (VF-24), the A-model was still relatively new and some US Navy squadrons were still flying Phantoms. The potential threats that we most often trained for were the MiG-17 and MiG-21, which were not match of a threat beyond visual range (BVR), but could be a handful if you got engaged within visual range (WVR). Since we always expected to be outnumbered, and with the lessons from the air war over Vietnam still fresh, we spent a lot of our training fuel and time on ACM – air combat maneuvering, or dogfighting.

 

We would use the AWG9, which at the time was by far the most capable radar in a fighter, to paint the picture of what is out there and get us to the merge. Our weapon during the intercept was the AIM-7 Sparrow, which was much improved since its flawed debut in Vietnam and had become a reliable and versatile weapon. But in my experience we often wouldn’t kill-remove adversaries based on pre-merge shots because we wanted to maximize the number we faced in the within visual range engagement.

 

Most anyone who has ever had an interest in military aviation knows that F-14s carried AIM-54s, and that the Phoenix (affectionately known as a 1,000-pound wingman) was famous for its long range and large warhead, as well as active terminal guidance and the ability to have multiple Phoenixes in flight simultaneously. This gave us impressive capability, especially compared to other air-to-air missiles in the early 1980s. Yes, the AIM-54A had some employment limitations, but it repeatedly destroyed fighter-size targets in test shots. Let me digress to say how disappointed I am that the U.S. Navy has no real-world Phoenix kills.

 

Anyway, the penalties for this capability included weight and drag. We would carry the Phoenix on the belly (also known as the tunnel), and that required adapter rails that weighed 400 lbs each and added drag. Each missile itself weighed 1,000 lbs. But the reason we didn’t use them against fighters was policy: carriers planned to save AIM-54s for use against a raid by a Soviet bomber regiment. On my first tour we were never in a real-world counter-air situation so I don’t know for sure, but that’s how we trained: against enemy fighters it was AIM-7s, AIM-9s, and the gun.

 

Around the world there had been developments during the 1980s that affected our training and tactics. Among the most significant was the proliferation of forward-quarter capable MiGs and Sukhois. Against the MiG-21 and previous threats we were essentially immune from attack until the bandit was behind our 3-9 line. This may seem like ancient history, but it shows the advantage US fighters held until the early 1980s. Our response to the Flogger was gradual. I participated in a series of test flights to explore the Flogger threat in 1982, but those flights didn’t include tactics designed to counter threat missiles, so they were like the Gunfight at the OK Corral, and they proved the need for a whole new approach to the intercept. Some of that was taking place while I was at Topgun, and by the time I got back to the Fleet it was becoming well-established.

 

When we started to get serious about the threat, especially when the AA-10 Alamo arrived, we realized we had to employ AIM-54s against enemy fighters. So of course we began to train with them. I think the capability was in TACTS all along, we just never used it. Fortunately the Navy introduced the AIM-54C in 1987, when we really needed it. The Charlie corrected many shortcomings of the Alpha, in both outer air battle and closer-in tactical environments. With its long motor burn time, large warhead, and radar improvements, the AIM-54C was a tenacious missile. Again, it is too bad it doesn’t have a combat record.

 

This is an excellent book that discusses the development of the AIM-54 during the 1970s.

 

Lastly, I always liked this picture. :) This image is of an AIM-54C attacking a drone during testing in 1983:

 

AIM-54_Phoenix_destroys_QF-4_drone_1983.jpeg

 

Lovely aesthetics...don't you think? :D

 

If you didn't expect to use a missile against fighter sized targets, why expend missiles in testing by shooting at fighter sized targets? FYI, if you want to simulate a Tu-22M Backfire, one uses a BQM-34 with a radar signature augmenter, not a QF-4.

 

Why did the US Navy retire it? Because the threat of long range Soviet bombers was non existent...

 

If it was all about the Soviet threat, the USN would have retired the missile in 1991-92. Still, there is a good reason that the AIM-54 was retired and not fitted to other platforms: the AIM-120.

 

The AIM-120 was the dream, a missile smaller than the AIM-7, but with the fire and forget capabilities of the AIM-54. This dream was not possible in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was by the early 90s.

 

6 AIM-54s cost the Tomcat 8,000 lbs of weight while 6 AIM-120s weighs 2100 lbs - no comparison! No one wants to mount 8000 lbs on their light and agile fighter, so when the small version became available it was the obvious choice. The AIM-54 does have a few advantages, it has more range and its warhead is 3.5 times (!) larger than the AMRAAMs. But these aren't enough to offset the weight and drag.

 

Just because the AMRAAM was a better package doesn't mean the AIM-54 was ineffective or not worthy of respect. But it was a missile of another era, modern technology made it obsolete (because of size, not so much capability) and it was taken out of service, though the AIM-54C guidance system formed the foundation for the AMRAAM's guidance system. But until 1992, the Tomcat's capability were unique and the AIM-54 was a glimpse at a future with the AMRAAM.

 

-Nick

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Sure, if you wish. :)

 

6 AIM-54s cost the Tomcat 8,000 lbs of weight while 6 AIM-120s weighs 2100 lbs - no comparison! No one wants to mount 8000 lbs on their light and agile fighter, so when the small version became available it was the obvious choice. The AIM-54 does have a few advantages, it has more range and its warhead is 3.5 times (!) larger than the AMRAAMs. But these aren't enough to offset the weight and drag.

 

Just because the AMRAAM was a better package doesn't mean the AIM-54 was ineffective or not worthy of respect. But it was a missile of another era, modern technology made it obsolete (because of size, not so much capability) and it was taken out of service, though the AIM-54C guidance system formed the foundation for the AMRAAM's guidance system. But until 1992, the Tomcat's capability were unique and the AIM-54 was a glimpse at a future with the AMRAAM.

 

-Nick

 

AIM-54 is 1000lbs.....

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Around the world there had been developments during the 1980s that affected our training and tactics. Among the most significant was the proliferation of forward-quarter capable MiGs and Sukhois. Against the MiG-21 and previous threats we were essentially immune from attack until the bandit was behind our 3-9 line. This may seem like ancient history, but it shows the advantage US fighters held until the early 1980s. Our response to the Flogger was gradual. I participated in a series of test flights to explore the Flogger threat in 1982, but those flights didn’t include tactics designed to counter threat missiles, so they were like the Gunfight at the OK Corral, and they proved the need for a whole new approach to the intercept. Some of that was taking place while I was at Topgun, and by the time I got back to the Fleet it was becoming well-established.

 

Great post BlackLion213. What is striking I think is how the USN perception of the Soviets lagged behind the reality in the early 80s. By 1982 the VVS had well over 300 BVR capable MiG-23 in East Germany alone, and that for several years already. In fact the VVS was shortly to upgrade it's fighter force in East Germany to MiG-29. USN thinking seemed to be influenced highly by fighting Soviet allies. Perhaps not surprising, considering the USN doctrine of attacking on the flanks and not be engaged in central Europe where the Soviets deployed their newest hardware.


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