Cold War 1947 - 1991

[Hiromachi]

So, I would rather have Vietnam and 1973 Yom Kippur versions of MiGs, F-4s, F-5s, etc.

While MiG-21bis is a bit of a stretch for those conflicts, it's not drastically different to the popular in those conflicts MiG-21MF operated by Arabs and Vietnamese or MiG-21SM operated by PVO contingent deployed to Egypt during the Attrition War. The only difference thus is presence of 2nd stage afterburner and SAU-23ESN instead of more common AP-155.

[streakeagle]

The radar was another difference as well as the fuel capacity and empty weight. I could live with using a bis for an MF, but the very common MiG-21F-13 and to some extent the PF/PFM/PFMA series are in many ways very different aircraft than the bis.

 

I would really like to see the F-13 in DCS World. It was far more historical significance than any MiG-19 variant or later MiG-21s with extensive combat service nearly everywhere over a couple of decades. It also makes for better DACT against US heavy fighters like the F-4 and F-8 with its lighter weight but lower power setup.

 

Visually, I happen to love the appearance of the early production PFM with the tilt-forward canopy, slim spine, and tall tail. Give me one of those with a belly gun pack and I would be very happy. Of course, without the gun pack and only a pair of R-3 missiles, it wouldn't be the most effective fighter, but I would love to fly it anyway.

 

I wish DCS World developers could afford to provide more variants of major aircraft. I love the subtle differences in variants as combat experience and technology improvements led to almost continuous production changes. Unfortunately for me, the economics of such detailed, realistic development versus the marketability of multiple variants leave me stuck with "latest/best" instead of the early and/or historically significant ones I would prefer.

[streakeagle]

One of my DCS dreams is for them to someday release a combined module which includes both the Fishbed-D from the '60s and the modern MiG-21 that the Indian Air Force is flying now. Make it a true study sim, showing us the evolution over 60 years of flying.

 

If Mag 3 or somebody did this, they'd easily sell several dozen copies, so it's a no-brainer from a business perspective...:smilewink:

 

One of the advantages of Strike Fighters 2 is that with free mods, I can fly every MiG-21 variant with fairly accurate cockpits with decent texturing. The avionics library doesn't quite support the proper operation of the radar, but it was close enough. It wasn't until the DCS MiG-21bis was released that you could get a better combat simulation of the MiG-21 anywhere else.

 

I am spoiled. I want ALL of the major production variants of the MiG-21. I love to try out the different combinations of airframe, weapons, and avionics changes that occurred relatively quickly from the time the F-13 went into service to the time the MiG-21bis was delivered. I want the same for the F-4 Phantom as well. But I know it isn't going to happen. I still don't even have a single F-4 variant years after Belsimtek starting posting screenshots of the F-4E they had started.

 

So, I have to live with reality: I almost never get the aircraft I want and certainly not the variant(s) I want. I always have to settle for what I can get, which has been very good overall with the F-86/MiG-15 and F-5/MiG-21. The AJS-37 and Mirage 2000C are nice, too. But I would much rather have had the J-35 Draken or JA-37 and a Mirage IIIC or Mirage F1C.

[NELLUS]

Alpenwolf, just a heads up, the Battle over Sukhumi unleashed has a fault when the Blue side have taken all the objectives. The 15 min victory message comes up, but the server does not rotate. We continued flying for another hour before it rotated.

[Pathfinder_50]

Hi,

 

Alpenwolf, is it possible to replace all the JTAC/operator by tactical commander, that would bring another fight dimension on the missions were we only have JTAC/operator, the JTAC/operator is actually totally useless when it comes to grounds troops, you cannot do anything with them, no orders, no objectives, no mouvement, no attack order.....

[Alpenwolf]

Alpenwolf, just a heads up, the Battle over Sukhumi unleashed has a fault when the Blue side have taken all the objectives. The 15 min victory message comes up, but the server does not rotate. We continued flying for another hour before it rotated.

Should be fixed now. Didn't really change that much. The script seemed fine. Do you happen to have a tacview file of the mission?

Hi,

 

Alpenwolf, is it possible to replace all the JTAC/operator by tactical commander, that would bring another fight dimension on the missions were we only have JTAC/operator, the JTAC/operator is actually totally useless when it comes to grounds troops, you cannot do anything with them, no orders, no objectives, no mouvement, no attack order.....

As much as I'd love to, with Cmdr some players use certain cheats to move any ground unit they want including those that shouldn't be moved around; stationary KUB/Hawk sites, air defences at the airbases, etc.

I mean, we're dealing with enough issues in DCS and on the other hand some dishonest and cheating players. What can I say. Welcome to planet earth and its inhabitants!

[NELLUS]

Should be fixed now. Didn't really change that much. The script seemed fine. Do you happen to have a tacview file of the mission?

 

As much as I'd love to, with Cmdr some players use certain cheats to move any ground unit they want including those that shouldn't be moved around; stationary KUB/Hawk sites, air defences at the airbases, etc.

I mean, we're dealing with enough issues in DCS and on the other hand some dishonest and cheating players. What can I say. Welcome to planet earth and its inhabitants!

 

Got a screen from the message, buds of mine has the tac if requested.

[Alpenwolf]

Got a screen from the message, buds of mine has the tac if requested.

The tacview would help.

[Hiromachi]

The radar was another difference as well as the fuel capacity and empty weight. I could live with using a bis for an MF, but the very common MiG-21F-13 and to some extent the PF/PFM/PFMA series are in many ways very different aircraft than the bis.

 

I would really like to see the F-13 in DCS World. It was far more historical significance than any MiG-19 variant or later MiG-21s with extensive combat service nearly everywhere over a couple of decades. It also makes for better DACT against US heavy fighters like the F-4 and F-8 with its lighter weight but lower power setup.

 

Visually, I happen to love the appearance of the early production PFM with the tilt-forward canopy, slim spine, and tall tail. Give me one of those with a belly gun pack and I would be very happy. Of course, without the gun pack and only a pair of R-3 missiles, it wouldn't be the most effective fighter, but I would love to fly it anyway.

 

I wish DCS World developers could afford to provide more variants of major aircraft. I love the subtle differences in variants as combat experience and technology improvements led to almost continuous production changes. Unfortunately for me, the economics of such detailed, realistic development versus the marketability of multiple variants leave me stuck with "latest/best" instead of the early and/or historically significant ones I would prefer.

 

MiG-21SMs used by 135th IAP of PVO that was based south of Cairo had same RP-22 radar and according to Tom Cooper some 21MFs delivered to Egypt also had RP-22. Thats a bit confusing to me, since I expected MF to only have RP-21 but regardless, it's not like radar makes any difference. It never was a factor for MiG-21 when opponents had much better ones in Mirage III CJ or F-4E.

 

As for F-13, PF/PFM/PFMA (whatever that last one is), I'm sorry to disappoint you but unlike my poor country keeping PFs until 1989+, Egypt was rich enough to purchase large quantities of MFs - as of October 1973, it had two squadrons equipped with MiG-21F-13, two with MiG-21PFS, one with MiG-21FL, one with MiG-21PFM and six with MiG-21MF. And more MFs were to come. Syria got the shorter end of the stick since they had five squadrons of mixed component of F-13s (some of Czechoslovakian production) and PFMs/PFS, two of PFMs and four with MFs (however in sheer quantities, MFs were becoming predominant over any other version). To that you have to add IrAF with two more MiG-21MFs, one MiG-21FL squadron and one MiG-21PFM squadron slated for re-equipment with MiG-21MF.

So thats as far as math is concerned :)

 

Now when it comes to personal favorites I can make up my mind whether I'm more into F-13 or PFS. One thing is certain however, with each of those you trade something. First one has no radar (unless you consider range finding unit as such) and extremely limited storage options. PFS has no on board gun, and although Polish ones were modified to be able to carry GP-9 pod you end up that way with seriously limited fuel load.

 

Anyway, I hope Alpen wont kill me for this historical rant offtopic :lol:

[Alpenwolf]

[quote=Hiromachi;...

Anyway, I hope Alpen wont kill me for this historical rant offtopic :lol:

It's not off topic :smilewink:

[Bisch]

Should be fixed now. Didn't really change that much. The script seemed fine. Do you happen to have a tacview file of the mission?

 

As much as I'd love to, with Cmdr some players use certain cheats to move any ground unit they want including those that shouldn't be moved around; stationary KUB/Hawk sites, air defences at the airbases, etc.

I mean, we're dealing with enough issues in DCS and on the other hand some dishonest and cheating players. What can I say. Welcome to planet earth and its inhabitants!

 

I only have very basic editor knowledge but couldn’t you immobilize them using damages, no fuel or just some kind of boxes around them?

[Pathfinder_50]

Should be fixed now. Didn't really change that much. The script seemed fine. Do you happen to have a tacview file of the mission?

 

As much as I'd love to, with Cmdr some players use certain cheats to move any ground unit they want including those that shouldn't be moved around; stationary KUB/Hawk sites, air defences at the airbases, etc.

I mean, we're dealing with enough issues in DCS and on the other hand some dishonest and cheating players. What can I say. Welcome to planet earth and its inhabitants!

 

That's not cool, because the ground units gameplay is horrible without the tactical commander gameplay, and the servers are almost all about grounds units atack or defenses, not all peoples are cheating, that's not fair for the others, just banned them from the server, i don't want to do a 1h flight with the huey to drop 5 abrams and just control them just 1 by1

 

btw i've never see or hear about peoples able to move units that are locked by the creator of the missions and if what you said is true, swithching to JTAC commander should not stop them

 

PS: it's impossible to move hawk site in the game btw

Edited June 21, 2020 by Pathfinder_50

[rossmum]

Maybe one whitelisted commander slot per team or something?

[Pathfinder_50]

Maybe one whitelisted commander slot per team or something?

 

That is a pretty good idea, just whitelist the tactical commanders role

[NELLUS]

The Ship Ahoj mission is currently on.

 

The RB74 missiles are way less then the R60M’s on the Red side. We have about 9 left available and 90% of the viggens have been doing air to ship strikes. This is after 30 min of game play.

 

The Red’s have 163 60M’s available on Batumi and 256 60M’s on Sukhumi.

[Alpenwolf]

I only have very basic editor knowledge but couldn’t you immobilize them using damages, no fuel or just some kind of boxes around them?

"boxes around them"?! That's a lot of work, my friend! And isn't really the solution for it.

That's not cool, because the ground units gameplay is horrible without the tactical commander gameplay, and the servers are almost all about grounds units atack or defenses, not all peoples are cheating, that's not fair for the others, just banned them from the server, i don't want to do a 1h flight with the huey to drop 5 abrams and just control them just 1 by1

 

btw i've never see or hear about peoples able to move units that are locked by the creator of the missions and if what you said is true, swithching to JTAC commander should not stop them

 

PS: it's impossible to move hawk site in the game btw

JTAC does stop them actually. And I share your pain. And it happened twice already in Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed so I switched to JTAC.

On one of the two occasions a player manipulated the Red garrison at the Zeni FARP and had it move all the way to Kutaisi! It was great fun that night until that one little issue ruined it! The result was: No Blue player was able to take off from Kutaisi without being shot down or shot at. So I had to rotate the server.

That was only 4-5 weeks after my long break from DCS which lasted 9 months (the server was still running during that time) and it really pissed me off!

Issues like that among long time DCS issues were the reason for my break after playing DCS continuously since 2012. At some point I got bored and felt like never coming back. And I actually considered shutting down the server. As if DCS issues/bugs/missing features/etc. weren't grinding enough you have players like that who push you further back in your mission plans.

 

Maybe one whitelisted commander slot per team or something?

What do you mean by that?

[Pathfinder_50]

"boxes around them"?! That's a lot of work, my friend! And isn't really the solution for it.

 

JTAC does stop them actually. And I share your pain. And it happened twice already in Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed so I switched to JTAC.

On one of the two occasions a player manipulated the Red garrison at the Zeni FARP and had it move all the way to Kutaisi! It was great fun that night until that one little issue ruined it! The result was: No Blue player was able to take off from Kutaisi without being shot down or shot at. So I had to rotate the server.

That was only 4-5 weeks after my long break from DCS which lasted 9 months (the server was still running during that time) and it really pissed me off!

Issues like that among long time DCS issues were the reason for my break after playing DCS continuously since 2012. At some point I got bored and felt like never coming back. And I actually considered shutting down the server. As if DCS issues/bugs/missing features/etc. weren't grinding enough you have players like that who push you further back in your mission plans.

 

 

What do you mean by that?

 

 

like the blueflag server, you can authorized only the people you want to get the role

[m4ti140]

The Ship Ahoj mission is currently on.

 

The RB74 missiles are way less then the R60M’s on the Red side. We have about 9 left available and 90% of the viggens have been doing air to ship strikes. This is after 30 min of game play.

 

The Red’s have 163 60M’s available on Batumi and 256 60M’s on Sukhumi.

 

 

You have magical search and destroy mavericks that can perpetually follow an aerial target until they hit it. Use those.

[Alpenwolf]

like the blueflag server, you can authorized only the people you want to get the role

Understand. Let me get my head around this then. Need to check it out first.

[NELLUS]

You have magical search and destroy mavericks that can perpetually follow an aerial target until they hit it. Use those.

 

Hehe, yea, good luck to those that try that in a dogfight :thumbup:

 

The R74 air to air Viggen missile(aim9L Sidewinder, aka Lima) was also reduced on the ‘ones upon a time in Abu Dhabi’ mission. This should be corrected.

Edited June 21, 2020 by NELLUS

[rossmum]

Can we get rid of the 9M totally while we're at it? I don't think I've seen a single Harrier pulling air to ground duty for weeks, and every time Elbrus comes up in rotation, sure enough, out come the AV-8Bs... it'd be less frustrating if the things would die when hit, but between the questionable damage model being amplified by the R-60's weak explosive power, and the 9M's performance, it's getting a bit frustrating to deal with them.

 

I've also been thinking about loadouts in general lately... I almost wonder if (on perhaps select missions, not all of them) it might be worth removing the 9M, 9P5, RB-74, and both R-60s. This prevents red having the advantage of the base model R-60's limited all-aspect ability, but also means the MiG-19s are a little less punishing. It's a little frustrating getting deleted in the merge because your missiles are paperweights, and you also lack flares. It'd also separate the boys from the men a little more, so to speak, on the 21 side of things... I certainly wouldn't say no for the chance at more gunnery practice :joystick:

[Brown Floyd]

This prevents red having the advantage of the base model R-60's limited all-aspect ability, but also means the MiG-19s are a little less punishing. It's a little frustrating getting deleted in the merge because your missiles are paperweights, and you also lack flares. It'd also separate the boys from the men a little more, so to speak, on the 21 side of things... I certainly wouldn't say no for the chance at more gunnery practice :joystick:

 

Hard agree on this whenever the weapons restrictions go back into place. It's one thing for the F-86s and MiG-15s to be overmatched on this server, they're one generation older, but the MiG-19 was a frontline fighter that fought alongside the MiG-21 in the Middle East and Vietnam. I feel bad that it really can't compete on the server when unrestricted weapons are in use.

 

To get a little philosophical on you all, this sorta ties back into the previous discussions about the BK90, tactical commander slots, etc. Almost by definition, people who use this server are at least partly history buffs who want to examine or re-live the glory days of the Cold War and so using obsolete aircraft and challenging weapons systems is part of the fun. But on the other hand, we all want to win the mission or at least give a good fight to the enemy, which leads to always selecting the best tech even if ahistorical or using min-max strategies like capturing multiple base with one helo sortie or pushing the boundaries of the tac commander slot. For example, when I'm Viggening it up I usually want to roleplay that I'm in the Swedish Air Force and plan the whole mission out with waypoints, ingress and egress points, use rockets or high-drag bombs, i.e., do everything like-the-book and try to survive to return-to-base. But I also want to help out My Boys who've been flying the Hueys around for an hour trying to win the mission and probably don't appreciate me memeing it up with RB05s or whatever. So instead I'll load up with mavericks or BK90s or 6 RB-74s.

 

So there's a yin-and-yang going on here that you don't really see on other PvP servers where it's usually about winning at all costs. Just something that we all should keep in mind both when we're flying around and also here on the forums.

[NELLUS]

I agree with Brown, being historically correct and using weapons from a certain era/time frame is part of the experience. The reasoning behind a weapon selection for the cold war server should be a simple one.. and that is; “was this weapon used in this time and era by a certain aircraft”. If it is a yes then surely it should have the ability to arm itself accordingly, and not have some kind of golfers handicap applied to it.

 

I have flown the Mig19 several times and been giving F5’s and Viggens hell on the field, it all comes down to how you use it and being aware of the aircrafts limitations. Starting to limit planes historically correct armaments just because one feels inadequate seems odd and should not even be a discussion. We are all here on the cold war server for one reason only and that is to experience how planes used to perform in those days.. and Not how they were Limited in those days just to give a plane a handicap that it did not deserve in the first place.

 

My suggestion is to start taking away planes/helicopters that has no place on this server. Harrier/Ka50 etc.. and make things absolutely clear and simple. Change the name time frame to 1947-1979 if you have to just to clarify on what time frame is in use.

Edited June 22, 2020 by NELLUS

[Foka1]

I agree with Brown, being historically correct and using weapons from a certain era/time frame is part of the experience. The reasoning behind a weapon selection for the cold war server should be a simple one.. and that is; “was this weapon used in this time and era by a certain aircraft”. If it is a yes then surely it should have the ability to arm itself accordingly, and not have some kind of golfers handicap applied to it.

 

I have flown the Mig19 several times and been giving F5’s and Viggens hell on the field, it all comes down to how you use it and being aware of the aircrafts limitations. Starting to limit planes historically correct armaments just because one feels inadequate seems odd and should not even be a discussion. We are all here on the cold war server for one reason only and that is to experience how planes used to perform in those days.. and Not how they were Limited in those days just to give a plane a handicap that it did not deserve in the first place.

 

My suggestion is to start taking away planes/helicopters that has no place on this server. Harrier/Ka50 etc.. and make things absolutely clear and simple. Change the name time frame to 1947-1979 if you have to just to clarify on what time frame is in use.

 

DCS simply lacking any specific cold war era assets. if you would have more experience in mission design you would see that. Just try and check and do a setup for any war since vietnam. We simply don't have assets for that, either weapons nor airframes.

 

Compromise is inevitable. The only thing that can be adjusted is gameplay and that is what people above are talking about.

 

Also trying to be "alpha" here and jumping on Rossmum cuz he is providing arguments for more suitable environment for MiG-19 by saying you gave hell in MiG-19 consider providing us with tacviews then where such hell happened when you was piloting MiG-19, I'm sure everyone here would be interested to see. Or use less toxic approach in response imho

 

For summary I would say that era restirction is simply not possible, if you try to do really specific era. You will end up with a single plane and single weapon and no opponents. The only non late modern era that can be used is korean war and even then it has compromises, there are no vehicles for it there are no other planes that were widely used in it from US side.

 

therefore people who knows that by default because they approached DCS from this side and already saw that propose to at least try different gameplay setups. Gameplay depends on several things, missiles as tools are one of those things. IF you have R-13M vs AIM-9P you have one setup. If you have AIM-9P5 vs R-60M you have different approach. This is one of the manipulations that can be done. Other things that can be changed are mission design and Area distances in missions and also ground environment. We simply don't have even ground assets to restrict to let's say only 60-s. You need SAMs you need IFVs etc. and they are all from different eras.

 

What I would point as next activity is testing all missiles from relevant modules first, then looking at data brains can spark some ideas.

[rossmum]

I am expressly bad at the MiG-19, which doesn't help in my case, but the biggest problem with its viability is the fact that you have to approach people from the rear or somehow slip through the merge unseen. With no flares, poor throttle response (even worse than the 21), and no all-aspect capability of your own, it's as one sided as when blue had only the AIM-9P while red had R-60s and could go into head-on merges with impunity. Of course we could all just go fly 21s instead, but those slots are limited in number and it would be nice to see both MiGs seeing more use, rather than 19s only appearing occasionally or when the 21 slots fill.

 

I'm not necessarily saying we need weapon restrictions back across all missions, considering I originally argued to get them removed exactly because I knew how badly it was limiting blue as I won every head-on merge with the R-60. However, a few missions that change things up - particularly Middle Eastern or Warsaw Pact based ones - would be interesting, and force people to rely on more than just who spots the other guy first. Most of those nations either didn't receive R-60s at all, received very limited numbers of them, or received them later. More than a few weeks into a shooting war, a lot of the more minor countries would likely have used up their entire stock and need to fall back on older weapons.

 

As fun as the more modern stuff is, there is also the case of BK90s in particular - the BK90 is absolutely not period-correct, and what's more, if you release it from the right altitude at the right speed, you can get some absolutely obscene range out of it. Red has no counterpart, the closest thing they have to a standoff weapon is the Kh-25 and 29, which require you to get much closer to the target and guide the weapon all the way in.

 

I don't think weapons or airframes should be considered against the time period in question - I think both should be. As for the Ka-50, I expect that will probably go when the Mi-24 arrives, but until then removing it would leave red without a truly anti-tank capable helicopter as we can't strap ATGMs to our Mi-8s.

Edited June 22, 2020 by rossmum