announced DCS MiG-29A

[Gierasimov]

[Joch1955]

I am sure some would like to see a top of the line SU35S or MIG31BM armed with R37 missiles like those being currently used somewhere, but ED can't build those without running into guaranteed legal issues, so better a realistically modelled MIG29A than nothing.

I am happy to see the 80s/90s plane set is coming along well: F14A, M2000c, Mirage F1, F4, MIG21, MIG23 and now MIG29. A lot of opportunities for interesting Cold War missions/campaigns.

Edited January 6 by Joch1955

[CrazyGman]

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

...except for all the drones they knock down on a regular basis. Had you said manned aircraft, you'd have had a point. 

That said, it seems like they didn't actually manage to kill a modern Russian fighter. Might have something to do with them lacking R-27ER, which is the only one that can compete with Fox 3 equipped fighters.

The MiG-29 will still be very good for Fox 1 and Fox 2 fights. It will be difficult to use in a Fox 3 environment unless we get a version that can guide R-77 at some point. That said, that's fine by me. 80s Fox 1s and dogfights are where the real fun is at.  

 

In truth the answer is....we don't know. The Ukrainians claim they did, the Russian's claim they didn't, both sides claim multiple kills that can't be corroberated.

 In the opening week of the war it was pretty much chaos up in the air with Ukraine ground based air defense significantly compromised in the initial days, and Russian Air power compromised due to a lot of jamming by their own side and friendly fire from their own side. 

In that environment it is very difficult for the people taking the shots themselves to even fully be sure what they fired hit. However with the chaos Ukrainan fighters did manage to hold the line until their SAM network could come back online, though apparently at high cost.

Based on that I would say it's highly likely MiG-29s shot down a few Su-25s or Su-34s doing ground attack that pressed in too deep, and maybe the odd Russian fighter that got out of position. 

The truth will likely not be known till long after the conflict, with some aspects never being clear just like with all air to air combat.

Edited January 6 by CrazyGman

[Dragon1-1]

It often happens that one side sees a trail of black smoke in the distance around the time their missile times out, and calls it a kill. Meanwhile, the other side would see a fighter fly back to base with one engine dead (and trailing black smoke), and thus deny any loses. It likely happened on both sides, the nature of BVR combat makes it hard to confirm kills. Even in WVR, this can often happen, USAF wrote off a number of airframes in Vietnam due to "landing accidents", those accidents being caused by battle damage inflicted by MiGs, SAMs and Vietnamese flak. You certainly don't want to stick around and to see your enemy crash in modern air combat (and even in WWII it was a bad idea, pilots sometimes got killed doing this). 

I think Su-34s were shot down only recently, and not by fighters. However, loses of Su-25s on both sides are known to have happened, perhaps some of them were from fighters. Using MiGs to take down drones is well documented, though, and there's less of a concern with BDA there, because once they start falling out of the sky they tend not to recover.

[Furiz]

And I thought this would never happen ;D

[CrazyGman]

There were 5 Su-34s confirmed lost over Ukraine between Feb 28, 2023 and March 14, 2023. 3 were in the first week alone. 

What killed them all has not been confirmed in the majority of cases, as with a lot of the combat loses.

There were also 4  Su-30s confirmed lost over the same 3 week time frame, and about 8 Su-25s 

These are just fixed wing assists as well, and the confirmed one.

As for the drones, most of those are being shot down well inside Ukrainian lines and as you said if your not worried about a getting smacked down by a retaliatory missile, it's much easier to confirm your kill. 

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

3 hours ago, Furiz said:

And I thought this would never happen ;D

Well, that's about as good as your average trip to Vegas in terms of take!

[Rick50]

 

So the new Fulcrum.... is that in-house ED project? 

 

And what changed? I  mean, there was Russian Ministry  of Defense... then Mikoyan IP permissions... curious what happened!

 

Does this mean an FF Flanker could be developed???

[BIGNEWY]

threads merged

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

1 hour ago, Rick50 said:

Does this mean an FF Flanker could be developed???

People keep asking that, and others keep answering, and then others keep asking again...
Watch Wags' interview with Gonky and Mover. It was linked a few pages ago.

[okopanja]

12 hours ago, Silver_Dragon said:

I think not...

The airframe #18151 was originally at 9-12A level. Somewhere in 2018 (along #18351) it was prepared for the upgrade to the Mig-29SM+.

Apparently radar was upgraded allowing it to carry R-77. In addition it can use Kh-29.

The picture was taken in 2022:

Edited January 6 by okopanja

[FlankerKiller]

11 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

that's fine by me. 80s Fox 1s and dogfights are where the real fun is at.

It’s also where a massive chunk of DCS is about to be. This will give the Cold War Tomcat something to worry about. The M2000 will finally have an opponent. And it’s going to feed on the Phantoms, F1s, A-7s, A-6s, and whatever else we get. The late Cold War Red Air is looking awesome MiG-29, 23, 21, Mi-24, maybe an Su-17. I for one will be buying every one of those modules. My understanding is Enigma’s Cold War server stays pretty busy. If so it’s going to get even busier in the next few years. 

[exhausted]

Hoping for the Belarussian Talisman jammer used in Syria on their antique MiGs

[EagleEye.DCS]

2020 and now 2024!

[TheGhostOfDefi]

14 hours ago, Silver_Dragon said:

Chizh has confirm on russian forum a 9-12 version only, without GCI yet.

 

Whats going on with this GCI thing? Is there something special about it in the -29?

[Dr_Pavelheer]

@TheGhostOfDefi It's a system similar to TAF in M2000, aircraft gets updates about targets position, calculated course to intercept, cues radar, apparently can even work with autopilot.

We're getting it for Mig-23

[TheGhostOfDefi]

21 minutes ago, Dr_Pavelheer said:

@TheGhostOfDefi It's a system similar to TAF in M2000, aircraft gets updates about targets position, calculated course to intercept, cues radar, apparently can even work with autopilot.

We're getting it for Mig-23

Soo like the AWACS-Datalink for western aircrafts?

[ustio]

5 minutes ago, TheGhostOfDefi said:

Soo like the AWACS-Datalink for western aircrafts?

No nothing like it. I reccomend you watch M2000 TAF on youtube. Its going to be similar to that one aswell as Mig-23

[Dr_Pavelheer]

@TheGhostOfDefi You're connected to ground station, not AWACS, and it transmits data only about your target instead of providing general SA

[CrazyGman]

19 hours ago, TheGhostOfDefi said:

Whats going on with this GCI thing? Is there something special about it in the -29?

Think of it like the battle of Brittan with the big table, except the ground controller can phisically move you himself by transmitting waypoints via a datalink to your autopilot, and it's linked and corrordinated with the SAM batteries as well. You and your team are then put in the most advantageous position, and the target you are prosecuting is marked on your hud without you having to have your radar on. Once your in range to engage the target, you take over the final part of the intercept, your radar is already dialed onto the target and you turn on your radar to lock your target then release your weapons, and follow up if it's required and after shooting down 1-2 planes you head back home.

It's basically what the Soviet defensive strategy was, and what they figured was the best way to quickly organize and coordinate assests, to counter penetrating air attacks over their very large landmass which was also surrounded on pretty much all sides where the enemy could attack from. 

In theory if someone was to develop it with combined arms, you could in Multiplayer have someone in the tactical commander slot take control of your jets if you allowed them and try to steer a flight of you and your teamates into the most advantageous position, which would actually be kinda cool

Anyway the good part of the system is it drastically reduces pilot workload so the pilots can really just be concerned with making sure all systems are working in the aircraft, and fine tuning the sensors so that you can quickly engage your target. The bad part of the system is that the sensor to pilot interface on your aircraft are not really well designed to help give you the best overall SA picture even though they are quite good for target acquisition and guiding weapons, but then that's a problem for ground controller to worry about overall SA. There's a lot of you and only a few of them, and while you are expensive and they want to keep you alive, because there are so many of you, all your training and hours are less then your opponents.

Edited January 7 by CrazyGman

[Gierasimov]

Thanks @CrazyGman, now I know better why the fuss. I could imagine it's close to impossible to find public documents that would allow coding it in DCS. I also don't really see a use case for it in DCS Fulcrum, or maybe for said multiplayer. it would suffice to refresh ATC / EWR / AWACS in DCS. It's currently possible to navigate to your target, work out the intercept yourself and surprise attack with IR without radar and it is much more fun to do so as well. Gen 3 dogfights are fun!

[okopanja]

1 minute ago, Gierasimov said:

Thanks @CrazyGman, now I know better why the fuss. I could imagine it's close to impossible to find public documents that would allow coding it in DCS. I also don't really see a use case for it in DCS Fulcrum, or maybe for said multiplayer. it would suffice to refresh ATC / EWR / AWACS in DCS. It's currently possible to navigate to your target, work out the intercept yourself and surprise attack with IR without radar and it is much more fun to do so as well. Gen 3 dogfights are fun!

To my best knowkedge Polish Mig-21 flight manual describes in details operation of Lazur, HUD symbology as well as ADI/HSI indicators being slaved to DL. For 23/29 this would be likely similar, but more refined due to Lazur-M. Both of these DLs were superseeded by more advanced DLs, and I doubt they are in operational use now.

[Gierasimov]

3 hours ago, okopanja said:

To my best knowkedge Polish Mig-21 flight manual describes in details operation of Lazur, HUD symbology as well as ADI/HSI indicators being slaved to DL. For 23/29 this would be likely similar, but more refined due to Lazur-M. Both of these DLs were superseeded by more advanced DLs, and I doubt they are in operational use now.

Probably so, however, we know very much already that even though things might be not in operational use or searchable on the net, it does not make them legally usable for DCS coding. 

On the other hand it might me a simple case of sales figures versus resources and effort and we might get to see GCI as "post early access feature" 

Again, what would it change in terms of the gameplay for the simulation - taking into consideration how stuff works in DCS now.

[Alfa]

Finally!

[Gierasimov]

2 hours ago, Alfa said:

Finally!