Tomsk Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 (edited) The F-18 and other planes have IFF indications for contacts on the HUD, the F-16 (in DCS) does not. Is this accurate to real life? If so it seems a very odd design choice. Especially given the F-16 is so widely exported. For example If Egypt & Israel ever got into a shooting match it could get real messy. They both fly the F-16 and as I understand it neither carries AMRAAMs, so it'd be pure WVR combat .. with no reliable means to identify friend from foe. It seems such a simple addition: to display an IFF indication on the HUD when you have a target locked. Edited December 22, 2020 by Tomsk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razo+r Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 (edited) Yes, there's no indication on HUD. There are reliable ways to identify though. TGP, IFF, AWACS, RoE etc. Edited December 22, 2020 by razo+r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomsk Posted December 22, 2020 Author Share Posted December 22, 2020 (edited) 7 minutes ago, razo+r said: Yes, there's no indication on HUD. There are reliable ways to identify though. TGP, IFF, AWACS, RoE etc. I don't think you can use any of those if you end up in a dogfight with two groups of F-16s. Our squadron simulated this scenario recently and it was utter carnage. Edited December 22, 2020 by Tomsk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razo+r Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 TGP will help in those scenarios (IF you have different skins for each fraction). If not, IFF and some good communication will be the last things to help you in this scenario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Svend_Dellepude Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 There was an episode of Jetstream that covered that scenario as well. Utter confusion. It was all about comms between flight members. 2 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Win10 64, Asus Maximus VIII Formula, i5 6600K, Geforce 980 GTX Ti, 32 GB Ram, Samsung EVO SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedy4GT Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 On 12/22/2020 at 11:18 AM, Tomsk said: The F-18 and other planes have IFF indications for contacts on the HUD, the F-16 (in DCS) does not. Is this accurate to real life? If so it seems a very odd design choice. Especially given the F-16 is so widely exported. For example If Egypt & Israel ever got into a shooting match it could get real messy. They both fly the F-16 and as I understand it neither carries AMRAAMs, so it'd be pure WVR combat .. with no reliable means to identify friend from foe. It seems such a simple addition: to display an IFF indication on the HUD when you have a target locked. As far as i know, in real life the F-16 does not have an IFF indicator on the HUD which i agree is a very questionable design choice. The only way ive been able to identify between Friend or Foe during a dogfight in DCS is by doing flare callouts (asking a friendly to flare or if they have just flared) sometimes even this doesnt work as the enemy may flare at the same time but thats the most effective solution ive found so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kengou Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 If you’re far enough away, glance at the mfd for iff. If you’re too close for that, you should be visual anyway. Virpil WarBRD | Thrustmaster Hornet Grip | Foxx Mount | Thrustmaster TWCS Throttle | Logitech G Throttle Quadrant | VKB T-Rudder IV | TrackIR 5 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB | 32GB DDR4 3200 | SSD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Furiz Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 Glance at your FCR or HSD page, locked target is really easy to spot, Datalink should tell you if its friend or foe, but if you don't have awacs it might get messy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayRoc Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 How do you guys handle this problem on PvP servers? Two planes near me one is firing on our units - a "red" rocket came of his rails. So i send a AIM120 towards him. (His coloured symbol wasnt visible yet) Looked the second plane, looked at the FCS page and iffed him - didnt came back green. So shot another AIM120 - just after i fired the colored symbol appeared and i saw its a friend. Said sorry - got a fck u in return and penalty points. SRS is most of the times not populated. FC3 | F-14A/B | F-16C | SA342 R5 5600X | 32GB | RX 6800XT | TM Cougar | T-Rudder mk.IV | HP Reverb G2 Thrustmaster Cougar Throttle USB standalone MOD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harker Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 How do you guys handle this problem on PvP servers? Two planes near me one is firing on our units - a "red" rocket came of his rails. So i send a AIM120 towards him. (His coloured symbol wasnt visible yet) Looked the second plane, looked at the FCS page and iffed him - didnt came back green. So shot another AIM120 - just after i fired the colored symbol appeared and i saw its a friend. Said sorry - got a fck u in return and penalty points. SRS is most of the times not populated.You should do 2 to 3 IFF interrogations, just to be sure. It's an imperfect system. Some real life ROE require multiple interrogations like that.If SRS is available on the server and people aren't on it, so they cannot respond to a Raygun call, it's their fault. If people forget to turn on their IFF transponders, that's also their fault.But their fault can become your problem, as you can see. This is why IRL, VID is still very much used. Now, whether the server mission is structured in a way that coalitions make sense and VID is a realistic option, that's another question. The vCVW-17 is looking for Hornet and Tomcat pilots and RIOs. Join the vCVW-17 Discord. F/A-18C, F-15E, AV-8B, F-16C, JF-17, A-10C/CII, M-2000C, F-14, AH-64D, BS2, UH-1H, P-51D, Sptifire, FC3 - i9-13900K, 64GB @6400MHz RAM, 4090 Strix OC, Samsung 990 Pro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kengou Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 In a situation where you can’t quite be sure, you’ll have to VID. That’s realistic too. Virpil WarBRD | Thrustmaster Hornet Grip | Foxx Mount | Thrustmaster TWCS Throttle | Logitech G Throttle Quadrant | VKB T-Rudder IV | TrackIR 5 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB | 32GB DDR4 3200 | SSD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkman222 Posted May 22, 2021 Share Posted May 22, 2021 The problem is DCS servers are mostly not set up a realistic way. Because everyone wants to fly a NATO aircraft, and little amount of people want to fly russian jets. So the situation often is NATO vs NATO aircraft. I dont know how complete the F16s IFF is at the moment, but when in close air combat you can press TMS left which gives you (hopefully) a green ring on the radar around the locked on aircraft. Which will disappear quickly and is very hard to see in vR too. But well if the the real F16 is like that, we have to bear with it too I guess. Maybe a mod for a bigger symbol for the IFF return on the MFD could help vR users. But yeah, poor design choice by the engineers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts