Community A-4E-C v2.2 (October 2023)

[Reccelow]

I'm struggling to get a working KA-3B AI tanker going, learning from scratch......and I do mean from the bottom like learning how to even install AutoDesk....

I started with the 2004 Alpahsim model (it's freeware now, the newer FSX/P3D is still payware...)

Learned how to convert to 3DS, and got it working in P3Dv5 as a working AI Tanker for the TacPack module with ModelconverterX.  No animations, that's way above me at this point...

Now to get it into DCS and hopefully use it simply like a modded shape for the S3B AI Tanker for A4 missions.....

 

 

 

[Calabrone]

ReccelowMy compliments you're good.

[Gianky]

Reccelow, that's amazing!

Please, someone with the necessary skills, help him get that mod working in DCS, we need an appropriate tanker for the A-4!

[rem27]

9 hours ago, Reccelow said:

I'm struggling to get a working KA-3B AI tanker going, learning from scratch......and I do mean from the bottom like learning how to even install AutoDesk....

I started with the 2004 Alpahsim model (it's freeware now, the newer FSX/P3D is still payware...)

Learned how to convert to 3DS, and got it working in P3Dv5 as a working AI Tanker for the TacPack module with ModelconverterX.  No animations, that's way above me at this point...

Now to get it into DCS and hopefully use it simply like a modded shape for the S3B AI Tanker for A4 missions.....

 

 

 

[RealA4EPilot]

USAF vs USAF – A VA-72 Sea Story

 

NOTE concerning AN/APR-23: 

The way the APR23 is described by links dredged up by a Google search as well as the references in the A-4E/F NATOPS manual do not align with what I remember. Considering it was almost 60 years ago when I flew with this gear, I may have the nomenclature wrong. What I remember was a radar receiver that fit where the in the nose where the radar was mounted and used the APG-53 CRT to display radar that it heard. Lobes were displayed on the APG-53 display with the length of the lobe indicating relative signal strength and the direction of emitting radar.

The Navy did not have the funding necessary for every scooter squadron to have the same capabilities. For example, the A-4 could carry sidewinder but with sidewinder equipped F-4 squadrons in the air wing The only time A-4s filled the fleet air defense role was when the weather was too rough for the phantoms, but not for the scooters. Since strapping AIM9s on A-4s was so infrequent only one A-4 squadron per air wing was modified for the sidewinder. Similarly, only one of the scooter squadrons was modified to carry the AN/APR-23. That’s an overly longwinded way of saying that other than AFCs that affected basic safety and airworthiness, just because an AFC was issued doesn’t mean that every A-4 was modified.

I pulled the story that follows out of the dusty corners of my memory. The story’s protagonist passed more than a decade ago so I cannot get his help in burnishing up some 57-year-old memories. As the details flowed from the corners of my mind to the tips of my typing fingers they flowed faster and faster, almost faster than I could type. Experience tells me I was remembering not creating. FWIW, VA-72 was my first squadron.

The VA-72 Blue Hawks were the AN/APR-23 squadron in Carrier Air Group SEVEN, and the Sidewinders of VA-86, we derisively called them the “Snakes,” carried the AIM9 when necessary. Therein lies a story of a standoff between an AN/APR-23 wielding U.S. Air Force captain and indirectly a 3-star Air Force general. Some additional background will help you understand what happened and why.

On the surface, the disagreement or conflict was over tactics or how the mission would be flown. During the Vietnam War, the nature in of command and control of Navy combat units and nature of command and control of Air Force combat units diverged rather strongly. The Navy provided the tools and intelligence necessary to plan and execute strikes against JCS designated targets. The guys flying the aircraft and the ship’s organic intelligence and weaponeering assets helped the strike planners create the mission plan.

The Air Force model was significantly more centralized with the route plan, run-in headings, altitudes, weapons delivery profiles, etc. stipulated in a detailed strike plan created by PACAF assets in Hawaii and sent to operational units in the Vietnam area. Little if any room for initiative was left to the units assigned to those units designated to carry out the strike. As the Vietnam War matured, local, on scene Air Force commanders began to carve out a bigger role in mission planning and execution. The abject failure of the remote planning model is central to the story of an APR-23 standoff introduced above.

The Air Force reacted to the increasing threat to Air Force and Navy pilots and aircraft by the Soviet supplied SA-2 surface to air missile system by planning and executing a strike on a missile site. Initially the mission was regarded as a resounding success. A follow-on photo reconnaissance mission showed that the Air Force strike was made on a dummy or decoy SAM site. The first successful destruction of a North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile site was led by the executive officer of my squadron the VA-72 Blue Hawks.

The Air Force wanted to regain face by conducting a successful attack on a SAM site, and they asked for Navy assistance with planning and executing that strike. VA-72 was tasked with providing that assistance because we could home on the SA-2's Fansong radar with the AN/APR23. The decision of who to send to guide an Air Force strike to a radiating SA-2 missile site was ironic and almost poetically comical, and went something like this:  “Hmm . . . who should we send? Hmm . . . It’s an Air Force Mission, why don’t we send our Air Force pilot?”

For years there has been an active and strong exchange program between the services. Selected Navy pilots spend a tour flying Air Force missions and aircraft, and selected Air Force pilots spend a tour flying Navy missions and aircraft. Joe spent about a day huddled with the ship and air wing doing pre-strike mission planning. When he climbed out of his Skyhawk at the staging point for the strike, he was ushered into a pre-strike briefing. It was a PACAF production that Joe said would have cost the lives of half the aircrews. He listened the brief and when asked to comment, told them not only that’s not how the mission was going to be run but also, as he unfurled his maps, why it wasn't going to be flown that way.

By the time he had briefed his profile he had bird colonels yelling at him that he was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force and would damn well follow the USAF mission plan. The Air Farce did not take kindly his proclamation that since he was attached to the United States Navy he answered to the U.S. Navy not the U.S. Air Force, and if they wanted the Navy’s help in the form of leading the strike group to an active SA-2 missile site, they would follow his strike plan. Otherwise, he would “get an overhead time from the ship and fly back to the Gulf of Tonkin where he would be safe from fools and idiots posing as knowledgeable U.S. Air Force strike planners,” a pronouncement that was not well received by the United States Air Force members at the brief.  

Joe finally ruled the day, but the mission never found a live SAM site within the strike group’s combat radius. How much impact Joe’s intransigence had on the USAF’s decision to move strike planning from the rear to where the war was being prosecuted was never determined. But the fact that no one was shot down following Joe’s strike plan after planers had predicted a 15 to 20 percent loss rate must have fermented some evolutional and maybe revolutionary thinking.

Edited February 28, 2022 by RealA4EPilot
missing word

[Calabrone]

RealA4EPilot what you write for me is really interesting and I really like the way you express events. Thanks for these historical reality pills of yours.

[Gianky]

So, @RealA4EPilot, if I understood right, this

https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv62-65/index.html

should be the cruise you were talking about, right?

[RealA4EPilot]

3 hours ago, Gianky said:

 

You Betch'em Red Ryder that be it, and I can confirm that apartheid reached out to all 4,000+ sailors and officers and smacked us right across the chops. When we reached the Cape of Good Hope we didn't stop for a week long visit. The restrictions they placed on our black sailors nixed our port call.

Edited February 28, 2022 by RealA4EPilot
duplication reduction

[Gianky]

So many questions I'd like to ask....

Let's start with something I couldn't find a clear answer on the Internet: were all missions from Dixie Station basically close air support for troops on the ground, or did you conduct other types of missions as well, like strikes, SEAD, etc?

Also, if you feel like sharing some more sea stories from your deployments, I think we all be very eager to hear them.

[USSInchon]

I'm beginning to think we need a separate thread for these A-4 sea stories, where we (mostly grown adults) can sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to these very intriguing stories from the plane we love.

[Calabrone]

40 minutes ago, USSInchon said:

I'm beginning to think we need a separate thread for these A-4 sea stories, where we (mostly grown adults) can sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to these very intriguing stories from the plane we love.

You are so right !

[Captain Orso]

A-4 should have it's own subforum.

In fact, I think every mod with an install base of like 500, or whatever arbitrary number, should have their own subforum.

[Gianky]

2 hours ago, Captain Orso said:

A-4 should have it's own subforum.

In fact, I think every mod with an install base of like 500, or whatever arbitrary number, should have their own subforum.

I was thinking the same thing, then I realized: they have their own discord. So I subscribed to their server, link is in the first post of this thread.

[Calabrone]

2 hours ago, Captain Orso said:

A-4 should have it's own subforum.

In fact, I think every mod with an install base of like 500, or whatever arbitrary number, should have their own subforum.

Oh Yeah.

[Captain Orso]

2 hours ago, Gianky said:

I was thinking the same thing, then I realized: they have their own discord. So I subscribed to their server, link is in the first post of this thread.

Discord is where information goes to die and be buried. 

[buckeyedutch]

was someone able to create a default.lua  line for the SHRIKE button cw/ccw in the control config?

thx

 

 

[RealA4EPilot]

On 2/27/2022 at 4:26 PM, Gianky said:

 https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv62-65/index.html

Thanks to Gianky for posting this link to the 1965 Crew's Book of the USS Independence. My copy of the cruisebook must be packed away somewhere beyond my field of view. At the University of Missouri School of Journalism I majored in photojournalism in the style of National Geographic or Life Magazine. As such I put great stock in power of good journalistic images to tell a story. The quality of the images varies widely, but the book as shown online tells a more cohesive story than I remember. While I contributed heavily to a USS Oriskany Crew's Book when I was a member of ship's company, none of the photos in the Indy book are mine.

Even though the official U.S. Navy photographs that fill the Indy's book range from poorly composed snapshots to photos worthy of the label as a work of art, I recommend to all hands to thumb digitally through the digital cruisebook. The picture of CTF77 about halfway through the book is a story in itself. We were in the middle of one of the many bombing halts during the Vietnam War. when the call went out to assemble the task force to take some pictures. It was breathtaking to be on the flight deck with all those ships gathered so close together. To be in a diamond formation of four aircraft carriers was remarkable and awe inspiring. One of the ships launched and recovered fixed wing aircraft during the evolution, and my heart goes out to the F-4B driver that boltered and then got waved off as all of the other 400 carrier pilots in the United States 7th Fleet watched in giggling glee thankful they weren't the embarrassed flying goat. You can be sure that no one in his squadron let a day go by without twanging his strings. In a Navy Carrier squadron only the skipper or squadron CO gets to pick his handle. Everyone else's is picked by his squadron mates, and I absolutely will not tell you what mine was. I suspect that that poor F-4 driver's call was changed to GOAT that very day.

Edited March 1, 2022 by RealA4EPilot

[RealA4EPilot]

17 hours ago, Gianky said:

So many questions I'd like to ask....

Let's start with something I couldn't find a clear answer on the Internet: were all missions from Dixie Station basically close air support for troops on the ground, or did you conduct other types of missions as well, like strikes, SEAD, etc?

Also, if you feel like sharing some more sea stories from your deployments, I think we all be very eager to hear them.

Okay the honest, correct, and truthful one word answer to your question is a staunchly firm, "probably."

As evasive as that is, it fits because how one would answer the question would depend what time frame you were talking about. Here's what I mean. In 1965, Dixie Station was roughly 100 miles east of Quảng Ngãi, South Vietnam, and Yankee Station was roughly 100 miles west of the DMZ that separated North and South Vietnam. The first day in the combat zone of our second Vietnam Cruise, I walked into the VA-72 ready room, plopped down in a ready room chair, turned my eye to the PLAT TV and could not believe my eyes. The island plat camera was showing the coastal mountains of North Vietnam in the background, and a medium sized fishing junk a couple hundred yards from the carrier. Convinced that what I was seeing was a ruse of some kind, I sprinted to the flight deck to see what was going on. I'll leave it to you make my reaction earthier using appropriate anglo-saxon words where they are needed. As I looked toward North Vietnam I thought "Holy <fecal material>, our captain has <gonads> the size of grape fruit!!!"

Sailing this close to the North Vietnamese coast was a visceral announcement to everyone on the ship and those watching from the shoreline that the United States was taking a much more aggressive stance in regards to protecting the growth of democracy in South Vietnam and ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin.

Although just a shade over six months before we were flying combat missions off of the Independence, Dixie station had all but disappeared, and two carriers were deep in the Gulf of Tonkin. One operating from noon to midnight, and the other operating from midnight to noon. So as I said above the correct answer to your question depended on what period of history you are asking about. In July 1965 the answer is yes. if you were assigned to Dixie Station you primarily flew air support missions in South Vietnam.

Edited March 1, 2022 by RealA4EPilot
word choice and spelling

[Reccelow]

I managed somehow to get the model converted to edm format, it shows in DCS modelviewer but I have no idea how to go from here.  Looking for tutorials....

 

I'm including the .edm in case someone that knows what they're doing can get it in the game....

KA3B.zip

[RealA4EPilot]

7 hours ago, Reccelow said:

I have no idea how to go from here. 

KA3B.zip 1.14 MB · 0 downloads

Well you might start by cleaning the windows. It's a kinda hard to fly that beastie aboard ship with them thar winders painted over.

Edited March 1, 2022 by RealA4EPilot
spelling

[RealA4EPilot]

The secret to successful scooter driving   ROFLMAO!!!

Edited March 2, 2022 by RealA4EPilot

[Alpenwolf]

Hi, everyone!

I've recently started toying around with this mod and it really is enjoyable. Also, I just finished designing a mission featuring the A-4 and I'm a bit unsure of some of the A-4's options in the mission editor. Should I just leave everything as it is?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Calabrone]

26 minutes ago, Alpenwolf said:

Hi, everyone!

I've recently started toying around with this mod and it really is enjoyable. Also, I just finished designing a mission featuring the A-4 and I'm a bit unsure of some of the A-4's options in the mission editor. Should I just leave everything as it is?

 

Thanks in advance!

At first glance if you want more realism disable Automatic Catapult Power Mode, the others I think are personal taste. Regarding the ECM panel I would keep it because, all in all, it is useful. Theoretically it should disturb the emissions of search radars and I tried it in a mission that I had done and it seemed to work pretty well and also depends on the ability of the SAM stations that are set by the mission creator.

[Alpenwolf]

43 minutes ago, Calabrone said:

At first glance if you want more realism disable Automatic Catapult Power Mode, the others I think are personal taste. Regarding the ECM panel I would keep it because, all in all, it is useful. Theoretically it should disturb the emissions of search radars and I tried it in a mission that I had done and it seemed to work pretty well and also depends on the ability of the SAM stations that are set by the mission creator.

Understood.

Thank you very much!

[Gianky]

Hey Alpenwolf!

First of all, thank you for including the A-4E in your Cold War server... I don't understand why there aren't more people doing it! Can't wait for the Arab-Israeli war this weekend and I hope you'll include Scooter in more mission... I'm itching to use it more and more!

As for the options, beside what Calabrone told you, keep in mind, if you don't already know, that the ones about CBUs and CMS can be modified by the pilot on the ground, before starting the engine, so you don't have to worry too much about them. I'd suggest you keep the ECM, too.