Modern High Altitude AAA

[DCS FIGHTER PILOT]

   When I used to fly Falcon BMS, I remember routinely taking AAA fire while at 30,000 ft plus. In DCS I have never experienced such a thing (at least in a modern scenario). I am no expert on this topic but I think the weapon shooting at me in BMS was Russian 100 mm anti aircraft gun aided by the SON-9 "fire can" radar, both of which are currently not in DCS to my knowledge. Are there any plans to add these in the future? 

[Dragon1-1]

Some WWII-era flak guns are available already, though not the biggest ones. While it's not the same S-60 (besides on the ZSU-57, which mounts two of those) or KS-19 that were shooting at us in the other sim, they're similar. What we don't have is a radar for them. 

[draconus]

That KS-19 is no joke, up to 50k feet?!

But those are all 50s guns still used today. Are there any modern ones?

[Dragon1-1]

They stopped making new large caliber AA guns when SAMs became a thing. This is why the ones currently in use are WWII ones and a few post-war designs. KS-19 is actually a naval AA gun from WWII that they later decided to put on a carriage. Only the S-60 is really a 50s gun, Nike-Ajax entered service in 1954, followed by the SA-1 a year later, so the last hurrah for the big flak guns was in Korea. For gun-based AA, it was rapid-fire SHORAD like Sparka and Duster from there on out. The only reason there are any of them in use right now is that the Soviets, instead of melting their guns for scrap, handed them down or sold to other countries.

That said, while they might look impressive, there's a reason those guns were phased out. Any veteran of the other sim will point out that at over 30kft, these guns hardly ever hit anything. Simple vertical jinks can let you cut across their WEZ if you are at high enough altitude, particularly if you can time them to the (very visible) flashes of the guns on the ground. This isn't even helped by the radar, since at that point the inaccuracy comes from dispersion of the guns themselves. The same flashes make them prime target for a CBU attack from high altitude, and their slow traverse makes them vulnerable to pop-up attacks, although SHORAD can mitigate that to some extent (though it's not like those can't be dodged, too, A-1s were known to shoot up gun sites in Vietnam). Just about the only thing they can do better than SAMs is maul you if you go gallivanting at medium altitudes over enemy territory, an optically aimed KS-19 can be frighteningly effective there, because it gives no radar warning, no launch warning, no smoke trail and no time to evade, while still being accurate enough to knock you down at 20kft or so. The simple solution, however, is "don't fly at 20kft over hostile territory, particularly known flak sites". They have their uses, but airspace denial is better accomplished by big SAMs and ambushes are better done by MANPADS and mobile SAMs.

[FlankerKiller]

#Dragon1-1, regardless of the effectiveness the question is do they exist IRL? If the answer is yes, then it would be nice to have them in DCS. Just having the WWII flak, and the big Soviet gun I'd a huge improvement.