Quick guide for tactical employment

[Snappy]

Dear developement team,

I know this is additional work , but I would really appreciate if you could publish a quick guide (doesnt have to be super long or exhaustive, 1 or 2 pages would suffice) on tactical employment in air to air combat / BFM phase.

I don't mean weapon employment/switchology , that's clear and no problem.  But actual airframe employment.

Maybe one of your SMEs could be so kind and give some feedback about that , similar  to what Victory205 did for Heatblur and the F-4E here under "maneuvering flight"

A couple of examples I have in mind: ( I know a lot of it depends on many factors and sometimes there is no one-size-fits-all anwer)

-At which approximate speed they typically wanted to enter a close range IR or guns engagement 

-Given the choice , what was the most preferred altitude band to fight in? (low , medium, high?)

-did they mostly prefer rate or radius fights? 

-Which AOAs/G-Load  did they aim for during rate vs radius maneuvering or vertical reversals?

-was common doctrine to go more vertical or prefer stay in the horizontal plane of motion.

-any quirks or vices to exploit or avoid in the flight envelope?

 

To summarise, simply a quick hands-on guide on how to get the most out of the aircraft in the BFM/ACM scenarios and how to avoid areas where its performing suboptimal.

I get that it was primarily an Interceptor/attack aircraft, but there must have been some training /guidelines for close-in fighting as well.

But unfortunately, contrary to other "more famous" airframes (like the F-14,F-15,F-4 etc) there is very little information and stories about the Mirage in this regard to be found in articles, podcasts or internet.

Neither did I find a lot of publicly available performance data on the F1.

I did quite some self-experimenting in DCS, but I really find the Mirage F1 challenging to employ it effectively in BFM.

With intercepts or air to ground its not such a big deal, because these two areas are more airframe-agnostic/independent and you can transfer a lot of general concepts from other aircraft. But the BFM/ACM area is a bit of a special because it highly depends on individual airframe performance strenghts&weaknesses.

Thanks a lot , its just an idea.

Kind regards,

Snappy

Edited June 22, 2024 by Snappy

[PawlaczGMD]

This is not really what you're asking for, but I've found the Mirage quite effective in BFM on ECW, even though I haven't flown it too much yet.

Some tips: Stay fast, this is your main advantage. Most opponents will not be able to match your speed. I recommend boom and zoom from above as your go-to strategy. Find a target and descend on it in lead pursuit, then either take a guns snapshot and go back up, or try to maneuver for a missile shot. You can kind of turn with most opponents if you're fast, but try to stay at least at 400 kts. Otherwise, build speed and use the vertical. Don't pull the AOA meter into red unless you're going for a kill. 

You have pretty good missiles, good guns + radar gunsight that actually works, and a lot of fuel, use it.