DCS 2.5 Update Thread (2018)

From the article…

“The squadron had formerly flown Grumman A-6 Intruders and was now flying brand-new two-seat F/A-18D Hornets…”

This is the sort of stuff that makes grown men cry.

Me.

I’m a grown man and I cry.

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BTW, the true test of SA-2 realism is to fly a fast mover on a tangent through an SA2 envelope, vice directly at it.

As you are aware, the FAN SONG must keep the GUIDELINE missile and its target in the same beam. Thus, with the geometry I described, the difficulty in keeping a target with a fast crossing rate and the missile in the same beam becomes problematic. It can be done. Im the RW the missile would fly a curving path from behind the target.

Free Weekend Extended!

Due to new DCS World users being unable to take part in the Free Weekend on Friday, we are extending the Free Weekend to 2 October 2018 at 0900 UTC (Note that this only applies to the e-Shop version).

We hope you enjoy this taste and that you will take advantage of the Bundle Pack starting tomorrow that includes the Hornet, Persian Gulf Map, and Su-33.

Have fun!

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Well he said granddads, B-17 seems more fitting for granddads :slight_smile:

tease1

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It is also very helpful to make sure the air intake covers are open and one uses the “special afterburner” mode during takeoff.

In the Fighter Pilot Podcast, I believe with Mongo the MiG killer in GW1 episode, they discussed how the A-6s got beat up pretty badly the first few days of the war going in on the deck, and realized that the Vietnam era tactics were no longer valid. They apparently switched to 10k release profiles after that. Please correct me if I remember that inaccurately.

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“Pretty Badly”?…if I recall, we only lost one or two. The first couple of days were about airfield interdiction and rolling back their IADS. The Brits lost a Tornado or two taking out runways with that weapon where you had to fly straight down the runway as it shot out sub-munitions.

After that the target set changed which meant attack profiles changed…which may have had more to do with it.

That said, the A-6E tactic for penetration of an “active” IADS has always been low level strikes…trying to penetrate a good Soviet IADS at 10k ft? Not the best of ideas. :slightly_smiling_face:

Yeah, I’ll have to go back and listen to the interview again. I probably paraphrased it poorly. I think that the jist of it was a couple of Hornet drivers discussing how their Intruder brethren changed their attacks after the initial raids. Your explanation makes complete sense Hangar200.

Interesting…the first USN plane lost was an FA-18C flown by LCDR Scott Speicher.

By coincidence, a couple of months before I left NMITC, his son, a Navy Ensign, showed up for Basic Intelligence Officer Training.

Nah, you pretty much got it right. This wasn’t just a Navy thing, people from most services will talk about the paradigm shift during and after Desert Storm where it was decided flying above three hundred feet was suddenly okay again after twenty years.

how to cover this in 1,000 words or less…

So the tactics used at the outset of Desert Storm were those that the Airforce (and our Allies), and been training to for close to roughly twenty years.

Low level penetrations are primarily meant as a way to exploit enemy IADs, particularly SAMs. The lower you fly, the smaller the apparent horizon, the less distance a SAM radar can see you. A SAM that cannot see you, cannot kill you. The problem becomes AAA and MANPADs, since the assumption is you’re going to be doing this low level flying over an invading army, this is a problem that can never be totally mitigated. The hope is that you can use terrain features: hills, forests, mountains, valleys as concealment to break up enemy lines of sight and fire. The idea is you plan your route to (hopefully) avoid the worst spots (you know about), and limit your exposure to areas where the enemy will be surprised by your sudden appearance, and forced to acquire and engage you in a rushed, adrenaline filled split second engagement wherein you will have already left, or showered him in a rain of high drag bombs (while leaving).

In short, you’re avoiding the highest risk threats (TAC and STRAT SAMs), by using terrain to negotiate the WEZ of lower threat systems (AAA, MANPADs).

Why did we stop doing this after about a day of Desert Storm?

From my cushy armchair there are three reasons. As aforementioned the casualties within the US and Coalition members were high for what was a respected, but still third rate enemy. Second is outside of the extreme North and East of the country (I.E. the places we largely weren’t bombing), Iraq and Kuwait are extremely flat. The enemy can see you coming, and has plenty of time to pre-aim their guns and prepare to shwack you, while you are locked into flying a relatively predictable path. Finally, Iraq was showing marked difficulty in successfully destroying aircraft at medium to high altitude. Outside of bastions like Baghdad and Al Qaim, the coalition was able to at least successfully suppress the enemy SAM network.

It didn’t make sense to keep flying low where the enemy had shown the ability to successfully engage coalition aircraft, when apparently the medium altitudes were open for business.

Not quite the way I remembered it, still all good points.

We didn’t lose more than a handful of planes during the entire conflict. There was a distinct difference in geography between the guys going after the Iraqi army and the guys hitting behind the lines targets. I do seem to recall that only F-117s were allowed to enter the high threat areas like Baghdad…makes sense.

That said, my recollection was that the low-level stuff was mostly airfield interdiction. I know one A-6 we was lost, low, over an airfield as was a Brit Tornado. Scott Speicher’s FA-18 was a medium altitude SAM hit. True enough, one EF-111 was destroyed low level but that was because he flew into the ground trying to evade an Iraqi fighter.

I think we had already learned the “hey, lets not fly below 10k ft in a MANPAD/AAA area” lesson during the Lebanon strike in the mid 1980s.

Regardless, I think the tactical decision is entirely dependent on the threat and how we plan to deal with the threat. Operation Allied Force is a good example. The idea was to use some heavy SEAD/DEAD to put down the Serbian IADS then fly around at 10K+ ft and above to work above the MANPADs/AAA…except we didn’t get all the IADS and lost an F-117 to a SAM (I was running the intel watch for HQ USEUCOM…not a night I will forget)…no matter what you do you are likely to lose a few planes and unfortunately a couple of aircrew.

As the thread title is DCS 2.5 Update, I think that 2.5 is a great way to explore this issue. DCS gives you the ability to build a nice IADS as well as field a AAA/MANPADs with ground forces. I’m pretty sure I’ve been shot down more times (in various aircraft) by AAA because I’ve tried low-fast. At the same time, I’ve flown directly over more than one SAM site–evaded its shots–because I was low-fast…so…I guess, “it depends” :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think there was another reason…and my memory is fuzzy on this. But I think they also determined the risk v reward wasn’t worth it because they did lose some aircraft to the low level environment (CFIT). That kind of flying, at night, and in poor visibility is always super high risk. Vertigo takes only a second to set in and at those altitudes and speeds you don’t have a lot of time to get your mind and ass rewired.

I’m pretty sure I read about that being the case during the lead up to the war too when they were doing training sorties in Saudi Arabia or something they had some flat-hatters that ran into the ground. It is just a super stressful environment to operate in down there at 200’ and 500 knots.

Here is a great article with some analysis on the low level vs. mid and high level tactics…written by an F-4G and F-15E EWO…

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A few years ago I read an interview in the newspaper with the commander that shot down the F-117 and the cat and mouse game he played with his battery/units to get a shot at the F-117, it was really interesting.

Actually Great Britain lost several planes bombing low level airfield, Italy lost one tornado.
Not trying to e-peen anything, just saying.

That happened mostly because we only had like eight planes in totaly deployed*… against the many more GB had.

*of those eight only one could refuel and went of with its fatal mission. It was quite honestly a mess.
Kudos for ballZ but…

The Speicher shoot down has had a lot of controversy over the years. Not that WIB should be taken as the gospel, but they do list their sources in this interesting article. Regardless, it’s good to hear that his son felt compelled to follow in his father’s footsteps.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/who-shot-down-u-s-navy-pilot-scott-speicher-6455bb966df5

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Interesting it was that night. It was gut wrenching to see the whole thing play out on our systems.

Then the not to be forgotten chat message over the command chat channels, “Did anybody else just catch a May Day?”

I was the one that told the EUCOM Command Center Battle Watch Captain that we had indeed lost the 117. I don’t think wanted to believe me.

There is a history channel episode on it from Vega-31’s point of view as well as some of the guys involved in his rescue.

You all know I beat the drum that it is “Gas in the Air” that wins air battles. That night we almost lost. As with any CSAR, its a pick-up game, which meant the tanker plan went out the window. The tanking order was off so that one group would tank, then another, and another, by which time the first group needed to come off station and tank again. It was the epitome of frustration. We were running out of Gas in the Air.

All the time we intel pogs are trying to figure out what Serb units might be able capture him…and squelching (with extreme prejudice) obviously erroneous reports that they had already bagged him…the fog of war was so thank we could cut it with a knife.

Finally I think it was JFACC actual that came across the net and said something like “We’ve got just an hour before sunrise, and then this is over. Lets get the tanking wrapped up and get this done.” The clearest “Commanders Intentions” I’ve ever heard.

Everybody finally had gas and wetn in…there was a bit of a wait…and then the SAR helo announced “We are outbound wit Vega-31 on board.” I still get chills remembering it…as I write this.

…I had some AAR stuff to wrap up, then I went home as the sun was coming up…and went to sleep for quite a while.:sleeping:

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Fast Rapier Test

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Anyone getting kicked from Blue Flag regularly? It’s happened 3 times in a row with me. Always just after gear-up in the Baguette. 2.5.2 Persian Gulf. My pings are good and, although I don’t do a lot of multiplayer outside of DCS, my connection is pretty stable in other apps.