gun safety
And this one of the reasons I don’t fly French. The gun safety is something removed by the ground crew, not something the pilot needs to faff with.
Gun safety robbed me of some kills in the F-5 as well 
Ok. Missing Sidewinder tone could have been a clue.
Yeah…I was gonna say…for me at least, those two things are not mutually exclusive… 
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The missile behavior is one of the reasons I think so many people are excited about WW2 aircraft & theaters coming to DCS. Can’t really blame them, can we?
That said, let’s be perfectly honest about the combat effectiveness of AAMs: they’re not that great. We spent billions and who knows how much time trying to get BVR missile technology to work and since its inception before Vietnam, they’ve actually hit maybe a handful of targets. The Pk of the AIM-7 in Vietnam was (at its peak) about 10%. The Sidewinder wasn’t appreciably better, and it scored even more kills.
Since that time, very few BVR missiles have even been used in combat. During the Eritrean/Ethiopian conflict, mercenaries flying Fulcrums and Flankers fired over two dozen AA-10s of varying marks at one another. How many were shot down? One partial kill. The aircraft was hit, but flew home and crashed on landing.
DCS missile ineffectiveness sort of mimics what we’ve found real life to be. And since it mostly models 80s era tech, I’d say it probably is more accurate than we care to think.
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We did a little better the second time around.
Relative ineffectiveness is one thing, but I for one would like to see the drawbacks realistically modeled instead of a by-product of unrealistic modeling.
Take some poor, starving Aerospace PhD candidates and give them free food and nice computers every weekend for a few months. You’ll have better replacement models in no-time 
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I might know a girl…
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So there are a number of issues with the BVR missiles in DCS. Part of the issue is guidance, as Aero covered above: the proportional guidance model was coded before induced drag was a consideration, and the effectiveness of BVR missiles suffer for it. Another issue is the atmospheric model being used by ED, which is extrapolated from an R-27ER DLZ chart the developers have their hands on. There is a convincing theory that ED misunderstood why the numbers in the chart were what they were do to doctrinal and hardware differences in the Russian Air Force, and as a result the drag model is overly punitive. One person has even done his own CFD tests on the AMRAAM and created an alternative model (the missile mod). ED Is aware of both problems, they have promised to fix both problems, but their attention has been held elsewhere what with the upcoming 2.5 merger and the emphasis on WWII.
I wouldn’t stake everything on “missiles are just bad irl”. Pk considers missiles that failed to leave the rail, missiles that left the rail without igniting, missiles that failed to track, that were fired improperly, etc. etc. The Vietnam Sparrows were cutting edge technology that were using fragile electronics in an unforgiving environment. The air force still managed to do all right with them. Russian missiles are a force unto themselves, but I’d be willing to wager the pilots of the Ethiopian and Eritrea air forces had been properly trained or had much experience in how to use the R-27, and when people are shooting at you, it’s very easy to make a mistake.
If the missile doesn’t hit because of a multitude of tactical, operational and logistical variables that happen in combat, that’s fine.
If the missile is demonstrably failing to achieve performance that it should be able to achieve, that’s a problem.
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2.5 merger and especially WWII wouldn’t interrupt anyone working on missiles in the sim. I doubt there is many people here, there or anywhere that either knows how missiles can perform, or are allowed to state how they perform, now try to simulate that with any sort of realism… sounds pretty challenging to me, and sounds like a major amount of research and leg work.
Perhaps if ED were to mention it more often, I’d be able to recognize would it sounds like. As it is all I hear is silence.
Well if they dont say anything, its harder to twist and skew what they say
You yourself said they are aware of issues, that should be enough. They shouldnt need to tell you monthly they are aware of it, although it seems I fill that role 
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It’s also way easier to start making assumptions.
Considering the F-14 (and possibly the F/A-18) is in the slot for this year and will be extremely reliant on a Sparrow that is 50/50 on hitting the barn door when launched from inside the barn, It’s enough to make a person nervous.
Still, it’s nice to know it hasn’t fallen off the radar, so to speak 
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That’s apparently easy no matter what the information level is…
They hired a person specifically for missile design a while back, I doubt he is making skins for Tiger Tanks
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When I was hired at my current job I was moved between four projects in a year, shifting organizational needs being what they were in all. All I’m saying is that we haven’t heard about any progress made towards remedying the problem, and ED’s priorities have changed two or three times since. We on the outside never know.
I’ll take your adamancy as encouragement that he’s hard at work sorting things out. Here’s to hoping for he’s successful.
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Not having a clue of what you do I cant say that is a fair comparison. I talk to a number of ED people and they tend to stay where their strength lies (which has to be more ideal in most cases). I know missiles are in play, so I am not too worried. They wont give updates though because “two weeks” and other varied silliness that surrounds the not so precise dissection of anything mutters by anyone on the ED forums with a ED Team tag.
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I remember this as well. I’ve been figuring the person has been working to get everything ready for the big merger of the Alpha 2.0 and regular world.
I really don’t see what so difficult. Russian missiles should hit 100% of the time and western missiles should collapse under the weight of their socialism. Pffft don’t you guys read the forums…
In all seriousness though, limiting a missiles ability to do a 90 degree turn would work wonders for missiles in DCS
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Makes sense on paper, but they dont want to try and break them right, they want to try and fix them right, if that makes sense. Sometimes ED is pinned under their desire for realism, but in the end, I think we will all be pretty happy…
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Fixed it for ya
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The dogfight missiles, especially AA-11, AIM-9X, and ASRAAM, can definitely make over 90 degree turns.
As for missile PK, the stats for western missiles fired since Gulf War I are extremely good. The AMRAAM has an awesome PK, and if you eliminate the 60s and 70s models the 9’s and 7’s are much more reliable. Granted few other missile types have seen much action, Skyflash, 530s, Magics, ASRAAM, etc so it’s more testing and exercise stats as opposed to actual combat, but even they should rarely miss when fired against, oh, I don’t know, a 1970s era Soviet transport plane?
Of course, the lethality issue is separate, where bombers seem to require 3+ missile hits or sustained gun impacts to go down. Every so often would be fine, but not EVERY 4 engined plane should take an entire Fulcrum load of weapons to be brought down.
The very design of the MiG-29 speaks to greater lethality than DCS offers. A mere 150 rounds and 6 missiles. Given the missile pk and bullet damage done, in DCS you’re lucky to get 2 kills before RTB because you’re empty. If it’s a big plane, make that 1. Would Mikoyan have really made a plane that was that limited? Or should the possible number of kills per sortie be closer to 4 or 5?
Granting that modern air combat is not squadron vs squadron but at most 4 v 4, the expectation is certainly not that each side gets at most 1 kill and then the whole flight RTBs winchester.
Amazingly, I’ve found Strike Fighters to have one of the best missile models in sims, with older missiles being unreliable and prone to spoofing while newer ones get progressively better until the 90s+ era ones require extreme skill and luck to avoid, making first shot all the more urgent, combined with a practical range and missiles that tend to go ballistic and fly off far more often than lose all energy and literally fall out of the sky like a paper airplane. The utter lack of belly-flopped AAMs discovered in Iraq and elsewhere over the last few decades indicates the likelihood of that.
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I’ve copied the flight models of the SF2 Sparrows to make my own AMRAAMs and Alamo missiles. I agree that for a survey simulation of aircraft made by an indie developer in a tiny studio, the missile behavior feels a lot like what I’ve read about. Not saying SF2 is better than DCS (there are a great many things left broken in the game and never corrected) but the missiles do behave in a way that seems plausible.
I understand that technology has improved since the introduction of missile-armed aerial warfare, but I think that if they were as effective as the designers advertised, we’d have shot down every aircraft ever made since the Wright Flyer. Twice.
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