Just in time to get my warthog throttle upgraded with a new TDC 
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I live in Florida. You always stay inside during the summer, there’s no “maybe” about it!
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Hey everyone,
A little update is in order. As most of you know by now, we had to push back OB 2.5.5 to next week in order to give a 3rd party more time to update their code to the new branch (no need to name names). As such, 2.5.5 is slated for 5 June and will include AGM-154A and C. I plan an introduction video this weekend to get you up to speed.
As noted earlier, the Litening targeting pod went into internal test at the of this month and we are currently on track to release it to you in June. We still first release on station 5, but later add option for the cheek station.
The team has also been busy improving the D/L, working on MSI for LTWS, working on Harpoon integration, fixed the HARM seeker when lock is lost, waypoint PRECISE mode, returning to work on the EW page, and implementing the MIDS page. The Hornet guys have been quite busy.
Thanks
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I don’t really get the appeal of preprogrammed advanced GPS weaponry like JSOW and JDAM. The fun in those is mostly had in the planning stage.
But for the driver… You fly to waypoint 4, press pickle, then fly on home. Driving a garbage truck is more eventful than that!
Now with a Tpod thats a whole other story. That puts some game into it. Aiming, then designating then watch your very smart egg hit exactly where you wanted it.
Anyway, really looking forward to the june 5th patch. It looks like its shaping up to be a stonker!
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What? No way man.
JDAM - The pilot must explode targets in a precise positional and rapid time sequence to get the boss aircraft carrier to appear. How else could we win wars?!
JSOW - Unfortunately a fleet of 60 Dark Hornets just shot off two of these things each to level your city. Up to you and your squadron to take them out of the air!
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In @Franze’s Offensive Posture I developed a strategy of attacking front-line SAMs with the HARM. Beyond that are the enemy airfields, so I crater the runways with JDAMs to prevent enemy fighters taking off as entering their territory triggers new fighter waves. Getting on target takes long enough that enemy fighters are coming while you wait to be in-range for weapons release. This has started to become standard practice in the mission. @USMCBEANS and @fearlessfrog also partake in, or support this strategy.
So yes, JDAM on tanks in an open field would be rather mundane. They only start to shine in a tactical situation where the extra technology is a necessity. In order to do that, you have to practice on more boring targets first.
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Relevant: (NSFW)
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Then fun is taking out a vigen to plot the bad areas and watching @Hangar200 crash all of them, making you have to use the hornet to finish the job. 
I guess its all in the mission design. If its just some fuel trucks waiting for an AGM, not much fun. But if there is something there that can upset your plans… Well things get a little interesting.
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Love it 
The most satisfying A-G you can have in a game is scoring a Mk-82 direct hit with a F-5E.
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Damn!
Hopefully we get those BRU-55 smart racks you can see in the thumbnail at the same time. I think that’d be a fair trade.
Also: TGP on station 5!
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Let’s hope the Yak doesn’t stop the VR patch now.
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Yeah, having the targets preplanned means the challenge is in getting your plane into a position to release the weapons. Not everything needs to be done manually to be enjoyable.
Case in point–my first car was my dad’s 1978 Corolla. Manual transmission, which is fine, but manual choke?? In a car from 1978? My dad said his father’s 1948 whatever had automatic choke, this car made 30 years later did not.
I had many a fun morning going to college fussing with that damn pull thing trying to keep the engine from either racing too hard or just stalling in the first 10 minutes after you start it cold. You could say I was “really driving” as opposed to letting the car handle it automatically while I just concentrated on, you know, going through traffic safely. It’s not GA, it’s a combat aircraft.
Let the systems handle what they can so I can focus on getting past the ADA and CAP to the target area without worrying if I hit the decimal at the right time to make the bomb NOT sail to Cape Town.
While the missions make sense from a tutorial/video upload point of view, I find the missions with no challenges beyond targeting and release where I could just as easily be flying a 767 with bombs and missiles instead of a high performance fighter too tedious.
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This is where aircraft like the Bug, being multi-role really start to be more fun. Planning to bomb something, but fighters pop up? Scrub that objective, you’re on the defensive in an A2A engagement.
A very interesting discussion that echos the real world.
My career in the Navy spanned the time from exclusively dropping dumb iron bombs, with a sprinkling of LGBs, to the age of GPS PGMs.
There certainly was a different flying focus and, all things considered, it is easier to put the jet into an appropriate envelope to drop a JDAM than it was to drop a string of MK82SE at 500 ft AGL.
From my experience, the main difference seems to be in accounting for enemy air defenses. Back in the day we couldn’t do much more than localized SEAD so mission planning was more about avoiding known threats – careful ingress/egress selection taking into account terrain masking, etc. always low and fast. Of course that left you open to AAA and MANPADS.
With PGMs and enhanced “roll back” SEAD / DEAD, we are able to get above the AAA / MANPADS threat and have more freedom to operate “threat free”.
And we learned to fight Joint. Mission planning became more about how to integrate into the ATO and best “service targets”. Different skill sets and challenges-a much more dynamic battle space.
Regardless, at the end of the day they still had to land back on the boat. That hasn’t changed much.
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Though this isn’t really reflected in the real world. The Bug having air-air capability is primarily for defense; if your mission is attack, that’s still your primary objective and any CAP/escort aircraft are supposed to handle the air threat. The Bug’s capabilities just means that some can be tasked for CAP and some to attack, unlike the olden days where you’d have to have F-8s/F-4s/F-14s handle a fighter sweep and A-4/A-6/A-7 attack.
I know we in DCS like to do things such as take a mixed load with the intent of doing both missions on the same hop, but that’s not really the way we should be doing things…
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If we have enough guys we can split it up. So long as you have four, you can make two flights of two.
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