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By JamesWilson
Hi everyone,
I'm trying to recreate the 1st Gulf of Sidra Incident with my F-14A Tomcats and my Su-22M3 Fitters, doing it extremely historically accurate, paying attention to every little detail.
So far i've done everything, and it's almost identical to the real one, but there's ONE issue i can't figure out, let me explain:
During the morning of the 19th of August 1981 two F-14A Tomcats intercepted two Libyan Su-22M3 Fitters in the Gulf of Sidra.
The Fitters were equipped with two AA-2 "Atoll".
Just before the merge, while nose-to-nose, one of the two Fitters fired a missile to one of the two Tomcats, but being the missile a very old and primitive heatseeker, it started tracked and going for the Tomcat, but as soon as the F-14 made a slight break, the Atoll lost its track.
The PROBLEM IS:
There's no way i can make the Fitters shoot the missiles before merging, if only the AA-2, or any other equippable missile was all-aspect or radar guided just like the R-23, i think it would work.
I tried having a head-on merge with two Mig-23 Floggers equipped with radar guided R-23s and they shot at me before merging.
I tried all other available missiles and nothing changed, some didn't show either.
I tried copying and pasting the Data file from the Aim-7 to the R-60 Data file, and nothing changed.
I tried changing the loadout file to R-23, but the Fitters show up without any weapon since there's no R-23 option in loadout for Su-23M3s, so i think it's not possible to have them (and would be historically inaccurate too).
I tried changing enemy difficulty from Normal to Hard, but nothing changes still.
The only thing the Fitters do is shooting their guns just before the merge, but no missiles are fired when nose-to-nose.
Is there a way to fix this? A way i can make my Fitters fire at least one of their missiles when we're nose-to-nose, just like when i got nose-to-nose against Floggers equipped with R-23s?
Is it a problem with the enemy AI? Or with the missiles? Or maybe even with the Su-22M3 Fitter i'm using?
Thank you very much for helping me
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By Pepelev
I thought I'd share some information on my favourite Su-17 version , feel free to discuss, post questions etc in the comments!!
In 1972 the Sukhoi design bureau began work on another variant of the Su-17) it was known only by its in-house designation S-32MK "гибридный" or hybrid, this mated the wings of the Su-7BMK to the fuselage of the Su-17M. The aircraft first flew in February 1973 piloted by Vladimir Krechetov.
The only known photo of the S-32MK to exist in the west, note the large bomb load able to be carried. Also note how the gun blast plates are still installed but the twin NR-30 cannons are not.
The S-32MK's fuselage was taken from the new into production Su-17M line, for the S-32MK the uprated AL-21F-3 engine which provided more thrust compared to the standard Fitters then in production. During tests the performance of the Hybrid was better than the Su-17 then in service, the S-32 reached a height of 1800M compared to the 1500M compared to the production Su-17M.
The fitting of the Su-7BMK wing had positives and negatives, the removal of the complicated and heavy Su-17 swing wing system allowed for not only a lighter airframe but a Increase in the fuel capacity (400kg extra fuel) the removal of the swing wing also allowed for maintenance to be much easier. However a drawback of the wing was a return to the Su-7s high landing and takeoff speeds, poor agility at low speeds and a high stall speed. The test machine also had a 100mph higher top speed compared to the Su-17M due to all the weight saving.
A side view of the aircraft, again showing the large number of pylons, and highly swept wing.
The aircraft was planned to be armed with the standard twin NR-30, 30mm cannons in the wing roots with 80 rounds per gun, the standard six Su-7 pylons (two under each wing and two under the fuselage) were joined by two inner pylons from the standard Su-17 creating a total of eight pylons, two more compared to standard Su-17s, the weight saving allowed for the increase in weapons.
The soviet Airforce although interested in the design favoured the Mig-27 and Su-17M, therefore Sukhoi offered the jet on export. It was given the export name Su-20, Egypt was the first country to show interest in the new Sukhoi. However Egypt opted for the Su-17M as it had bad past experiences with the Su-7 and saw the swept wing Su-20 as a throwback to bad experiences, Syria also showed interest however they soon withdrew interest.
With the lack of interest by both Soviet and overseas airforces finally meant to a scrapping of the project and in mid 1975 the aircraft was withdrawn from tests and sent to Tula and used as a mechanic practise aircraft until the 1990s, the airframes existence after 1990 is unknown however it is rumoured that it was more than likely scrapped.
Artwork of the S-32MK during tests. The 17 red was only applied for later flights.
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