Missiles In WOV

[Modifly1 0]

Hello all, I recently managed to get Wings Over Vietnam since there are few sims out there that try to replicate the conflict. However I have recently found issues in carrying out engagements. First up I do have the 2008 patch. 

Mig 17: So far I can take one out if I'm lucky when they are attacking friendlies. Otherwise they have superlative manoeuvrability and run circles around my F4 which can climb but no little much else. 

Mig19: About the same as the Mig 17 but slightly faster. 

Mig 21: An highly effective adversary that can match my speed and still out turns me no matter what I do. 

 

So my  first main question is how am I supposed to get my phantom to even get near an opposing enemy because right now my jet struggles to carry out any kind of turn? I barely pull the stick and yet the jet always feels like its stalling even at 400 knots. I am aware of the high speed stall condition but I can't help but feel it is made far worse than it should be. I try the yo-yo but even then, my jet's nose comes up and just sits there while I strain to try and bring the nose back down again and lose all roll authority.  

 

My next question is the missiles. I found that even with the later model sidewinders and jets literally flying straight and level just waiting to be taken out still seem to fool my missiles. Most times I find the AIM-9s just leaving the rail and not tracking anything (when played on hard settings) and even when they do track, they still struggle to match the turn of a Mig 17 even from a reasonable distance. As for the AIM 7, well that is prone to just exploding about half-way to the target. How do I have the highest odds of scoring missile kills since I have fired four shots with only 1 hit sometimes. 

 

I have seen articles from real F4 pilots and one guy was in a sharp turn against a mig 21 and he loosed off an AIM-9 which appeared to fly off somewhere else, but in fact pulled tight into the circle and successfully hit the mig. My missiles certainly won't do that. 

[Wrench 9,882]

Moved to correct Forum. Please do NOT post in the Knowledge Base

--

as to you question, I can't really answer it but someone else may come along with more info. 

[Modifly1 0]

I honestly didn't even know it was in the knowledge base. I couldn't find a WOV forum and thought the 'new to' heading was the one to go to. My apologies. 

[MigBuster 2,884]

3 hours ago, Modifly1 said:

Hello all, I recently managed to get Wings Over Vietnam since there are few sims out there that try to replicate the conflict. However I have recently found issues in carrying out engagements. First up I do have the 2008 patch. 

Mig 17: So far I can take one out if I'm lucky when they are attacking friendlies. Otherwise they have superlative manoeuvrability and run circles around my F4 which can climb but no little much else. 

Mig19: About the same as the Mig 17 but slightly faster. 

Mig 21: An highly effective adversary that can match my speed and still out turns me no matter what I do. 

 

 

Blimey - might be worth searching through old threads on here or any sim forums really............only tip I can give you is never try to turn with an aircraft that can out turn you - something learnt in WW1 the hard way no doubt.

You need to learn Energy management when using the vertical, you need to learn a few tactics using your wingman. Even basic BFM is a massive subject that needs a lot of practice.

Do you have anything like Track IR for any kind of in close maneuvering..........takes a while to get used to but can really help get used to a 3D environment (sounds obvious but really is not)

 

The missiles need to be fired in parameters to stand any chance if you are managing 1/4 then yeah that sounds about right.

WOV had more historically accurate missiles than SF2V from what I remember is the only sim that has ever modeled missile failures (they can easily be tweaked). The technology of this era was not robust enough (total crap) and the missiles PKs were less than 0.10 in some cases - but again a big subject. Even with a lot of declass actual combat firings tweaking missiles to be totally accurate is probably not viable.

 

There is no doubt a ton of Vietnam stuff out there and your perception will change the more you look at it.

 

There are some F-4 in Nam things I wrote here years back that might be of interest - or at least the sources list - good luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Modifly1 0]

I have been combat simming for a good few years now and have learnt through trial and error believe me when IL2 1946 has every airplane in the sky chasing after you (the player) half the time and so I consider myself fairly good. However normally when I can't out turn somebody I will just execute a yo-yo or an Immelman turn. With the phantom, that is exactly what's not happening. I find every time I try to do either manoeuvre, my speed just plummets and I find myself struggling to bring my nose anywhere near the bandit. My wingmen are supposedly meant to cover me yet are always miles away despite my asking them to keep close. Are there any straightforward ways I can use the phantom to get a decent shot off? In fact, does anyone know the corner speeds for the F4 early and late variants? I could do with those since the game stresses their importance but fails to tell me the numbers. 

[bazillius 1,259]

3 hours ago, Modifly1 said:

does anyone know the corner speeds for the F4 early and late variants?

I will write about the SF2 game since I don't have WOV. But I assume it applies to both games.
For me, this is the best game in the world, but not the best simulator in the world. Do not expect from the game the complete reliability of the flight model and the full compliance with the speed table and maneuverability. This game is a cross between an arcade and a simulation. About missiles. So in reality, the missiles showed very low efficiency in vtetname. And the maneuverability of the phantoms was worse than that of the MiGs. What did you expect. But you can easily turn this game into an arcade.

For example you wanna mnodify F-4c. Search F-4C_LOADOUT.INI (use unpackere by Mue to unpack cat files) and see that the aircraft use AIM-9E-2 missile. Download Weapon Editor or just open it in text editor (i dont know how it is in your Wov) And find and change in file AIM-9E-2_DATA.ini:

Accuracy=75 to 100
LockonChance=75 to 100
LaunchReliability=80 to 100

And voila! This missile will hit the aircraft in 10 chances of 10 launches.

And you can turn your F-4c in a cosmic spaceship editing F-4C_DATA.INI

BUT WARNING!!!!!!!! Modifying addiction!

You can find weverything for modding on this site, every needed tools and any info. The catalogue of forum is not comfy but believe me here is everithing.

If you dont want to mod and want to play Vanilla gamr you just need to get used to the game and take it into your heart and put up with some conventions. And this is not an arcade when you return from a mission after killing 20 frags. There is no such thing here. Sometimes it is not possible to shoot down a plane for a flight that lasts an hour and a half

In passing, if you play modern mods, you will experience the opposite effect. The accuracy of missiles is overestimated and it will most often need to be lowered to match reality. It depends on the specific modification and on the specific author.

[+streakeagle 871]

The MiG-19 was the real UFO: power-to weight with resulting climb, acceleration, and sustained turn performance was outstanding, turning ability almost as good as a MiG-17 and still has guns.

The MiG-21 varies with the particular model. The early MiG-21F-13 is a turn fighter, but a little short on power/climb. The PF/PFMA series traded weight for radar, so not as sporty as the F-13. The S/SM added power but at the cost of weight. The final MiG-21bis had almost as much power/acceleration as an F-16, but its weight increase and center of gravity change killed its agility and somewhat degraded its previously pleasant handling characteristics.

The hard wing F-4s, (all of them except the F-4E and F-4F, and early F-4Es were hard wing, too), were energy fighters vs turn fighting MiG-21F-13. The slatted F-4Es and F-4Fs were turn fighters against the energy fighting MiG-21bis.

A gun-armed slatted F-4E/F-4F is the best MiG killer of them all (though a slatted F-4S without the gun with later AIM-9H/L/M missiles and a more advanced radar is possibly better).

WVR, you have to go high and see if you can get the MiG-17 to stall out and/or circle in a way that gives you a diving shot. When Duke Cunnigham took on a MiG-17 in the vertical, he nearly lost: he would outclimb the MIG-17 providing a gunshot opportunity. He only won once the MiG tried to extend and go home. MiGs don't have much fuel. Run them out and make them retreat, which means using afterburner as little as possible. But in a 1 vs many, sooner or later one may give you a shot, you just have to keep an eye on your tail and use speed/climb to avoid getting shot. In a many vs many, you get kills by attacking MiGs that are getting behind your wingmen. It is a race against time: can you get a shot on the MiG before the MiG shoots your wingman down, and can you shoot without accidently killing your wingman. The game allows AI to see 360 degrees to keep them from being stupid, so you can't exploit the worst features of the MiGs, particularly the MiG-21 after the F-13: horrible view form the cockpit. You would otherwise be able to get in a blind spot and they wouldn't know which direction to go or how hard to pull.

If you have AIM-7s there are two ways to use them: the AIM-7E is works best in a head on. You can use you power/speed to extend, the reverse for a head on AIM-7 shot. You have to learn how long to extend before reversing. This only works well against the MiG-17 which is much slower and has no missiles. The AIM-7E2 is better used as a stern chase dogfight missile. It is more effective than the AIM-9B, AIM-9E, and in my opinion even the AIM-9J. Whereas a naval F-4B/F-4J in Vietnam should have at least the AIM-9D, better yet the AIM-9G (possibly the AIM-9H, but I don't know if any were actually carried and fired before the air war ended). The AIM-9D/G/H makes the Naval F-4s better than an F-4C/D with AIM-9B/E/J. The effective envelope for the AIM-9G/H is very generous, so you can take some pretty difficult shots using vertical/stall tactics.

The hardest fights are F-4B/C/D hard wings with earlier missiles. F-4Ds eventually did well with AIM-7s in 1972. F-4Es rarely used their guns, but a MiG-19 was downed at supersonic speed, which is an unrivalled record. F-4Js with AIM-9Gs clobbered MiG-17s. F-4Ds and F-4Es with AIM-7E2 did well in stern chases. But when you read about real Vietnam air combat, most fights ended with no kills and usually with no hits. But in 1972, with better training and better weapons, the Navy killed everything that crossed its path primarily with AIM-9Gs. After getting trounced on May 10, 1972, the MiG-17 would never been intentionally used to intercept F-4s, only for training.

1 vs 1, a hard wing F-4 has to be very patient against a MiG-21MF (essentially an export MiG-21SM). If you can't get a shot, you may have to disengage. But again, the MiG-21 has much less fuel endurance/range and in reality the F-4s had tankers available. So the best tactic is to avoid getting tailed/shot until the MiG-21 tries to flee due to low fuel.

The slatted F-4E and F-4F is roughly even with the MiG-21SM/MiG-21MF/MiG-21bis. The F-4 should actually turn a little better if the flight models were realistic. In reality, MiG-21s of the F-13/PF/PFM/PFMA series had issues with engine limits at low altitudes. Even hard wing F-4s outperformed the early MiG-21s at low altitude. Unfortunately, in 1972, the F-4 pilots learned that the MiG-21MF had enough power to catch up to F-4s trying to extend as sea level.

Try changing the AI difficulty level. I think enemy aircraft can be set to Easy, Normal, Hard. Normal provides more realistic flight behavior. AI doesn't use player flight models, so AI aircraft are often more capable than the same aircraft flown by players. Setting them to Normal gets results close to reality.

[Modifly1 0]

I've been using normal for enemy difficulty. I mean with the aim 9b, I was once 3 miles all the way to 1.5 pointing up to him right in my nose. Seeker claimed he didn't exist. But if they really are that poor  I don't know what to say about it. The main jet sim I use is lock on and of course that's designed with modern weapons in mind. And nam is not so modern to say the least. I just wasn't expecting that bad of a reliability record. Thanks anyhow and I'll see if I ever get used to it. Also, should I want to at least view the .ini  files, where do I get the viewer?

[bazillius 1,259]

2 hours ago, Modifly1 said:

Also, should I want to at least view the .ini  files, where do I get the viewer?

I dont know the WOV folder structure but you need to see something like this

Go to aircraft folder to edit aircraft files, it looks like

or if you want go to weapon folder to edit weapons it looks like

if you havent this folderst that you need to download weapon pack from this site or extract it with CAT extractor and edit with notepad

i use Mue tool for it but it is for SF2 game i dont know if it is possible tou extract older versions of the game but you can try. If you cant just try to download cat extractor for your version of the game

Te section foe your version i think is here

https://combatace.com/files/category/30-sfwo-utilitieseditors/