Caesar

I did like the Battlefield Detectives episode for the fact that explained the battle's outcome was much more reliant on terrain and horrendous execution of tactics on the French side than because of specific weapon systems used, but it did fall short on the assessment of the warbow (longbow). Matt Strickland and Robert Hardy's book "The Great Warbow" mentions that episode specifically as having massively underrepresented the bows and arrows used at Agincourt. In their own experiments, Strickland and Hardy used a much heavier arrow (108g vs 63g) fired from a much heavier bow (150lb) creating an initial velocity of 52m/s vs 37.9m/s. This provides a KE of 146J at release. With an estimated drop in velocity of 15-30% over a travel range of 220m, depending on where the arrow is in flight, impact energy might be between 105.4 and 71.5J. Based on the evidence Dr. Alan Williams found on the effectiveness of armor, even a so-called "armor piercing" arrowhead would have had little chance of defeating either the helms or breastplates worn by the men-at-arms of the day. With only 2mm of low carbon steel, a warbow lacks the KE required to defeat the armor system (assuming moderate quality low carbon steel, the arrow needs about 131.5J to defeat the 2mm of metal with a zero-degree angle-off direct hit, and another 40-50 to defeat the arming clothing, totaling about 171-181.5J to defeat the armor system; even 150lb bows did not generate this much KE at point blank range.) Heat treated medium carbon steels provide significantly improved resistance (total defense of 2mm of armor and arming clothing could be over 300J against arrowheads if the metal were quenched and tempered, or about 232J for slack-quenched steel with arming clothing based on Williams' figures), but this was probably much less common at the time of Agincourt (Williams records the use of such metals in armor as early as the 1340's, but it does not seem to be in regular use until much later). Note that penetration does not mean defeat - 100J of energy is enough for an arrowhead to penetrate a 2mm flat piece of 0.2%C steel, but does not allow for enough penetration to defeat the metal (~18mm penetration vice the 40mm needed to defeat the unshaped metal alone). That said, this is a lot more energy than the Battlefield Detectives weapon system produced, and hitting the flanks, sides of the visors, and other thinner parts of the armor at close range could have caused significant damage, and defeated the armor system. Even if it did not, the energy from the impacts, constant battering of arrows against the armor, the off arrow that lands somewhere where the armor is not, would have had terrifying psychological impact, and would have had physical effects as well. Multiply that by the thousands that would have been in the air every few seconds, and you've got some serious combat effects. So it is my own thought that while, yes, the longbow has gotten way too much credit over the years, and BFD did an excellent job showing all of the other factors that were more significant, I also think they didn't do the bow justice, either. It was not the decisive factor in the battle, but it was far from useless!

Matt Easton did a couple videos with Dr. Toby Capwell (curator of arms and armor at the Wallace Collection) on the subject. Toby's perspective is always great; he's one of the few PhD's I know of with practical experience in armor. Part 1 of 3

karpin, check your PMs.

Stand by, I'll shoot you a PM.

Win 7 shouldn't have this issue, so I'm thinking it isn't that (I'm running 7 myself). Is it only the F-14D's that are having this problem, or is it all of your F-14's?

So, your pictures aren't showing for me, but I have another question for you: what operating system are you running? If it's Windows XP, I think this was a problem with having the TCS and VDI on the same display. For reasons I don't understand, the game doesn't like that. If you're running Vista, 7, 8, etc. it shouldn't have that problem. If you are running XP, there *might* be a way to fix it by deleting the TCS, but I haven't tried that.

Which F-14 has the problem? A screenshot would be helpful, as well.

I hope so! Cautiously optimistic that the DCS bird will be ready some time within the next few months.

A few years back I was asked that question at the TW forums. This was my response: Auten, Donald E. – Roger Ball! The Odyssey of John Monroe “Hawk” Smith, 2008, Star Publishing The focus of this book is on "Hawk's" career up until about 1980, and includes his time spent in F-4's as a RIO and F-14's as a pilot, his time as an OT&E pilot with the Tomcat, as well as his forays into TOPGUN and his game-changing weekend spent at ACEVAL/AIMVAL. The other side of the ACEVAL/AIMVAL story is on tomcat-sunset (Hoser and Turk's inputs). Baranek, Dave “Bio” – Topgun Days, 2009, Skyhorse Publishing Like "Hawk" Smith's biography, this autobiography focuses on "Bio's" career in the Navy as a Tomcat RIO and TOPGUN instructor. Cooper, Tom and Bishop, Farzad - Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat, 2004, Osprey Publishing A decent book for insight into the Iranian Tomcat program and the aircraft's role in the Iran/Iraq war. Gillcrist, Paul T. RADM – TOMCAT! The Grumman F-14 Story, 1994, Schiffer Publishing Ltd. This is one of the most complete stories of the Tomcat from its inception until 1994, the year the book was published. It is packed full of information about the F-14, to include the author's own experiences with the development of the airframe. It isn't super expensive and I'd highly recommend it. Lake, Jon (Ed) – Grumman F-14 Tomcat Shipborne Superfighter, 1998, Aerospace Publishing Ltd. This book is along the lines of Gillcrist's, and is an excellent compilation of Tomcat information, but is now getting into the "ridiculously" expensive price range (asking prices have been anywhere from $120 to over $600 over the past four years - right now on Amazon its range is $180-700!). Stevenson, James P. – Grumman F-14 “Tomcat”, 1975, TAB/Aero Books, Aero 25 An excellent book from very early in the F-14's career, especially explaining the swing wing and providing good details on the AN/AWG-9 weapon system. Wilcox, Robert K. – Black Aces High, 2002, Thomas Dunne Books Provides great insight into the F-14 as a strike platform, the author documenting VF-41's fight in Kosovo. Since then, I added "Danny Coreman's Grumman F-14A/B/D Tomcat," which is good for modelling and detailed pictures all around the aircraft, but not heavy on technical details. "Hoser Here, Shoot!" is another one that gives a lot of insight from the pilot perspective (it's an informal biography/autobiography of one of the Navy's top sticks from Vietnam to ACEVAL/AIMVAL, to Gunnery instruction at the RAG.)

ALCON, We're currently working on the next patch to the F-14 Super Pack and are revising the avionics to better match real-world symbology. I had a question about displaying target altitude. In TWS, the F-14's AWG-9 displayed designated target altitude in the tens of thousands of feet on the left of the target symbol (IFF/velocity vector), and Phoenix designation on the right of the target symbol. I've been working on trying to get the radar to display target altitude in tens of thousands of feet, but right now, I've only been able to get it to display in thousands (two-digit). Does anyone know if it is possible to display target altitude in tens of thousands of feet? (This screenshot shows what I've got right now. Target is at 12,000 feet, but I'd like to just display the "1" on the left. Still have to tweak the position to be higher up next to the target symbol.) Thanks for any replies..

ArturR, Yes, The AWG-9 in TWS only indicates a one-digit number for target altitude (Cougar confirmed this with a few Tomcat RIOs). So, from 0-5000 it shows 0, 5000-15000 its 1, 15000-25000 its 2, etc. I did try the "ShowOnly" entries and the "TextFormat", none seem to be able to shave the number down to a single digit. Might just need to do a workaround, unfortunately. Antares, The TCS doesn't work because of the game engine, not because of the F-14's avionics or .ini files. We can't make a functioning TCS at the current patch level.

Welcome, Chief!

Not sure; I did a driver rollback myself to get the game working again and none of the textures seem to have disappeared. Sorry I haven't been around much recently; I've finally got the v1.22 release candidate together for the F-14, which now includes a 72-page flight manual that I was hammering away at for the past few weeks and a number of other tweaks, so, that combined with Real LifeTM has made me a bit more rare recently.

Use "NORMAL" HUD setting, rather than "EASY." That should only display your aircraft's speed, altitude, etc. but not any target information.

The listed updated F-4's might have TWS, not sure, but it's not truly functional in any aircraft without the AvionicsF14A.dll file (introduced in SF2:NA). Avionics70.dll has a TWS mode, but what it does is show track data while still showing other radar blips; it does not allow you to designate targets, show IFF, etc. If you want to shoot, you still have to go to Single Target Track, fire, then select your next target, lock it in STT, fire, etc.

Just look under the SF1 Add-on aircraft in the downloads section. The F-4 family is under Cold War aircraft. Not sure I understand the question "do those have track radar" - as in, track while scan?

I ran into the same problems with everything past 353.30. I'm running a GTX 970G1. Once I rolled back to 353.30, it all started working again.

The funny thing is, I read the title before clicking on it and finished the sentence with "...or not to be...Not to be."

Here's a couple: King Crimson: 21st Century Schizoid Man (1968) Starless (1974) Jethro Tull: Locomotive Breath (1971) Judas Priest: Starbreaker (1977) Fleetwood Mac: The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) (1970)

Good fights, Saisran! I've got a few of my own to add. With the new EF-2000 Beta Pack out, I decided to get a few fights in. This video details 3, one against a MiG-29, one against a MiG-19, and one in an F-14B vs the EF-2000 (the v1.22 release candidate Tomcat). One thing I did have to do was lower the power of the EF-2000's jammer. Even high power radars can't track it because of the twin 95-power jammers combined with 0.2m2 RCS, regardless of range (even under a mile). Like the F-22, ECM and LO combine to make a difficult target to track, but once you get within a certain distance, 5kW or 7kW or 10kW of energy will burn through without difficulty. 'Course, this is a game-ism. Here's some of the general findings I have: The EF-2000's supercruise capability helps to get to the fight pretty darn quick without burning too much gas. Its engines produce excellent thrust to weight, but the type does bleed speed after some hard pulls. I actually anticipated this, given the delta design, and in player hands, it feels highly maneuverable, but NOT a UFO, and that impressed me. Its high alpha combat capability is incredible, but it can be a disadvantage when you're trying to do a high-deflection shot and the pipper winds up below the HUD, especially against an AI aircraft that keeps its energy up. I felt that I was able to out-match the FULCRUM without too much difficulty. There were several times I ran into the pipper-below-HUD problem. Against the MiG-19, the high-alpha advantage is much more pronounced. The small size of the -19 is what spoiled a lot of my shots. I didn't do a video against the MiG-17 because it was over extremely quickly. Finally, in the F-14 against the Typhoon, I got the fight slow, and that was actually kind of stupid, since the Typhoon typically holds a 3-4 degree sustainable AoA advantage against the F-14 (26-28 degrees vs 23-25), but I also found that dropping full flaps and hard rudder inputs really allowed me to comfortably reverse and yank hard to get on the Typhoon's tail. I did two nose-down "bait" dives to regain energy and lure the Typhoon into a diving attack. Worked both times, but I need to fly more and see how the Turkey Beast and Typhoon compare at higher speeds. I'm guessing it'll be another stalemate situation, but I won't know until I do more tests. Anyhow, here's the video. Pretty impressed with the new EF-2000.

It may have had to do with pushing from the higher echelons of NAVAIR to get as many internal ECM/expendable CMs as possible, too. RAdm Gillcrist mentioned that in November 1973, the CNO's Electronic Warfare Program included plans to install all compatible strike, fighter and support aircraft with ALR-45/50 (RHAW), ALQ-126 (Jammer) and ALE-29A/39 (chaff/flare expendable) systems. This was largely after the air campaign in Vietnam, but it wouldn't surprise me if earlier policy existed pushing for internal expendables installed on Navy tactical aircraft given the SAM and AAA threat over Vietnam.

Please check PMs; might have new version stuff nailed down, finally.

For those speculating, unfortunately, no we don't have a true F-14D pit still, and the game engine hasn't been updated to allow for a radar-slaveable TCS (trust me, we'd add it if we could!). Sorry about that. There are other updates, however, including to the cockpits, FM, and a few other things on the table.

Wichita 103 returning from a successful MIGCAP:

Thanks, folks! By the way, wanted to thank Crusader for the new default gun range for the F-14. I've noticed that both with and without lock, I'm hitting my targets a lot easier. Will have to implement that into the Super Pack.