Caesar

Happy Birthday!

Well, the thing is, you're not going to get a high rate strobe warning from an AHM until it's in terminal guidance in reality. AHMs (e.g. Phoenix) fired at long range usually travel in a semi-active mode, receiving updates from the launching aircraft's radar to make adjustments. They go active at the terminal phase of intercept, and that's when you'd start getting pinged really fast by the missile's on-board radar. Otherwise, you'll get a lower pulse rate. The game will still give you the lower rate warning when an enemy aircraft's radar is in TWS, but it will never give you the high rate warning when the missile goes active (I tested this either last year or two years ago against F-14s/AIM-54s). As I understand it (and as Fubar512 explained above), the game only cares about aircraft or SAM radars with respect to radar warning, not missile radars. I'm guessing this is because the game was originally meant to simulate 1950's and 60's tech. No operational active homing missiles existed then, so if you were being painted by a radar in search mode, you'd get a lower pulse rate warning. When the radar locks, you get higher rate warning and can assume a missile is probably inbound. If that lock breaks, the missile goes stupid. When the series hit the '70's, the fact that the missile fired at you has an on-board radar (Phoenix only if you're talking non-modded) does matter, but was apparently never modeled. So, if it were modeled right and we assume a notional missile has an active range of 10 miles, you still wouldn't get the high rate warning for most of the missile's flight time, only the lower rate from the launching aircraft's radar. You'd get the higher rate warning once the missile was 10 miles away. BUT! that's not the way it works in-game.

This is the F-5 side of the fight. I took up an F-5E(72) against a MiG-21Bis Fishbed-L. Loadouts were: F-5E: 2x AIM-9J, Guns MiG-21Bis: 4x AA-2, Guns The fight started at the merge with both aircraft turning into each other. The Tiger turned a bit nose high, the Fishbed a bit nose-low. Keeping around 5.5-6g in the turn at the high 400's of knots, the Fishbed was able to start getting behind the Tiger's 3/9 line. The Tiger pulled harder as the two started to come back together, now in the high 300's, but nose-low, about 20 seconds post-merge. The two aircraft passed and the circle continued. The Fishbed continued to turn nose-low, allowing the Tiger to maintain more "g" as well. As the Fishbed maintained its turn, the F-5 was able to catch up and get nose-on keeping around 400 knots, and about 7g. Roughly 25 seconds after the start of the second circle, the F-5 gets tone with an AIM-9, but waits to shoot until the angle is better. Unfortunately, this also made the distance much less, and the J-model AIM-9 missed upon firing. As the F-5 was diving on the MiG-21 at the time, higher "g" was necessary to stay on the Fishbed as it climbed. The F-5 loaded about 8.5-9g in an ascending turn to stay on the Fishbed. The Tiger selected gun, but had too much closure velocity, and pulled straight up to get above, and hopefully back behind the MiG. This worked, and the Tiger pirouettes high and above the Fishbed, coming back down from on-high. In 15 seconds, the F-5 is back on the MiG-21's tail. This taks a 9-9.3g turn due to the remaining energy, at about 430KIAS. As it appears another overshoot is possible, the Tiger inputs full right rudder to slice the nose into the Fishbed's flight path and fires a burst of rounds, taking out the Fishbed's engine and right wing, ending the fight about 2 minutes, 50 seconds after the merge. Takeaways: the F-5 appears to be a better sustained turner than the MiG-21Bis. My position of advantage was achieved through an energy circle, but actual exploitation of that advantage required use of the vertical plane when the Fishbed slowed down. I had the feeling the AIM-9J's wouldn't work well, and they didn't. They seem to take a moment to start maneuvering, and I don't feel like I can rely on them like the Navy AIM-9H. In the end, it was the gun that got him.

Nice report, Eric! I took the Tiger up against a variety of aircraft when the new one got released, but I don't remember if the MiG-21 was one of them (I recall F-4, F-14, F-15, and F-16 at least). I can try my hand at it, too.

Stratos, You can still play it if you have DOSBox. I have a copy running on my computer now; but it works best with DOSBox v.73. v.74 did away with one of the config files that you can modify to help the program understand your stick and throttle. I think you can copy that existing config file from a v.73 to a v.74 install; it's been a while since I've looked at it, though.

This is one I wish I had recorded, or taken screenies during the fight. I made a mission to simulate the first mission of Ace Combat 5 using the UK terrain; still haven't added the spy plane yet, but it's basically a 4v12 with rear-aspect short-range missiles. I swap out the various aircraft, and in this instance the setup was myself in an F-14D, an F-4E (75) and two F-15A's. Loadouts were: F-14D: 4x AIM-54A, 2x AIM-7F, 2x AIM-9H & Gun F-4E & F-15A: 4x AIM-7F, 4x AIM-9E-2 & Gun All MiG-21's were packing AA-2's. Because I can't load tanks on the F-4E's and F-15's when flying the F-14, I chose to fly the squadron part of the way to the target, then Alt-N to get to the engagement area, even though I know this is going to limit our range/face-shooter advantage. Since the Fishbeds are only packing rear-aspect IRMs, this makes it a bit more even anyway. Upon the skip, Hawkeye notifies the flight of bandits in the area, and my radar gets three groups of four. Knowing I want to fire all my Phoenix missiles pre-merge to keep weight off the jet, and knowing the AIM-54 has a long Rmin, I elect to engage the furthest group with AIM-54's, then worry about the closer guys. I direct my flight and wingman to engage air targets, knowing they'll likely shoot at the closest groups. While I designate four targets (~15NM away, flying nearly perpendicular to my vector), -3 opens up with a Sparrow against one of the closing Fishbeds. I begin ripple firing four AIM-54's ten seconds later, with two going stupid and two guiding proper. -3 fires another Sparrow after the first misses, and two Fishbeds take the two AIM-54's to the face. No kill remarks from -3, and I continue to focus on the far group. Two Sparrows later, and the far group is dead. As the center group gets into it with the F-15's, one of the MiG-21's has gotten on -3's tails and looses an AA-2 in his direction. Being that there are several mountains in the area, I believe -3 crashed during his defensive break, and he is not shot down, but rather crashes into a mountain side. It is around this same time I put the F-14 into about a 6g turn towards my flight, directing -4 to engage air, and noticing some of the Fishbeds have broken away to engage me. The third flight closed with my flight and a furball ensued. There are two MiG-21's on -4's tails, and I know I can get an easy pair of kills as they engage him. Tone on one, Fox 2, kill, tone on two, Fox 2, kill. In the midst of this, -4 takes a shot at someone on -2's tail, but misses. I now take this target. The fight here is almost entirely horizontal at around 8-15,000 feet, and the highest "g" I put on the F-14 was 7.6g; for the majority of the fight, I had the engines around 50% throttle, only tapping burner to catch up to my targets. The GE engines allow me to catch up to the MiG-21 that is harassing -4, who is doing a great job preventing the Fishbed from getting a shot on him. Line up and shoot him down with the gun. I notice another Fishbed on -2, and work my way over. About 30 seconds after my gun kill, that Fishbed fires on -2 with an AA-2, and misses. About one minute later, I saw his wing off with the Vulcan, and down he goes. Another attempts the same thing, but this time, fires two AA-2's, and again -2 evades. Hell of a Phantom Phlyer, this AI! Again, I put about a 5.5g turn on the jet, accelerate, get on his six, and saw his wing off for another kill. About 30 seconds later, I bring the aircraft down on a Fishbed who is trying to catch up to -4, but not doing a great job against the F-15. Guns kill #5. The last kill is against the final Fishbed that is attempting to gun -4. -2 winds up on this one's tail, and I'm a little behind -2. -2 hits, but doesn't kill the MiG-21 and runs out of ammo in the process. -4 has extended and the MiG attempts to disengage. I slide in as -2 breaks off and shoot him down for guns kill #6. End of mission. Takeaways: Against bandits with rear-aspect missiles, keeping the energy up allows you to not only deny your foe a shot by cutting off angles, but also keeps the aircraft in a region where it can accelerate better to catch up to other foes and shoot them with a missile or guns. I flew this mission multiple times. The time before this the team was comprised of an F-14D, F-4E, and 2x F-5E's. The MiG-21's got three missile and two gun shots on me; none connected, because I never let the aircraft drop below 300 knots, and always had the energy to evade. I also ran this in a more period-correct F-14A with similar results. While I love getting into a slow-speed, flaps down, dirty knife fight in a phone booth in 1v1, 1v2 or even sometimes 1v4 scenarios (much more rare), that is NOT the place you want to be when there's a lot of bandits in the skies with missiles. I was also real happy to get the six gun kills! Haven't done that in a while... Leaving the combat zone: Landing back on the island:

Ataribaby hit the nail on the head. FD did a great job with the avionics, but the FM wasn't great. Your approach speed around the carrier was ridiculously high, and the plane almost always felt sluggish, even after you had fired all of your missiles. The radar modes were very accurate and highly detailed. With respect to the campaigns, the missions were canned, but had a lot of possibilities, since success or failure would lead you down a different path to a different mission.

"Hawkeye, it's "Caesar," Admiral "Caesar." You're my C2, so I thought you should know: I've killed a lot of bandits. Some Frescoes over Hanoi downtown, uh, some Floggers, maybe 5 or 10, um, a Soviet Flagon I met in the North Atlantic. I left it at the bottom of the ocean near Iceland. I killed a Fulcrum, my old nemesis, with the Vulcan cannon, and some bandit uh some old FLANKER with Sparrows last week. I killed another Fulcrum with a Sidewinder...I had to, it almost got away...and uh, something else there I can't remember, maybe a Bear, but it's dead too. And a flight of Backfires. I killed a flight of Backfires with a cluster of PHOENIX to the FACE, their airframes are dissolving in a saltwater bath in the Arctic. I don't want to leave anything out here, I guess I've killed maybe 20 bandits, MAYBE 40. I have gun camera footage of a lot of it, uh, some of the squadron have seen the tapes. I even, um...I dropped some bombs on hangars, and I tried to cook a little with napalm. Tonight I, uh, I just had to kill a LOT of Fishbeds! And I'm not sure they're gonna send anyone else up this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, uh, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty relentless stick. So, if you get back to the ship tonight, I may show up at the dirty shirt, so you know, keep your eyes open." (6 kills pre-merge over Iceland)

Cool to see some WWII era stuff!

Breaking the hard deck is equivalent to ramming the aircraft into the ground in a real fight. In the case of the movie, both aircrews would've been considered "dead" regardless of if Maverick had fired. You can see an example of this in "Speed & Angels" where a student F-14 pilot flying against an instructor F-5 with an instructor RIO in the back dives down on the F-5, and you can hear the RIO saying "Watch the deck, watch the deck!" followed by "knock it off, deck." "Bio" Baranek covers some of the kill criteria in his descriptions of TOPGUN; simply having a radar lock or missile tone for the AIM-9 isn't enough. A well performed defensive maneuver by the target could invalidate kill criteria, either because of ACMI data or instructor decision that the defense would have worked. Tracking gun solution is a definitive kill. As to the effects of the HUD and fire control system in the F-14, those are all movie effects. An F-14 HUD looks nothing like that, and the radar in VSL doesn't "chase" its target (this being the most likely radar mode used in a dogfight). It scans up and down in a 4.8-degree wide 40 degree elevated pattern (for High 15-55 degrees, for Low -15 to 25 degrees) and automatically locks the first thing that comes into view. Here's an example of an actual training dogfight in an F-14A, mid-1980's: Quite a bit different, but not as exciting for a big screen!

Yes, in reality, the F-14 really became the Navy's choice strike platform from the late '90's until it was retired. Even books about the F/A-18 (one of the Osprey ones I remember specifically) talk about how the toughest targets went to Tomcats in OEF/OIF. That being said, I would echo what EricJ has said about going against an enemy with a capable air defense force. The F-14A's DECM suite was obsolete thirty years ago, the F-14B's was the same as the A's later suite (ALQ-126) and while if the airplane were still in service today, I have no doubt it'd see a few face-lifts (the D model, anyhow), going against current-gen advanced SAMs, other aircraft are more survivable thanks to the application of LO technology and newer jammer/CM suites. This is also true in-game. A few weeks ago I flew a strike mission in an F-14D where on the ingress, I shot down four enemy aircraft before they had the chance to fire, destroyed the GODDAMNEVILCOMMBUILDING with a pair of JDAMs, and on the egress, assisted in an assault on an enemy base where I managed to destroy another two buildings with the 500 pounders I had on the aft Phoenix pylons, and finished off the base's fuel supply and tracking radars with the gun (4 tanks, 1 truck, 2 radars). Nabbed a MOH for that mission! While the enemy had AAA, it was ZSU-23's and SA-2's. Against more modern air defenses, it's much harder. The BOL chaff helps, 'cause you can punch it off like a mad man, but the jammer in the A and B, and maneuverability penalties with huge bombs attached (especially in the A) is a hindrance. Aircraft with air-to-surface missiles and newer jammers, like the F-15E, F-16 and F/A-18 are better suited to deal with this environment.

Kaboom! for Atari has been occupying my time a lot recently. Also Insurgency and Wargame: Red Dragon.

Happy Birthday!

Strange that your numbers aren't showing up; yes, you're supposed to go to TWS, then hit "lock radar target" to designate the first target, and a little "1" should appear next to it. Then, select next radar target, hit "lock radar target" again, and this will have a "2". Go up to how many Phoenix you have, or how many targets you want to shoot at, then start firing. Every time, the number will drop by 1 as a missile is fired until all designated targets are fired upon. If you're in RWS, you can still lock something and shoot at it with a Phoenix, you just can't do simultaneous multi-target engagements.

TOMCAT! The Grumman F-14 Story by Paul T. Gillcrist is a good one. Hardcover, currently priced at $39.95 on Amazon. Also, Grumman F-14 by James Perry Stevenson, currently around $6 on Amazon.

Glad to hear you're getting results! If you're running the v1.21 F-14A, the throttle response was changed based on recorded evidence of the aircraft taking ~8 seconds to go from idle to Zone 1. It takes (in game) 12 seconds to go from idle to Zone 5 based on that. The F-110 takes half the time to get to max AB, and in general, the throttle is much more responsive (idle to max AB in 6 seconds). Generally, I don't bring the F-14A much below military power, so when I need the thrust, I can more quickly get into afterburner.

Sparrow and Phoenix can be used in a dogfight in the game, as in reality, but neither are well suited for that purpose. Both will fire if you use VSL High and get a lock, but VSL High only scans 5NM, so you're going to have to shoot real fast after you get a lock on. Phoenix has an Rmin of about 1.9NM, takes about a full second to drop and fire, and has to be fired at less than 5g. When I was testing the missile, I found it could be used close to its minimum range, but the amount of time it takes to drop, fire motor, and start guiding made it kind of dangerous. Sparrow is a bit better close in if it's a post-E model (F, M, P). Phoenix probably was carried in the Med, but most of the engagements/encounters your hear about (Fitter and Flogger shoot-downs, airliner intercept) were done with aircraft configured for fighting, not interception. With respect to your last question, your ILS mode should automatically engage when you get to Waypoint 10 if your HUD is in navigation mode.

Stratos, How's the dogfighting coming? Find anything useful?

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Rudders are most helpful in the slow fight (~90-180KIAS), but yes, in a turn, you can use them to quickly adjust the nose off of your current plane of turn and sweeten your gun solution. I think in the "A" you want a bit more energy if you're going for the vertical fight, so I'd keep closer to 450KIAS entering speed since those TF-30's don't push the bird anywhere near as well as the F110's. For the F-14B/D, you can keep the aircraft in the same regions of speed as the F-14A, but you'll notice you've got more sustainable "g" available to you (and hence, better sustained turn rate), thanks to the better thrust. Instantaneous is roughly the same for either aircraft, since the configuration is almost totally unchanged between the two (glove vanes removed, and those only pop out at around 1.4M). Also, the extra thrust of the GE engines makes the F-14B/D a lot easier to fight with at slow speeds. I recall fighting against some nimble little adversary who got on my tails and performing a double-Immleman, flaps down. First one got him slower, second one ran him out of energy completely, which led to a guns kill quickly after. Wouldn't have been able to do that with the TF-30's. I used the same thing in an F-15 against a MiG-29 on a different fight, which is in the DACT thread. Generally, in a multi-bandit environment, you don't want to get that slow. It's great for guns only fights, but you need energy to expend if someone's going to start chucking missiles your way!

Just a quick fix to your opening statement: The whole "dogfighting" thing was the reason the Navy killed the F-111B and made the F-14's requirements to be able to do just that. Not to mention of every aerial victory the F-14 has had in Navy service, 4 of 5 were done with AIM-9's at dogfight range. The baseline "A" Tomcat is a better horizontal turner than either the Fishbed or the Flogger (any model) when equipped similarly, even 30,000 pounds heavier. The B/D, depending on altitude will either out-sustain or match turns with the Hornet, Eagle, Falcon, Fulcrum, or Flanker similarly equipped. Problem is, when you get into specific, real-world details, what altitudes, airspeeds, precise loadouts, which airplane against which, etc. people get on edge with words like "OPSEC" and "international restrictions" and "jail time." So keeping it specifically to the game, first, I'd recommend checking the DACT thread. I think I've fought damn near every airplane in that thread in either the F-14A or F-14B/D and come out on top. Cougar also has videos of his entire fights in the F-14A against an F-16 and a Su-27 where he gets either with guns, so those could give you some insight as well. General notes: In the baseline F-14A, fighting against the MiG-21 or -23, I try for a sustained turning fight. I don't need to use the vertical in either a 1 v 1 or 1 v 2, because I know I can out-rate these two. When its a multi-bandit environment, I use both vertical and horizontal, because someone always pops up somewhere and the complexity of the fight increases significantly. Usually, I try to keep the plane between 325 and about 425 KIAS and pay attention to how much "g" I've got on the plane. Higher "g" does not equate to better rate. Higher "g" at lower speed does, so if I can sustain about 5.5-6g down around 325-350KIAS, I can hang with someone doing 8-9g way up in the 500's, AND my circle is smaller. Bear in mind in any fighter as you get higher in altitude, you have lower sustainable "g" - just like in reality, in SF2, engines put out less power as the air gets thinner at higher altitude, so you will have to adjust how hard you're pulling; usually, I try to keep the fight between 500 and 20,000 feet in the F-14A, because above that, the TF-30's are just awful. Flying against the MiG-17 (or Hunter), do not turn. The MiG-17 will out-turn just about every fighter in the US inventory, including the teen-series, unless you get it way the hell up in the contrails. In reality, it couldn't do jack if it got above 450KIAS, so if you were to edit the data.ini to reflect this, you'd have the option of keeping speed up and turning at high airspeeds with it. On the other hand, if you don't, or even if you do and the AI doesn't feel like chasing you that fast, this is one to exploit the vertical against. The baseline F-14A's thrust-to-weight isn't stellar against more modern fighters, but against the MiG-17, Hunter, Mirage III and 5, it is significantly better. Use altitude as an advantage and swoop down on the Fresco. Keep that energy up, sometimes they try to get on your tail and follow you - a few loops and they're out of energy. This is one of the few planes I'll pull the fight higher than 20,000 feet against. Against the MiG-25 or -31, just do whatever the hell you want to. You want to talk about aircraft that can't turn, these are your two. Heck, I turn against them in a hard-wing F-4D without issue! Against a more modern opponent in the F-14A, it really depends on how the AI handles the aircraft. It can't handle the F-14 or F-15 well at all, the F-16 and MiG-29 are usually pretty difficult, while the Su-27 usually pisses away all its airspeed. It can wrench its nose around quick to be sure, but it also ends up a sitting duck fairly quickly. Against the F/A-18A/C, I've noticed I can usually either turn or use the vertical so long as I pay attention to when I'm burning energy for position, and don't have as much difficulty as fighting the F-16 or MiG-29. Fighting against those aircraft is really situationally dependent. The F-16, I'll try to get above him, take the nose down a bit for higher sustained "g," or if I can, get the fight slow, drop flaps AND USE RUDDERS. The latter option is more dangerous against a Fulcrum (higher available pitch), but I've used it successfully. If I'm flying an F-14B/D, it's a totally different story, and I can turn with 'em as well. Hope this gives you some ideas!

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Looks like it's in the description of the original video - no water cooling in JBD 4 (probably 3, too?) so it had to remain down for the F-14's taking off. I recall an airframe type talking about a different incident where the JBD "failed," which led to a similar outcome.

I'm not a lawyer, so take this with a bag of salt, rather than a grain. I don't believe that designations are trademarked, but names are. ThirdWire ran afoul this with the F-104 and C-130 if memory serves (someone correct me if I'm wrong). I believe Namco got around it for its Ace Combat games (up to and including AC4) by using only designations and not names. You won't see "F-14A Tomcat" in Ace Combat until AC5, only "F-14A." From AC5 onward, where aircraft have both designations and names, you'll also notice the Northrop Grumman logo on one of the opening screens, from which Namco licensed the names "F-14 Tomcat" "A-6 Intruder" "EA-6 Prowler" "B-2 Spirit", etc. Same goes for Boeing, Dassault, and the various other companies whose aircraft Namco used. What I'd recommend is talking to a lawyer familiar with trademarks and copyrights about it.

Active Homing Missiles are a bastard to evade, but something I can tell you about Phoenix, if the AI fires at really long range, it's a great thing for you, especially if you have RHAW gear. When the F-14 fires, you won't get a strobe warning, just as you wouldn't in reality until the missile goes active. BUT! You should still see "14" or something to that effect on the RHAW gear, or possibly a vector since he'll still have his radar on. Turn 90 degrees to the attack vector and if the F-14 fired at anything beyond about 60-65NM, the missile should fall short, or have so little energy that if you notice its contrail above you, you should be able to out-maneuver it. Problem is, if you defeat the Phoenix (the AI will likely fire more than one at you), you now have to get through Sparrow range. This is where terrain masking helps. Getting into Sparrow range, the AI will again fire at you, and if you're close enough to the ground, you can get as close as possible to break the missile's lock. From here, pop back up, allow another AIM-7 to be fired at you, then terrain mask again to make it go stupid. I haven't figured out the range at which Sparrow can't reach a target flying 90-degrees angle off in SF2; in reality, it significantly cut the missile's range (from over 20NM to about 8NM reported for the AIM-7F in open sources), but in-game I don't think it's anywhere near that much of a drop. In close, survivability against the AIM-9 depends highly on the model you're going against. If its a pre-Lima, you won't have to worry about face shots and can start mixing it up from the merge. Lima-plus, you have to worry about face shots. Flares help, angle-off at short range helps, but in TW, those missiles are pretty much death rays if you don't have flares.