FightingFulcrum

I used to have fun with a few friends in WoEs simple multiplayer modes, you couldn't take off, or adjust your loadout, but it was still very fun to fly with a friend. I noticed the stock Germany terrain would cause lots of lag but if we switched to Israel, bering strait, etc the multiplayer would run very smoothly with good pings. The MP mission generator was a bit more powerful than it seemed at first, it was cool being able to have a mix of AI and player planes on both sides of the scenario. Having to escort MP bombers with AI backing you up against 2 or 3 friends in fighters with a few AI behind them was a lot of fun, I'm guessing there were major changes to the code somewhere that broke MP and since not many people used it and it was basic TK decided to cut it in the meantime? In my honest opinion the old MP setup was good enough, allow players or at least the flight leader to select their loadouts, as well as allowing us to take off together, you would not even have to do the taxing, I think having it to all player aircraft started on the runway in a formation for multiple takeoffs would not also be easier but would look cool as hell, there is an addon for this I just remembered I have to get, it feels kinda silly when you're going for a full afterburner blast to intercept nearby targets and the planes slowly take off one by one.

Damn that sucks about them killing directplay, and yeah the multiplayer thing is sort of a catch 22, it accounted for a small amount of sales because it was a small part of the game, but at the same time if it was more fleshed out there would be more interest in it. If you build it, they will come

Hello guys, I'm a big MiG-23 guy, I fly it a lot even though its cockpit is pretty outdated, and its a shame theres no way to properly simulate the radar display in the hud, but I've had a hard time in fighter to fighter combat with this guy. It seems when fighting in a "conventional" manner in a head on engagement with radar guided missiles, especially in early floggers it is suicide against F-4 phantoms, it varies with other planes, but for the most part radar missiles are tricky to use without either missing or getting shot down. Recently I have had success flying newer model Floggers with all aspect IR missiles, for a while I experimented with Floggers loaded with nothing but AA-8 Aphid all aspect missiles and keeping my radar off/flying solo. Once I knew the bering of the enemy I would come in low and fast avoiding being spotted hopefully and at the very least radar lock/missiles, then when I was close I would be going full burner and use the MiG-23s excellent climb to come up right in the middle of their formation or infront and hit a plane or two with AA-8s, and consider to keep my speed up and yo yo/slash until there is only one or maybe two other planes left and depending on the model I can dispatch them pretty easy in different ways. That or flying solo and sneaking up from behind/side/low and then coming in fast and hitting them with AA-8s close. I've even managed to take out multiple F-15s this way with a bit of luck haha, also I just found out the R-24T is all aspect so I'm going to experiment with that to see if I can extend my range a bit. This is all good for the newer floggers but what about when I only have perhaps 2 AA-2 for up close, and have to make my R-23s/R24s count? What is the best tactic? It seems flying with wingmen in suicide as in a battle with F-4s they just unload tons of radar guided missiles at me while we're shooting ours and its a crapshoot. Thank you

Awesome! The more flogger pilots the better, now hopefully we'll get MP back soon so I can try out my skills online! Found this going through an old photobucket if anybody wants a cool Flogger phone background

Cool! Would be even more cool with some old night fighter WWII style radar antennae up front

4 x MiG-23Ms tangle with 4x F-35A Drakens over Denmark. I grabbed 2 kills one R-23, one R-60, one wingman gained a single R-23 kill, and the third wingman gained 1 R60 kill and I think an additional R-23 kill of a target of opportunity. Although I guess an early Draken isn't the most fair opponent, it is nice to be flying the MiG-23 and not only bagging kills and making it home, but so are my wingman at times haha.

Thanks! I've read a little bit of Red Eagles mostly the MiG-23 parts, but yeah thats pretty much the tactics I've been using, except on earlier models I can turn fight decently well with Phantoms, but other than that slashing attacks. My personal best record was 4 or 5 F-15As in the early 80s iirc. I used my wingman as decoys and closed fast and low and then came in close using nothing but R-62Ks I think it was. I managed to surprise them and tear them apart but there was also a lot of luck haha, but in a low intensity environment I can usually pull off a 2 on 2 contact bagging at least 1 kill and getting home. I know the earliest cockpit/avionics suite is not the most accurate, but I prefer it strongly to the SU-17 pit. Personally I would like one of the nice later MiG-21 pits such as the one that is all black with the orange radar down in the center, but really the most important thing would be a working RWR, if not the Sirena than the older model like used on the SU-15TM. Waiting till I get lit up and then asking the GCI and/or checking the map feels kinda gamey. Perhaps if the "vector to nearest thread and target" radio calls gave you more info that would be cool. I know in the American airforce at least radar operators were trained to detect a type of plane based on its suspected electronic signature. Perhaps it could start out vague with "fighter sized or bomber sized" and then maybe move up to a "modern" fighter or an out of date model, depending on the strength of the radar output and such coming off of it and if the conditions were right your GCI operator could tell you "Suspected F4 Phantom/MiG-21 etc at 10 o clock angels 5", also another idea apart from Nearest Threat and Objective, perhaps also the ability to ask for a vector to what is considered the highest value target in the area.

Just flew my first mission of the day, CAP over the Bering Strait in 1973. Flying 4xMiG-23M Early Model. Travelled to my objective point and was notified by GCI of 4 F-4E Phantoms to the North heading south right for us, and also 2 CF-104s about the same distance to the South heading North. I decide to engage the Phantoms first and turn north. We come at them head on in a straight fight, I lock the lead plane well within missile range and fire my first R-23R it fails to track, fire my second and last R-23 it tracks perfect and flies up smashing right into the underside of the lead Phantom a few hundred feet above me just after it fires a radar missile at one of my wingmen. I turn around and am greeted with another Phantom heading right for me and above very close, he doesn't have time to get a missile lock on me and I fire a few gun bursts in his general direction but nothing. I start to turn hard just before he passes me and I manage to get right in above and behind him. I follow him for a bit until I get a good tone with my AA-8 and fire and smoke him. At this point I am surprised to hear that none of my other wingman have taken a hit, and the other two Phantoms were either killed by other AI planes in the area, crashed, or managed to flee and get off radar in the area. I ask my ground station for the vector to the next nearest threat and they direct me to the CF-104s. After a few minutes we get in right behind them without them noticing as they start to make their trip back over to Alaska. I fire one AA-8 but it fails to track, I'm all out of missiles so I come in fast and strafe him with the 23MM at just under Mach 1 and blow him to pieces, I live on the West coast of Canada so I hope that wasnt anybody I know's parents or grandparents haha. As I blow past I look back at his wingman just as one of my wingman calls "Fox 1" and a few seconds later he also explodes and goes into the freezing ocean. Me and my full squad return home and I am surprised to fly a MiG-23 mission where we went head to head with a group of Phantoms 4 on 4 and left without a single scratch and had enough ammo left to bag those two star fighters on the way home, and although I have to agree the ML is a much better handling plane, the M with the additional fuel tank as well as a full load of drop tanks has a pretty nice fuel load.I had barely touched my internal tanks by the time I got home. Now that I'm getting better with the MiG-23s perhaps I'll start recording a couple missions in more detail for the after action report thread. BTW, thanks for the link to the Flogger downloads, I found a nice set of skins for both the early and Ser 23 MiG-23M, these gray skins look much nicer than the ones included.

I fly all sorts of planes but mainly Soviet. My favorite and one I spend the most time in is the MiG-23. I've noticed the AA-2s are near useless, but the AA-8 is much better, and the all aspect AA-8 is a fine missile, but no super weapon thats for sure. I rarely use the long range IR missiles except I have just started experimenting with the R-24T and had a few kills, but I just found out about it being all aspect so I'm not too certain on that one. I've noticed that some of the Russian semi-active missiles seem to need to be improved. Paticularly the older ones like the ones carried on the SU-15TM. That is another plane I have had almost no luck with, and also there is a problem with its radar display, I had the same problem in WoE but fixed it, but I can't remember how, the radar works ok but displays incorrectly, objects are in the wrong spot. I'm not sure if all the missiles I'm using are Thirdwires or part of some addon I have, I know the MiG-23 pack comes with addon missiles, should I be using those or the default thirdwire missiles for more realistic performance, although by realistic I don't mean western propaganda stats haha. If you would like me to test out certain missiles I can for you, I have a lot of experience flying the MiG-23 too. Oh yeah I just remembered story about AA-2 missile, I was flying MiG-23 mission in I think late 70s, I got caught up against Phantoms 2 on like 6 and although me and my wingman got a few it ended up being about 3 on 1 for me, I called in backup from Red Crown and got it but I noticed these planes showed up with AA-2 missiles iirc, After the Phantoms were killed a few slow moving planes I cant remember that were on their way home from a ground attack mission got caught up in the middle of the AI floggers. The 2 of them flew around at like 140 kts while they each got about 3-4 IR missiles fired at them and 1-2 SAR missiles fired at them before they died EACH. Now I don't have that bad of luck with missiles personally so perhaps it has to do with the AI too, but you can't tell me that missiles fired from MiG-23 in the 70s are so bad it takes 4 or 5 shots just to down a plane moving at very slow speeds.

Thanks for the help guys. I was using the speed listed on the little info box on the bottom left of the screen,and I was flying much lower than 37,000 though. I was curious because I was chasing an addon Mirage F1 in I think a MiG-23PD one of the lighter models, and he was outclimbing and outrunning me like I wasnt even there, and then after I gave it in a straight line, I think fairly high and couldn't get much over mach 1 even with no weapons left iirc.

I fly warsaw pact, and I can say at least with Russian stuff all aspect missiles are not overpowered, I still have to make sure I am firing in reasonable conditions or the missile will almost certainly miss, especially if its a later model F-4 or something that starts popping flares.

I'll have to check that out! Been having some successes with the earliest MiG-23 available, I like its MiG-21 cockpit with an actual radarscope better than the Su-17 pit, also it is a lot heavier to throw around but having a whole other fuel tank is very nice as it lets you stay on that burner better. This mission I bagged 1 R-23R kill, 1 AA-8 Aphid kill, and 2 gun kills, I've been flying in 1973 I think it is first year the AA-8 becomes available as I cant stand the AA-2. We lost all 5 of my wingman though in order to bag 6 Phantoms. The guy in the picture decided to chase me home with his wingman an try to bag two landing planes, but me and a random AI plane sorted them out, although when I landed from being out of ammo there was another Phantom that had come up to try and avenge them. I've been using my general tactic of flying along the waypoints until my GCI station gives me a bering on a target. If it looks like I can come up behind them I will, if its a head on engagement I will stay level until my RWR starts going off and then I will go low to close the gap, and then pop up once my R-23s are in range and bag 1 or 2 planes with those, and then try to get in behind someone with the AA-8s. I've also been not turning on my radar until I am basically certain I have a target infront of me and then lock them up right away and fire, as it was done in real life for the most part, and I've been having much more success than turning my radar on early and trying to get a lock ASAP. This is all on full realism by the way except for the target indicators and such, and I have the radar box on to sort of simulate the radar on hud of the Flogger. Also by the way, does anyone know some good MiG-23 skins? Preferably for the M/ML Soviet floggers. I haven't really tried the export models much but I can't imagine downgraded avionics making my job much easier. Also is it just me or do the addon Floggers have a hard time getting over about 1.1/1.2 mach, is this realistic when I am travelling with a full fuel and weapons load? It seems even when I just have my guns and my drop tanks dropped I'm still not much faster,

Very cool! The Harrier looks natural in those colours and seems like a realistic choice for them in a situation where they had a bigger military. Now perhaps we need some Yak-38s in Chinese, or beat up North Korean livery. Actually at one point the PLAF was looking at acquiring the Harrier, perhaps another idea for a skin?

Thanks guys I used to fly full realism back in the WoE days but nowadays I'm playing on a laptop, although I should probably try to get back into the habit of using the padlock views but on this computer I have to hit function with the F keys to change views so doing it on the fly is pretty tricky haha. Either way I'll guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, this is the one of the few games where the MiG-23 is flyable, and it is a good game at that so I'm probably going to be sticking with it for awhile haha.

MiG-23ML gun kill on F-15A. The first burst I landed just set his left engine on fire. I pulled away and expected a kill but the fire went out and he tried to escape on one engine so I had to finish him off. This was during a CAP where me and one wingman jumped 2 F-15As from behind, the first got hit with 3 R-24Ts and 1 AA-8 Aphid, I used my remaining 3 AA-8s trying to take out his wingman, but despite 3 decent shots back to back he got lucky haha. Not lucky enough though!

Really like this one! One of my favorites since the SF1 days, the cockpit is awesome with all the functioning lights and switches and stuff. Does anyone have the PDF file lying around from the SF1 version that explains the cockpit in detail? The only thing I'm wondering about is the radar display, is that accurate to the real thing? It seems a bit strange with the two lines that jump around the display, also I've noticed some planes have a mark on the radar that you put the locked up plane in that helps you fly a proper intercept course, does this aircraft have that in real life?

Stary could you please tell me where the fuel gauge is on this cockpit as well as your normal MiG-19 and MiG-17PFU cockpit? Thank you for this great work, I'm having tons of fun doing intercepts with the MiG-17PFU against bombers and MiG-19 flights, I'm downloading the stuff right now to install this cockpit on the MiG-19PM missile armed version. i love intercepting bombers over the excellent Korea map in the late 50s/early 60s, pretending the war didn't end and simulating Soviet interceptors and pilots sent to North Korea in North Korean markings to help, just as in the early days of Korean war Soviet pilots were sent to help as North Korea had very few pilots. This is why in the opening days of the war the MiG-15 did much better against the Sabres, once Soviet aces were replaced with inexperienced North Korean pilots the Americans had much more luck. I would also like to add that your MiG-17PFU flight model is very realistic, I was reading how during Vietnam war MiG-19s were sent as MiG-17 could not intercept B-52s effectively, trying ingame to intercept B-52 in the MiG-17 at 30,000 feet is very difficult as one you finally get to height your engines are so weak that you must use full afterburner to catch up to the B-52s and even just barely, MiG-19 is much better at this.