Mr_Tayto

On that note I'm sure I read somewhere that the Shrike "growled" like a sidewinder when it had a target, but it doesn't in game. Can anyone confirm this? @Eagle114th I'm delighted you got this sorted out

If anyone wants to talk about SF2 (and other Sims) in a grown-up and enthusiastic space, the YouTube SF2 streamer Devin Horner made a discord earlier this year (at my suggestion), because apart from this place there's really nowhere else. You can find it here: https://discord.gg/QRqnh9dU I'm a moderator there and very active, so can vouch for it. I'm a member of the TW discord and, while I haven't seen any really bad stuff yet, it isn't great for PC stuff. I also find it really weird the earnestness that people can talk about a mobile game!

Strong little bird, the Scooter!

Does anyone know if this is the same across all aircraft? For unguided bombs, specifically, as I know it changes automatically for guns and rockets. TIA

Welcome! I haven't flown the WW Thuds yet but have many hours in the ThudD, so I'm interested to find out too.

Hey all, I've been practicing in The Range deploying a few different weapons types to try to prepare myself for the inevitable SEAD missions as a 105 driver, but I still have a few questions. - How does one deploy CBU24 without CCIP? Is shallow diving preferred? Given I'm attacking AAA I don't want to get too close to the guns but I have the best results against inert targets in the range in a shallow dive releasing under 3000ft, which is danger close for low calibre weapons. - Is it better to drop two at once until Winchester, or single bombs per target? - Finally, I have graduated(!) to flying without the HUD now I'm comfortable with the instruments in all aircraft. However this makes SEAD very difficult in terms of rendering targets. A good example of this is SAM sites; these are not displayed in game as they were in real life, with obvious "star of David" patterned installations. Often, the first time you see one is the launch tail. It's even worse for gun sites, where you can have a momentary flash or a puff of smoke, but you have to be very low to even see the smoke let alone the gun, and I'm trying to operate above 6000ft until making a run. Any Vietnam guys have any ideas on the above. Before it's mentioned I have seen every Devin Horner video and I still need help!

LtJG Pete Mitchell of VF-84 conducts the interception of a suspected formation of Soviet Tu-16 "Badger" bombers approaching Keflavik, Iceland (September 1979)

Decided to start a new campaign after my guy made himself a surviving and decorated veteran of the 1967 Dhimar emergency. Logically I went Linebacker and the opportunity to stick with the F-4, this time in the F-4E. What immediately struck me is "no internal ECM??" The control box is right there in the cockpit! And Navy Phantoms had ECM from 1966?! Why is this? Also, no chaff? Again chaff dispensers were standard on Navy Phantoms a few years into the war! Of course I can see about 7 different external ECM units I can equip, but how do I choose which one? Also, I want to use LGBs for strategic targets, but given they're in NVN, I can't have a Pave Spike and an ECM unit... Or can I? The loadout screen seems only to offer one choice, and it's either or in the forward Sparrow wells. Someone make it make sense?

Might be a silly question @Nightshade/PR, but are there any campaign mods which include the F/A-18? I haven't checked but I guess ODS will, but I'm looking for carrier campaigns specifically

The first image has just made the penny drop for me as to why the Super Etendard had a droopy nose!

This is great info, I'll try this, thanks!!

Just wondered if you guys had any ideas for managing SF2 mod installs? I downloaded NF5 yesterday and installed it and it nearly maxed out my C: drive. I got a big SSD (my fourth in this machine) the other day and moved every game install out of the C: drive. SF2 and the mods are still the biggest non-Windows group of files. I saw a KB article a while back about a way of moving the mod folders to different drives, are there any other ways or is that the best?

I've done as much as I (think) I can. It's a smallish SSD (250GB). I'm considering cloning a much bigger one

Brilliant post, very entertaining!

Thanks Erik. I'll follow good advice and get the one month sub, in that case.

Now I'm confused @EricJ; you appear to have the GK model and cockpit but your radar screen works?! And the moving map display below it is dark?

Brilliant, thanks! Is this how the radar should look? It doesn't seem to pick out targets (or at least I don;t see them on the scope)

Just one question (now I finally got round to installing) - is this how the radar screen should look? It doesn't seem to work "like a radar", I see no targets on the scan, and it's the same for terrain following. I'm sure I've done something wrong!

This is an old thread, so just take the above as "sharing info" as opposed to continuing to cry for help I am comfortable with bombing both strategic and tactical targets using the above methods and, most importantly, knowing the aircraft (especially the F-4 hardwings). The one thing The Range can't do is prepare you for Hanoi, sadly, because that's where you'll come unstuck if you're new to it. Even with "just" optically and radar-guided AAA, and 1st generation SAMs, it's the deadliest environment I've ever flown in in 30 years of playing combat flight sims. I think part of that might be the "squashed" nature of the map, it's so easy to dodge a SAM and find yourself in a flak box over an active airbase.

Beautiful A-6s Which model, please? I have the ROTI ones and for some reason every model is KA-6 with 5 tanks, with the bombs clipped through them every time! (and the cockpit is a bit buggy)

Oh yes I'm aware, and trust me I have researched this method now to the nth degree to try to maximise effectiveness in SF2, up to an including editing .ini files to adjust the mil settings for A2G mode ; it doesn't work, it's still TLAR bombing whatever you do. I did find a couple of bombing charts for shallow (27deg) and high angle (50deg), the last one by Devin Horner. I find for larger, strategic targets, the 50deg method is fine early war but drops off massively a few months in as SA-2 starts to be quite numerous unless you use Hi-Lo-Hi profiles (i.e. ingress at treetop before climbing above 12k ft to initiate the dive). For smaller targets I find the 27deg works really well as if you get the (stock mil setting) pipper on target at release height, but it leaves you very vulnerable in low-permissive environments like RP5 and 6 because your roll in is 10kft. Imagine doing this 5-8 times, once per target, and how many SAMs get fired at you (let alone AAA) - without an RWR! Sometimes the game feels like an art installation, teaching you about the folly of war and the loss you the flower of American youth. From 1968 onwards (imo) in the F-105D, every flight feels like a suicide mission you're lucky to survive, in the unlikely event you do. EDIT: Almost forgot to share the bombing charts!

That's a pretty neat Idea!