streakeagle

Congratulations on your return home! If CombatAce and Strike Fighters have been around long enough for an 8th grader to grow up, go off to war, and come home, then I must be getting pretty old.

Supply, demand, and the quality of the firearm. You can get 1911's in all flavors, but if you are going to carry it concealed as I did, you want it to be as reliable and accurate as possible. I bought my base Springfield Armory 1911A1 for about $530 in San Diego way back in 1995 or 96. By the time I was done upgrading it, I had spent a total of $2,000 with the labor of a reputable local gunsmith being a part of that cost. My Colt Sporter H-Bar was only $900, I added a scope and a bipod for less than $200. The rifle uses far more material and is inherently the better weapon both in terms of accuracy and overall effectiveness. But I can carry the pistol anywhere and be fairly sure it won't jam (throated feed, hard recoil spring), won't accidently pinch me (beaver tail grip safety), hits where I want it to (has snag free sturdy sights and a guiderod for consistent repeatable slide motion), and smooth trigger pull riding the line between too light and just right. Unfortunately for me, I had found out about the brand new Kimber 1911's just a little too late: everything I had paid $2,000 for only $600. I could have had two Kimbers and some money to party hardy for what I put into my one Springfield.

By restricting the F-15C to AIM-7M and AIM-9P and flying against MiG-23s, I get something much closer to my preferred style of dogfight than engaging MiG-29s and Su-27s while carrying AIM-120B/C missiles. The experience is somewhat comparable to flying SF2 Europe F-15A vs MiG-23s in the mid 1970s. My one complaint is that the AI in SF2 is far more aggressive and accurate when it comes to close-in dogfights. I would love to be able to tune/specify AI dogfight skills/tactics in DCS ranging from novices barely able to take off and navigate to aces that push the envelope to the edge in every dimension. The party really starts once the MiG-21 is released, then I can fly almost 100% historically appropriate aircraft against each other as a pilot from either side.

Gaining proficiency in beating the 2xSu-27s with only AIM-7Ms and AIM-9Ps. My flying/evasion/weapons/countermeasure employment hasn't gotten much if any better. But I am learning how to read the AI's intentions and exploit his moves. There are a couple of alternatives depending on how the AI reacts to my first AIM-7M shot. He usually turns away and loses his lock on me before his missile gets me, then either he turns back towards me and allows a nearly optimum short range AIM-7 shot or he runs away trying to drag me for his wingman. If I get him quick with an AIM-7, I struggle to find the wingman before the wingman gets me. If he runs, I try to shift targets and kill the wingman with an optimum short range AIM-7 shot. But then I have to struggle to figure out where the leader is before he shoots me. If they get an AA-11 off before I can threaten them with an AIM-7 shot, I almost always die. But when I have managed to maintain situational awareness and/or just gotten a lucky auto acquisition while pulling my nose around, I can kill the wingman quick for no damage. In SF2, I would simply go low, give them my beam, and watch them waste their missiles trying to hit a nearly impossible target. When they got close enough, I would enter a turn fight and patiently wait for a good tail aspect shot. But the DCS AI is really good at handling this: they get in close, use IR and/or helmet sights to make AA-11 shots to kill me quick. So, when it comes to missile combat, I can see the DCS AI using tactics good enough to beat me, particularly when they outnumber me 2:1. If the DCS AI could manage at least a 50% win rate in 1 vs 1 BVR fights with the above loadouts, I would call it pretty good since the Su-27 and its AA-10C/AA-11 missiles are a bit better than the F-15C with the AIM-7M and AIM-9P. It is only when I close to gun range that I see the DCS AI lose almost every time, even when they outnumber 4:1. Of course, SF2 is the other way around. Hard to get the AI to use missiles correctly, but great in a close-in gunfight.

Great details on what is under the hood of the 1.2.8 beta F-15C AFM is here: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/products/eagle/ I truly understand the work that has gone into this. I don't bother with DCS beta testing... that is for people with time to kill and don't mind being frustrated by major glitches. I can't wait until the major bugs are ironed out and I get to try the release version. I hope that a full DCS: F-15C is in the near future. In the absence of the MiG-21bis and no plans for an F-4, the F-15C is going to get some time from me if I like the flight model as much as I like the UH-1H, Mi-8MTV2, Ka-50, P-51D, and A-10C. I am thrilled by the possibility of flying an Su-27 with a reasonable flight model with an unscripted accurate Cobra maneuver! I hope Edge comes out soon, too. I want the performance gains and new maps. Red Flag with F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s flying against each other sounds fun to me: a beautiful and historically correct map combined with the aircraft that dominated a generation of combat aviation.

I am primarily a fly-boy, so I don't spend too much time on SB, but it is worth the price... and I haven't even done the best part yet: multiplayer. I like it both for hard-core first-person tanking and as a modern substitute for tactical board games / miniatures rules I used to play in the 1980s/1990s where you are a company or battalion commander trying to stop the Soviet hordes coming through the Fulda gap. Just playing the gunnery practice missions is good fun and the better score you get the better your AI troops will perform (their training level reflects your training level). Instant action with a lone M1A1 trying to stop an advancing Soviet column is great for the feel of playing the old Battlezone arcade game, but with realistic physics and graphics. But playing a mission where you have pre-program a battle plan, then adjust that battle plan in real time to adapt to the current situation is fantastic... and you can still jump in tanks/apcs to take part in the shooting/driving. I will say that it takes time to get proficient with battle planning, managing all the platoons, and making the artillery calls. I am still not all that good at timing my artillery fire. I don't play enough to compete against humans, but I always play on the hardest settings, which apparently makes the AI way better than real troops would normally be. I love the challenge. If the M60A3 ever becomes a fully modeled manned vehicle, or better yet the M60A1 is added and modeled to that level, it will get a lot more of my time. As a commander, I love to try to win a scenario with M60A3s that is incredibly difficult to win using M1A1s. I can almost do it. If I could man the M60A3s and shoot during critical moments like I do with M1A1s, I think I might even finally get a victory. Every now and then, I spend a week or two on Steel Beasts. The high initial purchase price is a one-time fee, and the paid upgrades are few and far between and easily worth the typically $25 cost. But OFP/ArmA is a lot more accessible for the not-so-hard core types and allows everyone to do what they like: snipe, run-n-gun, tank. fly helos, fly planes, etc. But the flight sims have gotten so good and my spare time has gotten so much smaller that I play Steel Beasts a lot more than the OFP/ArmA series. I really love the hard core sims and will gladly split my limited solo PC time between flying DCS P-51D, UH-1H, and FC3 F-15C, MiG-29, Su-27 with some SF2 F-4, F-105, MiG-21, and MiG-23 time thrown in for good measure. As the FC3 F-15C isn't modeled all that well yet and is easy to employ in combat, I mainly fly the old DACT missions I imported from LOMAC/FC2 which I modified to permit MiG-29 and Su-27 DACT missions, too. Whereas, the P-51D and UH-1H get a mix of cold start training and combat missions. I can spend hours just tooling around in the UH-1H to see where I can land without crashing. I see ED realized the problem in calling it the DCS F-15C and have reverted to the FC label. They really should have created a new category since it is still FC level avionics but has a max detail DCS level flight model. I am quite sure the level of effort they have put into the flight model and associated systems modeling easily justifies charging FC customers for the upgrade. But since it is going to remain freebie delivered with FC3, it is fair to give it an FC label.

As currently implemented in SF2, I like them a lot. I don't believe there is enough accurate information to say how good they actually were/are. Beyond the small warhead, which always is a problem, the fact that they are rather short ranged puts them at a big disadvantage when facing enemies with AIM-9L/M or better weapons. But, their maneuverability gives them an excellent engagement envelope if you do manage to get in close enough to fire. Firing at short ranges also gives the target less time see the shot and deploy flares. But small size might not only limit range and warhead, it may mean a simpler seeker that is more susceptible to countermeasures and/or less able to discriminate the target against background heat such as clouds/ground. It would be cool if a government with access to both AIM-9s and AA-8s could afford to do comparative analysis with real-world shots against QF-4s or similar. I would love to know the truth rather than the propaganda always touted by both sides.

I bought Combined Arms, but I haven't even tried it. When I want to drive tanks, I play Steel Beasts Pro PE. If I ever get around to actually playing DCS World online, I like the idea of being able to man SAMs. I would love it if the DCS World SAMs had the option to be up to the same level of detail and realism as the free SAM simulator. As it stands now, I have more sims to play than I have time to play them. I have primarily been cycling between DCS P-51D, UH-1H, and F-15C with some F-4 and F-105 time in SF2, a bit of offline time in Aces High, and a touch of Steel Beasts. I almost haven't touched ArmA2 and OFP GOTY at all.

I know a lot of aircraft are constrained by unmodeled systems: radar and various avionics not present on any existing DCS level aircraft. The F-15C should at least have educated ED if not 3rd parties on transonic/supersonic aerodynamics, particularly the transonic region where published data is minimal and linear mathematical modeling is inaccurate. Of course, I want the F-4 and many others want the F-14, and that is further complicated by the 2-seat issue. Multiplayer backseat support as full DCS level would be nice to have, but ED support game play when a backseater is unavailable. Of course, the SF2 approach for allowing the pilot to easily manipulate the radar/weapon/navigation systems as if he was giving simple commands to a skilled back seater is an easy way to go that avoids the need to develop complex AI. I don't expect to see a proper two-seater with a RIO/WSO any time soon... if ever. The progress on the UH-1H co-pilot/gunners has been impressive, if somewhat limited compared to a RIO/WSO in a supersonic interceptor with radar. It was interesting to see that A2A first postponed its F-4 to develop an F-104, then sidelined both with the present plan to attempt a T-33 when time permits. I am guessing that modeling jet engines and transonic/supersonic flight at the level A2A likes to achieve is presently far beyond their time/manpower/knowledge level. Whereas their target audience is pretty much just as happy getting Piper Cubs, Cessna 172s, and unarmed WW2 aircraft. I can't blame them for focusing on readily achievable goals that will be highly profitable. The complexity of the F-4 will only appeal to a very small niche. Why must I be that small niche? If it wasn't for TK, I would be stuck flying Jane's Fighters Anthology, Jane's USAF, or flying an F-16 reskinned as an F-4 in Falcon BMS. There is a reason SF2 was the number one sim on my hard drive for a decade and even now gets 25-50% of my PC flying time.

Even with the limitations of the current DCS AI, using a single F-15C with 4xAIM-7M/4xAIM-9P against 2xSu-27 with R-27ET/R-27ER/AA-11 pushes my limits. Even exploiting the AI response to the AIM-7M launch on the leader, sometimes I get shot in the face before I can get even one kill. I usually kill one of them, but die looking for the other one. But I finally got them as good as I get the MiG-23 and MiG-29: only one shot at me with no hits on me, clean kills on them: 3 x AIM-7M at the leader, then came around and found the wingman before he fired on me and used the last AIM-7M to get him to turn and run. Closed while he was climbing vertically to reverse back into me, fired an AIM-9P. Shot him with guns just before the AIM-9P hit... he couldn't be more dead. In SF2, I can notch my opponents radar and make them miss at will with radar missiles. Having a lot harder time dodging missiles once I go on the defensive in DCS. Once they get in close enough for them to unleash AA-11s, I pretty much die after burning up my E and losing my SA dodging AA-10s. In Vietnam/Israel era combat the missiles aren't nearly as likely to hit as long as you don't fly straight and their smoke trails make them much easier to spot/evade. So you have more options to disengage, re-engage, or simply press the attack with very little regard for the missiles. Flying a gunless brick against an agile gunfighter makes for some of the most challenging and fun dogfights, the sooner DCS gets some early to mid Cold War Era planes in the mix, the happier I will be. Really sad that the F-104G project was abandoned and it doesn't sound like Leatherneck is going to do the MiG-23MF anytime soon. So for now, I am eagerly awaiting the final release of the F-15C AFM and look forward to the F-86.

SF2 AI has a long and sordid history. For the longest time, the best AI dogfight logic was in SFP1 SP2a. From the release of WoV until the release of WoI (quite a few years), the AI could hit me with guns if I flew in front of it in a straight line. From WoI on to the present patch revision of SF2NA, it generally continued to improve, or at least remain as good as it was. In some areas, it is still too stupid. In some areas it is has been made too smart. I have never like the fact that the AI will automatically drop whatever it is doing to engage you if you padlock/target him. This was done to make the dogfights more interesting and challenging for the player instead of having most of the action take place between AI opponents. It makes the game more like a movie where you are the star/hero and get to hog all the glory. Additionally, the AI at some point lost visual arc restrictions. You can approach low and from his dead 6 when he is the only plane in the sky and he will react as if he can see you, even if he has no RWR or your radar is off. This was another fix to address the complaint about AI tending to fly straight and level when you attacked them from behind, never reacting to your shots or their exploding wingmen. But for all the flaws/cheats to make the game "better" for the player, the AI can't see through clouds and will use somewhat appropriate tactics and skill to engage you. I can beat an F-15A fairly consistently while flying a MiG-21bis or MiG-23MF, which shows that the AI can't fly the F-15A as well as it should when set to max pilot quality... but to be fair, I have to fly very low, be very patient, and carefully use doppler notch techniques just to get within dogfight range, then fly nearly perfect hi yo-yo and lo yo-yo maneuvers to slowly gain an angle advantage and try to work in a shot before running out of fuel. Saying I can win consistently is not the same as saying I can win easily! In DCS, when I fly the F-15C against MiG-23s, MiG-29s, and Su-27s or fly the MiG-29/Su-27 against F-4Es, F-15Cs, and F-16Cs, the AI flies in a way that seems more defensive. I don't always win, but I easily end up on the tail of my target and his wingman (wingmen when I do 1 vs 4 fights) usually leaves me alone until after I have killed the flight leader. When I die, it is because I got too focused on killing the flight leader and lost track of where the wingman/wingmen went. The AI is so predictable, that I can derive a formula for winning that will work every time as long as I don't make any big mistakes, especially not losing situational awareness while engaging/killing any one target. Basic rules for me to win in DCS with an F-15C: 1) Lock on and kill the leader first. He is the only one really trying to get you. 2) Engage at long range in a way that the target knows you have fired, i.e. use STT and an AIM-7M. The target will immediately turn to break the lock/evade the missile. He will lose lock on you and any radar guided missiles he has launched will go ballistic. 3) If you have the patience/balls to hold AIM-7 fire until it is within optimum launch range and successfully hit on the first shot, you will have plenty of time to go into vertical aquisition mode and roll left to lockup and shoot the lead's wingman. If you have done this quickly and correctly in a 1 vs 2 situation, you will never even get to dogfight. Both bogeys will get an AIM-7M in the face and you should be undamaged. I can replicate this over and over: fire AIM-7, watch bandit break and dive left, and wait for results, then roll left and hunt down survivors one at a time. Whereas if he had some balls, he would maintain lock and watch the missile he launched well ahead of my launch force me to break my lock on him to evade and possibly get killed. As long as he has exactly the same response to my actions, I can push him into my weapons. If I can get the job done quickly, the surviving wingman/wingmen will never get a shot off on me.

While I am eager to try the AFM, my beta testing days are over. I will wait for the release version and hope that most if not all of the bugs are squashed. From all the beta posts, sounds like it is going to be both challenging and fun just like the other AFM aircraft. I just hope it ends up being reasonably realistic as well.

Racked up another year, blech! Happy Birthday!

Every red-blooded ex-military American should have a 1911 and an AR-15 :) I have had the AR-15 since I got my $4,000 ($3,200 after tax) Navy Sonar A-school bonus in the spring of 1990 (bought and stored by my father in Florida). I got the 1911 in 1995 when I moved off base (at which point, I had the rifle mailed to me).

It seems the pilot name may be correct despite the incorrect identification with the 51st FG: Commander of the 1st Air Commando Group: http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/Biographies/Display/tabid/225/Article/106876/brigadier-general-robert-w-hall.aspx

I concur per this image, but why are there so many references to the contrary?

Colonel Robert Hall ,25th Fighter Squadron, 51st Fighter Group, 14th Air Force, Kunming, China 1945 Try this: http://www.ipmscanada.com/ipms/Member%20Models/Lutz/Lutz_Page/P-51.html An actual photo of the same aircraft:

My son used to love the Jaguar. After the A-10, it was his favorite jet.

In SFP1, you could assign a negative fuel flow value to an engine. So I think they rigged it so you refilled your fuel tank by entering the throttle setting where flow was negative or something similar. Zerocinco was somewhat irritated by the fact that TK patched the code to eliminate negative fuel flow. TK was merely fixing a bug, but 05 took it personal as if TK was trying to hurt his business model by releasing patches/new games that were incompatible with his previous work. To be fair, Razbam finally gave up since patches were coming out too frequently and breaking their SF payware, too. Ironically, just as Razbam gave up, SF2 has become extremely stable. I really wish the market would have supported the SF series better. For the longest time the SF series was steadily progressing into a better game and sim. The sudden stop is sad and frustrating.

Just one problem after another... but then that's what life seems to be all about. Just some people seem to get more than their fair share of problems. Small complication... but progress nonetheless. I don't envy you having to take all those medicines (or all the problems that require the medicines for that matter). Sometimes the cure can be as bad or worse than the disease! Look on the bright side, surely by the time you are over all of this and feeling better, some new flight sim or addon you like will have been released and you can have some fun trying it out.

Not much can be said other than I am sorry. At least the long stretch of suffering is over so the healing can begin for everyone else. You have had a stressful stretch of years. I hope this will mark a turn toward good times for a long while after you and your family have recovered from this sad, painful loss.

I am sorry the I5 is too pricey for you, as it is the way to go. The 3750K proved to be a great choice for me. I am not an overclocker, but my ASUS motherboard/tuning software made it easy to safely squeeze additional performance out of it without aftermarket cooling or stability issues. The I3 isn't that much worse than the I5. I loved my old AMD Athlon 64, but Intel has been smoking AMD on performance since Core2Duo and even ties or wins on cost effectiveness for gaming with the "cheap" I3 rivaling the best of the AMD processors and the I5 outright beating them. The dilemma I faced was whether to get the I5 or I7, and from everything I read, the key difference was Hyperthreading, which needs to be turned off for gaming to avoid latency issues giving the I7 only a small advantage on memory cache and stock clock speeds. So I settled on the I5 as the best bang for the buck. Most games only use 1 or 2 cores, or at most 4 cores. So going for 6 or more cores isn't particularly cost effective for gaming.

I have never focused on modern aircraft, my focus for Jane's FA, Jane's USAF, and SF series has been to fly Vietnam era aircraft, so I haven't ever installed or played the ODS mod for SF. I am curious. Looking at the screen shots, it looks like flying the F-15E in SF2 rivals/exceeds flying it in Jane's USAF, leaving multiplayer and refueling as the only major features missing compared to Jane's USAF. I never played Jane's F-15E much. The graphics, even when played on a Voodoo 5500, were just too terrible for me (melting mountains were the most annoying thing). Jane's F/A-18 never held my attention long either. I didn't enjoy flying the Super Hornet, I wanted the more agile F/A-18A or F/A-18C as I favor air-to-air over ground pounding. The SF series was the right game at the right time for me, it just took a long time for it to expand its feature set and squash the bugs: SAMs, ECM, clouds, aircraft carriers, and repeated tweaks to FM and AI. Even now, SF2 is the only game to fly if you want to fly combat in Cold War era aircraft.

Even without those features, SF2 already has that title in my opinion. No other combat flight sim since Jane's Fighters Anthology has permitted such a large planeset to be enjoyed over such a large terrain set. The stock options alone are impressive... add in what you can download for free from CombatAce and buy from RAZBAM or YAP, and you have the combat flight sim equivalent to MS Flight Sim. The next closest survey sim is Jane's USAF, and even in its most heavily modded SuperPro form, it never even came close to what the SFP1/SF2 series offered. The multiplayer issue can be partially fixed by going back to SFP1/WoX. For a sacrifice in graphics, electronic warfare detail/accuracy, and AI behavior, you can have enjoy co-op or deathmatch gameplay. The early SF2 3d models can be imported into Wings Over Israel when it has the Expansion Pack 1 installed. That's right, you can have multiplayer AND SF2 aircraft/cockpit models, but the RWR functionality has to be retrograded to the SFP1/WoX level. Multiplayer was unpopular with the majority of the original fanbase for SFP1/SF2. Go to his forum. You can see that in later years, almost anytime I posted anything at all advocating multiplayer or even simply responded to someone elses post about mutliplayer, one or more anti-multiplayer fans would chime in requesting me to shut up. For some reason, the changes they wanted outranked my interest in the improvement or (after the release of SF2) return of multiplayer. TK assessed that the cost effectiveness/profitability of programming multiplayer (as opposed to shoehorning in a basic DirectPlay interface per SFP1) just wasn't there. He always stressed how much of a minority the online crowd was but I suspect the flip side of the coin is that TK lacked the skills/experience necessary. Achieving anything like other mainstream multiplayer flight sims in terms of net code efficiency would take too much time to expand his knowlege or too much money to hire someone else. Instead, he struggled to improve the terrain graphics per the majority of fan requests, and still bankrupted himself. Now SF2 fans are left with a new terrain/environment system that is not particularly mod friendly, doesn't support large maps, causes a big hit on performance, and will never be improved due to SF2 game development apparently being frozen indefinitely. Many people don't even play with the latest patch level because of some problems that it causes that won't be fixed. All "new" modder terrains still use the original map system. In fact, modders duplicated the Iceland map of SF2NA to improve performance for those having problems with the new Iceland map. Perhaps SF2NA would have been equally successful in terms of sales, but more profitable due to reduced costs if just the F-14 and naval operations had been added? Now the only news from TK is when another plane is added to one of the mobile apps. The mobile apps could be more fun if they had multiplayer, too! Simple head to head fighting like the SFP1 deathmatch could be fun.