MBot

I've never heard of any Argentine claims to any air-to-air kills, until today, and I've searched everywhere. Unless you've got some links and leads to back those claims up, then I can probably safely say they never happened and was just Argentine propaganda, some of the many that was floating around at the time.

The Argentines have one official confirmed air-air victory. On 28th May Pucara A-537 piloted by Teniente M Gimenez shot down Scout AH1 XT629 by cannon fire ( source: Falklands Air War, Chris Hobson ).

Great to hear :)

Hey, I just wanted to pop in and tell you that I am still watching the progress you make very closely. Like many others do without doubt. I am very excited to see your sim taking shape.

The screenshots of the coastline and Stanley airport look very good. I am impressed how well you managed to capture that cold, "south atlantic" look. Both tumbs up !

One little thing tough. Are the A-4 and Sea Harrier cockpits still placeholders or are they the level you aim at ? Because frankly their textures look a little low-res. Sorry, I guess I am a bit spoiled by LOMAC :) The Pucara WIP screens show extremly nice front panel textures.

And try to spend extra care and ultra high details on the gunsight/HUD/canopy framing area, as you usualy look very close at these parts while zooming in the view to shoot. But now I shut up and don't tell you how to do your job :)

Keep up the good work !

The book is called "Warbird Tech Series Vol.21: Boeing/BAe Harrier" by Dennis R. Jenkins. I ordered it some years ago trough my local book store ( altough I think they imported it from the USA ).

But I wouldn't call it a must have book. It basicaly covers the developement from the first prototype to the Harrier II+, but not in extraordinary detail. The best from the book are some interesting drawings and diagrams, from wich I think I scanned the most interesting ones.

If you can find it easily and have some bucks left, get it. Otherwise I wouldn't run after it :)

Found some pictures in my little library. Perhaps you find them usefull. Keep up te good work.

I can't wait to see the deck crew in action :) Great work, keep up the good progress.

I still can't imagine that the Mirages were held back because of the Vulcans. I am sure that the AAF did the math and calculated to what extend the RAF could mount Vulcan missions to the south. Even if they didn't know exactly that the RAF only could send a single Vulcan every several days to the south, it wouldn't justify to hold back all 15 Mirage III.

The keep 1 or 2 on ready alert would have been more then enough IMO. But even this is questionable.

If you could dig out some argentinan sources about the orders of the Mirages, that would be great.

Wonderfull. I can't wait to use the 25 de Mayo. Altough I am sure that VTOL carrier ops will be cool , there is nothing like trapping on a "real" carrier :) On one of the first campaigns I fly with Jet Thunder I will try out how the Argies would have done if the 25 de Mayo stayed at sea ( of course from the A-4Q viewpoint ).

Btw, interesting deck painting.

To my knowledge the Super Entendard couldn't operate on the 25 de Mayo in 1982 because the carrier had a too weak catapult. Later the carrier was modified to carry the plane.

Are there any plans to make the Super Entendard carrier operating as one of the "what if" options of the dynamic campaign ?

I am very excited by the progress that has been showed in the last weeks. Keep up the good work !

That project looks very promising, I keep checking the forum on a daly basis since months.

... the Sidewinder AIM-B, the Matra Magic, and the Shafrir Air-to-Air missiles could not compete against the AIM-9L, afaik.

It is often stated that the good training of the FAA pilots and the excellent AIM-9L were the two big factors that provided the british air superiority over tha Falklands.

Regarding the AIM-9L, this is questionable the me. Altough the AIM-9L should be an all aspect weapon, all kills with this weapon were achieved from the rear aspect. To my knowledge, any attemt to get a lock from the front failed.

On the other hand, on 1st May a Dagger successfully launched a Shafrir from a frontal aspect aganst a Sea Harrier. The missle tracked and the Sea Harrier had to give up much altitude to shake the missle. Altough not killed, that Sea Harrier was effectivly put out of the fight. Seconds later the Dagger was killed by the second Shar.

The AIM-9L was most likely the best AA-missle in the theater, but the Shafrir event - altough perhaps just lucky circumstances - shows that the superiority of the 9L wasn't godlike.

Hi Guys,

I did indeed read Sharky Wards 'book'. I found the comment about the RAF wasting resources to mount a raid on Stanley with a Vulcan that his harriers could have done pretty laughable. I couldn't believe someone so obviously intelligent could not see the reason for this raid was not to hit the runway, but to show the Argentinian government we could hit their mainland bases. Thus pulling fighters away to defend their northern bases.

That might have been the intention of the RAF, but did it realy succede ? You often read that the Vulcan missions on Stanley airport stopped the Mirage III flights over the islands ( because they were forced to move north to cover the mainland ). I haven't seen any evidence yet that supports this. To my knowledge the Mirage III spend the whole war at Rio Gallegos, from where they couldn't cover any significant part of Argentina excpect the southern AF Bases. But an Vulcan attack against them was most unlikely anyway, as that would have been suicidal for a single, unescorted Vulcan.

I think we all agree that the Mirage III ( ar the whole argentinan AF ) stopped to search aircombat because of the disasterous events of 1st May. But why didn't the Mirages apear over the islands between 1st till 21th May ( the Mirage III kept flying escorts and decoy flights over the Falklands after 21th May ) ? Sharky Wards theory that the Mirages spend their whole droptanks stock on first May sounds very plausible, at least much more plausible than Mirage III covering Buenos Aires from Vulcan raids... Are there any argentinan sources on that matter ? That would be very interesting.

While I agree with the original poster that Wards book has to be read with big caution, I agree with Ward that the Vulcan raids didn't achieve much more that morale effects.

Wow :ph34r:

If you don't know what I am talking about, check out the Jet Thunder homepage...

Splendit view :)

Just wanted to say that I keep checking the forum every day that I love you guys :)

About the SSN not being effective in locating the fleet, i may think that Woodward kept them in the outter ring of the defensive perimeter around the carrier and did not sent them out to hunt down the argentinian task force, but i may br wrong. In any case, imho they should had sensors good enough to pick up the noise of even the smallest argentinian vessel as long as they were at a reasonable medium distance... a distance impossible to achieve if they were to remain close to the british task force perimeter (because the task forces would already be too close to each other).

I am too very confident about the high capabilitys of the british SSNs. But in this case they seem to have failed. On 1-2 May ( clearly after the war went hot ) the argentinian carrier closed within strike distance to the british Task Force. I am fairly sure that if a sub had contact to the "25 de mayo" she would have been sunk on that night.

What strikes me is that I have read somewhere that the three british subs were actualy tracking all three argentinian taskgroups at the beginning of the war. This beeing the Belgrano group in the south-west, the "25 de Mayo" group in the north-west and a frigate group in the north ( all out of my head ). The fact that the carrier could close at attack distance on the british taskforce unharmed indicates that the shadowing sub lost track on the "25 de Mayo".

The choice to spare the Tigerfish' for more dangerous targets makes sense. Also the bigger punch of the Mk8 seems plausible to me. Didn't the Conqueror also fired upon the escorting destroyers with the same salvo ? What weapons did it use on them ?

Wow, the A-4C carrying Shafrirs. That sounds nasty :) Do you know if they carried them ever on combat missions ( I suspect not ) ?

I would defenitly like to make strategical descisions on the campaign. As the dynamic campaign will most likely reach the level of a naval RTS anyway ( judging from the infos I paste together ). Also to option to have it either player controlled or automatic sound good. Sometime you just want to fly assigned missions as a fighter pilot, sometimes you would like to try if you could do better in wining the war.

Keep it comming, I am enyoing this discussion very much.

Regarding the submarine threat.

I agree that the SSN by the RN were a major threat to the argentinan ships and in case of an big naval battle, the argentinians most likely would have had to pay a big toll to the british subs.

Neverteless, the SSN's couldn't prevent the '25 de Mayo' group from approaching the british carriers undedected within strike range.

In the night from the 1st to 2nd may, a Tracker from '25 de Mayo' tracked the british task force. The brits sent a Sea Harrier to investigate what was tought to be a Hercules on a recce flight. As the Sea Harrier approached, the Tracker turned away. The Sea Harrier finaly came in range to the '25 de Mayo' group where its Type 42 escorts painted the Sea Harrier with their Sea Dart radars. The Sea Harrier pilot knew there weren't any british Type 42 in that region so he knew it were argentinians. He made a radar search and found the argentinian carrier group. Until then the british were unaware of the close presence of the '25 de mayo'. Consequently, the british carriers set course to the east to get out of range. In the morning the british ships couldn't by found again. There wasn't enough wind to launch the Skyhawks with overload what would have been needed for the Skyhawks to reach the british carriers further in the east ( where they obviously went for ). So the attack was aborted.

I think this story clearly indicates that the british SSN weren't almighty and in that case couldn't prevent the argentinians from almost open a carrier battle.

My knowledge ( and library ) of the naval war in the Falklands is a bit limited, so please correct me if something above is wrong. Source is Falklands Air War by Hobson, 2002.

Another interesting aspect regarding the sub war, the Belgrano was sunk by unguided Mk.8 ( IIRC ) torpedos of ww2 vintage ! I think the RN subs had the Tigerfish torpedo in service in 1982 and most likely on board of Conqueror, but why they didn't use is is beyon me...

Thank you for the reading Mothman, interesting stuff. But I have some corrections regarding to missles if you don't mind ( also only reading knowledge from my side ).

The Mirage III didn't carre AIM-9B, but R.550 Magic Mk.1.

It is questionable if the Mirage III fired any missles at all in this conflict. All those head-on missle launches noticed by the british aviators on 1st may were in fact jetsioned fuel tanks. I think there is a consense that no Magics were fired by argentinan Mirages III during the conflict. In one case a Mirage migh have launched an R.530, but that case was questioned aswell in the past. There were some interesting discussion on acig.org about that matter.

Also it is interesting to notice that the general accepted superiority of the Aim-9L can be questioned aswell. All Aim-9L fired in the Falklands were launched from a rear aspect angle. A position where the earlyer Aim-9G, the R.550 or the Shafrir would have most likely performed comperable. As an interesting sidenote, the only succesfully launched IR-AAM from a frontal aspect in the conflict was a Shafrir fired by a Dagger, wich guided onto a Sea Harrier. The Sea Harrier had to give up considerable altitude in order to shake off the missle.

The Aim-9B carried by the A-4Q would of course have had little use in a-a combat if that situation had developed. But as far as I know the Aim-9B was only loaded once onto an A-4Q, this on the never materialized mission off '25 de Mayo' on 2nd may ( 8 Skyhawks would have launched, 7 planes with a load of 6 Snakeeyes and one with Sidewinders. But I don't know if that plane should have done escort for the strike force or protecting the '25 de Mayo'. ).

Wow she looks great ! Excellent work.

Are the hangar doors only painted or is it actualy modeled ? Would be cool to have a glance in the hangar if you use the frigate as a divert field for your Sea harrier :)

Yes I know..Normal Mapping for ships superestructures and/or coastline rocky formations in the isles, and the subtle lighting glow in the whole scene (like in that upcoming WW2 game Brothers In Arms despite very subtle, it gives a realistic feel to open scenes

 

It's all advanced shaders programming, and unfortunately, our skilled programming team still needs someone with this knowledge - current JT iteration is more or less like the original IL2 regarding graphical features (and it's OGL) - so, if anybody with shader/DX9 programming skills/realtime post-production shader effects wish to volunteer to help us, contact us, you'll be very welcome!

Oh boy, I pray someone reads this !

An interesting idea. It sounds as it could realy add another depth to the feeling of flying. But like some others I would have to test it myselfe to see if it realy is a top or a flop. It certenly had to be an option. Perhaps even configurable in a .ini file ( like lomacs Lua ) how exactly the view should react.

The effect itself can clearly be seen by just turning your head ( right now in front of the computer ). But while flying myselfe I didn't experience this effect. I always had the feeling that my view is level with the cockpit panel and that the horizon is banked. The cockpit is the reference while the outside world rolls. So I would say that this effect in a sim would be unrealistic ( others might have experienced it differently ). But as our current hardware can simulate the feeling of flying only to a minimal extend, such a feature might indeed enhance the feeling of flying ( while strictly speaking beeing unrealistic ). But as I said above, without trying it out first hand I couln't judge on that matter.

I am realy looking forward to fly the Pucara. Looks like a very interesting plane.

I wonder if there are plans to make it a 2-seater in multiplayer. Would be cool for training or playing FAC. But I guess it would require incredible amount of work that is better spend on more vital areas.

Anyone knows what weapons the Pucaras were emplyoing in the Falklands ? I Know of guns and unguided missles. Did they used bombs too ( what type ? ) ? Pehaps even cluster bombs ?

Also I read that at Goose Green the Brits found large amount of "home built" napalm canisters. Sound interesting :)

Cool to hear Dante. You guys already tough of everyting we come up with :) I hope you find the time to implement some of these.

I have come up with another thing. It isn't exactly eyecandy only, but also has impact on gameplay. Wet or snowed up runways that affect take off runs or even cause sliding when breaking ( aquaplaning effect ). To wetter the runway to more leinght you need ( or you have to reduce loadout ). Would be especialy interesting on long runners like the Mirage.

I can already imagine an take-off leinght calulator in the briefing section of the game, where you can enter values for takeoff weight, wind, temperature, air pressure and runway conditions and then the tool calculates the runway you need. Under good conditions you might even try a Skyhawk sortie out of Stanley :)

To come back to the eyecandy part, jetwash on wet runways would lead to some neat effects :) But of course there are more important things to do...

Here comes the thread for your wildest eyecand fantasys. Of course you can discuss about the usefullnes of eyecandys, but that isn't the subject here :)

-Raindrops on the cannopy.

-Rain streaking down the cannopy in heavy rain.

-If you fly too long low level above the sea, the windscreen gets "crusted up" with salt. One Skyhawk was lost in a landing accident because of this and later seaskimming time was limitted.

-Iced up refueling probes and pitots.

-Groundcrews on carriers and airbases.

-birds ( the animals :) )

Erm, can't remeber anything right now. Go ahead :)

I realy like that idea. I always have a little "wow-effects" when I discover such nice details in a sim. Just some days ago in LOMAC, a Sidewinder locked on a previously launched Sidewinder. That was quite cool. Gives you the feeling that you are in a real world with "everything possible". It lets you try things instead of thinking: "Nah, they didn't model that anyway."

Also I am very curious about the argentinian used AAMs. The Aim-9B with it's maximum 2g launchlimit and limited envelope. The Magic 1 of wich I don't know much at all. Or the also less known Shafrir 2. I found a nice little quote on that one:

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Aloni's article (interview with Menachem Sharon, CO 144 Sqn in 1973):

"The Shafrir (2) was simply a killer. The American missile guided smoothly, but the Shafrir 2 was opposite - its control was "everything or anything". It gave full control input, corrected the trajectory and stopped. It flew like crazy - we thought it "went ballistic" - and boom, it hit the target. The missiles that were launched smoothly were a faulty ones. About 50% of the missiles hit the targets, and it was an enormous achievement."

http://www.acig.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=195&forum=5&8

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Sound fun :)

Also interesting to note is that although the Aim-9L was an all aspect missler, all 9L fired in the Falklands were all launched from rear aspect ( as far as I know of course ).

I am already very curious on how the different missles will perform on JT.

Wow, I am very pleased with what I read here :) It seems that the Jet Thunder team has very similar ideas how a sim must look like as I have. You guys are building my dream sim :)

You are right about Jane's F/A-18 Dante. The little guy realy just stands on the ground with a gun in his hand until the SAR helo arrives. But that is the most I have seen so far in a any sim regarding SAR, so I used it as an example ( and basis ). Btw, like in JF-18 the downed pilot needs to use coloured smoke once the helo arrives :)

I am also quite excited that you try to populate the carriers. Something awaited since ages and finaly current computer power seems to make it possible. I hope you succeed with it.

I also hope you can add these small peoples on the argentinan airbases. Little guys that remove/applie the brake "thing" ( that "stopper" ), refuel und rearm planes. Also I have a picture in Osprey Combat Aircraft Vol. 28 of a ground crewman that has plugged in earphones on a taxiing Mirage III. These sort of ground procedures would be very cool. Also perhaps the "arming station". I don't know much about fighter ground operations, but I think that on the taxingway, short before the runway, is a station where all planes stop and groundcrews go arming all weapons. This in a flighsim would be so cool :) And now I perhaps get a bit carried away too much, but cheering groundcrews at your parking lot after you return from a particular succesfull mission would be realy atmospheric :)