MBot

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.

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.

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 :)

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 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 :)

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...

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: ----- 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 ----- 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.

Since pilots were a very important and spare resource in the south atlantic war, I tought it would be cool to cover search and rescue a bit more in depth. Most simulations don't feature SAR at all and end when you ( or the AI ) hit the silk. The only exeption I know of is again the excellent Janes F/A-18, wich serves as a perfect example. Altough JF-18 didn't feature a dynamic campaign it was a primus in missions/gameplay/imersion. The campaign engine should try to rescue downed pilots if it is worth the spend recources on the rescue and the threat to the tasked units. A returned pilot could fly again a certain time after he gets back to his airbase. Perhaps you could even include the pilots health status wich would determine how long after his return a pilot is on missions again, or if he flies again at all. The longer the pilot was missing, the longer it would take ( simulating the exaustion of surviving in the wildness ). Also if the pilot was downed over land or sea could affect his health. And of course injurys he got in the battle or perhaps from a low ejection. One thing that would be very cool is moral on pilots or squadron level. A shot down pilot would lower the squadrons moral and therefore affect the skill of the AI while flying ( pilot level ) or mission planing ( squadron level ). Just think of how Argentina reacted after loosing the Mirages on 1st May. This outcome had direct affect on their future airwar strategy. Also Argentinas independence day ( was it this ? ) had a direct affect on the moral ( on both levels ) and showed results in that days sucess ( Coventry, Atlatic Conveyor ). If that sort of "modifier" could be integrated on serveral levels into the Jet Thunder campaign, that would be very cool. To come back on topic, a secessfully rescued pilot could be one of many factors that influence moral. Now how would the SAR operation look like on mission level ? First someone has to radio for rescue. I can think of three situations here. 1. The bailing pilot radios for SAR himselfe if he has the time to do so. 2. If not, an nearby unit that observes the ejection does so ( be it wingman, ship or groundtroops ). 3. If no one is in the vincinity, the bailed pilot uses his radio to call for help once he is on the ground. As these radios have limited range the pilot might have to wait hours or days until a friendly unit comes in the vincinity. Then the alarmed unit calls for SAR. Btw, Janes F/A-18 featured radio calls from downed pilots, so it isn't that exotic as it may look on the first glance. Of course the above gives plenty of oportunity for intense radio communication wich creates a living envoirement. Escpecially on the 3. possibility I can think of some interesting ( and emotional ) radio chatter. Just imagine how it must sound like when a pilot that stranded for days in absolute wildness and finaly can contact a friendly unit. After the notification, the campagin engine determenise if a rescue is possible. Is the pilot in range, how is the threat situation ? Can we risk a chopper for this ? Do we need all helos on more important tasks ( SAR for a sunk ship ) ? What unit to use for SAR, helo, ship or submarine ? Another thing that would make SAR more interesting is, when enemy units try to rescue/caputer the downed pilot themselfe. A captured pilot wont fight again and it might be a moral boost for the own troops. Especially ground troops should try to capture downed pilots if it happens in the vincinity. Now this generates another very cool aspect. Sandy missions. First, wingmans should try to protect downed airmans if they are threatened, if the mission allows to do so ( mission already complete, or rescue more important than mission ). I am thinking of AIs ( and the player of course ) strafing groundtroops that are advancing on the downed pilot. They should do so as long as fuel, weapons and their own savety permits so. Of course a single Sea Harrier with guns only has little chance on destroying some groundtroops, but think of moral here again. If a Sea Harrier blazes in with firing guns, the groundtroops take cover wich slows their advance. According to their skill level they even want to stop to capture the pilot completely. Or they wait till the Sea Harrier disapears or until it gets night. But if the same happens to some elite argentinan Marines they might procede to capture the pilot, knowing that the Sea Harrier can hardly stop them to do so. The downed pilot also would use his radio to communicate with his still flying wingman and tell him about troops and threat levels. Something like:"Enemy forces advancing on me form the east at about 3 miles. I am hiding at this little bush... etc.". Something of the sort of a FAC. If the downed airman is in enemy terrain, the campagin engine might even generate an dedicated Sandy mission to the SAR helo, if resources permitt so. The motivation for the player to realy care about his wingmans would be the hit it takes on the campaign. The player knows that to lose a pilot means a harder future for himselfe, so he realy tries to produce best possible conditions for a sucessfull rescue. And of course the SAR subject gives plenty of possibilitys to make missions more dynamic, full packed with radio comms and generaly more fun. P.S.: Just so I don't get misunderstood. I am not talking about a 1st peron shooter after you bailed. That is way out of scope. I think of a downed pilot that doesn't disapear but remains as a unit in the dynamic campagne and interracts with other units on mission and campaign level. P.S.2: I just had another idea when writing this :) These Sandy missions would also be cool when SAS teams try to board ships out of helos ( happened one time IIRC in the Flaklands ). A Sea Harrier was stand-by to enage threats on the ship, should they arise. What would make such a mission much fun would be to follow the boarding processe on radio. And of course strafe troops on the ship should the SAS call for it :)