Gepard

I cant see a problem. The network is made by 4 lines and 15 rows. Each single node is conneted with the neighbour nodes and not only in one direction, but also in the opposite direction. So the units can move forward, backward and sideward. Diagonal moves are not possible. Maybe this should be changed. Interestingly it seems to be, that the ground units mostly stay on their lines (east-west moves) and only seldom move north- or southward. The campaign starts with red side attack and the frontline moves westward. Sometimes the red advance comes to the designated aim and so ends with a red victory. In the most cases the red advace can be stopped and the frontline starts moving east with capturing the red base area and ends with blue victory. Sometimes the campaign comes to a stopp with no movment of the frontline, because all units are to exhausted.

I have reworked the network of strategic nodes. now it looks so: Its in test now. Since it is a fictive scenario of a fictive Republic of Germany i made a new fictive new tank for it. I called it "Panther-2nG". As basic i took the Leoperd1A4 lod file which was included in WOE, but was not yet implemented in game. Then i made a new skin and this beast looks like this:

The F-35 is surely an impressive plane. Its technological leading. No doubt. But is it truely the right plane for an Air Force? As my old professor always said: It is not neccessary to get the highest potentials, it is neccessary to get the right potentials! Of course can build today a spade with inbuild GPS navigation and apps on your smartphone to show you how exact you has digged over your garden, how many times you set your spade into the earth and a calculation program which shows you how many earth you has moved and what was the averadge of earth on the blade of the spade etc pp. But is this really usefull if you only want to dig your garden? And so it is with planes. Do you really need all the gimmicks of the F-35 or would it be better do have a simple mudmover like the A-10? No question, that the F-35 is much more advanced and technologicaly superior. But is the F-35 reliable enough to work in mud and dirt? Can it withstand hits by small arms without a scratch and can fly missions by missions if needed? Can this plane protect the troops on ground In AFG as good as the A-10? A lot of questions.

The Luftwaffe tests in early 90th showed an other picture. Improved HAWK was out of work, when jammed with SPS-141 or SPS-142. Perhaps the german HAWK system was different from american HAWK. On the other hand the soviets had a line of excellent Anti Radar Missiles in the 80th. So a SAM operator should have been aware, that under cover of a jammer an ANTI-RADAR Missile could be on the way. During one military show program on a "day of open door", i have seen in the Military Technical School Bad Düben (in the mid 80th) a simulation of SAM operator training which included the attack on enemy aircraft with HARM on the own SAM battery. It started with passive jamming on the radar screen, which became suddenly dotted with a lot of small dots, then a part of the radar screen became white (active jamming) and then appeared a small fast moving dot toward the centre of the radar screen. The operator handed over the guidance of a started SAM missile toward an other SAM Radar station and then switched of the radar.

The UnitID in the campaign6.ini is wrong. You must count which red side unit it is and use this value. Example for the first stock campaign There are 45 NATO air units and with AirUnit046 the WP starts. If you want to fly for the first WP unit you must set the UnitID=1, not UnitID=46. For the 10th WP unit you must set UnitID=10, not UnitID=56.

I think, that the soviets relied more on standoff jammers. In early 1973 they tested a SPS-141 jammer, which was placed on the truck, in Syria, near the Mount Hermon, which was in israeli hand and was defended by a HAWK SAM battery. They were able to neutralize the HAWK completly, so that no missile hit a MiG. After the unification of Germany the Bundesluftwaffe tested the soviet jammers and found out, that they were capable to jam nearly all western systems. During the tests, they put the SPS jammers on a F-4F Phantom and flew it against all available systems. Some tests were done in Decci (Italy), where they simulated figtherbomber attacks on NATO warships. In all simulated attacks, the ships were not able to lock on the plane when it was in direct approach. Under the hand, the soviet jammer technology was praised by the german Luftwaffe testers. The soviets were very reluctant to sell sensitive technology. They had 3 levels of weapon technology. The highest was for soviet use only. The second for close allies in WP. The third for unreliable allies like Romania and Hungary and the rest of the world. So the really important systems came not in danger to fall in western hand. Captured planes and systems would always have a weaker performance than original soviet ones. One example. The first soviet T-72 for third world had a front turret armour of 280 mm. In the same time, the WP T-72 had 355 mm armour and the soviet T-72 had had around 400 mm. Whith the result, that the NATO standard gun L7 (M68) caliber 105 mm could at a distance of 1.000 m easily destroy the 3rd world T-72, had some problems with WP T-72 and was unable to penetrate the soviet T-72. The same structure you see with planes, missiles, sensors, jammers etc. If really neccessary, the soviets adapted very fast protective systems, as you see in Afghanistan war when the Manpads appeared in Maddjehedin hands. In few weeks the soviets installed flare dispenser and later IR jammers etc. Only one year after the israelis used reactive armour plates (ERA) on their tanks in Lebanon war, the soviets installed ERA armour on their tanks. The rest of the world got no ERA.

In the LSK (east german Air Force), the only CM capable MiG-21 version was the bis. Maybe this was different from Air Force to Air Force. But even the bis, only rarly carried the pod. I remember, that one former pilot told me, that the SPS pod generated so many drag, that if two planes made a common take off run and only one plane carried the pod, the plane without pod was able to hold the position in formation on full military thrust, while the other plane was already on afterburner.

Countermeasure was not avaiable for the most MiG-21 versions. The MiG-21bis was able to carry the SPS-141 jammer pod (or was it SPS-142?). In this pod also flares were included. The MIG-21/93 alias MiG-21BISON had chaff flare dipnensers and internal jammer. Egypt had updated some MiG-21 with chaff/flare in the 80ths. But all other MiG-21 versions had had no CM, AFIIK.

The R-3R missile was used on MiG-21S, MiG-21SM, MiG-21SMT and MiG-21bis. It was carried on the outer pylons, while the inner pylons were used for R-60 missiles, either single or dual racks. Other MiG-21 versions were unable to use the R-3R. They used the RS-2U Alkali. Only the MiG-23S used the R-3R missile, but no R-23, on the wing pylons. The fuselage pylons were armed with R-3S. All other MiG-23 combatversions used the Apex missiles, but not the R-3R. The radar of the MiG-23 was unable to guide the R-3R. This is partly true, but only for the MiG-23M and MF. This plane was able to use only IR seeker R-23T or SAHM R-23R. To change the load it was neccessary to replace one part of the weaponcontrol system. From MiG-23ML it was possible to load R-23 and R-24 (no R-24 on earlier MiG-23 versions). It was also possible to use mixed load of IR seekers and SAHM Apex. It was common to fly with one R-24R and one R-24T on the same plane. On the fuselage pylons only R-60 were used. Either single or dual racks. East german MiG-23 used an unique combination of one dual rack and one single rack for the R-60, so they had 3 Aphid on board.

A weapon load only with SAHM missiles was not used in WP service. You had always a mix of IR seekers and SAHM missiles, or IR seekers only.

Screenshot of a night mission. I have never realized before, that the star constallations in SF world are close to reality. In background of this screenshot you see the star constallation Ursa Major (Big Bear, Großer Wagen)

The best way is playing the campaign with the planes which are included in the campaign. It is the only way to get a realistic view. But is very time consuming.

The numbers set for the norwegian Sabres is nearly done. It are now 52 numbers available, made for the squadrons 331 and 332. At the moment i'm still looking for the correct crest for the vertical tail. The drawings and pictures i have are not good enough. It seems to be, that it is the crest of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Maybe it are squadron badges. There is still some research to do. At the moment i use the crest of the RNAF. The progress on the campaign development is slow. The ground war is not as working as intended. So i included two additionally polish airbases in the terrain. This helped a little bit, but i fear, that i must rework the network of the stratecic nodes again.

When the tensions between Vietnam and China became stronger and stronger US president Trump decided to sell surplus F-16C to Vietnam. So he wanted to have Vietnam as a new ally as counterweight against the chinese territorial claims in the south chinese sea. Over the south chinese sea vietnamese Vipers intercepted chinese J-10.

A guy called "Dr. Snufflebugs" photoshoped it. He mixed parts of a Su-22M3, a Skyhawk and a Phantom together and released the picture at Pinterest Germany.

Its not SF2, but i liked this picture, which i found in the net. Since i was not sure where to post it, i decided it to post it here. If this is wrong, dear admin, then remove it please. The Frankenfitter:

This map is made for First Eagles. Tile size 500x500 meters. This is the reason, why it will not work with SF properly.

I see two Su-25 with camo skin on the photo. Does Kolya sent more Frogfoots in the area? The first ones always had the ugly dark grey camo. Or does the camoflaged the planes in Syria?

It is the "turbine power modul" which cause the smoke when the engines of the Raptor are started.

The most planes of Albania were not Made in USSR, but Made in China. If you would by a MiG-21F-13 from there you would get a J-7, not the original MiG.

I know. This is not new. It came with WOI. Of course i have this entries in teh campaigns_data.ini. But the AI sometimes ignores neutral locations and sometimes you can even get enemy captured airbases although no ground campaign is running and the frontline shows a different thing. With a line of non airfield targetareas this behaviour is to avoid. I dont know why the AI is working in that way.

And it seems to be, that i was wrong with the norwegian coding system. In the early time it was similar to the RAF system. Two letters were symbols of the squadron, the one letter was the code for the plane. What means, that i can dump 51 bordnumbers and must start to make new ones. But this two times. One with the first letter in front and one with the two letters in front. Next try: from the right from the left:

Bad idea. My future plans are making some other What if! campaigns. Sweden vs WP or Sweden vs Denmark. For this i need the swedish targetareas. I found out, that campaign anomalies in the kind, that airbases were in the wrong hands can be avoided if you has a line of "non-airfield" target areas between the airfields of the opposing sides or between the neutral airbases and friendly/enemy airbases.

Norway on the way! The norwegian Sabre skin is not yet finished. It is a slightly mod of the already available outstanding skin of a german Canadair Mk.6. I made only the yellow nose and a set of nose lettercodes. When i was half finished with te job i got doubts, wheter i make the letters in the correct form. I made the so, that the first letter is connected with the squadron and the last two letters are connected with the single plane. But then i got the idea, what if the first letter is for the plane and the two letters are for the Squadron? I will try to find out!