Gepard

It is not as fictional as you may think. There are some indications, that France delivered the Mirage 5 to Israel after a while and that the famous story of the Mossad action, where they had stolen the blueprints of the Mirage5, so that the Israeli Aircraft Industry was able to build the Nesher, was only a red herring. Some years ago was an eye witness report of an american technician in the very reliable german Aircraft Magazin "Fliegerrevue", where he told the story, that the Mirage 5 were disassembled in major parts, when he arrived with a C-141 at a french airfield. The aircraft were loaden into the cargoplane and flown to Israel. There israeli and french technicians reassembled the planes which were named Nesher in israeli service. The indications, that the story is true shall be that argentinian Daggers (the Nesher was sold to Argentinia after phasing out of IAF) have parts with nameplates with the writing "Made in France". If the Israelis would have built this planes as Nesher by their own, some say, they would never write "Made in France" on it, but "Made in Israel". I will try to find th original article.

Jeanba, i agree with you, that RT is a doubtfull source and that all what they say must be rechecked and confirmed. You say, thet RT makes propaganda. True. I agree with you completly. But the other sides makes it too. In this very case of the deal between Croatia and the Ukraine it seems to be, that there went something wrong. It is not a good behaviour to cheat a business partner. It was not good, when Russia sold Algeria old MiG-29 as new ones. and it is not good if the Ukrainians hide, that they took used spareparts from all over the world to"improve" the croatian MiG's. it seems to be, that some guys in the CIS states are still in "soviet mode" in their behavior with costumers. I could tell you stories, what crap our "allies" sold us in the old days! Starting with HE granades without explosives over brand new vehicles, that had to go to our repair facilities to become operational and war test of our Mi-24 which were on a routine overhaul in the USSR and so on, and so on and so on. It was their way of making profit. And for me it seems to be, that they do it up today with other costumers.

My most impressive helicopter flying experience was not from cockpit, but from freight cabin of a Mi-24W. It was in early 1989. Some days ago i had become a member of the tactical SAR group of my helicopter squadron. I know this sounds great and important, but we were only 4 guys and we just started to train the job. During one of this lessons we had the chance to visite a soviet "partner unit", the so called "Regiment nebenan". It was a combat helicopter unit near Erfurt. We drove with a W-50 truck to their base and had the chance to take a look at the Mi-24W they had there. The pilots (ljotschiks) were very self confident and very proud on their "crocodile" helicopter. They showed us everything, inclusively fuel aerosol bombs, Shtoorm ATGM etc., we could climb into the cockpits, switch all buttons. It was cool, really cool! And at the end of this visit tour they invited us to a ride in a Mi-24W. Stupid as we were we accepted the offer. Helicopter flying as passengers was not unusual for us, and flying at tree top level was a nice fun. So what could go wrong?! Everything!! What we had forgotten was, that the ljotschiks came fresh from Afghanistan. and they flew the Crocodile in Afghanistan style. If our pilots flew in tree top altitude they flew straight away in 30 meters or less. The soviets flew it different. The highest point of their helicopter (the tail fin) was in tree top level, when they flew. The nose of the Mi-24 nearly scratched the soil and this with 250, 300 km/h! When a tree came the crocodile jumped over it and sank down to the previous flown level. Again and again. It was like roller coaster. The craziest roller coaster ever!! The first dozen jumps over the trees were fun, the others not really funny and by the end i pulled my steel helmet of my head and spat all what i had in my stomach into my helmet. Not funny! Really not funny! Helicopter pilots are crazy! Russian Mi-24 pilots are maniacs!!

No smoke without fire, i would say. In Croatia, the police is investigating. And it seems to be, that the Ukrainians have cheaten the Croatians. The croatian newspaper JutarnijList had this article on 21.March 2016: http://www.jutarnji.hr/ekskluzivno--najveci-skandal-u-povijesti-hrvatske-vojske-nasi-mig-ovi-su-lazni--vojna-policija-zbog-velike-prevare-pokrenula-detaljnu-istragu-/1545837/ Translation via Google Translator: "The planes were bought and refurbished in Ukraine. We learn that it is suspected that it is in business paid a bribe! Military police carried out a major investigation into the overhaul MiG 21 purchased and refurbished in Ukraine. Jutarnji list has learned exclusively that so far in the investigation identified a number of irregularities and there is serious concern that in the business paid a bribe! Twelve repaired MiG-Croatian Air Force was submitted in July 2015. Eight months later, the Air Force has only three fighter jets and five repaired aircraft were withdrawn from use! According to the investigation, the military police criminal investigators so far have found that the planes that Croatia has bought from Ukraine "typed" serial numbers and that they do not correspond to the documentation plane is not the numbers referred to in the contract of the outage, and that parts built aircraft not appropriate supporting documentation planes. The investigation showed that the planes purchased from Ukraine older than what the documents. Apparently four to five years. It may be asked, is it just these seven aircraft were sent to Ukraine for repairs and returned back. Even the serious suspicion that the entire documentation spoofed, and overhaul of the aircraft was not done! The investigation, according to our information, launched after continuous failures only reconditioned aircraft."

Dont know, from where you got the fairy tale, that russian planes nearly shot down israeli planes. Not from RT. There you can read, that between Israel and the Russians in Syria are no problems at all. This statement is coverd by other medias. Of course RT is a questionable source and often not really reliable. But not all what they tell us is wrong. I think RT is quote following article in croatia media: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/3015-military-police-conducting-a-detailed-investigation-croatian-migs-could-be-fake

The sound of a weapon not only based on the calibre, but on rate of fire too. For instance the 12,7mm DSHK Machine gun sounds completly different from the 12,7 mm Machine Gun JakB.

RT is not a really reliable source. But sometimes the only source, because our western medias have a certain way to hide some kind of news. Croatia is not the richest country in Europe. And i think it is the right way to fly the MiG-21 as long as possible. Its cheap in comparsion with other fighters. The ground structure of the bases, the maintainace system is made around the plane. They have skilled pilots and technicians for the MiG. A step toward the F-16 would not end with buying the plane. There the pilots and groundcrews must be trained. The question of spareparts etc etc etc. Instead to rely on Ukraine or Romania, Croatia should have choosen Israel as partner for MiG-21 improvement. Or it should ask Italy for help. The Italians had helped China with introduction of Grifo radars in J-7 fighters. If they could manage it with the chinese MiG-21 copy, they would also be able to do it with the original plane.

While testing a campaign i saw squadrons with only one plane left.

Eigentlich bin ich froh, dass am letzten Sonntag in drei Bundesländern gewählt wurde. Hätte nur Sachsen Anhalt gewählt, dann hätten die Küchenpsychologen der Medien sicher wieder die große Keule geschwungen und der Welt erklärt, dass die dummen Ossis so stark AfD wählen, weil sie alle in der Kinderkrippe zwangsweise auf Töpfchen gesetzt wurden. Oder ähnlicher Schwachsinn, wie man ihn immer wieder zu hören bekommt. Da aber in den westlichen Ländern ebenfalls stark AfD gewählt wurde muß die ursache wohl ein klein wenig woanders zu suchen sein. Und nun beginnt wieder das große Totschweigen. Wobei das Totschweigen nun etwas geschickter gemacht wird. Probleme werden nur noch in den lokalen Medien angesprochen, in die überregionalen Medien kommt so gut wie nichts mehr. Nur ein Beispiel. Am Mittwoch gab der Bürgermeister der sächsischen Kleinstadt Eilenburg ein Interview zum Thema Flüchtlinge. Darin waren Sätze zu lesen wie: "Bis jetzt ist die Situation noch haltbar. Doch es droht die Kontrolle verloren zu gehen und das ist nicht zu dulden." oder "Das Problem wird brachial vom Bund auf Länder, Landkreise durchgedrückt. Ich sehe den sozialen Frieden in Gefahr, wenn ohne die Leute mitzunehmen, die Verteilung durchgesetzt wird und letztlich daraus sogar noch Geschäftsmodelle (Anmerkung, er meint: Vermietung von Wohnungen oberhalb des lokalen Mietpreises) entstehen. 90 Prozent derer, die hier sind, werden schließlich im Hartz IV System landen. Integration kann so nicht gelingen." oder "Die Entscheidung, allen zu signalisieren, kommt her, war grundfalsch. Die verfehlte Bundespolitik hat zu dieser Situation geführt." Auf die Frage, was er in dieser Situation jetzt noch tun kann antwortete der Bürgermeister von Eilenburg: "Ich weiß es nicht mehr!" So erschienen auf Seite 34 im Lokalteil der Leipziger Volkszeitung am 16.März 2016. Im überregionalen Teil der LVZ war von diesem Interview, das nach meiner Ansicht ein Hilferuf ist, nichts zu finden. Und in Funk und Fernsehen natürlich ebenfalls nicht. In Eilenburg zeigen sich erste Ansätze zu einer Ghettoisierung von Asylbewerbern und einer beginnenden Parallelgesellschaft, die sich einen Scheiß um hier gültige Lebensweisen schert. Die Stimmung unter den Einheimischen ist schlecht. Hätte auch Sachsen am letzten Wochenende gewählt, die AfD Ergebinsse von Sachsen Anhalt wäre sicher übertroffen worden. Ich hoffe, dass nichts schlimmeres passiert. Die letzte Revolution hat mir schon nicht wirklich gefallen. Ich will keine weitere erleben.

In the IL-76, where i was passenger in my military time, we had not such a cool stewardes! Unfortunalty. The vodka we had really needed. There was a tin hanging under a leaking pipe. And when we asked the crew, the answer came: "No problem folks, after landing we will fill the oil in the tanks again!" Na sdarowje!

The best for beginners is to take an already existing campaign. Then you must look for a player unit. This unit you can rename in campaign_data and campaign.ini and give it the plane which you want. The rest is trial and error.

Its like "ISIS captured M1 Abrams from Iraqi Army." ... ehm ... ups... already happend in past.

Its not as little as you may think. Its the biggest single engined bi-plane. Its really impressive if you stand in front of an "Anna"

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)