Gepard

True, but see it from a strategic point of view. Under president Obama the USA politicians believed that Russia is the major threat for the US dominance of the world. But Trump realized, that China is the big enemy of tomorrow. Chinas influence has to hedged. For India China is an opponent too. If it would come to a conflict between India and China the chinese influence on France could be so massive, that France would sell no more planes or spareparts to India. With the antagonism between USA and China, India can be sure that the USA would never to yield to the pressure of China. So the supply of weapons and spareparts would be safe for India.

Has someone of you an idea how to place a pilot and his seat so, that he is looking sidewards or backwards?

Since Russia or Europe cant offer a real successor for the MiG-21, the F-21 is the best choice for India, i think.

What if the US Marines would have used the F-5E Tiger

German Navy Tigers.

For me the Mi-24 was a childhood dream. To fly this helicopter was my desired career. But i was unable to pass the medical checks and was phased out. When i wrote the book i asked the Museum at Cottbus airport (Flugplatzmuseum Cockpit) whether they would allow me to make a walkaround photoshoot of their Mi-24D. They agreed and opend all doors and hatches and cockpits of the Mi-24, especially for me. So i could climb into the cockpits for pilot and gunner. And i felt comfortable there, like in a very good car. I had an excellent view forward and sideward. The side armour protection was up to my shoulders and the front cockpit glas was thick, very thick. The cockpit was compared with soviet fighter planes spacious. A very good feeling. Thats the Mi-24D at Cottbus. All doors open for me. Some years later i had the chance to climb in the cockpit of the Eurocopter Tiger. One prototype is now displayed at Bückeburg Helicopter Museum. I asked the guys there and they opened the cockpit for me. And i could climb in, could sit where Pierce Brosnan was sitting some years ago! Yes it was the Tiger prototyp you have seen at James Bond movie "Golden Eye". I was sitting in James Bond seat! Wow! But to be honest. The cockpit of the Mi-24 is better. It is bigger and you felt much safer in the Mi-24 than in the Tiger. Here a photo of the James Bond Tiger What i want to say is, there are special days in museums. Days where no much visitor traffic is and the staff is bored. At some days you have the chance to make special experiences. Perhaps you will get the chance to sit in a Mi-24. Its worth trying.

I dont know, how exactly the flightmodel of the Mi-24 in DCS would be. In reality the Mi-24 was a big step forward. It was completly different from the Mi-8. One of the east german Mi-24 pilots descriped it so: "Flying the Mi-24 feels like driving a fast motorbike. But which bike can reach 300 km/h? The needed movement of the stick is very small. It has only the size of a 5 Mark coin." The 5 Mark coin had had a diameter of 29 mm. What means that you needed a lot of feeling to fly this helicopter. The Mi-8 flying was said was like driving a small van or small truck. It was a reliable, stable flying helicopter. My own experience with the Mi-8 was, that we had 3 of them at Nordhausen, when i served out my military time as a Sergeant. (I finished my military duty at the rank of a Unterfeldwebel (Staff Sergeant). Always when a helicopter came out a routine check it had to be flight tested. One of the test was to fly the heli fully loaded. To make it easy and fast the heli was not loaded with weights or cargo, but with men. All folks available had to climb in the cargobay of the Mi-8. And then: here we go! In the hand of an experienced pilot the Mi-8 behaved like a bus. Smooth and comfortable. Okay, it was loud. Our Mi-8 were military and had not had the sound damping interior paneling of civil Mi-8s. But else it was a very good feeling to sit in the Mi-8 looking out of the window and the best was, that it was a flight for free! But one time, i was assigned to take a television to another of our 3 landing points and the one of the pilots was a greenhorn, fresh from pilots school. He was the No 2 pilot. The No 1 pilot was the commander of the squadron. When the commander was flying the Mi-8 was stable like a bus, when the greenhorn was taking over it behaved like a small boat in high waves. That was not a really nice experience. But worth. My only flight with a Mi-24 was terrible. During one of my trainings we visited a soviet helicopter base. They showed us all what they had, helicopters and weapons, even the the ODAP bombs. "That we usually dropped in an afghan village before the ground troops started an attack." they told us, "Usually one is enough to flatten one village." And then the invited us to have a flight with a Mi-24. One crew was assigned to make a low level mission at treetop height. Okay, i thought, no problem at all. When our pilots flew at treetop hight it means flying straight away at 30 m. I thougt the soviets did it in the same way. My fault. The soviet crew came fresh from Afghanistan. And they flew like in Afghanistan. For them meant flying at treetop height, that the highest point of the helicopter was allowed to be at 30 meters. Maximum, better is to be lower, much lower! At fast speeds the nose of the Mi-24 is going down. Sitting in the cargo bay it felt like sitting on an inclined plane. This was terrifying enough. More terrifying was that i got the feeling, that the helicopter pilot was trying to scratch the soil with the gun of the helicopter. So low we were flying. And then started the roller coaster. When an obstacle was in the flight path the heli "jumped" over it, only to sink down to former very low altitute in less than a second. The first 3 or 4 of that stunts were fun. But afterwards i started to become airsick. Holy moly! What a mess! I tore my steel helmet from my head and used it as spittoon. After landing my spittoon was nearly completly filled and i saw things in it, that I couldn't remember to have eaten. Oh my! Never again!!!! Mi-24 pilots are mad!!!!

I hope you get it faster. And I'd like to hear how you liked the book.

Perhaps you should try to look for the european Meteor missile. Looks more or less similar to the PL-15. Little bit ini modding. Thats it.

In November 2016 my book "Mi-24" was released by the german publishing house MOTORBUCHVERLAG. And so it looks. 207 pages full of informations and photos. (Weight 1.050 gram, for our american friends more than 2 pounds.) Written in german language. Some guys asked me here in the forum, whether there would be an english edition. And here it comes: published by Schiffer Publishing in January 2020 Price 39,99$ Includes: the history of Mi-24 development, from the first steps of the "flying Infantry fighting Vehicle" concept, over the Mi-24 prototypes to all Mi-24 versions (21 at least). A walkaround and detailed description of the Mi-24. The armament, including short development history of guns and missiles used by Mi-24s. The Mi-24 tactics developed for the war in Central Europe (written after east german Mi-24 combat drill manuals) The soviet tactics in Afganistan and the fight against the Stinger. A short comparision between Mi-24 and american attack helicopters of the timeframe (AH-1, AH-56, Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk, AH-64A) The Mi-24 in worldwide use with focus of Germany, but of american use of Mi-24 too. Hope you enjoy it!

A more realistic payload for the L-410UVP-T (east german designation for a sub version of the UVP) "Hopp! Hopp! Hopp! And go!!!" And here they come! To be honest. You must be mad to jump out of an airplane without need, only with a thin sheet of silk between yourself and the happy hunting grounds.

An ugly payload droped somewhere over the Pampa makes kaboom Okay, its far away from precision. But cheap and simple.

German Navy Tornado NI (naval intercepter) on carrier Walther Scheel.

I would like to participate, but i got unfortunatly an acute anxiety disorder, because of the Corona thing. So I'm to sick to do something constructive. Sorry.

Oh a puke machine!

The problem are the sea or coast tiles. While we can make land tiles in jpg, sea, coast and river tiles are neccessary to made in tga format. A 1.024x 1.024 pixel tile in jpg has a size of approx 350 kb. A tga file of the same resolution has a size of 4.097 kb. Thatswhy performance problems may appear in game, especially when "polymonster" planes are active. Then a massive dogfight can easily become a "slide show".

From the TOD objects i see in the screenshot i would say, that it is one of Stary's tilesets. They are coming from file TER_NEWTREES1.tga or TER_NEWTREES2.tga. But this files you can find in a couple of tilesets for terrains. To say what terrain exactly is seen in the screenshot is difficult. We need a screenshot with plane in flight for better guess.

Pusk! ... Pobyeda!

Already done. Available in german language. Edit: Seems to be, that the publishing house has sold my Mi-24 book to an english publishing house. Thats new for me. Hope that the translator made a good job. (East german special terms are different from west german special terms, I hope the translator know what he is doing!)

Do you mean something like this?

The KDS-23 dispenser was originally used on MiG-27 and Su-22. For the MiG-23 the central pylon was modified. The designation of the modified pylon was PKWP-23. It could carry the usual drop tank. In the pylon the dispenser KDS-23 was included. so it looked in reality: You see the connection pipe (valve) to the fuel system of the plane and then the 12 cartidges for flares or chaff. Each cartidge had a caliber of 50 mm.

Its a pity, that AI gunners do not shot on ground targets.

Svetlin is right. Can confirm from east german sources R-23R has diameter 200 mm and lenght 4.460 mm BTW: the MiG-23 pilot has answered. He wrote, that the training missile was called "R-23 Schreiberrakete", the official soviet designation was not used and so he had forgotten it.

Newer seen that before. Dont know what they good for. In LSK such fins were not on the missiles. From what Air Force is the picture? Could it be romanian? IIRC Romania built R-23 missiles in license. Maybe they modified it?

Do you mean the small fins close to the seeker head? This are "Destabilisatoren", vortex generators to get a better airflow over the main "wings" to the maneuver fins at the end of the missile.