tiopilotos

Speaking about myself all of my air defense mods (SA-3, SA-6, SA-7, SA-14 along with AAA pack) were made as realistic as possble (taking into account the well known game engine limitations) because they were tested at their operational limits. I have conducted thousands launches for each of my air defense missile mods trying to determine each parameter how affects missile performance while I also spent much time for reasearch, verified combat performance etc. I sacrifise release time for realism. If you are used to fly against the stock air defenses then yes, it's normal that you find it difficult but stock systems perform quite poorly compared with the real life performance. In general there are 3rd party mods much closer to real life and yes they are more effective. SF2 terrains have less SAM sites than the real SAM deployment for that area. If you fly over GermanyCE in a regural mission even with air defenses set as HEAVY you will encounter 4-5 SAM sites max. In real life West and East German operated a very dense SAM network. In the West, HAWK sites were deployed along the border with no gaps concerning engagement zones and in DDR SAM network was more dense as Soviet air defenses were also present. Just take a closer look on USAF looses during Vietnam or Israeli looses between 1970-73. Hundreds of aircrafts were shot down by AAA/SAMs.

I don't think these types of fuze actually work for AAA or tank shells. In gun editor indeed there's a time fuze box which can be selected but no other input for time. AFAIK proximity fuze only works for missiles (fuze distance input).

I think the critical values for the vertical launch are seeker FOV and seeker gimbal limit. There are already two available SF2 versions for SA-15, the one posted by Farid and the one included in SF2 SAM pack. I have tested long time ago the SAM pack version and if I remember coorect, the missile's launch was the standard one. Drop me a pm if interested in some testing.

RV i PVO MiG-29A (9.12)

Rare photo from inside the cockpit of IRIAF F-14 intercepting Iraqi Tu-22 at high alt

Love it! A Mirage IIIE ground attack a/c with Super 530F capability! I guess it should have an upgraded radar to carry this missile! The interesting part is that Hellenic M2000s carried Super 530Ds from the mid 90s so the IIIEGs would have BVR capability years before the M2k! Waiting for release!

I know that with a title like this the thread becomes more like DCS but anyway I wanted to know what do you think about these 3 missiles. They were the last SARH missiles and theoritically the most effective ones so they are probably still operated by some air forces. AIM-7M is the final Sparrow variant with improved ECCM, longer range and improved low altittude performance. In 1991 it had a hit rate of 68.2% against Iraqi a/c. Even though the hit rate is high enough, I guess Iraqi AF operated hundreds of aircrafts which had equipment with limited RWR performance. I guess majority of a/c operated SPO-3/10 RWR but I am not fully aware of the capability of the system. It would help if someone knew the types of aircrafts that were killed by AIM-7M. Super 530D is the evolution of Super 530F which had a good kill rate during Iran-Iraq counting for a total of 18 kills (F-14As, F-4Es and F-5Es) a Turkish F-100F and a USAF EF-111A included. 530D had a new seeker which improved ECCM capablity, improved guidance system and longer range as maximum speed was increased at 4.5 - 5.0 Mach at high alt. 530F was capable of at least 20G. However concerning Super 530D/F there's an important detail. The reason why this missile was developed was that at the time (early 70s) AdA wanted a missile capable of intercepting high altitude high speed bombers. That's why its maximum altitudinal difference between launcher aircraft and target can be at least 12,000 meters. R-27R was the first SARH variant of the R-27 family but not the only one as there was a second R-27ER variant. I have read that some AIM-7E features (from a missile which was captured by Soviets in 1968) were used to develop the R-27. So this is interesting because normally the R-27 should have been an improvement over the previous R-24 missile. R-24 entered service in 1980/81 and was used by Iraq against IRIAF. Many R-23/24 kills are reported but I don't have a list with verified kills. So it's a bit weird that the development of the missile which was introduced sometime in mid 80s to arm the then state of the art Soviet fighters MiG-29 and Su-27 used features from a mid 60s design. There's also the 1999 incident between Ethiopian Su-27s and Eritrean MiG-29s where massive failed launches took place with only one hit. However it's more likely that aircrafts and missiles were left with limited maintenance if any and pilots should be poorly trained. Your thoughts gentlemen?

This advantage has an inherent drawback though... The pilot of the launcher aircraft has to estimate the possible location of the target during the silent shot because some seconds later he needs to lock on the target so that the missile will fly its final flight path. If pilot won't be able to perform the final lock fast, the missile will loose the target.

The info comes from Barry D. Watts: https://web.archive.org/web/20130720010705/http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2006psa_winter_roundtable/watts.pdf# Indeed it seems to me quite high but it's the only available source I have. What is your opinion about R-27R ?

Su-17M4 somewhere over Afghanistan...

IDF's half aircraft looses happened in the first 4 days of the conflict. Arabs had made a quite effective SAM umbrella protecting ground forces. The combination of SA-6/ZSU-23-4 proved very deadly as these systems shot down at least 50-55 IDF aircrafts mostly A-4s and F-4s. Keep in mind that these aircrafts were the main attacking force of IDF, so without the Skyhawk and Phantom replacements from US surplus, IDF's attacking force would have been dramatically decreased. Later on, IDF developed tactics to limit SAM effectiveness and they partially succeeded although SAMs kept posing a significant threat. But I agree with Gepard, without US help it would be just a matter of time to run out of ammunition, spare parts etc.

ECM strength value has serious impact... I remember years ago playing a mission tryting to intercept a B-52 with MiG-29. The B-52 was a 3rd party add on obviously since I couldn't track it even from 5 km distance! Then I checked ECM value and indeed was quite higher.

Portuguese Guinea circa 1973

Quite large terrain... I guess the dimensions are at least 2000x2000 km... I think you should have included a bigger part of Eastern Europe. That thing demands huge effort!

I don't know technical details but IR missile interchangeability could take place and there are examples... Hellenic and Spanish Mirage F1s could carry AIM-9 instead of Magic and Iraqi MiG-21s were modified to carry Magics.

A huge thanks for a mod which is a massive overall improvement and sets higher standards for others to follow! Maybe the most comprehensive add on package to date!

A legendary aviator! R.I.P. Chuck...

Best wishes Gkabs... I hope you and your wife to recover as soon as possible.