PFunk

I’d like to get the Komar- and Osa-class boats to engage carrier groups with their Styx ASMs.

Has anyone ever gotten ships to fire ASM's at other ships, and how did you do it?

You are correct, you only get the 50% off if you have all five of the base games, and I do. I also had about (give or take) 17 of the DLCs. I was missing 12 of the official DLCs offered by ThirdWire. To get them, (and thus qualify for the free Complete Edition download), it would have cost me $72. I paid $50 and got everything. Did I already have most of it? Yes. Was it still a worthwhile investment? I think so, because now I also get the upcoming Windows 10 Edition and any DLCs that come with it for free. I had to cancel my Windows 10 Edition pre-order, but I was okay with that.

I went ahead and did this and I'll tell you why. I pre-ordered the Windows 10 Edition because I wasn't going to get it for free. So, that's $40 right there. I was lacking about 12 DLCs in order to qualify for the complimentary versions. I counted it up, it would have cost me $72 in DLCs. Not worth it. Then, he offers the complete version for $50. Hmm...that's $22 off. So, I got that and have requested my pre-order of the Windows 10 Edition to be canceled because now I'm getting it for free. So, now I have literally every update and upcoming DLC for the Windows 10 Edition for only $50. Not too shabby.

The US military is quite possibly the record holder for most items recycled.

Oh, sure. I argue that governments should definitely be more frugal in their expenditures. I think any citizen of any government would probably appreciate public employees being good stewards of our money. And, where there is still use to be found in something, it ought to be used until something more efficient can be found. I'm thinking of the A-10 in that regard as well; it does a job well and there's nothing else quite like it. What I meant is that when we make the decision to retain equipment of any kind, that decision shouldn't be made out of nostalgia.

If we're being honest, this is probably a good thing. A lot of those airframes are older than the pilots flying them. Lots of them (like the Bone) are getting next to impossible to maintain because of their increasing age. Most of them likely couldn't operate in a modern conventional battlespace without massive electronic jamming support (I'm looking at you, F-15C). Some of them have systems that are more than two decades old (the Block 25 Vipers). We could easily hand off the -16s (and even the -15s) to client states that wanted something on the cheap. The US military badly needs to modernize, if for no other reason than the safety of the pilots operating those aircraft. Even the F-22A is getting to be a little old. I'm very glad to see we've invested in some new-build Strike Eagles, probably the most versatile platform since the F-4 Phantom II. I'm also very encouraged by the progress of the Raider; Northrop seems to be moving development along at a brisk pace. We've needed new gear for a while, and we are going on two decades of sustained combat use of so many systems, they are now breaking from fatigue. Everyone was saddened by the retirement of the Tomcat; the way that it happened was worse than the realization that it needed to be retired. I think the one that will affect me more will be the last flight of the F-16. I grew up a stone's throw from the fence around Carswell AFB and as a kid, I watched hundreds of new-build -16s take off for customers and even more being flown in for maintenance. They were just a symbol of America for me. When they're finally retired, it will be because we squeezed every last dime we could out of them.

Was the F8F Bearcat in service with the Aeronavale at the time? I know they operated it, just didn't know if it saw action in Indochina.

I'm really curious to know if TK is serious about moving forward with an update. I know the Kickstarter failed to reach its goal, but I believe his wisdom was that even if it didn't reach the goal, he was still considering updating it for modern graphics cards. That would be an especially nice love note to the community that supported him for so many years. Beyond that, I think it's little much to hope for avionics .dll files or AI subroutines to be updated to allow for modern theatres.

If I were going to do naval aviation on the Europe map, I'd stick with the Royal Navy. Harriers are a more plausible presence than, say, a Tomcat.

It's still more approachable than DCS in some respects. Does a better job of modeling a semi-dynamic battlespace, anyway.

Yeah, trying to break radar/missile lock in this game seems to be a largely hit or miss affair. After multiple attempts, I can never get replicable results.

I've got the X56. If you ever used the X36 or the X45, it'll be a snap to use. I had the X45 for about six years before it finally bit the dust, and I eventually migrated back to the X56. Windows 10 will work with the X52 Pro with next to no compatibility issues. After Logitech bought the designs from Mad Catz, there have been steady improvements in QA. A lot of people complained about the quality of the X56 when I first came out, I have one of the latest builds of it and Logitech has done some solid work in making them much more reliable. I would buy an X52 with no reservations. I just had my Thrustmaster T16000M FCS die on me and I was not going back to that. TM's quality doesn't feel nearly as solid as Logitech's to me.

How is this possible? These are literally designs from the 50s and 60s.

Sure. Why would you want to? The SAM systems available now for download are already insanely difficult to counter. The engine isn't really to model next-gen SAM systems. This is a sim built for systems no newer than about 1985.