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For the rest of August, lets post our Tigers here. Rules: name the unit, reason for the scheme (Tiger Meet, regular, RIAT etc) and rough timeline. aircraft ID optional - Can be a special, something not for public release, stock or WIP (fairly complete) - Have fun with it! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- to kick off RAF 230 Sqn, Puma HC2, RIAT 2005 53rd TFS, F-15A, stock skin and patrol mission, very early 80's 141st ARS, KC-135E, RIAT 97

View File ODS Warbirds: F-5E Tiger II ODS30 Squadrons SF2 F-5E Tiger II ODS30 Squadrons ------------------------------------------------------------- This pack contains the stand-alone version of the Bahraini & Saudi F-5E aircrafts from "Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary". This mod contains accurate ODS livery, nose art and serial numbers from ODS. This is just a sample of what you will find in the expansive "Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary" pack. If you like what you see and want (much much) more! You can download "Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary" here... https://combatace.com/files/file/17521-operation-desert-storm-30th-anniversary-edition/ !! DO NOT INSTALL THIS MOD into the "Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary" pack. That pack already has these aircrafts, customized for the ODS30 theater! * Sources: https://dstorm.eu/pages/en/bahrain/f-5.html https://dstorm.eu/pages/en/saudi/f-5.html * Included Jets: F-5E --------------------- Installation... --------------------- 1) Copy the contents of the "To_Mod_Folder" folder into your mod folder and over-write if required. 2) Check, ensure (or update) all the squadrons in this pack is in your "SQUADRONLIST.INI" file. Once you look at that file, you will know what to do. * Tweaked and Tested by the ODS30 team! * Mod Direction and Optimization - Menrva * Additional Data and Weapons improvements - Yakarov79. * Additional Sound tweaks and updates - Guuruu. * Accurate Skins and Decals - Viper63a\Coupi Thanks and Enjoy! =Viper63a= ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- Credits: F-5E For Strike Fighters 2 ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- Bpao and Mirage Factory crew: Orginal F-5E model and templates FastCargo for original F-5F model EricJ and pappychecksix for original F-5F templates and textures Sophocles for his superb cockpit work. Every switch is a work of art. Crusader for his ini file magic, really makes the cockpit and plane come alive. Paulo for his mammoth decaling work which he allowed me to use. and even helped me by reworking some of it. Me for cobbling all this together (=texturing and modeling work) The rest of the Combat Ace community. Without you guys I would never have bothered to make it this far. Mats "Centurion" Liljeroos Submitter Viper63a Submitted 06/28/2021 Category F-5  

View File F-5GN F-5GN Sea Tiger (What if) ***************************************************** This mod is made for SF2. ---------------------------------------------------------- I. History (fiction) In 1969 there were decisive elections in West Germany. In reality, the Social Democrats won. A new foreign policy followed and a period of reduction of tensions between East and West. WHAT IF, the other side had won? What if the conservatives had won and Franz Joseph Strauß (an old bavarian Commie eater) would have become Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany? And so it starts. In 1969 Strauß was elected as Chancellor. A period of rising tensions between East and West started. To protect the sea lanes between Europe and America the west german parliament Bundestag decided to build up a west german carrier force consiting of 3 carriers. The american gouvernment was pleased and offered to sell 3 carriers of the Essex class (subclass Ticonderoga). The first ship which was handed over was CV-34 Oriskany in 1969. Renamed in R-22 Theodor Heuss it was core of the first west german carrier group. 1973 CV-38 Shangri-La became R-23 Heinrich Lübke (later renamed in Walter Scheel) and two years later CV-45 Valley Forge became R-24 Gustav Heinemann. The americans offered A-4 Skyhawk and F-8 Crusader as planes for the carrier group. The Bundesmarine accepted the A-4, but rejected the Crusader, because the Bundesmarine wanted a more multi role capable plane, not only a pure fighter. At this moment Northrop entered the competition and offered a navalised version of the brand new F-5E Tiger. Under the designation F-5GN (German Navy) it should be produced in America and Germany. The west german government accepted the offer and the serial production of the F-5GN started. During flight tests on the way the US Marines decided, that it would be a good idea to replace their old F-8 Crusaders with F-5GN planes. So the F-5GN became a Marine plane. Later, when the Marines retired their attack carriers the surviving F-5GN were transfered to Top Gun school. In west german service the F-5GN stayed till 1995. Then it was replaced by F-31 Mustang II. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- II. CREDITS: The F-5GN based on Centurions 2014 released F-5E package. A lot of files i have taken from this package. Thanks for this files! The skin: ~~~~~~~~~~~ The blue skin is a modification of a grey skin available in Centurions package The Marines skin is a mod of the Southvietnames skin available in Centurions Package The flight model : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are 2 flightmodels. One is a modified FM from package. I made the plane able to land on a carrier. The other FM i made by using parts of the stock F-16A FM made by TK. You find both FM in the folder "Goodies". You may change them as you want. ---------------------------------------------------------- III. INSTALLATION: -Unzip the folders into your SF2 mod folder ---------------------------------------------------------- IV. For remarks, comments, bugs, etc please use the forum or send me a PM. ------------------------------------------------------------- V. The F-5GN and all other files are FREEWARE. COMMERCIAL USE IS NOT ALLOWED! ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Hope you enjoy it. Michael (Gepard) Made in Germany April 2020 Submitter Gepard Submitted 04/11/2020 Category F-5  

About the Author Paco Chierici is a retired Naval Aviator. Paco accumulated 3,000 hours and nearly 400 traps flying the A-6 Intruder and F-14 Tomcat on active duty for ten years, and the F-5 as a Navy Adversary pilot for the subsequent ten years in the Navy Reserves. Paco is the Creator and Producer of the award winning Naval aviation adventure-documentary Speed and Angels. Paco flies for a major airline and is type rated in the Boeing 757/767 and the Airbus 330. After leaving military aviation, Paco discovered pistons and props and he now flies his family around in a Mooney and borrows friends Yak-50s for weekend warrior dogfighting. I was a reservist in this squadron and thus had the benefit of perspective, having already given up flying a magnificent flying machine, the F-14 Tomcat. I knew that every flight was a gift, every dogfight a treasure, every merge one step closer to the day when Peter Pan would have to leave and grow up. With just a few years remaining for me to fly the F-5, I realized that I wanted to preserve the moment for as long as possible, to distill it as I was experiencing it so that I could dip into it in the years of ordinary life and take a sip. I decided that I wanted tell the story of this world in a visual way. I enlisted a spectacular director, wrangled some cash from enterprising investors, and the result, three years later, was an award-winning documentary about the spirit and adventure of Naval Aviation, Speed and Angels. It is an unvarnished, full-throttle, pulse-pounding peek into the heart of flying fighters for the U.S. Navy told through the eyes of two young aviators. But the genesis of the film had always been the concentrated passion for air combat that we enjoyed flying F-5s in Fallon. The F-5 is a peculiar bird (VFC-13 currently flies F-5Ns, most of which were procured after 2006 from Switzerland). It is tiny for a fighter, especially one with two engines. It has no modern systems, unless you consider hydraulics to be modern. No Anti-Skid. No INS nor GPS. No HUD. Just a simple old-fashioned pulse radar and a basic gunsight. It has no defensive systems, no RWR nor expendable countermeasures, other than the fact that when pointed nose-on to an adversary it completely disappears, like a cloaking device being activated. There is no sophisticated technology required to enable the disappearing act, just the fact the pilot sits in a cramped little cockpit on the head of a needle with tiny, razor-thin wings behind him. And when that needle is nose on to a student pilot who has lost radar lock or situational awareness, that pilot’s skin will crawl and the hairs on the back of his neck will bristle, because he knows the very next time he is sure of where the bandit is will likely be when he hears the dreaded, “Trigger down, tracking, tracking…” It is a plane perfectly suited to the role of adversary; fast, simple, nimble, eminently beatable by a competently flown front-line fighter; but capable of pouncing on an error and creating a learning point in the form of a simulated kill. If you lose to the F-5, you have something to learn, and that’s the way it should be. It’s often mentioned that the F-5 is used as an adversary because it is a perfect simulator for the Mig-21, and it’s true: the V-n diagrams superimposed show almost identical maneuvering performance characteristics. That is a great serendipity, but in truth, it would have been a perfect adversary platform regardless. VFC-13 models its presentations to what is known as the ‘percentage threat’, the most likely global scenario for our fighters to face in combat. Think North Korea. Lots and lots of small, fast, simple enemy fighters swarming the technologically superior but numerically challenged Navy forces. Topgun, which is across the street on NAS Fallon at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, specializes in teaching the skills needed to defeat the more modern threat aircraft. To this end, Topgun flies the F-16 and F/A-18. Fantastic, superior platforms that can superbly simulate MiG-29s and Su-27s. Instead, VFC-13, known as The Saints, specializes in the Stalinist principle of ‘Quantity has a Quality all its Own’. North Korea operates over 400 Third Generation fighters and only 35 Mig-29s. Before any U.S. Navy pilots would get to test themselves against those Fulcrums, they would have to cut a swath through a cloud of Mig-21 and 23s. As a reservist who flew no more than 120 hours per year, .8 at a time, the F-5 was a dream. It is inexpensive to operate, therefore plentiful, and painfully simple, thus always mission ready. We flew as much as we could stand, often against each other to maintain tactical proficiency and to sharpen the dogfighting skills which we held in such high regard. One of the most dramatic differences between fleet pilots and VFC-13 pilots is the amount of time devoted to BFM, both in the air and in the briefing room. Coming from the F-14 community, I felt I had a pretty good grasp of BFM fundamentals; but, a Bandit pilot lives and breathes air combat. There are none of the distractions that a fleet pilot must deal with, like air-to-ground, CAS, LATT, SES and much more. It is pure air-to-air, with an emphasis on close-in maneuvering. New adversary pilots, many with 1,500 hours or more, are greeted with a demanding syllabus in graduate-level air combat that takes at least a year to complete, despite having fewer than 20 graded hops. The meticulousness, precision and professionalism required to represent the squadron as a fully qualified Bandit means that there will be many a re-fly. Often one particularly onerous event can be re-flown a number of times before the aspiring Bandit meets the standards required to move to the next sortie. It’s a humbling and sometimes frustrating year. But coming out the other side is a finely honed, meat-eating BFM machine–a Shaolin monk of aerial hand-to-hand combat, broken down and rebuilt without the distractions of advanced radars and electronic crutches When you are one of the Saints, you use all of your senses to build situational awareness, you use the earth and the sun as your allies, you use the simple tools at your disposal to maximum effect. And when you have completed your task, you have sacrificed yourself for the good of your student, imparting as much of your wisdom as possible through lessons of quiet victory. When it comes to aerial presentations, the Saints give their students two basic types: long range BVR scenarios with multiple groups of bandits that challenge the Fighter’s ability to effectively target and maneuver as a team, and BFM. BFM is the fighter pilot’s staple, the skills required to maneuver against and destroy a bandit in the visual arena. It is a skill that has been kicked to the curb by aircraft designers and war planners since the conclusion of WW II, yet grudgingly refuses to die in the real world of aerial warfare. There are a variety of reasons why a modern fighter, bristling with data links, AESA radar, active missiles and JHMCS will find itself pulling max G and dumping flares against an actual enemy fighter across the turn circle. Sophisticated jamming systems are relatively inexpensive and surprisingly capable, ROE frequently demand the Blue Fighter must put itself inside the ranges of IR missiles to confirm the identity of a bogey, and most likely, in the era of Self-Escort strikers, there is a very real chance that they will have to fight their way out of country with a limited Air-to-Air load because their hardpoints were laden with ordnance designed to move dirt and pulverize concrete. In any event, despite the belief to the contrary, it is highly likely that a Blue Fighter will find itself turning in the visual arena in any future conflict. An F-5 against an F/A-18 is not a fair fight. The Hornet has a spectacular radar with extremely capable ACM modes. At “Fight’s On,” a pilot has just to flick on his VACQ, select AMRAAM, put lift-vector on and pull until he gets a SHOOT cue. “Kill…Knock it off.” The Super Hornet (Boeing F/A-18E/F)has an even more capable ACM suite when the JHMCS is paired with the amazing AIM-9X. The ability to slew the AIM-9’s seeker head to the pilot’s line of sight at ridiculous off-boresight angles is an inescapably lethal combination. By comparison, the F-5 has no radar missile. The Saints use only an IR seeker head and a restrictive envelope from the 1970s limited to a few degrees off boresight. And the dreaded guns. There is no known countermeasure that can distract 30mm rounds. To build a fighter plane without a gun is as foolhardy as sending an infantry soldier into battle without a knife. The only time he will miss it is when he desperately needs it. The Navy version of the Vietnam-era F-4 didn’t have a gun, and it was sorely lacking. Ignoring the wisdom that “past is prologue,” the Navy variant of the F-35 again will not have an internal gun. In any event, because of this advantage in armament and capability, the majority of engagements end quickly with a decisive victory for the Hornet, especially after the first or second engagement once the rust and jitters have been shaken off. But with a few real-world limitations put on a Hornet to limit his first-shot kill ability, the fight becomes far more balanced. Scenarios in which the fighter is placed in a defensive perch, or is limited to an off-target weapons load, force the Hornet pilot to consider follow-on engaged maneuvering. The longer an F/A-18 is tied up in a dogfight with an F-5, the higher the chances that he will lose sight or commit a BFM error, and when either of those occur, the advantage tilts rapidly in favor of the Bandit. The real-world corollary is the off target strike-fighter, momentarily blind to the Air-to-Air picture after the drop, caught unawares by a Mig-21. Suddenly defensive, turning for his life and scrambling to take advantage of his superior platform, with every second that he delays in splashing the MiG, or bugging out, his risks increase exponentially. There was a huge amount of satisfaction derived from providing the students with valuable, challenging, realistic training. But as fun as the engagements themselves were, they were always tainted. Either the Blue fighter was sufficiently skilled that the engagements were clinical and perfunctory, or the students made enough errors to lose, and that wasn’t the goal. The supreme pleasure was in fighting in-house. An in-house BFM sortie between two seasoned pilots would consist of a short brief, a quick candy bar and a walk from the Ready Room 20 to 30 minutes before takeoff. Once airborne off of Runway 31, it was a quick right 90 degree turn, a push into combat spread and a climb. Two or three minutes later, after crossing over high terrain into Dixie Valley, there would be a G-warm, “Vipers ninety left…resume…Viper One FENCEd.” A quick TAC left and a short climb up to 16K’ and it was time for Fight’s On. With two skilled pilots the engagements would last two, three, sometimes four minutes if taken all the way to a kill, an eternity for a dogfight in the jet age. But the dance is nuanced at this level, even more so with the limitations of the basic weapons systems. In fact, during the in-house events, most of the best pilots would limit themselves to what we referred to as a knife fight, guns kills only. There is no arguing the victor when one plane is saddled behind the other with his pipper on the cockpit. I flew hundreds, if not thousands of these engagements in the years I spent in Fallon, and I remember them all fondly. Even the ones where I was stuck looking over my shoulder like a PEZ dispenser, which happened more often than I would have liked. Most in-house hops consisted of three, or rarely four, intense high-aspect abeam or butterfly starts. Once BINGO was reached and the bandits FENCEd out, it was a quick RTB for the 600 knot carrier break, the most intense, action-packed .7 you could ever put into your log book. I was fortunate enough to fly with some truly amazing aviators. And now, long after the fact, I still have detailed memories of some of the fights as if they happened just hours ago. I can still see Bat Masterson’s jet gaining 10 to 15 degrees on me with each merge, and feel the wonder and frustration of flying the machine as best I could, yet realizing that in a matter of two or three more merges I was going to be practicing my Last Ditch Guns-D. Bat, a small man with a large mustache, taught me one of my most enduring BFM lessons. In the debrief, I petitioned his expertise. “How the hell did you do that every engagement? I was fighting as hard as I could!” A man of few words, he answered simply, “When you’re fast, be fast. When you’re slow, be slow.” Believe it or not, that bit of wisdom taught me more about fighting the F-5 than the countless losses I had suffered through previously. I can close my eyes and picture chasing Kemo Percival through a very offensive Rolling Scissors, only to have him execute the most perfect Pirouette and pass me 180 out, neutralized, with my jaw hanging open. If this had happened just once, I would have chalked it up to an accident of aerodynamics. But time and again I watched as a rare offensive position was eliminated by this impossible escape. When flying by myself, I would practice over and over: 45-60 degrees nose high, 220-180 knots, full aileron deflection, full opposite rudder, stick first full aft then quickly to full forward. When Kemo did it, his plane rotated horizontally, swapping ends in a blink while still maintaining enough energy to continue flying and fighting. When I tried it, following his recipe to the letter, I ended up either mushing through a reversal of direction but completely without airspeed, or rolling sideways and pulling through a slow speed wingover. No help at all. And finally, I’ll never forget a late afternoon fight against Monty Montgomery in planes that were laden with external tanks. The positive was that we had 1,000 pounds of extra gas, which doubled our number of engagements. The negative was that the F-5 handled like a pig at high Alpha burdened by the effect of the 150 gallon tank. We fought six times with the blood red Sierra Mountains as a backdrop, each a decisive victory, three of which were Monty’s. They were, each and every one of them, amazing duels filled with feigns and deception, flying at the very edge of the envelope, cautious and cunning. But neither pilot was to be satisfied with a neutral Lufbery on the deck. Chances were taken and BFM errors made, and each time an opening was given the opponent was able to capitalize. This was one of the most pure and well flown hops I ever experienced. Two fairly matched pilots in like aircraft using every bit of experience and trickery at their disposal. The knowledge that it would take only one error to seal one’s fate, added to the challenge of flying at the maximum limits of performance with the additional load of an external tank, and the race to complete before sunset, added to the intensity. The F-5 was the enabler of this amazing flying club. It was a link between the pure era of fighting machines to the modern age of digital combat. The plane was essentially a jet-powered P-51 Mustang, and those days if you flew it well, you were really flying well. Cables linked the stick to the ailerons and elevator. Dancing on the pedals directly affected the movement of the rudders. When you flew it well you felt the plane speak to you through the whisper of the wind over the canopy and the Bernoullis nibbling at the wing. It was a plane with a reputation for biting the unwary, often with disastrous consequences. But if you respected it, and knew it well, and listened when it spoke, it was a plane that would reward the pilot by exceeding its expectations. I once matched an F-14D through a double-Immelman, though at the top I was desperately stirring the pot clawing for purchase. But the Tomcat driver was so unnerved that he was off his game for the rest of the fight. It was in this way that the F-5 actualized its mission. It was a pilot’s machine that rewarded its devotees, and it was a perfect foil for testing the overconfidence of Blue pilots in their advanced platforms. The F-5N carries forward that tradition today and for the foreseeable future with some significant enhancements. It sports RWR and chaff dispensers and it has the capability to carry a jamming pod. But the newer lot Rhino is no Classic Hornet or Tomcat. The ability of the F-5 to continue to provide a credible opposition in the face of AESA and AIM-9X is diminishing. The challenge in the future for VFC-13 will be to match the evolving ‘Percentage Threat’ in the world. Over 11,000 Mig-21s alone have been produced. There are three companies which specialize in upgrading the airframe to modern capabilities. A radar, HUD, data link, active-missiles, high off-boresight IR missiles and effective RWR can all be strapped into a Fishbed for a fraction of the cost of a new fighter and provide almost all of the capabilities. If the Saints hope to continue flying the F-5 and providing realistic training, efforts in this direction will have to be made. As for me, I will always be grateful for my years as a member of the Bandits. They were (and are) a badass bunch of dogfighting ninjas. It was an honor to walk with them and learn from them, and to share a drink and a laugh. Likewise, the F-5 will forever be under my skin, an integral part of the story of that time. It infected my dreams and dominated my imagination. I obsessed over perfecting it. Of absorbing from my peers how to cajole every last knot and degree-per-second. I will miss flying it, with them, every day, for as long as I live. from http://fightersweep.com

File Name: F5E-TIGER III PLUS_SFP1 File Submitter: Kaiser1 File Submitted: 13 February 2015 File Category: F-5 Freedom Fighter F5E-TIGER III Plus Español: Programa de modernización del F5E comprado por chile en los 70´, llevados al estandar Tiger III y luego en los 90´ al estandar Tiger III Plus, aviónica mejorada, pantallas MFD, para información del piloto, radar multimodo ELTA M/2032 y sistemas de contramedidas chaff y bengalas ,y ECM A401. English: F5E modernization program purchased by chile in 70' , taken to the standard Tiger III and then in the 90's to the standard Tiger III Plus , improved avionics , MFD screens for driver information , multimode radar ELTA M / 2032 and systems countermeasures chaff and flares , and ECM A401 . Permisos otorgados por Tom Venom TMF. Click here to download this file

View File F-5E Early Versions Pack F-5E For Strike Fighters 2 "Early versions pack" Version History: v.1.0: First public release. Early versions without later refinements like RWR. DESCRIPTION: This addon can thank its release to the work of two talented individuals, FastCargo and BPao. FastCargo created the F-5F two seaters and BPao was the man behind the original Mirage Factory F-5E model. I was fortunate enough to get permission to work on these source models, with the goals of marrying the F-5E front section to the F-5F engine and wings which were quite a lot more detailed. It was supposed to be a quick project. One year later: I have completely reworked the F-5E nose, added a lot of stuff on the original fuselage and detailed both original templates to have higher detail textures. Meanwhile Sophocles graciously allowed me to use his superb F-5A cockpit as a basis to build my F-5E cockpit, in which I have also used parts based on FastCargos unfinished T-38 cockpit. Included is two versions of the earlier production F-5E: a basic version dubbed '72 and an export specific version with a larger vertical stabilizator and spine antenna. This version is dubbed '74L (L for large vertical stablizator). Happy flying! Mats "Centurion" Liljeroos FEATURES: SF2 standard external model 2048^2 textures with normal maps Realistic cockpit with avionics courtesy of Crusader FM from original MirageFactory F-5E which flies really good. OPERATORS COVERED IN THIS PACK: USAF Agressor USN Agressor Brazil Honduras Chile Marocco IRIAF Jordania South Korea Saudi Arabia Thailand South Vietnam North Vietnam (captured from VNAF) Ethiopia Kenya Indonesia Tunisia CREDITS: Bpao and Mirage Factory crew: Orginal F-5E model and templates FastCargo for original F-5F model EricJ and pappychecksix for original F-5F templates and textures Sophocles for his superb cockpit work. Every switch is a work of art. Crusader for his ini file magic, really makes the cockpit and plane come alive. Paulo for his mammoth decaling work which he allowed me to use. and even helped me by reworking some of it. Me for cobbling all this together (=texturing and modeling work) The rest of the Combat Ace community. Without you guys I would never have bothered to make it this far. INSTALATTION: Extract into mod folder of choice. This by and large replaces the old F-5E by TMF, so you can go ahead and delete the F-5E aircraft folder if you have it installed. NOTE: The _74L version references the _72 versions cockpit folder, so if you aim to use the 74L standalone in some installation, copy the cockpit folder and F-5E_72_cockpit.ini file from the _72 folder to the _74L folder. Overwrite. Stay tuned for more Tigers! This falls under the Combatace Freeware License Agreement. Submitter Centurion-1 Submitted 11/09/2014 Category F-5  

Was released in some US theaters last night, "officially" came out today. Who is seeing it? If I weren't half sleep from working a long shift I would be in line right now.

Roaring into battle with the famous Tiger tank in 'Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942'! 'Tyger, tyger burning bright In the forest of the night What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?' William Blake, 'The Tyger', 1794 And now, for something completely different. No, not a Monty Python sketch, but a change of pace and scenery: from the clear blue skies and snarling aero-engines of combat flightsims to the solid earth and thundering heavy weapons of perhaps the best available tanksim, from Ukrainian developers Graviteam - 'Steel Fury Kharkov 1942'. The sim My first tank sim was back in the early 1980s, believe it or not. It was played on my younger brother's Sinclair Spectrum and compared to 'Pong', 'Rommel's Revenge' was a revelation, albeit the wire-frame graphics were perhaps not quite what we're used to these days. Fun, though; I was pleased to see that it's been preserved for posterity on Youtube: Turn the clock forward about 15 years, and my first modern tanksim was Ultimation's 'Panzer Commander'. Graphics had come a long way and despite simplified (but very usable) targeting, odd bunker-based anti-tank guns and no infantry at all, this was a great product, with a dramatic musical theme and varied and engaging single-player campaigns covering US, British, Soviet and German tanks and AFVs. It was soon joined on my hard drive by another classic, Microprose's 'M1 Tank Platoon 2', showcasing the US Army's formidable M1A2 Abrams. This also had its vicissitudes, like near-instant deluges of lethal artillery fire which usually killed off any attached APCs early on and a tendency to over-rely for successful gameplay on the simulated IVIS real-time tactical display, where, as one reviewer put it, you could spend the whole battle watching little blue and red squares firing pixels at each other. Still, with high production values (including newsreel-style video intros from 'MPS News' to each of the campaigns) it was a great sim, a classic that, with a bit of fiddling, can be played on modern PCs and is still great fun: Tanksim fans were rather spoiled back in those days. There were other less capable but still fun modern tanksims like Novalogic's 'Armoured Fist 2' and 3 and Interactive Magic's 'Spearhead', soon joined by the original 'Steel Beasts' from eSim, which simulated the mechanics of tanking with unpredecented accuracy. For World War 2 fans, as well as 'Panzer Commander', there was Interactive Magic's 'iPanzer 1944', but the best of all came with Wings Simulation's 'Panzer Elite'. Modders soon appeared who tweaked the original rather cartoonish graphics and by the time the Special Edition arrived, this was clearly the premier WW2 tanksim, and I think still is, in many respects. This is not least due to the continued work of the mod community, notably Aldo and other members of the PE Development Group and BobR and the Ostpak team. PE is still playable on modern systems and well worth it, too, as seen in this 'playthrough' of the Beresov mission from Ostpak: And so to modern times. 'Steel Beasts' is now a grapically-improved professional military training tool with a spun-off version for simmers, and if you want something simpler and cheaper there's IDDK/Crazy House's 'T-72 Iron Warriors/Balkans on Fire'. Although you're often just a single tank driving around and clobbering stuff with little opportunity to co-operate with fellow AI, this looks good, has plenty of detail and plays well: http://store.steampowered.com/app/1670/ For World War 2, there was 'T-34 -vs- Tiger'. Like the same developer's 'T-72', this is a pretty good simulation of the operation of the featured vehicles. Again, you're essentially on your own in missions, with the other AI, friendly and enemy, acting out their scripted functions. Looks and sounds great though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmyM-WLyd8U Which brings us to Ukranian developer Graviteam's 'Steel Fury Kharkov 1942', which at last puts you in the role of the leader of a platoon/troop of tanks and pitches you right into company-sized combined arms operations on the Eastern Front. While the original release featured a decent set of German and Russian tanks (including the Lend-Lease British Matilda infantry tank, of all things!) it was limited, as the title suggests, to the mid-1942 era. While the sim's mostly still Eastern Front only, the modders have been at work, making AI AFVs playable and adding new missions and vehicles. And unlike other Graviteam titles like the 'Achtung Panzer/Graviteam Tactics' series which are essentially wargames, or 'Steel Armour - Blaze of War' which is an unusual sort of tanksim within a 'strategy' game, SF'42 is a proper tanksim, through and through SF'42 was hard to come by for a while but is now available at GamersGate: http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-SFURY/steel-fury-kharkov-1942 The mods are now de rigeur for anyone wanting to get the best of this sim and the best place to start is I think over on Tanksim.com: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=178218 Edit - since writing this I've discovered that the best place for SF mods is Gaviteam's on forum for the sim: http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0 Use of Jonesoft's Gerneric Mod Enabler is essential and many mods seem set up to use it. Install order is important and as with most sims there are some aspects of modding with which you need to have a bit of patience. But most or all of what you need to know is there on Tanksim.com. And most of the stuff you'll want seems to be on Mediafire, here, courtesy of Godzilla1985: http://www.mediafire.com/?q38nkzaginphq Edit, August 2014 - the SPM mod was used for this mission; the later NTA mod has been discontinued, but its successor, the STA Mod, is now available and I think it's fair to say STA is the latest and most comprehensive mod for Steel Fury: http://stasf2008.eph...d-on-steel-fury Fancying a slice of tank action for a change, I dusted off my old modded install of SF '42 and knowing that it is better to give than to receive - especially if the 'present' is a solid round of 'Armour-Piercing Capped, Ballistic Capped' travelling at over 2,000 feet per second - I decided to start with my favourite tank - the German Tiger. Which by all accounts, is pretty good at both giving and receiving. The tank The Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger I needs little introduction. Its unsloped armour reflects the fact it was designed more for superiority over the likes of the British Matilda and French Somua than the T-34 or KV-1 which so shocked the Germans on meeting them in the summer of 1941. But the Tiger proved an excellent antidote to the superb Soviet tanks and indeed, to the Shermans, Cromwells and Churchills it would meet in the Mediterranean and North-West European Theatres. 'Nuff said, except that I count myself privileged to have met the mighty Tiger 131, now restored to running order and authentic appearance by the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Bovington Camp, Dorset, having been captured, abandoned, from Schwere Panzer Abteilung 504 at Medjez el Bab, Tunisia in April 1943 after being damaged by Churchills of 48 RTR: The mission Here's the mission briefing; the tail end of it, anyway. It's preceded with other sections which help set the scene, telling me that my platoon of three Tigers is part of a Kampfgruppe of Panzer Regiment 201, 23rd Panzer Division, tasked with following up a successful counterattack. Our Kampfgruppe appears to be a combined arms force of reinforced company size, with artillery and air support. Our mission is in two phases - first to destroy enemy defensive positions along a low crest then to swing left and clear the village of Nepokrytoe. While the briefing has the semblance of military orders it could still be rather better presented. The current NATO format for 'orders' like these - Ground (technically a preliminary to the orders), Situation, Mission, Execution, Service/Support and Command and Signal - would be better. Not unrealistic either, as it is essentially the same as the British WW2 format (with detail differences, eg 'Situation' was 'Information') adopted also by the Americans. Convergent evolution being what it is, the German WW2 format wasn't much different. The SF'42 format doesn't give me as much info as I'd like on the operation, eg the composition of the other subunits my platoon's operating with. And the attack itself could have been better described, more clearly broken down into its two constituent and distinct phases, with the detailed tasks given for each subunit for each phase stated, including my own. As it was, while the narrative didn't provide a clear picture of the composition of our force this was apparent from the map, which showed unit type symbols - diamonds are tanks, the 'pointy rectangles' are infantry in APCs. In our case the APCs are SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen) as the Germans called their Hanomag half-tracked armoured personnel carriers. The map itself isn't bad but despite the presence of contours and the occasional spot height, it doesn't make the lie of the land very clear (a vital consideration in ground ops) and it doesn't zoom out enough, so you have to pan around to try to orient yourself properly. The map screen is also were you can issue orders to your platoon, which you can do 'in game' only by calling up and clicking on this map - there are no hotkeys to order (eg) a formation change. The scope for giving orders is pretty low, perhaps better suiting Soviet tanks where radios were limited and hand or flag signals were the norm. The most useful orders are 'do as I do! and basic formation commands, options being line (abreast), column/single file, a sort of 'blob' (as near as you'll get to the common arrowhead or wedge formation) and the ability to order 'spread out!' or 'close in!' I probably need to spend a bit more time on this map/briefing screen to better appreciate its facilities. One other issue is that the map is from the original sim which is for operations in the Kharkov area in mid-1942. While this wasn't the only period when there was fighting around this town, even my mission's date is in May 1942, some months before the Tiger first appeared in action, in the Leningrad sector in September 1942. But this is a modder-made tank in a modder-made single mission which makes the best use of what's available, and I for one am most grateful for the opportunity to fight in a Tiger in a modern sim. From the map, I could see that my platoon was sited to the centre rear of the mission's Start Line, which was a track running across our front. You can see this more clearly below, with the briefing panel minimised. We are the three blue diamonds, roughly bottom centre. To our right are some Panzergrenadiers in their SPWs. To our left are some more SPWs with more tanks, all still in column formation until they reach the Start Line clear of the woods. The latter will evidently be our Kampfgruppe's left-hand boundary. So I will be in the centre, as ordered, with a Panzer Grenadier platoon each side, with some other tanks for a bit of extra firepower. Enough of the preliminaries! Time to get the show on the road. I started the mission, the loading screen helpfully giving me a snippet from a German tanker's manual, this one a warning that stopping after spotting an AT gun close by was suicidal and that only a fast-moving attack with all weapons would do. I'd try to remember that! Soon, I found my virtual self standing tall, hatch open, in the commander's cupola of my Tiger, looking up at the Start Line, which I could make out in the form of a line of trees interspersed with telegraph poles, maybe a hundred meters ahead. Here we go! ...to be continued!

File Name: Tiger Meet 2013 skins for Polish F-16C/D File Submitter: DoctorWho File Submitted: 22 June 2013 File Category: F-16 Here are the skins of Polish Vipers prepared for this year's NATO Tiger Meet. Unfortunely, these skins were only foil stickers in real life and they fell off almost completely during the flight from Poland to Norway. The author of this design is a Polish architect from Brodnica, Oskar Gawlowski. Instructions: First of all, download the Viper Team's Polish F-16 pack (http://combatace.com/files/file/13652-polish-air-force-f-16cd-by-the-viper-team/) with my skins unless you already have it. Then unpack contents of this .zip file to your mod folder. Credits: Thanks to all Viper Team members for their Block 52 VIper. Legal Stuff: You cannot include any contents of this .zip in any payware. Cheers Chris DoctorWho Jun 22, 2013 Click here to download this file

File Name: F-5N Tiger II Aggressor SF2 File Submitter: Crusader File Submitted: 26 January 2013 File Category: F-5 F-5N Tiger II v1 USN/USMC Aggressor aircraft by Mod Mafia /The Mirage Factory and paulopanz (skin texture+decal updates) Old model, not up to latest SF2 standard. Should work in SF1 series with minor ini tweaks. Click here to download this file

File Name: F-5E Tiger II Avionics Update File Submitter: Crusader File Submitted: 13 January 2013 File Category: Avionics This is an avionics update for The Mirage Factory F-5E, updated for the latest SF2 version by paulopanz Available at http://combatace.com...-f-5e-tiger-ii/ Content: + data ini updates + Cockpit updates + New F-5E-type sight and radar Read the Readme file for additional info ~ Click here to download this file