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mutuals do this

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DCS: F-14B

So IL-2 Tank Crew got the M4A2 recently. I haven’t had enough time to mess with it to really form an opinion, but I am sorta bummed they didn’t model the stabilizer (or rather, they modeled it in the fighting compartment, but it’s permanently disabled for the time being). I have, however, been flying the F-14 in DCS a lot, so let’s talk about that.

The F-14 Tomcat is a plane with an almost legendary media presence. It’s the plane from Top Gun, as much of a star as Tom Cruise was. Heatblur have rendered the Tomcat in exacting detail in DCS, with only a few systems and functions omitted for the initial Early Access release... which means it’s doing a great job at blowing the idea of the F-14 as this mighty air to air fighter apart at the seams. The F-14 is decent, and it’s a fun plane to fly in DCS, but it’s abundantly clear why this plane was retired when the F/A-18 (which we have in DCS as well) came onto the scene. Pilot workload is immense, and the RIO has to be a savant with the radar to reliably detect and engage threats at long range, something highlighted even more when flying with Jester, the AI RIO included with the module, who does a pretty mediocre job at running the AWG-9.

The F-14 is a very oldschool aircraft. Your HUD isn’t a primary flight instrument, it’s barely useful at all beyond providing weapon cues- this is a pre-sparrowhawk aircraft. Your throttle and stick have controls for weapons and some flight functions, but you’ll have to be manipulating switches and buttons around the cockpit a lot more often than on an aircraft designed with a HOTAS mindset. Many features feel sort of hacked together- the fuel flow indicator doesn’t show afterburner fuel flow, LANTIRN controls are basically duct-taped in and are almost completely independent of other aircraft controls and functions (so, no change in pilot release cues, no auto release). The “E bracket” in the HUD used to stay on speed during a carrier approach is so unreliable that it’s really better to just fly by the AOA readout tape and indexer on the front windshield frame. It’s a really weird aircraft to fly and fight in compared to basically anything else- other oldschool fighters in DCS don’t have nearly the complexity of the Tomcat, so the fact that you’re lacking modern amenities and control functions isn’t really a concern- and likewise, with modern stuff, you’ve got reliable and easy to read instruments and most all of your controls are on your throttle and stick.

That’s not even getting into what happens when missiles start flying. Any damage at all seems to be pretty threatening to the Tomcat, usually causing a hydraulics failure or a pretty nasty fuel leak or just outright killing an engine. The pilot can also easily damage or destroy the aircraft themselves just by going too fast or pulling too hard (and god help us when we get the F-14A with the TF30s), the Tomcat is only rated for something like 6.5Gs before you start causing yourself problems. Maintaining SA can be difficult as the pilot, considering the positioning of the radar repeater, and once again- that’s only gonna be worse on the A, which doesn’t have displays in the cockpit for radar imagery. 

It’s a blast to fly, though. It’s stupid fast, and there really isn’t anything else like it in the game. It’s just that, if someone were to tell me that I had to fly either the F-14 or the F/A-18 into actual combat, I’d go with the Hornet any goddamn day of the week.

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Not tanks but bite me IL-2 Tank Crew hasn’t added MY BOY yet. When the Sherman is added, I’ll probably have more armor content.

In the mean time, DCS got a MiG-19P. It’s not an entirely finished product yet, there are notable issues with the flight model and some weird behavior with in cockpit switches and controls, but it’s most of the way there. I love older jets like this, they’re a lot more fun to fly than modern 4th gen flying computers, and they don’t take nearly as long to learn. It looks gorgeous too, IMO, aside from some slightly overdone prebaked shadows in the cockpit.

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I picked up the DCS F/A-18C during a sale a bit back. The current early access iteration doesn’t have a targeting pod of any kind, or any air-to-ground radar functionality, so I opted to sling a Maverick under my right wing to act as a poor man’s laser spot tracker. It works surprisingly well, when you can get the AI FAC/JTAC to cooperate and actually lase.

Getting better at carrier work, too. I usually have three or four bolters or waveoffs before I snag a wire, this time I got her down on the second attempt (which is good considering I was running on fumes by then). It was a one-wire, but still.

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tanksims are suffering because they apparently take 8+ months to implement any actual content in

please 777 i just want my sherman

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Reminder that the 75mm M3 was a fine tank gun and that the Sherman had comparable armor protection to the Tiger from the front when factoring line of sight thickness/slope

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“The Lee had... issues.”

I mean that’s a very diplomatic way to say that it was a massive piece of shit that was genuinely more useful as an armored personnel carrier (which the Soviets did) than a tank

why did the US think that making tanks really fucking tall was a good idea

the soviets calling the M3 Lee the “coffin for seven brothers” is easily the most funniest and most russian thing i’ve ever heard

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“New tank models take a lot of time to develop, so Tank Crew customers will get their new toys early next year “

oh.

I mean i know software development takes time but that’s like three months and the current content available in Tank Crew is two tanks (of which, two positions within the tank are only partially implemented), two new missions, and versions of the old tank mission for the free tanks modified to use the new ones. I was kinda hoping we’d at least get rudimentary tank commander mechanics before the year was out so that you wouldn’t have to swap back and forth from the gunner’s position in singleplayer/when solo crewing the vehicle in multiplayer.

oh well, at least the M4 is probably going to be one of the first new tanks implemented.

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In celebration of  getting 1,488 followers and the imminent ban wave

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This thing (the Modern Medium Weight Tank, some sources call it the Kaplan MT or Black Tiger) is fuckin’ weird. It’s a joint Turkish/Indonesian developed vehicle which, as far as I can tell, is primarily going to be used by the Indonesian military to replace their old AMX-13s. So, apparently Indonesia still wants light tanks, which just strikes me as bizarre.

Light tanks as a concept seem outdated in a world with ATGMs and RPGs. Unless I’m mistaken, a light tank is an armored recce vehicle that can deal with enemy armor if it comes across it, but that’s not its primary function. Something like a BMP comes to mind as a good option for that- an autocannon for light armor, softskins, and infantry, an ATGM for tanks, all in a small mobile package. While things like the BMP tend to be long in the tooth with regards to systems, there’re a shitload of defense companies hawking upgrade packages for everything, and I imagine acquiring a bunch of old BMPs and finding some company to slap thermals and an FCS in them alongside modern radios couldn’t be more expensive than developing an entirely new vehicle. 

I dunno. I don’t claim to know everything about modern armor, or how it pertains to militaries that don’t have America Money to spend on new toys.

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Past and present, the fearsome German big cats: Tiger I and Leopard 2. 

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So hey if it wasn’t abundantly clear by the fact that I tell nazis to fuck off in my blog description, I’ll make a post about it too. 

If you support or are at all sympathetic to any facet of Nazi ideology, you can fuck right off, you aren’t welcome here. Likewise that goes to anyone who supports any other genocidal ideology, or anyone who denies the humanity or rights of anyone for reasons of color, creed, sex, gender, cultural group, or any of the other myriad reasons racists and bigots try to use to justify their ignorance as well.

Despite being into tanks and military history, I’m pretty uncomfortable showing images of violence or death involving actual, real life people- that’s just a part of my upbringing. But I feel it’s important to reinforce the message I want to send here- I’ll post shit about German tanks, I may even say favorable things about them. That’s something about the machine itself. Fuck the ideology that birthed them and fuck the country that built them.

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wait did a fucking nazi really like a meme about how shit their arms industry and strategic procurement was

@obergefreiter do me a solid and huff a .32, hakenkock

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Been a bit busy, so have some misc. old screenshots from SABOW.

One issue I have with combat sim games in general is that there’s almost always a dearth of good content on the tactics and strategy involved in using your machine. The game probably ships with a manual telling you exactly how to use every feature of your vehicle, and maybe touches on the broad strokes of tactics, but that’s it usually. Likewise, you can seek out community guides and tutorials, and they’re usually the same, all about the mechanics of using the vehicle, very little tactics or strategy. For flight sims, this isn’t quite as big of a deal because there actually are a good number of tutorials for BFM and two-ship tactics (especially for pre-missile aircraft), but for tanksims... yeah, no. Tanksims have smaller communities in general, and if you ask for tactics/strategy help, you get linked to a four hundred page manual in German about how tanks fought in the Blitzkrieg

I’m sure those manuals are alright, maybe you could glean something from them that would apply to more modern warfare, but god they’re a slog to try to read.

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