Jet Fighter Combat -- DCS represents it?

[MengJiao]

  I played Third Wire for about a year and its representation of jet fighter fighting is very different from what DCS world shows.

  I suppose a lot of the DCS world aircraft are more advanced, but I think it also represents more of the electronic warfare side of the fighting.

  For example, in DCS world, I had 2 Su-27s flying CAP over a Destroyer which was within radar range of some big friendly radars.  I attacked the destroyer about half a dozen ways with f-16s, F-16s backed up by Tornados, F-16s backed up by F-4s and AWACS.  No attacks reached missile range of the DD.  What would happen would be (I think): the radars would detect the incoming F-16s; the Su27s would put on afterburners and climb.  A big dogfight would ensue and if NATO was lucky, they would get one Su-27 before they were all shot down (well the AWACS always got way and usually one of the F-16).  The strange thing was that the dog fight would get low and slow.  So what is going on?  Are tactics being represented in DCS world in a plausible way? 

[GDS_Starfury]

what kind of destroyer is it and did you (can you) attack from different directions at once?

[mirth]

Can you hit the supporting radars before going after the DD? I assume the F-16s are escorting and the strike is being delivered by the Tornados or Phantoms? Not sure why the strike aircraft wouldn't try to hit the DD while the 16s mixed it up with the Flankers.

[MengJiao]

Can you hit the supporting radars before going after the DD? I assume the F-16s are escorting and the strike is being delivered by the Tornados or Phantoms? Not sure why the strike aircraft wouldn't try to hit the DD while the 16s mixed it up with the Flankers.

  I'm mostly just marveling at the strangeness of the DCS world.  I guess you do really have to attack the radars first.  Not that there is any lack of pinpoint cruise missiles in DCS World.  The weirdest thing for me is seeing the contrails miles and miles away as the Su-27s come in at 30000 and launch an initial round of missiles which all fall short.  I assume some kind of automatic jamming is going on (I do put ECM pods on at least a few planes).  I guess the logic of a high approach is your missiles go farther and the enemy has spotted you anyway.  Then there is some very low and very slow fighting.  Watching a Su-27 go after a C-17 and a Predator drone with cannons was fascinating.  It got the big transport, but the drone was just too low and slow and too close to some mountains.  Usually a radar-guided missile gets the drone early on.
It all looks realistic, but I wonder if anyone knows how realistic it is.

[GDS_Starfury]

high altitude lets that bog honkin radar see farthest and lets missiles have a ballistic edge to their range.

[MengJiao]

high altitude lets that bog honkin radar see farthest and lets missiles have a ballistic edge to their range.

  I'm getting used to it.  I guess I need to bring in the F-15s to hold off the various versions of the Su-27 (Su-30 through 34 all seem to be versions of the Su-27).  And some cruise missiles to knock out some radars.  Tornados and Fencers don't seem to do well in DCS world though c-17s dumping lots of flares and chaff seem to do almost as well as anything else at surviving.  The drone survives if the radar missiles hit something else.  It seems immune to IR missiles and cannon (too low and slow to hit).

[GDS_Starfury]

in the real world Id imagine the F-15s would be way out in front of the strike group acting as a screen and backed up by awacs.  behind them would be the SEAD planes with a few more mixed in with the actual strike group.  everyone gets ECM and the strike group hits the targets from around half the compass at once.

[MengJiao]

in the real world Id imagine the F-15s would be way out in front of the strike group acting as a screen and backed up by awacs.  behind them would be the SEAD planes with a few more mixed in with the actual strike group.  everyone gets ECM and the strike group hits the targets from around half the compass at once.

  I was working on some scenarios built around how to accidently trigger a war in Georgia.  I postulated that the USA and/or NATO were secretly moving some reconnaisance stuff (drones) to an advanced base on the Georgian Coast.  The Russians pick up a lot of new radar sites in the area and decide to make a pre-emptive strike on the radars.  Both sides have AWACS and fighters but they are being held back.  Once the cruisemissiles hit (which they have one out of a half-dozen times), then all hell breaks loose.  Anyway, I've been pretty surprised by what happens once all the radars come into action and the missiles start flying.

[GDS_Starfury]

does everything get super accurate?

[MengJiao]

does everything get super accurate?

  No.  There's a lot of chaff and presumably ECM going on.  If you watch the fighters, you can tell when the simulation decides the radar news has gotten to the fighters because they go to afterburners, and start climbing and head for the enemy.  For some reason the Su-27s always split -- one goes high and one goes slightly lower and faster.  So they spread out vertically and horizontally.  All other flights (f-16s, Tornados, F-4s, Fencers) tend to spread out at the same altitude, though sometimes an F-16 will take the high route..  The first barrage of radar-guided missiles always misses, presumably due to ECM spoofing since both sides are closing very fast.

[SgtRock]

I wonder how much as really changed from the Falklands War?

The British navy even with CAP, missiles & radar still got hit by aircraft dropping dumb bombs.  Modern Warships don't carry that many missiles and have also no guns that can track & hit an aircraft. Many of our NATO allies had warships run out of ammo/missiles during the initial attack on Libia and that was a battle where no one was shooting back!

[GDS_Starfury]

During the Falklands no RN ships had cwis or vls cells or ram launchers.  The ships that ran low off of Libya didn't run low or even launch a sm-2.  They ran low on tlam's.

[mirth]

At the time of the Falklands, most RN ships were not optimized for air defense against low, fast moving targets. Cold War doctrine of the time had them primarily engaging Soviet bombers that were at high altitudes. Sea Wolf was the only RN SAM effective against low level targets and there were only a handful of Sea Wolf equipped ships.

I'd wager that a single Type 45 could provide better SAM coverage than what the RN had available in the South Atlantic in 82.

[GDS_Starfury]

I wager that just putting 2 or 3 Goalkeepers on each ship would have done wonders.
but ya cant change history.