Great comments at the end. To me, DCS is just a tool for choosing your own adventure. Sometimes I just want the virtual museum experience of admiring well modeled planes. Sometimes I just want the feeling of flight as best as I can get it. Sometimes I want a dogfight challenge, or role play a historical scenario. DCS can deliver all of these things pretty well - when I see that real world fighter pilots can have fun with it, I feel like I’m on the right path and not wasting my time with a junk product.
Great to hear you found it interesting. Thanks for letting me know. I agree entirely DCS is what you make it and so long as you are happy with it, not one can tell you you're doing it wrong.
I like this relying on practice and trial and error rather than just relying on what the manual says. What I found in my testing in trying your method, is that I seem to have difficulty lining up all the values properly (speed, altitude, 10 degree angle). I did find consistency though. Most of the time my bombs went long!! Once I adjusted to that knowledge, I found ways to be accurate. I'll still need to practice a lot more though. My guess is through practice I'll probably find numbers that make sense to me, and that will become my own method. I remember the same thing happened when I was learning direct bombing in the Mirage F1... the tables 'kind of' worked, but I found my own method of being consistent with it. Eventually, we get good, and then we try it with AAA shooting at us in the middle of a hectic mission, and basically we drop the bombs praying that the 'bomb gods' will help our accuracy! Hehehe!
I'll give this a shot and report back! Thanks, Lain for sharing your passion and expertise! Ok I see how it works! I gotta practice to get my hits in line with the target but it's working out!
Thank you Sidekick really enjoying your content. Your method has given me consistent results. I will be the envy of the next multiplayer session! Keep it up.
I was doing this with 500knots/500feet/flying level/140 mils, which i though was a liil bit off, but not by much. Gonna try this after work with some dive in there. And again, big thanx for your awesome tutorials!!!
Your welcome! BTW - You are also welcome to drop by my discord and get the range mission so you can quantify that "not by much" as well as checking your release parameters - it really does help.
@@Sidekick65 Thanks! That sounds really helpful! I didnt even know that existed. I have been usign a mission pack i got from forums , but(i am still very new to DCS), those didnt have any "evaluation" tools to acutally quantify that, as far as i could tell :D
really great video - thanks for the info in which we enviroment we can choose these tactic (small arms) - can you also give an advice which drop method you would choose for an IR SAM enviroment
Great video, and great thoughts. The "reality" is that the numbers published in the weapons manual (or NATOPS) were developed during testing by test pilots, and while they serve(d) as a means to teach new and transitioning pilots to the A/C and its weapons, they were often modified "on-the-fly" by the pilots flying real missions in real time. The ad hoc methods were sometimes more or less documented, but often were part of local squadron lore passed on "word-of-mouth" to newbies when they reported to the squadron or wing ("The Book says do it that way, but we've found that THIS way works better..."). While that might not have satisfied an external check pilot, it probably happened a lot. That was probably A LOT more true in the era of the F-4 and before, and has certainly become less so as the systems have become more integrated and capable. One might argue this is why modules like the Phantom are so popular, as the hark back to a more "seat of the pants, results-based" type of combat flying than is present in a more modern "electronic" jet... In any event. Nice technique, I like it and will try it. Thanks and keep up the good work!
In my experience i always end up a little bit higher i think it has something to do with dive angle I might be wrong but i think the radius is 25 mils so at 125 bottom of the sight is 150 not 175 that means you are diving on target at about 8 degrees and that explains higher altitude at release point
Great stuff. Didn't know you had added smoke markers to the bombing range. Outstanding. I was wondering how often FACs might have done this in say Vietnam and maybe only during CAS missions? Would having smoke maybe change the delivery mode? Maybe keeping it low and fast?
if you are going in low and fast, I think you either need a good target location and a good INS - or you need a smoke mark. You simply can't identify the target far enough back if you don't have one of those things - preferrably both - honestly. In vietnam, I think AFACs mainly used smoke. Ground FACs - I don't know about - although I am sure it must have been used when it was possible. And - BTW - the smoke marker functionality has been there for a while - courtesy of the developer - Draken but I haven't used it a lot - at least not in a video before
Thanks for another great video. So if I'm understanding correctly, it doesn't matter what your starting altitude is because you are waiting for the correct angle to the target? The whole method seems very clever, I'm excited to try it out myself. I do wonder how much you could speed up the process. That's a long time to be flying in a straight line, but I'm sure combining it with some sort of offset/pop-up would increase difficulty dramatically.
All true and very insightful. As usual, I worked on this on the range so I could figure out how to make it work - but it would certainly need to be adapted to the situation. In a Vietnam CAS situation, I actually don't think pilots worried too much about a long approach - so long as it was mostly out of small arms range - in the South there really wasn't a lot of heavy AAA. But - there was a high premium on hitting a small target - or rather not MISSING that small target. OTH - in a cold war scenario what you are saying is absolutely correct. Facing a dense AD environment that approach would be suicidal.
And BTW - I am completely confident that you can improve on this technique and get better results than I was able to. I am familiar with your work! Please let me know how it goes.
You need to use True Airspeed as reference, it's a digital readout hidden on the top-left of the dashboard, not the airspeed, then reticle depression suggested by bombing computer will be better suited
What's ingenious in your method is that you're doing away with the altitude so there's one less parameter to mess up. This should work as long as you can find matching dive angle and sight depression values.
@@Sidekick65 Great work. I haven't had time to get up in to the phantom yet.. I got it last week, but life's a PITA some times :p I hope to have all the kinks worked out of my linux load of DCS by the end of the week (getting TrackIR to play nice with proton requires more tinkering than I thought :p) but the upshot is naturalpoint has finally said there is an official linux version cooking now. so maybe in 5-10 years this will be easier :p
What was the translation / equation / math that got you from what the Bomb Computer suggested as Mil Depression to the 125mil that you ultimately used? Thinking about how to convert for other speed/angle/altitude scenarios.... OR... is that not likely to work? thx
The "equation" was (trial + error) ×Data = enlightenment. Seriously, it was a matter of several dozen runs on the range and comparing all the drop parameters including the sight depression until I found something that worked repeatedly. Theory didn't really come into it. Practice did, though.
Seriously, come to my Discord, download the mission and just spend a day flying around in circles. It's really the only reliable way to learn how to put iron bombs where want them
Got it! I couldn't tell, you both have great relaxing TH-cam voices. Great video and thanks for the explanation, I'll definitely try this the next time I use the f4. One question - if altitude in a shallow dive is critical for bomb trajectory, do you see any 'compression' of bombs towards the end of the string? As altitude continues to decrease as youre releasing bombs, it seems like that would cause them to land closer together towards the end, but maybe the effect is negligible
@@simon1070 If you watch the video you will see that there is one run where the last bomb hits first, so I would say there is something to what you say. Of course, there is nothing to stop you levelling out as you pickle. Overall, though the flight of the HD bombs is unpredictable enough that I'm not sure how obvious any of that would be...
It probably doesn't matter on short intervals for hitting buildings etc, but might be an issue if trying to take out a runway with a larger release interval - idk, I'll have to try it out!
Not sure whether I will get the F-4 - enough of the systems operate about the same as the A-4 that it might tame the learning curve a bit. I enjoy the video anyway. Maybe an application that labels itself a "simulator" should do better with the weapons modeling (a DCS job, not Heatblur), but that is a job and a half, and they do well with the planes. So I am satisfied with the compromises, particularly when people like you will fill in the gaps.
@@rogeraylstock3641 I do that also, but if your coming in flat the bombing computer has the reticle so low that it's still just about impossible to aim with if you're coming in relatively flat
@@Sidekick65Thanks! I’ve found your videos helpful as I try to wrap my brain around some of the air to ground work in the Phantom. Have you figured out a good technique for strafing yet?
Hi Ian, You touched on a subjec dear to me. The fideistic "Submission to procedures cause by lach of understanding , skills and overall awareness". It's a plague in the Civilian Aviation World too, made worst by the general decadence of the world's pilots body caused primarily by, among other things, automation and unchecked market competition (also know as Far West market). One needs to be a free and out of the box thinker with some self esteem and IQ to understand that procedures are created by humans out of logic, common sense, experience and trial and error, they are not God's laws. They are guidelines to achieve acceptable results consistently by the majority. If one finds a better method with which he achieves constant and good results, he is doing nothing different from what the procedures creators did themselves and it's perfectly fine. Unfortunately inferior minds need constant guidance else they would fail systematically, consequently they worship procedures handed over to them as the 10 commendments. Needless to say they demonize those who can "create" because they can't and because they don't understand it. P.S. Your method is pure genious. Leave the sacred scriptires for those who burn witches ..
Hey Mate, Thank you for the video and totally agree with the developing your own ways. It's often encouraged in the real world as it builds actual understanding of aircraft rather than the monkey see, monkey do techniques Have you found a method that works [for you, or otherwise] with delivery of high drag bombs from low and level flight?
Great comments at the end. To me, DCS is just a tool for choosing your own adventure. Sometimes I just want the virtual museum experience of admiring well modeled planes. Sometimes I just want the feeling of flight as best as I can get it. Sometimes I want a dogfight challenge, or role play a historical scenario. DCS can deliver all of these things pretty well - when I see that real world fighter pilots can have fun with it, I feel like I’m on the right path and not wasting my time with a junk product.
Great to hear you found it interesting. Thanks for letting me know. I agree entirely DCS is what you make it and so long as you are happy with it, not one can tell you you're doing it wrong.
Your writing and delivery of your warnings was really well done and appreciated.
Thanks!
i love all the info, and somehow i feel like im learning from a dad...love your stuff, keep it up..
I'll take it. My work here is done! 👴
I'm more impressed by accomplishing the mission than flying the numbers as prescribed and failing to hit the mark. Can't wait to try this out
Good Luck - let me know how it goes - send track files! Hah!
I like this relying on practice and trial and error rather than just relying on what the manual says. What I found in my testing in trying your method, is that I seem to have difficulty lining up all the values properly (speed, altitude, 10 degree angle). I did find consistency though. Most of the time my bombs went long!! Once I adjusted to that knowledge, I found ways to be accurate. I'll still need to practice a lot more though. My guess is through practice I'll probably find numbers that make sense to me, and that will become my own method. I remember the same thing happened when I was learning direct bombing in the Mirage F1... the tables 'kind of' worked, but I found my own method of being consistent with it. Eventually, we get good, and then we try it with AAA shooting at us in the middle of a hectic mission, and basically we drop the bombs praying that the 'bomb gods' will help our accuracy! Hehehe!
Go, grasshopper, and follow The Way Of The Iron Bomb. You have learned all I have to teach you.
I'll give this a shot and report back! Thanks, Lain for sharing your passion and expertise!
Ok I see how it works! I gotta practice to get my hits in line with the target but it's working out!
Please do!
Thank you Sidekick really enjoying your content. Your method has given me consistent results. I will be the envy of the next multiplayer session! Keep it up.
Well, I am pleased that it helped. Thanks for letting me know!
I was doing this with 500knots/500feet/flying level/140 mils, which i though was a liil bit off, but not by much. Gonna try this after work with some dive in there.
And again, big thanx for your awesome tutorials!!!
Your welcome! BTW - You are also welcome to drop by my discord and get the range mission so you can quantify that "not by much" as well as checking your release parameters - it really does help.
@@Sidekick65 Thanks! That sounds really helpful! I didnt even know that existed. I have been usign a mission pack i got from forums , but(i am still very new to DCS), those didnt have any "evaluation" tools to acutally quantify that, as far as i could tell :D
@@Baerinho The link to my discord is in the description. Drop by any time and DM me if you want to know more.
really great video - thanks for the info in which we enviroment we can choose these tactic (small arms) - can you also give an advice which drop method you would choose for an IR SAM enviroment
That video is coming at some point, but I'm still working on it, to be honest.
Great video, and great thoughts. The "reality" is that the numbers published in the weapons manual (or NATOPS) were developed during testing by test pilots, and while they serve(d) as a means to teach new and transitioning pilots to the A/C and its weapons, they were often modified "on-the-fly" by the pilots flying real missions in real time. The ad hoc methods were sometimes more or less documented, but often were part of local squadron lore passed on "word-of-mouth" to newbies when they reported to the squadron or wing ("The Book says do it that way, but we've found that THIS way works better..."). While that might not have satisfied an external check pilot, it probably happened a lot. That was probably A LOT more true in the era of the F-4 and before, and has certainly become less so as the systems have become more integrated and capable. One might argue this is why modules like the Phantom are so popular, as the hark back to a more "seat of the pants, results-based" type of combat flying than is present in a more modern "electronic" jet...
In any event. Nice technique, I like it and will try it. Thanks and keep up the good work!
In my experience i always end up a little bit higher i think it has something to do with dive angle I might be wrong but i think the radius is 25 mils so at 125 bottom of the sight is 150 not 175 that means you are diving on target at about 8 degrees and that explains higher altitude at release point
Great stuff. Didn't know you had added smoke markers to the bombing range. Outstanding. I was wondering how often FACs might have done this in say Vietnam and maybe only during CAS missions? Would having smoke maybe change the delivery mode? Maybe keeping it low and fast?
if you are going in low and fast, I think you either need a good target location and a good INS - or you need a smoke mark. You simply can't identify the target far enough back if you don't have one of those things - preferrably both - honestly. In vietnam, I think AFACs mainly used smoke. Ground FACs - I don't know about - although I am sure it must have been used when it was possible.
And - BTW - the smoke marker functionality has been there for a while - courtesy of the developer - Draken but I haven't used it a lot - at least not in a video before
Thank you for this method!
My pleasure
Thank you Iain.
Thanks for another great video. So if I'm understanding correctly, it doesn't matter what your starting altitude is because you are waiting for the correct angle to the target? The whole method seems very clever, I'm excited to try it out myself.
I do wonder how much you could speed up the process. That's a long time to be flying in a straight line, but I'm sure combining it with some sort of offset/pop-up would increase difficulty dramatically.
All true and very insightful. As usual, I worked on this on the range so I could figure out how to make it work - but it would certainly need to be adapted to the situation. In a Vietnam CAS situation, I actually don't think pilots worried too much about a long approach - so long as it was mostly out of small arms range - in the South there really wasn't a lot of heavy AAA. But - there was a high premium on hitting a small target - or rather not MISSING that small target.
OTH - in a cold war scenario what you are saying is absolutely correct. Facing a dense AD environment that approach would be suicidal.
And BTW - I am completely confident that you can improve on this technique and get better results than I was able to. I am familiar with your work! Please let me know how it goes.
You had me at “heresy”… :)
Apostate!
This profile worked for me, thank you.
Outstanding. Would love to see your results. Drop by the Discord and share!
You need to use True Airspeed as reference, it's a digital readout hidden on the top-left of the dashboard, not the airspeed, then reticle depression suggested by bombing computer will be better suited
Good Idea. I'd love to see a track file showing how it's done. I'll happily post another video with your preferred solution. Thanks!
Thanks for another bombing setup. I struggle with HB Bombing-table. "Direct" mode come with numbers of MILES that didn't match fly route.
Interesting... I need to try this.
I know someone who will watch from the back seat and grade your performance ;-)
What's ingenious in your method is that you're doing away with the altitude so there's one less parameter to mess up. This should work as long as you can find matching dive angle and sight depression values.
Thanks. Let me know how it works out for you.
Murphys Laws of Combat rule #31: if its stupid but it works, IT AINT STUPID.
Thanks... I think?
Heresy? Slaanesh approves of this content :)
In God We Trust... All others bring data.
@@Sidekick65 Great work. I haven't had time to get up in to the phantom yet.. I got it last week, but life's a PITA some times :p I hope to have all the kinks worked out of my linux load of DCS by the end of the week (getting TrackIR to play nice with proton requires more tinkering than I thought :p) but the upshot is naturalpoint has finally said there is an official linux version cooking now. so maybe in 5-10 years this will be easier :p
LOVE the Intro lmao...
I'm glad! Thanks for letting me know.🤣
What was the translation / equation / math that got you from what the Bomb Computer suggested as Mil Depression to the 125mil that you ultimately used?
Thinking about how to convert for other speed/angle/altitude scenarios.... OR... is that not likely to work?
thx
The "equation" was (trial + error) ×Data = enlightenment. Seriously, it was a matter of several dozen runs on the range and comparing all the drop parameters including the sight depression until I found something that worked repeatedly. Theory didn't really come into it. Practice did, though.
Seriously, come to my Discord, download the mission and just spend a day flying around in circles. It's really the only reliable way to learn how to put iron bombs where want them
Are you the same guy that does Greg's airplanes and automobiles or do you two just sound nearly identical?
No we just sound alike, I guess. I don't know Greg, but I enjoy his channel
Got it! I couldn't tell, you both have great relaxing TH-cam voices. Great video and thanks for the explanation, I'll definitely try this the next time I use the f4. One question - if altitude in a shallow dive is critical for bomb trajectory, do you see any 'compression' of bombs towards the end of the string? As altitude continues to decrease as youre releasing bombs, it seems like that would cause them to land closer together towards the end, but maybe the effect is negligible
@@simon1070 If you watch the video you will see that there is one run where the last bomb hits first, so I would say there is something to what you say. Of course, there is nothing to stop you levelling out as you pickle. Overall, though the flight of the HD bombs is unpredictable enough that I'm not sure how obvious any of that would be...
It probably doesn't matter on short intervals for hitting buildings etc, but might be an issue if trying to take out a runway with a larger release interval - idk, I'll have to try it out!
Not sure whether I will get the F-4 - enough of the systems operate about the same as the A-4 that it might tame the learning curve a bit. I enjoy the video anyway.
Maybe an application that labels itself a "simulator" should do better with the weapons modeling (a DCS job, not Heatblur), but that is a job and a half, and they do well with the planes. So I am satisfied with the compromises, particularly when people like you will fill in the gaps.
Where do I find the video that covers how to build my own bombing tables?
th-cam.com/video/VBuH2R7jyuE/w-d-xo.html
Nice! You figured out how to drop high drags without the reticle being so low you got nothing to aim with
It took a bit of practice! You should see the TacView file of my practice session! LOTS of lines
Also jack your seat up to the top!
@@rogeraylstock3641 I do that also, but if your coming in flat the bombing computer has the reticle so low that it's still just about impossible to aim with if you're coming in relatively flat
Have you shared your range mission anywhere? Is there a link?
You can pick it up on my Discord.
@@Sidekick65Thanks! I’ve found your videos helpful as I try to wrap my brain around some of the air to ground work in the Phantom. Have you figured out a good technique for strafing yet?
I felt my spiritual well being seriously damaged by this. But has anyone found a real delivery method for snakeyes?
We are the true believers ¡¡ The rest are the sinners. Love your videos Mr.
Christie
Welcome to the Church Of the Iron Bomb - if it didn't hit the target it didn't happen.
Heresy in the church of DCS? Joke's on the high priests, I'm into that :D
Join the apostatasy. In God We Trust... all others bring data.
@@Sidekick65 I trust data, and basically nothing else :D
The motto was good enough in Mission Control, it's good enough for me now.
Err ... so what do I do with my pile of wood 😁 ???
Bring on the apostasy- it’s just a game. I mean, simulator. 😅
True Statement(s)
No, you were right the first time. Even Wags has said so.
Hi Ian, You touched on a subjec dear to me. The fideistic "Submission to procedures cause by lach of understanding , skills and overall awareness". It's a plague in the Civilian Aviation World too, made worst by the general decadence of the world's pilots body caused primarily by, among other things, automation and unchecked market competition (also know as Far West market).
One needs to be a free and out of the box thinker with some self esteem and IQ to understand that procedures are created by humans out of logic, common sense, experience and trial and error, they are not God's laws. They are guidelines to achieve acceptable results consistently by the majority. If one finds a better method with which he achieves constant and good results, he is doing nothing different from what the procedures creators did themselves and it's perfectly fine. Unfortunately inferior minds need constant guidance else they would fail systematically, consequently they worship procedures handed over to them as the 10 commendments. Needless to say they demonize those who can "create" because they can't and because they don't understand it.
P.S. Your method is pure genious. Leave the sacred scriptires for those who burn witches ..
Hey Mate,
Thank you for the video and totally agree with the developing your own ways. It's often encouraged in the real world as it builds actual understanding of aircraft rather than the monkey see, monkey do techniques
Have you found a method that works [for you, or otherwise] with delivery of high drag bombs from low and level flight?
Still working on it.