F-14 damage model

at least 90% of the time my INS is toast after the first hit... assuming I'm still flying... that means no more AIM-54's. And after that, I usually lose at least one engine, and about 50% of the time hydraulics go out within 20 seconds, and it's punch out from there... posting a couple examples of F-14's surviving hits from 120's or r-60's isn't really significant. As someone that's spent well over 1,000 hours in our 14, she does not like to be shot... and almost every time suffers battle ending damage or significantly reduces her performance / capability to the point that RTB is in order. I can count on one hand the times I've been shot and stayed effective in a fight.

You are not totally right... you can still be a very dangerous threat to the enemy that thinks you can't attack him with phoenix anymore. Just switch the phoenix to boresight mode and you will still have the phoenix seekers with no need for any onboard radar and you can shoot them directly in pitbull mode. So they will engage an enemy with their own radar. You won't be able to lock or detect if they lock but just shoot them manually into the flight path of the enemy at smaller ranges and your enemy will call the F-14 modell inaccurate! :lol:

Had a AIM120 explode close to the lower left side of my F-14's yesterday, lost all my radar controls, arfterburner as well as some landing gear hydraulics, but I managed to fly her 100 nm back home and succesfully land with the use of the emergency landing gear release. And this wasn't the first time this has happened either, have tried something similar maybe 3 to 4 times with varying degrees of damage (once had to land with wings stuck at 55 deg sweep :P )

That said a hit by a single AIM120 almost always results in the loss of the aircraft, but you do occassionally get lucky and survive as described above.

I usually end up with the Hydraulics bled out and a loss of control. Though I did manage one epic landing, never to be repeated, on the Admiral Kuznetsov with one engine out, the gear and hook emergency deployed and the radar and hud gone for a burton. Ironically I go through all that, and the ground crew wouldnt repair my aircraft, the swine.

The original was a tough old bird, but I dont see anything get further refined until we get the DCS wide damage modelling introduced.

Could we get combat damage on the walkman? :D

I usually end up with the Hydraulics bled out and a loss of control. Though I did manage one epic landing, never to be repeated, on the Admiral Kuznetsov with one engine out, the gear and hook emergency deployed and the radar and hud gone for a burton. Ironically I go through all that, and the ground crew wouldnt repair my aircraft, the swine.

 

 

 

The original was a tough old bird, but I dont see anything get further refined until we get the DCS wide damage modelling introduced.

 

 

 

Could we get combat damage on the walkman? :D

A F-14 repaired with russian spare parts would look nice! :lol: I am unsure if you would have made it into the air with the heavy lady fully armed and refuled from russian carrier.. maybe if you would have used the full deck for acceleration with AB

No, the walkman can never be damaged exept tapejam because it is the good old robust technic! :smilewink:

.Impact;3956103']Heres a quote by the pilot that fired the first Aim-120 shot and killed a Mig-25 Foxbat (a slighty heavier aircraft than the F-14). He described the moment of missile impact:

 

“I saw three separate detonations, the nose and left wing broke instantly, and the tail section continued into the main body of the jet, and finally one huge fireball.”

https://fighterjetsworld.com/air/first-u-s-f-16-kill-by-shooting-down-mig-25-with-aim-120-amraam/13095/

 

Meanwhile in DCS I've seen F-14s taking 120s to the face, sometimes didnt even start smoking and could still fly and shot back for several minutes.

You are arguing from the particular to the general.

True, in a Tomcat I've survived single missile hits; but at the same time I've also taken one hit and lost control of the aircraft immediately due to catastrophic damage.

This is not a one-hit kill game. An element of randomisation of blast and fragmentation effects means sometimes you just get lucky, or unlucky.

I agree 3x 120 hits seems excessive; however there are all sorts of latency/ping issues with online play against another breather that makes it hard to establish whether your target actually registers the damage you see - sometimes the synchronisation between you and your target is off and what looks like a hit to you is brushed off by him.

Fusing logic is very susceptible to this desynch because it is defined on time/distance calculations - when pings are high/spiking those calculation types are the first and most noticeable casualty.

It's frustrating as hell, I know, but some multiplayer performance quirks mean you just can't use it as a reliable indicator.

If you see 3 slammers hit an aircraft an nothing happens to it, then it is probably desync, meaning in one instance the missiles did hit, in the other they didn't. Although usually the "true" missile is seen on pilot's side.

In my opinion the damage model is great, and that 5% chance of surviving a hit seems realistic to me based on the combat stories I've read of aircraft hit by missiles: Usually it's a sure kill, but every so often it takes more than one or the aircraft manages to limp its way home.

So the forums keep eating my posts, but I did dig this up: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-serial-09.htm#100

It lists the fate of every F-14 produced. Haven't gotten through it all but some of the incidents are rather remarkable, including a T-34 colliding with an F-14 and becoming wrapped around its wing. The F-14 was able to land successfully and was repaired and brought back to service.

" 14 Jan. 1992: mid-air collision with a T-34C over Corpus Christi, TX. The Tomcat had an unsafe landing gear and the T-34 was checking it and later wrapped itself around the Tomcat's right wing. Both aviators in the T-34 were killed. The wreckage was left on the Tomcat's wing. The Tomcat land at the NAS there but had extensive damage." I think that may be a fair assessment of the tanky nature of the a/c

Somewhat off topic. Found this incident interesting given all the reservations there were at release that the RIOs would ejects pilots as a joke..

12.08.1997: The pilot of the F-14B was accidentally ejected from the aircraft during a landing aboard USS John C. Stennis. It's said that the Rio had an older GPS system they used to clip to the handle on top of their console. He hadn't stowed it prior to arrestment and during the violent stop from the hook/wire the GPS system got thrown forward from momentum and hit the pilots rocket motor iniator which bypassed the whole ejection system (pilot never touched the ejection handles ...) Next thing the pilot went THROUGH the canopy! He was recovered from the water by helicopter. Stennis personnel rescued the RIO from the pilotless aircraft as it sat on the flight deck with engines still running. Aircraft was repaired and is back in service.

Yeah some of those are crazy failures..