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Viggen mod replaces need for A-10A/C?


Gault05

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Not sure where this would go in the forums, but wanted to ask this. Since the Viggen mod in DCS is a ground-based fast attack plane, do you think it would probably replace the Warthog for ground attack/CAS missions now?

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Nope. A-10 can carry more, and more precise munitions without the need for preplanning waypoints.

 

Even when the hornet comes out I am sure you will see plenty of A-10s out there due to the higher weapon loadouts and loiter time searching for targets.


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The Viggen is designed for "one pass and haul ass" type of missions, not for performing CAS. Preplanned strike - yes, circling and picking up targets of opportunity - no.

So it will work better than A-10 for some missions, usually those that are not flown by A-10C in the real life :)

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Not sure where this would go in the forums, but wanted to ask this. Since the Viggen mod in DCS is a ground-based fast attack plane, do you think it would probably replace the Warthog for ground attack/CAS missions now?

As some1 said: No, it won't.

 

A-10: CAS

Viggen: Point Strike / Interdiction

 

And then you have to think about mission design. The way you ask this questions sounds like you're thinking that there will be always room for both aircraft, but mission designers can create all kind of missions where a Viggen or an A-10 wouldn't fit because of historical, geographical or other reasons. Otherwise it would mean that all the WW2 (P-51, Spitfire, Fw-190, Bf-109) Korean (MiG-15, F-86) and early Cold War (MiG-21, F-5) jets would be useless too, because we have the modern 4th gen jets...

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Agree with what the others said.

 

A-10C is for CAS, Viggen is for strikes.

You could use the Viggen for preplanned CAS, but not really well.

 

Combined they are very cool: Let the A-10C do the precision works and use it as a FAC(A) to talk the Viggen strike packages to the targets. That way you can do CAS with Viggens. :)

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Like people said here, they are VERY different.

 

Neither can do well, what the other one is good at.

 

Viggen is a strike aircraft, that is meant to go in fast, strike hard, get the hell out just as fast. It is built around the idea of one pass-haul ass. Therefore, whole mission profile revolves around careful planning and deliberate performance of said plan. It is not the plane to find that one insurgent hiding around the fringes of forest line, or that one IFV at the corner of intersection two streets among many highrise buildings. It is the one for high value targets with intelligence on their position, be it infrastructure, an airbase, big troop concentrations or convoys etc. Also, currently unique among the DCS modules, Viggen allows for anti ship missions at fairly long ranges. With Viggen, if your mission plan is well prepared, you can go in and hit hard in bad weather with very low visibility, or even the night against certain types of targets. This is thanks to air to ground radar. Also, being a supersonic delta, you can kinda-sorta defend yourself a bit against some aerial threats in a pinch, or you can run away comfortably if you can't.

 

A-10C on the hand, has much more advanced and new tech weaponry and systems on board. It is the quintessential CAS aircraft, it is slow, but slow is deliberate, where you can identify with eye or the advanced TGP who is friend and who is foe where rivaling lines collide with each other, and provide support to your folks as they fight on the ground. You can carry more weapons of more types, which are more modern than most of Viggen's weapons. You can strike one point, loiter around, find and kill some targets of opportunity, loiter some more, than strike another target, and still have your powerful gun to provide more fire support even after expending you sizable external load.

 

They are very different indeed.

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??? akan is 30mm aden cannon

and the viggen can tote two of them!

 

...with a total number of rounds that is less than a quarter of the A-10s capacity. Luckily the Viggen can't loiter long enough to need more.

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If you meant for Multiplayer where there is a choice to be made, which I think is the only logical conclusion from the question, then there are two factors in consideration for the server to be able to make a choice between the two.

 

Firstly - the threat. If there are long range SAMs and not much else, I'd be picking Viggen for that low level speed. If there are aircraft that are likely to chase you, lingering in an A-10C is death. You can also dodge and outrange IR SAM's at low altitude so I have found in the Viggen. Lots of variables here, but speed does add a valuable dimension.

 

Secondly the type of target(s) to hit. A-10C excels in single target plinking, or repeat attacks on targets with little AD cover. It can take much more with it and rack up a lot more numbers, but requires a free space to be able to do it.

 

Combining the two points above you pick a tool for the job, and there's no one right choice for all. It's going to be popular in Blue Flag style servers for its lack of downtime, but suffer from precision and number of kills on target. But it will be ace at getting away and also getting into contested target areas and force fighters to have to burn fuel to chase it and keep their awareness up on strikers. It should be able to get on the target and remain low and thus have a better first strike capability than the A-10C. The A-10C will have to rely strongly on CAP, but should have a better capability if it gets the opportunity.

 

It remains to be seen what skilled Viggen pilots can achieve for staying over the target for longer with Mavs, guns and so on as theres restrictions in mixed weapon types and single bombs being dropped. But both of those options are never guaranteed in multiplayer and things change once you get in pit in a dynamic environment. I'd like to think it will just improve the diversity of play and options overall, you will get diehards either way and times when one is better than another.

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Okay, thanks for the clarification, guys. It's just good to know that the A-10 still has a place in the DCS realm.:)

DCS status:

Case:NZXT S340 Mid Tower;Motherboard:MSi 970 Gaming DDR3 ATX;CPU:AMD FX-8350 8-Core Unlocked with Hyper 212 Evo heatsink;Memory:Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR3;Hard Drive:Samsung 640GB;SSD: Crucial 256GB;Sound:Asus Xonar DGX; Power: EVGA 600W B1 80+;OS:Windows 10 64-bit; GPU: MSI Radeon RX 570 8GB 256-bit

Modules: Flaming Cliffs 3, P-51D, Combined Arms, Black Shark 3, A-10C/2, WW2 Assets, F/A-18C, F-16C Viper, AH-64D, Supercarrier, China Assets Pack

Maps: Persian Gulf, Syria, Marianas, Sinai

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Okay, thanks for the clarification, guys. It's just good to know that the A-10 still has a place in the DCS realm, but both are useful to their own abilities.:)

DCS status:

Case:NZXT S340 Mid Tower;Motherboard:MSi 970 Gaming DDR3 ATX;CPU:AMD FX-8350 8-Core Unlocked with Hyper 212 Evo heatsink;Memory:Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR3;Hard Drive:Samsung 640GB;SSD: Crucial 256GB;Sound:Asus Xonar DGX; Power: EVGA 600W B1 80+;OS:Windows 10 64-bit; GPU: MSI Radeon RX 570 8GB 256-bit

Modules: Flaming Cliffs 3, P-51D, Combined Arms, Black Shark 3, A-10C/2, WW2 Assets, F/A-18C, F-16C Viper, AH-64D, Supercarrier, China Assets Pack

Maps: Persian Gulf, Syria, Marianas, Sinai

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Since the Viggen mod in DCS is a ground-based fast attack plane, do you think it would probably replace the Warthog for ground attack/CAS missions now?

 

Short answer: No.

 

Long answer: Absolutely not at all. A-10C is a very modern (or rather extensively modernised), slow and stable CAS / attack aircraft, which, (while it can do go down low into the weeds if needs to be) is mainly intended to loiter high above the target area and deliver precision guided munitions (often with the assistance of AFAC). It has highly complex sensor, weapon and avionics suite, including (insanely good) TGP, navigational unit consisting of combination of traditional INU, GPS and whatnot, datalink etc. Personally, my most favorite feature of this plane is how all these systems, from HUD to every single Maverick seeker, are interconnected and work together as a single unit to help the pilot. You set the target position, no matter if through inputting its coordinates via CDU, locating it using the TGP or simply designating it on the TAD, and all other sensors instantely know where to look at.

 

All the information is comprehensively displayed on several large screens and most of the pilot inputs consist simply of selecting an item from the menu, and while the sheer number of controls might seem intimidating in the beginning (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the CDU), once you get the grasp of it, you found it's really matter of using any other modern computer-controlled machine. (BTW, when my father saw me destroying a tank using GBU-12, he was very surprised it's much more complicated than just hitting the big red button :)).

 

Oh, and it has a monster 30mm gun, scratch that, that gun has an airplane bolted to it. What's not to love?

 

 

The Viggen, on the other hand, is a supersonic deep strike aircraft, based on a fighter. It's certainly not slow, actually, if the A-10 is a gun with a plane built around it, then Viggen is an engine that comes equiped with a plane. And it pretty much determines what's it intended to do - to fly low and fast under enemy radar, to strike ground targets and especially ships in an enemy-controlled territory. This also determines "one pass, haul ass" as pretty much the only viable tactic for this bird.

 

While it's also been modernised, it's nowhere near our A-10C (and there are even more advanced versions of it in real live). The navigation system relies on a simple INU, which of course drifts, and must be corrected by the pilot (although the TERNAV is a great feature and I was quite surprised to hear of it, especially in an aircraft this old). The only precision-guided weapon (barrign the Maverics), is also INU-dependent, so if your plane's position is misaligned, no destroyed targets for you today. As for TGP, moving map or AFAC, you can forget about it (although our creative community may sooner or later come with some solution for the latter).

 

Also, there are no MFD's or displays altogether. The only way to either read or input your navigation, targeting or weapon release parameters is to flip warious switches, turn knobs, and type randomly-seeming numbers into a flight computer which consist of a few buttons and a row of blinking numbers. Unlike more advanced aircraft, you can't simply go to the menu, select "load flightplan" and be done with it. No, you flick the IN/OUT switch into the input position, turn the master mode knob into the correct position, enter 9099 on the keyboard and hit enter. Logical, no? No. :)

 

As with any simplier tech, things are easier to get into (the startup procedure, for example, is laughably easy compared to A-10), but get more complicated and demanding for the user as you start digging deeper into them.

 

Then again, there are things (besides going really fast) that A-10 simply cannot do. Like air-to-ground terrain, standoff munitions or actively guided antiship missiles. And, while most of bothe NATO and Russian-built planes use some standards that are a norm in their country of origins, the Swedes used many of their own original solutions and for us, people familiar only with eastern or western harware, learning the Viggen with all it's peculiarities might be a welcome challenge. Oh and the thrust reverser. Forget anything else, it alone is a good reason to buy the Viggen right now. :D

 

 

So to sum it up, no, those two aircraft are two absolutely different beast built for vastly different missions. I believe they can work together in a well planned mission, but for any of them usurping the other's role, I have no fear.

 

If there's anything that's going to lower the interest in A-10C, then it is the Hornet. Weapon and avionics wise, it can do pretty much everything that A-10 can, plus has an air-to-ground radar, anti-radiation and anti-ship missiles (here, it will compete wit the Viggen as well, I think), and unlike both of these two, can also do proper air-to-air fighter stuff. An carrier landings. And can refuel each other mid-flight (not sure it will be modelled in DCS). You can hardly go any more multi-role than that. After all, it's hte most anticipated aircraft in DCS for years and I believe there's also nobody who wouldn't buy it at some point in time (if not immediately at release - I know i will!).

 

But that other aircraft will be abandoned because of it? That I'm not afraid of.

 

 

...Ooops! For someone who doesn't know much about airplanes, his was an ominously long post. I Better shut up now...

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The only thing that can replace the A-10C is a tactical nuke or the wrath of God himself. And they'd still have a hard time.

 

Best quote in this thread so far! :D

 

The beauty of both aircraft is how they are purpose-built. Everything about the Viggen is so wonderfully built around that one pass attack, I think it's an amazing achievement for its time.

 

Of course the A-10 is no stranger to being purpose-built, seeing as everything about it was designed for CAS and cold war gone hot tank busting. "Our" A-10C suite 3 is a lot more capable in both roles than the A-10A, and the latest and greatest suite 7/suite 8 is even better, most notably with the Helmet Mounted Cueing System allowing pilots to point sensors where they look.

 

In the long run, I guess the Viggen will be the underdog. It needs a special mission type and probably feels best with pre-planned targets. The A-10C on the other hand has versatility; while there are many mission types it's not specialized in, aircrews have shown just how versatile the jet is when they were put at the frontline of a conflict they weren't prepared for. Plus the jet has proven time and again how it excels at the CAS role as well as CSAR.

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Of course the A-10 is no stranger to being purpose-built, seeing as everything about it was designed for CAS and cold war gone hot tank busting.

 

I have always figured that they designed the gun and then came up with a way to fly it to the battlefield. The rest was just added goodies to get the USAF to buy it. :P

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I have always figured that they designed the gun and then came up with a way to fly it to the battlefield. The rest was just added goodies to get the USAF to buy it. :P

 

USAF or not, who could've said "no" to having that gun on their side? :music_whistling:

 

Then again, repeated attempts to get rid of the A-10 seem to suggest some people see it differently, but let's keep the ensuing flamewars in the appropriate places. :D

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