Community A-4E

Man if this was released for xmas *2028* I think Id have to call out sick from work and just fly for hours. This would be AWESOME! just saying!

FIFY

--gos

Community A-4E Update, December 2016

"Merry Brrrrrrrrrrrrrtmas"

Hi everyone, and welcome to our December 2016 Community A-4E update. This month’s theme is Merry Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtmas. :gun_smilie:

However, before we get to the fun stuff, a quick announcement... DrMarianus has decided to step away from the team for a while, as he’s got too many other ongoing projects that need his attention right now. He’s been a good member of our team since the beginning and we wish him all the best!

First, a short list of the smaller refinements and improvements...

• Unwrap and texture for the landing gear (this had to be re-done completely due to unwrap changes)
  
• Fix for the pitch and yaw trim indicators, along with our own custom trim system and horizontal stabilizer animation to match. This makes level flight much easier at all speeds, independent of elevator and rudder authority in the SFM
  
• Fix for rocket alignment to gunsight angle when attached to pylons 2, 3 or 4
  
• Fix for the gunsight night/day modes and brightness knob
  
• More cockpit control panel texturing, to get ready for system implementation
  

In addition to the above fixes, we finally are able to show off some of our modeling work, which is mostly in the weapons category.

WW-II bombs

We went ahead and implemented a number of WW-II era AN-series bombs, to round out the 500lb AN-64 that’s already available in-game. Ranging in weight from 100 pounds to 2000 pounds, the AN-series mostly saw use by A-4s early in the Vietnam conflict, or when the supplies of the low drag Mk-82 and Mk-83 bombs were low. They were also used for bombing practice by squadrons training in the US.

The models we implemented include:

• AN-M30A1: 100 lb GP HE
  
• AN-M57A1: 250 lb GP HE
  
• AN-M65A1: 1000 lb GP HE
  
• AN-M66A2: 2000 lb GP HE
  
• AN-M81: 260# Fragmentation Bomb
  
• AN-M88: 216# Fragmentation Bomb
  

The AN-M81 and AN-M88 are very similar, except the casing on the M88 is thinner allowing for 13 pounds of additional Comp. B explosive inside. These wouldn't be complete without some pictures, too:

AN-M30A1:

AN-M57A1:

AN-M65A1:

AN-M66A1:

AN-M81:

AN-M88:

Our AN-M66 and AN-M65, alongside ED's AN-M64:

While the AN-M30, AN-M65 and AN-M66 are limited to one per station, the fragmentation bombs and the AN-M57 are rackable on pylons 2, 3 and 4, allowing up to 18 to be carried at a time.

Mk 4 Mod 0 HIPEG

The next major weapon system we implemented was the Mark 4 Mod 0 HIPEG gun pod system. This system allows up to three gun pods to be carried at a time, on pylons 2, 3 and 4. The HIPEG system is charged and enabled by a special modular weapon control panel on the left hand console, just in front of the throttle. Each pod may be individually enabled or disabled as needed.

Each pod contains a pair of Mark 11 Mod 5 cannons with 375 rounds of 20x110mm ammunition each. We modeled the ammunition as well, with a default mix for each pod of 50% High Explosive, 25% Armor Piercing, and 25% Armor Piercing-Tracer.

3x Mk 4 Mod 0 pods and a pair of Mk-20 Rockeye cluster bombs:

3x Mk 4 Mod 0 pods and a pair of Mk-82 Snakeyes in flight:

Each Mark 11 cannon fires at 2100 rounds/minute, for a cumulative rate of fire of 12,600 rounds/minute and a total ammunition capacity of 2250 rounds. This offered a huge improvement to the CAS-capabilities of the A-4 against personnel and lightly-armored vehicles. These cannons also proved to be much more useful and reliable than the A-4’s internal guns, which while based on a similar action, only hold 200 total rounds of ammunition and frequently jammed.

Unleashing the HIPEG system on a column of trucks:

CBU-2/A

And finally, another weapon system that saw action in Vietnam was the CBU-2/A cluster munition system. It consists of a SUU-7/A dispenser that holds 360 BLU-3/B “pineapple” fragmentation bomblets. These bomblets are ejected from the 19 tubes on the back of the dispenser, where the vanes open into a high drag configuration as they exit the tubes. Each bomblet is intended for anti-personnel or light armor, and weighs 1.7 pounds, containing 0.35 pounds of RDX explosive and 250 steel pellets.

BLU-3/B fragmentation bomblet with vanes closed:

BLU-3/B fragmentation bomblet with vanes open:

This cluster munition is designed to attack soft targets spread in a line. They can be configured (on the ground) for a total delivery period of between 5 and 15 seconds. At 400 knots in the slow release configuration, this means they can cover a swath up to 3km long, and about 150m wide, perfect for saturating a convoy of trucks.

Additionally, we plan to implement the CBU-1/A cluster munition as well. Also intended for anti-personnel use, this system uses the same SUU-7 dispenser loaded with 509 BLU-4/B bomblets. Those bomblets weigh 1.2 pounds each, and contain 0.18 pounds of RDX each.

For performance reasons, we’ve had to adjust the bomblet unit count down by 5x (along with a corresponding 5x increase in explosive power per bomblet) since having 360 explosions in a few seconds crushes our frame rates. We’ll keep working on tuning as we go forward to come up with a good balance.

And now, we’ll end this month’s update with a video of one of the first tests of the CBU-2/A system.

A115g6bkgho

Thanks for following our progress, and have a Merry Brrrrrrrrrrrrtmas!

--gos and the entire Community A-4E team

Oh, and for those curious, here's an old promotional video for the CBU-1 system:

mKfyAaqqYaI

We're still discussing how to properly alter the per-tube configuration of the CBU-1/A and CBU-2/A weapons in-game, and will post an update if we think of an interesting way to do it. (An on-the-ground trick like the M-2000C countermeasure configuration using the kneeboard would be awesome, but that's outside our current technical abilities.)

--gos

Great work on the A-4! Hopefully you get the full dev license for the DCS!

Looks awesome guys! Keep at it!

Beautiful stuff gospadin!

This is the first time I look forward to a mod in DCS! (though, it is almost more module than mod in this case! :))

Fantastic work!

this looks so nice

Keep the good work up guys :)

Outstanding Work have all of you guys done at the A-4 team,this is amazing!.

Very nice!!

looks great. thanks for your effort.

just texture the pit and give it to us man, it looks ready

it looks amazing. you guys have some epic skills :)

looks great. thanks for your effort.

just texture the pit and give it to us man, it looks ready

We still have a bunch of 3D changes for the cockpit in-progress, and 5-6 more systems that need at least an initial implementation. There's also a bunch of tuning and testing as well.

"2 weeks" is the typical joke, but at our rate of progress, it's multiple months at a minimum.

Appreciate the positive comments though, for sure!

--gos

Good news and outstanding work! :thumbup:

We still have a bunch of 3D changes for the cockpit in-progress, and 5-6 more systems that need at least an initial implementation. There's also a bunch of tuning and testing as well.

 

"2 weeks" is the typical joke, but at our rate of progress, it's multiple months at a minimum.

 

Appreciate the positive comments though, for sure!

 

--gos

take your time. you guys are putting a lot of hard work into this and we are greatful :)

thanks for sharing!

Awesome work Gospadin! You and your team are seriously pushing the envelope! Can't wait for the "two weeks" to be over!! :thumbup:

Yes, this looks outstanding. Hope ED can integrate the "new" bombs in DCS, so it is easier for you to support multiplayer etc.

Now, at some point in the near future the need for a Vietnam map will get more and more pressing... :music_whistling:

Yes, this looks outstanding. Hope ED can integrate the "new" bombs in DCS, so it is easier for you to support multiplayer etc.

We spoke internally about that, and offering the weapons we've made back to ED is something we discussed internally, as many would be useful in WW-II or Korean War-era conflicts attached to other aircraft as well. It'd be silly for every team to make their own essentially-identical versions of the same bombs.

Not sure if they're up to ED's latest standards (their remakes have all been awesome) but we think we did a decent job. A little bit of touch-up remains (and back-and-forth arguing about the warhead setup code) but they're basically complete at this point.

Does this mean, if ED accepts your other WWII/Korean War era ordinance, we might see it as being available to load onto the Mustang or Saber?

Does this mean, if ED accepts your other WWII/Korean War era ordinance, we might see it as being available to load onto the Mustang or Saber?

In theory yes (or really, any time after we release the mod ourselves)... however, I think the only usable bombs for those 2 would be the AN-M30A1 and the AN-M81/88. The rest are too heavy.

We haven't spoken to them about any of that, so please don't think there's any actual plans... we simply thought the lineup should be filled out, and it would potentially be useful for other planes of the era.

--gos

Very nice guys congrats!

So pumped for the A-4 and really looking forward to seeing what your team will be coming out with in the future. Amazing work.

Here is a short demo of the Mk 4 gunpods:

Awesome!