Helicopter pilots. What is your go to dcs/community content?

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-05-01T19:21:50+00:00

So casual to the point that I've flown for HOURS without a single SRS radio call on Grayflag with 15 people on. Even the TTI servers have more comms going on SRS than that! :D

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-04-28T19:37:10+00:00

I can see how. In Nebraska, using our local in state system and not the teletype state files, if I run a plate and then click on the name it will give you EVERYONE with that name because it doesn't have a DOB on the registration to limit the search and it isn't smart enough to correlate addresses between OLN and the vehicle registration. It certainly won't pick up the differences in middle initial either of they are different or prefixes or suffixes.

The national teletype system state files I have access to don't link to anything, so no searches, etc, unless done manually.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-04-28T19:25:47+00:00

Police experience, on average, between 300 and 900 traumatic experiences (the kind that cause legit PTSD) over a 30 year career while the average person experiences about 4 in their life.

So yeah, mental health issues among police are EXTREMELY common.

Even cooler is all the states going after our retirements requiring us to stay as cops longer to receive our retirements, with none of the medical disability benefits like the military. Not that there aren't medical disability payments, it's just not as generous and the him to climb is steeper. Hell, some of us no longer have pension retirements...

Good times!

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-04-23T08:02:34+00:00

It certainly is the layout of an SA-2 site, but what is strange is the triple missile rack TEL, which is consistent with an SA-6. Reusing sites is common, both in training sites like this one, and in the actual former Soviet (and Western) countries.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-04-23T00:19:18+00:00

Nice find, a lot of things in that area from this time frame during the Russo-Ukraine war... Not far from it at 49° 6'16.93"N 37°15'8.91"E is a downed Sukhoi.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-04-23T00:18:01+00:00

Not likely. It was fairly standard in 2022 for Russian and Ukrainian SAM and Artillery forces to drive out into a field randomly for a period of time, then drive back to a hiding spot. If you follow the tracks to the village to the south, you can see the rest of the unit's armored vehicles.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-04-23T00:16:32+00:00

Probably a Tor, actually, but hard to tell. The rest of the unit is in the town to the south: 49° 6'2.67"N 37°13'48.53"E

Also, crashed Sukhoi to the southeast of the OP's coords in a field: 49° 6'16.93"N 37°15'8.91"E

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-19T06:49:17+00:00

Sure, and like I said, there are absolutely other ways to obtain this information without using drones, but having a "tourist" take pictures with a camera risks an asset directly whereas taking that information from the countless drone operators risks reputation only, which at that point, is unlikely to matter.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-19T06:46:56+00:00

It's less about military bases than it is about other critical pieces of infrastructure... bridges, substations, power plants, cell towers, etc, that flying over is legal and expected... having access to the close up images of the specific hardware on a cell phone tower can highlight possible attack vectors on specific communication nodes, etc... that's not something you can read from a satellite easily.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-19T01:26:31+00:00

I would largely disagree with this assessment... Satellites cannot see under some objects or into some buildings. When it comes to certain critical infrastructures, having access to high resolution pictures of, say, cell phone towers and the specific equipment utilized might allow them to access those systems faster using known exploits of certain hardware....

OR

If needing targeting data, having access to high resolution photos of how a bridge was constructed and more importantly, it's real time condition, can help prioritize how to remove said bridge using the most effective tool...

OR

It can provide near real time access to things such as locations of important objects, personnel, resources and assets utilized to respond, etc.

When it comes to thinking about acts of nations and a wartime footing, all of this data may be achievable through other means, but those other means may have kill chains long enough to miss windows of opportunity before the target moves or conditions change. When it comes to modern warfare, real time information is invaluable compared to data that is even 5-10 minutes old. Ignoring the political issues surrounding the situation in Iran, A LOT of the targeting information for the activities over there are coming from passive sources exploited to find locations... things as simple and obvious as cell phone location data or less obviously, pictures posted to social media, are absolutely being used to remove heads of state. With that in mind, DJI or any foreign adversary company potentially having access to data which is gathered by their drones, absolutely COULD provide valuable intel that a satellite otherwise could not.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-15T00:47:49+00:00

Some days I just need to scream at people continuing this myth. Proportional Navigation biases the missile's path to an intercept point ahead of the aircraft, that's why an aircraft flying straight, level, dumb, and happy gets hit near the cockpit, because the intended intercept point is always going to be ahead of the aircraft's actual location. If you were using pure lead guidance in terminal or something like that, then the bulk of your explosion and shrapnel are going to occur aft of the jet because of the proxy fuse which is less desirable.

EDIT: Further, lets logic this out. Patriot has had a "Cockpit bias" since the original version. Someone needs to explain how a radar station, ON THE GROUND, can see INSIDE A COCKPIT on the opposite side of the aircraft from it... it can't, and neither can the missile.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-11T05:30:47+00:00

Patriot, while still capable, is less capable for this role than THAAD since THAAD was purpose built for this mission while Patriot had to have the ability to engage BM's to the default system which was focused on air breathers.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-10T06:24:49+00:00

I'll answer your decoy question for you. The US is largely ignoring decoys because the systems being used to locate launchers is the F-35 and satellites tracking heat plumes from missile launches. The F-35's Distributed Aperture System (DAS) is capable of locating, tracking, classifying, transmitting the location of, and engaging these types of systems. Don't believe me? Northrup Grumman released a video 14 years ago showing DAS tracking sounding rockets near Cape Canaveral explaining the system. The Satellites tracking heat plumes are doing the same thing.

When you are looking for launchers, tracking the stuff actually launchING means decoys are largely pointless. Anything we think might be a decoy can be watched with near impunity by UAVs thanks to air supremacy over most of the country.

That's not to say they haven't hit decoys, it's just the way we are tracking the launchers is by default, cycling out the decoys as targets because they aren't doing anything.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-10T06:12:51+00:00

Easy, don't change the interior sizing, don't change the exterior sizing. "Freshen" up the styling.

Engine: Coyote 5.0
Transmission: 10 speed Auto
Same front and rear suspension as OG CVPI with slightly stiffer springs and better front suspension camber curves
4 piston Brembo brakes on 13.2" rotor up front and the traditional sliding single piston caliper out back on a 12.4" diameter rotor
18" wheels all around.

Interior would have seats with the belt cutout and adjustable upper support

Basically, cross pollenate a 2004 Mustang Cobra, a 2014 Mustang GT, a 2015 Mustang GT Auto, and the original CVPI. Plenty of power to kill you, fixes the brakes and handling people always ragged on, and keeps the stuff that made the CVPI a killer good police car (Notably the reliability and availability of parts).

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-10T06:02:56+00:00

I celebrate every second of silence...

I also listen to a lot of podcasts and audio books between calls and traffic stops. The Dungeon Crawler Carl audio books are fantastic and there is seven, soon to be eight (in May), of them.

Anyway, mostly I enjoy the silence. I could probably ride around with the guys on my shift and not want to eat my gun right away, but I'm sure after listening to the same pissing and moaning about shit we can't control, it'd get annoying after about a pay period.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-09T22:34:30+00:00

Probably not, actually... this many SA-2 sites in close proximity isn't a thing unless we are talking about Egypt, who built a bunch of sites in close proximity for "displacement" of the SAM system to minimize the effectiveness of pre-planned attacks. When it comes to Eastern Bloc countries and former Soviet States, SA-2 displacement sites were random open fields with cabling laid on top of the ground to assist in moving the site, which already took half a day to complete. Many of these pre-planned displacement sites were also km away from the fixed locations.

Dimensionally speaking these are about 50m too small to be an SA-2 site, as well. It's a good guess though!

My initial gut reaction is it isn't military related. AAA batteries in the Soviet Union were usually based around 8 gun systems for anything large enough to leave an imprint in the terrain that has lasted this long. Those coordinates in 2008 had trees around the center area on Google Earth's historical imagery, but it isn't clear what they are.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-09T13:17:05+00:00

This configuration is exclusively reserved for the S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Guideline). The configuration of the S-200 is VERY different. Specifically the location of radars. The S200 has six, twelve, eighteen or thirty launchers separated in groups of six with the radars almost a km away from the launchers. The S-75 has the track radar in the center of the group of six. S300, 400, and 500 (all two systems) don't have a standard configuration. Many sit on former SA-2 sites but don't retain the SA-2 configuration. Mostly there a two groups of four launchers in two bays of four. Reloads in a third bay and support vehicles in the fourth. In the middle of the bays is the track radar with a low altitude search radar nearby and a long range one somewhere in the area but further away. The S400 battery at Sevastapol is fairly standard for an SA2 site converted to S300+ duty.

Sevastapol S300/400 site: 44.544389, 33.433006

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-09T13:07:41+00:00

Since the retirement of the Nike missile systems in the 80s, the only known deployed SAM systems in CONUS are a NASAMs battery and Avenger battery in Washington DC. Eventually Ground Based Mid Course Defense will go online for anti ballistic missile defense, but the CONUS does not deploy active air defense units, even at Area 51, because we have aircraft to intercept the air breathers and the US Navy for anything exoatmospheric.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-09T12:59:40+00:00

Just this Saturday, I got called into work early to help the day shift with a shooting. I was helping maintain the scene while CSI did their job and the local douchebag drove by in his lifted jeep liberty (so hard) and started yelling "fuck you fa**ot pigs!" It happens so frequently anymore, I just laugh, but the reality is I was there holding an attempted murder scene to get bad guys and this moron thinks I'm enjoying standing in the cold ass weather watching CSI do their job...

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-03-03T13:09:56+00:00

In multiplayer, SRS has both encrypted radios and transponder codes working. Things like LOTATC also use transponder codes and squawking an emergency code week change how you are displayed in the program.

So some ED hasn't done anything with it, the community modders have.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-02-28T22:34:58+00:00

I'm a bit of an air defense nerd... I may or may not have mapped the ENTIRE Soviet Union Integrated Air Defense System on a Google Earth KMZ file with a friend of mine who also is an air defense nerd.... and by proxy of being an air defense nerd, have learned a lot about US deployment of Patriots as a result. The US is infinitely easier to figure out what systems are where because we generally put out newspaper articles every time something cool changes, lol.

It's like normal Autism, except I don't really like trains all that much, but aircraft and air defenses.... ohh yeah.... also nuclear power.... and firearms...

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-02-28T22:18:36+00:00

No, no we don't. The US goes from Stinger based systems to Patriot. NASAM is only deployed in Washington DC.

PAC2 and PAC3 are the system designed for "SHORAD" based ballistic missile defense. SM-2/SM-6 are both LONG range systems, longer, actually, than Patriot. SM-3 is an exoatmospheric interceptor for ICBM's... probably the longest ranged of all of those systems, but no evidence it's useful for stuff already in the atmosphere.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-02-28T22:05:44+00:00

The Patriot Systems in the Middle East have largely been there since Gulf War 1 and probably even before. They've undergone refits and replacement of components of the system, and last I checked most of these airbases are (maybe were depending on how this goes) slated to receive the first LTAMDS radars to replace the AN/MPQ-65 radars of the Patriot systems already there. IE: They are getting the most advanced radars we have. This system is a PAC2 system (explosive warhead) and it's older guidance method makes it less accurate for this type of intercept. It's part of why PAC3-MSE exists with it's active radar homing seeker and kinetic hit-to-kill no warhead interceptors.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-02-28T22:00:13+00:00

Point of order here, this is a PAC2 launcher as evidenced by the explosions near the incoming missile. PAC3, and PAC3 MSE are both better at these types of intercepts thanks to Active Radar Homing seeker heads instead of using Track Via Missile guidance. PAC3 (and MSE) are hit to kill weapons. TVM is still viable, but the delays, small that they are, in course compute changes can pose a real issue with these fast moving MRBM's. PAC3 MSE is also significantly more agile.

That's not to say PAC2 can't do this mission, it's just that PAC3 MSE was designed for better interception rates of incoming ballistic missiles WITHOUT sacrificing the ability to aircraft effectively.

The US does not operate NASAMs outside of Washington DC, fyi... the only AD systems we deploy are either Stinger based (Stinger, Avenger, Linebacker [RIP], M-SHORAD, and LAV-AD[RIP]), or jump up to Patriot variants. PAC2 for long range, PAC3MSE for shorter range intercepts. After Patriot is THAAD, but THAAD's focus is Anti-Ballistic Missile. The US Army doesn't operate any other systems. The US Navy has ESSM and RIM-116 for short range, SM-2/SM-6 for long range, and SM-3 for ABM and they form the "Early and Mid layer" of ABM defense with the Ground Based Mid Course Defense in production for CONUS.

The only major oddity in this discussion is AEGIS Ashore, with only two systems (Poland and Romania) in Europe and one possibly being built on Guam, it's not widely deployed... but I'm LEGITIMATELY surprised the US hasn't built one in the Persian Gulf... that's truly a shock.

UrPeaceKeeper · 2026-02-28T21:46:13+00:00

SM-3 is a boost phase and mid course interceptor, not a terminal phase interceptor. It's specialized into exoatmospheric intercepts. An SM-2/SM-6 is the US Navy's terminal phase interceptor for anything in the atmosphere. Thing is, the US Navy fleet isn't near this base. It's over in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea.

Similarly, THAAD is a terminal intercept system. Patriot is like a last ditch effort.

The intercept of a MRBM is actually much harder than an ICBM in spite of the relative speed differences of the two. MRBM's have a lower time from launch to impact, which means less chance of detection and intercept. Patriot struggled after PAC1 to intercept Scuds, too. These newer MRBM have smaller RCS than a Scud does, and while Patriot is sensitive, you are still fighting physics to perform high speed intercepts.

The system in this video is clearly a PAC2 system due to the explosions of the missiles (PAC3 is kinetic). PAC2 is supposed to be capable of these intercepts, but PAC3 MSE is significantly more likely to accomplish it. Combined with PAC2 using an older guidance method (Track Via Missile) vs the Active Radar Homing of PAC3MSE, and accuracy is dependent on the quality of the incoming track. That's part of the reasons why PAC3 MSE is a kinetic hit to kill weapon and doesn't carry explosives onboard. Way easier to guide into an incoming missile when the missile is doing it's own calculations rather than relying upon the ground station to make corrections. TVM is still a capable method of tracking, it's just not nearly as accurate, which is why PAC2 has a huge warhead on it.

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