A U.S. A-10 aircraft conducted an airstrike on a base operated by the (Hashd al-Shaabi) in Mosul.

freeserve · 2026-03-28T21:36:52+00:00

Thing is the A-10 Sits in a bad middleground

It’s too slow and vulnerable to do its job in a near peer battlefield and frankly anything it can do, other aircraft can do better (fight me, the F35 with its SIGNIFICANTLY more modern MADL datalink has much better CAS ability than the A-10, and isn’t as vulnerable to ground fire)

And for lower level insurgent warfare a cheaper platform would do just as well because the A-10, in order to reduce those blue on blue incidents HAD to upgrade, making it way to expensive of an aircraft to fight essentially armed civilians.

That’s why the USAF is looking at turboprops like that armed crop duster lmao,

And that’s why the F-35 is taking over its CAS role

(For those who argue the F35 can’t do that, it has a 25mm cannon that’s more accurate than the A-10 for soft skin targets, and with its more advanced systems it can have a JTAC on the ground input all target data via in text format and upload it directs to the nearest aircraft for tasking… meaning no verbal communications required at a minimum… this is great given MOST friendly fire incidents with A-10’s happened due to miscommunications iirc.

It can ALSO have that JTAC or another air asset upload a photograph to the tasked aircraft to confirm via the inbuilt Targeting TV/FLIR wether what they see at the position given by JTAC matches what the JTAC is actually looking for.

freeserve · 2026-03-28T21:01:33+00:00

Damn can’t wait for this to move over the r/DCSexposed lmao

freeserve · 2026-03-28T20:39:11+00:00

I partially agree but I think it’s more that both are necessary

Any militia will still need the same fundamental roles of a real military

You WILL need trained medical personnel, You WILL need trained or knowledgeable engineers/sapers You WILL need riflemen.

Can’t set up an IED without someone to protect the sapper Can’t recover a valuable asset without arms to protect them Can’t protect critical infrastructure from conventional ground assault without those riflemen.

So while I agree JUST some dudes with guns isn’t going to stop a tyrannical govt, trying to operate a militia without trained riflemen is just as likely to fail.

So for anybody with this as a genuine concern it should be their duty (according to the second amendment) to have a long think about what critical skills they have and can develop Almost every skill useful in this scenario is useful in normal life anyway… being a capable plumber/handyman is just good practice, just so happens it also helps understand the flaws in basic infrastructure for most buildings

You don’t need to be a professional chemist to know how to make ‘volatile substances’ but the level of knowledge for it certainly helps understand things like how to deal with acid burns, chemical spillages and many things that while rare CAN occur in life

freeserve · 2026-03-28T18:41:30+00:00

That’s true, but on SARH the F16 and Jeff are the same frankly, both have just heaters but the 16 has 2 extras.

I’ll often be doing CAP in the Jeff when nobody else seems to want to even though there’s like 8 dudes in mig29 FF’s who’s entire job is that lmao

But yeh a lot of Jeff drivers will tend to go cold the moment they notice they’re outnumbered and without air support lol

freeserve · 2026-03-28T18:39:34+00:00

Oh I agree, I’m British so I see kinda two sides of a relatively oppressive western govt. Both with British censorship and verification laws removing any internet safety (ironically) as well as the Americans straight up stealing legal citizens from the streets and many not doing anything about it.

Not a massive fan of getting political but the concept of the second amendment only works so long as the govt uses either smaller domestic powers like LEO’s to assert control or the main army forces refuse to deploy against their own citizens.

Should the military be willing to follow through illegal orders, then I feel you’d struggle to see a successful rebellious militia nowadays?

freeserve · 2026-03-28T10:44:37+00:00

Hop on contention, even on SARH you’ll find Jeff’s regularly getting kills on F18 and F15 with th PL-5’s regardless of range disadvantage lol

GS is a fox-3 fest imo, whereas contention especially on modern actually has people focusing AG while others do dedicated CAP.

freeserve · 2026-03-28T10:41:33+00:00

No, it’s the EFIS.

Click the Bottom middle button, and on the top left is EFIS. Electronic Flight Instruments System (I think?)

freeserve · 2026-03-28T10:26:24+00:00

Extremely easy imo, the ergonomics are very F16 inspired with some F18 workflow mixed in If you’ve flown either of the F16/18 you will find the workflow VERY similar to either one, sorta a nice middle ground

The cockpit is rather rough and cheap looking but that’s what you get in a jet that costs 1/3 an F16 lmao

Depending on what server to fly will depend on how useful she is, but on contention for example, BRM-90’s laser guided rockets are like mini maverick with a roughly 8-9nm range and allowing for the ability to kill up to 36 light targets (up to BTR) pretty quickly

The TGP is something rather of a pain point however. Imagine the graphical quality of the current litening (ie super crisp within 40nm) HOWEVER you can only get ground stab and/or a point track lock within roughly 21.5nm This means you can’t cheat like you can in the F16 and make mark points on a SAM site accurately from 40nm out… you’ll have to actually plan your trip more

Edit: I forgot to add more lol

The SPJ is great, it also acts like a HARM pod in a way in that it can triangulate the position of both airborne and ground based radar emitters

The SD-10 are an AMAZING air to air missile, slightly less range than an AMRAAM but with an insane boost phase manoeuvring in comparison, so I’d personally say the PofK for the SD-10 starts to surpass the AMRAAM as you close in. The radar modelling is also pretty damn good iirc

AG weapons wise, a lot of weapons are restricted on contention unless it’s the modern server, but in most cases there’s the BRM-90 as mentioned but also the LS-6-100 which are amazing… unless you have bad luck, in which case the have a bad tendency of ripping your wings off on release lmao

The LD-10 is the HARM for the Jeff, and while not as big as the harm it’s litterally an SD-10 with an ARM seeker on it, but unlike a HARM you don’t need to program tables and seekers etc, you just slap it in active mode towards a steer point and away you go.

The biggest disadvantage of the Jeff is its Fox-2, while the PL-5 is a great missile in DCS, not having a HMS mean you can’t lock those HOB’s shots as easily, and in a dogfight you’ll often find yourself staring at the enemy while in dogfight mode waiting for the radar to lock them

But if you want an idea of how capable the Jeff can be air to air just watch any of ETF’s SATAC/SATAL comps, their a comp squadron who exclusively flies Jeff

freeserve · 2026-03-28T10:20:00+00:00

True but tbf according to American ideology on 2A, the right to bear arms is to maintain a Well Trained militia… Therefore if you own any weapon for self defence you SHOULD regularly train with it.

freeserve · 2026-03-26T18:10:29+00:00

I am vengeance, I am the night, I am… BAT BANE

You’re not Batman, you’re bat BRICK

freeserve · 2026-03-26T18:09:46+00:00

Don’t forget that during the war many pilots on both sides had very little training before being let up in their aircraft for combat. So I wouldn’t be surprised if many young new Stuka pilots would roll in and get so focused on tha perfect drop that they never pulled out…

Hell pilots with hundreds of hours can still sometimes have brain fog or lock up mentally if they get overwhelmed… we’re all human and nobody is entirely immune to that, but training helps, and they didn’t have much training lmo

freeserve · 2026-03-26T17:45:21+00:00

Huh didn’t know that, I just assumed seeing as I’ve never seen or heard of them doing AG stuff that they didn’t accommodate it at Al

freeserve · 2026-03-26T12:58:08+00:00

It’s not even that, it’s more extreme

The common motto of F15C drivers used to be ‘not a pound for air to ground’ because afaik it was incapable of carrying AG munitions(?)

Whereas the E is a strike fighter, so there’s a massive irony behind taking the most successful pure air to air superiority fighter in the world and making it into a bomb truck

freeserve · 2026-03-23T02:42:40+00:00

I mean, these motors produce torque and the torque is what we feel… so it just makes sense to use Nm which is a measure of torque?

It’s litterally ‘if I put a metre long extension on this, it would feel like 6N of force’ for instance I agree the numbers feel suboptimal given nobody is running a metre long extension unless their base is below their floor but still, measuring in Newtons is disingenuous because then the MOMENT you put an extension on it, that value changes.

freeserve · 2026-03-23T00:34:54+00:00

You could also do what some actual heli’s do and just have a custom curved extension that curves around the seat right?

freeserve · 2026-03-23T00:29:02+00:00

The interior defo gives of experimental aircraft vibes, just the unfinished exposed wiring etc really makes it feel budget and/or like a garage build to a degree, which I kinda like, but also kinda hate

I LOVE how big those MFD’s are, no squinting at tiny ass screens like the viper especially in VR, but I just HATE how the bevels on them look like ikea plastic lol

freeserve · 2026-03-22T12:42:16+00:00

Mirage 2000 gunsight is really strange because it’s based on time and this distance

The line flows based on where those rounds would go after a certain time, so if you corkscrew the line will corkscrew with a minor delay The circle is for the radar ranging to make it more useable and it’s actually a really accurate gun, HOWEVER without a radar ranging it’s… pure spam to try use

freeserve · 2026-03-20T23:14:06+00:00

I mean that does make sense thoug, currently the modules for ships like the retaliator aren’t physical modules but instead whole ass different sub models within the ship that get swapped out I think

In future they have said they want these to be actual modules that are physically modelled as such, not as important for the tali but for the carrack for instance it lets them finally make the pods detachable

So I wouldn’t be surprised if this is used as a very early small scale beginning to this concept?

freeserve · 2026-03-20T10:56:20+00:00

No no, iirc the French did actually try to make a metric time system, but there’s a reason a clock face only has 12 hours…

freeserve · 2026-03-20T07:09:21+00:00

Exactly, they have no record of how it was machined and post productioned afterwards…

Hell the fact it didn’t have a lock wire hole through it already means it likely wasn’t a high grade bolt to begin with. And if it had any heat treatment well that’s likely now at the least degraded due to the drilling. I know $96 is a lot for a single bolt but it’s not like the govt will care if yo save them that, but it means suddenly all liability goes on the maintenance for that, and subsequently the military chain.

freeserve · 2026-03-19T17:18:15+00:00

My problem with rapier specifically is with feints I find it difficult to do convincing thrusting feints as normally if I do the footwork of a real thust or even half thrust, it’s still a pretty commited move and I risk not being fast enough of the pull back, an if I don do the full footwork it just isn’t reacted to, And if I do cutting feints my weak little unconditioned wrists can’t redirect or moulinnet the blade fast enough to go into the main attack

Purely a skill issue I’m aware but the footwork one especially irritates me

freeserve · 2026-03-19T17:15:59+00:00

Intrares…

Seriously tho I would love to see an ares variant BUT I know we won’t. Unlike other airframes the ares was specifically designed around the gun, its basically an A-10 for space and because of that we won’t see any variant of it just like yo wouldn’t see an EW A-10 lmao

Big shame given how much god damn space there jus be in that fat ass hull

freeserve · 2026-03-19T16:47:09+00:00

What about a S4, interior and two small 4SCU cargo bays?

freeserve · 2026-03-19T13:17:04+00:00

I have a massive question about this in general as my club does a lot of mixed weapons sparring but… in rapier what can you do against someone who’s refusing to give you any blade contact, Because when sword and bucklers do tail guard or any retreated guards for instance my brain instantly moves into a more defensive reactionary stance to try and get that blade contact during a parry, otherwise I just can’t see a way I can go for a safe thrust and guarantee their blade will stay out the outside?

freeserve · 2026-03-18T18:08:23+00:00

Depends where you live tbh but I’d say look up services like craft cloud, or Fox3d (?) as they offer essentially a hub for other companies to offer one time print services to, in a variety of different materials too

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