Graveyard of Empires

Thanks to Peregrine, one of our members, the missing East Germany charts have been added to the previously released Cold War Germany map. Don't hesitate to see that former post to find the full legend! Remember that if you're a MissionPlot user, you can simply point towards your CombatFlite folder i

One of the most obvious difference between civilian and military aviation probably lies in the planning cycle. I admit that my experience in the civilian world is limited: I earned my Private Pilot License as a teenager at a small flight club and later completed my Instrument Rating (IR) between two

In my previous post titled "Visiting Afghanistan", I quickly introduced the "DCS ISR" feature in MissionPlot. The video above will show you more in details how to use it. Enjoy your new tool! How to use DCS ISR feature in MissionPlot (YouTube)

The sole purpose of this post is to help you locate the unique objects and remarkable landmarks that have been discussed in our two previous posts: Kabul area, followed by the rest of the country. For this, you'll find attached a kneeboard page with all coordinates, so that you can easily create a w

Leaving the dense urban area of Kabul behind, the second part of our visit focuses on the vast expanses that define the rest of the Afghan theater. We will first identify the few unique modeled objects located in Herat and Kandahar, and then we will highlight several remarkable geological landmarks.

The Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) mission stands as a cornerstone of modern air power, and it was particularly true in a theater as complex and vast as Afghanistan. While everyone focus on fighter and bomber jets, the persistent eyes in the sky provided by ISR assets are what

Rohrkrepierer from JaBoG 35 has kindly sent me three additional maps to cover the whole West Germany: you now have a full 1976 1:500.000 aeronautical chart (Luftfahrtkarte). As it was the case for the initial release, you'll find attached a projected map that is suitable for manual flight planning f

For once, we'll leave the tactical side, and we'll take the time to make a short tour of prominent Afghanistan places that we can actually find in DCS. I'll start here with some of the unique objects that have been modeled, and that we can admire from our virtual cockpits. I. Kabul I.1 - Darul Aman

Following our previous look at the residential and defensive structures, we can now shift our focus to the natural and semi-artificial features of the Afghan landscape: water and vegetation. To better appreciate the environment on the ground, I recommend the attached footage of a date orchard in Nan

In a previous post, I shared a full list a useful CAS vocabulary, more particularly for the talk-on phase. You'll find here a focus on the vocabulary that's more specific to the Afghan theater I. Housing & Buildings I.1 - Khana The term Khana is the local designation for a house or a residential dwe

You'll find attached an historical 1:500.000 aeronautical chart for West Germany. That chart is accurate for 1976, and is therefore perfect for those trying to achieve a high level of realism on DCS CW Germany theater! Note that this chart has been produced in collaboration with one of our members,

For those following the Discord channel, you already know I am collaborating with Kas from Avalanche Industries, the developer behind AI_ATC (among others), to build a fully interactive Afghanistan mission template. Our goal is to move beyond the limitations of the default DCS environment by impleme

Following the civilian flight rules that we discussed in the previous article, we need to look at the standing air routes that cross Afghanistan. During the 2009–2012 period, these routes were busy. Even though a war was happening on the ground, the sky was a crowded place where combat jets and airl

In the early stages of the conflict in 2001, the Afghan airspace was almost entirely closed to civilian traffic. International airlines rerouted their flights to avoid the region, and the sky was used primarily by military aircraft. By the 2009–2013 period, the situation had changed. The military ca

The next natural step after creating the BMAs and setting up the possible AEW tracks is to position the Bullseyes for the theater. As usual, the Combat Flite (.cf) file and mission kneeboards (.pdf and .png) are available for download below. Geometric Accuracy A Bullseye (BE) position is defined usi

This is the third part of the zip archive. Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

This is the second part of the zip archive. Part 1 here. Part 3 here.

You will find attached the original DCS Syria F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. Due to the extremely large size of the area, it's difficult to achieve a good resolution with relatively small file sizes. This file a therefore a "medium-high" resolution map, shared in three split/zip archive

As you might have noticed already, CombatFlite is now available for all on https://www.combatflite.com/ The update is really minor: apparently it only removes the license features. Unfortunately, no new theater added, no official database update, or no feature change... Therefore, the workarounds de

This is the second part of the zip archive. Part 1 here.

You will find attached the original DCS Syria F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. Due to the extremely large size of the area, it's difficult to achieve a good resolution with relatively small file sizes. This file a therefore a "medium-high" resolution map, shared in two split/zip archives.

You will find attached the original DCS Syria F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. Due to the extremely large size of the area, it's difficult to achieve a good resolution with relatively small file sizes. This file a therefore a "medium-low" resolution map, to keep file size reduced. For tho

As most of my older posts, the "bomb fuzes guide" is now available for download to all members, as well as the recommended fuze settings for various aircraft. In the coming months, I'll try to update that guide to include Soviet fuzes. Happy Christmas!

You will find attached the original DCS NTTR F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. As for previous maps (Caucasus, Persian Gulf and Marianas), the resolution is high in highly detailed areas, and it has been kept low to average in low detail areas, in order to reduce to file size as much as po

Here is my own trial at recreating the IFR and VFR transit corridors through Pakistan, as they have been described previously. You'll notice that in the South, the corridors start or end either from existing IFR waypoints in the Muscat FIR, or for naval operations from ad-hoc waypoints that will be

As we all know, Afghanistan is a landlocked country, isolated from direct maritime access and surrounded by sovereign states whose airspace immediately becomes a strategic factor in any sustained air campaign. At the outset of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in late 2001, this geographic reality sh

You will find attached the original DCS Caucasus F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. The same map in very high resolution has also been published for paid members here. Still, the attached map is totally suitable for any most mission types: as you can see below, the zoom level is sufficient

You will find attached the original DCS Caucasus F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. Compared to the previous release of the same map, the resolution if even higher in highly detailed areas, and it has been kept average in low detail areas, in order to reduce to file size as much as possible

Following a recent DCS Kola Theater update, new airfields have been added: Bornholm Airport Brand Air Base Brandis Air Base Chojna Air Base Cologne Bonn Airport Dusseldorf Airport Falkenberg Air Base Heidelberg Army Heliport Kastrup Airport Kiel Airport Landstuhl Army Heliport Mainz Finthen Airport

All the subjects covered in the previous 2 posts (airborne early warning and ground tactical C2 elements) have been integrated into an example layout for the Afghan theater. You will find: several AWACS tracks examples. E-2 Hawkeye: operating from a carrier, the E-2 would primarily remain in the sou

You will find attached the original DCS Persian Gulf F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. As you can see, the resolution if excellent in highly detailed areas, and it has been kept average in low detail areas, in order to reduce to file size as much as possible. However, if you struggle with

Now that we've seen the airborne part of the Tactical C2 structure, we can turn to the ground-based elements. If you're not fully familiar with the Air Component Command’s C2 architecture, I recommend reading the earlier 3-part series explaining “who’s in charge” in Afghanistan and comparable ground

On the same principle as for the AAR areas, let's take the time to discuss the practical incidence of the Tactical C2 structure on the ACO. We'll discuss two main topics before coming up with an ACO example: the question of AWACS, followed by the airspace division for Tacical C2 responsibilities. In

You will find attached the original DCS Marianas F10 map in .mbtiles format for CombatFlite. I kept the files as light as possible in order to keep both an excellent zoom level and an acceptable file size. In the coming weeks, I'll rework the Caucasus map to increase the zoom level, while reducing t

Now that you understand the vocabulary and logic of Soviet/Russian aviation bombs, we can get a look at the second pillar of the weapon system: the fuzes. Even if following the previous general articles about Western fuzes you should be familiar with most of the following concepts, you will still ce

Last Thursday, we closed the Paveway II instructional series with November’s "masterclass", a comprehensive walkthrough of the weapon’s behaviour, employment logic, and practical delivery techniques. I hope that with final session you now have a very good understanding of how to use the Paveway II f

With the MiG-29 now modeled in full fidelity in DCS World, we finally have access to a level of realism that exposes the full complexity of Soviet and Russian unguided munitions. The recent addition of selectable bomb-fuze options places the Fulcrum on the same level as its Western counterparts, whe

You'll find attached the kneeboards related to the 4 previous posts: Intervisibility planning (part 1 & part 2) Wedge Pop-up Enjoy your planning!

After several months of work, the full 25-article Paveway II series is now complete. We’ve covered every self- and buddy-lasing profiles, from fuze settings to intervisibility calculations, cockpit actions, geometry, and all the small details that make the difference between “oh, it worked” and “yes

We are nearly reaching the end: the pop-up is the last profile in the buddy-lasing series! We will follow the same structure used for the wedge: we will describe the geometry and the formation setup, then we will discuss tactical considerations and threat management specific to the pop-up. I. Geomet

Let's continue the Paveway II buddy-lasing series, focusing now on the low-altitude employment profiles. Up to this point, we’ve dealt with geometry and intervisibility theory, as well as medium-altitude profiles where clear line-of-sight simplified the task. At low level, the same principles still

Following a recent DCS Kola Theater update, three airfields have been added: ESUT - Hemavan Airport ESNX - Arvidsjaur Airport ESPG - Boden Heliport You'll find attached the updated .xml file for use in CombatFlite. Don't forget that the most up-to-date version of every theater is maintained in a sin

This article is the practical follow-up to the previous "introduction to intervisibility" article. There we established the geometric idea of line-of-sight and the simple nomogram method for converting obstacle height and distance into a required LOS angle. Now we can put that tool to work: step-by-

If you fly in DCS and you care about realism, you’ll eventually realize that flying isn’t the hard part. The hard part is understanding why you’re flying: what you’re supposed to achieve inside a much bigger system. That’s where reading books like Operation Enduring Freedom: September 2001–March 200

It's now time to enter into the final stage of the Paveway II Delivery Profiles series. After examining the standard attack profiles (level, dive, loft, toss, and pop-up) and the buddy lasing profiles at medium and high altitude, we can now address the most demanding environment: low-level buddy las

One lesson learned from coalition operations in Afghanistan is that each JTAC must be assigned a discrete TAD frequency and must not share that TAD with other JTACs or, worse, other C2 agencies. Sharing TAD nets increases deconfliction burden, raises the risk of fratricide, and degrades the JTAC’s a

Once we have included all the civilian airspace as described in the AIP (2009 example here), we can start the ACO building by placing AAR Areas. Let's summarize here the minimum requirements for such areas. I. Altitude I.1 - Vertical space By default, a single tanker needs a 4,000 ft altitude block