Eh, I think it's unrealistic to assume that the Kuznetsov would be capable of A.) Launching an recovering aircraft, and B.) actually capable of sailing out of port.

90s carriers had way more varied aircraft with more mission sets that would have helped a lot. An EA6B for example would have a huge effect.

One thing I noticed is the harpoons were not sea skimming, making them much easier to hit.

Phoenix was really designed to shoot down Bear bombers with nuke cruise missiles, not primarily for anti-fighter use, probably why so many missed fighters.

Yesterday the Houthi terrorists in Yemen shot down a US drone and the USS Eisenhower CSG is set to pass right by Yemen on its way to the Persian Gulf. It would be interesting to a scenario where the Houthis try and attack the carrier.. the CSG consists of 1 Nimitz carrier, 1 Ticonderoga, and 3 Arleigh Burkes, no F-35s that im aware of just FA-18s.. as far as the weapons the Houthis have I know they have medium range ballistic missiles, land attack cruise missiles and anti ship missiles (probably subsonic) im not sure if the ballistic missiles can target ships but maybe someone else will know that information

A lot of people commenting about the AIM-54 performance being bad. In real life it wasn't exactly a wonder weapon either. Although Iran claims good overall success with it. There are only 3 confirmed uses by US F-14s and all 3 missed. According to Wiki, on 2 of those 3, the missile's rocket motors failed. Real life as so many other variables such as general reliability and human error to contend with. I'd say the in game performance was not beyond the realms of possibility against a jamming, manoeuvring enemy.

Extremely excited to see you guys back on planet earth for scenarios! Keep up the good work.

A big difference between the Harpoon and the Neptune is that the Neptune was sea-skimming, so couldn't be detected at a great distance, especially in choppy conditions.

F-14 on the thumbnail = like before I even press play.

Well done Cap and boys - always love realistic battles! 😊

Russia had no carrier based AEW so detecting targets and guiding anti-ship missiles would have been much harder, required TU95 bear patrolling probably but that was always a drawback; Russian planes would also be carrying limited payload (no catapult)

Suggestion: 2x Russian 1990s carrier group vs 1x 2020s UK CSG (with Type 26).

The Tomcat is still the most sexy. It just is.

As per usual some pretty mathematically perfect missle evasion from the su 27's🤔Also..... other than a first standoff shot keep the Phoenix shots to 20 or less to make them effective against fighters

Ahhh...this was MY time. I was on CG-67 in the 90s.

Legend has it, some of those Phoenix missiles are still orbiting the earth today.

Having served in VF-142 Ghostriders F-14 squadron in the 80's and 90's I can tell you your simulation is mostly right except that the F-14 was an awesome dog fighter and usually came out on top. The Phoenix was designed to attack bombers so performance didn't have to be great except if it was still under power then it was pretty formidable.

The AGM84 also spurred on problems and questions if there was enough of them to deal damage in a fight like this way back in the 90s. I still remember that debate as someone had gone through the reports and found a massive discrepancy between missiles produced and missiles fielded, meaning there was a Harpoon missile shortage and they were being shuffled around between the US fleets to cover it up. A lot of interesting debates on this subject in the late 90s to early 2000s amongst "wargamers" Of course at that time the great equalizer was the TASM or Tomahawk Anti Ship Missile, but that one required a ship or submarine to be deployed.

Cap, it would be interesting to see a 1989 scenario. Soviet's lose a Slava-class and the Kuznetsof but gain land based anti-ship bombers. The US is essentially unchanged except the F/A18's have Aim7's instead of AMRAAM's.

I would like to see F-14D simulated, there weren't that many of them, but it was a significant upgrade for the squadrons that got them.

LOVE THIS.

great vid , and not the result I expected.

One thing that is missing from these scenarios to make it more realistic is to add in some UFO/UAPs. Cap can you add them like easter eggs without telling your boys?

From my time as an Aviation Ordnance tech on the Theodore Roosevelt I was directly involved with the missile loadouts on all the aircraft that carried missiles. In peacetime you were absolutely right Cap, a Tom would never patrol with 4 Phoenix. The standard L/O was 2-3-2. Or 2-1-4 if they were configured for ACM. But always just 2 -54-C's (all Mk47 types. I never seen a Mk60 motor in my career) The only time a Tom would have 4 -54C's would be in hot shooting war with inbound hostiles confirmed. So, your scenario is spot on.

GR make things go Danger Zone...

Loving how this is set up. Definitely smarter to move away from modern/future ones. (I realise that might sound sarcastic, it isn't)

Unfortunately the harpoon being used was t the sea skimmer with pop up feature. AGM-84D would have been used

A lot like the classic game Harpoon scenarios I made for myself. Nice.

Nothing will ever come close to the Tomcat in my book.

You forgotten the tow ships for the Russian carrier😂

That order of battle is highly unrealistic. In the 90's you had either 1 or 2 F-14 squadron airwings. A two F-14 squadron airwing is 20-22 F-14s. 2 F-18 squadrons, about the same (22-24). You also have 6 EA=6B and either an A-6 squadron (12-16) or more FA-18s (another 12 minimum). Other airwings with one F-14 squadron was a single "super" squadron of 16 Tomcats and 4 FA-18 squadrons. The most you can realistically get airborne is about 75% of that. There is NO WAY the Russians could get anywhere close to 24 SU-33s airborne. Maybe 10.

I understand why you added it, but it really ruins the accuracy of this when you give the Russians an AWACS. This is one of the biggest advantages of having a "supercarrier": full sized AEW and ECM planes. The Russians only ever had a handful of A-50 planes that could have supported if close to land, but that would require coordination and likely wouldn't provide 24/7 coverage. Bear recon planes could provide surface search but not air search. Long-winded post to ask for another version where Russians have no AWACS support. It likely results in a US beatdown, but it would be "realistic". (Need DCS to add electronic warfare and realistic submarine warfare to get an actual realistic result, but that would be clubbing baby seals...) Edited out typos...

So technically, there could be an Iowa class battleship in that carrier group too 😜

Is it possible y'all can do fictional battles with fictional assets? Like Caps ideal stealth fighter vs Simba's ideal stealth or Grim reaper conflict? Each member is a fictional country and you can battle each others countries 👀.

@CAP & GR. Could you think about using the S3 Viking in a battle with it's weapons?

Slightly disappointed you didn't include the Kuznetsov's standard 2 tugboats in the Russian fleet. 😅😅😅😅

The sexy Tomcats....NICE. these old school battles....

Hey Cap! On the performance of AI planes, it's been a while since i've done these AI VS AI battles, and you can never be sure with ED constant changes to AI scripting (often not included in patch notes), but the last time i looked, setting the AI to ace didn't always result in best actual in game performance. It's highly dependent on platform, and required some trial and error. In the case of the F-14, F-18, Su-27 and the like, veteran used to work better then ace, while the MiG-15, MiG-21, F-16 worked better on ace. Phoenix specific, from my experience, the AI used to work best if you set the script to fire halfway between max and optimal range. Might be worth experimenting if these settings are still valid though. I may do some sanitized tests this weekend if get the chance and will write to you of the results. Cheers and keep up with the good work. Always loved these cold war scenarios much better then the ultra-modern stuff. EDIT: the 4x2x2x2 loadout for the F-14 in fleet defense role, isn't unrealistic at all. In fact, at least according to manuals, it's exactly what it's called. Fleet defense load :D

When Dcs updates does it screw up all the GR planes and missiles? seems like a lot of work but you do a great job sir.

Hey cap! A interesting video idea would be to take a typically land based ground to air missle and strapping it to like a b-52 and seeing what insane ranges. Puld be therorehtically pulled off, such as strapping a patriot to said b-52 or strapping sa-10s to a tu-160 for the hell of it! Thanks for your time and efforts!

Have You looked into doing the future battles wit E-7 sentry? Or are there DCS limitations, regarding range?

Cool Rim gapeing

I don't know if it's a bug or how the Phoenix worked in real life, but if you lose TWS lock very early on into the phoenixe's launch, when it's still pointing up, it just gives up trying to track and flies into a straight line to the moon.

It just goes to show what a major asset the Moskva was. Old though it was. I had listened to the 'black sea fleet has had a kicking' comments with a pinch of salt, but perhaps those neptunes and drones have really affected the balance of power at sea in 2022/23

This is my version of watching a football game 😂

90s cv would also have S-3s that can do anti-ship with harpoons. Missed the opportunity to show off the new model.

44:10 I mean next would be a rearm and doing anti-ship again with wild weaseling of the f14

I don't think you should give the F-14s an unrealistic loadout just to be "competitive". The US already got more than 2x as many aircraft as Russia in this scenario, so there isn't a need for faux equivalence. If both sides should always be equal to each other regardless of realism, Russia would have needed more planes too.

17:43 Tomcat 12.8 G. 25:34 15.4 G (or 16.4) OK - I hear the crunching of the structure and the pilot's spine.

If Simba wants to live out his Top Gun dreams let Simba live out his Top Gun dreams. Never mind the fact it’s an antique (but way better looking) plane than the F-18. lol

I wonder how the Tomcat would have performed with upgrades in the mid to late 90s. that would be an interesting "What If"

F-18 on the deck after being swiss cheesed by 3 strafing runs... "This is probably fine"

Great content and good to have you back, i think I've broke YT only get 7 yo stuff i put in watch later now :(.. Only problem with scenario is there was no CIS vessels moving mid 90's unless they were being sold under the table.. Pretty sure Kirov was in the dock for most of 90's? Always loved that one..

🔥🔥🔥 love the Su30 , more su34 mods please 🙏🏾

Maybe same simulation with the VMF being supported by their main arm Tu-22 with anti ship missiles and Su-24s with anti radiation missile to make the threat against USN bigger

The other issue is that the US group will have their own Anti ship missle capabilities that would also launch also, but the aircraft will deplete the Russian defensive capabilities.

17:41 Even AI Tomcat pulls 12G

in single player I can still get decent long range 54 kills against Mig29s and Flankers but you have to be at 40k and Mach1+, I like to do a pair of TWS shots and crank to gimble limits to maintain lock. Kills often depend on what mood the AI is in !

Phoenixs are doing weird job in DCS these days. They are worse than AMRAAM at 70nm+ range even in terms of kinematic aspect

Phoenix's are mainly designed for bomber intercepts? Not really great at shooting maneuvering targets. Let me know if this is incorrect.

One thing I personally have seen in 2.9, is (Core game) R-27ER Alamos behaving as Fox-3s. Even with the launching (AI) aircraft turning 180 degrees away, it tracks and hits. Not sure what that's all about.

Wouldn’t there be a OHP frigate, with the USN fleet?

Tht loadout on the tomcat is a real as it gets from carriers only thing is im pretty sure they dont fill them up all the way when loaded like tht

A few issues with this simulation. I'm not sure if it is just the limitations in the software, but the US Carrier should have several more aircraft types on it. Also, the CSG is missing a Oliver Hazard Perry Frigate, and the first Arleigh Burke flight IIA destroyer wasnt commissioned until 2000.

let’s goooooooo

There was ever only 2 Neustrashimy class frigates built.

Can you do an Invincible class group against the kuznetzov group... maybe 2 Invincibles??

Fleet Defender campaign here we come!

Do the udaloy destroyer modernized

I would like a 2024 NATO vs BRIC full out deathmatch. Probably not doable?

The reason why the AIM-54 Phoenix weren't as great as they were supposed to be ,was because some of the money ...well a lot was used down the street at the Brookhaven Labs Project Phoenix .

Don’t really know much about aircraft (more of a tanker tbh) but I’m considering going into weapons development/maintenance in the future (I’m 15 atm) but I’m going to assume the reason jets could carry loads of missiles was in order to carry air to ground payloads as well, but obviously for air defence bombs and rockets are unnecessary therefore the pylons are left empty?

for shoveling work, could you just place a vehicle with a 20mm cannon on the carrier? or would that not work, or just not be fun? :)

Love the Cold War whatifs/reenactments

This. but with bomber support on both sides.

Has Super-C ever tried unjamming a catapult by jumping into the offending plane from a game master slot? You can take over AI planes if they are human-flyable, at least in SP.

I was just freaking out how AI doesn't use FOX-3 on F-14, instead GOING IN STUPID CLOSE QUARTERS FIGHT!!!

Can you do a battle in bad weather?

Oh my beauiful Tomcats... 😢

I would actually prefer to see more cold war/Vietnam era stuff. Something about newer stuff feels less romantic like a Tesla.

How many people dismiss the briefing?

I'm not sure the prolonged battle would be in favour of the americans, as the Russian carrier group would stay in range of the TU-22 bombers, and possibly land based flankers

I'd argue that core DCS and DCS as a whole, due to its horrible crap AI and bugs, creates a whole layer of added difficulty for the US compared to Russia. Russia/Soviet naval doctorine is basically setup, deploy, and hit a button, as the ships fire their offensive missiles, their terrible ramp carrier appears to work on DCS but not in the real world, and their defensive SAMs are also automated to defend the group. Meanwhile, for the US attack to work, they need a flawless carrier plus intelligent flying and teamwork both offensively and defensively. For example, I'd personally take a mix of F-14 and F-18 working together in air-to-air over the RU jets, but that's when its human vs. human with intelligent play. In addition, for those Harpoons to work, you'd need the USN jets to effectively play wild weasel before the ASMs are launched to adequately drain the RU SAMs. There's just a lot more built-in complexity for the US side to work based on doctorine, which also makes sense as the USN relies on their forces being very well trained and competent.

Looking at this you have similar tactics for each fleet. However is it possible to set the Russians into a line formation to release their missiles? They would then go into a defensive formation. it's extremely interesting. SM2 was the mainstay of Americans and the Seawolf the Brits. In each case the missile wasn't the issue, it was the radar seeking the targets. Hence why the missiles with upgrades are still used today.

Wonder if they rearmed with the new ai

why the disparity in aircraft numbers?

So..what if we just used weather manipulation to disable the aegis arrays with hail

Any anti ship strike would be supported by offensive ECM.

Ok, but, can you give USA Super Tomcats and try again? I know, it's silly...

You forgot the Russian tug for knutzev

it would have been 24 F14 and 36 F18.....12 to sqn

Phoenix 2.9 is the new slowmobile

The russian navy group is wrong. There is not going to be two Slavas together with Kirov. in the escort screen. I would set the escort screen as 1 Kirov (or one Slava). 1- 2 Sovriemienny, 1-2 Udaloy 1 or II. 1-2 Krivak I or II (don't know which are in game but something like that would be more realistic). So you would have one giant area defense platform in the form of Kirov, 2-3 anti shippers (Kirov and Sov) and the rest on ASW duty. Similarly for US you are not going to have six AEGIS platforms with the CVN in the 90s. I would substitute one Burke for a Spruance and another one for OHP frigate. Maybe another one for Kidd. Kidd being area defense capable but not AEGIS, OHP being weak area defense and Spruance only local. Also you could substitute one of Ticos for a California or Virginia.

Sorry to be an arse but you had the U.S. Aircraft make up and numbers also wrong strike force make up; which is what you set up not a fleet. You also have a numeral ops on the Russa's fleet and A/C make up.. And you had to blow up half of one of the F/A-18 squadrons.. I know the difficulties with DCS programing and I am horrible at it. The game doesn't have the corp. planies, Like the A-6E, S-3, Hawkeye, EA-6B's, etc... All 90's AC in the US.. I'm not as familiar with the missiles however the talks I've had with fighter pilots talked about how impossible to lock and shoot down.. Mostly because of the mechanical radars. Maneuvering will cause failure with lock and other issues.. Russian's had similar problem with there radars.. Though there radars are more stout and very pwr'ful (tx pwr) but have to fly a little nicer if your relying on your rdr for a fight.. They use to jam with sharp turns. That's from guys I talked to from another navy on one of my cruises. The US tends to put more accurate information to there public then the dictatorial/ Communist minded government does to there people.. Mostly because they just don't want or even able to contemplate working with the world to make the world better instead of worst.. Anyway I'm a fan of your channels.. GL old boy...

No, we can't believe a modernized Kirov if returning to service this decade... the duration of modernisation of big russian ships takes around 10-15y these days, and was sometimes even worse... Includes ocassional fires on board, or floating dock sinking...

i think the reason the aim-54 where so bad early on ai where firing them at like 10000-12000 feet never got high

Why didn't the US ships ever fire their Tomahawk missiles? They have a range of over 500 miles, and even if none got through, they would have drained the Russian SAMs. But I have to say, that this is probably the most realistic depiction of Phoenix missiles I've seen in DCS. They were intended for shooting down non-maneuvering bombers, not fighters. And the only time in my career I was involved in a Phoenix shoot, it just dropped into the sea and never even ignited.

great combat but makes me sad to see F-14's going down

Why were the Harpoons flying so high? They are supposed to be sea skimming missiles.

The F14 was an expensive aircraft that didn't deliver like the F15.