A pocket-sized 7-page bombing table for most air-to-ground weapons carried by the F-5E-3 in DCS, built via in-game testing. Large font size to accommodate users with smaller screens. Comes in day and night versions.
This kneeboard asset contains assorted delivery profiles for bombs and rockets, a brief guideline for air-to-ground gun employment, plus more general, raw-data tables for the bombs only, which are intended to allow for quick checking of how sensitive a certain delivery profile is to deviations in altitude and speed.
Tables are available for: Mk. 82, Mk. 82 Snakeye, M117, CBU-52, Hydra 70 rockets (HEAT/HE), FFAR rockets (HEAT/HE), and the M39 20mm internal guns ( HEI/AP combat mix).
The pages are available in a standard and a dark version, for use in night operations if the user so desires (in case the light version is too bright).
---------- DISCLAIMER ----------
As a disclaimer, the data provided in this file was NOT taken fr om the actual aircraft's manual and is NOT intended to reflect real-life figures. Rather, the data was acquired by testing conducted in-game, for the express purpose of being useful for DCS players and hopefully better reflect how these weapons behave in-game. More details in the "Methods" section of this description.
---------- INSTALLATION ----------
For those who may not be entirely familiar with kneeboards in DCS:
Unzip the file (for most Windows 10 users, this should be as simple as right-clicking the .zip file and selecting "Extract All" fr om the menu - no third-party programs required) and drop the F-5E-3 folder into Saved Games -> DCS -> Kneeboard. If you do not have a Kneeboard folder in the DCS Saved Games folders, create a new folder and name it "Kneeboard" (without quotes), then drop the F-5E-3 folder there.
Both day and night versions are included together - if you are planning on using only the day version, or only the night version, feel free to delete the pages you are not doing to use. Doing so will save you 7 pages you'd have to flip through on the kneeboard in-game.
---------- EMPLOYMENT ---------
The format chosen for the "general data" tables is slightly unorthodox as far as bombing tables go (at least to my knowledge), so it warrants a brief explanation.
This format assumes that the one thing likely to remain most constant during a bombing run is the dive angle. For each dive angle, a set of altitudes is given on the vertical axis. For each altitude, a set of indicated airspeeds is given on the horizontal axis.
The player picks his dive angle, his release altitude and airspeed - if the neighboring values on the horizontal axis change drastically, then this release profile is very sensitive to variations in airspeed and the player must control their speed with extra care. If the neighboring values change only lightly, then mild variations of airspeed are probably acceptable.
Note that some values are marked as "over 200" and exist to show that weapons release in these conditions is impractical. Additionally, some of the profiles in the "general data" table are possible but not necessarily practical - some for instance might result in dive recoveries that end up too close to the ground. Warnings are given in the tables wh ere it is felt they are necessary.
The "Assorted Profiles" section displays more traditional-style bombing tables. As a general rule, the assorted delivery profiles section is likely to be slightly more accurate (see "Methods" section for more details).
---------- METHODS ----------
As previously stated, the data in this kneeboard file was obtained via testing in-game, and this means conducting test drops for every single combination of dive angle, altitude and airspeed, and seeing wh ere the bombs land. (If you wish to do this yourself, a good trick is to use active pause; your plane will stop, but when you drop the bombs they'll fly away and behave as if they had been launched by the aircraft at its current flight parameters, allowing you to see precisely where it falls and adjust the gunsight accordingly.)
Naturally, this means that for the data to be accurate, the player who's collecting the data must fly to these precise parameters every time. I tried my best to get as close as possible, but this is by no means perfect and there might be a mistake somewhere. If you happen to come across such mistakes, please do let me know and I'll do what I can to fix it.
For instance: to my surprise, I found that in DCS the Mk 82 and M117 behave, for all intents and purposes, identically 99% of the time as far as point of impact is concerned, at least in the range of altitudes, speeds and dive angles I tested. (the M117 does lose a bit more speed than the Mk 82 though - drop one of each at the same time and you'll see the Mk 82 impact ever so slightly earlier.) I have no idea whether I did something wrong here, so let me know if you find something wrong with these numbers.
There are many things that can affect the bomb's impact point in relation to the aircraft's gunsight: apart from factors like release altitude, speed, dive angle, and the drag experienced by the bomb, which all affect the bomb's trajectory, there's also the aircraft's angle of attack, which varies with factors like aircraft weight, airspeed and G loading at the time of release. Again, I tried my best to keep the aircraft as stable as possible during the drops, but there's bound to be at least some human error in there. For reference, the tests were all conducted with the aircraft carrying 4 of the tested weapons (for the rockets, the 19-rocket LAU-3 pods were used) on the wing stations, with the centreline pylon clean (no external fuel tanks), at 100-80% internal fuel, on the Persian Gulf map, at 20 degrees Celsius and clear weather. Weapons were dropped on the sea to ensure release altitudes were in relation to sea level.
For the "General data" tables, dive angle, release altitude, and release airspeed were defined beforehand, and then the aircraft was flown as close to these parameters as possible. For the "Assorted Profiles" tables, a dive angle was followed until a good sight picture was established. Then, using active pause, the weapons were released and the airspeed and altitude at the moment of release are noted alongside the reticle depression. Thus, the "Assorted Profiles" section is likely to be slightly more accurate and practical.
The reason for doing this over picking real-life data from the F-5E's dash-1 manual is, no matter how good and well-implemented a simulation is, there are bound to be some differences. I wanted to find out how these weapons behaved in DCS, and create a concise, quick-reference table that would be useful for players, from the newbie to the experienced.
If you have suggestions, corrections or anything of the sort do not hesitate to let me know. I hope you find this useful, and that this helps you enjoy ground pounding with this amazing aircraft!
