Which is not right, as F/A-18Cs did perform CAS in both Irag and Afghanistan, so where you got that wrong bit of information is beyond me, as it'd have to fly more than 10nm in-country (especially from the boat to Afghanistan, which isn't "10nm" north of the Indian Ocean, and from the Persian Gulf to service the whole country of Iraq) to support the troops on the ground. Matter of fact I checked with a person who used to fly in Hornets and after asking at least with a three-tank load and say some good amount of bombs, we'll call them GBU-31 JDAMs, around... say 1,200 nmi. Granted flight profile limits this radius but overall a bit more than "10nm". Again a good point where non-veterans don't know jack about the systems they're supposed to know about. And last time I checked OEF-OIF lasted a good while (13 years of constant conflict, with Afghanistan being about 14) so a lot of that combat data was gleaned from operational, not documentation basis,which to my knowledge is more factual.

It also should be noted while they often flew a mainly "high" flight profile both conflicts show it can still get into "deep" territory to support any fight, which if I remember correctly had initial heavy loadouts (GBU-31 and so on) and lightened as the wars went on.

But 'she' can't do a spectacular flat-dash intercept, deep strike or supersonic low-level reconnaissance that lasts more than 10nm, so no, she can't quite do 'any mission imaginable'

You make an excellent point Eric, but you also have to remember the Air Force also had a veritable conga line of tankers circling overhead between the water and any CAS areas of responsibility. In a theater where total air superiority had yet to be achieved, that wouldn't be possible. And even with a Super bug or two loaded as a strike tanker, you wouldn't get much more range, especially at low level.

I'm assuming he's referring to Hormuz or NTTR.

ED announced in September 2014 that both would be "Winter 2014" releases, yet here we are in January 2015 and NTTR is still "pre-alpha" and Hormuz hasn't even made it into the game engine yet.

If I remember correctly the Falcons (I'm a bit fuzzy on this one) the Falcons carried the dumb bombs while the Phantoms carried the LGBs, or vice versa, but either way they probably carried either 1,000lb or 2,000lb (or even 500lb) to make the holes for the LGBs to fly into. And even then I'd estimate that they had at least a couple tanks along with it to get that far and back.

Living to fight slow, while others scorn it...

You can run it 'like this' when you have the freedom to, ie. the Ubisoft/EA's of the world aren't tying you down to a deadline with their up-front money. They seem to be doing fine with it.



But 'she' can't do a spectacular flat-dash intercept, deep strike or supersonic low-level reconnaissance that lasts more than 10nm, so no, she can't quite do 'any mission imaginable'

Only in the -As

And Ubi and EA seem to be doing more fine. I'm not saying I agree with their practices (they take things too far the other direction). Plus, there's been more than a few fallouts over the years in this community over money (DCS WWII and Leatherneck come to mind).

I'm just wondering how the account/finance side does work itself out.

As far as the bug; OK, this is true, but It's also safe to say it's more roles in one bird then we've had to date in DCS.