Wings Over Vietnam

[Coota0]

Wings over Vietnam. Opinions? Reviews?

[David Hingtgen]

I'm considering it. Would be my first PC game in like 2 PC's. (I'm 100% console now)

Any game with multiple F-8 variants piques my interest. Of course, would probably need to get a decent joystick, though I am pretty good at numeric-padding my way around the skies.

[VF-19]

I'm keeping my eye out for it. I'm a huge sim fan, but I prefer WW2 sims. But I'm more than willing to give it a shot.

[hellohikaru]

Basically its a patched SFp1 with vietnam terrain and aircraft. Most people are still waiting for the SP3 patch which is due "soon".

I heard that thrust vectoring has finally been implemented so we get a more accurate Harrier.

[hellohikaru]

Oopps my bad

The Sp3 patch came out a about 24 hours ago.

Going to bring iut for a spin.

[Coota0]

Just got the sim, can anyone tell me where I can find some of the mods I keep hearing about?

Anybody interested in some online combat?

[JsARCLIGHT]

I'm just curious being a Nam buff... how accurate is this game to the war? Is it mainly fantasy as games like Men of Valor are or does it stick pretty accurately to the way the air war actually went down?... heh... went down.... pun intended on the Thunderchief, AKA the "thud".

[hellohikaru]

Be sure to get the WoV patch which allows compatibility with SFp1 Sp3 planes.

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bb...t=000793#000000

All SFp1/WoV related talk in this forum(Ask around...most people there are quite friendly)

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bb...ubb=forum;f=121

Third party weapons pack

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bb...;f=121;t=000981

[hellohikaru]

JsarcLight

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bb...;f=121;t=001122

There is still lots of tweaking for TK to do but i believe it will turn out to be a great flight sim. Not as hard as F4 to learn avionics wise but FM modelling is good.

[KingNor]

I'm considering it. Would be my first PC game in like 2 PC's. (I'm 100% console now)

Any game with multiple F-8 variants piques my interest. Of course, would probably need to get a decent joystick, though I am pretty good at numeric-padding my way around the skies.

i'm shocked and amazed that someone like you doesn't have a computer and super nice joystick setup for playing flight sims on the computer.

learn something every day.

[Max Jenius]

I'm considering it.  Would be my first PC game in like 2 PC's.    (I'm 100% console now) 

Any game with multiple F-8 variants piques my interest.  Of course, would probably need to get a decent joystick, though I am pretty good at numeric-padding my way around the skies. 

i'm shocked and amazed that someone like you doesn't have a computer and super nice joystick setup for playing flight sims on the computer.

learn something every day.

ditto

[JsARCLIGHT]

Well it looks like they are off to a good start. If you ask me that is sort of one of the things that makes using the Vietnam Conflict sort of "boring" for a flight sim... 90% of the air war was CAS, not much "fun" in a game if you ask me. Actual dogfights between planes were few and far between and the numbers show almost a draw in most cases thanks to lackluster US pilot training and no onboard guns on most of the planes for the first few years.

So I guess if you actually want to know what it was like running the gauntlet of AAA and SAM sites up the country into North Vietnam then this game might deliver.

[hellohikaru]

Jsarclight

CAS boring .. When was the last time we had good CAS missions in flight sims ?

I currently don't have WoV myself but SFp1 SP3 has a fictional desert campaign featuring tons of intercept missions to keep it interesting.

Actually most of the early "planes" had onboard guns save for the early F-4s. Even the B-57B Canberras had 8 forward firing guns believe it or not.

[JsARCLIGHT]

For someone like me a flight sim is all about air to air combat... ground targets are boring. Especially if those ground targets are stationary or just plain not visible. The war in Vietnam was a ground war, the US held air superiority for the entire conflict... yet they still had attrocious loss rates thanks to North Vietnam having the most sophisticated air intercept system of the day. To be blunt the US was basically throwing planes into the chopper when sending missions into North Vietnam. Hundreds were lost to Triple A and SAMs. So to be true to form in the game heavily defended targets in Hanoi and the like should almost be suicidal runs for fighter bombers and left for the B-52's to hit.

As for the gun issue early in the war most US fighter craft actually did not have decent onboard cannon or training for them if they did have the cannon... or any at all. The US military put all it's faith in air to air missles (which worked at best 25% of the time) and many US flyers early on "lost kills" because their missles failed and they had no guns (I have numerous reports and studies on this). Only later in the war did many planes get cannons back. For almost the whole first part of the war in air to air engagements the US Air Force suffered almost a 1 to 1 tag for bag ratio against the Soviet and NVA pilots in air to air dogfights. The Navy and Marine boys did a lot better at like 2.75 to 1. Not until later in the war and the introduction of new training systems designed to train US pilots to fight against soviet planes and tactics did the kill ratios climb.

[Noriko Takaya]

The war in Vietnam was a ground war, the US held air superiority for the entire conflict...

Yep. I like flight sims somewhat, but what I would really like is a really decent grunt based project from the war. I wanna mow down some VC and chop ears off.

[hellohikaru]

I have to diagree in a number of things here.

Flight sims are definitely not just air-to air and dogfights and just that's just part of the spectrum. And it was very challenging to hit even stationary targets like bridges accurately without much precision weapons then. They had not HUD or CCIP and had to bomb manually while evading so much flak.

The US were operating under very restrictive ROE and were not allowed to attack the sams sites unless they were fired upon. They were not allowed to attack airfields and MiG with their undercarriage down. And even if they could see a new sam site or AAA site being moved or set up they weren't allow to hit them. They also had to fly through very restrictive "corridors" determined by people in the pentagon or white house and may not overfly certain areas.

I am not so sure about the AF ability to use guns or fire them but the interceptor crews didn't put so much emphasis on dogfight training.

Why are you saying most of the US fighters/warplanes did not have any decent onboard guns ?

The only planes in theater without a build-in guns were the F-102s, early F-4s and all NAvy F-4s some of the F-4s had a gunpod adapted later.

The AF F-100 had 4 M39 guns, the F-104 and F-105 had the M61 gun. The F-5 also had 2 m39 guns. The A-1,A-4, A-7 and A-37 had built-in guns as well.

The gun never actually became a factor as the F-4E later proved...Cunningham's 3 kill mission was without a gun too although it was handy to have one around.

[Noyhauser]

The gun never actually became a factor as the F-4E later proved...Cunningham's 3 kill mission was without a gun too although it was handy to have one around.

I'd disagree on a few of your statements. During Vietnam, it was found that missiles especially heavy radar guided missiles like the Sparrow were not as effective as close range weapons, like the sidewinder. The highest kill to loss ratio aircraft was the F-8. Didn't have a sparrow on it. Machine guns were useful though, and they contributed to some kills.

Your point on training is a major problem. The reason why the F-8 was so successful was that they had close combat training, while a lot of other pilots didn't. I seem to recall this was a problem for F-4 drivers. I don't have the book with me so don't shoot me on that one.,

Also the ROE was there partly not because of Political reasons, but techincal ones. IFF was garbage, and there were a lot of instances of Blue on Blue incidents. ROE was instituted to ensure that these didn't happen. This is why the F-16 (which tried to embody the lessons of Vietnam) was initially designed not to have the Sparrows at all, but to rely completely on the Sidewinder and the Vulcan.

Ground bombing was fairly inaccurate at this time. You were often lucky to get CEPs in 50 feet, more like in the 100s. The first use of Laser Guided PGMs are seen in early 70s and that would revolutionize things, but not soon enough. The Paul Doumer Bridge really was the first time these weapons were use with spectacular results. These were critical bridges in the north that were heavily defended, and the had cost many air crew to take out. However I think it was the USAF was never successful in dropping more than one bridge, or one span. in 72 they bring in I think it was the Paveway I a first generation laser guided bomb. First attack with the PAveway cost no crews, and dropped all three spans. IT harkens the day now, where we talk about one bomb, one target, when in 1944 over 85% of all bombs missed their targets.

I'll be perfectly honest, I like CAS/bombing ect, missions. Hell, one of my favorite games was Aces over the Pacific, and my favorite thing to do was go take out shipping.