Gaming Digital Combat Simulator Thread

[Urwumpe]

Does somebody know what WCN means?

 

[mojoey]

Aw! Finally bought it today! Never mind, he had a pretty good run at it. Anyone know a site that might explain the history behind those Georgian medals, if that is what they are?

In order from left to right:

Military Courage Medal

Order of David Agmashenebeli

(The next three are tricky)

I think they're all the Vakhtang Gorgasali order (the last one is a Class 1). You'd have better luck asking someone who's more familiar with the Georgian decorations.


Either way, what did you throw him into?

 

[Richy]

Does somebody know what WCN means?

The Flight Manual says "Warning, Caution and Notes". Possibly messages like "NO SPI", "EO TIME" or similar.

 

[Urwumpe]

The Flight Manual says "Warning, Caution and Notes". Possibly messages like "NO SPI", "EO TIME" or similar.

Ah that is what I missed... possibly acknowledging the master alert.

FINALLY managed to hit something with a Maverick with the A-10C. At Night. During a quick mission. Only two tanks... but I hit them. Main problem was finding the other tanks of the target. The JTAC didn't give me good coordinates to find the remaining tanks in the darkness after killing the first two, he constantly repeated the coordinates I already had.

 

[Hielor]

Spent some time fiddling with graphics settings, using a track I made of overflying a city at low altitude.

The only setting that made any noticeable difference was Visibility Range--turning it down to Medium from High gained ~5fps while not really reducing the visual experience much at all.

So, if you're looking to squeeze more performance out of DCS, I'd definitely start with Visibility Range.

---------- Post added at 01:28 ---------- Previous post was at 00:01 ----------

Mission 12 done. Took a SAM and lost an engine partway through my first munitions load. Landed back at base fine, reloaded, and went back out for more.

Ended up taking some hits from a Bradley and lost an engine and had a fuel leak. On only one engine, wasn't able to get far enough or high enough to have a chance of making it back to base. Was going to try for a nice straight piece of road, but turns out I had a hydro failure too, so the gear didn't come down (what kind of awful landing gear system doesn't have a manual or gravity assist backup?! Especially in a combat aircraft!). Ended up ditching in a lake instead and safely ejecting.

I think I'll be moving Bradleys up higher in my list of priority targets. Those things are even deadlier than AAA.

Friendly ground forces got where they were going and all the objectives were gone, so had a 100 result.

Wingman was even more hilariously incompetent than usual. Ignored everything (including me) and flew straight for the enemy long-range SAM. I might need to take over SEAD duties from him, although that means losing my precious Kh-29Ts...

Also discovered that in order to call the ground crew for repairs or refuel/rearm, either power needs to be on or the cockpit needs to be open. Nice touch.

 

[Richy]

The JTAC didn't give me good coordinates to find the remaining tanks in the darkness after killing the first two, he constantly repeated the coordinates I already had.

No success with IR painting or WP?

 

[Urwumpe]

No success with IR painting or WP?

Was a type 3 tasking, no marking of the target by JTAC at all. All I had that was really helpful was the JTRS message and the triangle on the TAD.

I spent 30 minutes circling around the place using the TGP to find the remaining tanks driving south west, but didn't find them, and requesting new coordinates by the JTAC didn't work.

 

[Hielor]

Mission 13 done. Not everything went according to plan. Track is available here because a few interesting things happened. I'll refer to timestamps as I watch it, but due to the way tracks work it might get out of whack.

Mission objective was to take out a headquarters unit well behind enemy lines. Planned waypoints took us rather close to enemy SAM sites, so I adjusted them for safety. Arrived within range of the target without drawing any fire. Run-in on target begins at 10:47:00 in the track, when I accidentally deploy full flaps--which probably worked out fine and actually slowed me down enough to take out the targets in one pass.

Sent one -29T after the MANPADs defending the headquarters unit and another at the only SAM vehicle in range, then took out both units of the headquarters group with Vikhrs in the same pass and got a "mission accomplished" message (10:48:20). I then turn east, away from the front line (which is full of SAMs), and spot a pair of enemy Black Hawks.

I fire a couple Vikhrs on the one with the lower transversal velocity(10:48:57 for the first hit, 10:49:07 for the second) and it goes down hard and explodes (10:49:20). I turn around and line up on the second helicopter, taking it out with a single Vikhr (10:50:38).

That's when things started going south real fast. I probably should've turned back north and gone out the way I came, since I knew that corridor was safe, but I decided to head to the south instead, following the original mission waypoints.

I had picked up a bunch of speed in the dive after the second helicopter, and was heading straight for a MANPAD. Should probably have just flown around, but I hate those things with a passion and will go out of my way to take them out.

I start screwing up hard with the Shkval trying to get it on top of them (I should've turned the thing off and back on again to reset it to the center of the HUD, but was instead trying to slew it over). I have some trouble getting them into the Shkval (10:51:06) and am rapidly approaching them. Too late to turn away now, I need to take them out before they take me out. I get the Shkval "close enough" (I thought) and fire (10:51:19). Since I was using the -25ML, I should've slewed the Shkval closer to them as I approached and could tell that it wasn't very close to them, but things sort of worked out okay...

The -25ML falls far short of the dudes, but catches the Stinger they launched in its blast radius (10:51:23) (see attached annotated image). Yes, I shot down a SAM with a laser-guided missile.

I saw the explosion on the Shkval and started to turn away, but then as the smoke cleared realized that the dudes were still there. Too fast and too far off angle to put more munitions on them, all there is to do is maneuver, launch flares, and pray.

Next Stinger they launch is a very near miss (10:51:41) and puts a smoking hole in my wing. No idea what was coming out, I didn't have a fuel leak that I could tell. Their third missile streaks after my wingman, and they're supposed to only have 3 shots before a 5-minute reload, so I think I'm safe, but...

Another MANPAD decides to join the party (I HATE THOSE THINGS) and I get hit by another missile (10:52:06) which causes rather more damage. MLWS, ECM, hydraulics failures. I frantically check the map to find a clear path through the front lines and back home, as I'm starting to jettison weapons and climbing to a "safe" altitude. Finding a path, I level off and aim for it, and since I've got a hydraulic failure, drop the gear (10:52:44). Except, oops, only the right main gear comes down, and not even all the way. The left main gear and the nosegear are AWOL.

During this time, I see that my wingman is limping along at treetop level at a rather high AOA. Hoping to get him home too, I order him to jettison his weapons but he refuses (in the track I watched he'd already dropped them, in the play-through he hadn't). In the track he made it most of the way back to base and then ejected on final, in the play-through he got blown up.

On my first approach I got an AOA warning several meters off the runway and throttled up a bit too much to fix it and picked up too much speed. (short final ~11:01:45) I elected to go around rather than slamming it onto the runway. I've got plenty of fuel and no apparent leak, and the longer I fly around the lighter (and easier to land) the plane gets.

Second approach is a lot cleaner (short final ~11:09:51) and with the runway made and a little extra speed I shut down the engines so as to prevent a fire from the inevitable slamming-into-the-runway. I float just off the runway as long as possible, then try to set it down on just the right gear and balance. That doesn't work out so well--the tire pops and the left wing comes down, breaking off everything outboard of the flaps. This causes a yaw left, crushing the gear back into the bay and putting me on the belly, to slide to a stop not that far off the centerline.

I have to say, given the circumstances, that was one of my best landings. Maybe sometime when it's not 3am I'll record the landing and put it up on youtube.

It was getting late and I'd taken out the main objective, so I exited the mission there instead of repairing and going all Rambo on the enemy.

Mission was complete with a passing result of 65. So, focusing solely on the specific objectives is certainly a viable option, and in missions like this definitely results in a shorter mission (only about 30minutes from takeoff to landing, including the go-around). It's probably also a bit more realistic to have a pilot hit a high-value target behind enemy lines than to single-handedly wipe out the entire enemy army...

 

[ex-orbinaut]

I found that installing an SSD all but eliminated the loading stutters I experienced when I approached / switched my camera to new units.

That is a very good idea. Noted.

I have 16 GB here, which wasn't that expensive at all relative to the rest of the notebook. Never really accurately measured the memory load, but I never saw more than 8 GB during in A-10C scenarios.

Thanks. It is good news, because the GA-M68MT-D3 only supports up to 8 GB, though the manual does not specify if that is in dual-channel mode or not. I believe I am correct in assuming that it means two 4 GB modules, no matter what mode you run them in. Anyway, here's the memory load on my system, for reference (without then with DCS started up and a mission loaded)...

I've got a GTX 680 and 16gb of RAM, and the framerate drops quite a bit when low over urban areas with lots of vehicles.

Is that with all your monitors going, or just tested on one? In any event, here are my graphics settings, which work very well (native monitor resolution used):

For me, at least, I find that other aircraft in the scenario, not so much ground units, have the biggest impact of frame rate. Multiple simultaneous flight dynamics calculations on limited RAM while waiting for the vertical blank, I am assuming...

Either way, what did you throw him into?

While trying to sanitize the combat zone of AA for my wing-man I took on a radar guided AAA unit with the cannon (I knew it was foolish then, but I was trying to conserve Vikhrs to join in with the wingman later) and was rewarded, not unexpectedly, with some heavy hits on my aircraft. With an engine shut down, weapons dumped and while trying to conserve remaining hydraulic accumulator pressure with small inputs on the flight controls, I flew within range of some armor, which added some hits. I had three vapor trails from fuel leaks, but no fire at this stage. I had also lost the nose of the aircraft, along with the pitot tubes, so no airspeed indications, and the HUD had also failed. Got home and belly landed onto partially extended gear (this helps to avoid fires, no matter what amount of gear you can get out). I landed with an angle to the center-line in order to trundle off the side of the runway deliberately. I find this also seems to help in avoiding fires, if only the first contact is on paved surface and the rest of the slide on the grass. I have not tried a full on grass belly landing, yet, and do not think I will as I am concerned about the risk of flipping longitudinally. As a matter of course with belly landings, I always shut down the remaining engine just before crossing the threshold (as mentioned by Hielor in a subsequent post), but I have found that this does not avoid the fire, if the whole slide is on a paved surface. Still do it as an operating procedure, in any case. Anyways... no fire, sitting there just off the side of the runway and calling up the ground crew, the aircraft exploded. Curtains.

I think I'll be moving Bradleys up higher in my list of priority targets. Those things are even deadlier than AAA.

:lol: Indeed, found that out early in my home made training scenarios. I was lucky that the incident was not my first "death"!

Also discovered that in order to call the ground crew for repairs or refuel/rearm, either power needs to be on or the cockpit needs to be open. Nice touch.

Or, connect the ground power before shutting off the aircraft's power. You do not seem to get responses from the crew to your orders afterwards, but they are carried out just the same, I think I have found. Need to establish this positively, though.

Track is available here because a few interesting things happened.

Thanks, I will be watching it...

Mission objective was to take out a headquarters unit well behind enemy lines.

Now that's the sort of strike mission I like!

The -25ML falls far short of the dudes, but catches the Stinger they launched in its blast radius (10:51:23) (see attached annotated image). Yes, I shot down a SAM with a laser-guided missile.

Amazing. Allow me to mention something similar I believe I witnessed in one of my recent Fast Missions. The Tunguska SAM system seems to be capable of shooting down inbound Kh-29Ts!

It was getting late and I'd taken out the main objective, so I exited the mission there instead of repairing and going all Rambo on the enemy.

Wise comment. Known to have kept combat pilots alive IRL. :tiphat:

 

[Urwumpe]

Can it be, that the radio communication is not always working?

Had used all frequencies for the tower of Vaziano in a mission, but strangely, I got no reply at all.

---------- Post added 11-10-13 at 05:22 PM ---------- Previous post was 11-09-13 at 08:10 PM ----------

Some nice short documentary about the A-10C, maybe somebody else likes it as well.

 

[Hielor]

Is that with all your monitors going, or just tested on one?

All three. No sense in optimizing for just one when I play with all three...

Also, mission 14 (ATO B.P6.4) completed with another 100 result. I think the mission is a bit buggy and may be solid evidence that this campaign was originally designed for the Black Shark.

First off, the mission is to escort a trio of Mi-8 helicopters to drop off some troops. Okay...the assignment of a jet attack aircraft to escort helicopters seems a bit silly, but whatever. I did discover that I could edit the loadout of the helicopters, so I gave them each 4 rocket pods and 2 gunpods, just in case. Will need to check other missions to see if I can control the loadout of other flights of airplanes as well, although a lot of them don't show up in the pre-mission planner. I then started the mission.

First thing I noticed from looking at the map is that there were already some Russian troops in the target drop zone, making quick work of the enemy group of vehicles. The only logical conclusion is that these were Russian ODSTs sent to clean up in preparation for the ground troops coming later.

The helicopters' flight path took them right over a group of Strykers. I had my wingman take out three while I took out the other one (he was using Vikhrs, I was using rockets, that's why he got more). I then started working on SAMs near the drop zone, but got too close to a MANPAD and lost an engine and hydraulics. I HATE MANPADS. Apparently I *really* lost the hydraulics this time because I couldn't control the plane, so I ejected a few seconds before hitting the ground.

Wingman made it back to base on one engine. The helicopters overflew the drop zone, there was a message that troops were being disembarked, and more troops appeared under the helicopters (further proof that the initial troops were ODSTs and not the intended troops being bugged and showing up early). The helicopters then flew pretty much right over where I'd crashed on their way home, so we'll just say they grabbed me as well.

Arriving back at base, the helicopters proceeded to overfly the parking area and fly several km away, then come in one at a time, land on the far end of the runway, and taxi all the way across the base to get to the parking area. Seems like an enormous waste of fuel to me, but I'm not a helicopter pilot, so what do I know?

Really, my main question is--if the Russians have access to ODSTs, why have they been holding them back all this time?

---------- Post added 11-11-13 at 00:28 ---------- Previous post was 11-10-13 at 22:52 ----------

Mission 15 complete, nothing terribly unusual to report. Only real "lesson learned" was: if friendly forces are moving during the mission, wait for them to reach their destinations before quitting the mission. I only got a 60 on results, probably because my wingman and I Rambo-ed everything in sight. Checked the mission to determine why, and saw that I missed out on 150 points of results because I didn't wait for the friendly tanks to get to their destinations.

Checked the briefing for the next mission. Apparently we're now facing EU forces instead of US forces. No SAMs or MANPADs listed in the "Threats" section. If it's accurate, yay! If not, that's going to be an unpleasant surprise.

---------- Post added at 02:38 ---------- Previous post was at 00:28 ----------

Mission 16 was rather more difficult than advertised. There were quite a few MANPADs in the area and the wingman was difficult to use due to the extra (non-mission-objective) groups ~20km east and west. To make things more fun, the primary targets were in a bit of a canyon, the easy approach directions for which were from the east and west--right over the other enemies. If that weren't enough, several of the targets in the primary area, including a MANPAD pair, were pretty well hidden in trees and ground clutter. I think I took like 2-3 passes to find that MANPAD pair in the Shkval even after I'd seen them fire on me once so I knew their approximate location.

---------- Post added at 20:58 ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 ----------

Mission 17 was simple enough. Take out an artillery group behind the front lines. I also took out a couple of nearby MBT groups nearby for good measure, and it's a good thing I did...I only ended up with a 61 result.

Looking in the mission editor, I guess I got 51 for the artillery group and 15 for each of the MBT groups, but lost 20 for a friendly group getting blown up elsewhere on the battlefield (not my fault!). If I hadn't taken out both of those extra MBT groups, I would've failed the mission.

---------- Post added 11-12-13 at 00:20 ---------- Previous post was 11-11-13 at 20:58 ----------

Mission 18 was another "take out artillery behind enemy lines" mission, but this time the ingress and egress vectors, and the target itself, were covered by radar-based AAA platforms. I figured it would be a good idea to bring along the ELINT pod and swap out my -25MLs for -25MPUs so I'd have a couple more "fire and forget" options.

Arriving in the engagement area, I fired off the two -25MPUs at enemy AAA as they started painting me, then lined up on a third for a Vikhr run. Turning toward the vector that should be clear (from the -25MPUs), I discovered I had two very angry AAA shooting at me. Instead of heading back along the ingress vector for another pass as I'd planned, I tried to take out one of the first AAA units with a Vikhr, but ballsed up the targeting with the ELINT pod (was planning on using that to make locking the unit easier) and while trying to avoid AAA I strayed too close to a MANPAD that I never saw nor did my wingman call out.

The MANPAD hit and set the entire plane on fire, so I ejected over a field with a grand total of one enemy unit killed. I HATE MANP...oh whatever I say that every time I post anyway. I wish the SU-25T had an automatic countermeasures program like the A-10 so I could just start dispensing flares and not worry about it for the next 10-20 seconds or whatever.

Unsurprisingly, I got a 0 result, making this my first failed mission of this run through the campaign.

I watched through the track to try to figure out what happened with the -25MPUs. Turns out that they're completely ineffective against the EU AAA vehicles we were fighting--they just soared over the top of the vehicle and impacted behind it, missing by 10-20m. Screw that, I'm sticking to -25MLs on those hardpoints in the future. The ELINT pod might still be useful for identifying the AAA.

Taking over control of the track a few seconds before the MANPAD hit I was able to dodge the missile and take out the artillery, then limp back to base with a fuel leak, missing canopy (apparently I managed to eject it while trying to jettison weapons--apparently you can't jettison weapons with the HUD in air-to-ground mode?), and a hydraulic failure. Had a few seconds of fuel left at touchdown and the landing was uneventful, although I rolled off into the grass as a result of the lack of directional control from no hydraulics.

Had I done that first time, I would've squeaked by with a 51 result and a pass, but alas. Too bad the re-do doesn't count for anything, and I've now been bumped back a step in the campaign.

 

[Ripley]

There are another hi-end pedals: VKB
http://www.vkb-pro.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1203
Unfortunately, the description is only in Russian, but there are the photos there...

If anyone's interested, here they sell VKB products:
http://flightsimcontrols.com

VKB FSC Europe is registered in the Netherlands and operates mainly in European market.
We sell and support products engineered or produced by VKB...

 

[Hielor]

Another mission failed, another step backwards. Primary objective was to take out three advancing tank columns before they took out friendly groups. Not even any SAMs in the area. Easy enough, right?

Well, except that the bad guys had four Apaches and two F-16s, and all we had was myself and my useless wingman. And apparently AGM-114K Hellfires are quite adept at air-to-air, compared to Vikhrs.

GIVE ME AIR SUPPORT DAMMIT. Or at least tell me when high enemy air activity is suspected so I can fit a better air-to-air loadout...

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, except that the bad guys had four Apaches and two F-16s, and all we had was myself and my useless wingman. And apparently AGM-114K Hellfires are quite adept at air-to-air, compared to Vikhrs.

I initially thought the hellfires are too maneuverable, but that is not the case - they are useful against air targets, but have a very poor performance if you are fast and moving 90° to them.

 

[ex-orbinaut]

First off, the mission is to escort a trio of Mi-8 helicopters to drop off some troops.

I got one of them at mission 6, yesterday, but going by your description it was not the same one, as the opposing units were quite different, and there were no troops already at the LZ. Plainly, there are some more of these types of missions in the campaign. I also found it a bit of a strange mission, and found myself a bit clueless as to what to do, really, despite the briefing write up. It did not seem so clear cut once "out there". So I went after as many AA units as possible, with the aid of the wingman, before the helos arrived. Apparently it was not enough, and one of the Mi-8 got shot down, another did an emergency landing, and the last went home damaged. It seems the drop was called off, as no friendly troops appeared at all. Though many enemy units were subsequently destroyed and both my wingman and I got home relatively unscathed, the score was 10(!).

Other news. I checked out the logbook.lua file. It looks a mess in notepad, but is easily readable and self-explanatory, really, when opened in an IDE (I opened it as a file in MSVC). The potential for cheating is huge, but missions could easily be replayed with some minor editing. However, I lost interest in doing so, let a bad day be, and continued from where I was, as any alterations would spoil the enjoyment of the campaign, quite honestly.

Also decided to take the bull by the horns and go face my biggest "concern", let's say. Dedicated radar guided SAMs, in a couple of pretty hard home made missions. I confirm that they are vicious bits of kit (SA-3, SA-6, SA-11 tested), designed to go after you tenaciously and swat you out of the sky like an irritating fly with large warheads. The IR battlefield defense units are match sticks flung at you by comparison, easily evaded and normally leaving you still flyable if they do detonate nearby or graze hit you. A gentlemanly face to face "duel at dawn" approach to the radar guided situation, with the object of learning to evade them, will get you certainly killed (collected another "death" and an ejection in the attempts). Chicanery must be employed, taking advantage of ground cover, ducking behind hills, showing yourself just long enough to get a launch, then diving back down, until the SAM supply is exhausted. Going after something like an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate armed with SM-2MRs, with open sea everywhere and nowhere to hide, must be suicidal!

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, I think I found the solution to my radio troubles - the VHF 1 is fixed to AM (radio switch forward) and the VHF 2 is fixed to FM (radio switch backward). The FM and AM options on the radios left rotary switch have a completely different functions and are for initiating emergency calls.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_emergency_frequency"]Aircraft emergency frequency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[Hielor]

I initially thought the hellfires are too maneuverable, but that is not the case - they are useful against air targets, but have a very poor performance if you are fast and moving 90° to them.

Apparently ~400km/hr isn't fast enough, and I was moving at about 90 degrees.

Also decided to take the bull by the horns and go face my biggest "concern", let's say. Dedicated radar guided SAMs, in a couple of pretty hard home made missions. I confirm that they are vicious bits of kit (SA-3, SA-6, SA-11 tested), designed to go after you tenaciously and swat you out of the sky like an irritating fly with large warheads. The IR battlefield defense units are match sticks flung at you by comparison, easily evaded and normally leaving you still flyable if they do detonate nearby or graze hit you. A gentlemanly face to face "duel at dawn" approach to the radar guided situation, with the object of learning to evade them, will get you certainly killed (collected another "death" and an ejection in the attempts). Chicanery must be employed, taking advantage of ground cover, ducking behind hills, showing yourself just long enough to get a launch, then diving back down, until the SAM supply is exhausted. Going after something like an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate armed with SM-2MRs, with open sea everywhere and nowhere to hide, must be suicidal!

Radar guided SAMs are way easier to handle than IR guided ones. With radar guided SAMs, just bring along the ELINT pod and -58Us or -25MPUs, launch from well outside their engagement range, and be done with it. IR-guided ones are much harder since they don't give away their position so readily...

Also, next mission completed with a 100 result. Fortunately the enemy only had 2 F-16s this time and they largely ignored me while I took out the advancing enemy forces (and an artillery group, for good measure). Yay for heading in the right direction again...

---------- Post added at 09:25 ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 ----------

Also, next mission briefing is more proof this was designed for the Ka-50: it talks about PVI target points in the briefing, which is a thing for the Ka-50 but not the Su-25T...

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Radar guided SAMs are way easier to handle than IR guided ones. With radar guided SAMs, just bring along the ELINT pod and -58Us or -25MPUs, launch from well outside their engagement range, and be done with it. IR-guided ones are much harder since they don't give away their position so readily...

Well said. That is the practical solution, indeed. I was testing a "theoretical" case scenario against radar guided SAMs, without ARMs, either due to exhaustion of your own munitions, or mission requirements having used all your hardpoints for other priority ordnance. That's all. Where IR "detection" is concerned, my solution was to set up a padlock missile button on the joystick, and press it every now and then when you suspect that an IR launch is probable.

I forgot to mention another event. Anyone else had a bird strike yet? I got one, I believe, on mission 5, at the worst possible time, about five seconds after lift off, while the gear was retracting. I was pretty quick (for unmentioned reasons, the scenario is familiar to me), both engines spooled down immediately, and the thrust levers needed resetting (all the way back, then forward again) to recover power. I dumped the weapons, kept runway heading, cancelled the Master Warning beeper, and had a quick look outside, as number one engine was not regaining much power (and I initially thought the wingman might have touched me). Turns out it was on fire, so needed shutting down. I was able to circle around, dumping fuel, and landed without further event.

Be ready for it, is all I am saying. :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

Had a similar event during take-off with a A-10... engine lost and on fire right after take-off, though I think it was rather caused by a bad take-off, too much pitch and a bit of bank to the side of the failing engine.

Had to bail out, because one engine isn't enough at full thrust to gain altitude.

 

[Hielor]

Well said. That is the practical solution, indeed. I was testing a "theoretical" case scenario against radar guided SAMs, without ARMs, either due to exhaustion of your own munitions, or mission requirements having used all your hardpoints for other priority ordnance. That's all.

I think in the case where I knew that there were radar guided SAMs in the area I'd land and re-arm to take them out before I'd try to engage them without ARMs...

SEAD is also a decent role for the wingman, as they're decent enough at it. You just need to make sure they have enough altitude to be within range to fire when you give them the order to engage, or else they'll happily fly too close and get themselves blown up.

Where IR "detection" is concerned, my solution was to set up a padlock missile button on the joystick, and press it every now and then when you suspect that an IR launch is probable.

"Padlock missile"?

I left birds at the default off. I've got enough to worry about in missions that losing a campaign mission to a bird would piss me off pretty severely.

Also, the A-10 can't climb on one engine? That seems like a pretty bad design--the Su-25T's single engine performance is quite respectable, from what I've seen. Maybe just another way the Frogfoot is better than its Western counterpart...