Threat Guide
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For the last couple of years, I have been working on a threat guide that I call The Vault. The inspiration for this came from the old threat guide that came with the BMS 4.32 install. Over the years, I added a lot of notes to the old guide. I searched around for something similar that would already be made and found a lot of good references, but they were not specific to BMS in terms of information that I could use for tactics. So I started putting this guide together.
Many of the documented systems are very complicated. Whole articles or even books can be written on each system. My intent was not to document everything but to show the things that I want to know most frequently to be able to fight or defend against them while flying an F-16.
To get to these basic numbers, the systems were tested under typical combat situations. If they are used under different circumstances then the numbers may change. So if someone happens to have enough fuel to be flying mach snot in the nose bleed zone or has 300 knots of overtake speed on a cold aspect fighter spewing black smoke out his tail end then things will be different. The reader will need to use a reasonable amount of good judgement when using the information. There is also the possibility that I may have tested something a long time ago and missed that it changed since then.
I have done my best to weed out mistakes in it but perfection is one of those things that is always just out of reach. Especially with the great work that BMS has been doing lately to update many of the weapon systems. Trying to keep up has been a real challenge. It has been a useful reference for me and my wing for a while now so it should be in good enough shape to share. If interested, it can be downloaded from the link below:
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Based on input from this thread, I rechecked some of the systems and made some changes to pages 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 23, 24, 33 and 34. The revised version dated May 11, 2016 can be downloaded from the link below:
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Revised version dated October 28, 2016 based on U2 changes can be downloaded from the link below:
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Revised version dated February 26, 2017 based on U3 changes can be downloaded from the link below:
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Changed pages 1, 3, 4, 7, 20, 33, and 44.
Revised version dated October 2, 2019 based on 4.34 changes can be downloaded from the link below:
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Revised version dated October 27, 2019 for 4.34 based on input from this forum.
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Revised version dated December 20, 2020 updated with changes due to 4.35.
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Revised version dated February 4, 2021 for BMS 4.35 based on some errors found and input from this forum.
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Updates for this document are now in the bms docs folder under the name Threat Guide.
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Thank you!
And if somebody has the wish to re-do properly the in game TacRef … they will be welcome I think
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Hello, nice work!
Just a few remarks
- max speed is mach 2,2+ (achieved 2,35 in game) for 2000C, -5F, -5 Mk2 (EGM) - max speed for N & D are good (lack of variable geometry air intake mechanism)
- RWR is SERVAL for all 2000 except for EGM, in which it is the ICMS Mk2 (but no change in game). SAMIR is a MWS system designed by SAT, which is installed on 2000 N & D only (wiring for other aircraft is installed, but no operational use).
- Rafale uses SPECTRA RWR (SAGEM is just a Thales subsidiary)
- radar on 2000 N & D is ESD/CSF Antilope 5 (ESD and Thomson CSF later merged and eventually became Thales, so feel free to put any of these).
- also I think you mixed up the countermeasures dispenser and RWR on KF-16C-32 (not ALE-40 but ALR-56M)
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Yeah, I was thinking about the TacRef as well. That looked more like a small “intro document” whereas The Vault is more like a cheat sheet. Awesome work nevertheless!
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Wow! Great document, very professional! Thank you for sharing it, mate.
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Fantastic. I’ve just skimmed it for a quick look and it looks to be a go to document for BMS.
Thank you for sharing. :bowd:
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Good job, very helpfull.
From my experiance :
KS-19 Max fire range : 27500ft (In PDF - 34000)
KS-12 Max fire range : 23000ft (In PDF - 30000)
S-60 Max fire range : 16000ft (In PDF - 6000) -
Nice document.
I have a question regarding your comment to the SA-5 on page 6: “At very high altitudes I have seen it get up to mach 30.6.” Do you really mean mach 30.6? -
Where did you get the image on 1st page? Can you share with us? It looks really cool.
Are you sure in page 47 and SA-4 without RWR?
Many times I cannot decide you wrote about RL capabilites or capabilites in Falcon. (R-73 is not a WVR missile, etc. )
Because in this case are such difference between some SAMs this doc. can be base the future changes. For ex. Osa had almost identical guidance to SA-4, but it was more advanced.As I can judge you checked the DB values.
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Good job, very helpfull.
From my experiance :
KS-19 Max fire range : 27500ft (In PDF - 34000)
KS-12 Max fire range : 23000ft (In PDF - 30000)
S-60 Max fire range : 16000ft (In PDF - 6000)A bit confused on max range of guns and would appreciate some clarifications.
For instance, it is known that the KS-19 has a max range of 34, 000ft and when you fly at say 20, 000ft, your aircraft is not affected by the ks-19 shots
Is there a lethal zone for these shots?
Want to believe that if max range is 34000ft, shot from the ks-19 should hit at 25000ft. -
From my experiance, ks-19 fire once u r below 27500. 34000 Is way to high, maybe it is a true number in RL or something that was published somewhere.
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Thank you very much TeeSquare.
Great job, very much appreciated and used. -
Hello, nice work!
Just a few remarks
- max speed is mach 2,2+ (achieved 2,35 in game) for 2000C, -5F, -5 Mk2 (EGM) - max speed for N & D are good (lack of variable geometry air intake mechanism)
- RWR is SERVAL for all 2000 except for EGM, in which it is the ICMS Mk2 (but no change in game). SAMIR is a MWS system designed by SAT, which is installed on 2000 N & D only (wiring for other aircraft is installed, but no operational use).
- Rafale uses SPECTRA RWR (SAGEM is just a Thales subsidiary)
- radar on 2000 N & D is ESD/CSF Antilope 5 (ESD and Thomson CSF later merged and eventually became Thales, so feel free to put any of these).
- also I think you mixed up the countermeasures dispenser and RWR on KF-16C-32 (not ALE-40 but ALR-56M)
I checked the max speeds at 25,000 feet in the sim one plane at a time. This occurred over a long period of time with the 4.33 build as it was changing so some of them may have changed. I know that after checking all the planes that I put in there, I noticed that the Mig-29 speed changed or I wrote it down wrong. After that I was worried that maybe there were some changes to other planes that I didn’t know about but I wasn’t going to check them all over again.
Thanks for the comments. I will review them when I have time.
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Good job, very helpfull.
From my experiance :
KS-19 Max fire range : 27500ft (In PDF - 34000)
KS-12 Max fire range : 23000ft (In PDF - 30000)
S-60 Max fire range : 16000ft (In PDF - 6000)Thanks for the comment. I will check them again when I have time. The AAA were one of the first things that I checked back in late 2014. It is one of those things where as time goes by, I started to wonder if some things changed but it was a huge amount of work to check everything in the sim.
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Nice document.
I have a question regarding your comment to the SA-5 on page 6: “At very high altitudes I have seen it get up to mach 30.6.” Do you really mean mach 30.6?I saw a lot of weird things over the years. :rolleyes: I was surprised myself. It may have been an ACMI glitch or it may have been because it went really high where no F-16 would ever go. I saw it and wrote down the speed. There were some notes that I should have omitted but it was hard to decide what to omit and what to keep in. I thought about omitting that note but moved on to other things.
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Where did you get the image on 1st page? Can you share with us? It looks really cool.
Are you sure in page 47 and SA-4 without RWR?
Many times I cannot decide you wrote about RL capabilites or capabilites in Falcon. (R-73 is not a WVR missile, etc. )
Because in this case are such difference between some SAMs this doc. can be base the future changes. For ex. Osa had almost identical guidance to SA-4, but it was more advanced.As I can judge you checked the DB values.
The information on the cover image is at the bottom of page 2. A-7E bombing Duong Bridge during Operation Linebacker-1, wikipedia.org. I tried to give credit for all the photos but I usually could not find who took the photo and just where it was posted. I spent several days collecting images and then picked the ones to fit where I had left over space. I had to photoshop that photo a lot. It was an old image with streaks and blotches in it.
I think that the only RL number that I put in the document was for the engine thrust. Everything else was tested in the sim. The idea was to have stats in the sim to plan for.
I tried to find a correlation between DB and performance in sim but as you have noted in previous posts there is a lot of difference between the two. I added in the DB info for the AA to missiles to get the gimble limits and left the rest in for comparison of the parts that we can’t see. Grey numbers are DB numbers and black numbers next to them were observed. The ranges of the missiles and seekers were tested in the sim.
Some of the information may be skewed by the sensors that I used to determine things or the AC that I tested them against. For example, I checked the range to target when I heard RWR noises for search and fire control. And they were not always the same going toward or going away or going toward for the second time. I learned later that the different RWR’s pick up different band. Then I learned that at different times different letters were used for different frequencies. So trying to get it all under the same standard was difficult.
I tried to note how I checked everything at the beginning of each section.
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A bit confused on max range of guns and would appreciate some clarifications.
For instance, it is known that the KS-19 has a max range of 34, 000ft and when you fly at say 20, 000ft, your aircraft is not affected by the ks-19 shots
Is there a lethal zone for these shots?
Want to believe that if max range is 34000ft, shot from the ks-19 should hit at 25000ft.I only checked to see how high they shot, not if the F-16 was taking damage or not. If I saw flak then I wrote the altitude down. I didn’t use range numbers from outside sources or concern myself with what the real ranges are. The numbers out there are all over the place. I will leave that to more qualified people like the BMS developers.
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Great job TeeSquare and thanks
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Excellant work, Compadre! It will be with me when I fly
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I updated the link on the first post.