Thanks for the reply. First, while I probably have a few thousand hours in the F18 in DCS, and a few thousand takeoffs and significantly fewer landings, I'm just a flight simmer, with no real experience in military or civilian aviation. Everything I say is just my speculations and guesses.
> Do you mean in, say, DCS F-18 the ECW systems and things like AIM-120 performance are fake, either because the devs don't have access to the real performance data or because they are under obligation not to make it too realistic? (That is, I would not be able to use the AIM-120 in real life in the same way it's used in DCS, because its performance is not the same?).
A bit of everything. First, everything in DCS is of course "fake". It's just a video game, and all physics, CFD, and electromagnetic waves are just simulated, and there is no way that DCS is doing high-resolution CFD and simulation of real radar returns in a real time game engine. Everything in DCS is approximated and faked. Everything. Some aspects better than others. The F18's radar performance uses a simple degredation factor to reduce the detection range when an object is below you, so many miles for so many degrees for example. Both simplistic, and incorrect.
> either because the devs don't have access to the real performance data or because they are under obligation not to make it too realistic?
I can only speculate of course, not being privy to the private deals Eagle Dynamics and subsidiary/parent companies may or may not have made with militaries. But both: real missile performance, especially for the modern AIM-120D is classified. There is absolutely zero chance that Raytheon/Lockheed/Hughes is going to give classified missile performance to Eagle Dynamics for a publicly consumed video game on the promise that they won't make it "too realistic". Second, even if there is a military grade classified version of the simulation somewhere, at least from the US perspective, they wouldn't be too worried about modelling the exact performance of the latest AIM-120D, for the simple reason that the AIM-120D is not a missile that the US navy or US airforce expects that they will have to defend against in a shooting war. It's their missile!
They would be more worried about modelling their latest estimates of the Russian and Chinese air-to-air missile performance. And, when it comes down to actually developing tactics to counter these threats, you don't necessarily need to do it in a real-time game engine. You can look at energy performance, range, etc, and determine ranges and work out a BVR timeline to defend against that threat.
Then, when you say, "AIM-120", do you mean the AIM-120 A,B,C, or D, or any subvariant, or export variants? For AMRAAMs, the F-18 in DCS has the AIM-120-B and the AIM-120-C-5 (along with the AIM-7M (and AIM-7MH) Sparrow, and AIM-9L/M/X). Whos to say if they're modelling all of these missiles correctly, as you'll be hard pressed to find an unclassified source of all the missiles characteristics and seeker/sensor performance.
As for the BVR timeline tactics, there is a lot of info out there. If you do a google search for various combinations of the terms like: BVR, Commit, Meld, Skate, Bonsai, Crank, Notch, F-pole, Short Skate, you will turn up various resources developed by both the flight sim community, and retired fighter pilots. These tactics were real BVR tactics at one point, but whos to say if what's trickled out to the flight sim community is accurate, and keep in mind a lot of these come from the F-14, or F-15 communities which were more focused on pure air-to-air.
Additionally, a lot of the material out there now is developed by flight simmers who are tailoring the tactics/timelines to do well in DCS! Not against real threats!
What the exact tactics are today for F-22s, F-35s and F-18E's going against Su-27s and Su-57s in a modern high threat environment? I have no idea.
> sent by data link from a nearby AWACS,
A big thing that DCS does not simulate at all is working in a modern high-threat ECM environment, particular detection and jamming. A radar pulse transmitted can be detected at much further ranges than it can get useful information from the return. Turning your radar on, or your datalink on to both tx and rx, is a huge liability in the modern battlefield - you tell your enemy exactly where you are. Jamming is another aspect - how well does datalink work in a modern environment against a peer threat when they can jam you? What if the AWACS aircraft gets taken out, what if the AWACS has to go EMCOM to protect itself? None of these are simulated at all in DCS (aside from the AWACS being shot down of course).
Anyway, I could go on, obviously I have a lot to say.
If you made it this far, here is a youtube video of a BVR engagement against AI aircraft in the F-18 with our virtual squadron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqypIQ8qiw
We had the support of a human Airborne Intercept Controller (AIC) using the LotATC software, and were doing a BARCAP (barrier combat air patrol), to protect an airspace so that other members of our group could attack ground targets. We had just had two previous BVR engagements, and were low on gas and trying to get to a tanker, when the AIC notified us of a new threat.
In the video we are following a BVR timeline to try to meld/sort at ~40NM, shoot at 30-35NM, and skate at 23NM, against AI Mig-29s with the russian equivalent to the AIM7M.
Anyway, just my ramblings on DCS, etc. Cheers.