What happened to my stealth aircraft?

[M Bison]

Originally posted by korn469
the stealth fighter never had intercept, this is not new, also it is based on the real stealth fighter f-117 which isn't a fighter either, but is instead a light bomber,

While it's role so far in military missions has been that of a bomber, the F-117 is quite a capable dogfighting aircraft as well. It is simply a case of the F-15, F-14 and F-18 being just as good (or better) and cheaper to keep in the air than the F-117. So the older fighters still get the Air Superiority missions. Keep in mind that the F-117 is designed for modern dogfighting. It has no guns, only missile armaments.

The F-117 should be able to do Air Superiority. I never noticed it couldn't. I shall be changing that in the editor when I get home from work tonight.

[planetfall]

Let us know how stealth fighter supremacy works. As it is now the only value for stealth fighter is recon, and then the jet is better as it will switch to AS after recon.

As a variant, edit the stealth bomber to be hidden nationality, ala privateer. You can have a prewar and then the war. Of course, if you suddenly get a few mysterious hits, an AI has discovered the same feature. But they won't focus on using SB for resource limitation the way a human will.

Since fixaxis won't change manhattan to be small wonder, one strategy is to use hidden SB to remove access to UR and AL with a city ready to pump out manhattan in 8 turns if desired. That way you can have nukes and keep them from everyone, or at least most everyone. Usually one other civ will have a source you missed, but better to play with 2 nuclear powers than 16.

[dac]

M Bison: Where did you get the information that the F-117 was "quite a capable dogfighting aircraft?" That conflicts with all the info I've ever been able to dig up on the plane (which isn't much, admittedly).

[dunk]

Originally posted by M Bison
Keep in mind that the F-117 is designed for modern dogfighting. It has no guns, only missile armaments.

Well, a plane without guns can't be that great of a dogfighter. I know that modern planes don't use guns very often, but they are absolutely necessary to be a true fighter plane.

The F-4 pilots in Vietnam stopped using their guns (according to the movie Top Gun ..."During Vietnam our kill ratio fell to 3 to 1, our pilots became dependant upon missiles") so they lost effectiveness against faster, more manuverable aircraft. With proper countermeasures and a skilled pilot, an F-15 would shoot down an F-117 without much difficulty (assuming he knows where it is ). My opinion, of course.

[dunk]

Originally posted by planetfall
As a variant, edit the stealth bomber to be hidden nationality, ala privateer. You can have a prewar and then the war. Of course, if you suddenly get a few mysterious hits, an AI has discovered the same feature. But they won't focus on using SB for resource limitation the way a human will.

That is a very cool idea. Very cool indeed.

[dac]

dunk999: Certainly just about everything that the NVA flew against the F-4 was more manuverable, I doubt they had anything that was faster. It wasn't just dependence on missiles, but the McNamara Defense Department really didn't believe it was important to train troops, pilots, sailors, etc. That's why schools like Red Flag and Top Gun got started, to give US Pilots experience in Air Combat, whether with guns or missiles.

Prior to Vietnam, all of the talking heads believed that a fighter would take off, climb to altitude, turn on it's radar, see a blip, press a button, and a missile would eliminate the blip. Turned out to be not that way....

[dunk]

dac... I think depending upon missiles is a sign of poor training. I just wanted to quote the movie.

[korn469]

M Bison

take a look at this site, apparently the F-117 doesn't carry air to air missiles which would hinder it's air supiority role a bit don't you think?
especially when you consider it is relatively slow

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-117.htm

i think you are thinking of the f-22 raptor

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-22.htm

[SpencerH]

Korn469 is right. AFAIK the F-117 is not and has never been an air-superiority aircraft. Its waaaaaay too slow and does not have the required maneuverability to survive.

[korn469]

i remember watching this thing on the history channel, and originally the f-117 was painted a camoflage color, but the general in charge of the program ordered them painted black, not because it would help them operate at night better (actually the camo paint scheme made them harder to see at night) but because he didn't want anyone to get any ideas about using them during the day

also even if you did give the stealth fighter the intercept ability in civ3, that wouldn't improve it's chances of winning, and using lots of stealth aircraft actually reduces the chances of having civ3 dogfights...as a mod maker the thing that works best at simulating dog fights is to make attack and defense strengths for air intercept units to be the same and then to have the chance to intercept air units set really high (i have it set at 90% in my mod)