Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Best Holiday Wishes to readers at the end of 2024 and another time of interesting historical transitions. Also, Wix now seems to support a direct image caption feature, used for the above picture. Holidays are always a very busy time for the family, but I owe at least one post for this month.
Still, I will keep the topic relatively short and simple today. I have a writing project in mind that in some part will involve going back to around the roots started in this blog just a handful of years ago, but it will be a separate work from blog posting. It will, I can say, involve familiar ground: my passion for military history and equipment, as well as how both get portrayed in the gaming realm.
As my service history indicates, I have always been geared particularly toward military aviation. Even my screen identity derives from that of a fictional fighter pilot (named as homage to a particular famous real fighter pilot). I am not in the history-making business, thus I am content with the excitement of fighting at the controls smaller & faster craft, whether TIE fighters or attack submarines, but on occasion I could also take charge of a battleship task force or heavy bomber.
What is so wonderful about games is their allowance to experience any and all of the above, little to no military training required [though an understanding of such can aid in their immersion]. Some scenarios are purely fantastical (such as everything sci-fi), bringing action excitement to a greater adventure. Many others are based on real history and can vary widely on the scale of accuracy of portrayals versus the fun factor in gameplay accessibility. The more successful products, particularly from back in the days of far more limited home computing technology, were those most adept at achieving a balance between said factors (though if there was any side to cautiously err towards, it was definitely the fun).
In historical games, historical backdrop is a vital part of the immersion. Vintage simulation and strategy titles were known for their extensive manuals with encyclopedic-level information worth reading on their own, often well-researched by the development staff (or they may have had an actual historian, like Dr. Ed Bever with MicroProse and a few others). If a player can achieve putting him/herself out there in the historical setting (even if portrayal details lack historical accuracy), Mission Accomplished!
Today, my passion for military aviation leads to a review of its development. The different generations of jet fighters are an established evaluation, though similar systems can be made for other plane types. Its classifications have a history of being arbitrary, so none of this is to be construed as any kind of gospel, and as an American I will proceed from that perspective of historical events.
First Generation: WWII
A type of jet engine capable of powering aircraft had been invented before the war, but as with all such technological revolutions much fitting out had to occur before readiness for deployment. Germany, its war machine focused on innovations that could tip the scales back against the overwhelming Allies, was the first to make this happen and Messerschmitt's 262 twin turbo interceptor became one of the famous weapons of the war. The British, Americans & Japanese were not that far behind though only Britain's, the Gloster Meteor, would be successfully deployed before the war ended.
Despite the proclamations of Adolf Galland, Germany's best commanding pilot, the Me 262 could never have altered the outcome of the war had it been deployed earlier. Hitler's interference with the project (particularly the ill-advised attempt to turn it into a bomber) were no help, but regardless such advanced planes require likewise advanced pilots and the Luftwaffe already started running a premium of those by mid-war. Like Richtofen's Flying Circus in WWI, where elite units like Kommando Nowotny concentrated their efforts they dominated, but there were simply not enough of those to go around.
The British, French, and other capable technological powers such as the Swedes would follow their own independent fighter development tracks, a tradition that would partially erode over the years but still somewhat continues to this day. Japan, aided by their German allies, had modified the Me 262 design for their purposes and doubtless would have launched their new Kikka against American air forces had nuclear weapons not closed that theater of the war; as Japan grew strong again with American aid in the years following, their air forces would gravitate primarily towards American designs. The American P-80 Shooting Star was still being trialed when the war ended, and [rechristened the F-80] it had the honor of being the first primary air superiority mount of the nascent United States Air Force.
Countless simulation and arcade games portray WWII aviation, but relatively few actual simulators allow for flying the late-war jets:
Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (Lucasfilm Games)
Aces of the Pacific (Dynamix/Sierra, specific to WWII: 1946 add-on disk)
Aces Over Europe (Dynamix/Sierra)
European Air War (MicroProse)
Jane's Combat Simulations: WWII Fighters (Electronic Arts)
Second Generation: Early Cold War
The WWII designs were pathfinders of the subsonic turbojet variety. With the onset of the Cold War a different kind of global rivalry emerged, arms races included. For we Americans, this particular period of history is centers on our involvement in the 1950-53 Korean War but encompasses years before and after as well.
I mentioned in a review of aerial warfare long ago how after WWII there was consideration between the American preference for fast-firing machine guns and pretty much everyone else's gravitation towards more powerful and longer-ranged cannons, and how the latter would prove out since airframes became too strong and fast for machine guns in the jet age. Korea was America's proving ground, discovering that against the Soviet MiG-15 we were no longer on top of the technological heap and had to catch up fast. Our adept defense industry, fresh out of WWII, succeeded in with the F-86 Sabre that was every bit the technical equal of the MiG (superior when handled by an American ace), barring only the obsolete insistence on machine gun armament as its starting standard.
What defines a second generation fighter, straight- or swept-winged, is its transonic capabilities coupled with gun-only armament. The actual aerial combat is little more than a high-speed variant of the same that occurred in both world wars (which history tends to find more fascinating), so in terms of the flying genre Korea really is a forgotten war. The F-86 and MiG-15 can be flown in more titles, but grand survey sims like Chuck Yeager's Air Combat do not focus on portraying actual history. MicroProse's MiG Alley Ace, an 8-bit title lacking technical sophistication for significant immersion, tries its best but falls short, leaving only one notable simulator for this particular air war: Rowan Software's MiG Alley from 1999 (but it is a good one).
Third Generation: Middle Cold War
The world knows, and history appreciates, this particular era as centered on the Vietnam War. While the Korean War was fought mostly with designs left over from WWII Vietnam saw generational shifts in war-fighting technology across many realms, not just aviation. This marks the start of the "modern warfare" age of combat, and after time was able to sweep away its political fallout the Vietnam War has become a favorite setting for games exploring how the tactics and technology military forces still use today got put through their starting paces.
For the first time combat aircraft were developed that would prove lasting on a scale of decades, while back in the world wars the viable service life of a particular fighter could be measured in months. Part of the reason for this sustainability is no doubt because of the new focus on versatility: strike planes were inherently dogfight-capable, while fighters and even interceptors could easily be modified for light strike and close support roles with just a change of armament. Not only supersonic, but Mach 2 capability was now considered standard; designs lacking that capability would not last as long as those which had it.
The defining feature for air-to-air combat in particular is how that landscape (airscape?) changed forever with the introduction of beyond-visual-range guided missiles. At first they proved finicky, and relying on them exclusively proved foolhardy (see the early dedicated interceptor design of the F-4); nonetheless a threshold had been crossed and any existing design that could not at least be modified for it was forced into obsolescence immediately. For both superpowers, designs by the other side inspired their own (if not outright copied/stolen, like the AA-2 Atoll being derived from an early AIM-9 Sidewinder).
Initially there was little difference from the prior generation aside from this advanced armament factor: the MiG-17 and F-8 were basically missile-armed derivates of their predecessors. This was also the final generation to see the First World produce dedicated interceptor designs (the Second World would stick with the concept for one more generation), missile armament giving them a decisive enough edge that they were also able to remain in service well past their prime. For the US Air Force, involved in Vietnam but having to remain more focused on the global strategic picture, it manifested in their Century Series: the F-100 fighter, F-104 interceptor, and F-105 ground interdictor; on the Soviet side the MiG-19 fighter, MiG-21 interceptor and Su-7 ground attacker are today considered to straddle the line between the 2nd and 3rd generation, and variants would continue to serve for years in roles they were not originally made for which is a testament to their versatility.
Things were rather more interesting from the US Navy perspective. The F-4 Phantom II was designed as an interceptor mated to a new long-ranged weapon, the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow; among its carrier-based companions were the agile F-8 crusader, destined to be obsoleted as a fighter due to its older type of gun armament, with the A-4 Skyhawk filling light strike duties like its scout bomber ancestors of WWII. These are worth mentioning in particular on two fronts: 1) newer, gun-armed variants of the F-4 would become accepted as the primary fighter of both the Navy and Air Force, but during and after the war it was also often pressed into the ground strike role at which it proved quite effective; 2) the airframe of the F-8 was used as the basis for the A-7 Corsair II, an agile ground strike plane with such payload and performance capability that it was likewise adopted by both the Navy (replacing the A-4) and Air Force (replacing the F-105). The Second World counter (those that are wholly 3rd generation) experimented with swept-wing designs that would also help define the next generation, the new Soviet trifecta being the MiG-23 fighter, MiG-25 interceptor, and MiG-27 (merely a modified MiG-23) ground attacker.
While there is ample opportunity to fly F-4s and MiGs of the era since they served well into later years, the Century Series and its contemporaries find themselves in another lost era when it comes to simulator representation. Third Wire Productions, a Texas-based (yay!) developer came to the rescue with their Strike Fighters and Wings Over... series, but those are 21st century releases thus follow after the golden age of flight simulators (superb ones are still being made but by Russian developers these days). Those from earlier times with Vietnam-era missions include Flight of the Intruder by Rowan Software and these entries in Electronic Arts' Jane's Combat Simulations series:
USNF '97 (updated version of an earlier simulation now adds Vietnam, US Navy focus)
IAF (notable in the ability to fly for a different service, the Israeli Air Force)
USAF (developed by the same team as IAF, US Air Force focus)
Fourth Generation: Late Cold War to Pax Americana
The most encompassing era to date, from the Nixon administration to the Global War on Terror, thanks to the timeless sophistication of these designs and a rapidly-changing geopolitical situation that saw a lot of potential successors put on the backburner or canceled altogether. In terms of performance and armament this generation, at a glance, looks little different than the previous. The real innovations were all "under the hood" with such revolutionary computer-based improvements that a solo fighter from this generation could engage an entire flight of prior generation planes and reasonably expect to emerge victorious.
Everyone loves the fast and flashy "teen series" American fighters, but the story of this generation starts with different projects from different sides of the world which happened to have the same idea. Sensing opportunity to consolidate all air combat and light bomber roles efficiently around a lone high-versatility airframe, what became the F-111 Aardvark happened to have a concurrent counterpart of near-identical concept developed jointly by Britain and West Germany. However, their stories diverge from there.
The F-4 was a solid design that adapted well to multiple roles, but was getting long in the tooth and into jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none territory. Unfortunately the F-111 was not accepted as a solid enough improvement on that front, only going on to serve in the US Air Force as its long-range medium bomber (it had enough speed and payload capacity to replace the B-58 supersonic bomber). The other designs that were chosen are well-known and loved, each with their own story of which there only room for quick summaries today.
While the F-111, with improved radar slaved to a new extreme-range missile (the AIM-54 Phoenix) was a superb carrier-based defensive interceptor design, it was deemed not enough of an improvement over the F-4 so Grumman, following its long history of supplying the US Navy with its primary fighters, refined the general design; the result was the F-14 Tomcat, possibly (no small thanks to Paramount's Top Gun franchise) the most beloved of modern American fighters despite its early retirement in the mid-2000s. Its Air Force counterpart, the F-15 Eagle, was a project able to take off as strongly as it did due to some underhanded persuasion of defense budgeters in Congress that the Soviet MiG-25 (which today remains the fastest combat aircraft in the world) was a grave threat needing to be directly countered; still, as the only modern fighter that has never once suffered a combat loss, it has definitely earned its pay. A more conventional selection process followed for the light but sophisticated F-16 Falcon, its losing competitor the YF-17 getting a whole new life when it was adapted into what became the Navy's new light multirole mount, the F/A-18 Hornet.
All but the F-14 continue to serve in American and allied inventories today, a fact that speaks volumes considering how old they are. They have proven highly-adaptable, not just the onloading of modules of new technology but design adjustments as well; the reason the US Air Force retired the F-111 is because the F-15E Strike Eagle (original variants were made for air-to-air combat only) can accomplish the same tasks more proficiently while retaining its brethren's top-notch air combat capabilities. Despite slated replacements having been developed, these fighters just refuse to retire because they continually prove they are that good.
What about the European connection mentioned previously? The Panavia (name of the allied project, established as a German company) Tornado succeeded where the F-111 failed in providing one airframe adapted to both air superiority and swift strike roles. How suitable it is for such is debatable considering its high relative casualties sustained during the Gulf War and competing designs becoming favored for air superiority, but it remains a solid design that not to be underestimated. Its succeeding project, the Eurofighter Typhoon, follows the same general multirole philosophy.
Not since WWII has the simulation realm allowed the virtual world to become one's oyster in choice of experiences for the time in history. By retro terms, it is also simpler to get started because the names of the simulations are direct in what they cover (F-15 Strike Eagle, F-14 Tomcat, Falcon, etc.). Come the 90s when home computers grew sophisticated enough for a stronger portrayal of the advanced technology and flight models involved, a dichotomy grew between survey simulations which offered multiple planes to fly at the expense of realism and the more accurate traditional ones dedicated to a single aircraft. In the 21st century one no longer has to pick and choose, but learning curves can be overwhelming.
Fifth Generation: 21st Century
This post will not delve deeply into the history of this generation since it should already be known by any who are interested. What is worth noting is that its definitions remain controversial: adoption of stealth as standard is probably the simplest means of distinguishing, but it is not the only factor and things get further complicated with the understanding that redesigns of 4th generation fighters improved with 5th generation technologies (i.e. F/A-18 Super Hornet, MiG-35, Su-35) fill some kind of intermediate space between these generations. Not to mention the fact that their development, conceived in the late Cold War, lost much momentum after collapse of the Warsaw Pact and Russian economy.
"Fifth generation" actually became a marketing term for the F-22 Raptor, the hot new stealth fighter that is probably the most simulated prototype aircraft in history (it had numerous portrayals from the late 80s onward despite not actually entering service until 2004). In earlier years its YF-23 competitor in the ATF project got screen time as well, but only one (Jetfighter II by Velocity Development) that comes close to being an actual simulator. The excessive hype may have played against it: the F-22 is as capable as sold, but it squeezes budgets atrociously (despite being the less expensive alternative to the YF-23), flopped as a multirole design (some may recall the F/A-22 debacle), has failed in its design purpose to succeed the F-15, and [as of today] there are reportedly no more being ordered made.
The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (so named because it was an international project as opposed to just an American design) has fared little better, but looks poised to proceed after overcoming some teething troubles. It is presently in no position replace the F-16 or F/A-18, though its greater capability (not to mention being equipped with a variant of the same cannon) may at least have the VTOL version succeeding the AV-8B Harrier II in USMC inventory. Unfortunately on the gaming front, though this fact is bound to change at some point, the F-35 as designed and deployed is presently only controllable in combat missions via arcade-lite portrayals such as entries in the Ace Combat and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X franchises; JSF by Eidos, while based on the concept, hails from the 90s and would not accurately reflect the finalized design.
Where Matters Stand Today
Unfortunately, the 21st century is a dark age for those of us who grew up in the golden age of the flight simulator genre of the late 80s through early 2000s. Options still exist, but they are far fewer and those that do exist gravitate strongly towards having more in common with 3D arcade shooters than anything like the actual experience of operating such fine pieces of military technology. Historical portrayal has become the biggest draw, but an argument can be made as to whether the hardships under which pilots and crew fought are duly respected with ammunition capacity and aircraft durability at ridiculous levels.
On the other hand Russian developers seem determined to keep the original spirit going, but that fact alone says something about the accessibility of these more sophisticated modern simulators. Combat aircraft keep getting better represented in modules of DCS World, a project with its roots stretching all the way back to 1995 when Strategic Simulations published Su-27 Flanker by Eagle Dynamics which was portrayed as having the most complex flight model over anything in the genre at the time (MicroProse, one of several who rose to the challenge, countered with Falcon 4.0). The growing complexities are not only taxing on computer hardware: those who achieve a level of mastering these simulations, controlling via full virtual cockpits, AND are still young and fit enough may wish to consider an actual pilot career.
"The flight model is astonishingly accurate...if you know how to fly the F-16 in DCS, you can get in the real jet and fly it without any problems." - Testimony from a real F-16 pilot who consults for the game
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