Red Pill rename contest + a few more screens
The Armchair General portal is hosting a “Rename the Red Pill” contest on its forums. Anyone can participate and propose a new name for Red Pill – and maybe win a prize:
The game is currently being developed under the working title The Red Pill, a reference to the Matrix movies. But frankly, WarfareSims.com would like gamers’ feedback to create a really snazzy title for a game that will simulate air/naval conflict anywhere in the world, both total-war and low-intensity/peacetime situations. Players will even be able to download satellite pictures from such places as Google Earth and overlay them on the map. The game will be primarily tactical/operational but with the option to play strategic-scale games.
The winning title will be selected by the staff at WarfareSims.com, and the person who submitted it will receive a surprise gift from the Red Pill development group. Two runners-up will also be selected to win a subscription or renewal to Armchair General magazine.
Deadline for name submissions is March 7, so have a look and post your ideas.
Also, we have some more assorted screenshots from our late builds:
Red Pill screenshots: J-20 trial by fire
We have been busy recently revamping the databases of Red Pill with new schema additions that allow new rich modeling functionality. This doesn’t mean however that we have overlooked the latest developments in military platforms and associated systems; China’s new J-20 stealth fighter being a case in point. We ran a test scenario to evaluate its merits against a potential regional adversary’s forces and provided a number of screenshots with accompanying description. Let us see how the plot unfolds. (Click shots for full size)
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Yellow Sea, September 21, 2018. The relationship between Japan and China is colder than ever, and Japan is staging fighter sweeps off the coast of China on an almost daily basis. The Chinese decide to teach the Japanese a lesson, and launch their latest J-20 fighters to intercept…
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![]() At 5nm the lead pair of J-20s open fire with PL-12 ARH medium-range AAMs. The missiles are fired in active mode at point blank range, giving the F-15Js near-zero reaction time. The second pair of J-20s to the north have launched another volley of PL-12s at another pair of F-15Js. No Japanese AAM launch has been detected yet. |
![]() The Japanese return fire with a volley of AAM-4s and AAM-5s, and within seconds three F-15Js and two J-20s have been shot down! The clash is short and brutal, with three J-20s and four F-15Js lost. |
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![]() Three J-20s die in the initial missile exchange along with a single F-15J. Two more F-15Js are about to succumb to PL-12s while the last F-15J dashes in on the surviving J-20 for an AAM-5 shot. The sole surviving F-15J then disengages and heads home in a hurry. |
![]() Another eight J-20s approach from the north and south in a pincer maneuver, heading straight for the E-767 and its escorts at Mach 1.74, 40k ft. Someone is going to get hurt. |
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![]() The scenario ends, with possibly a Chinese tactical victory (the AWACS kill counts for a lot) at significant cost. Losses & munitions/stores expenditures for both sides are displayed. |
Some afterthoughts:
* Modelling a combat aircraft with only a handful of definite technical data at hand is always a chancy endeavor. The assumptions made for the J-20 at the present time are as follows:
It will certainly be interesting to re-run this scenario once more technical information is released about this aircraft and the above assumptions are revised. * This scenario took place in 2018, so the F-15Js were armed with modern ARH AAM-4s rather than SARH AIM-7Ms. They could therefore “blind-fire” their missiles at the J-20s based on contact information from the E-767 and their IRSTs, largely negating the J-20s’ stealth. The detection range of the APG-63 vs. J-20 is only 10-15nm, which would have rendered the AIM-7M (which depends on radar illumination from the launching aircraft for guidance) nearly useless. This underscores the severe limitations of SARH-based missile systems against stealth targets and the benefits of AMRAAM-class weapons in this case. * Asset positioning is critical. We already saw how the HD-5 jammer’s relative ineffectiveness was partially owed to its off-angle position relative to the fighters it was attempting to mask. On the other side, so long as the E-767 stayed close to the F-15Js, allowing them to engage the J-20s at the max effective of the AAM-4, the kill ratio was nearly 1:1. Had the E-767 operated further back from the fighters, had it been shot down early in the fight, or had it been been forced to backtrack or shut off its radar under threat of anti-AWACS ARMs, the outcome would have been very different. The F-15Js would have been forced to rely almost exclusively on their IRSTs, likely suffering disproportionate losses. Now, about the DF-21D ASBM… |