Silverwind Blade said as well as visiting the museum here in Portsmouth

Driving Park said
I'm uncomfortably excited for this to start. Also, i've never played Zero so the ace styles thing should be interesting.

First off - some lingo. Pilots tend to use a lot of acronyms, whether talking amongst themselves, in briefings, and especially when in the air for the sake of clarity over often scratchy and staticy lines that can make words sound confusing, or letters sound like other letters. A fairly good list can be found here, albeit somewhat Navy and 'Western' oriented
Aviator Slang

Second, some useful info on what the day of a pilot is like. I know we won't be playing everything exactly as it is, but keeping some structure related to reality could be good, and will give a good idea of how things work in general too, and what our characters would be doing if they're not flying, too.
Day in the life of a fighter pilot

Technical Info [+]

Weapon Systems
Weapons in Ace Combat are broadly split into three categories:
'Machine Guns', which are the Internal Cannon for the aircraft being used. An aircraft's cannon is used as a multi-purpose short-range weapon, against both air and surface targets of many varieties.
Most aircraft cannon range from 20-30mm, and are used to attacks against other aircraft and 'soft' ground targets. Some ground-attack aircraft, such as the A-10 Thunderbolt and the SU-25 Frogfoot are designed with heavier cannon for use against armoured targets.
Aircraft cannon have a high rate of fire, as they are designed to get the maximum amount of fire on a target in the shortest time possible, due to the comparative speed of aircraft vs. their target.

'Missiles', which are the general-purpose multi-use missiles of any Ace Combat aircraft. In our game, these are represented by the SDM, as mentioned in the opening post. They are IR-Guided (i.e. heat-seeking) missiles with a secondary optical guidance mode for engaging ground targets.

Special Weapons
Special Weapons incorporate a variety of air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance. The names for these weapons in the Ace Combat series are listed below, along with typical type designations and a few details below.

Air-to-Air missiles

• XLAA - Long-range Air-to-Air missiles. Long-range radar-guided missiles. These would include the US AIM-54 Phoenix, European MBDA Meteor, and Russian Vympel R-33 and R-37.


• XMAA - Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missiles. Mid-range radar-guided missiles. Examples would include the US-Manufactured AIM-120 AMRAAM, Russian Vympel R-77, British-made BAe Skyflash, French MBDA MICA, and Japanese Mitsubishi AAM-4


• QAAM - Quick Manoeuvre Air-to-Air missiles. Short-range but agile IR-Guided missiles. Examples would include the US-Manufactured AIM-9X Sidewinder and Russian AA-11 Archer, both coupled with helmet-mounted sights and other high agility features.


• SAAM - Semi-Active Air-to-Air Missiles. Mid-range missiles that have a longer distance lock-on and radar-guidance, but require the target to be constantly illuminated (i.e., within field-of-view of the nose of the aircraft). Examples would include the US and NATO AIM-7 Sparrow, French Matra Super 530D, and Russian Vympel R-27.

Air-to-surface Missiles
Air-to-surface missiles incorporate air-to-ground and anti-ship weapons. They are used to destroy both armoured and unarmoured targets, and have a variety of guidance systems.

• SOD - Standoff Ordnance Dispenser. A cruise missile or other bomblet dispenser which is launched at a locked-on target or cluster of targets, through optical or laser-guidance. It then flies ahead of the aircraft under it's own power, and dispenses numerous bomblets over the target area to destroy a cluster of structures or vehicles. Examples include the European MBDA SCALP-EG and MBDA-Storm Shadow.


• LASM - Long-range Anti-Ship Missile. A missile launched at long-range after a lock-on through optical guidance. Flying at low altitude and high-speed after launch, an anti-ship missile will penetrate the side of the target through high-velocity and an armoured nose-cone, and then detonate its' warhead inside a ship for maximum damage. Examples include the US and NATO AGM-84 Harpoon, European Sea Eagle and Exocet and Russian Kh-29.


• LAGM - Long-range Air-to-ground Missile. A missile launched after a lock on through optical, laser or IR guidance. It has a powerful explosive warhead that can destroy many targets in a small area, while the launch aircraft can remain at a stand-off distance. Many of these weapons in the Real World are designed to lock-onto and destroy hostile radar emitters to allow aircraft to disable enemy search and targeting radars. Examples include the AGM-88 HARM, ALARM and Kh-31p.


• XAGM - Advanced Air-to-Ground Missile. A short-ranged, multiple-target missile, launched in volleys. IR, Optical or Laser-guided, the XAGM represents individually small missiles that are designed for the attack of pin-point targets, such as vehicles, small sea vessels and other similar targets. Examples would be the NATO AGM-65 Maverick, European AS.30 and Brimstone missiles and the Russian Kh-29.

Bombs
Bombs are both guided and unguided. Unpowered but capable of gliding in some guided models, they have a high area-of-effect, and a massive destructive power, but are relatively indescriminate in their destruction.

• UGB - Unguided bombs, of standard sizes. This would include bombs of around the 500lb class, which are 'general purpose' munitions for use against most targets.


• UGBL - Unguided Bombs, Large. This would be bombs of 1000-2000lb class. Highly destructive and powerful, they also take up more space. Generally against the hardest targets, or against large concentrations of equipment and structures.


• SFFS - Self-forming Fragments Submunitions. This is essentially the same effect as a cluster bomb, in that it spreads a wide number of explosive fragments over a large area, that are effective against both hard and soft targets.


• FAEB - Fuel-Air Explosive Bomb. An explosive unguided bomb that distributes a vapourised cloud of fuel, and then ignites it over a large cluster of targets. The resulting change in pressure and heat can rip targets apart through the massive changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure. Such weapons are massively destructive, and highly restricted in their deployment. The largest weapons, dropped from cargo aircraft or heavy bombers are comparable in effect to small nuclear weapons.


• GPB - Guided Penetration Bomb. A guided bomb, designed for pin-point accuracy on a single target. Guided by GPS or laser-guidance, the bomb glides to it's target after lock-on from a mid-range distance. Examples of such ordnance would be the Paveway family of laser-guided bombs and the JDAM GPS-Guided bomb family, as well as similar laser or other guided bombs.

Other Weapons
Other air-to-ground weapons or other weapons that do not fit in these families, and are not 'special' weapons such as lasers or burst-missiles do not always fit into the other families and are listed here.

• RCL - Rocket Launcher. An unguided short-range weapon designed for barrage-fire against lightly armoured targets. By using rudder or stick movements, the rocket launchers' barrage can be spread across a cluster of targets. A wide variety of rocket munitions are used by many nations, and rockets can be fitted with a variety of warheads.


• BDSP - Bomblet Dispenser. A fixed weapon, consisting of two large pods with holes honeycombed across the sides. Each tube launches a single sub-munition designed to spread over a wide area along either side of the aircrafts' path at low altitude. Especially effective against runways and large areas of buildings. The JP233 is the only widely-used type, and can be loaded with anti-runway and anti-personnel bomblets (to discourage repairs of the damaged target). JP233 dispensers can be fitted to Tornado, Jaguar, Harrier and FB-111 aircraft, with other potential carriers.


• MGP - Machine-Gun Pod. Otherwise known as 'gunpods' or 'cannon pods', these are self-contained units of a cannon and it's ammunition, as well as a power-source of some kind if also necessary. Generally used to augment an existing cannon, or if an aircraft has no internal cannon, they are not widely used other than against heavy concentrations of soft targets. Numerous types are available, from 7.62mm minigun pods, all the way up to 30mm cannon pods.