Video Game / Janes USAF

Tally Mig 11:00 high! Tally Mig 9:00 level! Tally Mig right six o'clock low!

Jane's Combat Simulations USAF or simply Jane's USAF is a 1999 combat flight simulator developed by Jane's Combat Simulations with Pixel Multimedia and distributed by Electronic Arts for the PC. While it wasn't the first flight sim by this company to feature multiple playable aircraft (US Navy Fighters, Advanced Tactical Fighters, WW2 Fighters, Longbow 2 being other games that featured multiple playable aircraft), this game was the only one in which you can command 2, 4, 6, 8 or even 16 plane missions, and switch planes mid flight. The graphical rendering was also way above the company's older games, and continued the drift away from arcade style gameplay to more realistic flight simulation, that had begun with Longbow 2 and continued with Jane's F-15. Technically, this game was the spiritual successor to both 'Jane's Advanced Tactical Fighters and Jane's F-15, featuring planes from both games. Flyable planes were F-22, F-117, F-16, F-4, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-15C, A-10, and the F-105.

After a set of training missions where you learn to fly your airplane, control your wingmen and accompanying flights, use all weapons and buzz the tower, you are given access to seven stand alone missions, two Historical Campaigns - Vietnam and Desert Storm, which are just a different set of standalone missions, and two present day campaigns, named Red Arrow and Sleeping Giant. Although the missions of the latter two campaigns have to initially be played in order, succeeding a mission would unlock it for replay as a standalone mission. You could name your character, but in game, you would be referred to only by your flight designation - Austin 1. Due to the mechanic of switching planes during the mission, you could also assume control of other flight leads called Buick 1, Corvette 1 or Dodge 1. The game would allow you to take control of a wingman if Austin lead, Buick lead, Corvette lead or Dodge lead was shot down. Missions ran the gamut from the Escort Mission to a surgical strike to an all out Alpha Strike. The aircraft, owing to their difference in capabilities would be pre-selected for a mission, allowing you to only alter their loadouts.

Besides the single missions and campaigns, an arcade-like Instant Action mission could be selected, in a location (Iraq, Vietnam, Germany or Las Vegas) and aircraft of your choosing, where all you had to do was survive as long as possible. Multiplayer was available through EA's Network Play System, where you could do Red vs Blue style aerial combat. The Mig-29 could be flown only in these modes, as the main game was focused on the USAF.

The game provided in game dossiers on various aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles and flak guns, drawn from Jane's The World's Aircraft. While these dossiers had little to no effect on mission planning, knowing the facts about enemy weapons could come in very handy on missions.

Although the game used the United States Air Force's name and coat of arms, the Air Force never endorsed this game, as the flight models, although more realistic than other flight games of that era, wasn't anywhere close to the realism level required to train actual pilots. The earlier game Jane's F-15 (made by the EA Baltimore team, which had personnel from MicroProse when Sid Meier worked with the company) was actually a little more realistic in its flight model and the variety of actions the pilot could perform in flight. That realism would further be honed in Jane's Combat Simulations' next release - Jane's F/A-18, which would unfortunately be the last installment.

This game provides examples of the following tropes

• The Ace: You can rack up the 5 air to air kills needed to qualify as a fighter ace, within one or two missions. In Real Life most modern day pilots can spend an entire career without even coming close.
• Almighty Lieutenant/Over ranked Fighter Pilot: Both are played straight. When you start a new profile, you are designated a 2nd Lt. If you are actually new to the game, you will want to do all the training missions, after which you rank up to Lieutenant. However, if you have played the game before, there is nothing stopping you from leading an 8 plane mission as a butter bars lieutenant, which never occurs with actual fighter pilots. However, playing more and more missions ranks you up all the way to Four-Star Badass, but you still only fly 2,4,6 or 8 ship missions like a Major or Lieutenant Colonel would. No four star Air Force general would fly ordinary missions like that.
• Anti-Air: This game gives you various types of Surface to Air Missile batteries, Mobile SAM launchers, ZSU “gundish” Mobile radar guided anti aircraft guns, and 85 mm flak cannons to grapple with. Ignore them at your own peril.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Surface to Air Missile batteries can be completely neutralized if you destroy their radar platform.
  • This is also a bit of Artistic License – Military as real life SAM batteries aren't permanently slaved to one particular radar platform. If a SAM battery's radar platform is destroyed, most newer generation batteries can simply be slaved to a different radar platform in the vicinity.
• Air Force Rocks Out: While there is no music played during missions, the background music played while the various menus are up, give the game a Top Gun like atmosphere. The soundtrack varies slightly depending on which campaign or menu screen you are on.
  • The main menu, closing credits, assorted single missions and the Red Arrow campaign set in Las Vegas have straight up hard rock instrumentals.
  • The Vietnam campaign's background music sounds like something Jimi might've cooked up.
  • The hard rock track that plays during the Gulf War campaign has a Middle Eastern tinge to it.
  • The track that plays during the Germany based Sleeping Giant campaign has a 90s industrial metal tinge to it.
• BFG: The 85 mm Anti Aircraft Artillery guns are just guns mounted on wheels. Unlike the ZSU "Gundishes" these guns even make a loud booming sound that you can hear upto a thousand feet high. And they can kill you in about two to three hits.
• Buzzing The Tower: The training mission where you learn wingman commands has you do this. And the instructor chews you out until you do it “right”.
• Crippling Overspecialization: A few planes suffer from this:
  • The F-117 is an egregious example. It can only carry two GBU-27 laser guided bunker busters for precision surgical strikes, it handles like a lumbering turkey and is therefore not something you take to a dogfight or enemy air defense suppression, as it won't do well against missiles. It is very stealthy and can slip past most of these defenses, but only at night. A nighttime surgical strike on a well fortified target is the only mission this plane can pull off.
  • The A-10 Thunderbolt "Warthog" is another plane built for one specific mission. It is a slow lumbering sluggish to handle craft, that is designed for one purpose - killing enemy tanks. It has lots of hard points to store bombs or air to ground missiles, but only a token set of short range Sidewinders for dogfighting. Not that you should attempt to take on fighters with this, as it handles like a pig. It isn't useful for Wild Weasel anti air defense suppression missions either, due to its inability to dodge missiles. It can however, loiter at low altitude and pick off tanks till it runs out of ammo.
  • The F-22 is a dogfighter and nothing more. It mostly carries six air to air missiles, and therefore should not be used for ground attacks, or SEAD missions. (It can carry JDAM bombs, but almost none of the missions lend it the opportunity to use them.)
• Death from Above: You can now inflict this on enemies from the perspective of the one “above”. And some missions show that it isn’t as easy as everyone thinks.
• Downloadable Content: The "Thunderbirds" expansion pack has you flying aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude over a runway, just like pilots do at air shows. The maneuvers you fly are the life-saving Split-S, the Cuban 8 and the Awesome, but Impractical Inverted to Inverted.
• Drugs Are Bad: The anvil dropped by the "No to Drugs" mission.
• Early Game Hell: The second training mission you get is learning to land the aircraft. This is a frustratingly difficult mission to pass, as you will have to learn the difficult task of flaring your aircraft at near stall speed. Allow your speed to drop too much and you fall out of the sky. Come in too fast, and you will crash or overshoot the runway. Drop altitude too quickly, and you will miss the runway, while not dropping fast enough means you'll land but taxi your plane off the runway too fast and crash. Oh, and you'd better watch your heading too. Unless you are lined up perfectly with the runway, you'll taxi the plane off of it and crash. So you also have to learn to sideslip using your rudder. Thankfully for most of the other missions, you can skip this part of the flight (the one where you cannot skip involves learning how to land at night).
• Eject... Eject... Eject...: To eject from an airplane in this game, you must press “E” on the keyboard three times.
• Escort Mission: A handful of these involve escorting helicopters.
• Fragile Speedster: All of your flyable aircraft, except for the F-117 and the A-10, both of which are slower and much less responsive.
• Hold the Line: Quite a few missions has you assist ground forces in holding a position.
  • The Vietnam campaign sends you to Khe Sanh to help the marines there hold.
  • The first three missions of “Red Arrow” has you holding the fictional “Colorado City” against a air and ground units.
  • The single missions “Day at the Beach” and “Barrier” have you hold radar complexes against enemy onslaughts.
  • The first mission of “Sleeping Giant” has you trying to hold your own airfield.
• Not the Intended Use: You can use AGM-65 Maverick missiles to attack aircraft. The AI will take no effort to actively avoid these like they would against air-to-air missiles.
• Outranking Your Job: You can fly single, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 16 plane missions as a 1, 2, 3 or 4 star general. Typically only captains fly single, two or four ship missions, while six, eight or sixteen ship missions are flown only by majors or colonels. Flag officers are usually relegated to high level mission and campaign planning, and seeing them fly combat missions is extremely unlikely.
• Red Alert: The Red Arrow “training campaign” begins with Nellis AFB coming under attack. A klaxon blares as the ATC says the following
  Scramble! Scramble! We are under attack! Alarm RED! Alarm RED! This is Tower! Anyone who can take off, do it NOW!! Flush! Flush! Everyone, Take Off!
• Timed Mission:
  • The Khe Sanh mission, the first three missions of the Red Arrow campaign are all missions with hidden timers. Even “Fasten Seat Belts”, as well as the two downed pilot rescue missions in Vietnam and Desert Storm respectively have hidden timers - take too long and enemy ground units capture the downed pilots (or passengers), failing the mission. Then there is the Scud Busting mission in Desert Storm - dither too much and “It’s a bloody scud! And it’s heading for Tel Aviv!”
  • Technically every mission where you don’t have a refueling tanker close by is this, as you can run out of fuel.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • Be too cavalier about wasting your wingmen and missiles, and you may end up flying the final missions of the two campaigns by your lonesome with only your gun. This will put you at a severe disadvantage against enemy fighters and at the best case, you may end up "Winchester" - with absolutely no ammunition to finish the mission.
  • The Instant Action section usually respawns you a short distance away from where your plane crashes or explodes. If you were downed by an enemy missile or gunfire, the game gives you some reprieve from his attack, allowing you to get to safety then counterattack. However, if a midair collision felled you, the respawn point is often once again directly in the oath of that oncoming aircraft with no time to react. Prepare to crash again and again and again.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can shoot down friendly aircraft willy nilly with no comeuppance. Shooting down the tanker in the “Air Refueling” training mission only gets you grounded and dismissed, while shooting down Air Force One only results in a mission failure.

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