The DCS 2.5.6.55363 Open Beta patch landed just yesterday and with it comes a significant list of items to the sim with some key highlights for fans of a variety of aircraft types. Let’s have a look!

Viper gets its Maverick, HARM

Long awaited boosts to the DCS: F-16C’s weapon loadout makes the fourth generation “electric jet” significantly more potent in the air to ground role. The AGM-65 Maverick and AGM-88 HARM are here and should help cement the aircraft’s role in ground attack and anti-radar operations in single and multiplayer scenarios for some time to come.

We’ve been waiting a long time for these weapons but they are finally here which is great news for fans of the jet. I haven’t had a chance to check them out properly but I hope to put the jet through it’s paces soon.

New P-47 variants

The DCS: P-47D gets some new variants – an earlier D-30 model with a different gunsight and a D-40 model with some subtle and not so subtle changes. Among the changes to the D-40 version is the availability of the HVAR rocket type which significant boosts the Thunderbolt’s ground attack potential. Sensing a theme here?

Other updates

Among the long list of updates are some big changes for the DCS: AV-8B from RAZBAM which hopefully helps to cement the aircraft’s “finished” and “in sustainment” status. Notably the jet gets a variety of new weapons including the GBU-54 Laser JDAM which it gets just a few days ahead of the expected DCS: A-10C II launch.

There’s also a ton of updates to the aircraft’s systems and functionalities. EHSD map brightness is finally changable which is great!

The DCS: F/A-18C, M-2000C, JF-17, MiG-21bis, and others are also seeing some big and small updates in this patch. For the full notes, read them here.