DCS JTAC
Panel

What it is

The JTAC Panel is the joint terminal attack controller’s station: it takes the feed of the running mission and builds on it the close air support sequence as JP 3-09.3 describes it, from the flight’s check-in to the 9-line read over the radio.

It lives in the same application as Mission Tracker, Live View, GCI Scope, ACIS, ATC and Briefing Builder, and is reached from gcidemo.

From check-in to 9-line

The sequence is the manual’s, and the panel follows it in the order it is actually done.

Check-in. A friendly flight reports with the MNPOPCA format: mission, number and type, position, ordnance, playtime, capabilities, abort code. Position and altitude are taken from the feed, because those are the two things the pilot reads off the instrument and the JTAC would otherwise transcribe by ear.

Game plan. Type of control (1, 2 or 3) and whether the attack is bomb on target or bomb on coordinate. It is the decision that changes everything after it, and it sits before the 9-line because that is where it is made.

Keyhole. On the map the JTAC, Echo, IP and Target keys place the points; the keyhole (A, B, C, D on the four directions, plus radials) generates the IP from the Echo instead of having it looked up on the chart.

9-line. Magnetic heading from IP to target, with the theatre’s variation; distance; target elevation from the terrain model, the same one ACIS and GCI use for radar masking; description; coordinates in MGRS or lat/long; mark; line 8 with the friendlies’ position from the nearest friendly; egress. Then the readback, which is the part where the mistakes come out.

Threats and danger close

Threats within 15 miles of the target come from threats.json, the same table of 110 systems generated from the DCS datamine that the Briefing Builder uses: the game’s data, not a hand-written list.

Danger close comes from a per-weapon table that the file itself declares indicative (verificato: false). That is written on purpose: a safety number that looks official and is not does more harm than an empty field, and the table is corrected without touching code.

The stack

The stack works like an ATC’s. The state is set by the JTAC from the flight card: INBOUND, ON STATION, TASKED, EGRESS, OFF. The feed adds what it knows: altitude, BRA from the Echo, a dot when the flight is inside the keyhole, and the playtime running from when it went INBOUND. Whoever is attacking sits on top, and a click on the row selects the flight.

The cards are not rebuilt while you type: the feed updates only the values that come from it, and a focused field is left alone.

The guide, and the “what is this” key

The quick guide lives in a configuration file, taken from JP 3-09.3: procedure, check-in item by item, situation update, game plan and types of control, keyhole, 9-line line by line, restrictions, stack, radio calls, 5-line. The Guide key (F1) opens the index on the left and the text on the right, with a search that filters and highlights.

There is a single “what is this” key: arm it, click a field, and the entry explaining it opens. No question marks scattered across the page, which nobody looks at after the third.

The outputs

The brief goes to the clipboard, ready to paste into chat, or to a PNG kneeboard to drop into the DCS Kneeboard folder, on the same principle as the Briefing Builder and the ATC: whatever is needed in flight has to be able to get into the cockpit. The log keeps every call with mission time.

Who the JTAC is

The JTAC can be a vehicle in the feed, for whoever controls from Combined Arms, or a point on the map, for whoever controls from outside. In the first case its position follows the vehicle.

Access

Open at gcidemo.alessandrosimonitto.it/jtac, with the demo notice on first entry. On a group’s own installation it is a section in the roles, enabled by default for users.