Mig-21 Lookdown-shootdown capable, Working as intended?

This day I was flying in the sabre on a 1.5 online server. I was shot down by flying 'very' low to the ground by an R3R. When i asked how they were able to do that, two players answered that any good mig-21 player knows how to radar lock low flying targets. I asked, how? and they said flying inverted.

I found it hard to believe - so I checked the Tacview recording afterwards and sure enough, if the mig-21 rolls through the inverted, or stays inverted or maybe even its enough to be rolled 90deg. it can 'see' low flying aircraft below it as if it had a doppler radar but immune to notching. Then it holds the contact rolls upright and engages in a lookdown-shootdown scenario with no worry about notching and no one the wiser.

You have to see this to believe it. That its been known for a while, how long idk, but long enough to be used as an exploit for those that should know better, and a funky super mig-21 lookdown-shootdown interceptor for those that don't.

I would say, this does not seem correct, I am not a Mig-21 expert but i don't recall reading about any lookdown-shootdown abilities.

See for yourselves, I've tried to inlcude the replay file but it wouldn't take: the tacview file is attached and a short video of the tacview highlighting the issue linked below:

P.S. Sorry GORNYAK for the TK that was all my bad.

Tacview-Battle_Over_Sukhumi_City.zip.zip

This is very incorrect: The real MiG-21 radar has no Doppler function and cannot distinguish real contacts from the terrain, so IRL using this 'tactic' would result in a radar screen that was smothered in ground clutter. The R-3R is even less capable- While the MiG's radar at least has some ability to reject chaff or clutter once it attains a lock, the R-3R simply homes in on the strongest reflection it can see. As a result it should be easily spoofed by chaff, and should also be totally useless against anything that's flying at low altitude (the R-3R was designed to allow attacks at high altitude in clouds- against a low target, IR homing missiles or guns are preferred).

this is ****ed up for sure

Been known for a long while and yeah, it is an exploit.

...any good mig-21 player...

As an advice...keep away from players in a Simulator.

As an advice...keep away from players in a Simulator.

As an advice, keep every real pilot away from simulations. They will go crazy when they don't have to follow rules and want to try things that they wouldn't in reality at all.... ;)

Yes it is known by anyone who knows how DCS handles the "combat" part (hint: There is no simulation outside of the cockpit and flight modeling).

In future we might get a semi-working radar, emissions etc. But it requires very heavy and complex calculations.

I once found a commercial SAM simulator (not The SAM simulator) that license for single workstation was $50.000 etc. That system was capable (by the text) to simulate the all kind emissions as they used a sound wave modeling and actually played the sound to generate the wave and reflections etc and then process all that back.

So what we would need is something similar like this one:

[YOUTUBE]

6yzxSTMmOTc[/YOUTUBE]

And it would turn the whole DCS to another level complex system in MP as air-quake would be gone, single SAM would be ultra dangerous, a blue-on-blue would happen far more often, IFF would be required and even BVR combat would be far less optimal than now (on both sides equally).

A single chaff would ruin everyones radars in that direction and spread it to area and for long times, hours even. So you really need to be careful when to chaff and where, as you would easily just blind your own forces or SAM.

So many combat would be forced to go to IR missile ranges, cannon and yet all kind fancy tricks like notching etc would stop working reliably and this way force again more for the speed and maneuvers than just pumping chaff, beaming etc.

As well what would happen is that players would start to fly blind, guided by GCI.

Of course all this kind trickery of flying inverted etc wouldn't work anymore. But we would get terrain following radars, ground radars and all other fancy things operating well.

And it wouldn't be just for radars, but IR missiles, laser guided missiles, thermal cameras etc would all be affected (same simulation) where you can't anymore so easily find, lock and launch missiles. So suddenly a cannons and bombs become far more valuable and ground troops as well.

In other words, Combined Arms would become very important module to tie all together with one change in DCS

Mig21 inverted lock is not a trickery. Radar has vertical beam mode and is used for locking near targets by roling and locking at the same time. Also radar has ground clutering filter. Its nota an explit it is feature that some recently found usefull.

ground clutter filter is only a display filter.

Mig21 inverted lock is not a trickery. Radar has vertical beam mode and is used for locking near targets by roling and locking at the same time. Also radar has ground clutering filter. Its nota an explit it is feature that some recently found usefull.

Please elaborate what you mean by "vertical beam mode" , are you sure that is not the Fixed beam mode where the radar is fixed to the longitudinal axis of the plane scanning 1.5deg from it? How would it be able to decern from a ground lock to an aircraft. -Also, how would rolling the plane work again in this mode?

Ground clutter filter? are you sure you not meaning the side lobe filter or the mode where the antenna is tilted upwards to actually not look down? How would those let you find a plane with terrain behind it?

So... Funky super mig-21 lookdown shootdown interceptor :thumbup:

Non-doppler radars are very poorly simulated in DCS. Ground clutter problem is a tad better simulated in f5 than in mig21.

The processing excuse is just that - an excuse. We do not need SAR ground mapping done, all we need is noise picture when radar points toward the ground.

Non-doppler radars are very poorly simulated in DCS. Ground clutter problem is a tad better simulated in f5 than in mig21.

The processing excuse is just that - an excuse. We do not need SAR ground mapping done, all we need is noise picture when radar points toward the ground.

Luckily that excuse will not last for long. If everything goes to plan, they'll get this fixed by Christmas.

Luckily that excuse will not last for long. If everything goes to plan, they'll get this fixed by Christmas.

Meanwhile, expect slightly more players using the "inverted tactics" after this thread :music_whistling:

It's not so much as inverted but position below nose. I have contact on an AI MiG at >12° below horizon at ~17km slant and horizontal and +3.7km height (5700 v 2000). The only requirement is that he was above the -1.5° point on my HUD which a 14° dive wings level served.

There seems to be some kind of range penalty applied to detection which wasn't present in a previous version. At 10km I find a peer MiG at ~23km where before I detected co-alt 2km at ~16km. My memory is all contacts of any RCS were being shown out to 30,000m in all conditions. It looks like the devs are working on this one quietly.

It's weird though as if devs are modeling the radar as a Doppler kind with some sort of detection range penalty based on geometry. A large number of tests that find out how nose position, relative position, and range determine detection would really help to have insight into the mechanism here.

Meanwhile, expect slightly more players using the "inverted tactics" after this thread :music_whistling:

After reading the posts. I simply will not play with or vs. mig-21's on a multiplayer server. Simple, for me.

Unfortunately, that is the nature of every PvP multiplayer entertainment: as soon as an exploit is discovered, people will make sure to abuse the hell out of it. For non-simulation titles, they even may eventually be seen as a skill and come to be embraced.

For all the fun and satisfaction it can bring, PvP is toxic by its very nature, so either embrace this fact and try to enjoy it despite such problems, or avoid it altogether in the first place :).

if you're eating r-3rs you got bigger problems than rp-22 low-altitude performance.

Unfortunately, that is the nature of every PvP multiplayer entertainment: as soon as an exploit is discovered, people will make sure to abuse the hell out of it. For non-simulation titles, they even may eventually be seen as a skill and come to be embraced.

 

For all the fun and satisfaction it can bring, PvP is toxic by its very nature, so either embrace this fact and try to enjoy it despite such problems, or avoid it altogether in the first place :).

You make a good point, and i agree. However, for me this is a major exploit. It allows the mig-21 to behave like an AESA equipped F-15. I enjoy playing PvP all over the place, just not with this particular exploit anymore, since i am more aware of what has happened.

Totally agree, they're absolutely useless for anything other than to get them to avoid. The only excuse can be made for the poor old Sabres, who don't have a RWR.

I almost never use them, i only carry 2 in case there is a heat-jamming Su-25. They're also useful for a head-on, but only to get the enemy evading.

Against anything that knows you're launching at them... I really don't see how this exploit is game-breaking. Of course it would be nice if it got fixed, but a jammable, chaffable, notchable AIM-9B really isn't that threatening. Especially because it is SAR-guided, meaning you can avoid it by launching and forcing the enemy to evade.

I made a mission with a precision formation of 4 MiGs in front in a wall formation and played around with positioning and nose direction to see if I could just barely get all 4 to light up on scope.

Radar is neither pitch nor roll stabilized. I was getting left-right only one contact when doing roll changes of a few degrees when on the edge. Also it's not pitch stabilized, small pitch changes without repositioning would show-hide contacts.

The radar can look down about 2.7 deg from the nose but this equates to about 0.6 deg with a normal 1.5 deg AOA. The look up is about 15 deg or so from nose. Research suggests total pattern detection should be ~20 with 17-18 due to the center of top and bottom bar lines and a few more degrees simply because the main beam has some size itself.

Roll stabilization should be +- 80 deg or so. I don't know what it should do outside of these limits. If the complex nature of ground clutter can't be modeled it's probably best to just shut off the scanning picture beyond those roll limits (but not for track or fixed beam) so it can't be exploited.

The up, down, both marks are probably associated with individual scan bars. Say the bottom 4 bars might get the bottom mark and the top 8 get top (the bars that get both marks become the same alt mark band).