Missiles' algorithm

Hi guys,

so I am seriously considering buying this over the upcoming Heatblur's F-14 as it has reached a very mature form (plus it is an F-16 replacement in all aspects). The problem is that I am only interested in the A2A role (BVR mostly and WVR as a second interest), and after doing a few tests on how the medium/high range A2A missiles the results are disappointing. It seems that the Sparrow is the only missile that behaves well enough in DCS (recent update) to resemble real life. AIM-120s, R-27s, R-77s are all super-simplified.

So I was wondering how the Mirage 2000C's 530 behaves (Magic II and other IR missiles behave quite well as they usually have to just catch up with the target in a pure pursuit fashion). Is it in the hands of Eagle Dynamics and we'll have to wait for the AI updates or is it a Razbam thing?

Thank you,

Adrian

I'm fairly sure they mentioned somewhere already they're not changing 530 logic in future

If you intend to invest a lot of time in the Mirage until mastering it, I would not recommend you to buy it at its current development stage. There's plently of work to do on this plane until it truly leaves early access status. Razbam has already announced that a major revamp of the plane and its avionic will be delivered in May 2019 - at best, it should have been released before the end of 2018.

If the Mirage is only one of many planes you will fly, fine, you can have some fun with it, but if it's your daily driver and/or only plane (as it is in my case), you should reconsider this purchase.

From my observations the missiles on the Mirage fly lead pursuit properly. The 530D is a fun missile and effective when flying fast and high. The Mirage is a fun plane in Air-to-air and BVR and you'll enjoy it for sure!

I'm also considering buying the Mirage 2000 as my first clickable plane (specially now that it's on sale).

As far as i know there are a couple of bugs like the TWS Lock problem, but then again, which plane would you guys say is bug free? or at least reeeally stable and easy to learn as a first (clicklabe) plane?

I'm also considering buying the Mirage 2000 as my first clickable plane (specially now that it's on sale).

As far as i know there are a couple of bugs like the TWS Lock problem, but then again, which plane would you guys say is bug free? or at least reeeally stable and easy to learn as a first (clicklabe) plane?

Well an overhaul is coming so it can only get better, it's already a solid aircraft. And yes as clickable aircrafts go it is pretty easy to learn compared to others (of course not including WW2 birds ^^).

Thank you very much for your input. I saw that it is also on sale now and that settles it as the F-14 is not out and the hype is over on it - for me. Plus in the last few days I've spend a lot of time reading stuff and seeing videos (DCS Mirage's) on the Mirage and its' weapons and it is pretty impressive already.

Thank you for your inputs and see you in the v-skies :)

Bear in mind that both available air-to-air missiles aren't quite as good as the US ones. 530Ds are shorter range (40 km) than the AIM-7M (45 km) or the AIM-120C (55 km). The 530Ds are semi active (like the AIM-7) and require STT all the way to the target, meaning your RDI radar won't show you where other hostile aircraft are while you still have a missile in flight. The IR missile, Magic 2, is listed in the in-game encyclopedia as having a range (5km) less than half the AIM-9P (11km) and less than a third the AIM-9M (18km).

I still love the Mirage and the aircraft's flight characteristics still make it great to fly air-to-air. The missile comparison is not in its favor against 4th Gen US missiles, but that simply means you must be the better pilot - and if you are, you will still splash your target.

Bear in mind that both available air-to-air missiles aren't quite as good as the US ones. 530Ds are shorter range (40 km) than the AIM-7M (45 km) or the AIM-120C (55 km). The 530Ds are semi active (like the AIM-7) and require STT all the way to the target, meaning your RDI radar won't show you where other hostile aircraft are while you still have a missile in flight. The IR missile, Magic 2, is listed in the in-game encyclopedia as having a range (5km) less than half the AIM-9P (11km) and less than a third the AIM-9M (18km).

 

I still love the Mirage and the aircraft's flight characteristics still make it great to fly air-to-air. The missile comparison is not in its favor against 4th Gen US missiles, but that simply means you must be the better pilot - and if you are, you will still splash your target.

Super 530D is shorter range than AIM-7M, but it's faster.

Yeah, I suspect too short range for Magic 2 in DCS...

Fox 1 guidance: from what I saw in .lua files, that's ED's job.

No differences between each Fox 1 (maybe it changed recently with work on AIM-7 for the Hornet).

Super 530D is shorter range than AIM-7M, but it's faster.

 

Yeah, I suspect too short range for Magic 2 in DCS...

Agree on both, the speed of the 530 is great, should have mentioned that.

I wonder why the Magic II has been given a 5nm range when public information accounts for almost twice that value. It would be great to hear from Razbam about this.

I wonder why the Magic II has been given a 5nm range when public information accounts for almost twice that value. It would be great to hear from Razbam about this.

Fly enough high and fast at an incoming plane and you'll very likely get that range.

PS: We can only see if this missile is modeled correctly if we know under what circumstances that range got declared. But since we don't know those factors, it is not really possible to tell if it's realisticly modeled in DCS or not.

Are NATO countries not using the same protocols regarding this kind of information ?

Are NATO countries not using the same protocols regarding this kind of information ?

Not necessarily. French have different criteria for their DLZ mark.

But others NATO countries either US planes or at least US AA missiles :music_whistling:

And then there is DCS World encyclopaedia: very rough guidelines !

Missile range without launch paramters means nothing.

Sorry for being away for quite a long time. I know the range is shorter but the speed is higher. That means this missile should get a better minimum abort range. Even if it reaches a lower rangeit should be deadlier at a larger MAR because of the higher speed. Yes, it has a higher deceleration than the AMRAAM (both used in DCS), but it should be faster.

While the AIM-120C would reach the 10 nm mark within 25 seconds, the 530d should do it in 20 seconds (exageration not based on actual facts).

I am doing a virtual-BVR study of the most common missiles based solely on kinematics (no dynamics allowed :)) for this topic based on maximum operational range and tacview encounters which should be ready next week. I already like the results...

Adrian

Hi guys,

got some time to do some analysis. Here's the link to my blog post (pdf embed). Hope you find it interesting as I did :) writing it. It quenches my BVR knowledge thirst...for today :))).

Link Here

The post is a MAR study from different angles but it contains the 530D among the big boys (AMRAAM and R27ER). While not saying that "X" is better than "Y" as different missiles have different employment procedures, the MAR is the field that a badly perceived missile can level the field in the hands of a smart pilot.

Again, I hope you find this an interesting read,

Adrian

There is one thing that bothers me in your document.

You talk speed, range but never altitude.

Because down ont the deck, the Super 530D has a max firing of about 10Nm against hot target.

The drag will kill his energy and it will stall before self destruction time (45s).

But on high altitude (>FL300) the missile will still be around M1.6-M2.0 at 45s, so deadly until the end.

The Su-27 won’t be able to target M-2000C at 70Nm (won’t detect and even less lock at that range).

And even then a few S turns will exhaust the missile while keeping the Su-27 inside radar gimbals.

Hi jojo,

thanks for your answer. I do talk about altitude. I say at some point ">20'000 ft" while when talking about the theoretical values and the tacview encounters I use 25'000 ft. I tried to make all measurements at the same FL give or take a few thousand feet. In any case, all shootings happened very close to 25'000 ft. I created the missions to have the engagements start at that altitude.

And about your very nice radar capability analysis I can only say that this is exclusively a MAR document - theoretical and practical in my engagements. Actually, as you can see from the actual engagements part, the ranges are much much lower than the MOR which is in line with your actual firing range capability. Case III is NOT MOR dependent :)

Adrian

 

Missile range without launch paramters means nothing.

I always assume the missile data as 5000 meters launch, Mach 1 launch at the target heading straight at Mach 1.

The other parameter I might consider is altitude at 10000 meters and again straight ahead target coming toward you at Mach 1.

Change those parameters and you can get anything else ever.

Hi guys,

so I've made changes to get to v. 2 of the document. Maybe the biggest change is that I've added the AIM-54 Phoenix into the calculation. This was done by doing some F-14B engagements.

I've also added some clearing up sentences...buuut even if already said in the pdf, here I go:

all encounters are considered as taking place at FL250 with real weather during the 4th of February 2019 taking off at 10:00 am. That is to say that I was at FL250 (altimeter set at 29.92 NOT airport altimeter setting) when the engagement started. Because of winter, the atmosphere was denser than ISA so slightly lower kTAS were usually achieved by the missiles even with no initial turns.

The target' speeds were twofold:

AI - about 600 - 700 kTAS initially

me - about 750 kTAS

Turns to run were also two fold:

AI - downward in the vertical, full AB, supersonic as they leveled off, about a 2'000 ft loss in altitude

- sometimes they just turn leveled, always a hard turn

me - always maintaining altitude, but with a crank in the opposite side of the turn at F-pole for 5''

While I always try to evade the "first wave" with aggressive barrel-rolling, I didn't do that for my case III encounters so I tried to let the missile bleed off just from air density.

Hope this settles the hypothesis a little as I saw most were mainly baffled by that. Nevertheless, everything is written in the pdf.

Adrian :)

P.S. next comes the BVR potential study, the chances of BVR success based on positioning and weapon parameters alone (air police) - no launch allowed :)

I did quite a few test with tacview.

Mirage's BVR missiles are a little shorter ranged than aim7/120, but within that ranger they are MUCH, much better.

Their guidance is fine. You can throw off ED missiles with extreme ease by maneuvering aggressively. They lose all speed at the first jink.

If a matra is fired at you in range, it has a very high Pk. I'd say almost double that of the aim7.

I did quite a few test with tacview.

Mirage's BVR missiles are a little shorter ranged than aim7/120, but within that ranger they are MUCH, much better.

Their guidance is fine. You can throw off ED missiles with extreme ease by maneuvering aggressively. They lose all speed at the first jink.

If a matra is fired at you in range, it has a very high Pk. I'd say almost double that of the aim7.

It is just anecdotal but it seems to me that when I fire an AIM-7 it is a crapshoot whether it hits, while with the 530D if one is flying off the rail there is more than likely going to be a kill.

As I got a little more familiar, the 530 became more deadly. I am not an expert, just on and off weekend warrior stuff. Altitude, speed and keeping target locked. Yes, it is a very limited aircraft both in regards to AG and AA when pitted against more modern fire and forget missiles. I do wish we had Matras and some GPS bombs of some kind, but it is what it is and I am happy. Looking forward for mid life improvements.

As I got a little more familiar, the 530 became more deadly. I am not an expert, just on and off weekend warrior stuff. Altitude, speed and keeping target locked. Yes, it is a very limited aircraft both in regards to AG and AA when pitted against more modern fire and forget missiles. I do wish we had Matras and some GPS bombs of some kind, but it is what it is and I am happy. Looking forward for mid life improvements.

Just for cultural reference, Matra used to be the prime French missile manufacturer. Matra is now the "M" of European company MBDA.

Matra designed both Magic 2 and Super 530D for Mirage 2000C, and later Mica for Rafale and Mirage 2000-5.

Matra made the infamous mistral.