Agm 84D High flight profile

Hi, I have a question about the high flight profile with the Harpoon. When i launch the harpoon in BOL mode with a high flight profile it will always overfly the ship i was aiming for. Is this mode not working or are my settings wrong for this profile?

I launch the Harpoon at around 36k feet and make it turn to the ship at a WPT with HPTP at a range of about 35 miles to the ship. The search distance is set to 5 miles and it will always overfly the ship. Whatever settings i use, i never get it to work with the high flight profile. The low and medium profiles work just fine.

I think the radar that is on the harpoon doesn't have the capacity in game right now to fly that hight and detect targets as the targets would be below the cone of the radar. I think Redkites youtube vid covered it.

I think the radar that is on the harpoon doesn't have the capacity in game right now to fly that hight and detect targets as the targets would be below the cone of the radar. I think Redkites youtube vid covered it.

No, the problem is that the Harpoon should always search from a low altitude. As far as I'm aware the HIGH and MEDIUM flyout altitudes are only for the initial part of the flight.

Once the seeker enables and radar is actively looking for targets the missile should have already descended to a 'LOW' profile. ED has not modeled this correctly yet.

Thanks for the answers. So an almost 90 degrees down attack from 35k is not possible with the Harpoon? :( That would be a nice way to attack a ship that has the SA 15 and OSA equipped.

The Harpoon should always be sea skimming on approach to target because this minimizes its visibility to the target's radar. Early models could approach at low alt and pop up near the target to dive bomb from around 6000 ft but my understanding is later models removed that option and are sea skimming all the way.

Pretty sure the missile's wings and engine are too small to fly in the stratosphere. If you want a 90° attack why not use an LGB?

The Harpoon should always be sea skimming on approach to target because this minimizes its visibility to the target's radar. Early models could approach at low alt and pop up near the target to dive bomb from around 6000 ft but my understanding is later models removed that option and are sea skimming all the way.

 

Pretty sure the missile's wings and engine are too small to fly in the stratosphere. If you want a 90° attack why not use an LGB?

A LGB is a good option for that kind of attack, but i thought it would be fun to use some different weapons from time to time. Also because the TOR and OSA on the ships are shooting down all my Harpoons in low or medium flight profile.

I should probably wait for the SLAM-ER for these attacks :thumbup:

The reality is that Harpoon is a relatively slow weapon, and therefore vulnerable to higher-end SAMs like the SA-N-9 (the navalized version of the SA-15). The solution is simple: More Harpoons. Just like the SA-15 on land, the way to kill it is to saturate it with inbounds.

I haven't tried this in DCS to see how many it takes, but think double digits.

How much fun is that? (I guess we know what I'll be doing for the next couple evenings.)

(SLAM-ER is a land attack weapon.)

I've had some success with using my plane as SAM bait.

Fly low and approach until the boat starts spamming misses at you, get closer still, then shoot your Harpoons. Then, hang out inside the edge of the threat circle defending, and you might get one or two poons to hit.

Mind that the boat will only want you if you're hot and close enough.

i dont get the point… harpoon flight path is rated as "sea-skimming"... why this is not modeled in DCS ? its just nosense have a weapon that cant do its only job for that reason… mah.

Looks like sea skimming works fine in Wags' demo video...

It skims only once it acquires a target, currently.

It cruises at whatever altitude you drop it at. If you deploy it too high, sometimes it will hit the water when transitioning to skimming.

So the flight level settings don't do anything at present? (Not a current Hornet owner, just vaguely familiar with the Harpoon from sub sims)

Did some initial playing around with it last night, keeping the engagement simple (BOL, 5 mile seeker turn on, 60 miles destruct range), and watching the target's reaction. I used Neustrashimy as the target for its self defense abilities.

I shot two missiles on each of two passes. The first pass both missiles were set to low, and failed to acquire the target. They passed close enough by that the target fired on them and shot them down.

On the second round, I accidentally fired one missile high and one low. The low one acquired the target and dove to sea-skimming. The high one did not acquire. Both were shot down, but Neustrashimy fired 8 missiles at the two of them.

Now to figure out how to get my wingman to shoot, too.

So the flight level settings don't do anything at present? (Not a current Hornet owner, just vaguely familiar with the Harpoon from sub sims)

The flight level settings work in the sim and determine the missile's cruise altitude, until it acquires a target. The missile will cruise at the flight level setting OR at the altitude it was released, whichever is lower. So if you set HIGH (30k ft), but you launch at 10k ft, it won't climb to 30k, it'll stay at 10k. That's intended behavior, not a bug, AFAIK.

The flight level settings work in the sim and determine the missile's cruise altitude, until it acquires a target. The missile will cruise at the flight level setting OR at the altitude it was released, whichever is lower. So if you set HIGH (30k ft), but you launch at 10k ft, it won't climb to 30k, it'll stay at 10k. That's intended behavior, not a bug, AFAIK.

Indeed, but it shouldn't Search and Acquire at 30K if set to HIGH.... AFAIK it should descend to lower (even lower than 'LOW' 5000') when the seeker enables. This is why a HIGH or MED alt always flies over target at present.

It needs looking at.

My understanding is that the LOW/MED/HI flyout altitudes are interim settings anyhow as development continues. For now, only LOW seems to work properly, anyway, though what they call "low" isn't, by Harpoon standards. Flyout altitude should be MUCH lower. It should cruise at an altitude above sea skim, then when the seeker acquires a target, drop to sea skim, which it does only when you set the flyout to LOW..

Indeed, but it shouldn't Search and Acquire at 30K if set to HIGH.... AFAIK it should descend to lower (even lower than 'LOW' 5000') when the seeker enables. This is why a HIGH or MED alt always flies over target at present.

 

It needs looking at.

You might be right about dropping to low upon seeker activation, because HIGH is unusable as it is. Still, the profile options work, at least for the cruising part, but I guess the flight profile needs more work.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I'm right. Just with a glance at the limited documentation I've got and common sense. (Plus some others Sims implementation)

The max seeker range on a Harpoon is going to be less than 10NM. A 30000ft 'AQUIRE' altitude is going to need some dramatic maneuvering and diving on the missiles part.

I'm sure HIGH and MED are purely used to extend range before you want to seeker to enable.

The harpoon is pretty much useless right now. It is missing 90% of it's actual functionality and doesn't even do any damage to ships (10/10 anti-ship missile).

It skims only once it acquires a target, currently.

 

It cruises at whatever altitude you drop it at. If you deploy it too high, sometimes it will hit the water when transitioning to skimming.

Yesterday we tested launching them at 3k ft, trying to make them skim the sea all the way with no joy. So, after the waypoint it turned to the search bearing and was almost flying directly towards the target. When they got around 10-15 miles to the ship, SAM's already destroyed 3 of 4 harpoons, the last one turned a bit off the target, flew some miles more and only then, dropped down and turned back into the target for the hit.

For now I think the missile adjusted it's flight path for a perpendicular hit and it only goes skimming very close to the target.