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TWS AMRAAMS go for incoming Missiles


DANIELs

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Gents,

I thought this might be interesting. 'Cause it never happened to me in other aircraft.

4 of my 6 AMRAAMS fired in TWS went for the incoming missile. 2 actually went for the bandit.

Today I flew 2 Sorties on the 104th Server and I was quite amazed when I reviewed my Sorties in TacView.

 

All the shots were roughly taken at 8-10 nm slant range.

What do you guys think?


Edited by DANIELs
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Welcome to the forums!

 

The AMRAAM's own radar activates off the rail (missile goes pitbull), if the shot is taken in 8-10 NM range.

 

IRL, an AMRAAM that is supported will still receive targeting information from the launching platform that will help it go after the correct target, even after going pitbull.

 

If I'm not mistaken, in DCS, once the AMRAAM goes pitbull, it only uses its own radar after this point. (thus the importance of not firing FOX-3 missiles towards a furball)

 

What must've happened in your case is that the missile did get targeting info from the FCR, but at launch, it immediately went pitbull, targeting the first thing its radar saw. Some of your AMRAAMs chose to go after the incoming missile, since it was between them and the target aircraft and it got probably got picked up first by their onboard radar. That should also be possible IRL, but probably with a Maddog or Cheapshot shot (shooting without supporting the missile at all/until pitbull, respectively).


Edited by Harker

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Can an AMRAAM (real or DCS) successfully kill an incoming missile?
If it intercepts it and the fuse activates, I'm guessing yes. As far as whether its radar can pick up an A2A missile, I don't know and I doubt I could say even if I did.

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I have heard of AA Missiles beeing able to shoot fown other missiles. The AIM-54 Phoenix was especially designed to kill large incoming atomic missiles. Radar Cross Section wise it is comprehensible that Tomcat Pilots were able to see their own Phoenix on their Radar due to it‘s such a huge missile. But an AIM-120? I think thats way out of reach.

 

Nevertheless I think the root cause is the field of view of the missiles in DCS. Aim-54s and

Aim-120 seem to have a field of view of something like 170 degrees when it should be somewhere between 9-12 degrees. With the current status it is no wonder that the AMRAAM locks incoming missiles with that field of view.

 

What do you guys think?

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I'm gonna go full on mythbusters on this...

 

Plausible at least.

 

Aim120 if its pitbull will track "whatever", and while a missile RCS is small, its doppler shift will be "yuuuge". So assuming it actually can "see" the missile, which at short range is a "likely" and maneuver to hit it it might, (assuming its logic doesn't tell it its "wrong-o")

 

giphy.gif

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Yes I can confirm 120 can be shot at other missiles. Few times I tracked HARM or JSOW on tws thinking it was a bandit and shot at it then wondered where was the kill message until I saw the truth on the tacview later after logged out from MP.

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I'm gonna go full on mythbusters on this...

 

Plausible at least.

 

Aim120 if its pitbull will track "whatever", and while a missile RCS is small, its doppler shift will be "yuuuge". So assuming it actually can "see" the missile, which at short range is a "likely" and maneuver to hit it it might, (assuming its logic doesn't tell it its "wrong-o")

 

giphy.gif

 

I have now spent too much time watching that gif.....*sigh

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Can an AMRAAM (real or DCS) successfully kill an incoming missile?

 

 

Depends on the missiles, but IRL yes. It is quite effective in C:MO.

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I'm gonna go full on mythbusters on this...

 

Plausible at least.

 

Aim120 if its pitbull will track "whatever", and while a missile RCS is small, its doppler shift will be "yuuuge". So assuming it actually can "see" the missile, which at short range is a "likely" and maneuver to hit it it might, (assuming its logic doesn't tell it its "wrong-o")

 

giphy.gif

 

Let's not go off-topic and keep the subject military aviation related... what a "bombshell" there... :D


Edited by Top Jockey

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I was able to recreate this behavior in a 1v1 mission in which the AMRAAM hit my first AMRAAM.

I swear I had the Bandit locked in TWS.

 

 

 

 

You can see how the second AMRAAM goes PITBUL immediately after launch and go for the AMRAAM

 

Harlikwin, our suggestion with the pulse doppler shift makes sense but in this case the missile was flying away from me and even though it went for it and disregarded the feed of my Fire Control Radar Feed.

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There seems to be an issue when launching 120's in TWS. I've had them go ballistic right after launch. Target was more than 10NM out.

I've read this too, in the forums, but they seem to launch OK for me. Admittedly, I haven't tried it that much though, maybe 3-4 times.

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and tws exist bug,some time will display wrong position on HUD,and seem like not coherent,it often miss target compare with 15c's tws,and 16c's stt not acuracy as 18,it is weird

 

 

 

I don’t think anyone should consider an FC3 plane the benchmark for proper radar behavior.

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So an apparent primary flaw with the F-16 was that it wasn't giving mid-course corrections to the AIM-120, yet was patched today. Now a common occurrence for DCS air to air missiles has always been that any 2 that incidentally come close enough together will detonate. You could do this to your own missile if you fired 2 too closely together at the same target while accelerating. The only missiles that seem to have any sort of radar signature in DCS are A-G and some SAMs. The only willful targeting of AA missiles I've seen before this has been with IR ones tracking the rocket motor.

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Welcome to the forums!

 

The AMRAAM's own radar activates off the rail (missile goes pitbull), if the shot is taken in 8-10 NM range.

 

IRL, an AMRAAM that is supported will still receive targeting information from the launching platform that will help it go after the correct target, even after going pitbull.

 

If I'm not mistaken, in DCS, once the AMRAAM goes pitbull, it only uses its own radar after this point. (thus the importance of not firing FOX-3 missiles towards a furball)

 

What must've happened in your case is that the missile did get targeting info from the FCR, but at launch, it immediately went pitbull, targeting the first thing its radar saw. Some of your AMRAAMs chose to go after the incoming missile, since it was between them and the target aircraft and it got probably got picked up first by their onboard radar. That should also be possible IRL, but probably with a Maddog or Cheapshot shot (shooting without supporting the missile at all/until pitbull, respectively).

 

What is 'DCS Ground Crew'?

 

In any case, there are a lot of things missing from DCS' missile simulation, which is why this is happening. Here's the deal, and you'll recognize what DCS doesn't do:

 

1) When you pull that trigger, target information is sent to the missile on the rail. This includes the doppler gate setting. Note, this is important! It means we will be SEARCHING for a target with specific closure.

 

2) We skip battery, rocket activation etc. Missile is launched with knowing range, possibly vector, and doppler gate. It's now in the air .

 

3) The missile uses the downloaded information to make an initial turn and point the seeker at the target. Onboard seeker is activated and commences search .. Note that the ONLY thing that matters here is that we have sent the missile information at launch, we'll ignore data-links etc.

 

4) The search finds multiple targets, including what we had targeted. The doppler gate automatically filters out the missiles as their closure is nothing like the target's, and the range gate likewise filters them out because they're a lot closer than that target.

 

5) Missile locks on the correct target in our scenario.

 

 

So, there's lot of work to do for representing what a missile does correctly. EW, including counter-measures depends on this entire process in order to work correctly.

 

EW might deny initial launch data or provide bad data. CMs may look like your target during the missile's search phase under the correct circumstances.

 

 

What if the missile doesn't find the expected target? Then it'll open up its search gates until it finds something else, if something else is to be found.

 

This process is the same for SARH.

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and tws exist bug,some time will display wrong position on HUD,and seem like not coherent,it often miss target compare with 15c's tws,and 16c's stt not acuracy as 18,it is weird

 

TWS SHOULD be inaccurate. It's the F-15C that is incorrect here.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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What is 'DCS Ground Crew'?

 

 

 

In any case, there are a lot of things missing from DCS' missile simulation, which is why this is happening. Here's the deal, and you'll recognize what DCS doesn't do:

 

 

 

1) When you pull that trigger, target information is sent to the missile on the rail. This includes the doppler gate setting. Note, this is important! It means we will be SEARCHING for a target with specific closure.

 

 

 

2) We skip battery, rocket activation etc. Missile is launched with knowing range, possibly vector, and doppler gate. It's now in the air .

 

 

 

3) The missile uses the downloaded information to make an initial turn and point the seeker at the target. Onboard seeker is activated and commences search .. Note that the ONLY thing that matters here is that we have sent the missile information at launch, we'll ignore data-links etc.

 

 

 

4) The search finds multiple targets, including what we had targeted. The doppler gate automatically filters out the missiles as their closure is nothing like the target's, and the range gate likewise filters them out because they're a lot closer than that target.

 

 

 

5) Missile locks on the correct target in our scenario.

 

 

 

 

 

So, there's lot of work to do for representing what a missile does correctly. EW, including counter-measures depends on this entire process in order to work correctly.

 

 

 

EW might deny initial launch data or provide bad data. CMs may look like your target during the missile's search phase under the correct circumstances.

 

 

 

 

 

What if the missile doesn't find the expected target? Then it'll open up its search gates until it finds something else, if something else is to be found.

 

 

 

This process is the same for SARH.

 

I agree with you, but I was just describing what happens in DCS, at least to my understanding. In my and others' experience, FOX-3 AAMs disregard any datalink targeting data once they go pitbull, which I don't think happens in reality. The missile in DCS uses the target's last position and velocity in order to determine the desired target once it goes pitbull, but ultimately, the missile attacks wherever it locks with its seeker first. That's why everyone carries at least a couple of SAHR AAMs in MP, they don't run the risk of randomly going after a friendly.

The Doppler and range gate logic should resolve the issue of missiles going after missiles, but although some form of Doppler logic exists in DCS for radars, it doesn't seem to apply here. I don't know if it is because this doesn't exist for missiles in DCS or if it's a result of the severed datalink once the missile goes pitbull.

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You are correct.

 

 

What's missing in DCS is initial target data and the search/lock system for the missile's radar.

 

 

So yes, the missile will go active the lock-on to anything. The only doppler gate is the notch gate.

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I see we have quite some guys here who know their stuff concerning missiles.

I have a question.

 

 

Can someone explain me why the Notch did not work in this TacView Debrief?

I don't understand how the Phoenix was able to maintain lock?

 

 

I entered the Notch when the Missile was 7 nm out.

At 3 nm I also started pumping chaff. 10 bundles in total.

 

The only explanation I have is that I was too thrifty dispensing chaff.

And that in the missiles endgame (the last 5nm) I was not precise enough correcting the notch. I let it slip from a 90 aspect to an 85 aspect.

 

But nevertheless shouldn't the Phoenix or the Tomcat lose lock as soon as I entered the Notch and had the 90 aspect established?

 

Does someone have an explanation?

I know the Tomcat has Monopulse angle tracking but I'm not a Tomcat guy.

 

This happens quite often to me.I think I'm on the perfect Notch litereally 5 feet above the trees but the Phoenixs' keep hitting me. I'm having quite a hard time defending Tomcats.

 

 

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?


Edited by DANIELs
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