Maverick lock on range

Next daft question for tonight.

What range should I get a lock on, AGM 65 H, getting about 4 miles.

Does it depend on the target? Does altitude affect it?

Thanks

It depends on the visual signature of the target in RL, which involves size and contrast.

4nm is fair.

4-5 nm is about as good as H’s get these days.

Unless you force correlate LLOOLL

my guess if you are higher for the target to stand out you can lock it from afar, as the background could also interfere with picking up targets. Some buildings in DCS are white, such as power lines, hospitals, factories. It depends on getting a clear image of the target. I guess that demands you would be higher.

It also seems to depend on your screen resolution, or rather, the resolution of the MFD in relation to your total viewport size. I can, for instance, lock targets from markedly farther away in VR (high-res viewport/lower-res MFD) than I can when playing on a monitor (medium-res viewport/higher-res MFD).

Since the excuse for not wanting to implement adaptive model scaling to make high resolutions not be a disadvantage is that it would screw up RCS calculations, chances are that a similar system is being used for other sensors as well: some part of the rendering pipeline data is also used to determine how well sensors can pick up and identify a target, which then affects your locking range for low-contrast situations such as a ground target partially hidden by ground clutter.

LOL what? No, the two are not connected at all.

Since the excuse for not wanting to implement adaptive model scaling to make high resolutions not be a disadvantage is that it would screw up RCS calculations,

LOL what? No, the two are not connected at all.

No, they're not connected, the end. RCS has its very own parameters that is separate from the model. Wags isn't a developer; even if he didn't get this part quite right, his point is valid.

If you increase the size of the of the model, you might cause the missile to 'physically' hit this larger model when it should not.

No, they're not connected, the end. RCS has its very own parameters that is separate from the model.

Good luck convincing the people who don't want to see proper scaling about that. It's the first quote they pull out to defend the stance. :P

At any rate, that remains the official word on the matter and the excuse for not fixing a long-standing problem. And as horrible as it sounds, it does explain why viewport size affects the ease of locking on targets with Mavs.

And to clarify, scaling is not about increasing the size of the model so just like it should not affect RCS or EO detection, it should not affect missiles' ability to hit, and for the exact same reason: because throwing in a scale transform in the rendering pipeline should under no circumstances affect anything other than how it appears on-screen. The only way for Wags point to be even remotely valid would be if it got the details right. You can't have one without the other.

What it's about and how it's implemented are two different things.

 

And to clarify, scaling is not about increasing the size of the model so just like it should not affect RCS or EO detection, it should not affect missiles' ability to hit, and for the exact same reason: because throwing in a scale transform in the rendering pipeline should under no circumstances affect anything other than how it appears on-screen. The only way for Wags point to be even remotely valid would be if it got the details right. You can't have one without the other.

What it's about and how it's implemented are two different things.

Yes?

The point remains: while his explanation for how they've implemented sensor detection sounds horrible, it does explain a number of curious behaviours and limitations we are (still) seeing today.

Not sure if I'm missing something from the OP, but I can lock Mavericks from around 7nm in DCS (using TGP--> search/lock (point tracking) -> SOI to Mav -> sync SOI POI (lol) -> zoom in (wait until 7nm) Mav lock.

As mentioned by another poster, Force Correlate combined with Altitude can extend those Maverick engagement ranges substantially. I think only the "H" model and above can do this, going from memory. The "D" may be limited due to lock based on MAV seeker limitations, even if using TGP to designate target before slaving MAV seeker to it. Again, going from memory, at work.