Sparrows

I’m looking for a simple answer. Is there a point in loading Sparrows? Am I missing something? Besides being an easy target 2 v 1.

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Personally I'd just take Sidewinders. The DCS Sparrow is only effective when head-on within 6-8nm in my experience.

Personally I'd just take Sidewinders. The DCS Sparrow is only effective when head-on within 6-8nm in my experience.

Me too, but just wondering if there is some sort of advantage.

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Shooting into a merge is about it ,still a ballsy move but you know it's going to the locked target and can trash it at any time if you don't like it.

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Shooting into a merge is about it ,still a ballsy move but you know it's going to the locked target and can trash it at any time if you don't like it.

 

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I see. Okay, so clearly they should be considered a short range/entering merge missile. Sidewinders for rear aspect, guns for close combat. That makes sense now. Thanks.

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I am an unapologetic Sparrow lover. They're great for shots in close proximity to friendlies, and they're excellent in tail-chase engagements. You do need to take into account your rate of closure when firing, but I regularly shoot around 5nm against fighters under 10,000ft. Many Sidewinder hits merely damage an aircraft, but the Sparrow more reliably puts them down. They are very limited at low altitude and speed though. You can't really use them as BVR missiles against any enemy fighter newer than about 1984, and even against older stuff like Floggers, you want to have a significant altitude and speed advantage to use them in head-on engagements.

They're also far, far lighter than -54s if you care about your max trap weight and don't want to jettison perfectly good weapons at the end of a sortie.

I put in a bug report the other day because F-14's Sparrows will go for chaff 4 out of 5 times and received a reply that they are currently being looked at.

Generally speaking in DCS: when fired form an F-15 or Hornet they are excellent close-in missiles to support friendlies with. Current iteration has a very good probability of kill at around 7-10 miles from 15000 feet or above (and are nearly immune to chaff while doing so).

The modeling used on the Tomcat is way too sensitive to chaff so loading them is a bit of a waste. Then again AIM-9's have absurd drag values currently so pick your poison :P

AIM-9's are probably, if not, the most accurate missiles in DCS drag wise.

... Because their RL flyout graph was available :)

Pretty much

AIM-9's are probably, if not, the most accurate missiles in DCS drag wise.

I guess you mean in terms of FM? Because I meant purely the amount of drag they generate on the pylons.

I am an unapologetic Sparrow lover. They're great for shots in close proximity to friendlies, and they're excellent in tail-chase engagements. You do need to take into account your rate of closure when firing, but I regularly shoot around 5nm against fighters under 10,000ft. Many Sidewinder hits merely damage an aircraft, but the Sparrow more reliably puts them down. They are very limited at low altitude and speed though. You can't really use them as BVR missiles against any enemy fighter newer than about 1984, and even against older stuff like Floggers, you want to have a significant altitude and speed advantage to use them in head-on engagements.

 

 

 

They're also far, far lighter than -54s if you care about your max trap weight and don't want to jettison perfectly good weapons at the end of a sortie.

To expand on that, Grumman managed the 9-G dog fight requirement by having the Phoenix support equipment on the removable missile pylons. It is rated for 9Gs with Sparrows, but, I believe, only 6-7 with Phoenixs.

There's an interview up on YouTube with the lead designer about the design of the F-14 that he explains it in.

there are many reasons why one can carry and fire aim7s, and I'll just list the most important ones:

1. The safety of semi-active vs active going maddog if supporting a buddy. (If your buddy is merged, you do not want to fire a slammer or IR missile into the furball).

2. A defensive shot. Semi-actives produce a missile launch warning the moment they are fired (provided you locked a target). Many underestimate the psychologic effect this has on your opponent. EVERYONE reacts to missile launch warnings (and those who dont might turn your defensive shot even into a lucky kill). This can be used to force your opponent to play your game and react, rather than act. (and in general, say you fly 2 vs 1, you can use it to draw the attention to you, while your buddy moves in for the kill, etc. there are situations where you do want to draw attention.)

3. A valuable supported kill shot that in some few situations can prove more reliable than phoenixes/aim120s. This is particularly true for firing from high altitude on high to medium alt bandits. If you are in a situation where you know you can support the sparrow to a kill, without sweating to break lock or imparing you otherwise, it can be the more reliable kill, with even a longer reach in certain situations than 120s (high alt) - this ofc does not applies for phoenixes, aim7s fall far below its range even more so high alt. (one of the reasons for reliability though being that a fully supported STT lock is more reliable than a TWS lock or missile only supported lock, these can be notched easier).

4. Interceptor shots against second tier targets, such as bombers, transport, helicopters, etc - on whom you do not want to waste your active missile on. (edit: bombers are of course not second tier, but usually primary targets, what I meant was more: "less dangerous to you in air to air combat".)

5. A good ambush weapon against berlioza equipped aircraft like flankers, etc, as it does not allow them to perform the last second (last bar lit for missile distance) maneuver that some do against phoenixes/ slammers. The aim7 does not indicate its distance on enemy rwr and is thus in ambush situations more difficult to defeat, for the price of staying nose on target and ofc alerting the bandit to your position, so it should be a kill shot.

6. Flood mode in the F15 (real life flood mode was so unreliable in most cases, that pilots did not get awarded any score if used during training - I can say that at least for the Tomcat). In the Tomcat flood mode is not really recommandable.

7. All the above reasons asume a non restricted weapons environment, mixed with slammers, etc. Lastly a reason is also to play 80s styles missions and in semi active engagements, fighting and flying can be great fun, as it forces you to employ lock on tactics, such as snaking while guiding your missile, etc.. These can also be applied against actives to a certain extend and certainly teach you a lot.

Hope that helps. :)

there are many reasons why one can carry and fire aim7s, and I'll just list the most important ones:

 

1. The safety of semi-active vs active going maddog if supporting a buddy. (If your buddy is merged, you do not want to fire a slammer or IR missile into the furball).

 

2. A defensive shot. Semi-actives produce a missile launch warning the moment they are fired (provided you locked a target). Many underestimate the psychologic effect this has on your opponent. EVERYONE reacts to missile launch warnings (and those who dont might turn your defensive shot even into a lucky kill). This can be used to force your opponent to play your game and react, rather than act. (and in general, say you fly 2 vs 1, you can use it to draw the attention to you, while your buddy moves in for the kill, etc. there are situations where you do want to draw attention.)

 

3. A valuable supported kill shot that in some few situations can prove more reliable than phoenixes/aim120s. This is particularly true for firing from high altitude on high to medium alt bandits. If you are in a situation where you know you can support the sparrow to a kill, without sweating to break lock or imparing you otherwise, it can be the more reliable kill, with even a longer reach in certain situations than 120s (high alt) - this ofc does not applies for phoenixes, aim7s fall far below its range even more so high alt. (one of the reasons for reliability though being that a fully supported STT lock is more reliable than a TWS lock or missile only supported lock, these can be notched easier).

 

4. Interceptor shots against second tier targets, such as bombers, transport, helicopters, etc - on whom you do not want to waste your active missile on.

 

5. A good ambush weapon against berlioza equipped aircraft like flankers, etc, as it does not allow them to perform the last second (last bar lit for missile distance) maneuver that some do against phoenixes/ slammers. The aim7 does not indicate its distance on enemy rwr and is thus in ambush situations more difficult to defeat, for the price of staying nose on target and ofc alerting the bandit to your position, so it should be a kill shot.

 

6. Flood mode in the F15 (real life flood mode was so unreliable in most cases, that pilots did not get awarded any score if used during training - I can say that at least for the Tomcat). In the Tomcat flood mode is not really recommandable.

 

7. All the above reasons asume a non restricted weapons environment, mixed with slammers, etc. Lastly a reason is also to play 80s styles missions and in semi active engagements, fighting and flying can be great fun, as it forces you to employ lock on tactics, such as snaking while guiding your missile, etc.. These can also be applied against actives to a certain extend and certainly teach you a lot.

 

Hope that helps. :)

That greatly helps! That is exactly the type of answers I was looking for. Love the cat, just didn’t get the logic behind the weapon. Thank you!

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Here's some inspiration :) It is also a great weapon in WVR imo.

Note the footage is from before release.

there are many reasons why one can carry and fire aim7s, and I'll just list the most important ones:

 

....snip..... :)

Allow me to add an 8.

Likelihood of a merge. Merging with another 4th gen while packing one or two Phoenix's is not that big of deal. 3, 4 or 5? You are going to find yourself in some boggle.

So my guess would be, if you expect you'll be merging, or want to be ready for unexpected/unwanted merges, you are better off with a starting load of 2 54's. You either expend one or both before merge and then proceed to dogfight with 7's and 9's. You count and keeping it at arm's length? 4 or 6 54's might be better for you.

Mission wise, that should translate to Fleet Defense and BARCAP, probably 4 54's. Escorts probably 2 or 0 54's, depending on how willing you are to risk a buddy kill once things get messy.

What i'm not so sure about is the Fighter Sweeps. I can see these going either way, but 4 54's?

there are many reasons why one can carry and fire aim7s, and I'll just list the most important ones:

 

1. The safety of semi-active vs active going maddog if supporting a buddy. (If your buddy is merged, you do not want to fire a slammer or IR missile into the furball).

 

This is only valid because it is a DCSism :). SARH should be just as susceptible to choosing the wrong target as a non-maddogged ARH.

. A valuable supported kill shot that in some few situations can prove more reliable than phoenixes/aim120s.

Another DCSism? Slammers should be twice as reliable in all respects.

Flood mode in the F15 (real life flood mode was so unreliable in most cases, that pilots did not get awarded any score if used during training - I can say that at least for the Tomcat). In the Tomcat flood mode is not really recommandable.

Because RL FLOOD mode isn't 'used', it comes on automatically because the target has effectively defeated the radar (this is actually represented in the f-18, but what's missing is reasons for the radar to back out of HPRF - all you have available is the break-lock) It's a last Ditch back-up that also like kely has the missile seeker in an undesirable high bandwidth Doppler search for the target.

This is only valid because it is a DCSism :). SARH should be just as susceptible to choosing the wrong target as a non-maddogged ARH.

Mate this comment is completely wrong. The Sparrow Missile will only guide on the locked target it is not a DCS ism.

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What GGTharos means is that irl the targeting and search parameters from a non-maddogged amraam are tight enough that the chance of accidentally going for a friendly is about equivalent to the host aircraft losing lock and accidentally relocking a buddy instead.

The DCSism is pretending the AIM-120 is not a smarter, safer and more accurate missile than the AIM-7 in every conceivable scenario.

Mate this comment is completely wrong. The Sparrow Missile will only guide on the locked target it is not a DCS ism.

 

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Mate it is a complete DCSism. The sparrow seeker is completely independent of the launching aircraft for anything that doesn't involve providing illumination.

It holds its own lock, performs it's own search for that signal etc.

It is perfectly capable of switching targets when they are illuminated by the same beam and they have similar enough parameters (assuming the 7 didn't throw its Doppler filter open, in which case 'everything' has similar parameters) - at short ranges the beam has plenty of energy to illuminate anything that's close enough to the beam but outside what be mathematically define as beamwidth, and of course FLOOD will illuminate an even larger volume.

It's a DCSism that you're not subject to all this. You do NOT shoot missiles into a furball period, unless your buddy is more likely to get shot down by the bandit than the risk from your own missile.

In DCS, SARH are risk-free. DCSism.

Flood mode irl (at least in the Tomcat, but supposedly also in other ac) was so bad that our SMEs told us it was called the "hail mary, bad idea" -mode :-P

I'm not surprised, the radar has basically lost the target at this point and we're hoping the missile can still guide in on the signal from the FLOOD horn ... which is hoping that this seeker can see the target in its FoV etc. :)

Mate it is a complete DCSism. The sparrow seeker is completely independent of the launching aircraft for anything that doesn't involve providing illumination.

 

It holds its own lock, performs it's own search for that signal etc.

 

It is perfectly capable of switching targets when they are illuminated by the same beam and they have similar enough parameters (assuming the 7 didn't throw its Doppler filter open, in which case 'everything' has similar parameters) - at short ranges the beam has plenty of energy to illuminate anything that's close enough to the beam but outside what be mathematically define as beamwidth, and of course FLOOD will illuminate an even larger volume.

 

It's a DCSism that you're not subject to all this. You do NOT shoot missiles into a furball period, unless your buddy is more likely to get shot down by the bandit than the risk from your own missile.

 

In DCS, SARH are risk-free. DCSism.

I guess it's this line here you need to consider. If you are talking about firing a Fox 1 into a merge at 10 miles you would be correct but that's a scenario I don't consider cos you wouldn't ever do it. You would not shoot until you can visually Id the target. At that point say 3 miles I can lock and shoot with impunity the missile can only hit the locked target. If I see a friendly cross the lock I can trash it.

On flood mode I used it once on flag at low level chasing a GR1 both of us just subsonic it was a pain and our tape was examined very carefully before they agreed it was a good shot. Yep it was a hail Mary for sure.

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I'll sometimes pack two Sparrows even on the F-15 in combination with AIM-120s and AIM-9s. The larger warhead on the AIM-7 provides more assurance of bringing down bigger aircraft.

Mate it is a complete DCSism. The sparrow seeker is completely independent of the launching aircraft for anything that doesn't involve providing illumination.

 

It holds its own lock, performs it's own search for that signal etc.

 

It is perfectly capable of switching targets when they are illuminated by the same beam and they have similar enough parameters (assuming the 7 didn't throw its Doppler filter open, in which case 'everything' has similar parameters) - at short ranges the beam has plenty of energy to illuminate anything that's close enough to the beam but outside what be mathematically define as beamwidth, and of course FLOOD will illuminate an even larger volume.

 

It's a DCSism that you're not subject to all this. You do NOT shoot missiles into a furball period, unless your buddy is more likely to get shot down by the bandit than the risk from your own missile.

 

In DCS, SARH are risk-free. DCSism.

I agree, and there's also the fact that most simmers expect ARH missiles to be totally independent after they go pitbull.

Our info on the AIM-54 says that it in fact can still fall-back to SARH after it transfers to Active and even if it does it will still compare the acquired target to the WCS illuminated one to confirm target selection.

I do ofc not have information on any newer missiles but I'd be surprised if stuff like that were not brought forward.

So, like you say, the fact that SARH missiles are risk free and never choose the wrong target is, imho, a DCS thing that is likely not an advantage they hold over modern ARH missiles IRL.