Amraams in the recent updates

[rami80]

In the recent patches AMRAAMs have gotten progressively hard to evade. I am facing the following problems: (This is for shots within 15km)

 

-Chaff is completely ineffective. I had infinite weapons enabled and chaffed like crazy while notching to no avail.

 

-Notching is very specific. You have to be completely perpendicular with zero relative speed (which is dangerous if the notch fails)

 

-Pulling into the missile is not as effective as the missiles seem to be faster now. Even with the G-limiter off (only W) I can only evade the missile by pulling hard enough to blackout.

 

The problem is compounded by the fact that AMRAAMS are reaching speeds of 4100km/h in tacview vs the R-27ER's 3600km/h. The longer range advantage is thrown out of the window as the aim-120C will be there already by the door step by the time the ER is in midflight.

 

I understand that one shouldn't get himself into this position, but given the short range of BVR missiles this situation becomes an inevitability.

Edited March 20, 2016 by rami80

[ShuRugal]

sounds like the AMRAAM has been getting some flight-model love?

[GGTharos]

I just checked. There are no changes.

Edited March 21, 2016 by GGTharos

[*Rage*]

The Amraam is faster than the ER now?!

[Kuky]

The Amraam is faster than the ER now?!

read what GG wrote

[winchesterdelta1]

Did not notice any changes as well. They are still as easy to defeat as before.

Edited March 21, 2016 by winchesterdelta1

[probad]

yeah i have not experienced any differences in effectiveness either.

[rami80]

Again I am speaking of shots which are in close proximity (<15km away). They have become hard to evade. Attached are images of an R-27ER and AIM-120C launched at similar conditions( The R-27ER has lower altitude because it dived). This is the most similar case I could find to compare. However look through the tacviews and you'll see that the AIM-120C is going faster. If what the people above are saying is true then I might only guess that the R-27ER is now performing worse and thus my previous tactics are no longer compatible.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2016 by rami80

[DarkFire]

Some (a lot?) of missile Vmax will depend on the speed of the launch platform at the point of missile launch. I've had R-27ER's do well over 4,200 Km/h though I have to say I've never seen an AIM-120 go that fast before. Maybe the launching F-15C was well & truly supersonic?

 

Edited to add: Just got an R-27ER to go over 6,100 Km/h. OK it's a very silly example, but shows how dependant missile speed is on launch platform speed...

Edited March 21, 2016 by DarkFire

[pepin1234]

Did not notice any changes as well. They are still as easy to defeat as before.

 

Easy? This depends of the situation in combat. The ER is powerful, bigger, have much more kinematic energy, while the 120 is smaller, lightest and have less drag but the kinematic energy is better in the ER in general.

 

Probably a real combat comparison could be worse for the 120 but anyway, now is not that bad.

 

If they downgrade the ER in favor of 120 then this is not a real simulation. For example, currently the R-27 is chaff jammed into the 20~25km launch. This is not right for this hardware in this distance. But well whatever... F-18 is almost there

Edited March 21, 2016 by pepin1234

[Beamscanner]

Make sure you turn off your jammer if you are trying to notch the seeker.. It would make sense that IF the jammer used doppler noise to mask your aircrafts doppler return, hiding in the ground clutter would be useless, as you'd be transmitting on a large number of Doppler freqs. Not just the ground doppler freq. So a AIM-120 could still auto switch to HOJ and track your jammer like a beacon.

 

Also, the slower and lower you get, the wider the effective notch angle becomes.

[rami80]

I overlooked the launch platform's speed however, when launching at the same altitude and speed the AIM-120 has the speed advantage.

[GGTharos]

At which altitude?

[rami80]

Around 5,000m ASL, I will try higher altitudes and share the results by tomorrow.

[probad]

currently the R-27 is chaff jammed into the 20~25km launch. This is not right for this hardware in this distance.

 

 

 

can i get information on how susceptible 27ers are to chaff irl?

[GGTharos]

You can't. More to the point, few people can.

[Sweep]

can i get information on how susceptible 27ers are to chaff irl?

 

Yeah, here you go:

 

Seriously, though, I don't know.

 

[probad]

i was curious because the good forum warriors here seemed very certain about the cm susceptibility being incorrect so i thought there surely must be some credible basis.

[GGTharos]

Some of us have some suspicions based on general radar behavior :)

[DarkFire]

i was curious because the good forum warriors here seemed very certain about the cm susceptibility being incorrect so i thought there surely must be some credible basis.

 

There is.

 

There was a huge discussion not too long ago during which it was fairly convincingly theorised that DCS World SARH missiles (this is common to all of them, not just the Russian ones) are being decoyed because the radar set providing guidance was being distracted by chaff when said chaff ought to have been outside and therefore invisible to the guiding radar beam, at least in single-target-lock mode.

 

Obviously nobody's done an actual analysis based on published performance data for NATO chaff against published beam shape and digital signal processing capabilities of the N-001 radar in the Flanker because none of that information is publicly available.

 

Unfortunately there is very little available data on actual R-27 missile performance, and what information is available is both highly suspect and can't be normalised to take in to account factors other than chaff affecting missile performance, e.g. launches outside of acceptable parameters etc. What little information there is comes from anecdotal accounts from the Ethiopia - Eritrean border conflict in which it was alleged that Russian or at least former WarPac mercenary pilots flew Su-27s and possibly MiG-29s for both sides.

 

3rd party evidence (AIM-7M performance during the 1st Gulf War and British developmental testing of our now long-since retired AIM-7 derivative the Sky Flash) suggests that real life SARH missiles (at least post-1990) performed significantly better than the ones we have in the game.

[Marvolo]

There is.

 

There was a huge discussion not too long ago during which it was fairly convincingly theorised that DCS World SARH missiles (this is common to all of them, not just the Russian ones) are being decoyed because the radar set providing guidance was being distracted by chaff when said chaff ought to have been outside and therefore invisible to the guiding radar beam, at least in single-target-lock mode.

 

Obviously nobody's done an actual analysis based on published performance data for NATO chaff against published beam shape and digital signal processing capabilities of the N-001 radar in the Flanker because none of that information is publicly available.

 

Unfortunately there is very little available data on actual R-27 missile performance, and what information is available is both highly suspect and can't be normalised to take in to account factors other than chaff affecting missile performance, e.g. launches outside of acceptable parameters etc. What little information there is comes from anecdotal accounts from the Ethiopia - Eritrean border conflict in which it was alleged that Russian or at least former WarPac mercenary pilots flew Su-27s and possibly MiG-29s for both sides.

 

3rd party evidence (AIM-7M performance during the 1st Gulf War and British developmental testing of our now long-since retired AIM-7 derivative the Sky Flash) suggests that real life SARH missiles (at least post-1990) performed significantly better than the ones we have in the game.

 

Missiles in this game are far easier to break lock than real world missiles. Yes they are old but the missiles in this game are past the age of stupidity and they will be very hard to lose. However jamming is incredibly underrated in this game. Even with HOJ there is a reason why just about every single aircraft from a well funded nation will fly out with incredibly expensive jammers every single mission. And there is a reason why despite numerous missile launches there hasn't been a NATO aircraft shot down by a radar guided missile for a long time. Also looking at the combat performance based on numbers alone is rarely useful - they ignore the fact that firstly no matter how good a missile is it can be defeated by terrain and secondly not every missile launch is expected to hit regardless of training. Poorly trained pilots will often fail to support the missile properly and/or fire at the wrong time. Well trained pilots will often fire a missile expecting a miss to force the target to react (though this is less of an effect with restrictive ROE).

[Chrinik]

However jamming is incredibly underrated in this game. Even with HOJ there is a reason why just about every single aircraft from a well funded nation will fly out with incredibly expensive jammers every single mission.

 

Jammers are used to mask your movement to gain a positional advantage on an enemy in a BVR conflict, break missile locks or override/blind the supporting RADAR, depending on the type of jammer. They are also handy for when you have a visual on the enemy missle, as the missle cannot properly lead a jamming target, and will be easier to outmaneuver kinematically.

 

There is also a reason why you can´t keep your jammer on for extensive amounts of time.

Jammers are hard to maintain, break constantly because of their complicated electronics, and generate alot of heat.

Anecdotally: I read reports that the internal Jammer for the F-15C can be used for 5 minutes, after which it will start "melting out the back of your jet"...it uses about 80% of the cooling capacity of the jet just to keep it running. External Jammers are cooled by the airflow, which is probably alot more effective then any internal system.

 

However, in DCS, you can turn your jammer on on takeoff, and never have to bother with it. Even an arbitrary timer after which the jammer would break would fix this, and cause people to be more careful with jammers.

 

There are a lot of gamey systems in DCS that affect missle performance, doing crazy maneuvers the missle is trying to lead will cause the missle to bleed all it´s energy, lag is one other such phenomenon.

 

A SARH missile that looses lock because of a jink due to lag goes stupid, as they can´t reaquire targets (for some reason), an active missle (inclusing IR) will simply reaquire after a jink because they actively look for targets, and guess what is theoretically still right infront of the missle if it goes dumb....the target you initially launched at.

So it just sais "Oh, there you are" and keeps going.

 

So while ED could try to look at their code bases and missle tracking logics and fix various aspects to make the missles perform better (or closer to real life) I don´t think they want to given all of the more lucrative buisness options they currently have available.

[Kuky]

...And there is a reason why despite numerous missile launches there hasn't been a NATO aircraft shot down by a radar guided missile for a long time.

 

Yes there is a reason for that, but its not the use of jammers, its because NATO has not been fighting any major (read strong) opponent since WWII. What NATO has been doing is bombing, not air-air fighting, and the little air-air they have been in is against weaker opponent that didn't stand much chance due to outnumbering and more modern jets and weapons.

[Svend_Dellepude]

So while ED could try to look at their code bases and missle tracking logics and fix various aspects to make the missles perform better (or closer to real life) I don´t think they want to given all of the more lucrative buisness options they currently have available.

 

ED is actually trying to solve the issues with missiles.

It has been stated in an update by Wags in a video update some time ago and I think GG mentioned it too in one of the countless "why doesn't the missiles work" threads.

 

Btw, IR is not an active but a passive seeker.

[Frostie]

And there is a reason why despite numerous missile launches there hasn't been a NATO aircraft shot down by a radar guided missile for a long time.

 

Over the last 20 years considering the opposition has been extremely inferior there has been quite a few radar guided hits on NATO aircraft.