cannot reproduce UPDATE: AGM-88 HARM Consistently missing targets by hitting too high or too low or not registering direct hits.

[Coyote_One]

For the last few weeks I have used the HARM's extensively. They flight profile tends to be way too low on most occasions ergo causing the missile to impact the ground nearby OR hitting the target and not registering whatsoever. According to TacView replays and screenshots these are registered HITS indicated by the flashing white box however in game the unit remains at 100% OR for direct hits will not completely destroy the unit.

Ive noticed they dont follow a logical flight path to the targets either. It likes to dive down and then skid low level with no energy to its target causing it to hit other objects. 

Even when launched at FL200 or FL300 it will always dive down early instead of coming down more on top of the target.

Half the time the Missile will explode either at the top of the target not registering a hit or hitting the ground in front. Clearly noted in the screenshot tracks of the missile in Tacview going high above the unit

Truly frustrating at times to use 3 HARMS on one unit when launched within the parameters, watching the missile and see it explode 10 feet high and zero to negligible damage.

The main units these will have issues with are the SA-11 and the SA-19's. The SA-11;s are also troublesome due to the fact you cannot see them emitting a signal beyond 180 degrees. This shouldnt matter as that tank has a full 260 scan function radar so Im not sure why you cant see it on the HARM WPN page until youre dead in front of the unit.

Regardless of the issue I just mentioned the MAIN concern is the HARMS not registering hits or doing any damage when exploding literally on top of the desired target or constantly missing.

Please look into this when able.
 

server-20201225-090156.trk

Edited December 25, 2020 by Skuzzlebutt
Added track log and Video links due to not being able to replicate, I replicated the issue within 5 minutes.

[Darth_Slate]

Glad I am not the only one who thought this was a bit of an issue. I did raise my eyebrow at the angle some of them had taken, but never thought too much on it. 

 

Would be interesting to see if it's user error or a genuine fault with the HARM.

[idenwen]

And I thought I'm the only one: 

 

[flankerjun]

Yeah,HARM is really low efficent now

通过我的 V1955A 上的 Tapatalk发言

[NineLine]

Hey Skuzzlebutt, 

Have you tried to reproduce this in single player to rule out any sort of network desync? We have tested internally and are not seeing an issue currently.

Thanks!

[Coyote_One]

17 hours ago, NineLine said:

Hey Skuzzlebutt, 

Have you tried to reproduce this in single player to rule out any sort of network desync? We have tested internally and are not seeing an issue currently.

Thanks!

Yessir, I tested in single player as well. This way I was able to place a hot acft in the air to test the theory. The missile seems to track the tall antenna on the SA 11 and not the emitter itself causing it to go high.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Skuzzlebutt

[BIGNEWY]

Hi,

 

We have tested and all seems ok to us. Maybe desync or scripts shutting the radar off? 

7 hours ago, Skuzzlebutt said:

Yessir, I tested in single player as well. This way I was able to place a hot acft in the air to test the theory. The missile seems to track the tall antenna on the SA 11 and not the emitter itself causing it to go high.

 

The missile should target above to maximise the fragmentation warhead, this is correct

[Coyote_One]

5 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi,

 

We have tested and all seems ok to us. Maybe desync or scripts shutting the radar off? 

The missile should target above to maximise the fragmentation warhead, this is correct

I just find it strange that it this is the correct operation, to hit the target and explode 10 feet high. At least from the limited videos of an AGM88 it doesn't look like they do that in real life. Most videos show it hiring the target directly from the top-down.

 

According to the reddit link another player kindly posted in a reply above, I'm not the only one with the issue. I cannot pinpoint exactly which update this began to happen either but I just hope this brings it to your attention seeing as how there are many others facing the same issues.

 

If the missile is supposed to aim higher that's fine but when it explodes 15 feet above the target that's where the error possibly is. Because it explodes too high, no damage ( or not enough damage) is being dealt. 

 

I just hope they your team can keep an eye on this issue since I'm not the only one, and I'll continue to provide more videos and track files in the future whenever this happens. And I'll bring them to your attention as time goes on.

[kengou]

Just happened to me in single player, simple mission with no scripts, firing on a SD radar, it exploded just above it with no damage registered. After that I fired directly on the 11 tracking radar and killed it in one missile.

[TAW_Keris]

I have been experiencing this issue as well. The harm sometimes just flew over and hit the ground rather the SA11 in MP servers. Following this thread

[TheBigTatanka]

I'm sure ED is referencing real world data that shows a HARM will not usually kill the radar's vehicle, but just damage/destroy the antenna. Detonating above and in front of the vehicle sounds right to me too, based on some conversations with HARM shooters.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[TheBigTatanka]

The HARM works really well to supress a radar, as in making the enemy think twice about turning on their equipment. If you can kill EW radars, then it forces the enemy to use targeting radars to find stuff, thus exposing them to detection by HARM shooters.

What is really needed is a standalone EW platform, or a specialized pod like the Viper's HTS which can generate rough coordinates for where the threat is. Then those coordinates can be passed to someone with a good air to ground radar, or a TGP. They can then locate the threat and put a glide bomb onto it, which will kill the vehicle and take that threat out of the war.

I know that's more about tactics than the perceived lack of lethality from the HARM... But it's just a reminder that these systems are meant to be used in combination and coordination.

I too have shot several HARMs in DCS at SA-8s and SA-6s in POS and HAS mode, only to have them hit and cause very little damage, or near miss.... But you just have to keep shooting HARMs for the duration that your strikers are in the MEZ.

Last night we ran a 4 ship in a SEAD CAP shooting POS mode HARMs at a single SA-6 site to cover our strikers for the few minutes they were in the MEZ. The SEAD CAP ended up shooting 8 HARMs (spaced out for a HARM impact every minute) at the single SA-6. We don't know if we killed it, but it didn't bother the strikers -- mission accomplished.

We also flowed 2 vipers behind the strikers in HAS mode, filtered for any mobile SAM threats.... 4 HARM shots against 2 SA-8s. We killed one, and not the other -- but we may have damaged it enough to force the radar down -- again, no launches, so mission accomplished.

If we had a DEAD flight (and coordinates), we would have sent them in to actually kill the radar vehicles.

So again..... 1. This will all be better when we have tools to generate coordinates based on the emissions of threat radars, and 2. SEAD/DEAD is a large coordinated effort. Guys trying to take down SA-11s with 4 HARMs are going to be disappointed. Real world, an SA-11 attack would be the whole mission for a squadron on that go, using tactics that play to the weaknesses of that system.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[Coyote_One]

https://clips.twitch.tv/ShyTemperedRavenYouDontSay

Heres some more reference footage of what keeps happening. Ive had to remove the Sa-11's from the mission for this reason sadly. 

[Florence201]

So, why not try and narrow down what’s happening. My suggestion (as I did when reporting mobile SAMs problem). 
 

1.  Fresh mission. Test against SA11

2. Replace SA11 with a different system. Test 

3, Rinse and repeat for all systems

4. Post trk files supporting results found

[Machalot]

7 hours ago, Skuzzlebutt said:

https://clips.twitch.tv/ShyTemperedRavenYouDontSay

Heres some more reference footage of what keeps happening. Ive had to remove the Sa-11's from the mission for this reason sadly. 

This exact thing happened to me yesterday on a multiplayer server.

[Mako8251]

Yep been seeing the same thing that people are reporting here.  Drives me nuts, something in DEC changed. Thats when I noticed it first. Prior to DEC I have taken hundreds of HARM shots and I would say 90% plus disabled the RADAR now its more like 20%.

 

[Aigle2]

Same in F-18C for me !

Edited February 6, 2021 by Aigle2

[Datajack]

This happened to me couple of days ago on our training server.  I fired 4 harms at 4 different targets.  3 hit, and one missed high.  It exploded above the target but did no damage.

[CajunJosh]

They certainly don't appear to be as effective as they used to.  Is it possible this is related to poor splash damage modeling?  It would make sense if the harm were to explode right over the target potentially causing damage to the sensitive equipment but since disabling vs destroying units isn't modeled in DCS is this real world behavior rendering them less effective in the DCS environment?

[XCNuse]

8 hours ago, CajunJosh said:

They certainly don't appear to be as effective as they used to.  Is it possible this is related to poor splash damage modeling?  It would make sense if the harm were to explode right over the target potentially causing damage to the sensitive equipment but since disabling vs destroying units isn't modeled in DCS is this real world behavior rendering them less effective in the DCS environment?

This is entirely it.

 

HARMS, as according to what BN and others have stated, usually stay above the targets and explode above them, versus running straight into them.

And while it's great DCS "models" this........

 

DCS' damage model on vehicles etc. can't make sense of how this is supposed to function.

 

This is where ED and what happens IRL need to be written up on a drawing board along with a few other things; where, it doesn't make sense to simulate one aspect, but the game engine itself doesn't function with said simulation; thus.... breaking the entire simulation aspect.

[Anxzie]

Just happened to me. Watched it hit above the SA-15 radar 2x and no damage. 

[Northstar98]

On 2/13/2021 at 3:08 PM, XCNuse said:

This is entirely it.

 

HARMS, as according to what BN and others have stated, usually stay above the targets and explode above them, versus running straight into them.

And while it's great DCS "models" this........

 

DCS' damage model on vehicles etc. can't make sense of how this is supposed to function.

 

This is where ED and what happens IRL need to be written up on a drawing board along with a few other things; where, it doesn't make sense to simulate one aspect, but the game engine itself doesn't function with said simulation; thus.... breaking the entire simulation aspect.

 

I absolutely agree.

 

It's the same with the warhead actually, and the proximity fuse (looking at the model, there's an aperture which I think is for a laser proximity fuse, but only on the bottom, near the mid-section), right now the fuse is modelled as being spherical, anything within a radius of 7m from the missile causes it to detonate, when it hould only really be checking directly underneath it.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Northstar98