What are the rear aspect missiles ?.

[KillEmAll88]

I'm trying to setup missions with IR missiles that only track from the general 6 o Clock. 

 

I know the blue US is the AIM9-M 

 

...but gave the red R60 and they shoot me down face to face prior to the merge. I want a position dogfight not a quick draw. 

[Exorcet]

The AIM-9M is all aspect, as is the L, which was the first all aspect version I believe. The rear aspect Sidewinders are either pre L (which includes the GAR-8) or the basic P version.

 

I think the R-60 is bugged, the non M should be rear aspect but can shoot from the front. The R-3/K-13/AA-2 is a copy of the early Sidewinder and is rear aspect only.

 

The in game encyclopedia might have some more info as well.

[WinterH]

AIM-9L,M,X, and P5 are all aspect.

R-60M is mostly all aspect. R-73 is all aspect.

R550 Magic II is too.

PL-5 on JF-17 also.

R-27T&ET as well, as far as I know.

 

The rest of player flyable IR missile's are all rear aspect. That said, AI sometimes can and do get front aspect shots with some of them just fine.

[KillEmAll88]

Thanks for the reply. 

 

See I thought the Aim9-X was all aspect 

And the M was the most basic Bluefor IR missile. 

 

I have cjecked with the in game encyclopedia but doesnt dive too much into degrees of capablilty. 

 

I know very little of the redfor side missile capabilities. 

[PE_Crni]

I think you are mixing up rear-aspect missiles with off-boresight capabilities of missiles.

 

First defines if the missile can track a target it is attacking from side or front (like AIM-9L or R-73, or MAgic II can). Second defines if the missile can launch at the target that is off attacking planes' line of flight (like AIM-9X or R-73 can, but AIL-9L or Magic II can't).

Edited April 2, 2021 by PE_Crni

[Hawkeye_UK]

Need to read the manuals, they will help.

 

Good luck.

[Harlikwin]

So, DCS has this weird gap in fox2's for the 60's and 70's.

 

Basically you have the west aim9B (Gar8), literally the first sidewinder, and then you hop forward to the P5, or Aim9L/MX which are high end all aspect missiles. AFAIK we don't have any of the intermediate VN and 70's era sidewinders in the game 9E/G/H/J etc. And they did represent significant improvements over the 9B while being inferior to 9L/M series. Also the PL-5 is Aim-9L ish clone.  Which makes building cold war scenarios a real pain. Either you're stuck in the early 60's with the 9B or you jump to like 1980 in terms of missile tech. Moreover none of the modern jets have the 9B listed even though I'm pretty sure they could all carry them. 

 

For Redfor it is somewhat better we basically have the K13 (slightly improved 9B) K13M, better yet, R60 and R60M (M should be almost all aspect) And then the R73 from the 80's. But then nothing after the R73. (There are improved versions of it) 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Harlikwin

[Exorcet]

6 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

So, DCS has this weird gap in fox2's for the 60's and 70's.

 

Basically you have the west aim9B (Gar8), literally the first sidewinder, and then you hop forward to the P5, or Aim9L/MX which are high end all aspect missiles.

 

 

 

We have two P's in game. The P and P5. The P is pretty good stand in for the J.

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

We have two P's in game. The P and P5. The P is pretty good stand in for the J.

 

Really what carries it? 

[Exorcet]

A few of the US fighters can at least. The F-4E, F-5E, F-14A (the old one, I don't think Heatblur's can), F-15C.

[Rick50]

 

Rear Aspect:

Your gunsight needs to be pointed at enemy, AND you gotta be behind the enemy's exhaust, or the missile can't follow. Old. Some couldn't handle a target that was pulling G's and jinking, so you kinda had to time your missile shot to when the enemy was going to take a maneuvering pause, catch him while he catches his breath. These can often be fooled by the sun (good luck shooting the sun!), and are easily distracted by flares. They were better than nothing, but they were not too hot for anyting more difficult than shooting down a bomber. I think they typically had a Pk of about 10%, maybe 20.

 

 

All Aspect:

Your gunsight or HUD needs to be pointed at the enemy, but he can be comming towards you or even a side shot. Because the seeker head is much better at tracking a jet, and can even detect modest temperature changes from friction on the front surfaces. These missiles can follow a jet that's pulling G's, the main limit is how much energy your missile will lose before it gets to the enemy jet. Flares can distract some of these, some of the time, so it's worth putting out flares, but it's far from a guarantee to work. The first I know of these in use would have been the Royal Navy and RAF using Sidewinder Lima (Aim-9L) in the Falklands conflict, with an emergency rush purchase, delivery provided by the CIA while the task force was heading south. The result? Many downed Argentinian jets. These had a high Probability of Kill (Pk rating) that seemed to hover between about 75% to even 90%, depending on sources.

 

 

Off Boresight:

Your jet doesn't truly need to be pointed right at the enemy, because you point your helmet mounted sight at the enemy jet! The seeker head is even better quality than All Aspect. The seekers on these often have ability to ignore some flares, seeing that the flares are too hot to be engine exhaust and thus rejecting these. They'll also look for known cold spots, and I believe the best of them can even see the shape of the aircraft for tracking and target descrimination purposes. These often have thrust vectoring, and can sometimes even be shot "over your shoulder". The big limitation is that doing such a very high G maneuver will drain the missile's energy and velocity extremely fast, so while you can take a shot more easily, it might just run out of steam before getting to that enemy jet. Even with this limitation, it's still the best option if your airforce can afford to buy them! I believe the SU-27 Flanker and Archer was the first version of the Off Boresight system, then the Israeli Python 3, and then Aim-9X, and a few more after that.

I don't know what the modern stuff has for a Pk rating, but i'd expect it to be quite high, but today's jets have more ECM systems, and have huge engine power to accelerate away and extend, which if combined with a high off boresight shot, might result in a defensive jet getting lucky and living to survive another day. But if these modern heaters get a fairly straight shot, I'd be expeting to get some shade under silk! Because the missiles have outstanding seekers that won't let go, have awesome agility to match defensive jinking, and since it's a forward shot, still have energy to intercept.

 

These days it seems that in what little air to air combat there is, I only seem to hear about Aim-120 Amraams  anymore, though I'm sure some Flanker operators have their own records that I've not seen.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Rick50

[WinterH]

12 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

 

Really what carries it? 

F-5E does, I think C-101CC too optionally can, as well as the A-4E mod. These are the ones I can remember. RB 24J on Viggen is also roughly AIM-9J equivalent as far as I know.

[Harlikwin]

6 hours ago, WinterH said:

F-5E does, I think C-101CC too optionally can, as well as the A-4E mod. These are the ones I can remember. RB 24J on Viggen is also roughly AIM-9J equivalent as far as I know.

 

Forgot about the viggen. Yeah one of them is rear aspect. I gotta double check what the 15c can actually carry. I always just use magics on the 101. 

 

Problem is I think the seeker behaviour is defined by the jet. At least that's what I heard. So you cant stick a 9p on a harrier and have it be rear aspect. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by Harlikwin

[KillEmAll88]

 I have been messing with this in editor and pretty annoyed with it. 

Anyways I guess I could fight some turd aircraft that will take rear aspect only missiles.

What I wanted was to fight some 29s,27s,30s, list goes on but I have to try and dodge their

12 o clock shots while I imagined it being merge and get their 6.

 

 These aircraft just don't accept Vietnam era IRs (which may be accurate IRL but sucks) 

 

 I see Growling doing these types of fights with IRs all the time,perhaps he is running some light mods

where the enemy isnt getting some cheap 12 O clock launch. 

 

It's not that I cant CHAFF\FLARE, turn,merge, then fight the 6 ,but that's not really what I wanted...

 

Guns only is fun,but nothing better than a tough position fight with a couple missed IRs that then turns into a gun kill. 

I have more fun air refueling than launching AMRAAMs 

[Ironhand]

You need to set the AI to hold fire until either in or out of a trigger zone. That should take care of your face shot problem.

[Dragon1-1]

15 hours ago, KillEmAll88 said:

  I see Growling doing these types of fights with IRs all the time,perhaps he is running some light mods

where the enemy isnt getting some cheap 12 O clock launch. 

He might be flying in MP against a friend. Then, you can have a gentlemen's agreement to stick to rear aspect shots. For AI, you need to set up the triggers to stop it from taking the head-on shot. 

[Snappy]

On 4/3/2021 at 11:09 PM, Harlikwin said:

 

 

 

Problem is I think the seeker behaviour is defined by the jet. At least that's what I heard. So you cant stick a 9p on a harrier and have it be rear aspect. 

 

 

Are you talking about DCS or reality? I really don’t think it works that way, neither in reality or DCS.

Maybe (and thats a big IF)  you can cue the older missiles via radar lock onto non rear aspect targets or head on targets, but there is no real sense in that, because once the missile leaves the rail , its still just an old rear aspect missile and can’t keep track of the target because its simply outside of its seekerheads capabilities.

 

Since the Harrier variant in DCS doesnt have a radar and so can’t even cue its own more advanced missiles I highly doubt it can somehow “enhance” a -P Sidewinder.

 

That is also my experience in the Viggen which can carry both all-aspect and rear aspect swedish variants of the Aim-9.

One will pick up head on targets, the other one won’t.So even in DCS its not defined by aircraft.

 

The only thing, which might work in DCS and I think it does also in reality is, depending on which rear aspect variant we re talking about, is, you might use an aircraft’s radar to speed up the acquisition  process on a rear aspect target somewhere in the fwd quarter of your aircraft by having the radar tell the seekerhead where to look.

But even that would still be limited to the seekerhead cone and tracking capability.

 

 

kind regards,

 

 Snappy 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Snappy

[Rick50]

 

I'm pretty sure he's talking about DCS and how it's elements are programmed.  Meaning, it might be the Swedish Sidewinder was developed by Heatblur specifically for the Viggen, Phoenix for the Tomcat, rather than by ED for any appropriate module. From what I gather, this is generally true, wpns are programmed for each module, but that this is planned to be changed, so that wpns will be part of the core DCS engine rather than module specific. At least I think that's the situation and future plan.  And maybe there will be exceptions, like Heatblur's Phoenix... 

 

But yes, you are correct, taking an old heater and putting it on a new fancy flying computer, doesnt make the missile better. But I also know that some old missiles have been refurbished with new seeker heads, giving a great boost in capability. For instance the Soviet Archer R-73 and earlier R-60's have both been offered upgrades.

[dundun92]

On 4/3/2021 at 4:09 PM, Harlikwin said:

Problem is I think the seeker behaviour is defined by the jet.

No. Rear/all aspect is defined in the missile .lua, specifically whether its a cooled seeker IIRC

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, dundun92 said:

No. Rear/all aspect is defined in the missile .lua, specifically whether its a cooled seeker IIRC

 

Well, once the missile leaves the rail thats right, but I believe the issue with adding random missiles to random jets is that for example if  you added an aim9B to the harrier, it would  be an aim9b with a SEAM mode and all the other  goodies along with a wide angle seeker head search and so forth. So I think some of the missile behavior pre-launch is done in the plane. IDK,  maybe Zeus was full of it.

 

1 hour ago, Rick50 said:

 

I'm pretty sure he's talking about DCS and how it's elements are programmed. 

100% correct.

 

IRL is a whole other story with avionics integration for some things.

[Hamood]

"Rear Aspect" missiles can sometimes get a frontal lock. Idk if this is realistic (it seems like it might be).

[Harlikwin]

2 hours ago, Hamood said:

"Rear Aspect" missiles can sometimes get a frontal lock. Idk if this is realistic (it seems like it might be).

 

In DCS, all your dreams come true.

 

[Rick50]

3 hours ago, Hamood said:

"Rear Aspect" missiles can sometimes get a frontal lock. Idk if this is realistic (it seems like it might be).

 

Ha... no!

 

"rear aspect" exactly means that you should only get a lock on a jet when you are pointing your 'Winder up it's tailpipe!  Sure, it MIGHT a brief lock on afterburner if full stage, but it ought to break lock before you could launch, and having it actually intercept a jet won't happen unless you are behind it!

 

[Ramsay]

On 4/10/2021 at 9:13 PM, Harlikwin said:

Well, once the missile leaves the rail thats right, but I believe the issue with adding random missiles to random jets is that for example if  you added an aim9B to the harrier, it would  be an aim9b with a SEAM mode and all the other  goodies along with a wide angle seeker head search and so forth. So I think some of the missile behavior pre-launch is done in the plane. IDK,  maybe Zeus was full of it.

 

I don't know the details i.e. if it's a DCS API limitation, but the L-39ZA carries both R-3S (rear) and R-60M (limited all aspect) missiles and BOTH give an "all aspect" lock tone, IIRC the dev's said they could only implement one type of seeker logic for the player and had chosen the "all aspect" version, which meant the incorrect logic carried over to the R-3S.

The limitation also likely carries over to the AI as I've often been shot from the front in merges, despite give them the older rear aspect R-3S. 

[Harlikwin]

20 hours ago, Ramsay said:

 

I don't know the details i.e. if it's a DCS API limitation, but the L-39ZA carries both R-3S (rear) and R-60M (limited all aspect) missiles and BOTH give an "all aspect" lock tone, IIRC the dev's said they could only implement one type of seeker logic for the player and had chosen the "all aspect" version, which meant the incorrect logic carried over to the R-3S.

The limitation also likely carries over to the AI as I've often been shot from the front in merges, despite give them the older rear aspect R-3S. 

 

Yeah, thats what I seemed to recall reading at some point too.