KlarSnow

I don't know where ya'll are getting your info that the APG-70 is worse than the 63v1. They are essentially the same for air to air performance. The 63v1 replaces several of the old APG-63 components with APG-70 components and keeps some things from the OG 63 like the antenna. This was to improve the mean time between failure and reliability of the 25 year old APG-63's and make it so that more modern and easily accessible parts were what were being acquired to keep them running. For all intents and purposes their performance is the same. Don't know what the comment about usability has to do with anything. The F-15E's HOTAS and interface from the front seat works exactly the same and is modelled after the APG-63 in the F-15C... its nothing like the F-14A/B where you MUST operate it from the backseat.

...After the bump up... that at a minimum is going to make it miss the ballistic release short. And no the bump up is not usually included in LARs for this, it all assumes you are lasing it and is giving you an idea of when you can get it to your target, not where it will ballistically fall and hit it.

The GBU-24 does not fly a ballistic path once released, it will trajectory shape no matter the altitude released at and is very unlikely to hit the target if left without a laser. This is very different to a PW2 bomb which will fall essentially ballistically if it never sees a laser spot. That being said delay lasing is in fact a required tactic for low level attacks. If you continuous lase from release, the bomb is highly likely to fall short or your range will be reduced, especially if you loft it. Once it sees the laser the bomb will attempt to go direct at whatever angle it sees the laser at. This can result in you cutting the loft short of you have the laser on too soon. Max range at low altitude would be timing the laser to go on as the bomb is starting to pitch over from its loft. Anything earlier will result in a shorter bomb.

Yes a loft assist will improve the missiles performance. You just have to understand that by doing so you are risking the missile doing something unpredictable like flipping over backwards or not guiding properly. If thats worth you doing a pitch up to help out then sure go for it. If you get absolutely infuriated if the missile messes up once, then maybe stay away from it and just stick to the recommended employment which is straight and level. It should be mostly fixed to my understanding, but there is no guarantee that if you start employing it outside the recommendation that it wont start doing crazy backflips or start doing some of the strange things that happened before. Thats really all that Ironmike or anyone is saying by the recommended employment. If you want to get the best chance of things working as intended, employ straight and level. If you want potentially better kinematics and performance BUT at the risk of the missile doing something untoward an unknowable amount of the time, that’s what the loft assist can buy you. At this point its kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place with what can be done to it for flight guidance. All employment options are options but you the user must understand what you are risking by going for a min max employment mindset. 9/10 times it will probly work fine, but 1/10 it may just yote itself into nowhere, and right now that is not something that can be controlled with any guarantee without going back to prepatch loft values.

There have been several sources presented and discussed and compared to the in game performance in this very thread if you go back and read through it. The overall conclusion so far is that the AIM-54A is pretty accurately represented. Kinematically it is insanely close to known data points. Guidance wise, I don't know what you are expecting but the AIM-54A has a pretty good amount of data out on it if you know where to look. Some of those sources have been presented in this thread. The AIM-54A very accurately replicates the limitations of the real missile based on known data. It will go dumb if snipped early in TWS. You MUST support it to an active state. If you shoot it in PD-STT it is a giant sparrow and will never go active. Capabilities it may or may not have beyond this are limited by the default API seeker implementation. There is no way for Heatblur to change what happens. The AIM-54C you are correct there is not very many good sources for how it works, so heatblur has taken the assumption that has been implied in that it works more like an AIM-120 than the AIM-54A does. it will go active on its own if you snip it, it will go active if snipped during PD-STT. There is no definitive source you can point to that says it does these things. But Heatblur have decided that either their internal sources are good enough or the mountain of ancillary evidence thats out there is good enough. Again before you go making these claims educate yourself on what IS out there. There is a lot of data which you seem to have not referenced. Cause it all points to the implementation heatblur has done.

If you think it is unrealistic, find a source on the AIM-54 that proves the current implementation is incorrect and send it to heatblur. Saying you feel this or you feel that will not change anything without something to prove your assertion. Every change or implementation they have done has matched all available data about the missile quite well. Since the initial thrust reduction patch in september there was another patch that has broken the lofting algorithm, this is known about and is being worked on. At this moment, today in Open Beta the missile is underperforming compared to as intended in many situations because the lofting algorithm is broken. Everything else is as intended.The AIM-54 is one of the most complex missiles out there with a lot of limitations and issues. The AWG-9 is one of the most powerful but also weakest computationally radars out there. All of the issues you are running into are realistic to the extent of hard quantifiable data that is available about either system. If you have a source to disprove this then do so.

All that document says is that the missile searches an uncertainty volume around the cue. It does not state how that volume is defined. It also does not state that the volume is static. It very much stands to reason that if there is a loss of update, that the missile should expand its parameters to find something. And just to be clear Cheapshot is not snipping the missile before it is active. Cheapshot is snipping the missile at HPRF active, so Cheapshot tactics implies the missile is HPRF active and searching for or has found the target. US Army Brevity link CTRL-F Cheapshot in that document. Without HPRF, or HPRF indications in the cockpit in DCS it is currently Impossible to do Cheapshot tactics. There is no terminology for snipping the missile before HPRF active, that would be a trashed or snipped shot, or just not supported to active.

You can support an AIM-7M in Pulse with CW, and use flood in the tomcat with zero issues, whatever the position of the PD switch is. You can even swap between PD and CW mid flight with no issue. I think this is a fallacy that has to do with a poor understanding of inverse monopulse. There are many reasons why phantoms may or may not have been upgraded until late in their life. I seriously doubt CW vs PD had anything to do with it.

The AIM-7M worked with CW, it was compatible with pulse and the CW Illuminator on the tomcat.

There is an F-4G -1 from ~1993 that has AIM-7M in the approved list of loadouts. After TO 1F-4-1167, that TO is a F-4 (all types) TO, not an F-4G (specific)TO, so it is the same modification across any phantom that has it. If you look in the F-4E -1 from 1986 it has the same TO in it as the F-4G-1, even though it doesn't explicitly state it could carry an AIM-7M, just says AIM-7F. Conclusion I draw from this is that whatever that TO did made it compatible with both the AIM-7F and M, however they did not approve the AIM-7M until later on, There is no indication that anything other than them adding the letter M to the TO was required to be able to employ it. Essentially, the F-4G and F-4E had the exact same A/A capability and the same radar, if an AIM-7M was cleared for flight on an F-4G it was cleared for flight on an F-4E, now this probably only happened in the last couple of years before the F-4E was retired in the 1990's, but it is a completely reasonable.

What range are you shooting at, and compare that to the curves. Shorter ranged shots will have lower top speeds because the missile doesnt stay in the loft and thinner atmosphere as much. Longer range shots will go faster and get up into 100K plus feet. Mach 1 is the baseline for employment. If you are looking for peak mach you need to be faster. 1.2 is a decent starting speed. Dont expect the missile to reach above mach 4 unless you are going faster than mach 1.5 at launch. Again, look at the data presented, the missile is behaving as it should. You will have to work much harder to get it to reach higher speeds. page prior to what I posted, this is how you get the missile to go faster than mach 4. Note the launch airspeeds in the tacviews. Faster than mach 1.5…

Check this post and the previous 2-3 pages in front of it out. 30,000 feet is low, get up to 40,000 feet and you will see better performance. Mach 4 numbers will only really happen if you are very fast and very high.

That R-37 didnt become an actually operational missile until nearly 2020, its also not in DCS. Just cause they tested something in 1993 does not mean they managed to make it work in 1993. Until very recently the R-37 was in the same boat as the AIM-152, nice test missile that just never got off the ground. I think you will also find that the R-33 is not much more of a threat in DCS than the R-27 series missile. It used to have ridiculous energy retention and speed (maintaining mach 4 over a 60 mile straight line shot) much like the original LOMAC AIM-54 until sometime last year when ED made it obey the laws of physics again. Now it has nowhere near the range or capability of the AIM-54A or C for that matter.SARH only to boot.

In the 1990's Mig-29S's would not be running around with wall to wall R-77's. If they were russian Mig-29S's they would never be carrying them since the RUAF never acquired the baseline R-77, it was only exported. Second, The R-77 in DCS has no range. How close are you getting before shooting that it is a factor? If you shoot at 40-50 miles you should easily have active missiles, or even missile impacts before they can even start shooting back. If they are evading your missiles and then you are unable to retarget them afterwards then you may need to rethink your tactics, but the R-77 really is nowhere near the AIM-120 or SD-10 in terms of capability. If you are sparrow only you will have issues, but the phoenix should completely outmatch it except for inside 5-10 miles.

The only Redfor Active Radar Missile AAM's in DCS are the R-77 and the SD-10. The SD-10 is an AMRAAM contemporary that IOC'd in like 2010 or whenever the JF-17 IOC'd (AFTER the F-14 and the AIM-54C were withdrawn from US service). So its at least 20 years newer than the AIM-54C and designed to compete with the AIM-120. So you tell me where that falls in the hierarchy laid out by Ironmike. Basically if you are fighting a JF-17 with SD-10's (A modern 4th gen fighter ) Expect it to be a very hard fight just like fighting an F-16 or F-18 with AIM-120C-5's. The R-77 is unusual and honestly doesn't really fit. Its more dangerous up close because its fast, but you can easily out range it. So treat it like an R27R, just know if you get too close it gets more dangerous since they can launch and leave, or kill you after you kill them and the missile is active. Otherwise its not that big a deal.

He is talking about the range from the shooter when the missile goes active, not the range from the missile to the target. IF you shoot at 30 nautical miles, using his rule of thumb, when the target is at 20 nautical miles from you, you have an active missile and can leave it. This roughly holds true in DCS btw. If you shoot a phoenix at 60 miles, when the target is ~around~ 35-40 miles from you, your missile should be active. The one caveat is this only really holds true IF YOU CRANK, if you do not its roughly 1/3 the shot range plus seeker distance This rule of thumb holds roughly true for the AIM-120 in DCS as well. Its just a rough rule of thumb for how quickly the missile will close the distance from you to the target and get active. Here. 32-33 miles from me at active range on a 60 NM shot with a crank. Not a particularly good shot or crank either, barely supersonic at launch, didnt slow down much after the shot, just stayed at .9 mach. I'm at 30,000 feet. Target is going .9 mach at 30,000 feet. Well within the margin of error for a live rule of thumb wag at the missile being active or not.

More realistic doesn't necessarily mean flies like players. There are plenty of examples IRL of real pilots reacting late, or not reacting at all when shot at, and just flying into an incoming weapon.

What mods did you have installed? I had this exact thing happen last night, and a repeat incident a couple of weeks ago. Exactly the same, on Mariana's, wings at 68 deg, multiplayer, wake turbulence was on, but should not have been a factor (jet that this affected in both cases was outside of wake turbulence). The first time it happened the player got flipped upside down but managed to recover, the second time, 1 -2 seconds of pitch and yaw shimmy, then the jet exploded. We had the Melbourne mod and the A-4E mod running on our server at the time.

This is a direct overlay of the current AIM-54C Mk-47 with a NASA simulation of its kinematics. Black line is the NASA simulation. Blue line is the current missile. Orange line is a proposed change to a value that had been assumed is incorrect. The missile matches the NASA simulation almost perfectly right now, and if anything is slightly overperforming in some areas.

Also turned the battery off and did some shots. Bang on the money to the NASA graph with some very slight overperformance that is well within any reasonable margin of error. I also edited the nozzle exit area to the value proposed (0.04525 m2) And performed the shots again so you can see how much over the NASA data it would perform and why that doesn't appear to at all match reality. Like seriously I was utterly surprised that every shot matched the NASA chart this well. I really don't think thrust vs drag for the missile can be any more accurate in the simulation.

The Clean Sweep Tacview I posted above I Started shooting at 50 Nautical miles and just fired as fast as I could after that, so closest shot was at 50, furthest was somewhere around 60. I didnt crank and due to the high closure you can see one of the Mig-29s (with an R27R) barely gets a shot off on me before my missile went active and he elected to defend, trashing his missile. An additional fulcrum also managed to get a shot off. If I had done a proper idle descent crank after my last missile was off the rail, they would have never been remotely close to being able to shoot at me. They all chose to do some form of hard drag maneuver, and all died. I got lucky in that none of my missiles missed, I could run the same thing over and have every single one of the missiles whiff if the variables change a little bit in how and when the AI maneuvers. You cannot control that, and no missile no matter how fast or high or close you shoot it is guaranteed to kill your target. Work in probabilities, not guarantees. I alsways assume an average of 50% Pk if I meet my wickets of good employment, doesnt mean if less happens I think something is broken, doenst mean if more happens I did particularly well. But there are many variables at play here and you can only control so many of them.

0 Degrees overlayed onto the NASA chart, shows that the missile still doesn't have enough drag. NASA simulation shows the missile decelerates below subsonic in ~55 seconds. Current AIM-54 Decelerates much slower, getting subsonic in the same parameters around 105-110 seconds. Staying supersonic for nearly twice as long. If this was done as an ACM shot, this would actually input more drag on the missile as it is trying to maintain level flight, whereas the NASA shot should have fixed fins thus being ballistic. The Blue lines are what you are looking at here And here is the 30 degree shot overlaid. This one wildly does not match the drag profile and seems more to match the 45 degree one, at least in shape. The end result is still that it has a much higher speed further on in its flight than the real one. Some of this may be down to the test parameters, I'm assuming you did this in an ACM shot. I do not know if that has the same control laws (not ballistic, tries to maintain attitude) as what the NASA simulation described (Fins fixed, completely ballistic). It is notable that this shot is actually closer to the NASA Mach than the zero degree profile. Red line vs the blue tacview curve.

So just look at what you are competing with, against a smaller RCS target like the JF-17 with a modern 21st century AAM, none of what you just described is unreasonable for the tomcat and the phoenix. Why should it be able to compete head to head like to like. Your advantages as always lie in early detect, which when you combine with a datalink picture (absolutely not unreasonable in a scenario with a JF-17) You should be maximizing that in order to get your shots off earlier since you will be able to shoot at a longer range than they will. Like this is legit probably the toughest fight in DCS right now for the tomcat, and is showcasing vastly different generations of capability. The fact that you can still employ and shape your tactics to affect what is happening in a 40 year older fighter with a 30 year older missile than your opponents speaks to how good it was, but you definitely shouldn't expect to dominate at all envelopes. Against what the tomcat was primarily intending to employ against, including all the way up to a SU-27 with an R-27ER, or a Mig-31 with an R-33 (the most potent threats until the tomcats retirement in 2006) the AWG-9/AIM-54C combo in particular would have been utterly dominant, much like it still is in DCS. If you are thinking you should be able to dominate an AMRAAM or SD-10 shooter inside their employment envelope I think you are starting to see why the AIM-54 was not continued and the AMRAAM took over as the employment weapon of choice.

How close are the targets, if they are close and then split after you fire that will very likely trash your phoenixes due to the track extrapolating. If you are concerned about it, shoot with a 54C in PD-STT. That will not have track extrapolation issues and will go active if they break your lock or you need to defend. The AI still defends at 10 miles from the missile just like in TWS. Shoot further, kill one or force it to turn around, and then the track will split for the second one. Or wait a few miles closer IIRC its usually around the 40 mile region where the res cell of TWS starts to breakout into azimuth.

So just to check since it was so close. The 110Nm Shot in the real world test terminated at 157 seconds of flight, assuming the target maintained a constant mach 1.5. If so, the AIM-54A in that shot travelled at an average speed of Mach 2.9 (1660 knots) to consumate the intercept at 72.5 Nautical miles of travelled distance. In my Shot against a slightly lower altitude target, the missile traveled a ground distance of 74 Nautical miles in 152 seconds. An average speed of Mach 3.05 (1750 Knots). So even now while this is definitely within any reasonable margin of error, the AIM-54A Mk-47 is just barely overperforming the real world. There is of course enough room for error in either my performance in flying and employing, or in details that are unknown from the real world test shot for this to be used as any more than a curiousity and a datapoint. Overall that it is THAT CLOSE is quite cool. Just to put some percentages to it, thats a time error of 3% shorter, a distance travelled error of 2% further, and a speed error of 4% faster. I'm going to dig up the old pre-patch motor values If I can find them and redo the shots and see how far off they were. Ok, Redid the shot above with the Pre-Patch Phoenixes just for comparison. The Old Mk-47A completed the shot in 138 seconds, travelled 77 Nautical Miles in that time, and flew at an average mach of ~3.35 percentage errors from the real shot are 13% shorter on time, 6% further on distance, and 15.5% faster on speed. The Old Mk-60 completed the shot in 121 Seconds, Travelled 80 Nautical Miles, and flew at an average mach of ~3.97 percentage errors from the real shot are 23% shorter on time, 10% further on distance, and 37% faster on speed. 110NmPhoenix-A PREPATCH shot.zip.acmi 110NmPhoenix-A CURRENT PATCH shot.acmi