GGTharos

Hi Maestro, I hope you are willing to consider re-coding the notch mechanics. I sent the math to ED via BIGNEWY almost a year ago, so I imagine you have it - it is a document from a research/physics piece directly related to detectability of aircraft in clutter and gives formulas for computing the clutter and extracting the radar return of the target IIRC - the basic idea is exactly what is being discussed in this thread: The notch does not properly exist if you can eliminate clutter in other ways, ie. range binning. It's possible that some radars would never be able to ignore this filter, but I expect those would be an exception. As far as missile go, there is a description of the Sparrow's anti-split-S protection in one of the F-15C -34's. (NOTE: You can of course introduce your own clutter to force more filtering etc, thus reducing Pk). To further expand on the topic a bit, this treatment is needed for every radar in DCS (missile OR aircraft... or boat/SAM etc). The look-down code is far too simple, and the 'look down effect' is certainly more complex IRL; antenna depression does not truly imply look down into clutter, but this is how DCS models the situation. It would be good to see this change. Naturally, this should probably be followed up by coding in other effects like an aircraft's variable RCS, and correcting how the 'miss distance' works with respect to low altitude and aircraft maneuver. PS: I will be away from any of the above materials for a long time, so I am unable to share. However, these are all materials that ED also posesses. PPS: I think quite importantly, using the math I shared for computing the ground clutter instead of antenna elevation will capture a tactical use of clutter that does not exist in DCS - consider that a SAM can be 'looking up' at a mountain in certain situations. An aircraft can fly close to the mountain and create a look-down clutter situation for that radar even though it is technically 'looking up' if we consider the antenna angle

The manuals say that supporting the 120 beyond pitbull has no effect on Pk. Of course, that's probably not entirely true.

Do your warm-up before you enter the expected combat zone. Do a full 360 or if you prefer, 90 one direction then 90 in the other; you can do this at 4g or if you prefer, at 5g 5g. No need to go nuts. If you're at high altitude, don't bother - you'll get your opportunity to warm up as the fight descends, and you're not going to pull a whole lot of g for any significant amount of time up there. To answer your question about how it works: Unfortunately I don't have solid numbers for you except that you must perform the warm-up at a minimum of 4g. The best I remember is this: 4g for ~20 sec. Lasts for about 10min if you do nothing.

^^^^ Yes, Yoda's ERI (Eagle Radar Improvement). He was maligned by certain members of the community for this and the RWR/Datalink enhancements.

Just need to update FC3 F-15C radar range according to the documents that were provided to ED, then you can squeeze out AIM-120C performance. A few small issues like correcting TWS representation and adding a little information on the VSD (waypoints and cursor-to-selected WP distance on VSD like IRL aircraft) and you'd immediately have a more effective air superiority fighter taking as much advantage of 120C as TWS can (for more, you need AESA radar).

Thanks for looking into this deeper. Yep, I would expect that this dome change would increase drag, but in exchange the radar image is probably less refracted and possibly increases sensor accuracy.

The 4.5 sec figure is an issue mathematically vs the weight of propellant they list - it blows up the ISP. The only way to fix this is to adjust the propelland mass for boost/sustain and also cut the sustainer time down.

Hi Maestro, normally I like to run tests before I present anything but ... I don't have access to anything until August - certainly I failed to do at least my back-of-the-envelope calculations this time, but also I'm not concerned with Mach 4 in practice , it's just a reference point Thanks for responding. I have seen the same sources then. I don't know that Fleeman has the right numbers for the motor, I'm inclined to trust that source but on the other hand there are no guarantees. Pilots do know, they have resources for this sort of thing ... but they may not be able to talk about it: Vault documents and also debriefs from real and simulated combat make a lot of data available, data from instrumented shots is likely available. I have no doubt with respect to your skills and knowledge, just FYI - I am bringing this to your attention as IMHO the missile is running a little slower than I believe it should; not my much, mach 0.2 or so. It's also possible that this is caused by guidance issues, wasting speed in unnecessary maneuvers in the boost stage.

Sorry Maestro but my opinion is that: It is most certainly under-performing. It is a mach 4 missile (you can see this 'up to mach 4' in a lot of literature) and you cannot get it there even if you launch it at mach 2 in DCS. You also cannot easily get that speed by altering the aerodynamics, so working with the motor arrangement is the only thing that's left. You circled mach 2.9 but if I had sent you this document you'd be asking the same questions I'll ask now 'At what launch speed and altitude'? And I also have a very strong suspicion that if you asked the SMEs and they were willing to comment on this at all, they might not be averse to adding 0.2-0.3M to that missile's top speed in game. I'm fairly certain that I've seen almost all the same sources that you have for this motor, and there is always something that does not add up.

The SMCs are full or 'errors' and there's not reason to regard the boost/sustain weights are correct. Put for 4.5s for the boost, 6.5 for sustain, give boost 105lbs and susain 30, you get something really reasonable and that matches up really well to other qualitative information.

The Russians didn't really copy western designs ... yes, they copied the 9B and learned something new about how to arrange the missile internally, but the rest is all them. The PL-10 probably started with Aspide (a foreign AIM-7 modification) but it's hard to tell what of it is in there. The Russians likely contributed ARH seeker technology or knowledge. The SD-10/PL-10 isn't exactly a great missile, but it's not a missile that should be ignored either.

Problems with the early sparrows and their causes were well documented, nothing random about them. It was a byproduct of the technologies used, maintenance, and the shooting aircraft's radar characteristics of the time. The average Pk of 7Ms was ~0.34, and it has higher for the well stored and well maintained samples, though the sampling was low. The R-27 hasn't got a good combat example to its name for the shots taken. And none of this really has anything to do with the rocket motor anyway.

The effective prozimity fuzing on the Phoenix is ~50' (15). Don't expect it to go boom at longer distances.

I don't believe any of that is really correct. More likely the rocket motor configuration in game is incorrect. The documents they are sourced from are fraught with errors (easy to see if you do some basic math) and ED has settled on an acceptable solution. The AIM-7 was never a 'crap missile' ... like all missiles, major challenges were faced during the Vietnam and Korea era in terms of reliability mostly, and even AIM-7F still had a good old con-scan system. The AIM-7M however proved to be a reliable missile and oddly enough reasonable competitor to the R-27R, which is why the R-27RE was produced.

GE -129.

The manual I have for Harpoon (B-52 launched) shows Harpoon sea-skimming (if programmed this way) until it's time to pop-up to search for the target, then come back down to sea-skimming. Of course, my manual is quite old and guidance software could have easily changed since then.

Couldn't this be automated? You could choose the offset or it could be set automatically according to that map

And look at the last bullet point.

Nothing strange there. To get a Phoenix to mach 5 you have to launch it at mach 2.

It does. It uses the radar equation. Perhaps what you mean to say is that it does not model complex RCS.

The obvious thing is that copypasta has been a thing as long as you could overlay one paper over another to trace things over and thus...copy/paste. In a very physical manner.

Because it's the WCS simulator. As well, this isn't the only document with suspect/incorrect graphs. It happens in western ones as well. You can also run some very ballpark math and see that the graph has suspicious behavior. As you can see mathematically the differences are not huge.

You won't be able to replicate NASA's shots in DCS, they fly a specific profile which is not available in the game. That said, the graph does give you an idea of the missile's performance, but who shoots at M1.2 at 45000' with 45 degrees of pitch?

It is, but even FM is probably different. The eagle has its own set of DCS problems in that region.

was this official or an 'it just happened'? The M link isn't exactly hidden, it's an additional set of pulses embedded in the radar signal. It seems to typically occupy the guidance signal space. In any case the 'explanation' isn't always that important, consistency is.