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Everything posted by GGTharos
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I think they do, but rather the miss distance is way too big. For a 120 it should be next to nothing vs. a non-maneuvering target in any condition from things I've seen and read for example. Maneuvers normal to the POM would upset that and cause seeker settling so there the miss distance would increase until settled. But this thing that's in the game is always huge, or at least it looks that way.
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Searching for proof of underperforming AN/APG-73 radar
GGTharos replied to GumidekCZ's topic in DCS: F/A-18C
Now take an educated guess at how 84km translates to nm -
reported JF-17's signal strength is always at Max - RWR Bug
GGTharos replied to pauldy's topic in F-15C for DCS World
That's incorrect with regards to the FC3 F-15C. It is indeed 'max strength' and it is some sort of bug/data issue. This is a generic Deka issue with respect to the FC3 RWRs. -
How much terrain masking time required to break lock of an Aim 120
GGTharos replied to darkman222's topic in Weapon Bugs
Upon watching the video again I'm not sure it's tracking you at all after you break lock, it's merely biased to continue with the same g as before, which is exactly the technique a pilto would use to track his nose onto you if he loses visual for a short time. This is evidenced by the little 'jerk' when it locks onto you again. So to answer your question ... you had already broken the lock and it racquired.. If you want the missile not to hit you stay out of its sight until it passes. Maybe there's a bug hiding somewhere in there but I certainly do not see it. PS: It's not going to go 'mad dog' after losing track. 'Mad Dog' is specifically the case where the missile is launched without target data to begin with. So on break-lock for the seeker it goes into whatever its search mode says it should do and likely tries to recover a target matching last seen target parameters as much as possible (speed, closure, direction) ... you're not doing anything to be out of those parameters, not that you could do anything like that at the short distance this missile was launched. -
It was theoretical (wind tunnel study) a conversion of an AIM-9 to a radar guided missile, so closer in shape to an AIM-120.
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Aim 120 / Aim9x Performance against low flying Planes/Helos
GGTharos replied to Wobbly's topic in Weapon Bugs
That is incorrect - IRH also suffers from scintillation and other effects, but again the newer the missiles the less it cares. Arguably the 9X wouldn't care one bit. Having said all this, both radar and IR missiles will suffer from things like background noise (different types, but still raises the noise floor), scintillation from the target maneuvering and the background (more for radar guided and older IR) and reflections from the ground/water, both in RF and IR wavelengths - as in a duplicate target image caused by IR reflection of the target's IR from the ground, same from RF, and/on in particular for RF, ground-bounce jammers. Again, it's a complicated and difficult subject. ED has made huge progress and brought a lot of good things, but unfortunately for whatever reason they chose not to model certain nuances of the things the did implement, which has a huge impact as you can see here. -
Aim 120 / Aim9x Performance against low flying Planes/Helos
GGTharos replied to Wobbly's topic in Weapon Bugs
It is both intended and incorrect. AIM-120s are perfectly capable of scoring direct hits often against non-maneuvering cruise-missile targets flying at tree-top levels. This clutter simulation should only apply to very old missiles, even AIM-7M didn't have this type of problem. The miss distance should increase if the target maneuvers, then settle to something small quickly (the newer the missile the quicker, and very old missiles maybe never settle). Instead the miss distance as implemented by ED is huge, does not take maneuvering into account like it ought to and appears to be set up to cause misses even at high altitude, just at a lower rate. The simulation capability is going in the right direction but the effect is incorrect compared to IRL IMHO and according to a bunch of literature regarding seeker settling caused by scintillation which in the effect that I believe they're attempting to simulate here. -
Concerns about G-Onset and Damage to wings
GGTharos replied to ElvisDaKang's topic in Bugs and Problems
Which doesn't help. The track is necessary because it can reproduce airframe fatigue if any or indicate a bug. At least with tacview though you should be able to do the g vs. time plot and see if you've exceeded the aircraft's limits during your flight prior to that occurrence. If you cannot create an easily repeatable test for it then your anecdote is just that. -
Not just not ideal, back in the day they'd get missiles detonating way off target due to the EMI Ok, I'll philosophize this one a bit. What do we really know about IRL tactics? Not much really, and I'm pretty sure that what we believe to be mutual support would be viewed as a gamer-induced ignorant view on things which don't reflect reality ... because we really don't know anything. With that in mind, consider this: Why crank and notch if you can keep pressure on your opponents? Ok, as a single plane you can't do this, but IRL this just isn't the case. You've got a flight of 4 giving you ability to fly 2 elements from different directions, for example, and execute well-timed and coordinated drag-and-bag maneuvers. I suspect very few DCS players truly know how to do this. It's not that it doesn't happen, it's that the detailed knowledge and understanding of the entire process isn't something that's really common knowledge. I believe there aren't a lot of detailed explanations or descriptions of section tactics even, everything that's out there for us to find is very very basic and just a building block for further knowledge. With this in mind, and considering the significant effort in money and engineering required to get you a radar that's looking in a direction where your weapons aren't capable of firing in, combined with autonomous missiles that don't really need your contribution any more, as well as wingmen who will be supplying you with a picture (verbally or datalinked), coming from different directions or spacing such that not everyone needs to have their sensors pointed away from the targets at the same time, combined with tactics that break your bandits up so they start giving you a numbers advantage (temporary and localized but still an advantage) ... what do you need the side-looking A2A radar for? So again I submit these ideas come from game experience which is very lone-wolfy (it simply is what it is) compared to IRL where these things end up giving you only marginal advantages, IMHO. And it is my opinion that this is the case because so far, any and all side-looking arrays seem to be either geared towards A2G, Recon or otherwise if for A2A, they seem to pop up here and there (as well as the hugely gimballed radars) but they're not that common. There is some advantage for SA with AESAs because they can sweep large volumes of space very quickly, where MSAs simply could not, but it's really a matter or flying 90-deg turns to sweep vs 45-deg turns, and in the end your GCI/AWACS will be providing you with what you need anyway.
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Yep, they decided they were unnecessary. The room to expand is there of course. The Raptor will probably be phased out pretty quickly with NGAD coming in, but the F-35 didn't get cheek arrays either. Consider that they also require significant cooling and power while being smaller and thus far less powerful than the main array ... and they're probably not adding anything that having a wingman doesn't get you already.
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You're still thinking lone-wolf believe it or not. So, one aircraft guiding an other's missile is possible, the problem is that this opportunity is a) unlikely and b) if you had to use both radars and attack targets simultaneously the missiles and radars operating on the same frequency would suffer EMI and severely reduce Pk. IRL Vietnam/Korea experience - and exactly why radars in a flight are offset in frequencies to prevent interfering with each other (and therefore guiding each other's missiles) You have plenty of aircraft in your flight to help you attack your opponent with advantage and if you don't, the gimmick likely won't help you much. The missile meanwhile is pretty much guiding itself. Once it goes active you can do whatever, and the other guy has to respect the shot as well. And of course, today we have datalinks so hauling all that gimbal might not be all that advantageous and you can haul more antenna instead. There is a lot more to air combat tactics than just going head to head and throwing missiles at each other with a crank/notch added in.
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Because unlike most DCS players, they're not playing lonewolf multiplayer
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You just have to go fast enough. Consider missiles which don't have lifting bodies at all. No I don't think you're right, nor is it common sense - the body probably provides between 1/4 and 1/3 of the lift, which is significant. The lifting force increases very quickly with speed. I'm not going to say anything about takeoff or landing, just that it could theoretically remain in flight but this would be a 'get to a place where you can do a controlled ejection' deal. You couldn't fight with it. And again, that's assuming that the hydraulics didn't drain and you still can control the remaining surfaces. Depends. The F-15C has no feedback at all from the control surfaces, it's completely artificial and it's all hydro-mechanical, no FBW. I don't recall how the F-5 is set up, but, either way, you're not going to struggle for g IMHO. Thanks for the discussion
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The aircraft body provides lift and so do the horizontal stabilizers - they also provide control and some stability. There is some form of artificial feedback in most cases. With a sidestick like the F-16, probably none at all. They were also tabbing in and out of the game which can have its own strange consequences. Do what, alt-tab out of their plane? The whole 'pinky' thing is meaningless from all perspectives without a track.
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Scissors are done at low speed typically, it's not a high-g maneuver. Even it started that way, it wouldn't last long - you win the scissors by getting slower than the other guy. Most likely but not necessarily. I think for the F-5 unless you lose both wings at the same time it would be unstable obviously, if you lose both wings maybe you could fly it - it could even be stable-ish but forget about anything but gentle maneuvering. In other words, a sitting duck. But at the same time I suspect losing both wings would drain hydraulics so it's moot point anyway. I don't think that's a good solution. Because IRL these controls are assisted and pushing them hard isn't that difficult. It would also be perceived as some sort of input lag. No need to save people from themselves. You fight the speeds you end up fighting at, be it 120kts, Mach 2 or whatever's in-between. I don't know what this pinky movement is about - it may be that the flight control system in the F-5 isn't set up quite right and that would be a bug. But without seeing what was done and what happened, can't really say anything. The last is correct, transonic speeds require gentler handling overall. Depending on what data you can find, you'll find most aircraft are rated at 'less g' in that zone.
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Actual F-15C incidents in combat and training, and the USAF's G-LOC research. Not going to search it again, it's old and tired. Yes, none of this is relevant. Could/would etc. Does it? The answer is in some cases yes, in many cases no. A 10g pull will be transient, no one's really going to hold 10g in a turn. I agree, but this is why we should stick to discussing the fuselage. There are fairly hard engineering limits. 10 or 11g doesn't matter, pilots don't need to pull this much and typically would simply not do so. This is less the case with 4th gens but basically the g incidents increase to higher g as the 'gen' goes up, up to a limit. The 12g excursions for example, one was in an engagement and very transient, the other lasted a few seconds (pilot was trying to save his life coming out of a dive) and that aircraft never flew again. It landed but couldn't be maintained.
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There is a very good number of 10g+ over-g's in fighters, a few with 12g - none of this is anecdotes, it's part of the USAFs g-tolerance research.. No, you probably couldn't do more than 10 in an F-5, that is pretty much close to or at the ultimate structural limits. I don't know why you say that 10g kills pilots; it doesn't. It's more dangerous than 9g from the GLOC perspective, but it's not some sort of instadeath. The rules get broken and few die. Not 'some die' and 'some live' as if it was some sort of unknowable number, most of the time things are ok (not necessarily fine) but breaking rules will end in punishment depending on circumstances.
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Active Missile Look Down Notch Width Seems Excessive
GGTharos replied to nighthawk2174's topic in Weapon Bugs
There are some things they should change, but without having the ability to look deeper into it, it's hard to quantify. The super-low and super-slow thing is ... a thing, but for example the entire idea behind low altitude flight messing with the aim point isn't applicable the way ED has made it, IMHO. This is more old-missile territory and I do mean old. They have the opportunity and method to implement seeker settling which would result is better (IMHO) simulation still, and they can do this by varying the aimpoint 'wandering' against a target that maneuvers in a specific way. This way you have to start combining maneuver with other tactics, instead of a simple 'jump through the notch at lawnmower altitude' move. But again still IMHO. This would also make it more possible to evade missiles in look-up conditions (a lot of people don't realize that look-down is not as simple as how the game presents it. Look-down isn't just 'below the horizon) if you follow the right procedure and have ECM and CMs helping you out. On the other hand, any aspect outside of on-the-beam should make the missile next to impossible to evade, barring energy state issues or ECM. The further back in time you go, the 'easier' evasion gets. -
RGPO is complex and chaff may help with it a little, but the whole thing is also irrelevant. RAZBAM decided to display the break-lock as 'RGPO' but it's merely one technique among many and the only thing that matters is the track-break, especially in DCS. Most DECM will blind angles and range simultaneously AFAIK, so there's nothing or more like 'everything' to lock onto so that the track breaks. DECM don't do 'noise' at all AFAIK, they're just not powerful enough.
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There exist research papers, you can google for them. There are figures on chaff speed and bloom. They are used as briefed vs. specific SAMs. Stealth makes it so much more effective (you might add enough noise in the air to drop your signature below the noise floor, but that's just a guess on my part). And there are situations where you could find yourself next to a SAM and at that point stealth counts for very little if anything, if you recall the F117 shoot-down.
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Right, that's a fair question so let's state a couple of important things: 1) The 'big thing' about the AIM-120 was the miniaturization of the 54's capability into that missile. This is very, very significant and is a different type of jump than analog -> digital 2) The AIM-54 both in the A and C versions has been constantly upgraded. The A required upgrade immediately, and it got them. So, the idea here is that the AIM-54C has a lot of volume, literally, to have 'as much capability' as a younger missile. The capability won't be the same, but if you think of what we're talking about - eg. capability vs chaff, I mean ... chaff isn't terribly special. Yes, but the Phoenix A isn't a 50's or 60's missile either. It's an analog missile and has challenges and limitations - ie. not reprogrammable, voltage drift and feedback may be a much bigger issue in the electronics (Which leads to guidance instability) etc. However, the basic techniques of reject chaff are, again, not magical. If anything, this type of missile would have less resistance to CMs overall in more complex scenarios, but these aren't present/made possible in DCS today. With the missile locked onto your aircraft though ... who can say what the difference is? So let's talk about DCS instead of IRL: In an attempt to differentiate older from newer, the older missiles get a 'worse' CCM capability. But there are problems here too - this number only matters for the things the missile can see. What if it moves really fast or its iFoV is small? Then things you want it to see exist the FoV a lot faster and they may not be as effective (fun fact: same thing in IRL). I don't believe there's going to be either a good answer or solution to any of this until ED at minimum comprehensively revisits the counter-measure algorithms themselves, and huge bonus points if at the same time they figure out how to manage technological differences (analog vs digital for example, reprogrammable vs not) as well as revisiting the 'physical' simulation of physical countermeasures, ie. building chaff clouds etc.
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reported AN/APG-63 range is under-represented
GGTharos replied to GGTharos's topic in Flaming Cliffs Bugs & Problems
Not at all, he's obviously writing in km for nm - the old version tested at 85nm or more vs a 6m^2 target, the Phantom is 15-20. If you check that particular study, he doesn't cite any classified sources. -
Then they were a fluke?
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I've tried to find them too, it's a PITA and after a while I gave up In any case, the specific details really matter here. It was very clear that being able to shoot at radar blips before seeing anything was a huge advantage.