D-Scythe

EOTS and Sniper XR are the same pod, IIRC. And I was just busting your chops.

LANTIRN was current in the early 90s. The "current" targetting pods are Sniper XR or ATFLIR.

Yeah, aside from the obviously better performance in every part of the flight envelope, and all the much more powerful avionics/radar/RWR tailored specifically for A/A combat, and the better stealth technology put into its airframe, the F-22 is obviously exactly the same as the F-35 in combat abilities :megalol: BTW, you forgot the mention that they're painted similarly too, therefore their visual signatures must also be the same. Gee, how would we ever tell them apart?

Tell me you're joking.

I'm sorry, but can you explain why sidelobe and mainlobe gain needs to be taken into account? http://www.earth2.net/parts/mugu/burnthru.pdf

Cause in reality, there really is no such thing as a "burn through range." In reality, the strength of your radar returns is almost always guaranteed to be weaker than the jammer's emissions. The strength of EM waves vs. range drop off according to the 1/R^2 law - e.g. doubling the target's range would cut signal strength by 1/(2^2) = 1/4. A radar wave who has to travel to the target (one 1/R^2 loss) has to reflect off its surface and bounce back (another 1/R^2 loss). Therefore, the returning wave would be 1/R^2 x 1/R^2 = 1/R^4 as strong as when it was emitted. On the other hand, the jammer only has to travel from the target to the radar - that is, only one 1/R^2 loss. Thus, the idea of burn-through at any significant range is questionable, since your radar has to obey the 1/R^4 rule while the enemy jammer only has to obey the 1/R^2 rule. So unless your radar is many times stronger than the target's jammer (and it isn't unless we're talking about SPY-1 Aegis radar here), chances are any burn-through would be negligible. If you want the exact math, here is an example of a radar operating against a stand-off jammer 200 miles away. You can see that even with the SOJ aircraft being 200 miles away, burn-through doesn't actually happen until 840 ft - negligible by modern engagement standards.

I know it's a moot point, but I didn't quote you on it. It was a page back, I posted after Boneski after he replied to Ruggbutt. Well, nobody seems to oppose the idea of making radar missiles immune to chaff from virtually every aspect (except of course the beam). However, the fact that many people would like the "balance" to return to V1.02 levels is a bit of a concern - I have a feeling that making radar missiles completely immune to chaff would raise the PK significantly, to the point where we can expect many people to start complaining about "unbalance." Just out of curiosity, how many people here have played at 100% missile slider, and what did you guys think about it? I know solo play is a huge part of any game, but just because you play solo doesn't mean you cannot execute realistic tactics. Furthermore, I am playing realistically - Higher+faster = more missile smash, F/A-pole, notching, dogfighting at corner....those are real techniques/tactics that real pilots use all the time. Sure, speaking absolutely, I may not be flying my F-15 100% realistically, but I am flying it MORE realistically than in other games like AC6. As said before, realism is relative - I may not be flying 100% realistically, but there is no doubt that in a flight simulation I'm flying more realistically. Take the technique/strategy of max-performing your jet - ED may not get the corner speed for the F-15 right, but as long as there is a corner speed, and I can out-turn my opponents by sticking with it, then that is relatively more realistic than a "game." Yes, it's not 100% realistic because the corner speed of LO's F-15 does not match the real F-15, but even so, it forces us to fly our F-15 more realistically than say an F-15 from AC 6. So in the end, it doesn't matter if the sim is not realistic, as long as the sim allows us to fly and fight in a realistic manner. Absolute realism is not that important in the "bigger" picture - you're never gonna find out the activation range of the AMRAAM's terminal seeker. But that doesn't change the fact that it can be employed realistically as an active radar missile in Lock On, just like it can IRL.

No, I wasn't referring to you. And who knows, maybe important people are tuning in...

Haha, busted. Sorry, but I just didn't want this thread degenerating into another flame-fest. What does single player have to do with this? My point was simply that although a simulation is a game, a product of PC entertainment, what sets it apart from other type of games is that you have to execute realistic tactics and strategy to win, in order to blow things up. In a game, like AC 6, you can go ahead a blow things up without any need for realistic tactics. Sure, you can blow things up in both Falcon 4.0 and AC 6, but what sets F4 apart is how you go about destroying stuff. This matters in single player AND multiplayer. So really, I don't see what you're getting at. If the F-15 is the better BVR fighter IRL, than naturally Su and MiG pilots would try to draw the Eagle in a WVR fight to win. And the "fun factor" isn't any less just because you have to adapt your tactics to play to your strengths and not your weaknesses.

Guys....this thread is probably attracting attention from important people....

While I agree that the F-15 should be without doubt the best straight-up BVR fighter, having it this way in Lock On doesn't necessarily mean that everything else just "dies." If anything, it would encourage pilots of other fighters to use team-tactics, and place more emphasis on strategies/methods intended to lure the Eagle pilots into a WVR fight. And in the end, that is not only more realistic, but more fun. There are plenty of other games you can play where you can hop into a jet and mindlessly blow things up - on the other hand, in a simulation, the fact that you can (and often need to) execute realistic tactics and strategies to overcome your enemies should be where the fun is at. Having climbed higher and flying faster to get that first look, first shot, only to see your radar missiles run out of juice 6 miles before the target while you get swatted by an R-27ET fired by a guy who's executing NO tactics at all is a pretty big buzz kill I'd imagine.

The R-27ET is programmed with exactly the same code as the R-73. Now, I'm not sure if the AIM-9M has the same flare rejection ability as the R-73, but I think it's similar (if not equal). So in the end, there really isn't going to be a huge difference. The perceived lethality of the R-27ET I think has more to do with speed (it is MUCH faster than any other IR missile) and its "silent" kill capability. And the R-27ET is not rear-aspect only - it's just that it's seeker has much better range and performance from the rear aspect. In reality, I doubt its seeker can pick up a target from any other aspect beyond 13-15 km. Hope that helps.

The problem is that radar missiles suck in general, even the best (i.e. active) ones. The (proposed) fix addresses ALL radar missiles. So nothing being discussed here is AMRAAM specific - AMRAAM is brought up a lot because it's the primary weapon of the F-15, that's all. Exactly - all radar missiles perform badly. And this is what needs to be addressed. Well, it would be unwise IMO to blame the performance of AMRAAM on a single factor - the R-27ET. Yes, the -27ET may very well be one factor, but to say it's the only factor is gonna be a mistake. And again, it's not just the AMRAAM. For example, the R-27ER performance, or rather the lack thereof, has been discussed here as well. I don't know where you got this. Any proposed "fix" for AMRAAM would also carry over to every other doppler radar missile in the game. The point is to return the BVR arena back into the playground of these radar guided missiles (R-27R/ER, R-77, R-33, MICA, AIM-7M, AIM-120). If the consequence of doing so results in the R-77 and AIM-120 becoming the most effective weapons in the BVR, then c'est la vie. It may be "lame" - but also entirely realistic. Nobody would expect a vanilla, first generation Su-27 (limited to R-27ERs) to be a 1-to-1 match for an F-15C/AIM-120 combo in BVR anyway. Well, I don't know about having the missile over-ride for *just* the ET abolished (is that realistic?), but we're definitely on the same page - especially regarding fixes being done collectively to ALL radar missiles.

No need to apologize - everyone has an opinion. But lemme get this straight...your position is that there is no point in trying to fix missiles because the data is classified and we don't know all the important details? And despite the fact that a lot of members of the flight sim community have expressed dissatisfaction at missile performance in LOMAC (including some who are actual fighter pilots), we should just adjust the way we play the game and leave things unchanged. On the basis that the stuff needed to make things truly realistic are classified.

That would only get you so far with the doppler radars of AMRAAM, R-77/27, AIM-7... Since chaff clutter can be considered ground clutter (on the basis that neither has any radial velocity), you can see from the above diagram that you can add as much chaff (noise) as you'd like, but because the noise generated by the chaff decoys don't have the same doppler as the target, chances are the missile/radar won't be fooled by the chaff.

Hey, we're all on the same team here, and nobody's trying to speak down to you. If one of the senior members of this community does give you the "you're too young to understand" response, it's simply because we've heard it from ED a hundred times. Seriously. More on the topic, I really hope you're right, and that ED only needs to alter the parameters of a few values/variables to fix this. It's not that everyone wants you to be wrong, but rather, well, some "simple" fixes had been presented to ED in the past, and stuff has turned out to be anything but. What's best here would be to determine what issues the community thinks are most important and needs to be fixed, so that ED can put the minimal amount of time and effort address them.

No, I agree and you're (obviously) right. I was just addressing the question brought up earlier where someone asked if adjusting the missile slider would help fix things - I say no, because the fundamental problems are still there. How does a sudden change in aspect cut RCS so much that the target drops below the SNR threshold? Radar scintillation can exponentially increase the target's RCS, but I'm not sure I've heard of any phenomenon that would exponentially decrease RCS. And how does an RCS signature become so large that it overwhelms a seeker? In a look-down situation, the RCS of the ground is basically infinite - but that doesn't overwhelm the seeker. I mean, short of sitting in an F-22 and concentrating your AESA power into a fine beam directed at the missile to fry it, I don't see how a missile can be "overwhelmed" by a target's RCS. So? A missile in HOJ is not tracking RCS either. AFAIK, it's either doppler, or HOJ. The only RCS requirement AFAIK is that the target is large enough to be detected and tracked by doppler. Wait wait wait....Chaff released on the beam would have the least chance of "blending" or overlapping with the previous discharge. Chaff released head-on or tail-on would have the greatest chance of mixing in with previously released decoys to confuse the missile. Therefore, if anything, the noise chaff introduces to the missile's seeker would be greatest from tail on/head on, NOT from the beam. Actually, it's safe to assume chaff slows down to zero airspeed immediately after release, due to the fact that the stuff is essentially mass-less. Which can lead (theoretically) lead to the capability of rejecting chaff decoys (at close range) on the basis that it's impossible for the target to generate so big an LOS change. RCS would definitely not decrease when the target is beaming. Not only is your profile much bigger from the side than in front (think about how much smaller a MiG-21 would be from the front), but also you're exposing those nice, flat, vertical stabilizers, weapon pylons, flat surfaces of your fuselage, etc. to the radar source (the missile). Which leads me back to my belief (and yes, I'm aware that it's just a belief) that it's impossible to significantly reduce your RCS with a simple aspect change to an "artificial" level like you can increase it. What is normally a 5 m^2 target may have its RCS increased to 500 m^2, but it'll never have it decreased to 0.05 m^2 with a mere aspect change.

Yes, ideally, people should start respecting each other's NEZs. Yes, through scintillation and stuff. But missiles have to deal with that anyway - even the slightest aspect change can cause exponential increases in RCS. But RCS has nothing to do with doppler, which is what missiles track - so I don't think sudden aspect changes should have a significant effect on the performance of the missile. If that were true, then releasing chaff should be effective from any aspect - since chaff also increases RCS, but does not affect doppler.

Sorry, but I think you missed my point - I'm saying that the ways you can defeat missiles WITHOUT chaff will work just as well at 50% slider as it would in 100% (like barrel rolling, or pulling up). So, every missile that misses not because of chaff, will miss regardless of missile slider setting. Hence my point that there really isn't a difference between missiles at 50% and 100%, with the exception of chaff rejection. Um, how does that prove that "new" code wasn't implemented in LOFC and that the extra chaff sensitivity can be undone? I'm sorry, but I don't get your post. Wait....as long as the sudden change in aspect doesn't result in the target beaming the missile, how would it help in defeating the missile's seeker? I'm sorry, but that's not correct. In fact, all self-protection jammers (like the sets in the F-15 and MiG-29) are designed to protect the aircraft (hence the name) by any means possible - including denying lock or outright breaking it. So...would people rather have things returned to the way things are in V1.02, or radically changed as has been proposed (basically, so that it's EXTREMELY difficult to defeat radar missiles except by notching/putting chaff between you and missile)? I honestly don't know. I wasn't in the beta testing team back then, so I'm as oblivious as you guys are.

Really? Every evasive tactic that works against missiles at 50% would work against missiles at 100%. It's just the tactics that involve chaff require the target to pump out more chaff. IIRC, a new model was implemented that affected seeker behaviour of radar missiles - it's entirely new code. Thus, I don't think it can simply be "undone". I'll ask though. So you want things to return to the way it was in V1.02? AIM-9M thrust, noted. Though this should be strictly about radar missiles... Actually, I think that's a problem with the seeker. I'm pretty sure the missiles can physically pull more G's to deal with a climbing target, but for some reason they don't. Yup, for sure. Maybe if some of the others start chiming in, everyone can get a better idea of what is needed to fix things and then a case can be made to ED. It's just that personally, (ED has nothing to do with this) as a member of this community and not a beta tester, my opinion would be in something big and important like this, it is good to get the community involved, so that when the final thing does roll out, there won't be any surprise and people know what they're gonna be getting. I think it's in everyone's best interest to avoid a public riot like the SAMs vs. AGMs thing.

A missile at 100% may be more deadly to the AI, but against barrel rolling, 5 m flying players, it's just as useless. For the player, it usually means just having to pump out a few extra chaff. Anyway, I'd love to hear what you guys would want for A/A missiles. I mean, most of the time, it's usually just complaints, people venting - but no suggestions for improvement.... Is this simply because everyone agree with GGTharos on this issue? I can't imagine that EVERYONE would be happy with decreasing the capabilities of the R-27ET, for example. The reason I'm asking is, it seems to me that WAFM and WASM would not be implemented by LOBS, so in all likelihood I think we're gonna be stuck with the current missile system for a while. Moreover, it's been stated repeatedly that ED's focus in LOBS is A/G combat - therefore, with the new Mission Editor, Ka-50, etc., any change to A/A stuff would likely be minimal in comparison. Thus, it's best for everybody if this issue is fixed on the first try - it would be best to have everyone behind EVERY proposed change/fix. I don't think anyone wants a repeat of the the "Strelas shooting Mavs" down issue. Moreover, if we agree on exactly what is needed (needed because it's realistic of course), they're much more likely to ALL get fixed. I think MICA IR is the deadliest missile in the game.

No.

The answer to your question is the same answer to the question "Has ED stated in any shape, way or form that anything has been done to radar missiles so far except for the addition of the AIM-120C?" ;)

Just to be clear, the new AIM-120C has ALL the faults of the old radar missiles - it isn't "fixed" at all, rather, it just had its parameters adjusted slightly to make the seeker perform better against counter-measures. So, anything that works against the AMRAAM, like 5 m flying or barrel rolling, will also work against the new AIM-120C, because those problems are associated with how radar missiles are modelled in general.

Do you know something I don't? AFAIK, WAFM and WASM are not planned.