How to avoid missile AND not losing radar lock?

[wingshigh.g]

I have been flying f15 on the MP server trying to practice. Very often I will find myself firing a missile (aim120), then before the missile goes into pitbull I will have to maneuver to avoid incoming missile. During this process I will lose the lock and as the missile has not started using its own radar, I will lose my chance of hitting the target. Just to be clear I use TWS mode so that the opponent doesn't get a lock warning, so I only have about 30 degree to work with each side.

 

Is there a recommended maneuver that can avoid the missile without losing the lock?

 

Thanks

[TAW_Blaze]

Just to be clear I use TWS mode so that the opponent doesn't get a lock warning, so I only have about 30 degree to work with each side.

 

I really don't know how you figured this, TWS bugged target will be followed by the radar so you practically have +-60 given the fact you aren't targeting 2 guys with more than 60 degrees of azimuth separation, in which case, yes you will have a problem.

 

have been flying f15 on the MP server trying to practice. Very often I will find myself firing a missile (aim120), then before the missile goes into pitbull I will have to maneuver to avoid incoming missile. During this process I will lose the lock and as the missile has not started using its own radar, I will lose my chance of hitting the target.

 

First of all, if you fire from a bad position and the other guy has a good, or better position than you and he knows when to fire and maneuver, you will be at a disadvantage. In that scenario you will generally have to break lock earlier than he does.

[wingshigh.g]

Thanks Blaze.

 

Doesn't TWS mode scans only +-30degree? I am pretty sure I read it somewhere on the forum, am I understanding this incorrectly?

 

What is bad position vs good position? How do you know the opponent fired a missile if he was in TWS?

[TAW_Blaze]

Doesn't TWS mode scans only +-30degree? I am pretty sure I read it somewhere on the forum, am I understanding this incorrectly?

It scans +-30 but it follows the PDT (primary designated target) so your PDT can actually be on any gimbal of the scope.

 

What is bad position vs good position? How do you know the opponent fired a missile if he was in TWS?

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=132872 read this thread, the latter part of my post gives some hints about what really matters in a straight 1v1 BVR fight

 

But to break it down, basically the higher you are and the faster you are, aka the more energy you have the better it is. Now there are practical limits to how high/fast you can or want to be. All of this matters in relation to the target. You want to be faster and higher. If he denies you one or both, you might have to change your plan or completely ditch it.

 

Telling when someone fired is tricky. A good pilot against a good pilot will be able to tell nearly every time when the other guy fired. A good pilot against a bad pilot is a weird scenario because the good pilot expects good moves but the other guy doesn't always cooperate. Making ridicously stupid moves can throw the guy off and make him lose the fight. Albeit a very experienced driver wouldn't be bothered by stupid moves.

 

The idea simple: there are a bunch of maneuvers that will likely happen when the guy wants to shoot at you, provided that the guy also knows what he's doing. You can also guess when he'll shoot at you based on the situation (better yet, find out when he should shoot, think as if you were in his place). Also some of the missiles are very smokey so you can find them if you know where to look.

[wingshigh.g]

Tks Blaze. Very helpful points. I will practice that tonight.

[wingshigh.g]

Thanks for the advice.

 

Went on the MP again and just keep practicing.

 

Still I find most of the time i will get shot down if I don't give up the lock and constrain myself to the 60 degrees limit; or sometimes got shot down by another fighter that was close by when I was concentrating dealing with the opponent on hand; there were also times where we both fired missiles and did whatever necessary to avoid the missile, but my opponent could always find me and lock on me again faster, then I got shot down. When in WVR, I am not good at spotting opponent yet...

 

I guess all these requires practice, practice and practice...

[Buzpilot]

 

Is there a recommended maneuver that can avoid the missile without losing the lock?

 

Thanks

 

This one seem to do ok.

 

[TAW_Blaze]

This one seem to do ok.

 

 

C

L

I

M

B

 

Seriously you are afterburning from 40nm out all the way with 5 deegres pitch I was almost screaming at the screen. You have to use your early detection to get into a position of energetic advantage unless there are other means of advantage such as wingmen, terrain etc.

 

You said sometimes your targets immediately drop after selecting them. This could easily be a fault of sitting in interleaved PRF. Also could be related to target maneuvers.

 

Next. You put the 2nd guy on your beam or behind it, but what you definitely did not do is crank left from the first guy so that you are between them. I'm not sure if this was a conscious decision but it is a very important one. This way:

 

1) you hide your existence from the 2nd guy (especially while ECM off)

 

2) you give yourself a lot of time to kill the first guy before you have to fight the 2nd

 

About RWR:

 

You say you're not sure if the flanker sees you even though he's continously painting you. Think about this: the section of the sky you're flying in is a fraction of the area in front of him. If he's showing up on your RWR there's a very good chance that he knows where you are. Except if you have other reasons to believe he doesn't, such as beaming him outside certain ranges, or jamming, or just flat out being too far from him. Keeping your radar off is irrelevant to his radar detecting you. The point is, if some guy is painting you all along, there isn't a lot of reason to have your radar shut off when flying alone. He knows about you regardless.

 

However if he doesn't know about you then looking at him with your radar can give away your position. But if you don't, how are you gonna know where he is? :)

 

Cranking: mostly well done, the way you fire is excellent however you have to note something - it is very important exactly when you release the missile. If you fire too early or late it will fly an unnecessary curve and lose a lot of energy. You should use tacview to figure out when to shoot.

 

Another thing to note, IIRC you were somewhere 8nm away after you reversed the crank. At this point you really don't need to bother keeping lock in most situations. Have the other guy fired at you at a bit more reasonable range than ~20nm you could have been dead. Keeping lock can be good to take a follow up shot but you shouldn't do this unless you know the guy can't shoot back or his previous missiles are defeated only. If you don't know that you would turn into his missile trying to take the next shot and die. Or even die maintaining crank.

 

-

 

As to when you should have your radar on. Since you're new I would put it very simply: ALWAYS

 

That might seem very stupid but you will be flying alone for the most part and assuming that people will see you when you aren't trying to hide from them isn't unrealistic. Another thing that almost made me scream at the screen is that you always keep your VSD at 80nm. If you're targeting a guy 10-15-20nm away reduce it really it will only help you. Also what you have to understand that scanning close in front of your nose is way more important to survival than looking at a constant 40+ nm range. 10-30nm area is far more dangerous, for instance I could fly a flanker beaming you all the way up to 20nm and if you're at the wrong elavation or PRF I can adjust to be outside your scan zone when I get closer and you would never know about me until the missile hits you.

 

Not finding targets may be a result of a lot of stuff. Not knowing the mission, having weird players flying around weird places, having all of the other guys killed or landed, etc.

 

What you should do in engagements when you lost the guy? Depends on a lot of stuff. Let me tell you one very important thing. Just because the guy disappeared from your radar it doesn't mean he isn't there. Especially because of some missing radar features it's almost mandatory to keep the information in your head. If he disappears and you remember what he was doing and look at the terrain you can guess where he will be. Takes a lot of experience. If he was further than 8nm you can just run away most of the time but if you get really close that might not be an option.

 

Point of ECM is, that I block anyone outside ~ 25nm to see my exact position. They will see my direction, but they won't see my range.

 

-

 

2nd engagement

 

I have really no damn clue how that guy didn't get you. He's coming at you with 800 knots and launches around 11-12nm. Then you turn into his missile pretty much, it should've hit you around when you fired your shot. Maybe he fired earlier but it's hard to tell from the video. If I could have the replay that would help, tacview even better.

 

CLIMB FOR ****S SAKE

Edited November 1, 2014 by <Blaze>

[wingshigh.g]

About "cranking", essentially that is to change your aspect to the target or incoming missile?

[Trailer]

You crank and enemies flank. It's a maneuver designed to try and get offset from the target but not dropping lock in order to support your missile until it reaches Pitbull (Medium Pulse Repetition Frequency - MPRF).

 

An active radar missile such as an Aim-120 needs the radar of the aircraft it was fired from to guide it to reach this stage of flight; at that point its own radar fully locks on to the target and it will guide itself in and you can turn cold to the target and increase range. It's not a guaranteed hit but you continuing on a 180 aspect to the target won't help the missile any and will put you in unnecessary danger.

 

The difference between an AIM-120 and an AIM-7 is an AIM-7 is a semi-active missile, meaning it needs the host radar's guidance all the way to impact unless it's in Home-On Jam mode when the target is jamming, which it just locks onto the jamming signal and follows it in.

 

If you see an enemy on your radar start flanking, chances are he has just launched a missile towards you and is doing the very same thing. The crank/flank is simply a stiff-arm move. It won't save you but you will be in a much better position to "snip it", which is what happens when you have to abandon your radar support of the missile, usually due to a defensive maneuver like notching.

 

You crank, they flank. You notch, they beam. Same maneuvers, different brevity words.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Trailer

[GGTharos]

The words have different meaning, and the resultant maneuvers are different in practice - be it in a small way or in a big way.

[Trailer]

A crank is the same for both friendly and enemy in terms of the desired effect each one is trying to achieve, but from a comm standpoint you do not call a bogey/outlaw/hostile aircraft as "Lead group bullseye/BRAA yadda yadda yadda, umpteen thousand, hostile, crank southeast." It's "flank southeast". Same with notch and beam. You don't call a bogey/outlaw/hostile as "notching" because he's beaming. Actually you shouldn't even use "ing".

Edited November 11, 2014 by Trailer