DCS: F-14A/A+/B by Heatblur Simulations coming to DCS World!

[asla36]

In short: It will be most useful for forcing an enemy fighter out of position and scrubbing it's energy before an AIM-7 shot. Though with some luck the AIM-54 will hit, just don't rely on it too much against fighters. Against bombers it will be an automatic long range kill.

[IASGATG]

In short: It will be most useful for forcing an enemy fighter out of position and scrubbing it's energy before an AIM-7 shot. Though with some luck the AIM-54 will hit, just don't rely on it too much against fighters. Against bombers it will be an automatic long range kill.

 

There is a big maybe attached to all of you sentences.

Edited July 4, 2017 by IASGATG

[OnlyforDCS]

In short: It will be most useful for forcing an enemy fighter out of position and scrubbing it's energy before an AIM-7 shot.

 

I wonder how this will work? It seems to me that an Aim54 shot from lets say about 20 Nm, in a head on approach, at co altitude, in TWS against a fighter would be terribly difficult to avoid.

 

The bandit would get no warning of a shot fired on his RWR until the Aim54 went pitbull. Assuming he doesn't turn and burn as soon as he sees an AN-9 contact on RWR. Assuming he even has a RWR that can display the specific radar illuminating him.

 

In addition to all of those things, at that kind of range the missile's energy would still be fairly high (I believe that it's motor would still be in high burn by that time too) so I would say it shouldn't be as ineffective as you make it out to be.

 

With all of those things said, a disclaimer. We have no idea until we get our hands on module and the missile and test it out ourselves.

Edited July 4, 2017 by OnlyforDCS

[The Black Swan]

I wonder how this will work? It seems to me that an Aim54 shot from lets say about 20 Nm, in a head on approach, at co altitude, in TWS against a fighter would be terribly difficult to avoid.

 

The bandit would get no warning of a shot fired on his RWR until the Aim54 went pitbull. Assuming he doesn't turn and burn as soon as he sees an AN-9 contact on RWR. Assuming he even has a RWR that can display the specific radar illuminating him.

 

In addition to all of those things, at that kind of range the missile's energy would still be fairly high (I believe that it's motor would still be in high burn by that time too) so I would say it shouldn't be as ineffective as you make it out to be.

 

With all of those things said, a disclaimer. We have no idea until we get our hands on module and the missile and test it out ourselves.

 

 

Exactly, and there wouldn't be any preemptive evasive maneuvers like with the AMRAAM because the range is so long that you would have to be doing evasive maneuvers anytime you're within 100 miles of a tomcat....

 

I wonder if a bandit alternating his jammer on and off would mess with the missile, making it loose lock or have to switch back and forth to HOJ.

[probad]

I can't find much about that on the net

that is why we're so excited to find out with the simulation.

[GGTharos]

Oh the assumptions :)

 

Some basic facts:

 

Probably the longest useful range of an AIM-54 shot against a fighter is around 50nm. You could do longer, but necessarily in STT (Assuming that's modeled), and with lower Pk - still requiring high-to-high shots here.

 

The missile will burn-out it's rocket motor after 27sec. Rule of thumb for time of flight is 2sec/nm head on, non-maneuvering. 3sec/nm for shots on the beam, 4sec/nm for tail aspect.

 

You can easily do the math and figure out where your missile will stop burning from this.

 

Once the rocket motor expires, the AIM-54 is now a big, draggy glider. It's a large diameter missile, so it isn't well-served medium or low altitudes unless it can dive onto its target - that's a guidance thing. Even so, it will be hitting the brakes once below 40000'.

 

This missile does have a long reach under specific conditions. If you want to know how high it will loft, I would very conservatively say take the range, halve it, and multiply by a thousand an you get how many feet up it'll go.

 

So at a 20nm launch you'll get a 10000' loft, maybe - but again that's a very conservative estimate and in reality the missile decides to loft or not based on expected TOF. If TOF is either less or within a few seconds after rocket motor burn-out, there's no reason to loft.

 

Starting a defensive maneuver early is quite easy as well - you can absolutely defend against it like you would against a 120 - that is, ditch the track early.

[OnlyforDCS]

Rule of thumb for time of flight is 2sec/nm head on, non-maneuvering. 3sec/nm for shots on the beam, 4sec/nm for tail aspect.

 

 

Can you elaborate on this? Time of flight? If the targets are twenty miles apart, head on, the missile would take 40 seconds to reach the target? Am I reading this right? So in a 20 Nm head on shot the missile would basically burn for 27 seconds, and then coast for 13 seconds? For a 100 Nm, Mach 5 missile that sounds kind of slow.

 

Assuming a mutual closing speed of say around 650 knots, I get around a 1.1 NM per second covered by the missile. Obviously the missile doesn't travel at Mach 5 during all of its flight time. So can you round that down to 0.5 NM per second as you are doing? Feels a bit much.

Edited July 4, 2017 by OnlyforDCS

[turkeydriver]

In short: It will be most useful for forcing an enemy fighter out of position and scrubbing it's energy before an AIM-7 shot. Though with some luck the AIM-54 will hit, just don't rely on it too much against fighters. Against bombers it will be an automatic long range kill.

 

Bad info.

 

The AIM-54 has a max launch range in TWS mode at around 84nm from the target. The enemy RWR most likely will not have picked this up and will be relying on ground controllers to alert it to the F-14s presence. This is why the long range AIM-54 shot is effective against any target that can be tracked. It depends on the strength of the enemy RWR to pick up low-emission AWG-9 RWR pulses. No problem today, big problem in the 1980s -early 1990s.

If you try for a super max range shot in STT, you can throw everything out the window. The AWG-9 is blasting a ton of energy at a dedicated target, tripping the RWR and max range and indicating to the enemy a shot has most likely been fired.

 

TWS mode doesn't give any such indication.

 

Realistic DCS multiplayer against the F-14 should go like this. You receive a RWR indication of an F-14 sweeping the area. You don't know the range or if a shot has been fired. You maneuver to break lock or F-pole a bit to defeat the possible inbound missile while attempting an AE Alamo or AMRAAMski shot. You only get an indication of an AIM-54 tracking you once it has activated its radar at 10-12nm from you. If you beam or run you beat the missile you never knew was in the air. If you do what 90% of new players will do, try to continue to close and kill the F-14, you will then have to defeat a weapon dropping with kinetic energy- Mach 1.5-2.0 possible at the end game, dropping from way up high. You haven't trained for this, you only train for near co-altitude evasion, so adding that new dimension will throw you off, perhaps you dodge the 2 that were launched at you and then beam hard again to defeat the 2 AIM-7, then die to the 2 AIM-9.

 

You're not fighting an F-15, You're not fighting a MiG-31. You're fighting both at the same time. Once you understand the AIM-54 engagement envelope, and the AWG-9s limitations, you should have better engagements. If the systems are simulated with as much accuracy as possible, you should understand attempting to defeat an F-14 over blue water is stupid for anything that can be tracked. You need max awareness of where the F-14 is and when it is shooting, otherwise its guess work if he is tracking you and shooting you(except for STT AIM54 shots- which are stupid against anything that can maneuver)

[GGTharos]

You are reading this right. It is a rule of thumb and that means it comes with caveats - but it's also a rule of thumb for a reason. It applies even to the Phoenix.

 

The Phoenix is a big missile with slow (Very slow) acceleration compared to other missiles. It can get itself going fast if you launch it at high altitude and Mach 2 - then you might hit Mach 5 for a few seconds depending on trajectory.

 

As for closure, M1 co-altitude closure will be around 1100kts. 650kts closure is rather slow.

 

The same assumptions are being made about the Mirage's Super 530D because it's 'listed as a mach 4.5 missile' ... and sure, it can probably hit that for a few seconds if you launch at >=M1.5 and high altitude.

 

The Phoenix isn't a magical missile. In the average use case, this rule of thumb will probably be quite close.

You can easily do the math yourself, too:

 

(4.5*9.8*27+343)/343=4.47M if launched in a vacuum at 'Mach 1' ... this is SL mach number (343m/s)

 

I'm conservatively setting the acceleration at an average 4.5g here, sort of controlling for fuel burn.

 

So it looks great, right? Except we're missing the air resistance, and at SL this will easily eat 1.5M - or if you prefer, the acceleration will be less, especially the faster you go. This calculation is non-linear so I'm not going to bother doing it here, but if you're interested you can do that part of the tedious math yourself. :)

 

But let's assume that you're going to get to M3.6 at 20000'.

 

Your average closure will be the equivalent of M3.0 (Accounting for +1M for the incoming head-on aircraft and 13 seconds to bleed 0.3M) which is 30nm/min. You're going 1/3rd of this distance, or 40 sec.

 

The above numbers are mostly made up, but they're in very real danger of being in the ball-park. :)

 

Can you elaborate on this? Time of flight? If the targets are twenty miles apart, head on, the missile would take 40 seconds to reach the target? Am I reading this right? So in a 20 Nm head on shot the missile would basically burn for 27 seconds, and then coast for 13 seconds? For a 100 Nm, Mach 5 missile that sounds kind of slow.

 

Assuming a mutual closing speed of say around 650 knots, I get around a 1.1 NM per second covered by the missile. Obviously the missile doesn't travel at Mach 5 during all of its flight time. So can you round that down to 0.5 NM per second as you are doing? Feels a bit much.

[GGTharos]

No problem today, big problem in the 1980s -early 1990s.

 

Zero problems. If the AWG-9 can pick-up that return, the RWR can pick up the emission. Whatever the AWG-9 is picking up, say x watts, the RWR is picking up x^2 watts.

 

You only get an indication of an AIM-54 tracking you once it has activated its radar at 10-12nm from you.

 

That's 20 seconds of time to do something about it. In DCS, that's an eternity.

 

You haven't trained for this, you only train for near co-altitude evasion, so adding that new dimension will throw you off, perhaps you dodge the 2 that were launched at you and then beam hard again to defeat the 2 AIM-7, then die to the 2 AIM-9.

 

What new dimension? Everyone is sniffing the ground, so everyone 'trains' from missiles coming from up high and in DCS, evading them is easy. CMs work better in look-down, and the missile is forced to dive into dense air and slow down.

 

If the systems are simulated with as much accuracy as possible, you should understand attempting to defeat an F-14 over blue water is stupid for anything that can be tracked. You need max awareness of where the F-14 is and when it is shooting, otherwise its guess work if he is tracking you and shooting you(except for STT AIM54 shots- which are stupid against anything that can maneuver)

 

You're really confusing real combat with made up stuff in-game. Your opponents aren't limited by either fuel or mission in-game. While the Phoenix can be used just fine against fighters, its main job is fleet defense. That's what it should be good at ... air superiority - not something it was really designed for. It will do its job, but don't expect it to do it as well as an air superiority missile. I think a lot of people will be rudely surprised by how badly they've misinterpreted the hype.

[probad]

i look forward to reading complaints from both ends of the spectrum simultaneously:

 

- victims complaining about bs op phoenix shots because they refuse to do anything except straightrushing bullseye

- shooters complaining about bs up phoenix being a trash missile because they never expected it to actually obey physics

[captain_dalan]

 

Probably the longest useful range of an AIM-54 shot against a fighter is around 50nm.

 

More realistic/conservative value should be around 30. At least as provided by anecdotal /online sources.

 

i look forward to reading complaints from both ends of the spectrum simultaneously:

 

- victims complaining about bs op phoenix shots because they refuse to do anything except straightrushing bullseye

- shooters complaining about bs up phoenix being a trash missile because they never expected it to actually obey physics

 

That is pretty much a given :lol:

[turkeydriver]

Zero problems. If the AWG-9 can pick-up that return, the RWR can pick up the emission. Whatever the AWG-9 is picking up, say x watts, the RWR is picking up x^2 watts.

 

 

 

That's 20 seconds of time to do something about it. In DCS, that's an eternity.

 

 

 

What new dimension? Everyone is sniffing the ground, so everyone 'trains' from missiles coming from up high and in DCS, evading them is easy. CMs work better in look-down, and the missile is forced to dive into dense air and slow down.

 

 

 

You're really confusing real combat with made up stuff in-game. Your opponents aren't limited by either fuel or mission in-game. While the Phoenix can be used just fine against fighters, its main job is fleet defense. That's what it should be good at ... air superiority - not something it was really designed for. It will do its job, but don't expect it to do it as well as an air superiority missile. I think a lot of people will be rudely surprised by how badly they've misinterpreted the hype.

 

I disagree on a few points. The AWG-9s receiver was the most sensitive of its day- don't confuse a system you still have little information on with traditional radar theory. The AIM-54 would have never made it to the fleet if the AWG-9 tripped RWRs before the missile left the aircraft. There isn't functioning brain on the planet that would buy that high-cost system. Eastern RWRs had zero indications of F-14 TWS emissions until the system was compromised due to domestic spies and the Shah's fall in Iran. The system was excellent until it was compromised.

 

I'll defer to your in-game experience in multiplayer, and agree completely that AIM-54s will only be useful for making a bandit turn until in AIm-7 range in that environment.

[Coxy_99]

Only Heatblur know ;)

[GGTharos]

I disagree on a few points. The AWG-9s receiver was the most sensitive of its day- don't confuse a system you still have little information on with traditional radar theory.

 

Not a chance. This is very simple physics. AWG-9 receives x watts, RWR receives x^2 watts. Substitute 'AWG-9' for any radar out there. The hardware should have no problem with this.

 

The AIM-54 would have never made it to the fleet if the AWG-9 tripped RWRs before the missile left the aircraft. There isn't functioning brain on the planet that would buy that high-cost system. Eastern RWRs had zero indications of F-14 TWS emissions until the system was compromised due to domestic spies and the Shah's fall in Iran. The system was excellent until it was compromised.

 

I think that has more to do with exported RWR programming than it has to do with what the RWR is actually capable of; I'll ignore truly old RWRs here since their limitations are less known to me - but generally speaking, if it's not showing you an AWG-9 in search mode, it probably hasn't got the ability to warn you of an incoming AIM-54 at all either.

 

I don't think there is a reason for a well programmed RWR to not show you the signal even if it cannot classify it as a specific aircraft: It's an X-Band radar and if you're flying, these typically mean trouble.

[turkeydriver]

Not a chance. This is very simple physics. AWG-9 receives x watts, RWR receives x^2 watts. Substitute 'AWG-9' for any radar out there. The hardware should have no problem with this.

 

 

 

I think that has more to do with exported RWR programming than it has to do with what the RWR is actually capable of; I'll ignore truly old RWRs here since their limitations are less known to me - but generally speaking, if it's not showing you an AWG-9 in search mode, it probably hasn't got the ability to warn you of an incoming AIM-54 at all either.

 

I don't think there is a reason for a well programmed RWR to not show you the signal even if it cannot classify it as a specific aircraft: It's an X-Band radar and if you're flying, these typically mean trouble.

 

Agree on the well programmed RWR, operated by who in the 1980s? USSR? Yes. Export states and third world countries? Not so much. You're still applying basic radar theory to a system we all don't have the information on. No armchair commando, test pilots, pilots, and developers who operated the system. but moving on, I don't want to derail good conversation.

[VampireNZ]

.

Edited July 29, 2017 by VampireNZ

[GGTharos]

If your RWR just 'picked up all radar transmissions hitting it" - then it would be going off constantly. there are a LOT or radio transmissions flying around in the air. It needs to be able to filter out specific signatures. There is absolutely no chance it would be able to isolate a specific RADAR signal if it had no idea what to look for.

 

It does 'pick up all radar transmissions hitting it', like your friend told you. It then sorts them, and it does know what to look for: Something that looks like a threat radar. If it cannot classify it beyond this, it will show you a 'U' - and we've seen this in action for real RWRs. Western ones, anyway. Hard to say what a SPO-10 or 15 might be programmed to do (or not do) in that case. For example, there are rumors that the Serbian MiG-29's weren't set up to pick up AMRAAM radars.

 

But to make a blanket statement that 80's/90's RWRs wouldn't tell you there's an F-14 radar out there, that would be strange. And let's be clear, we're technically not facing export gear in this game. The chances of RWRs not working are probably rather close to zero.

 

He was also just telling me about the AN/ALR-69 which talks to your wingmans RWR and compares signals/directions of received energy, and even heat sigs of missile plumes, and triangulates the threats position and direction of travel etc - pretty techy stuff.

 

Not quite as simple as some would like to believe. Sorry for the OT.

How is an RWR picking up heat signatures? But yes, the 69V is a very accurate sensor and can give you some pretty nice information.

[BlackLion213]

In short: It will be most useful for forcing an enemy fighter out of position and scrubbing it's energy before an AIM-7 shot. Though with some luck the AIM-54 will hit, just don't rely on it too much against fighters. Against bombers it will be an automatic long range kill.

 

Well, unless the new AIM-54 is much less capable than the current DCS implementation, it will be far more effective against fighters than the current AIM-7M in DCS.

 

I have been playing with the ME for a bit with the current F-14A utilizing the current AIM-54 - its quite lethal against Su-27s and MiG-29s with a pK of around 50% or so. The AIM-7 seems to have a pK of around 30% against the Su-27 and MiG-29.

 

The new AIM-54 will be different and may have different strengths and weaknesses than the current one. But if current performance is any indicator, it will be something to take seriously and a better anti-fighter weapon than the AIM-7.

 

-Nick

[IASGATG]

Well, unless the new AIM-54 is much less capable than the current DCS implementation, it will be far more effective against fighters than the current AIM-7M in DCS.

 

I have been playing with the ME for a bit with the current F-14A utilizing the current AIM-54 - its quite lethal against Su-27s and MiG-29s with a pK of around 50% or so. The AIM-7 seems to have a pK of around 30% against the Su-27 and MiG-29.

 

The new AIM-54 will be different and may have different strengths and weaknesses than the current one. But if current performance is any indicator, it will be something to take seriously and a better anti-fighter weapon than the AIM-7.

 

-Nick

 

The current aim-54 is a poor indicator of actual performance. In game it can easy hit Mach7 and I've pushed it to Mach9 before.

[OnlyforDCS]

A question about the Soviet RWRs in the game currently. The most modern one we have is the SPO15 in the Su27 and the Su25, right?

 

In DCS AFAIK that particular RWR can only tell you the type of threat that is illuminating you. It can't discern between the different radars like most western RWRs.

 

So how does a SPO15 equipped plane figure out that it definitely is an F14 out there painting him?

[Dudikoff]

In DCS AFAIK that particular RWR can only tell you the type of threat that is illuminating you. It can't discern between the different radars like most western RWRs.

 

So how does a SPO15 equipped plane figure out that it definitely is an F14 out there painting him?

 

You've answered your own question already - he obviously can't. I guess that's where the mission intelligence on expected threats come into play.

[probad]

dont need rwr to tell you what it is when gci can already tell you. this is the same with f-14 + e-2.

 

real air forces dont operate in the tattered ad hoc manner we see in dcs.

 

how people think it works:

 

how it really works:

(lights everywhere)

Edited July 5, 2017 by probad

[Dudikoff]

dont need rwr to tell you what it is when gci can already tell you. this is the same with f-14 + e-2.

 

Presuming that they're still operating and that you can actually hear them ;)

[probad]

things could expect to be more survivable back then without the ridiculous isr + pgm capabilities we enjoy today.

Edited July 5, 2017 by probad