Radar issues against Mig 15

[SierraFox]

So i was recently flying on the flying pandas server to learn the f-5 a bit better and i would head straight to the mig-15 as it's the closest equivalent for training. however something became very apparently. Radar does not seem to work against it. up until about 15 miles out nothing would popup on the radar and once it did get pinged it would not lock, i tried for about an hour to see if i was able to lock it down. nothing.

 

Decided to switch to the M2000 to see if maybe it's just the tiger's radar, showed up about 20 miles out, kept it dead centre on my radar fired a 530 loses lock about halfway towards the target and the missle just veers off. try to follow it, get behind it, can physically see the plane, nothing on radar.

 

So i set up a simple mission, f-5 following a mig at 20 miles, same alt, same speed. it does not show up on the radar. No idea if im doing something wrong or if something is wrong with my game or if this is how the 15 works but for some reason i cannot do anything against the mig, buy the time i can see it, it's already behind me and shooting through my jet.

[lmp]

Flying an F-5E against a cold, non maneuvering target, both aircraft at 6000m, target speed was 500km/h, I was flying at maybe 700 - 800km/h:

 

MiG-15bis - detection at 9km, lock at 8km.

MiG-21bis - detection at 10.5km, lock at 8.5km.

MiG-23MLD - detection at 11km, lock at 9km.

 

The radar performance seems to be in line with what the table at page 160 of the manual.

 

I used MSL mode, 10nm scope range setting and I found that placing the target at the top of the locking gate works best (but maybe it's just me). One thing to keep in mind when trying to lock the target is, that while in search mode the radar antenna scans +-4 (in the 40nm range setting) or +-5.5 degrees (in the other range settings) in elevation, that goes down to +-1.5 degrees in the acquisition phase. So if the target is between 1.5 and 4/5.5 degrees off your antenna tilt setting, you will see it in search mode but you will not be able to lock it. I find this quite limiting, especially considering how twitchy the antenna tilt control is at the moment.

 

Against targets willing to put up a fight I only use the MSL mode for general situational awareness, without trying too hard to get a lock. Once I'm merged I use my eyes and switch to DM or DG to get a firing solution.

Edited October 26, 2016 by lmp