When is the best situation to salvo missiles?

[Lymark]

You know that 1-2(inner)/3-4(outer)missile pylon selector? Since It launches both missiles at the same time, If one loses track or misses, the other one will most likely too, correct? Why would you use it then?

[some1]

It's not very useful, maybe if you are not sure if one hit will kill the target. In real life it was also for redundancy in case of missile malfunction.

 

And no, it wasn't intended to use one IR and one Radar missile in pair. At least the real weapons manual does not mention it and never shows such payload combo.

[Frederf]

Because you're shooting down a bomber (or ground target) and two booms will kill it and one won't. It's a little more helpful for R-60s. The manual makes note the a dual launch is not helpful for increasing the odds of hit.

 

Real items weren't 100% reliable mechanically and intercepts may not have budgeted enough fuel for enough attacks to use all weapons singly. The balance of the plane is less affected

[Sarraceno]

Dunno if its real procedure, but trying to shoot down something big or resistant like bombers or A-10 dual launchin of R-60 may make sense due to those tiny warheads

[Nerd1000]

IRL it was likely that at least one of your R-3S or R-3R would suffer a failure shortly after launch (old vacuum tube electronics weren't so reliable, especially after being subject to a 9g rocket boost) so firing them in salvo was practically a necessity if you wanted to score a hit. DCS missiles are always 'ideal' missiles in terms of reliability.