Radar missile guidance

[mattag08]

Has anyone been noticing oddities in AIM-54 and AIM-7 behavior since the TWS Auto patch (particularly in MP)? As a client and as the host in a MP session AIM-54s and AIM-7s have been failing to guide approximately 50-75% of the time. This occurs in both TWS and STT modes for the AIM-54 and obviously STT for AIM-7s. AIM-54 shots were made at ranges from 5 NM to 50 NM at 20,000' altitude, hot aspect, maneuvering and non-maneuvering targets. AIM-7 shots made at ranges of 2 NM to 15 NM. Often the missile will do very strange behaviors such as:

 

1. Coming straight off the rails and never guiding.

2. Coming off the rail and immediately tracking the location of the enemy when the missile was launched (chaff possibly?).

3. Tracking, then failing to track, then guiding again, then failing to guide, then guiding again and repeating this behavior over and over until it hits or passes the target.

4. Flying the loft profile then ceasing to fly the loft profile and going straight at the target even though the target remains STT'd or the TWS track is stable (at ranges of 30-50 NM).

5. Both missiles (in all variants) seem to have near zero resistance to chaff and will almost always guide to the first or second chaff bundle regardless of a good track in TWS or STT.

 

This may be occurring for AIM-120s as well, but I've only played the 14 since the patch, so unknown if this is a ED missile issue or HB radar issue.

 

Related: I don't know the exact seeker algorithms or sensor operation of SARH missiles, but is it possible for to fire a SARH missile with a good STT lock on an aircraft and the missile seeker to track chaff? Even if the launch platform has retained a good lock on the aircraft throughout the missiles entire flight?

 

Also unrelated: In the manual the AIM-7 is supposed to continue to guide based on FLOOD mode after a loss of STT. Is this behavior modeled? I've never see it work in over a year of flying the F-14 now.

[RustBelt]

Yes. missing like 70% of the time now.

[WelshZeCorgi]

I have noticed an increased instance of aim 7s flying straight and failing to guide at launch despite good locks.