Something is terrible wrong with AIM-120C

[marcoscosta]

After the last patch, the AIM-120C is erratic, sometimes it fly straight ignoring the enemy, sometimes lose track and pursue a random plane (even out of his sight).

 

I attached a trk file where my AIM-120 lauched at 26nm of enemy start a loft and then, abandon his path to hit my ally in under him, in another episode, a AIM-120 launched at point blank do a 90 degre turn and start a pursuit of my ally far away.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19FIZrnH3vJcuKvzTEb-L0xOF1S3LOinF/view?usp=sharing

Edited December 22, 2020 by marcoscosta

[Flappie]

Hi. It's been reported already.

[marcoscosta]

Yes, but going ballistic is different than abandon the target and start pursuing a random plane.

[Flappie]

When a Fox-3 missile loses its target, it activates its Home on Jam feature (AIM-7 does this as well). Was the random plane's jammer active when it was hit?

 

I took a look at your track: it's much too long to reliably show what happened, and I don't see any air-to-air engagement anyway (only bombing and air-refueling). Wrong track, maybe?

Edited December 22, 2020 by Flappie

[marcoscosta]

Hum... wrong track, sorry. But I think you are right, the missile goes to a ally F-15C, I think he was jamming in that moment.

 

I will correct the link on original post.

[nighthawk2174]

Hmm although i can't imagine there's something built in to not stray too far from the original pitbull point.  Pluss shouldn't it only go HOJ once it goes pitbull?

[Harker]

1 hour ago, nighthawk2174 said:

Hmm although i can't imagine there's something built in to not stray too far from the original pitbull point.

There is though, the missile knows where the interception point is and based on the target's velocity and position (as provided by the supporting platform), it can also adjust its Doppler filter and range gate. That avoids situations where your AIM-120 will go after a missile going at Mach 3 and 1 NM away from pitbull, if the original target was a fighter going at Mach 0.9 and 8 NM from pitbull. None of this exists in DCS though.

The AMRAAM also shouldn't randomly go HOJ on something completely away from the intended interception point. Especially if the jamming target is 90 degrees off the original course and far away. That goes for any part of the missile's flight. If it was easily fooled like that, it'd be completely unable in an ECM environment and it certainly can do that.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Harker

[nighthawk2174]

1 hour ago, Harker said:

There is though, the missile knows where the interception point is and based on the target's velocity and position (as provided by the supporting platform), it can also adjust its Doppler filter and range gate. That avoids situations where your AIM-120 will go after a missile going at Mach 3 and 1 NM away from pitbull, if the original target was a fighter going at Mach 0.9 and 8 NM from pitbull. None of this exists in DCS though.

The AMRAAM also shouldn't randomly go HOJ on something completely away from the intended interception point. Especially if the jamming target is 90 degrees off the original course and far away. That goes for any part of the missile's flight. If it was easily fooled like that, it'd be completely unable in an ECM environment and it certainly can do that.

 

Yeah Yeah just mistyped should be "there's not".  I just don't see it even having its seeker powered on to go HOJ till the pitbull point.  And that the guidance system should absolutely go to the last known intercept point which it currently doesn't. 

[Harker]

17 minutes ago, nighthawk2174 said:

Yeah Yeah just mistyped should be "there's not".  I just don't see it even having its seeker powered on to go HOJ till the pitbull point.  And that the guidance system should absolutely go to the last known intercept point which it currently doesn't. 

Yeah, I'm with you. It should only use the fighter-missile datalink to fly  until pitbull, nothing. If the fighter can see the target, nothing else matters. Even if the fighter loses the target, the missile will still fly to the last calculated interception point and turn its radar on at 8-10 NM from that. At this distance, it's doubtful if HOJ is even needed for noise jamming. IRL, what HOJ would likely do at this case is use ECCM to detect a particular signal the jammer is emitting (not the noise) and instead of using the radar, just home using that signal as a source. But that latter part doesn't exist at all in DCS, we only have noise jamming, meaning that at, say 5-10 NM, the missile's radar can burn through anyway, so it should keep flying towards the interception point until that happens.

The C-5 is smart, very smart. All comparable missiles are smart too. If they weren't, they wouldn't be able to be used in a modern battlefield.