IR AA missiles locking to ground targets?

[Octav]

Hello devs,

Merry Christmans and a Happy New Year (in advance).

One question - browsing through the MiG-29 manual, I've remembered one very intetresting feature: in OPT mode, you could use the R-60 and the R-73 missiles as guided A-G missiles, by locking their seekers onto ground IR contrasting targets - could you consider introducing that feature (not necesarily in 1.1)? It would be quite interesting, and an R-73 I think it could be used to disable a light armoured vehicle.

 

Cheers,

Octav

[GGTharos]

I agree - they have to model heat though, which may or may not be easy. Jane's did it but it was somewhat incomplete - ie. you couldn't lock AA missiles onto ground targets, and AIM-9X's were extremely INdiscriminate about what they went after. Probably not an easy problem.

 

And yeah, I think the warhead on a 73 or 60 or 9 could easily destroy a small vehicle ... possibly even a tank if it hit from behind. The problem here is that these aren't IIR missiles so I think they should eb easy to decoy (they might even decide to go after somthing else mid-flight, but who knows)

[Octav]

I agree - they have to model heat though, which may or may not be easy. Jane's did it but it was somewhat incomplete - ie. you couldn't lock AA missiles onto ground targets, and AIM-9X's were extremely INdiscriminate about what they went after. Probably not an easy problem.

 

Well, there should be something already done, since they implement some sort of IR mapping in 1.1 - didn't play with the A10 so much, so I don't remember exactly what's the situation in 1.02.

 

And yeah, I think the warhead on a 73 or 60 or 9 could easily destroy a small vehicle ... possibly even a tank if it hit from behind. The problem here is that these aren't IIR missiles so I think they should eb easy to decoy (they might even decide to go after somthing else mid-flight, but who knows)

 

Well, I'm not sure if all the APC's ant tanks or other vehsicles carry IR jammers and flares - so....

And since they are launched in bore mode against a contrasting non-maneuvering target (I wouldn't call an APC maneuvrable by a missile's point of view), this shouldn't be a problem.

 

Octav

[GGTharos]

Yeah, not liek the APS can generate LOS problems...or any problems ;)

 

APCs and Tanks do have the options of using hot smoke last I checked though. Not all of'em and I don't think hot smoke is very common either.

[D-Scythe]

And yeah, I think the warhead on a 73 or 60 or 9 could easily destroy a small vehicle ... possibly even a tank if it hit from behind. The problem here is that these aren't IIR missiles so I think they should eb easy to decoy (they might even decide to go after somthing else mid-flight, but who knows)

 

Definitely not.

 

Although most small anti-tank missiles and SRAAMs share warheads of similar sizes, they are completely different warheads. While the explosives in an anti-aircraft missile might rely more on a spread affect to cause the most damage on an aircraft (you know, proximity detonation and all), the warheads on anti-tank missiles require an *exact* placement of the missile at the time of detonation to best employ its shaped-charged warhead effectively. And in a shaped charged warhead, the focus is not to cause damage over a relatively wide area, but rather to form a molten jet of sorts to pierce right through armour, and the diameter of this jet at the point of contact with armour may be only a few millimetres. For example, the shaped charged warhead on an AGM-65D Mav (with the 125 lb warhead - 5 times bigger than that of the -9M/X Sidewinder) forms a molten jet that is TINY...at most a few centimetres in diameter. There are photos of floating in the web where mobility killed M1A1/2s have been struck by friendly Mavs, and the hole where the shaped charged punctured the armour is miniscule.

 

I might've got a few facts wrong, but the bottom line is, the warhead on an AIM-9 or R-60 definitely would not cause any damage to a tank (unless it just so happened to hit a particularly vulnerable spot, like the engine grill) or any other comparably armoured vehicle. Iraqi suicide bombers on numerous occasions have driven bombs right into U.S. M2 Bradleys, with no damage to their targets. It's the type of warhead, rather than its size ;)

[GGTharos]

Thanks for expanding on what I was saying in not-quite-as-many-words ;)

 

While the AA missiles do have a frag fuze, they are also highly maneuverable and accurate - if you can set the fuze with a detail the missile will punch through a tinfoil BMP or M113 before detonation. And remember, thsi thing's doing mach 2. It don't stop for nobody (at least not when 'nobody' is made out of tinfoil)

[D-Scythe]

I was referring to when you guys were discussing the possibility of an R-60 punching through a tank ;)

[GGTharos]

I said 'unless it hit from the back' ... you know, where the armor's paper thin and all those fancy grills are sat at? ;)

[D-Scythe]

Grills? What grills? In the M1, the turret covers the grills... :lol:

[Drakkhen]

...not completely when it's turned +-90 degrees... :twisted:

Anyway, I agree with the fact AA missiles can help "finish" a transport column of trucks and soft armored vehicles when the specific payload has been dropped on harder elements.

[BIOLOG]

Well... If you shoot at M1's turret top... Not sure how thick is the armor there...

[GGTharos]

Depends onthe model. Latest models have pretty thick armor all around, compared to earlier ones, probably in response to the latest spate of top-attack weapons.

[Dmut]

well, all short range air-to-air missiles are not suitable to do any serious damage to havy armor because of warhead type (balls and rods) and fuse type (radio fuse is not supposed to score a direct hit)

IMHO, the best result R-60 can do is a trigger few boxes of reactive armor and scratch the tactical number paintings, nothing more.

[GGTharos]

Right, but if it lands anywhere on the intakes it will cause a problem. No one's disagreeing - don't waste'em on tanks, use'em on targets they'll destroy for sure ;)

 

ALso, despite the prox fuze, AFAIK all thos emissiles also have an impact fuze.

[Octav]

Right, but if it lands anywhere on the intakes it will cause a problem. No one's disagreeing - don't waste'em on tanks, use'em on targets they'll destroy for sure ;)

 

ALso, despite the prox fuze, AFAIK all thos emissiles also have an impact fuze.

 

The proximity fuse is looking at the sides, not at the front - so a direct hit detonation via the impact fuse is the only way to do it - and i think you could disable a ZSU-23 or a Gepard with such a thing - of course, if another damage model is implemented, instead of the curret life bar - for example, a hit by an R-73 would definetly trash the Gepard's radar....

 

Octav

[D-Scythe]

Actually, the only missiles I've seen so far that are reliable 'hittiles' (as opposed to 'miss'iles) are the AIM-120 and the AIM-9X. Not saying that there aren't other missiles that can be hittiles - certainly, the R-77, Meteor and Derby AAMs spring to mind - but there have been many times in live fire exercises that both the AIM-120 and the AIM-9X destroyed their frantic target drones with a direct hit, and despite the fact that these missiles only had an inert warhead, brought their targets down.

 

And having two types of fuses seem like a waste to me - there's no need to make something more expensive than it is. I'm thinking more along the lines of a really smart proximity fuse. In all missiles its mostly triggered either by laser or active radar, so I'd imagine it'd be smart enough to know when and where the missiles are going to pass closest to the target - even a direct hit - to trigger off the warhead.

[GGTharos]

The inclusion of an impact fuze in just about every AAM and SAM seems to indicate that the makers of these systems disagree with you.

 

After all the prox fuze can easily fail on impact and at any rate, an impact fuze isn't exactly very expensive or as complex as a prox fuze.

 

Impact fuzes are quite useful - even the old Sidewinders used to fly right up MiG's tailpipes in the Vietnam war, for example, and on the first test of the AMRAAM 3 out of 4 missiles scored direct hits. I doubt the RUssian missiles are any worse in this department.

 

Octav: I totally agree with you. There's an example of an AIM-7 tracking and destroying a truck as well ... it exceeted the F-15's notch gate and the pilot 'shot it down' ... the truck I mean ;) Pretty amusing, neh?

[D-Scythe]

The inclusion of an impact fuze in just about every AAM and SAM seems to indicate that the makers of these systems disagree with you.

 

Examples? AFAIK, most missiles only have ONE fuse.

 

After all the prox fuze can easily fail on impact and at any rate, an impact fuze isn't exactly very expensive or as complex as a prox fuze.

 

How can a prox fuse fail on impact? That's contradictory. Prox fuses are designed to explode at a certain distance, so this ensures that the missile will NEVER impact its target. Besides, an impact fuse may be inexpensive, and not very complex, but it DOES take up space, agree? So why waste this space when a prox fuse can accomplish the same thing as an impact fuze?

 

And one more thing, impact fuses aren't as reliable as prox fuses. On many occasions the Mk-80 series of GP bombs, impact fused, fail to detonate - referred to as 'duds'. One agrees that the impact fuse on a Mk80 GP bomb should be more reliable than one on a missile, yes? It is the purpose, the reson d'etre, of bombs afterall. Add to this the fact that the fuse on modern missiles seldom ever fail to detonate, and you can draw your own conclusions.

 

Impact fuzes are quite useful - even the old Sidewinders used to fly right up MiG's tailpipes in the Vietnam war, for example, and on the first test of the AMRAAM 3 out of 4 missiles scored direct hits.

 

The fuses on the old Sidewinders weren't all that reliable, and the ensuing explosion can be attributed to as much as having a 150 lb mass of metal shooting into a volatile jet engine as to the existence of an impact fuse.

 

I doubt the RUssian missiles are any worse in this department.

 

Never said they weren't.

 

Octav: I totally agree with you. There's an example of an AIM-7 tracking and destroying a truck as well ... it exceeted the F-15's notch gate and the pilot 'shot it down' ... the truck I mean ;) Pretty amusing, neh?

 

This I gotta see to believe. I've read in Desert Storm that Canadian CF-18s tried to lock up Iraqi gunboats with AIM-7s (and actually fired AIM-9s) unsuccessfully, but an F-15 destroying a truck with an AIM-7? :shock:

[Octav]

D-Scythe - let's talk on your comments, one by one:

- regarding "miss"iles and "hitt"iles :lol: I'm not sure how much info you have regarding the live firing of russian missiles - believe me, even an old R-60, which had it's useful lifetime expired for 2 years, managed to hit a flare, if fired under the right conditions - and target flares wobble quite a bit, because of their parachutes - from that aspect they can be more maneuvrable sometimes than a target drone. So please allow me to "acuse" :D you of being subjective.

 

- as far as I know, every missile, at least from the Sidewinder B and the K-13 era and so far on, had impact and proximity fuses (some of them have self-destruct timers, as well, but not all of them - one example being the R-27)

 

- having 2 types of of fuses is't a waste, after all - the impact fuse is quite cheap, compared to the proximity fuse and other important components in the missile, and after all, a direct hit is the desogn goal of a missile - that expanding rod or blst/fragmentation warhead will do more damage if it explodes in a confined space (inside the target, for example), than if it will detonate in the proximity of the target

 

- for it's cheapness, an inpact fuse is also a backup system - the proximity fuse is armed some time after the missile leaves the rail, for safety reasons - you don't want it to proximity detonate near the launching platform, so it may fail to arm properly later on.

 

And a prox fuse is quite small - a spring-loaded switch, with a damper, designed not to make contact to the acceleration forces of the missile, but to make contact on an impact - it's pretty much failsafe, due to it's simplicity.

 

And proximity fuses, either radio or laser, have a lot of components that can fail, especially on older missile generations (before the 120 and the 77). Do not forget that a lot of AA missiles were using vacuum tubes, and those hat the bad habbit of failing more often than necessary :D. Even the transistor era missiles weren't much better, and even in today's state of the art electronics, all those vibrations and shocks mai losen wires, connectors and other parts.

 

GGTharos - well, interesting fact with that AIM-7 truck kill - but that guy was going pretty fast to exceed even the smallest noth gate on the F-15's radar...

 

Well, happy new year guy's - I'm leaving to a mountain resort for the new year, so I'll see you next year.

Cheers,

Octav

[GGTharos]

Truckers are crazy man, they'll drive quite quickly to get places - speed=money for them. The smallest notch gate on teh F-15C radar if I recall correctly is 47kts ... easily reachable by just about anything on wheels these days.

 

D-Scythe, no, you shouldn't compare GP bomb fuzes vs. missile fuzes. Bombs are cheap stuff. Really cheap stuff. I'm willing to bet that the difference between an Mk-84 and a sidewinder, in price, isn't too huge - and the major price component in the missile is the guidance and fuze section. By comparison, GP's are plentiful and a dud or two won't hurt your cause when you drop 50 of them on one pass (or even 4 ;) )

 

As for seeing that contact/impact fuzes are used in most missiles, look up fas.org. While these guys screw up quite a bit, at least their fuze/warhead description section for the US missiles are pretty much taken right out of manufacturer's specs, typically, so they're just listing what the manufacturer puts in. I'm fairly certain you'll find 'impact' or 'contact' fuze in there.

 

Missiles aren't designed to detonate near their targets - they're designed to hit them, and it's the prox fuze that's the backup, not the other way around.

 

Because an aircraft can maneuver to kinematically defeat the missile (ie. ensure that there's no direct hit) the fuze becomes more important against bogeys which are maneuvering heavily or are at long range. But there zero reason to not include the contact fuze since the missiles are designed to *hit* the target. That's jsut ebcause it -happens- to be the most realible way to destroy the enemy aircraft ;) Designing a missile to prox det makes it fairly vulnerable to evasion techniques - it'll detonate but may easily do no damage - it can basically be geometrically defeated, and this goes even for our current missiles (ever head of 'orthogona rolls'?) - essentially you use the optimization of the warhead against the missile and cause the frag to go somewhere other than your aircraft.

 

To address yoru question of a prox fuze failing on impact: A prox fuze may be optimized to time the explosion a few milliseconds after coming close to the target (so that it catches the middle rather than say tail-end of the aircraft) so if it impacted at that point this might destroy the fuze electronics. This is why you need a contact fuze. If it hits, the warhead goes boom and at this point it doesn't matter too much if you're on the tail-or-wingtip of the airraft or right in the middle of it, since with contact the blast is effective (whereas it loses effect very quickly over distance which is why you have expanding rod and frag warheads etc)

 

PS: Have a great new Year Octav.

[D-Scythe]

- regarding "miss"iles and "hitt"iles I'm not sure how much info you have regarding the live firing of russian missiles - believe me, even an old R-60, which had it's useful lifetime expired for 2 years, managed to hit a flare, if fired under the right conditions - and target flares wobble quite a bit, because of their parachutes - from that aspect they can be more maneuvrable sometimes than a target drone. So please allow me to "acuse" you of being subjective.

 

Octav, did you read my post? ;)

 

In case you didn't, here is what I did say:

 

Actually, the only missiles I've seen so far that are reliable 'hittiles' (as opposed to 'miss'iles) are the AIM-120 and the AIM-9X. Not saying that there aren't other missiles that can be hittiles - certainly, the R-77, Meteor and Derby AAMs spring to mind

 

Where in my assessment was I being subjective? I never said anything about Russian missiles not being hittiles...just that I've only seen the AIM-120 and AIM-9X hit their targets directly and reliably, and that other modern missiles are most likely the same.

 

Thus, you accusation of me being subjective is completely unwarranted and false ;)

 

Just for the record, anything can be a hittile, provided that the target does not manuever much to avoid the missile.

 

As for GGtharos, I'll look some stuff up :)

 

P.S. Octav, a wobbly flare on a chute is hardly comparable to a multi-g, transonic target drone kicking out decoys and blaring out with its jammer ;)

[BIOLOG]

D-Scythe look up airborn target "Dan'" in Russian "Воздушная мишень Дань" This is what generally used to test missiles in Russia...

Also about 95% of missiles have 2 or more fuses... IIRC R-77 has one impact fuse and two oppositely directed proximity fuses (basically they form two radio/laser rings round missile, one at front, one at the back)...

 

Oh, and Octah, HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!