Lost Track options.... Why no "go active anyway" or "correlate this new track with that old one?"

[DroptheHammer]

Morning All,

While @Doormouse has an awesome thread in the bugs section about the TWS-A weighting which might fix the symptoms that I'm trying to override here... I'm kinda stumped regarding a few capabilities it only seems logical for a Human RIO and an AWG-9 to have..

First off...  Why cant a RIO take a trashed track, and update it with a hit that is clearly still the same airplane and tell the computer "you dummy, there he is, he just went left".  That way the AWG-9 can then tell the inflight missile OTW to the trashed track to A: Course correct, B: Go pitbull... Today trashed track missiles are just lost and not recoverable.

Second... Why cant a RIO say.. "yeah that track is trashed, but go pitbull over there anyway!".  I mean in the end, if you know it's all hostiles over there in that 18NM by 60 degree cone (Large mode TWS shot).  Do you really care if you hit the exact bandit or not?  Not really... I just want my million dollar missile to do some work, and if it hits the Mig29 instead of the SU27... I don't really care. Why is there no "just go active now" button for an inflight missile?

Thanks,

DTH

Edited February 7, 2022 by DroptheHammer

[eatthis]

afaik its a limit on 60s era computing power. but id love to know what the actual answers are

[Naquaii]

The simple answer is that according to our documentation it wasn't possible IRL. It might've been somewhere down the line after the documentation we have but if so we don't know how it worked or how you used it. The only fallback as it is for lost tracks is that the WCS still guide the missile to where it thinks the target is.

TWS simply wasn't designed to be used against small maneuverable targets. It was made to counter bigger non-maneuvering targets. That's not to say it doesn't work against other targets but it's not optimal for it. For smaller targets PD-STT should be used.

[DroptheHammer]

Just now, Naquaii said:

. The only fallback as it is for lost tracks is that the WCS still guide the missile to where it thinks the target is.

 

While I think it still does this (guide the missile towards the X'd track since that is the best estimate it has).. that missile never seems to get the "go-active" command.   and just flies off as a dud. never using it's own radar to try and find anything.  I've verified this on many targets that were on a stable vector, flying straight (like a mig-29 AI that just dumps it's entire chaff load and spoofs a track at 70NM). 

[near_blind]

7 minutes ago, DroptheHammer said:

While I think it still does this (guide the missile towards the X'd track since that is the best estimate it has).. that missile never seems to get the "go-active" command.   and just flies off as a dud. never using it's own radar to try and find anything

That is to my knowledge is purely a DCS-ism. If the extrapolated tracks position deviates too far from the actual position of the in-game object that is being targeted, the missile won't go active. I *think* this is because criteria for whether a missile goes active or not in the old missile API is if it reaches a distance from the in-game object that is being targeted.

 

In reality the precise criteria for when and how it goes active varies depending on which variant of AIM-54 and what tape the F-14 is on, but it should receive the active command from the radar even if extrapolated at the calculated time. ED recently added the capability for a missile to guide purely on a position rather than on purely on an object for the AIM-120 on the new API, so ideally whenever they disseminate this scheme to the third party devs, HB will be able to improve this. 

[Naquaii]

3 minutes ago, near_blind said:

That is to my knowledge is purely a DCS-ism. If the extrapolated tracks position deviates too far from the actual position of the in-game object that is being targeted, the missile won't go active. I *think* this is because criteria for whether a missile goes active or not in the old missile API is if it reaches a distance from the in-game object that is being targeted.

 

In reality the precise criteria for when and how it goes active varies depending on which variant of AIM-54 and what tape the F-14 is on, but it should receive the active command from the radar even if extrapolated at the calculated time. ED recently added the capability for a missile to guide purely on a position rather than on purely on an object for the AIM-120 on the new API, so ideally whenever they disseminate this scheme to the third party devs, HB will be able to improve this. 

Yes, basically this. We need to have an object as a target for the missile so to represent this when a track is lost we do a check when the missile should go active and if the target is still within the limits of the missiles seeker we tell it to go active, otherwise it does not.

[DroptheHammer]

I guess in this case, when mid course guidance is improved i guess things will improve.  At the moment, even for established tracks I see the missile overshoot targets accelerating hot on known tracks, or not turning during the boost or initial glide phases.  But tweaks here will mean more targets are still in the "pitbull basket" even if the tracks are lost late in the missile's travel time.

Keep fighting the good fight HeatBlur!  Things are always getting better and I just want it to be the best it can be.

[Southernbear]

14 hours ago, Naquaii said:

The simple answer is that according to our documentation it wasn't possible IRL. It might've been somewhere down the line after the documentation we have but if so we don't know how it worked or how you used it. The only fallback as it is for lost tracks is that the WCS still guide the missile to where it thinks the target is.

TWS simply wasn't designed to be used against small maneuverable targets. It was made to counter bigger non-maneuvering targets. That's not to say it doesn't work against other targets but it's not optimal for it. For smaller targets PD-STT should be used.

Are there still plans to make the AIM-54C to go active on track file loss? following the threads on this particular issue is difficult and while it seemed it was now a "when" rather then "if" thats all I could understand.

14 hours ago, DroptheHammer said:

Morning All,

While @Doormouse has an awesome thread in the bugs section about the TWS-A weighting which might fix the symptoms that I'm trying to override here... I'm kinda stumped regarding a few capabilities it only seems logical for a Human RIO and an AWG-9 to have..

First off...  Why cant a RIO take a trashed track, and update it with a hit that is clearly still the same airplane and tell the computer "you dummy, there he is, he just went left".  That way the AWG-9 can then tell the inflight missile OTW to the trashed track to A: Course correct, B: Go pitbull... Today trashed track missiles are just lost and not recoverable.

Second... Why cant a RIO say.. "yeah that track is trashed, but go pitbull over there anyway!".  I mean in the end, if you know it's all hostiles over there in that 18NM by 60 degree cone (Large mode TWS shot).  Do you really care if you hit the exact bandit or not?  Not really... I just want my million dollar missile to do some work, and if it hits the Mig29 instead of the SU27... I don't really care. Why is there no "just go active now" button for an inflight missile?

Thanks,

DTH

 

If your within like 30nmi and have a human RIO, switch on the TCS and turn off the clutter filter, the TCS guides the radar through the enemy's notch and the radar then re engages. Might not work as well for AIM-54s but it works a treat for AIM-7s

[Naquaii]

5 hours ago, Southernbear said:

Are there still plans to make the AIM-54C to go active on track file loss? following the threads on this particular issue is difficult and while it seemed it was now a "when" rather then "if" thats all I could understand.

If your within like 30nmi and have a human RIO, switch on the TCS and turn off the clutter filter, the TCS guides the radar through the enemy's notch and the radar then re engages. Might not work as well for AIM-54s but it works a treat for AIM-7s

I won't comment on the AIM-54C thing, you'd have to ask Ironmike for that.

The radar slaved to TCS definitely has its uses and if we eventually implement radar relock from that condition it will also be helpful to regain full lock after a lost lock.

[IronMike]

We're currently still investigating the implementation of the AIM-54C changes we want to do, but should have an update for you all, soon. Thank you for your kind patience in the meantime.

[DSplayer]

On 2/9/2022 at 5:07 AM, IronMike said:

We're currently still investigating the implementation of the AIM-54C changes we want to do, but should have an update for you all, soon. Thank you for your kind patience in the meantime.

Any update on this update?