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AIM-54 Keep Missing!


JOEM423

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On a semi related note, I use the AIM-54 as a bigger fox-1 against fighters in PD-STT. Recently I noticed that I’ve started to get the correlation X over contacts while in STT. Anyone got a link for what that means? The lock isn’t broken and the target diamond is still in the HUD but it seems to contribute to misses in STT.

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9 hours ago, AH_Solid_Snake said:

On a semi related note, I use the AIM-54 as a bigger fox-1 against fighters in PD-STT. Recently I noticed that I’ve started to get the correlation X over contacts while in STT. Anyone got a link for what that means? The lock isn’t broken and the target diamond is still in the HUD but it seems to contribute to misses in STT.

Does it look like this?

Because that's a bug I first reported slightly over a year ago now, which is definitely still in the game.

@Naquaii would there be any indication on where this is on the priority list? It throws off guidance on PD-STT shots entirely making it impossible to F-pole with the Tomcat.

AIM-54 shot in PD-STT with this behaviour are utterly anemic, 36 miles head-on shot at 1.1 mach 24,000 ft and they're below Mach 1.5 after only 55 seconds of flight flying a straight ballistic profile... (they don't guide because of this bug). That's not even covering 20 miles on a high closure target...


Tacview attached

Tacview-20220420-191636-DCS.zip.acmi


Edited by Noctrach
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2 hours ago, near_blind said:

The missile in that tacview looks like it both lofted and guided. Does the missile take a more aggressive loft if you don't crank?

Nah the loft angle doesn't really change, but if the track holds (no X) the mid-course guidance is smoother and it doesn't pull the weird hook turn it does at 10 nmi.

It's weird though, the missile kinda guides even when track is lost, but it seems to guide in the same way phoenixes do when track is lost in TWS, it flies pure-pursuit-ish to a right-ish location and then does an aggressive correction turn if target is within front hemisphere inside ~10 miles.

I haven't touched the F-14 (and subsequently, DCS) in forever though because I feel there's no point taking it into fleet air defence. Between the AIM-54s sub-20 mile range and the AWG-9's inability to hold tracks in both TWS and PD-STT it just doesn't have any teeth. Is this the intended performance of the Phoenix/AWG-9 or are we still in some interim purgatory waiting for the new API to finish?


Edited by Noctrach
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7 hours ago, Noctrach said:

Does it look like this?

Because that's a bug I first reported slightly over a year ago now, which is definitely still in the game.

@Naquaii would there be any indication on where this is on the priority list? It throws off guidance on PD-STT shots entirely making it impossible to F-pole with the Tomcat.

AIM-54 shot in PD-STT with this behaviour are utterly anemic, 36 miles head-on shot at 1.1 mach 24,000 ft and they're below Mach 1.5 after only 55 seconds of flight flying a straight ballistic profile... (they don't guide because of this bug). That's not even covering 20 miles on a high closure target...


Tacview attached

Tacview-20220420-191636-DCS.zip.acmi 171.32 kB · 4 downloads

 

I had this the other day and was very confused. MAYBE this helps track down the similar issue in TWS where the track suddenly drops even though the appropriate non maneuvering contact appears below it half a second later.  Could indicate something else further upstream, or could be completely different. 

Do you know how to reproduce this reliably, other than just doing it a lot? 

 

 

Edit: Actually I cant see what you are describing in your video. Could you clarify? The previous poster @AH_Solid_Snakedescribed exactly what I had experienced

 

 


Edited by DoorMouse
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4 hours ago, Noctrach said:

Nah the loft angle doesn't really change, but if the track holds (no X) the mid-course guidance is smoother and it doesn't pull the weird hook turn it does at 10 nmi.

It's weird though, the missile kinda guides even when track is lost, but it seems to guide in the same way phoenixes do when track is lost in TWS, it flies pure-pursuit-ish to a right-ish location and then does an aggressive correction turn if target is within front hemisphere inside ~10 miles.

I'm genuinely not sure what the track extrapolated symbol means in relation to STT in the Tomcat. In your video the DDD seems to lose the contact, but never loses the rate gates, and the TID shows target rate throughout, and the antenna is cued the entire time. I'm 95% sure the AWG-9 doesn't have any sort of radar memory capacity like TWS's track hold in STT, and it was my understanding that the TCS slave modes aren't fully implemented. What my experience has been over three years of complaining about Sparrows is that the track extrapolation symbol in STT appearing hasn't made an appreciable difference in how or if the missile tracks. Spending an hour or so running the BVR mission with the AI's Chaff response turned off seemed to confirm that: extrapolation symbol or no, the missiles guided to their targets. I tend to ignore it, but I've also reached out to see what it's meant to do.

3 hours ago, Noctrach said:

I haven't touched the F-14 (and subsequently, DCS) in forever though because I feel there's no point taking it into fleet air defence. Between the AIM-54s sub-20 mile range and the AWG-9's inability to hold tracks in both TWS and PD-STT it just doesn't have any teeth. Is this the intended performance of the Phoenix/AWG-9 or are we still in some interim purgatory waiting for the new API to finish?

 

Tacview-20220420-180851-DCS-F-14B_IA_PG_BVR.zip.acmi

Tacview-20220420-182056-DCS_stthit.zip.acmiTacview-20220420-184115-DCS.zip.acmi

I really don't like this scenario because it starts the player too low and too close for a "proper" Phoenix engagement, but it does work, and you can absolutely get kills shooting outside of 20 miles in STT and TWS if you take prompt action. 

I feel like the common frustration since the January changes are that people spent 2.5 years getting used to the Phoenix acting as a kind of fast AMRAAM. The Phoenix isn't an AMRAAM, it can't be used in as broad an array as situations as an AMRAAM can. Trying to use it like that only exacerbates the weakness of the missile and leads to disappointment. It's your job as the pilot to get into a situation where the missile can perform. 

 

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6 hours ago, DoorMouse said:

I had this the other day and was very confused. MAYBE this helps track down the similar issue in TWS where the track suddenly drops even though the appropriate non maneuvering contact appears below it half a second later.  Could indicate something else further upstream, or could be completely different. 

Do you know how to reproduce this reliably, other than just doing it a lot? 

 

 

Edit: Actually I cant see what you are describing in your video. Could you clarify? The previous poster @AH_Solid_Snakedescribed exactly what I had experienced

 

 

 

The way to reproduce this is by adding a combined roll and antenna azimuth of more than 55-65 degrees. Its like the AWG-9 is simulating going out of gimbals without going out of gimbals

So banking 30 while the antenna train angle is at 30 will always result in this effect.

The easiest way to do it is by having a target in PD-STT at around 40-50 miles flying straight towards you and telling Iceman to bank 45 left or right.


Edited by Noctrach
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6 hours ago, near_blind said:

I'm genuinely not sure what the track extrapolated symbol means in relation to STT in the Tomcat. In your video the DDD seems to lose the contact, but never loses the rate gates, and the TID shows target rate throughout, and the antenna is cued the entire time. I'm 95% sure the AWG-9 doesn't have any sort of radar memory capacity like TWS's track hold in STT, and it was my understanding that the TCS slave modes aren't fully implemented.

Yeah it just makes no sense for this to happen, the AWG-9 will track the target perfectly through violent manoeuvring (provided it stays outside ZDF), including range and elevation on the TID and ATA on the DDD, but the DDD shows no return and the TID indicates trackhold/memory mode.

As mentioned, the main issue is that it seems to force guidance behaviour like on a trackhold TWS target, i.e. pure pursuit to estimated location of target and then ARH-esque corrections as soon as it hits 10 miles. On evading targets below 25,000 ft this just means the missile kinematically self-defeats 9 out of 10 times.


Edited by Noctrach
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7 hours ago, near_blind said:

I really don't like this scenario because it starts the player too low and too close for a "proper" Phoenix engagement, but it does work, and you can absolutely get kills shooting outside of 20 miles in STT and TWS if you take prompt action. 

I feel like the common frustration since the January changes are that people spent 2.5 years getting used to the Phoenix acting as a kind of fast AMRAAM. The Phoenix isn't an AMRAAM, it can't be used in as broad an array as situations as an AMRAAM can. Trying to use it like that only exacerbates the weakness of the missile and leads to disappointment. It's your job as the pilot to get into a situation where the missile can perform. 

The issue to me is that the C-AMRAAM can do the same shots (lazy cranking, late defending targets) you show in your tacviews at 40 miles, 33 kft, mach 0.8 with energy to spare. It can do the same thing pretty consistently at 35 miles 24kft, mach 1.1, while the AIM-54C can barely manage to go up against the 120B in similar scenarios, with the 120 being the better performer in a lot of cases. No matter the altitude, you're almost always better off firing an AMRAAM at pretty much any range inside 50 miles vs fighters. Where STT is concerned even the 27ER can reliably compete in the F-pole game on a well-flown Flanker due to its speed.

The only thing the Phoenix has going for it right now is the battery life for those 70 mile bomber shots. Kinematically it's a pretty poor missile and the AWG-9 with all its issues keeping a lock isn't doing it any sort of favours. Once the 54's motor burns out it pretty much deploys the brake chute. I do hope this is not the final state, otherwise I guess in the end the naysayers were right about it being mostly unsuitable vs fighters?


Edited by Noctrach
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44 minutes ago, Noctrach said:

The only thing the Phoenix has going for it right now is the battery life for those 70 mile bomber shots. Kinematically it's a pretty poor missile and the AWG-9 with all its issues keeping a lock isn't doing it any sort of favours. Once the 54's motor burns out it pretty much deploys the brake chute. I do hope this is not the final state, otherwise I guess in the end the naysayers were right about it being mostly unsuitable vs fighters?

 


Yes,that's what I mean I wonder what if the Phoenix was really poor to this shape in real life,or rather all the utter is just "update" to meet some Cat-Hate Saga and fulfill the happy of some BC/PC who produce and promotes them since early this century.

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5 hours ago, Noctrach said:

The issue to me is that the C-AMRAAM can do the same shots (lazy cranking, late defending targets) you show in your tacviews at 40 miles, 33 kft, mach 0.8 with energy to spare. It can do the same thing pretty consistently at 35 miles 24kft, mach 1.1, while the AIM-54C can barely manage to go up against the 120B in similar scenarios, with the 120 being the better performer in a lot of cases. No matter the altitude, you're almost always better off firing an AMRAAM at pretty much any range inside 50 miles vs fighters. Where STT is concerned even the 27ER can reliably compete in the F-pole game on a well-flown Flanker due to its speed.

The only thing the Phoenix has going for it right now is the battery life for those 70 mile bomber shots. Kinematically it's a pretty poor missile and the AWG-9 with all its issues keeping a lock isn't doing it any sort of favours. Once the 54's motor burns out it pretty much deploys the brake chute. I do hope this is not the final state, otherwise I guess in the end the naysayers were right about it being mostly unsuitable vs fighters?

 

Id wholeheartedly disagree that it currently is worse than the aim120B. It's got a longer NEZ at any altitude, it has much longer range and can easily win in an f-pole if it's in the appropriate launch conditions. 

 

It does however have 5x the drag of a 120 due to it's geometry. You can see the white paper and the historical data match up now.

 

The issue is not kinematics, the topic of this thread is that it sometimes over-lofts when it has an active track, TWS errors, and this STT hold track item. If you can manage to get the missile to pitbull and find it's target in the correct launch conditions, it is a much bigger stick than anything in game... It is just vastly more difficult to use 

 

 

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Interestingly the first version ever released was also apparently conforming to the whitepaper but it had much better kinematics.

But sure, when the guidance kinks are all worked out and we're not losing track anymore for no reason in STT or TWS it might become a passable anti-fighter weapon again.

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3 hours ago, DoorMouse said:

Id wholeheartedly disagree that it currently is worse than the aim120B. It's got a longer NEZ at any altitude, it has much longer range and can easily win in an f-pole if it's in the appropriate launch conditions. 

 

It does however have 5x the drag of a 120 due to it's geometry. You can see the white paper and the historical data match up now.

 

The issue is not kinematics, the topic of this thread is that it sometimes over-lofts when it has an active track, TWS errors, and this STT hold track item. If you can manage to get the missile to pitbull and find it's target in the correct launch conditions, it is a much bigger stick than anything in game... It is just vastly more difficult to use 

 

 

I did some testing after the new drag profile hit. IIRC the 54C is worse of the bunch and in a straight line has worse NEZ than even the 120B up to 15k feet or something if I remember correctly. Once any manouvering is involved the 54 fares even worse. 

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On 4/20/2022 at 7:13 PM, Noctrach said:

Does it look like this?

Because that's a bug I first reported slightly over a year ago now, which is definitely still in the game.

@Naquaii would there be any indication on where this is on the priority list? It throws off guidance on PD-STT shots entirely making it impossible to F-pole with the Tomcat.

AIM-54 shot in PD-STT with this behaviour are utterly anemic, 36 miles head-on shot at 1.1 mach 24,000 ft and they're below Mach 1.5 after only 55 seconds of flight flying a straight ballistic profile... (they don't guide because of this bug). That's not even covering 20 miles on a high closure target...


Tacview attached

Tacview-20220420-191636-DCS.zip.acmi 171.32 kB · 4 downloads

 

To be honest I'm not sure but I'd have to refer you to @IronMike. I'm not really part of the testing group.

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@Noctrachyes, I was in the pilot seat rather than RIO but the TID looked just like that and it usually is related to cranking for F-pole. I know TWS is sensitive to hard manuvering but I do think its got to be a bug for STT? How can you lose lock but also not lose lock in STT, if you go outside the antenna limit it should just drop back to RWS, not go into some kind of extrapolated guidance, especially when the AIM 54 cant go active when its been launched in PD-STT, there would be no value in the radar trying to keep tracking the missile on a non lofted trajectory towards nothing.

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8 hours ago, Comstedt86 said:

I did some testing after the new drag profile hit. IIRC the 54C is worse of the bunch and in a straight line has worse NEZ than even the 120B up to 15k feet or something if I remember correctly. Once any manouvering is involved the 54 fares even worse. 

Yes, That is correct.... But only RIGHT after the change. They had another patch which seriously changed the guidance and it drastically improved it - but we won't see any further improvement until ED finishes  the missile API

 

What you are saying is no longer valid, go take a look

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/11/2022 at 6:29 AM, near_blind said:

In my experience the missile usually flies over the target by something like 30K feet and then tries to turn back around and chase the target

This is by far the most frustrating thing for me in DCS that effectively made me fly il2 much more often lately. F14 is my favourite module but since the update where Phoenixes act like anti-satellite weapons I simply don't see a reason to fly it.

 

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3 hours ago, sparrow88 said:

...I simply don't see a reason to fly it.

It was never about flying for you, admit it.

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7 minutes ago, sparrow88 said:

I only fly multiplayer. Not fun going with fox-1s against fox-3s.

Air Quake? In that case try to get high yourself and launch further away at high unaware targets beyond the "frontline" that are heading into the fray. Had some decent success depending on the dynamics of the fight. 

But people usually are all over the place and TWS and closer targets is hit and miss. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Comstedt86 said:

Air Quake? In that case try to get high yourself and launch further away at high unaware targets beyond the "frontline" that are heading into the fray. Had some decent success depending on the dynamics of the fight. 

But people usually are all over the place and TWS and closer targets is hit and miss. 

 

 

Sadly when phoenix decides to loft to the stratosphere it doesnt matter if the target is aware or not.

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