Any suggestion to engaging an opponent with meteor?

[Torbernite]

As the ram powered meteor has many different character from present missiles in DCS, like slower initial acceleration but long thrust time and attitude and altitude related power from the ram engine, the strategy to engage an opponent with it or some other ram powered missiles in the future should be different and difficult. I can't imagine a reasonable method to fight them now. May anyone give some suggestions or hints?

[Nexus-6]

I...really doubt anyone will be able to offer you very much in the way of sage advice on a module that isn't even in Early Access yet.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Nexus-6

[Spurts]

Similar to fighting the Phoenix now, lots of pre-emptive notching and dynamic flying to try and bleed the speed.  Oh, and fly low.  The Meteor has to chose between "high" flight speed or high flight range when in thicker air.  It is a throttleable ram-rocket but the radome is not protected against high temperatures (i.e. Mach numbers).  What I've read says the max mach of the Radome is ~3.5M so it has to modulate throttle to not exceed that due to thermal heating.  Lower altitude causes heating to happen at lower speeds so it has to reduce speed even more.

[Kang]

1.) Push button

2.) ???

3.) Home for bratwurst and medals

[Mr_Burns]

On 3/11/2022 at 6:25 AM, Spurts said:

Similar to fighting the Phoenix now, lots of pre-emptive notching and dynamic flying to try and bleed the speed.  Oh, and fly low.  The Meteor has to chose between "high" flight speed or high flight range when in thicker air.  It is a throttleable ram-rocket but the radome is not protected against high temperatures (i.e. Mach numbers).  What I've read says the max mach of the Radome is ~3.5M so it has to modulate throttle to not exceed that due to thermal heating.  Lower altitude causes heating to happen at lower speeds so it has to reduce speed even more.

Agree with your assessment on throttle, I wonder if the airforces will carry meteor for BVR and AIM-120 for medium range to get that rapid acceleration, that said, they are both apparently Mach 4 but 3.5 is easily rounded up to M4 for sales advertising!

[cmbaviator]

Wouldn't the EF 2000 be overpowered compared to the other module in BVR ? the max range of the metor missile is 100km and the no escape zone of 50-60 km, i mean thats insane !!

 

not mentionning the jamming capability of the EF 2000 is also better than any module theorically.

 

Imagine when it releases, everyone will be using the EF 2000 on pvP server lol

[Dragon1-1]

If the PvP server allows it. If it's too OP, it won't, or it'll ban the Meteor and force it to stick to AMRAAMs, which it can also carry. It is the most advanced design that will be available in DCS, probably for a long time. Don't expect it to have a fair match, red side simply didn't have anything comparable at the time. JF-17 is just as modern, but it's less capable due to its intended role.

[MRTX]

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the Meteor has a 2 way datalink, and therefore can also be guided based on target data provided by pretty much any compatible donour which is being received by the Eurofighter firing the missile, so breaking direct line of sight and hiding behind terrain won't work as long as somebody else is still seeing you with their radar and sending your position via DL. And with the Eurofighter having such a small RCS and not even having to turn on its radar to engage, you are almost always going to loose the fight (if you even know that you're in one) 

This all of course is only valid if Heatblur properly implements this rather important feature of the Meteor, since some of it is still very much classified.

[Breakaway]

Im still surprised they are able to get the information required to make this module. This aircraft is obviously still very much in service and recieving constant upgrades. As a Brit I'm excited to snatch this one straight of the shelf.

[Southernbear]

On 9/10/2022 at 8:45 AM, Breakaway said:

Im still surprised they are able to get the information required to make this module. This aircraft is obviously still very much in service and recieving constant upgrades. As a Brit I'm excited to snatch this one straight of the shelf.

Kinda helps when the CEO of Truegrit actually flew the thing. 

I'll say it once again for the new comers to DCS, it is not the responsibility of a Development team to ensure whether or not a module or weapon system is "balanced", rather, it is their responsibility to ensure such a aircraft or system is behaving as close to real life as possible with all available knowledge and data. It is up to the server owners and mission designers to make the call whether something is "balanced" or not and it is up to them to take the actions they deem necessary, be it locking a weapon or even a whole aircraft.  

[Jester2138]

On 9/16/2022 at 7:28 PM, Southernbear said:

Kinda helps when the CEO of Truegrit actually flew the thing. 

Doesn't matter because due to a little thing called "The Law" he still has to work off the same publicly available information as anybody else.

And it's not like other modules don't also use SMEs in the development.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Jester2138

[Rick Mave]

Best bet, in my opinion, would probably be to try and notch the lock at low altitude while doing your best to find somewhere to terrain mask with.

[F-2]

On 3/10/2022 at 2:25 PM, Spurts said:

Similar to fighting the Phoenix now, lots of pre-emptive notching and dynamic flying to try and bleed the speed.  Oh, and fly low.  The Meteor has to chose between "high" flight speed or high flight range when in thicker air.  It is a throttleable ram-rocket but the radome is not protected against high temperatures (i.e. Mach numbers).  What I've read says the max mach of the Radome is ~3.5M so it has to modulate throttle to not exceed that due to thermal heating.  Lower altitude causes heating to happen at lower speeds so it has to reduce speed even more.

That seems kinda slower then I would have guessed. Might not be the end of the world facing it.

[Spurts]

1 hour ago, F-2 said:

That seems kinda slower then I would have guessed. Might not be the end of the world facing it.

A high altitude launch (36,000ft) might do 3+M for near 70nm.

[MRTX]

Am 4.10.2022 um 11:03 schrieb Rick Mave:

Best bet, in my opinion, would probably be to try and notch the lock at low altitude while doing your best to find somewhere to terrain mask with.

The thing is that you would have to try and terrain mask from pretty much any radar that could share your position via datalink and that for a substantial ammount of time since METEOR can just reaqcuire you the moment you pop up again.

[Scott-S6]

Is the meteor smart enough to avoid terrain?

IE if I put terrain between my aircraft and the missile but someone's radar is still illuminating me will the missile fly into the terrain or around it?

 

[MRTX]

Currently there is no info confirming or denying any form of terrain avoidance of the Meteor, but i hardly believe that this is a capability the missile posesses on its own with the help of internal hardware. That would simply require the missile to have a sophisticated worldwide terrain database and a guidance AI that could process all of that data to anticipate possible target movement which could lead to terrain masking and plan maneuvers acordingly.

Nevertheless it would make sense that all these capabilities are integrated into the guidance given to the METEOR by the Eurofighter, since it would be a rather "simple" task to make the nescessary software implementations into the aircraft. And since it extremely increases the lethality of the missile, i hardly believe that such a valuable capability has been left out when Airbus and MBDA integrated the meteor.

Of course take all of this with a grain of salt since this is pure speculation!

[Lurker]

With the missile guidance and AI logic that are out of the hands of Heatblur, the Meteor will probably not be a very potent missile at all. All it usually takes to spoof any radar in DCS World is basically hitting the notch for a second or two, which the AI usually do perfectly and with uncanny precision. Unless this is significantly changed in the interim while we wait for the Meteor and the Eurofighter, I don't see this missile being any more or less effective than any other active missile in DCS world. I.E. not very effective at all. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Lurker

[Scott-S6]

On 11/12/2022 at 9:53 PM, MRTX said:

Currently there is no info confirming or denying any form of terrain avoidance of the Meteor, but i hardly believe that this is a capability the missile posesses on its own with the help of internal hardware. That would simply require the missile to have a sophisticated worldwide terrain database and a guidance AI that could process all of that data to anticipate possible target movement which could lead to terrain masking and plan maneuvers acordingly.

Nevertheless it would make sense that all these capabilities are integrated into the guidance given to the METEOR by the Eurofighter, since it would be a rather "simple" task to make the nescessary software implementations into the aircraft. And since it extremely increases the lethality of the missile, i hardly believe that such a valuable capability has been left out when Airbus and MBDA integrated the meteor.

Of course take all of this with a grain of salt since this is pure speculation!

I disagree - it isn't simple at all, it's much more complex than typical course corrections, especially since it may well involve the missile breaking line of sight with the launching aircraft. How will corrections be transmitted? Will the missile be handed off to the aircraft that's illuminating the target to receive corrections? Those corrections are now much more sophisticated and require the guiding aircraft to have accurate positional data of both the target aircraft and the missile. Is the guiding aircraft going to paint the missile? The aircraft thats illuminating the masked target may not even be in a position do so.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Scott-S6

[Spectre11]

Meteor has no terrain following capability, end of discussion.

[Scott-S6]

On 11/26/2022 at 11:11 AM, Spectre11 said:

Meteor has no terrain following capability, end of discussion.

I suspected as much. Terrain masking absolutely will be functional then.