reported earlier F/A-18 AGM-84H Slam-er not flying correct altitute

[FrostLaufeyson]

Here's the thing, there's an interesting mission called Foothold that I guess a lot of people have played.

Once, I wanted to blow up the enemy runway with the SLAM-ER to stop the enemy from taking off, and then everyone could push leisurely with the helicopter. But there's a lot of air defense in between, so I set up two steerpoints and found that the SLAM-ER would drop to 500 feet at the second steerpoint. This is lower than LOW (5000 feet) in the parameters, and it is independent of the altitude of the steerpoint. And finally there will be a Harpoon like POP behavior before hitting the target. As shown, WP1 and WP2 are STP and WP4 is TGT. WP3 is not used at this time.

But POP often gets missiles intercepted, so I wondered if I could stop it POP by adding steerpoints (added WP3 as STP). But then it gets worse, at this point it doesn't go down to 500 feet, it keeps flying at 5,000 feet and then POPs.

In fact, this problem has been bothering me since I bought the F18 last October, but the SLAM-ER is not commonly used, so I didn't care at the time.

However, I haven't found any documentation that states why this happens, and I don't even know if it's a bug. If not, then I need to understand how this works, because I want it to stay at 500 feet so it doesn't get locked.

If you want to check it yourself, here is the two trk files.

slam-er 2 stp.trk slam-er 3 stp.trk

Edited May 7, 2022 by FrostLaufeyson

[FrostLaufeyson]

Please check this thread first:

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but no one has been able to answer my question. So I'm going to post it as a bug.

I really need an exact explanation of why it can fly so low sometimes

[MarcT-NL]

I don't know about the pop-up, but I tried to shoot 4 SLAMer's in High, Mid and Low settings. The High was fired from 30.000ft, the rest from 19.000ft.

It seems that they don't understand High. Mid or Low is fine, but High always drops to 500ft.

Tracks included,

30000ft - high.trk low.trk

Apparently this 2mb file is bigger than 5MB so can't be uploaded. Pfff 

null

[Geronimo_0]

Yeh I think setting the altitude for steerpoints, it is using Above Sea Level, not Above Ground Level

I can set the altitude and it'll follow it just fine over the sea, but if I try to chuck it over some mountains, it just dives into the ground.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Geronimo_0
typo, Seal -> Sea

[MarcT-NL]

The SLAMs are not supposed to follow a waypoint altitude as far as I know. You can set them to high, medium or low before launch.

• High = 15000ft
• Med = 10000ft
• Low = 5000ft
• (not 100% sure about these altitudes)

They wil fly at the specified altitude (climbing up to avoid tarrain) until within a certain range of the designated target, then start to home in on it.

The bug is that on a setting of "High" they will fly at 500ft in stead of 15000ft, cuasing them tot Pop Up before impact. Seems they are confusing themselves with a harpoon...

Edited May 23, 2022 by MarcT-NL

[FrostLaufeyson]

This post is almost two months old and I need an official answer

[MustangSally]

I launched 4 last night. All set to high. I was flying at 33000ft, launched the missiles and they all descended to 500ft?? They did hit their assigned targets tho.

[Starspeed]

For me the slam-er doesn't cruise at the assigned altitute I set up in the stores page before launch. It seems like the altitute is set completely random. Is it a bug or am I missing something?

[razo+r]

There are several topics made about the behaviour of it, some still marked as "investigating", some marked as "reported". So it's possible what you experience is a bug. However, you should try to reproduce it in a small mission and attach the track here to confirm if it's a bug or not.

[BarTzi]

26 minutes ago, razo+r said:

There are several topics made about the behaviour of it, some still marked as "investigating", some marked as "reported". So it's possible what you experience is a bug. However, you should try to reproduce it in a small mission and attach the track here to confirm if it's a bug or not.

I think what OP means is if you launch it at a lower altitude than the one you set it to (high, med or low), it will automatically fly at the lowest poissible altitude above ground, which is wrong (and stupid). 

[BIGNEWY]

41 minutes ago, Starspeed said:

For me the slam-er doesn't cruise at the assigned altitute I set up in the stores page before launch. It seems like the altitute is set completely random. Is it a bug or am I missing something?

Please include a track replay showing what you are seeing

 

[Starspeed]

vor 49 Minuten schrieb BarTzi:

I think what OP means is if you launch it at a lower altitude than the one you set it to (high, med or low), it will automatically fly at the lowest poissible altitude above ground, which is wrong (and stupid). 

Okay that would be a scheme at least. Didn't recognize that behavior, for me it just seemed to be random. I gotta check that.

[Starspeed]

vor einer Stunde schrieb BIGNEWY:

Please include a track replay showing what you are seeing

 

Here is a quick example I set up. I fired the first both slam-ers at high cruise alt, one in PP and one in TOO. Third slam-er is in TOO and med, fourth in TOO and low. First two slam-ers seamed to go low though, 3 and 4 were higher. Hope it helps.

FA18_slam-er_test.trk

[BarTzi]

On 2/15/2023 at 11:28 PM, Starspeed said:

Here is a quick example I set up. I fired the first both slam-ers at high cruise alt, one in PP and one in TOO. Third slam-er is in TOO and med, fourth in TOO and low. First two slam-ers seamed to go low though, 3 and 4 were higher. Hope it helps.

FA18_slam-er_test.trk 1.58 MB · 4 downloads

Try firing them from 3 times the distance (also don't bother with PP - it will just make your track longer). It's too close to the target so they should already start losing altitude at this point, which makes it harder to spot the issue. 

Watch my track and see if this is what is happening to you. I launch at a lower altitude than 'high' (high = 30k), and the missiles start terrain following instead of maintaining altitude. Anyways, they start misbehaving when you launch them lower than their assigned altitude (applies to 'med' as well). 
@BIGNEWY

F18_slam_er_wrong_alt.trk

Edited February 17, 2023 by BarTzi

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

thanks for the track replays, this is already reported and I will chase up the report. 

thank you

[BIGNEWY]

posts merged