Information about R-60 Missiles used as air to ground missile.

[BIGNEWY]

45 minutes ago, SUBS17 said:

 

You would have to provide evidence before that would ever be CODED. I would never CODE something like that as it is unrealistic. 

 

yeah, that is not how this works, and it is realistic, but thank you for your feedback

 

[Dragon1-1]

3 hours ago, SUBS17 said:

You would have to provide evidence before that would ever be CODED. I would never CODE something like that as it is unrealistic. 

You are literally the only one in this thread who hasn't provided a single shred of evidence towards anything you have said.

[Harlikwin]

6 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

yeah, that is not how this works, and it is realistic, but thank you for your feedback

 

Not pick nits, but something in that caption is wrong as the aim-9L program didn't exist in 71, or that is not a 9L (doesn't really look like one with that nose). And yeah I'll take it up with the museum. 

But at any rate, there was a ton of effort invested in the early years of most IR seeking missile programs not having them lock "warm" things on the ground, rather what they were supposed to lock (warm things in the air). So most early IR missiles should have this "feature" even if it was considered a "bug" back then.


 

[BIGNEWY]

6 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

Not pick nits, but something in that caption is wrong as the aim-9L program didn't exist in 71, or that is not a 9L (doesn't really look like one with that nose). And yeah I'll take it up with the museum. 

 yep take it up with the museum. 

The point being made is that IR missiles can lock and be fired on IR signatures anywhere, ground signatures do however have challenges and back ground IR clutter. 

You can even search about the AIM-9X on various public government sites which claim it can be used against ground targets.

[Dragon1-1]

12 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

But at any rate, there was a ton of effort invested in the early years of most IR seeking missile programs not having them lock "warm" things on the ground, rather what they were supposed to lock (warm things in the air). So most early IR missiles should have this "feature" even if it was considered a "bug" back then.

This is not entirely accurate. The missiles were supposed to lock hot things, particularly in the air. What they had to reject was things on the ground that were merely warm (or, more commonly, IR-reflective). Heat is heat, they'd lock onto a hot tank's exhaust stack just fine, the challenge was to make them not go stupid when the target flies over a shed with a metal roof. 

[Harlikwin]

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This is not entirely accurate. The missiles were supposed to lock hot things, particularly in the air. What they had to reject was things on the ground that were merely warm (or, more commonly, IR-reflective). Heat is heat, they'd lock onto a hot tank's exhaust stack just fine, the challenge was to make them not go stupid when the target flies over a shed with a metal roof. 

Broadly speaking I think we are in agreement. But, it all depends on your understanding of "hot" and where in the IR spectrum you are looking, in fact germanium elements were used in the optical design precisely to cut out "hot" stuff spectrally speaking to reduce clutter and ultimately flare rejection as well. 

For the R60M in Afghanistan case and I believe the Vietnam and Angola uses cases as well, they were used at night where you basically didn't have any reflective clutter on the ground, so when you locked something "blindly" you could be reasonable certain it was an actual target. 

[SUBS17]

SEEKER TYPE LASER GUIDED for that missile most likely. It might be similar to the seeker on the Russian Air to Ground Laser Guided Missiles.

 

23 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

yeah, that is not how this works, and it is realistic, but thank you for your feedback

 

 

[Dragon1-1]

Considering all but the relatively new (AIM-9M and onward) heaters would happily lock onto the sun if pointed that way, I think it's safe to say not much was done when it came to rejecting hot targets before that. AIM-9M actually used rise time for flare rejection, which famously caused problem with cheap, slow to light Iraqi flares.

[Harlikwin]

36 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Considering all but the relatively new (AIM-9M and onward) heaters would happily lock onto the sun if pointed that way, I think it's safe to say not much was done when it came to rejecting hot targets before that. AIM-9M actually used rise time for flare rejection, which famously caused problem with cheap, slow to light Iraqi flares.

There were multiple techniques and filters to do just that actually depending on which specific missile you are talking about. By the time you get to the 9L/M even more sophisticated processing was being used. For example, the R60M contains two sets of optical filters in addition to the primary seeker dome material that also acts as filter. And its reticle design looks interesting as well, though thats more for spatial filtering.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Harlikwin

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, SUBS17 said:

SEEKER TYPE LASER GUIDED for that missile most likely. It might be similar to the seeker on the Russian Air to Ground Laser Guided Missiles.

 

 

IR signatures can be locked by IR seekers. Fact

[Harlikwin]

12 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

 yep take it up with the museum. 

The point being made is that IR missiles can lock and be fired on IR signatures anywhere, ground signatures do however have challenges and back ground IR clutter. 

You can even search about the AIM-9X on various public government sites which claim it can be used against ground targets.

Yeah I'm not arguing that point at all, its well documented that it was done. Though I really wonder how you guys are gonna model that. I guess you have heat values for vehicles for your FLIR model, but it doesn't really seem like there is anything for actual background objects, and honestly I haven't seen alot of studies on how effective targeting ground vehicles really was with different types of missiles, everything I've seen is highly anecdotal. 

9X ground targeting is a whole other can of worms since it actually has an imaging seeker where nothing this old did. 

Also found your missile in that photo, looks to be an AGM-87 FOCUS missile developed during VN at china lake. It was a sidewinder derivative but both the seeker section and guidance section were modified so it could better be used against ground targets. Very likely the spatial filtering was modified. 

Here it is on a Huey

Edited September 6, 2022 by Harlikwin

[Lugubrious Hatchling]

Is there any kind of temperature simulation in the works that would make the missiles lock, ground or air alike?

On another note, I have a theory that subs is deliberately annoying the devs into implementing the R60 "lock ground heat" features just out of spite for him. 
 

[Harlikwin]

4 minutes ago, Lugubrious Hatchling said:

Is there any kind of temperature simulation in the works that would make the missiles lock, ground or air alike?

On another note, I have a theory that subs is deliberately annoying the devs into implementing the R60 "lock ground heat" features just out of spite for him. 
 

There are plenty of commercial simulators specifically for this sort of thing. Though how difficult it would be to implement that is another story. 

Like its very easy to "understand" like a hot engine... But most people don't realize like a rooftop in IR is gonna give you very similar signature. Or in the case of these sorts of primitive seekers imagine if you have a nice cool plot of forest with some small clearings and rocks that are "warm" thats also gonna give the seeker what its looking for. And since stuff like "buildings" don't really "exist" in DCS the same way as units do IDK how they might approach it. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Harlikwin

[BIGNEWY]

1 minute ago, Lugubrious Hatchling said:

Is there any kind of temperature simulation in the works that would make the missiles lock, ground or air alike?

On another note, I have a theory that subs is deliberately annoying the devs into implementing the R60 "lock ground heat" features just out of spite for him. 
 

current work on FLIR signatures is being tweaked for ground units, once that is completed it is something we will look at, but at the moment it is lower priority. 

[Dragon1-1]

48 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

And since stuff like "buildings" don't really "exist" in DCS the same way as units do IDK how they might approach it. 

Heat value of a building, and subsequent evolution of a heat map, would typically be based primarily on the time of day and on OAT. Unless major heat leaks exist (which, admittedly, would often be the case in certain older buildings), things like occupancy should have no effect, so a simple air temperature vs. insolation lookup table would be all that they'd need.

[Harlikwin]

24 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Heat value of a building, and subsequent evolution of a heat map, would typically be based primarily on the time of day and on OAT. Unless major heat leaks exist (which, admittedly, would often be the case in certain older buildings), things like occupancy should have no effect, so a simple air temperature vs. insolation lookup table would be all that they'd need.

Yeah I mean honestly you also have reflection as a major component of things in MWIR as well. Esp from water and other IR reflective surfaces which may be stuff you conventionally think about or maybe not. Remember in IR world what you see is a combination of emissivity and reflectivity. And also from a seekers perspective it mainly cares if it has enough contrast to actually "see" something.

 

The hand and the ring are the same temp, yet... 

[Dragon1-1]

20 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

Yeah I mean honestly you also have reflection as a major component of things in MWIR as well. Esp from water and other IR reflective surfaces which may be stuff you conventionally think about or maybe not.

This can be done using the actual heat map. Since it can be assumed the building is, as a whole, more or less the same temperature, the map would reflect its emissivity and reflectivity.

[Harlikwin]

33 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This can be done using the actual heat map. Since it can be assumed the building is, as a whole, more or less the same temperature, the map would reflect its emissivity and reflectivity.

Why would the sunlit side of the building be the same temp as the non sunlit side? 

[Dragon1-1]

Because the air is generally the same temperature all-round, and sunlit side would appear brighter anyway due to, well, being illuminated by the sun. This should simulate the effects without having to abandon a very convenient assumption of map objects only having one temperature value.

[SUBS17]

22 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

IR signatures can be locked by IR seekers. Fact

That depends on MANUFACTURING and if it is a signature that is accepted by the software. The Sun is not an acceptable target. Even the earliest version of a Sidewinder or R60 will not go after the Sun as a target. You could try it with a real one but it will not work, the R60 is close to an Aim 9M so it has a list of target types and will only lock if it is one of those. The seeker will detect heat but it would not lock onto the Sun or other objects as a target. They can still work if a target has landed and the engine is going which is not modelled yet in some areas. I've found that some aircraft land and the Aim9 will not lock on to them but a real one can still see the Airframe as hot enough to lock onto a cold Airframe is not a valid target. Although early missiles it might be assumed are primitive compared to a modern Aim 9X or R73 the inside of the missile's circuitry is very complex. It has to Lock onto the target and continue to track it and attain a Lead Pursuit in order to hit it. It is more than just a few resistor's and a capacitor. They all feature SOLID STATE CIRCUITRY in order to function as an Air to Air Missile. 

[Dragon1-1]

20 hours ago, SUBS17 said:

Even the earliest version of a Sidewinder or R60 will not go after the Sun as a target.

Read any book by a real pilot who shot Sidewinders in Vietnam. Literally. They would go off to chase the sun all the time. How do you think flares work? Your mythical target database is beyond even what the AIM-9X has. You can fire even the most modern heaters at targets on the ground. An airframe flying at normal speeds is not much hotter than a tank's exhaust. In some cases, it can be much cooler. Solid state circuitry doesn't change the fact there's only so much computer you can put into a missile, particularly with 70s and 80s tech.

Again, you're contradicting multiple accounts by real pilots stating the opposite, not to mention basic physics. DCS devs are a little better informed than you, really. 

[SUBS17]

45 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Read any book by a real pilot who shot Sidewinders in Vietnam. Literally. They would go off to chase the sun all the time. How do you think flares work? Your mythical target database is beyond even what the AIM-9X has. You can fire even the most modern heaters at targets on the ground. An airframe flying at normal speeds is not much hotter than a tank's exhaust. In some cases, it can be much cooler. Solid state circuitry doesn't change the fact there's only so much computer you can put into a missile, particularly with 70s and 80s tech.

Again, you're contradicting multiple accounts by real pilots stating the opposite, not to mention basic physics. DCS devs are a little better informed than you, really. 

 

I have not come across any actual incident of a missile going after the Sun. 

[BIGNEWY]

5 minutes ago, SUBS17 said:

 

I have not come across any actual incident of a missile going after the Sun. 

you have given your feedback, and you dont agree that is fine, but the back and forth isnt going to change the fact that it is possible. 

[Aquorys]

On 9/7/2022 at 8:09 PM, SUBS17 said:

That depends on MANUFACTURING and if it is a signature that is accepted by the software.

The original R-60 missile was introduced into service in 1974, and the software abilities that you are describing are way beyond the capabilities of any hardware or software that existed back then. Even almost 10 years later, in 1983, an IBM S/36, which was about 50% heavier than the entire R-60 missile, operated on 4 MHz and 1 MHz 16 bit processors, and a maximum of 2 megabytes of memory (more typically it had 128-512kB), with an entry price tag of about 20k US$. This was one of the most modern lightweight computer systems back then, and it was way too big and heavy to fit into an R-60.

Now you show me how you're gonna run sophisticated target recognition software on that kind of hardware, and maybe then we can start talking about how you're gonna do that 10 years earlier with 10% of the weight, considering that back then, the Russians' computer technology was probably 10 years behind the Americans' rather than 10 years ahead.

Besides that, the OGS-60TI seeker of the R-60 is a single color system, so there isn't even much of a signature coming from the sensor that you could feed to any kind of software for comparison to something in a database.

So to sum it up, you are firmly in fantasy land with this whole idea.

 

On 9/7/2022 at 8:09 PM, SUBS17 said:

the R60 is close to an Aim 9M so it has a list of target types and will only lock if it is one of those

Besides the fact that the whole idea of only locking onto targets that are in some list is nonsensical, because it would render the missile unable to engage new threats until the missile were updated to include the new threats in its target list, neither of those missiles has such a list, because they didn't have the technology to recognize and differentiate target types. This is all still stuff from 1983.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Aquorys
corrected a few typos

[SUBS17]

8 minutes ago, Aquorys said:

The original R-60 missile was introduced into service in 1974, and the software abilities that you are describing are way beyond the capabilities of any hardware or software that existed back then. Even almost 10 years later, in 1983, an IBM S/36, which was about 50% heavier than the entire R-60 missile, operated on 4 MHz and 1 MHz 16 bit processors, and a maximum of 2 megabytes of memory (more typically it had 128-512kB), with a entry price tag of about 20k US$. This was one of the most modern lightweight computer systems back then, and it was way too big and heavy to fit into an R-60.

Now you show me how you're gonna run sophisticated target recognition software on that kind of hardware, and maybe then we can start talking about how you're gonna do that 10 years earlier with 10% of the weight, considering that back then, the Russians computer technology was probably 10 years behind the Americans rather than 10 years ahead.

Besides that, the OGS-60TI seeker of the R-60 is a single color system, so there isn't even much of a signature coming from the sensor that you could feed to any kind of software for comparison to something in a database.

So to sum it up, you are firmly in fantasy land with this whole idea.

 

Besides the fact that the whole idea of only locking onto targets that are in some list is nonsensical, because it would render the missile unable to engage new threats until the missile were updated to include the new threats in its target list, neither of those missiles has such a list, because they didn't have the technology to recognize and differentiate target types. This is all still stuff from 1983.

The guidance uses Software contrary to what you are assuming and it has more complex Circuitry. It has to be safe in order to operate and engage the target. Software updates to missiles does happen. They update them as the Seeker uses the Airframe not the exhaust as its target. Although it is a missile that is from the early days of missiles it is a sign that such technology existed in many Countries. Updates would come from the MANUFACTURER so it is a Secret thing that must happen for upgraded Missiles or newly MANUFACTURED missiles. The next Question how long is it before a Missile must be used before it expires? They have a shelf life before they must be decommissioned although most Air Forces must use them up on the Range with Drones before they wind up buried.(no David French they would not use them on Tanks! Which ever one it is that is making this stuff up!) The R60 is still in service so it must be a very good Missile, I wonder how many have Missed? Here is a Question would it miss? Has it ever missed? It does miss on DCS occasionally.