R-27 -lock after launch capabilities?

[TOMCATZ]

Hi,

 

last night I flew in a self created mission in Single Play. In TacView I saw following Problem:

One FA-18 was engaged by a Flanker. The Flanker shoot a R-27 (radar guided- No ET or IR guided) against the Hornet (both AI) and the Hornet answered with a AMRAAM.

The Flanker was able to defend the AIM-120 but turned cold so that it was not possible to hold the lock on the Hornet. After the Flanker was clean, the Flanker turned hot again and her R-27 hit the Hornet. So my question is pretty simple: Can the Flanker lock after launch in order to guide the missile?  (Please- Only what is fact in DCS. No comparisons to RL).

Thanks and cheers

TOM

[Ironhand]

Yes, it can.

[Dudikoff]

Really? AFAIK, it shouldn't be possible in RL and it shouldn't be possible in DCS (?).

Define 'turned cold', though. Flanker's radar has a bit wider gimbal so it could support a missile while it might look that it turned almost 90 degrees off (AKA 'cranking').

[Ironhand]

I believe it was Chicz who stated that the behavior was correct in the sim and based on the real world. It was in some thread but not sure where. It may have been on the Russian side of the forum for that matter but I think I was reading English at the time so…

Edited October 17, 2022 by Ironhand

[AeriaGloria]

I have tested it. The R-27R/ER have radio data link. The radar tells it simple course corrections. When Missile is within 25 km of target, the seeker can lock itself. 
 

The way this is simulated in DCS, you have to launch the R-27 with a locked target: you can launch a R-27 THEN lock. 
 

Once fired, you can drop lock, and the R-27 will fly straight for last known intercept point (roughly). Then if you regain lock on that target, the missile will receive commands again/or be able to lock with its seeker. 
 

As far as I understand it, in real life this could allow you to switch targets after shooting. You drop the lock on one guy and regain on one close to the first guy. But this doesn’t work in DCS, in DCS it only cares about the guy you originally fired upon (for each missile launch.)

For example. I can fire on a formation of two at 50 km. I might wait a second or two for the R-27 to maneuver to its proper position, then drop the lock. I might wait a few seconds. Longer the range the longer I can wait, and of two options…..

1. If I lock the original person I locked up, missile wil regain guidance and try to hit. I don’t think AI really cares about this, but you can use it to screw up the timelines against human players becuase they will see the lock drop completely on RWR. They will assume the missile does. This is especially helpful if you are cranking at the same time so they have a believable reason to think you dropped lock. Once you and the missile re locks, the target will get a new warning and think you either launched a new missile very far away, or they will know what’s going on and have very little warning between lock warning and impact. 
 

2. I fire missile at 50 km, crank and drop lock. After maybe 5 seconds or however long I think I can go, I try to regain lock but instead of locking the original person I locked I lock his wingman! The missile will simply not guide. While the Brock can be broken and regained on a specific unit, there is not code to allow it to switch targets mid flight. 
 

So yes it can do this and be very deadly, but a missile cannot switch targets mod flight 

[Coxy_99]

ALL SARH in dcs (Even nato ones) missiles have a memory mode. Nothing more nothing less, HOJ is possible to also. 

[GGTharos]

9 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

As far as I understand it, in real life this could allow you to switch targets after shooting. You drop the lock on one guy and regain on one close to the first guy. But this doesn’t work in DCS, in DCS it only cares about the guy you originally fired upon (for each missile launch.)[/quote]

It must never receive any link commands after lock is dropped, but if the target is still in the FoV it may still guide on it after radar illumination is restored.

9 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

For example. I can fire on a formation of two at 50 km. I might wait a second or two for the R-27 to maneuver to its proper position, then drop the lock. I might wait a few seconds. Longer the range the longer I can wait, and of two options…..

...

9 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

So yes it can do this and be very deadly, but a missile cannot switch targets mod flight 

It shouldn't even have a good chance to hit the original target, but I guess Maestro will eventually get to that.

[TOMCATZ]

Thank you very much for the given answers, Gentlemen. Helps me a lot to clarify the situation.

I can not decide, if this is a bug or not. But obviously the Flanker can guide there missiles even was the lock was broken for some seconds. That is very interesting.

Thanks again and Cheers

TOM  

[GGTharos]

In theory if the target is still inside the missile seeker's FoV, and you illuminate it again, it should start guiding.  Unfortunately all the caveats of doing things this way are not modeled (ie. preferring large clouds of chaff to lock onto after a loss of signal etc)

[okopanja]

On 10/18/2022 at 4:58 AM, GGTharos said:

It must never receive any link commands after lock is dropped, but if the target is still in the FoV it may still guide on it after radar illumination is restored.

Source?

On 10/18/2022 at 4:58 AM, GGTharos said:

It shouldn't even have a good chance to hit the original target, but I guess Maestro will eventually get to that.

No need to change here anything, it does have a rather low probability of re-acquiring on second lock. I spent considerable time testing this.