A/A with sparrow, working?

[fastfed]

I've seen enough videos now and it seems even these creators don't understand it. I have set up multiple scenarios with drone planes and all, I simply cannot get this plane to act right. I hit the contex button that Casmo just made a video on, and nope NO LOCK. If I do get a lock by hitting cage button or NWS acquisition button multiple times, I never get a shoot que.

 

There has to be something wrong here. I have a bunch of friends with me and we are all just lost with this thing, part of me thinks the devs did this on purpose to recreate real issues, I hope not because thats silly..

 

as it seems right now heaters are the only thing that work  

[NoodI]

1 hour ago, fastfed said:

I've seen enough videos now and it seems even these creators don't understand it. I have set up multiple scenarios with drone planes and all, I simply cannot get this plane to act right. I hit the contex button that Casmo just made a video on, and nope NO LOCK. If I do get a lock by hitting cage button or NWS acquisition button multiple times, I never get a shoot que.

 

There has to be something wrong here. I have a bunch of friends with me and we are all just lost with this thing, part of me thinks the devs did this on purpose to recreate real issues, I hope not because thats silly..

 

as it seems right now heaters are the only thing that work  

cw on? interlock off? theyre working for me just fine, also i know caa locks diff directions with guns radar and heat so try with heat then switch to sparrows after in caa. also tap jester context once to make sure u know which target he wants to lock then hold it till u have a lock. otherwise it has to be a user issue.

[Mike_CK]

I have sometimes have problems with the dynamic circle never getting bigger and it won’t let me fire as I slowly watch the enemy merge and pass me. So, I turned the interlock off. Do that and you can fire as long as the bad guy is locked.

Have to remember that this is an old radar. It can’t lock planes up very well past 15-20 miles; especially small ones like a mig-21. 
 

also helps if every now and then, hit the context button short twice to put Jester back in regular scan. Sometimes he needs the readjustment.

i have experienced, multiple times, the same thing Casmo had on one of his. Jester reports “I got a good lock” and immediately follows with “I lost the lock”. Hit context (long)..”ok, I got a strong lock” then immediately “I lost the lock”. This will continue until the plane is really close.

but these things always need to be tweaked. Until we all get a better understanding of how this works and what is a bug, keep interlock off, order Jester to lock it up once it’s around 12 miles away and fire when it’s around 6-8 miles. When using Aim-7E or Aim-7F, I launch two.

when jester starts with his repeated lock drops or says he can’t find anything despite it being 10 miles off your nose, reset him with the context double tap and try again.

i have mixed results with interlock on. When off- and when I shoot within 7-8 miles hot- I see about a 40% hit rate. Much more with the Aim-7m. So maybe use the aim-7m until you get used to it

[fastfed]

16 hours ago, Mike_CK said:

I have sometimes have problems with the dynamic circle never getting bigger and it won’t let me fire as I slowly watch the enemy merge and pass me. So, I turned the interlock off. Do that and you can fire as long as the bad guy is locked.

Have to remember that this is an old radar. It can’t lock planes up very well past 15-20 miles; especially small ones like a mig-21. 
 

also helps if every now and then, hit the context button short twice to put Jester back in regular scan. Sometimes he needs the readjustment.

i have experienced, multiple times, the same thing Casmo had on one of his. Jester reports “I got a good lock” and immediately follows with “I lost the lock”. Hit context (long)..”ok, I got a strong lock” then immediately “I lost the lock”. This will continue until the plane is really close.

but these things always need to be tweaked. Until we all get a better understanding of how this works and what is a bug, keep interlock off, order Jester to lock it up once it’s around 12 miles away and fire when it’s around 6-8 miles. When using Aim-7E or Aim-7F, I launch two.

when jester starts with his repeated lock drops or says he can’t find anything despite it being 10 miles off your nose, reset him with the context double tap and try again.

i have mixed results with interlock on. When off- and when I shoot within 7-8 miles hot- I see about a 40% hit rate. Much more with the Aim-7m. So maybe use the aim-7m until you get used to it

turning interlock off literally turns the seaker off the missile, so it will not track..

We are not talking 15-20 miles, lol im not a noob, I'm very aware of an aim 7 missile and to be honest even though it claims 10 miles, its more like 2-3. they are not really BVR missiles

I do hit the context button twice to put it back to regular scan, but how does that help if hes NOT locking the plane right in front of me.

honestly, anyone saying they aren't having issues, I don't believe them. again, bunch of buddies and I are all experiencing the same exact thing

 

here download this

F-4E Phantom II Training and Proficiency Missions | (updated) v0.4 Missions:25 (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

do the radar missile mission and record from the start of selecting that mission, not when you're already in. and post it.

literally cannot get a damn missile to shoot and if you do it goes no where. its BUGGED!

[KlarSnow]

The interlock off does not turn the seeker of the missile off, all it does is remove the requirement for IN RANGE and SHOOT lights to fire the missile. Its mostly helpful for doing close range stuff for boresight shots or where the WEZ computations cant really keep up.

In real life they mostly flew with the interlocks out so they would never be inhibited from shooting if they needed to.

[Kirk66]

13 minutes ago, fastfed said:

turning interlock off literally turns the seaker off the missile, so it will not track..

We are not talking 15-20 miles, lol im not a noob, I'm very aware of an aim 7 missile and to be honest even though it claims 10 miles, its more like 2-3. they are not really BVR missiles

I do hit the context button twice to put it back to regular scan, but how does that help if hes NOT locking the plane right in front of me.

honestly, anyone saying they aren't having issues, I don't believe them. again, bunch of buddies and I are all experiencing the same exact thing

 

here download this

F-4E Phantom II Training and Proficiency Missions | (updated) v0.4 Missions:25 (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

do the radar missile mission and record from the start of selecting that mission, not when you're already in. and post it.

literally cannot get a damn missile to shoot and if you do it goes no where. its BUGGED!

Interlocks have nothing to do with the missile seeker, it just prevents you from firing when not in valid parameters.

2-3 miles is a good ACM distance for AIM-7s. But you can shoot them a lot farther. But they are not AMRAAMs.

Look-up helps A LOT. Go down and try to get a clear sky look up at the target, locks will work a lot better.

And don't forget to try BST (CAGE selected), target in reticle inside 5 miles, and context long. With look-up it's really a neat way to smack someone prior to the merge.

Good luck!

Vulture

[fastfed]

yea I get its supposed to be some sort of "override" but whenever I have that switch down or off, the missile literally just fires straight and never tracks 

 

As for the BST case selected, yea that doesn't work. we tried this scenario hours worth and nope no go.

 

if you'd like to jump online and show me im all eyes and ears 

[Mike_CK]

Well. I did re-run the scenario where Jester was constantly repeating: “I’ve got a good lock….i lost lock…I’ve got a lock…I’ve lost lock” and I noticed the radar screen looked “fuzzy” and jumbled like it was being jammed. I went into the mission editor and set the AI aircraft to “never use” in regards to ECM (they were SU-24s). This time Jester locked and held lock fine

so clearly I just misunderstood the mechanics and we were being jammed. Not sure if that related to by steering circle never growing or letting me fire (so I had to turn off interlock) but could be. For all I know the SU-24 had a good ECM system when up against radars from 1968

[Jakey-Poo]

Has this already been reported as a bug in the HB discord?  I’m about to post the following if I can’t find it in there:

To my understanding the interlock is used in order to make sure you are firing the sparrow within (kinetic) parameters and should not interfere with the missile’s ability to track with a good lock.  Is this correct?  I’m playing around with firing the missile with interlock off during a head on pass.   The steering dot seems to just go nuts and I don’t get launch lights until after I merge, which is what lead me to trying the shot with interlock off, as with the high closure rate there should not be a issue with the missile having enough energy. 

This is with a valid lock from jester, and after his count off and cue to “shoot!”  with interlock off.

[Kalasnkova74]

Thing is, the initial AIM-7 (and AIM-9B/E) were built to kill bombers. The system was not designed to fight maneuverable targets, and that’s clearly reflected in the operating process.

To engage a fighter sized target with the Sparrow in the F-4E, you need to put the airplane in Sparrow parameters & budget time for Jester to manage the systems while also keeping the jet in optimum Sparrow engagement position. In most maneuvering fights that’s just not gonna happen. Even a rookie bandit will react in that timeline. Thats not necessarily a bug, it is rather an artifact of being accustomed to a mature system (AIM-120) and stepping back to its flawed predecessor (AIM-7).

[r4y30n]

It’s not just flawed missiles, the radar itself is prone to bad locks in CAA mode and I’m sure Jester isn’t immune, either. If the steering dot or ASE don’t make sense you probably locked onto something other than the intended target. If that happens, just bump the nose wheel steering button and try again.

[Phantom12]

The sparrows had plenty of issues, as did the radar, but even with all those troubles the missiles were never entirely useless, even against fighters. BVR with jester is in its current state extremely unreliable, and even when it does work you end up task loading yourself too much babysitting him where you should be doing other things instead. He seems to consistently run the gains far too high and washout any returns that might be there, and is far too ready to initate bad locks onto heavily cluttered targets. The need to double check all his work on the radar screen when you should be looking out the window really hurts SA. The 5 mile modes are a little more reliable but thats far too close against anyone with a real forward quarter capability. 

I know they already mentioned its being added at some point but a Jester BST option for 10 or 25 mile boresight locks can't come soon enough. I think thats the fastest way to make any sort of BVR with jester viable with the minimum programming work.

Im sure it will get somewhat better with time... The current implementation has alot of the right ideas IMO, just doesnt work in practice yet.

[primus_TR]

1 hour ago, Phantom12 said:

He seems to consistently run the gains far too high and washout any returns that might be there, and is far too ready to initate bad locks

I agree with most of what you said,  except this part.  On the contrary,  he lowers gain too much too often to pick up any targets,  which I believe is one of the reasons why he often cannot detect targets until too close (<5 miles), whereas I can detect the same target far out (>20 miles) by increasing the gain, especially when feet wet. 

[Phantom12]

From what I saw so far it looks like his routine is basically: Gain as high as possible without totally washing out the display (to maximise range), then once a possible target is spotted reduce gain to try for a clear picture... Basically the same technique a human would use (or at least what Ive been doing from the backseat so far). But he seems to either leave way too much clutter on the screen or turn it way too far down and see nothing like you say.

Its a bit better than the first patch now but you could see clearly he was running the gain very high in CAGE or CAA modes and you would get huge amounts of sidelobe clutter even looking up at 15 or 20k feet.

In BVR my most common experience is actually that he calls bandits out at more or less the range I would expect to detect them (20-30 miles), and he will focus the target and follow it with the cursors, but the gain is so high that I cant spot the target in all the clutter on screen. I understand he works off of image recognition and doesnt cheat, so how exactly he can spot these contacts in all the clutter is beyond me. The problem is when he tries to lock in a situation like that without a good diferentiation between clutter and target its almost guaranteed to lock the background return instead of the target. Ive had the same issue as a player... I can spot and follow MiG-21s at 18NM at low altitude, but the signal is not strong enough compared to the background in order to reliably track it.

Between him taking a few seconds between pressing the context key and actually trying to lock, and the fact that he seems to indiscriminately try and lock whatever is under the cursor, without first verifying a good picture or not, what you usually end up with is a lengthy process of locking onto clutter and breaking lock etc etc several times while you stare at the radar screen to double check all his work, and in the meantime with 1200kts closure you end up merged with no SA or shot in the face from a missle you didnt react to because youve been staring inside the whole time. If you give up on the whole thing you are basically a glorifed F-5 and you throw away what should be one of your biggest advantages over contemporary adversaries.

[Kalasnkova74]

On 5/26/2024 at 11:00 PM, fastfed said:

I've seen enough videos now and it seems even these creators don't understand it. I have set up multiple scenarios with drone planes and all, I simply cannot get this plane to act right. I hit the contex button that Casmo just made a video on, and nope NO LOCK. If I do get a lock by hitting cage button or NWS acquisition button multiple times, I never get a shoot que.

 

There has to be something wrong here. I have a bunch of friends with me and we are all just lost with this thing, part of me thinks the devs did this on purpose to recreate real issues, I hope not because thats silly..

 

as it seems right now heaters are the only thing that work  

First, we have to adjust expectations. Old school pulse radars like the F-4Es don’t have the automated filters and target resolution computer logic applied to modern radars like what we see in the Hornet, Viper and others. Smaller aircraft like the F-5 & MiG-21 will not be reliably detectable at BVR ranges, especially head on (this was verified during “Have Donut” tests with the stronger F-4Ds radar). 

Next, what made the Phantom II truly BVR was Combat Tree, not the onboard radar alone. Combat Tree enabled BVR tracking of bandits beyond the APQ-120s range. We’re meant to get this system with the next F-4E block featuring DMAS. 

[Phantom12]

Combat tree isn't tied to DMAS, idk if its scheduled to come at the same time as the DMAS, but it was used on the older jets as well. Also to be a little bit pedantic: Combat Tree doesn't allow you to track anything If Ive understood correctly. What it does is give you a return, similar to the friendly IFF bars, which can tell you where to look/focus your scan. The tracking and acquisition problem itself wont be affected at all if Jester isnt able to get a lock.

 

WRT Have Doughnut, the report in fact states that the MiG-21 was reliably detectable at BVR ranges. In this case those were at an "average" of 15-20 NM, rather than 50-100 one might be used to from the Hornet/F-14 etc. Depending on which sparrow variant you are shooting thats already only locking within Rmax but against a MiG-21 a lock at 10-15 for a shot at 5-10 is already a huge advantage. 

[primus_TR]

From what I've read, combat tree is only for sending a fake friend response to soviet interrogation,  and could locate some soviet transponders without having to find them on radar,  like how you can see friends on your radar screen without having to point the beam at them.  And also soviets fixed the exploit very quickly. In other words,  combat tree was not a game changer by any degree, from what I've read. 

[Kalasnkova74]

5 minutes ago, primus_TR said:

In other words,  combat tree was not a game changer by any degree, from what I've read. 

On the contrary, Combat Tree was successfully used by the USAF aces to score multiple kills during the Southeast Asian war.

Incidentally, the Soviets had nothing to do with countering Combat Tree- the VPAF figured out something was up on their own when they started losing aircraft. 

“The North Vietnamese eventually wised up to the presence of such a technology, though, they didn’t quite know what it was or how it functioned. The VPAF’s ranking officers began noticing a sharp increase in attrition rates with their fighter forces, especially those that found themselves tangling with US Air Force fighter jets.”

 

Source:

https://tacairnet.com/2017/01/02/how-combat-tree-made-the-f-4-phantom-ii-the-deadliest-fighter-over-vietnam-in-the-1970s/

As an addendum: while Combat Tree is coming in the next DCS F-4E block, it is not reliant on the DMAS upgrades to function. In fact Combat Tree was first implemented on the F-4D to good success, helping make it the best MiG-killer of the USAF vs the earlier -C and later -E. 

[primus_TR]

Well I'd read about it on the wikipedia page for S-75, so I'll take your word for it. 

[Omega417]

It feels like in an effort to make jester not an "all seeing eye", they made him about the same skill level as a brand new LT right out of the training squadron. It'll take tweaking, but he will get better. Just wait for the Navy phantoms if you really want to dogfight and sling Sparrows.

[Nealius]

AIM-7F works just fine for me. Jester picks up the contacts, context button long-press to lock, shoot cue when within parameters. 

[primus_TR]

On 6/18/2024 at 5:35 PM, Omega417 said:

they made him about the same skill level as a brand new LT right out of the training squadron.

Except, our dear Jester cannot gain experience, learn from mistakes, and get better over time.  It'd be amazing if Jester was capable of 'learning. '

[G.J.S]

46 minutes ago, primus_TR said:

  It'd be amazing if Jester was capable of 'learning. '

Jester 5.0

 

 

[Omega417]

4 hours ago, primus_TR said:

Except, our dear Jester cannot gain experience, learn from mistakes, and get better over time.  It'd be amazing if Jester was capable of 'learning. '

You're right, ours cannot. Butttttttt, the bois over at HeatBlur can do the learning for him. And they gave us the ability to play with Mr. Jester if I remember right, and that will probably lead to someone making a mod for him being an ACE. Or just a mod with a new voice actor in the background.

[primus_TR]

Fingers crossed