reported GB-6-SFW is incorrectly correcting for wind

[Gronank]

Greetings,

The GB-6-SFW glide bomb is very obviously doing some attempt to correct for wind by offsetting the release point to allow the sub-munitions to drift in the wind onto target. Except it doesn't currently work.

In the scenario I set up, I have an aim point at the bunker+bullseye and a severe wind, 20kt at ground, 40kt at 1600ft, blowing northward.

If I launch the weapon so that it travels perpendicular to the wind (i.e no tail- or head-wind), the sub-munitions are released late as if to compensate for a head-wind. The weapon also overcompensates by steering to much into the wind causing the sub-munitions to land upwind of the target. See the replay: GB-6_90_degrees.trk

The resulting engagement pattern:

If I instead launch straight into the wind, no compensation happens at all and the sub-munitions are releases right above the intended target as there was no wind: GB-6_180_degrees.trk

It seems as if  the offset in the direction of travel is calculated using the wind component perpendicular to the direction of travel, which must be incorrect.

To test this hypothesis, I tried launching at 135 degrees from the heading of the wind (splitting the difference between flying perpendicular and head on to the wind) the sub-munitions landed at the opposite side of the target from the above picture. If I split the difference again and launch at 112 degrees, I get a hit!: GB-6_112_degrees.trk

Also, launching with a tail-wind causes the weapon to despawn without releasing any sub-munitions.

Kind regards
Gronank

Edited October 14, 2024 by Gronank

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

I had a similar experience. I had a smoke effect blowing to one side near the target and I thought the SFW was trying to compensate but it didn't do it well. 

Update: Retested with no wind. Much better, just a little off (long). 

Edited November 29, 2024 by GrEaSeLiTeNiN

[skypickle]

This explains why my gb6-sfw is missing the mark in my experience. thank you for your research. I tried changing the azimuth of the bomb (keeping my heading the same) and I could never fix it. 

[Bigity]

Been seeing this as well.

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

Are 3rd party module's weapons now under ED's control? If so, it may be ages before we see a fix. 

[supersylph]

6 hours ago, GrEaSeLiTeNiN said:

Are 3rd party module's weapons now under ED's control? If so, it may be ages before we see a fix. 

Yes, controlled by ED.

[Bigity]

Not if we bug them enough

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

@uboats any updates on this or plans to improve it? thanks

[uboats]

On 1/2/2025 at 10:41 AM, GrEaSeLiTeNiN said:

@uboats any updates on this or plans to improve it? thanks

for gb6, please report to ED

[Gunz]

@uboats Seven update patches have been released by ED and still this issue is not fixed.. Am I the only one here who thinks we're literally being given the cold shoulder treatment? If there's a way or channel for us [users] to take this further with ED, please provide a valid point of contact. For info, it's been nothing but a pinball relationship. Every time someone reaches out to ED, they point us back to Deka. Vis-a-vie, Deka points us back to ED.. Very Frustrating!!

Edited April 18 by Alpha_Mo66

[uboats]

1 hour ago, Alpha_Mo66 said:

@uboats Seven update patches have been released by ED and still this issue is not fixed.. Am I the only one here who thinks we're literally being given the cold shoulder treatment? If there's a way or channel for us [users] to take this further with ED, please provide a valid point of contact. For info, it's been nothing but a pinball relationship. Every time someone reaches out to ED, they point us back to Deka. Vis-a-vie, Deka points us back to ED.. Very Frustrating!!

Sorry about that. I will further check it. 

@JG54_NF2 please help take a test

[JG54_NF2]

I just went through your post and found a few issues:

The various offset actually are not resulted from different entry angles.

The root cause is that open height of SFW sub-munitions are different: one is 1800ft and the other is 3000ft. Obviously, the higher altitude will be affected by the wind for a longer time, so the offset is larger.

This problem also exists on the CBU105 of A10C/C2.

Therefore, it is certain that at least this is the setting in the game at present. If such a weapon is used in a windy weather, it's recommended:

1) Manually compensate the aiming point (SPI) according to the wind.

2) Reduce the parachute open height to reduce the time of affect from wind.

BTW....You have too many armored vehicles, my computer only has single digit FPS,

2025/4/18 AM8点12分，Alpha_Mo66说：

@uboats Seven update patches have been released by ED and still this issue is not fixed.. Am I the only one here who thinks we're literally being given the cold shoulder treatment? If there's a way or channel for us [users] to take this further with ED, please provide a valid point of contact. For info, it's been nothing but a pinball relationship. Every time someone reaches out to ED, they point us back to Deka. Vis-a-vie, Deka points us back to ED.. Very Frustrating!!

 

2025/1/2 AM10点41分，GrEaSeLiTeNiN说：

@uboats any updates on this or plans to improve it? thanks

 

2025/1/2 AM9点08分，Bigity说：

Not if we bug them enough

 

2024/12/23 PM12点20分，GrEaSeLiTeNiN说：

Are 3rd party module's weapons now under ED's control? If so, it may be ages before we see a fix. 

 

2024/10/15 AM2点49分，Gronank说：

Greetings,

The GB-6-SFW glide bomb is very obviously doing some attempt to correct for wind by offsetting the release point to allow the sub-munitions to drift in the wind onto target. Except it doesn't currently work.

In the scenario I set up, I have an aim point at the bunker+bullseye and a severe wind, 20kt at ground, 40kt at 1600ft, blowing northward.

If I launch the weapon so that it travels perpendicular to the wind (i.e no tail- or head-wind), the sub-munitions are released late as if to compensate for a head-wind. The weapon also overcompensates by steering to much into the wind causing the sub-munitions to land upwind of the target. See the replay: GB-6_90_degrees.trk

The resulting engagement pattern:

If I instead launch straight into the wind, no compensation happens at all and the sub-munitions are releases right above the intended target as there was no wind: GB-6_180_degrees.trk

It seems as if  the offset in the direction of travel is calculated using the wind component perpendicular to the direction of travel, which must be incorrect.

To test this hypothesis, I tried launching at 135 degrees from the heading of the wind (splitting the difference between flying perpendicular and head on to the wind) the sub-munitions landed at the opposite side of the target from the above picture. If I split the difference again and launch at 112 degrees, I get a hit!: GB-6_112_degrees.trk

Also, launching with a tail-wind causes the weapon to despawn without releasing any sub-munitions.

Kind regards
Gronank

 

Edited April 19 by JG54_NF2

[Gronank]

5 hours ago, JG54_NF2 said:

The root cause is that open height of SFW sub-munitions are different: one is 1800ft and the other is 3000ft. Obviously, the higher altitude will be affected by the wind for a longer time, so the offset is larger.

If there isn't an automatic built-in wind correction, then the submunitions should never land upwind of the target. I conclude that there is some sort of built in wind correction because the submunitions land upwind when the weapons are launched perpendicular to the wind. If there was no wind correction, all submunitions would land at the same place (the place where the sub-munitions land when launched from straight into the wind and the sub-munitions are released right over the target)

If there is automatic wind correction, it should not matter what the release altitude is, since it should be automatically accounted for.

You could create a table with the wind strength, release altitude and direction and map it against a required offset to score a hit. This wouldn't be so bad if there was no attempt at correction but since there is you have to not only correct for the wind but also for the incorrection correction. This is simply painful to do.

(There's another fun bug with using OAP to drop multiple weapons that I haven't bothered reporting: When multiple weapons are released in one salvo, the OAP is added to each weapon. OAP of 1km west results in first bomb landing 1km west, second 2km west, 3rd 3 kmwest et.c)

[Gunz]

23 hours ago, JG54_NF2 said:

I just went through your post and found a few issues:

The various offset actually are not resulted from different entry angles.

The root cause is that open height of SFW sub-munitions are different: one is 1800ft and the other is 3000ft. Obviously, the higher altitude will be affected by the wind for a longer time, so the offset is larger.

This problem also exists on the CBU105 of A10C/C2.

Therefore, it is certain that at least this is the setting in the game at present. If such a weapon is used in a windy weather, it's recommended:

1) Manually compensate the aiming point (SPI) according to the wind.

2) Reduce the parachute open height to reduce the time of affect from wind.

BTW....You have too many armored vehicles, my computer only has single digit FPS,

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for the swift follow-up and thorough investigation. Great to see this issue being worked on and hopefully resolved soon. Apart from what you've indicated, can you please shed light on the difference(s) in mechanics between the GB-6SFW and AGM-154A? In principal, I think it's fair to assume that both glide bombs rely heavily on wind correction. And since, the JSOW-A recently received a wind correction fix in the latest update, can't the same fix, or similar, be applied to the GB-6 and LS glide bombs?

[uboats]

On 4/20/2025 at 5:04 PM, Alpha_Mo66 said:

Thank you for the swift follow-up and thorough investigation. Great to see this issue being worked on and hopefully resolved soon. Apart from what you've indicated, can you please shed light on the difference(s) in mechanics between the GB-6SFW and AGM-154A? In principal, I think it's fair to assume that both glide bombs rely heavily on wind correction. And since, the JSOW-A recently received a wind correction fix in the latest update, can't the same fix, or similar, be applied to the GB-6 and LS glide bombs?

thanks for your patience. Since we've handed over the AG weapons to ED, we can do nothing to it.

[Gunz]

On 4/26/2025 at 4:44 PM, uboats said:

thanks for your patience. Since we've handed over the AG weapons to ED, we can do nothing to it.

I completely realize that mate, as you have indicated in the past. My question was directed to @JG54_NF2, being the ED tester in this matter, with the hope of getting a better insight on the hopeful resolution to this frustrating issue which is frankly drawing people away from the JF-17 imo.

In simpler terms, is ED working on this fix, now that it has been determined or not?? @JG54_NF2

Thanks in advance..

[tekwoj]

9 minutes ago, Alpha_Mo66 said:

I completely realize that mate, as you have indicated in the past. My question was directed to @JG54_NF2, being the ED tester in this matter, with the hope of getting a better insight on the hopeful resolution to this frustrating issue which is frankly drawing people away from the JF-17 imo.

In simpler terms, is ED working on this fix, now that it has been determined or not?? @JG54_NF2

Thanks in advance..

If you realize this then you probably should post it in the weapons bug reporting forum and then keep pinging ED mods until they either fix it or ban you...

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/540-weapon-bugs/

[Gunz]

2 hours ago, tekwoj said:

If you realize this then you probably should post it in the weapons bug reporting forum and then keep pinging ED mods until they either fix it or ban you...

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/540-weapon-bugs/

I believe it's the developer's responsibility to communicate with ED on certain bugs and/or required fixes, not the end user. As far as I know, this is how it works all over. Oh, and thanks for sharing the link..

[tekwoj]

1 hour ago, Alpha_Mo66 said:

I believe it's the developer's responsibility to communicate with ED on certain bugs and/or required fixes, not the end user. As far as I know, this is how it works all over. Oh, and thanks for sharing the link..

I share your point of view, however we're talking DCS here, from what can be observed ED changes weapons code without informing 3rd party devs, so at most we can ping mods to maybe move certain topics between subforums, or report in both places.

[Gunz]

18 hours ago, tekwoj said:

I share your point of view, however we're talking DCS here, from what can be observed ED changes weapons code without informing 3rd party devs, so at most we can ping mods to maybe move certain topics between subforums, or report in both places.

Upon digging into the provided channel, I surprisingly found out that the issue has been in fact brought to ED's attention since December 2024 and topic closed on Jan 9 (as per the below link). What's more surprising to me at least, is that ED managed to fix the JSOW-A in the last patch while overlooking the GB6 and LS bombs without indication.

@BIGNEWY @f-18hornet perhaps you can weigh in and shed more light into the matter. Are we to expect a fix in the upcoming patch now that the JSOW-A has been fixed? Thanks in advance.

 

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, there was some LS6 and GB6 fixes in January from the looks of it regarding guidance. 

but I will ask the team to check 

 

[Gunz]

3 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, there was some LS6 and GB6 fixes in January from the looks of it regarding guidance. 

but I will ask the team to check 

 

Thanks a ton for the swift response. Looking forward to your support and a possible fix soon 

[BIGNEWY]

the wind issue is reported but we are waiting for free dev time, at the moment the team is very busy. 

thank you 

[uboats]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

the wind issue is reported but we are waiting for free dev time, at the moment the team is very busy. 

thank you 

thank you BN

[Gunz]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

the wind issue is reported but we are waiting for free dev time, at the moment the team is very busy. 

thank you 

Much obliged for your positive update. Looking forward to greater things as always