ADM-141A decoy in mixed loadout

[dariocs]

Hi everyone, and happy 2025!

I was scripting a mission, trying to get a SEAD group of F/A-18C controlled by the AI to suppress a SAM SA-10 site, using both ADM-141A decoys and AGM-88C HARM missiles, while I was occupied bombing some vehicles out there (yeah, the easy part for me...)

When trying different weapon loadouts in the AI SEAD group, I think I found something wrong: if the weapon loadout is mixed (and with that I mean the loadout includes both decoys and HARMS in the same aircraft, regardless of any other weapon) decoys do not behave as expected or the group does not attack the target at all.

I have prepared a set of examples (see attached file). Sit down in the spanish F/A-18 and watch the canadian colleagues do the hard job in the following scenarios:

• Mission 1: Pure decoy loadout / Waypoint orders: attack only with decoys. This works fine: the guys launch the decoys in the target direction.
• Mission 2: Mixed loadout (HARMs & decoys) / Waypoint orders: attack only with decoys. This does not work: the F/A-18s do not perform any attack at all, and continue with the flight plan to the next waypoint.
• Mission 3: Mixed loadout (HARMs & decoys) / Waypoint orders: attack with auto weapon choice. The F/A-18s attack the target, but they launch both decoys and HARMs at the same time (therefore the decoys arrive terribly late to the show).
• Mission 4: Mixed loadout (HARMs & decoys) / Waypoint orders: attack only with HARMs. This works fine, only HARMs are launched.
• Mission 5: Pure HARM loadout / Waypoint orders: attack only with HARMs. This works fine, although some planes release all their missiles while others keep a couple onboard (I guess this must be right depending on the target).
• Mission 6: Pure HARM loadout / Waypoint orders: auto weapon choice. This works fine, although some planes release all their missiles while others keep a couple onboard (I guess this must be right depending on the target).

From my humble point of view, the right behaviour should be:

1. When having a mixed loadout, and when instructed to launch decoys, the AI should launch the decoys at the target instead of doing nothing.
2. When having a mixed loadout, and when not specifying the weapon of choice (AUTO) the AI should launch the decoys at the target first, and then launch the HARM missiles later, so they could arrive more or less at the same time at the target (maybe some expert can provide more options here, but it is clear that launching everything at the same time is a nice way to waste the decoys).

Hope you can try it as well and shed some light. It will be wonderful to be proven wrong, but I think this is a classic bug 

Thanks in advance!

 

Decoy_tests.zip

Edited January 2 by dariocs
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