investigating Pilot always die when F/A-18C is hit by (any) missile - version 2.9.13.6818

[ruxtmp]

It did not come across well in the post but the statistical portion was meant to be sarcastic as the sample size is so small it is not relevant. I still think this is a hit box random die roll issue though. I agree I dont understand why we are the only ones experiencing 100% pilot death on missile hits, that includes an igla hit too for me.. The hornet and I guess all but the few WW2 planes use the old damage model. I dont think there is any news on better damage models for the jets or if it was ever really planned. 

 https://forum.dcs.world/topic/247298-future-of-hornet-damage-model/#findComment-4445723

[okopanja]

9 hours ago, ricnunes said:

The shot down during ODS was the one where a F/A-18 was shot down by a Mig-25. During this event when the F/A-18 was shot down, it got hit by a large and powerful AA-6 (R-40) missile and the pilot actually survived the missile impact and managed to eject. It was only somewhere after the pilot reached the ground that he died and it's not know if he died from injuries or because of the elements (desert can be very cold during night which was the case) or due to both reasons which we don't know and will probably never know. But what is known is that the pilot survived the missile impact and successfully ejected.

Can you provide the source. If I recall correctly from reading it somewhere the R-40 blew up whole plane together with the pilot. If you have a better and more accurate source please link.

8 hours ago, ricnunes said:

If that's the case then why do we have a survival rate of 100% in the Mig-29 while in the F/A-18 is 0% when both the Mig-29 and F/A-18 are similarly sized?

Actually that's the reason why I compared the F/A-18 with the Mig-29 and not with the F-15C or Su-27 which while having similar survival results as the Mig-29 are much bigger aircraft than both the F/A-18 and Mig-29.

Some stats from 1999 and Mig-29 hits, I excluded the flights where 29s were fired upon but not hit, and I do not account for multiple missiles fired:

7 flights being hit resulted in:

• 2 shot down aircraft with killed pilots: Zoran Radosavljevic and Milenko Pavlovic. The body of Radosaljevic was found outside and far from the aircraft, still strapped to ejection seat. Milinko Pavlovic stayed in the cockpit.
• 1 damaged airplane, with major Dragan Ilić landing the aircraft (possible is also a friendly fire by KUB, but we can not be sure so I will assume this to be amraam hit).
• 4 shot down aircraft with pilots which did eject without being wounded (Iljo Arizanov, Nebojša Nikolić, Predrag Milutinović, Pejić, with Milutinović also having suspected friendly fire). All 4 of them ejected only after determining that aircraft does not respond to the commands anymore.

So in 2 out of 7 cases the pilots were killed with 5 surviving non wounded pilots. In 1 case even the aircraft survived.

Also keep in mind that amraam warhead is way smaller then what soviets used. If the fuel and ordinance are set on fire, the pilot has a very slim chances of survival.

Also more than once I did hit hornet with Igla/Mistral, while hornet pilot survived and was able to control the aircraft, so I am very surprised you see 100% kill of the pilots.

 

[BIGNEWY]

I have asked the team to take another look at this based on your feedback here. It is not going to happen quickly we have other tasks ahead of it however. 

thanks 

[ricnunes]

Thanks @BIGNEWY 

[ricnunes]

15 hours ago, okopanja said:

Can you provide the source. If I recall correctly from reading it somewhere the R-40 blew up whole plane together with the pilot. If you have a better and more accurate source please link.

Here, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Speicher

Quote

In December 1993, a military official from Qatar discovered the wreckage of a plane in the desert, which was subsequently identified as Speicher's aircraft. The canopy was a good distance from the rest of the aircraft, suggesting Speicher had tried to eject.

Quote

Other evidence led investigators to further conclude Speicher had likely ejected, and was not in the plane at the time it crashed.

 

15 hours ago, okopanja said:

Also more than once I did hit hornet with Igla/Mistral, while hornet pilot survived and was able to control the aircraft, so I am very surprised you see 100% kill of the pilots.

 

If you read carefully from the beginning you'll see that it's mentioned that the 100% player/pilot death issue happens when the aircraft is destroyed or if you will, goes totally out of control (with too much damage like losing wings).
Or course when the aircraft gets hit in a way that the F/A-18 isn't destroyed but damaged and still controllable - which is extremely rare by way, when hit by missiles - that the pilot won't die, don't you think? 

 

[PawlaczGMD]

What would be ideal is for DCS to finally implement fragmentation damage, and apply it to missiles. I suspect these issues arise due to simplified explosion damage modelling.

[Smashy]

I found something interesting today while looking at some Hornet LUA files.  Go to [DCS base directory]/CoreMods/aircraft/FA-18C and search for "COCKPIT" in these files:

• FA-18A.lua
• FA-18C.lua
• FA-18C_hornet.lua (this is the Hornet available to the player)

Check out the values associate with the "critical_damage" variable here.  If anyone's interested, try running the attached test mission and change between the 3 Hornet versions, you'll notice how the AI pilots in the FA-18A and FA-18C_hornet versions always die.  The "critical_damage" values for these planes are both "1".  The FA-18C value is "8" and the AI pilot's survival rate is much better.

You can adjust the FA-18C_hornet value in this file but it will certainly break IC.

_Hornet survivability.miz

[GeoS72]

@BIGNEWY,

Thank you for re-examining the Hornet Pilot survival rate with the rest of the ED team!