IR Guided missiles ignoring flares or too sensitive

[Dipirona4100]

Ir guided missiles, specially 60s and 70s have a LOT of flare tolerance, they work just too good to be comparable at their real life performance, reading like the first wikipedia article i found it says the aim9b, d, e, g and j variants combined had a 18% chance of kill in the vietnam war, in the game they work way better and have a lot of resistance of flares,

 

When im playing 60s servers and someone launch a missile at me, i cut burners, try to manouver mantaining a good speed and good G’s, sometimes even pre flaring, and the missile just doesnt care and gets me, im supose this is not meant to occur with like a 1st gen missile that has a caged seeker and poop flare resistance

 

I think its about time this game implements irccm mechanics and a complete overhaul of the ir guided missiles, even war thunder that is not a sim game have this implemented, this would add a bit more of realism to the game

[JohnRedcorn]

As far as I know. In DCS world, when you shoot chaff or flares, you are just starting some random generator which generates a random number which is used then to calculate the chance of missile to brake the guidance or something like this. So its not really a simulaton of missile's guidance system guided to the plane's engines heat but some kind of made-up guidance simulation. And that's the reason why most of the missiles behaves like this in DCS world. The AIM 120C missile alghorythm was totally overhauled for example. So it might behave totally diffrenetly then other missiles which weren't tuched for years.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

2 hours ago, Dipirona4100 said:

reading like the first wikipedia article i found it says the aim9b, d, e, g and j variants combined had a 18% chance of kill in the vietnam war, in the game they work way better

Things are not as simple as that. In Vietnam many missiles failed because of wrong maintenance procedures, faulty wiring or simply the pilots not being trained enough on the limitations so they fired outside of the missile’s parameters (no tone, out of range, too high angle-off, etc).

 

But other than that, yes deploying countermeasures in DCS is a simple dice roll.

[Dipirona4100]

7 hours ago, JohnRedcorn said:

As far as I know. In DCS world, when you shoot chaff or flares, you are just starting some random generator which generates a random number which is used then to calculate the chance of missile to brake the guidance or something like this. So its not really a simulaton of missile's guidance system guided to the plane's engines heat but some kind of made-up guidance simulation. And that's the reason why most of the missiles behaves like this in DCS world. The AIM 120C missile alghorythm was totally overhauled for example. So it might behave totally diffrenetly then other missiles which weren't tuched for years.

I remember when the aim120c was easily dodged by a simple notch, they basically added the track suspension algorythm, when the missile lose lock on a target it will try to maintain the course of the target and relock it, its pretty similar to the aim9m and aim9x irccm characteristics, this would be so good if implemented in ir guided missiles

[Red_Camarada]

On 8/9/2025 at 2:04 AM, Dipirona4100 said:

Ir guided missiles, specially 60s and 70s have a LOT of flare tolerance, they work just too good to be comparable at their real life performance, reading like the first wikipedia article i found it says the aim9b, d, e, g and j variants combined had a 18% chance of kill in the vietnam war, in the game they work way better and have a lot of resistance of flares,

 

When im playing 60s servers and someone launch a missile at me, i cut burners, try to manouver mantaining a good speed and good G’s, sometimes even pre flaring, and the missile just doesnt care and gets me, im supose this is not meant to occur with like a 1st gen missile that has a caged seeker and poop flare resistance

 

I think its about time this game implements irccm mechanics and a complete overhaul of the ir guided missiles, even war thunder that is not a sim game have this implemented, this would add a bit more of realism to the game

This seems odd, because I can consistently dodge mordern missiles like R73 and AIM9M using some tatics like droping flares at the missile FOV, furthermore, even AIM9X can be spoffed preflaring at missile FOV.

Missile aspect is important also in those engagements.

[Dipirona4100]

On 8/14/2025 at 10:06 AM, Red_Camarada said:

This seems odd, because I can consistently dodge mordern missiles like R73 and AIM9M using some tatics like droping flares at the missile FOV, furthermore, even AIM9X can be spoffed preflaring at missile FOV.

Missile aspect is important also in those engagements.

The problem is not modern missiles, they have an IRCCM sensor that knows how to differentiate or try to mitigate aircraft flares, this is not implemented in DCS, but they try to simulate it by increasing the resistance of these missiles flares, which is not correct and far from being something close to reality, the real problem happens with older missiles, which do not have these same systems, these missiles for the most part just follow the target with greater heat, they cannot distinguish between a flare and an aircraft, making them easily fooled with one or two flares.

 

An interesting point that the other guy mentioned was the case of the aim120, where it basically had no system to avoid a notch maneuver, they implemented an irccm system that temporarily suspends its seeker when a chaff is detected, when it is suspended it tries to maintain the course and route of the enemy aircraft that is being attacked, turning on the missile seeker after a while to try to reengage the target, the aim9m and modern variants basically have this same irccm system (but for flares), making them much more deadly in combat.

 

If you want an example of this system working, try googling war thunder irccm missiles and strategies to dodging them, the modelled it really well

[Red_Camarada]

14 hours ago, Dipirona4100 said:

The problem is not modern missiles, they have an IRCCM sensor that knows how to differentiate or try to mitigate aircraft flares, this is not implemented in DCS, but they try to simulate it by increasing the resistance of these missiles flares, which is not correct and far from being something close to reality, the real problem happens with older missiles, which do not have these same systems, these missiles for the most part just follow the target with greater heat, they cannot distinguish between a flare and an aircraft, making them easily fooled with one or two flares.

 

An interesting point that the other guy mentioned was the case of the aim120, where it basically had no system to avoid a notch maneuver, they implemented an irccm system that temporarily suspends its seeker when a chaff is detected, when it is suspended it tries to maintain the course and route of the enemy aircraft that is being attacked, turning on the missile seeker after a while to try to reengage the target, the aim9m and modern variants basically have this same irccm system (but for flares), making them much more deadly in combat.

 

If you want an example of this system working, try googling war thunder irccm missiles and strategies to dodging them, the modelled it really well

You are right, the thunder game has better IR missile simulation, for now at least.

Even though the early missiles are pretty easy to defeat, with 4 to 6 puff of flares almost every missile from B to P5 can be defeated in rear aspect as shown in the attached tracks.

Again, pay attention to motor heat outuput and the missile fov and try to flood it with flares, is not just like rolling a dice it has other variables taken into account

AIM9 B.trk AIM9 J.trk AIM9 P.trk AIM9 P3.trk