F15c is not the TANK

[GGTharos]

Well respect to you :)

 

In fact I very much own it with Fulcrum A!

[Vekkinho]

Plane icons on ACMI are about 4 to 5 times larger than the actual 3D object ingame, so while it may have seemed close or a direct hit, could have been like 150 feet away from the actual aircraft, thus not producing appreciable damage. he probably limped back home with hydraulic and fuel leaks.

 

No, I was watching a R-27R - F-15C corelation in Tacview, you select R-27R in one and F-15C in other window and you'll get the distance between the two. When you slow down enough to see the last moment before those missiles start disappering you'll read 4 or 5 meters...;)

[Pilotasso]

ok then, it could have been a network issue, whats new here in FC2 compared to FC1?

[GGTharos]

Yep, and again, this is inteprolated position so not -really- trustworthy. You need HIS tacview as well and I guarnatee you that distance will be different.

 

No, I was watching a R-27R - F-15C corelation in Tacview, you select R-27R in one and F-15C in other window and you'll get the distance between the two. When you slow down enough to see the last moment before those missiles start disappering you'll read 4 or 5 meters...;)

[EtherealN]

EtherealN, direct hits are direct enough to make your plane inoperable instantly.

 

Within the scope of this topic, there is no such thing as a "direct hit" really. I know people have probably watched that history channel program where an israeli heater (or was it in vietnam? I forget.) literally flew up the tailpipe of a MiG-21, but the reality is that missiles have proximity fuses for a reason.

 

The same reason why the THAAD anti-ICBM missile and it's "kinetic kill" method was impressive.

 

If your pilot remains alive you should be focused on abandoning the bird you fly.

 

Depends on what kind of damage I have sustained and what the tactical situation is. Durin a training session a couple days ago I kept my badly hit (by an AIM-120C) Eagle in the fight in spite of losing hydraulics and such things since I had two very capable enemies around, and my wing-lead engaged in BFM. Turned out (during the debrief) that the guy who nailed me with his 120C had reported me as a splash, so for a critical amount of time they thought they were dealing with a 2v1 in their favor.

 

Similarly, I've seen tonnes of times where even AI Flankers and Migs have killed me because I was silly enough to think that the splash I saw meant they were out of the fight. They weren't, and they told me so with an ER. (See my profile "location"... ;) )

 

Also, while this isn't really relevant to this type of topic - remember that this is an aircraft that has been landed with only one wing. :P

 

But what's interesting and veeery unrealistic is a F-15C that flies and fights as nothing happened. I was in a fight where I fired 2*R-27R in a 2 sec salvo from within 10 km at a F-15C and I thought both missed when player turned towards me and launched 3*AiM-9 at me. My Flares were useless and I was hanging a chute within seconds but when reviewing ACMI later on I noticed that BOTH Alamos scored or exploded wery close to F-15C (I'm talking literally under it's wing).

 

Like GG said - Track, not ACMI.

 

Also, there is nothing magical about missiles. A missile exploding in the vicinity of a fighter aircraft doesn't mean that life is a boolean. The fighter may or may not sustain critical damage, same way gun hits may or may not be critical. A hit in the wing section, tearing a whole right through it, may only deteriorate flight performance and cause unhealthy kerosene leakage. A hit directly in a fuel tank...

 

I always though that explosions and smoketrails of splashed birds are a bit too theatrical, I've never seen a fuel ladden drone smoke so much when hit IRL and if you remember a 1983 incident with KAL007 where Soviet Su-15 had to fire two K-8 to bring it down. So I guess all of the FC missiles are a bit too good especially those new pimped AMRAAMs...no way to survive if it's within 50m from your canopy...

 

Hyperbole.

 

The incident mentioned was a 120C exploding real close, and my bird was very badly damanged. But the damage didn't halt flight - it just meant I had one fin half-removed, fuel leaks from the wings, no hydraulics and further leaks from one engine. I later crashed while trying to land it as a glider. But while fuel remained in my hull there's nothing strange in my undamanged front and mid sections (housing radar, missiles etc) being able to operate.

 

But the important thing here is: if you want to say that this is something particular to a specific weapon or specific aircraft, I expect numbers. And I expect test conditions that control for aspect and such variables.

 

Anecdotal evidence in either direction is just worthless. It is worse than worthless since it is often subject to any of the following:

 

Ideologi.

Fanboyism.

Confirmation Bias.

Conspiration theory.

Romanticism.

 

...and several less flattering possibilities that can apply to either camp.

[Case]

Case is working on statistics and could make a valuable input here.

 

Yes, I am working on such a page. Though it isn't finished yet, here's a picture that says more than a thousand words:

 

Shown here are the percentages of the weapons that killed (blue), hit (green) or missed (red) their target. At the right the number of weapons fired is shown. This data is compiled from the 3153 missiles that were fired on the 51st server since August 1st, 2010, leading to some 570 kills.

 

This plot is not entirely appropriate for the debate whether or not one missile is better at killing a target than another, so instead I made this table:

+-----------------+------+-------+-------+
| weapon          | hits | kills | ratio |
+-----------------+------+-------+-------+
| AIM-120B        |   50 |    33 |  66.0 | 
| AIM-120C        |  266 |   156 |  58.6 | 
| AIM-7M          |    7 |     7 | 100.0 | 
| AIM-9M          |   56 |    44 |  78.6 | 
| R-27EM (AA-10C) |   29 |    18 |  62.1 | 
| R-27ER (AA-10C) |  181 |   112 |  61.9 | 
| R-27ET (AA-10D) |  135 |    89 |  65.9 | 
| R-27R (AA-10A)  |   10 |     7 |  70.0 | 
| R-60M (AA-8)    |   11 |     6 |  54.5 | 
| R-73 (AA-11)    |   88 |    54 |  61.4 | 
| R-77 (AA-12)    |   82 |    46 |  56.1 | 
+-----------------+------+-------+-------+

This shows the total number of hits, and the number of hits that killed for each weapon. The important number here is the ratio of kills/hits, which gives you the frequency of a missile killing its target. The higher this ratio the better the missile is. It also is not polluted by players emptying a full complement of missiles into thin air.

 

You'll see that for the missiles that are discussed here the ratios are not that different. AIM-120B is highest at 66.0% (still small number statistics though), while the C is lowest at 58.6%. The ER is in the middle with 61.9%. Based on the numbers I would argue that no player will notice this difference.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Case

[GGTharos]

Very nice job Case, and thanks - been looking for that sort of reporting for a while (I used to do it by hand).

[Case]

Very nice job Case, and thanks - been looking for that sort of reporting for a while (I used to do it by hand).

I knew you would appreciate this. I have been toying with the idea of calling that stats page GG's Wet Dream. :D

 

You will be pleased to know I am also computing time-of-flight values for each missile. These will no doubt turn into interesting plots as well.

[Pilotasso]

Yes, I am working on such a page. Though it isn't finished yet, here's a picture that says more than a thousand words:

 

Shown here are the percentages of the weapons that killed, hit or missed their target. At the right the number of weapons fired is shown. This data is compiled from the 3153 missiles that were fired on the 51st server since August 1st, 2010, leading to some 570 kills.

 

This plot is not entirely appropriate for the debate whether or not one missile is better at killing a target than another, so instead I made this table:

+-----------------+------+-------+-------+
| weapon          | hits | kills | ratio |
+-----------------+------+-------+-------+
| AIM-120B        |   50 |    33 |  66.0 | 
| AIM-120C        |  266 |   156 |  58.6 | 
| AIM-7M          |    7 |     7 | 100.0 | 
| AIM-9M          |   56 |    44 |  78.6 | 
| R-27EM (AA-10C) |   29 |    18 |  62.1 | 
| R-27ER (AA-10C) |  181 |   112 |  61.9 | 
| R-27ET (AA-10D) |  135 |    89 |  65.9 | 
| R-27R (AA-10A)  |   10 |     7 |  70.0 | 
| R-60M (AA-8)    |   11 |     6 |  54.5 | 
| R-73 (AA-11)    |   88 |    54 |  61.4 | 
| R-77 (AA-12)    |   82 |    46 |  56.1 | 
+-----------------+------+-------+-------+

This shows the total number of hits, and the number of hits that killed for each weapon. The important number here is the ratio of kills/hits, which gives you the frequency of a missile killing its target. The higher this ratio the better the missile is. It also is not polluted by players emptying a full complement of missiles into thin air.

 

You'll see that for the missiles that are discussed here the ratios are not that different. AIM-120B is highest at 66.0% (still small number statistics though), while the C is lowest at 58.6%. The ER is in the middle with 61.9%. Based on the numbers I would argue that no player will notice this difference.

+1

Amazing job. pretty much a tie across the board for the radar missiles. very evened up and dispels the conspiracy theories proper. I actually expected a slight AMRAAM edge. but no cigar!

Edited September 3, 2010 by Pilotasso

[GGTharos]

Haha, fine by me :D

 

And that sounds interesting BTW, what's next? A 'maneuver classifier' that will show missile v distance of launch v altitude v altitude v maneuver performed to evade together with maneuver success ratio? :D

But, TOF vs. kill rate will also be very interesting to start with indeed! :) You could do an Rtr vs 'other ranges' study. Even better if you can get relative aspect at time of shot and time of impact.

[EtherealN]

Case, that's very interesting. Thanks for sharing. :)

 

Something I'd love to see would be ghost tracks repeating the same scenario a huge amount of times, but varying platform and weapon. That would be the real juice for this debate, but I recognize that it would be difficult to arrange.

[Case]

And that sounds interesting BTW, what's next? A 'maneuver classifier' that will show missile v distance of launch v altitude v altitude v maneuver performed to evade together with maneuver success ratio? :D

Unfortunately not for FC2, but if you press ED hard enough to store the data outside of the exports (say server only), then I will do my best.

[Sanch0]

Good job Case. This is it what I'm looking for. I was trying to do small comparsion of missiles in FC2 but I have only ~5% data compared to your statistics...

[GGTharos]

Might not be in the cards for FC2, but I'll put it in for DCS.

 

I thought FC2 was supposed to allow non-local server exprts but ban them for clients ... was I wrong, or is this just a plain IC issue?

 

Unfortunately not for FC2' date=' but if you press ED hard enough to store the data outside of the exports (say server only), then I will do my best.[/quote']

[Pilotasso]

Its not the end of all evidence but its a strong indication that a point has been made regarding the claims that originated this thread.

[Boberro]

Case it is great!

 

interesting things about ERs and EMs compared to others.

[Case]

But, TOF vs. kill rate will also be very interesting to start with indeed! :) You could do an Rtr vs 'other ranges' study. Even better if you can get relative aspect at time of shot and time of impact.

Don't get your hopes up GG. The debrief.log contains no information about ranges and aspect. All I can do with missiles is record their time of launch, if they hit, their time of doing so, and if the hit kills the target.

 

But histograms of the time-of-flight values should contain interesting information. I can already tell you that the TOF histograms of long-range missiles will not have their last bin empty. The current record TOF is 88 seconds.

[GGTharos]

Bah, so much for my wet dream page :D

 

And you're right, that is a -very- interesting result.

[Sov13t]

The current record TOF is 88 seconds.

 

Correct me if I am wrong but that is pretty much borderline the longest it can be? 90sec is the cut off for all missile flight times is it not?

[GGTharos]

Yep, pretty much all MRM's for player AC are set to have a 90 sec TOF.

[Pilotasso]

Does that limit have to do with missile battery life? i.e. not having missile flying forever.

[X-man]

Still, I would like to see those numbers closer to 1...

 

The damage model is in serious need of correction in order to maintain some sort of realistic air combat, compared to the kamikaze stuff we see today...

Edited September 3, 2010 by X-man

[GGTharos]

It has to do a little more with lack of drag causing far too long flight ranges at high altitudes.

 

If we increased the drag, you'd get super-short low-altitude ranges instead.

[Pilotasso]

Still, I would like to see those numbers closer to 1...

 

The damage model is in serious need of correction in order to maintain some sort of realistic air combat, compared to the kamikaze stuff we see today...

 

 

Not to take away your point but its been the same in FC1. People notice it more because they are being killed at a higher rate in FC2.

[Vekkinho]

Interesting graph there Case!

 

AS I've pointed out AIM-7 seems completely abandoned nowadays, however its kill ratio is magnigicent 100% which brings up "my" theory back again. It's a SARH missile but can perform better than ARH missiles and that's what people in MP tend to forget. Of course the number of Sparrows used is too small to be a solid proof but ratio is good so far.

 

Lots of players in MP equip with what's supposed to work best, can be seen in AIM-120B(182) vs AIM-120C(879) numbers and just keep spamming the skies. Therefore a realitvely low kill ratio with ARH missiles. A player who knows what's he doing may wreak havoc in fleet of Eagles with plain old R-27R.

 

It's not like F-15C is unbeatable in FC2.0 but it's sure more difficult to beat and can sometimes take more punishment than I can deliver with 2*R-27R and 4*R-73 during 30 minute flight...