Missile effectiveness

[Rhen]

Apparently you've not read the first post in this thread...

 

You babble as soothingly as a running stream ... of Guinness! Time for another beer and possibly you'll make more sense to me.

 

Despite posting the smiley faces, I see that you're irritated. Perhaps you should reread D-Scythe's and rlogue's posts before formulating your research as well.

[rlogue]

Well, as I stated before, I can't quote facts because I don't have any .. common sense .. should a good A10 pilot come out on top of a couple so - so Mig 29 pilot's ? I'm thinking not .. if a guy can hit the pickle button in the 29 he should have an advantage over the A10 ?

[GGTharos]

According to a recent hud video of an A-10 holding gun and winder pipper on an F-16 ... yes, a good A-10 pilot -could- come out on top of a couple of so-so MiG-29 pilots, though that seems like a rather unikely scenario.

[rlogue]

Where can I look at that video ?

[D-Scythe]

Where can I look at that video ?

 

Does it matter? If all the stars and planets are aligned right, a blind SA-2 missile would be able to take out an F-22. Yes, an A-10 or Su-25/T may come out on top once in a while against some air supremacy fighter - even 5 to 0 is possible IRL. However, it's also possible that if I buy a lottery ticket I can win $10 million tomorrow too.

 

Okay, you might not like how LOMAC handles stuff right now, but that's no reason not to do something about it. GGtharos is right, since you are playing LOMAC, you have to play by LOMAC's rules, not your own.

[Weta43]

The present stats on the 504 server F-15 vs Su25T is 97:2, Mig 29S vs Su25T 61:2

This would - to me anyway - point to the Su25T being at a great disadvantage in a fight against an F-15, and if you get shot down in an F-15 by an Su25T, you've probably made a mess of the attack in some way.

[Prophet_169th]

Yes, you actually did. I'm not going to re-quote your previous post, because that's just silly. Why would I have to prove something you just said?[/Quote]

 

No, I didnt. Look all you want.

 

So a newb F-15 pilot killing a veteran Su-25T pilot should be seen as the game compensating for the newb? That is ridiculous.[/Quote]

 

Again, I never suggested this. You are twisting words. You dont take the situation into account, only 1 plane versus another. The fact still remains that if the F15 allows the Su25T to beat him, then he will get beat. So start addressing that if you wish to argue. I have yet to suggest that the missles are correctly modeled.

 

And the line about the best pilot wins only applies to aircraft of the same type. I dunno about you, but last time I checked, an F-15C/Su-27 is a completely different type of military aircraft than a Su-25T.

 

If that is what you wish to believe

 

You must've read past the part where I said a Su-25T shoulda died in a head on Archer engagement.

 

Nope I understand that. But you somehow think that in my situation that I was going to fly straight into the archer. Nope, I used my brain and let the archer fly into a hill.

 

Funny how you never mentioned how your opponents never fired. Interesting.

 

Thats because they did fire. I was clear about that. But them firing has nothing to do with it. Its WHEN and WHERE they fired, that does.

 

What's wrong with that is an F-15 can also carry AIM-9Ms, or fire AIM-120s from AIM-9M range. You seem to be missing the idea that if you have enough time to run incoming missiles to the ground, so does your opponent against your missiles. It's an easy concept: if you can hit him, he can hit you.

 

Key word is the opponent CAN run the missle to the ground, not that he DID.

 

Right, I said that.

 

Yes, in fact you did. Your exact quote: "So bottom line, it doesn't matter how you killed 5 F-15s or Flankers, you should've died, no matter how good you and your friend are"

 

Sorry but you are wrong. There are situations that dont agree with you. And it doesnt matter how well the 120 is modelled, it will still run into a hill if not fired in the right situation.

 

What logic is flawed? The fact that if an F-15 launches an AIM-9/AIM-120 at 2 miles at a Su-25T beak to beak who fires back with a R-73 that chances are both jets should die?

 

The logic is flawed because a bad pilot does not fire when he should, and so the good pilot will manuever to put a hill between him and the missle. Why is this so hard for you to grasp. I am not arguing how good the missle modeling is, or anything else. Physics still applies, hills stop missles.

 

That is exactly the point. Lock On shouldn't compensate for bad pilots, but it shouldn't allow good pilots live forever, which it currently does. A good pilot will have a ridiculously easy time evading enemy missiles in LOMAC, something no one can deny. Such a pilot is almost gauranteed to survive even if he's in a high threat zone, like an enemy's NEZ.

 

I never said otherwise.

 

I'm sorry, but that pilot should get shot down. Avoiding high threat zones/situations should be more important to being a good pilot than being able to waltz around missiles, which shouldn't happen.

 

And this is one aspect of missile combat that Lock On has failed to simulate. That avoiding the lethal envelope of an enemy's weapon employment zone is more important than evading the weapons fired at you. I can't get why you can't understand this concept, that Lock On rewards skilled pilots too much sometimes.

 

Yet, it also allows skilled pilots to live forever. Yay, we have a fun game...

 

I never argued this either.

 

My only arguement is, that if an F15 or an Su27 is inept enough to fire his missle low, at a low target, with plenty of hills between them, he should expect his missle to hit one of those hills. And if he loses sight of the target, and continues on his merry way, he should expect to get an R73 in the face from nowhere.

 

And no matter how much you correct the modelling, aint gonna change that.

 

And as Weta43 shows, the Su25T gets shot down a LOT! As it should. And I have never suggested it wouldnt. But, there are situations that are outside the norm. And I described one of them. But continue to argue it, but I wont, I know what happened, and I know it had nothing to do with the modelling of the missile or anything besides a few bad choices.

[Dudikoff]

So bottom line, it doesn't matter how you killed 5 F-15s or Flankers, you should've died, no matter how good you and your friend are.

 

WTF, he described a situation in which they hid behind a hill, popped up and surprised low flying F-15s (which couldn't use the radar/missiles advantage because they were flying too low) and it was a too close a shot to give them time to react (it's not unlikely that they didn't see the missiles even). In that situation (low alt, low speed), being in an F-15 doesn't count for much.

 

So, when you question the reality of that situation with a line like that.. I hope other beta testers don't share your views, otherwise we might return to the Flanker missile modelling with fixed missile hit probabilities. From your reasoning one might deduct that if an Su-25 fires an Archer, his Archer should have a much less hit probability than a an identical Archer fired from a Mig-29 flying low just because it's fired from a Mig-29 and not some slow crate.

[3Sqn_Fudd]

Yes, an A-10 or Su-25/T may come out on top once in a while against some air supremacy fighter - even 5 to 0 is possible IRL. However, it's also possible that if I buy a lottery ticket I can win $10 million tomorrow too.

Yeh I consider us fortunate to get out of the engadgements alive, but the terrain, AWACS, bandit mistakes, and the 2v1 situation helped us.

 

Between Prophet and I we have 2 of the 3 flight tracks... I'll get them to you via "yousendit" (or somehow) if you like.

 

Layout is as follows:

 

Flight 1

non-manuvering Su-27 kill at 9:23am with high angle and side aspect R-60 shot from Fudd

 

Flight 2

non-manuvering Su-27 kill at 9:34:30am with low angle head on aspect with R-73 from Fudd

 

manuvering F-15 kill at 9:36am with medium angle and side aspect with R-73 from Prophet

[192nd_Erdem]

It certainly is a challenge and a pleasure to fly ... of course, I also enjoy watching it get destroyed spectacularely ;)

 

. . . but your Vikhr experiences don't say so in your posts :p

[GGTharos]

I have no 'vikhr experiences' ... other than shooting them at tanks.

[rlogue]

You guys are kinda getting away from my original post. Believe me, I am not bashing anyone for anything .. my post was about my concern of slammers and Aim 7's fired at non maneuvering targets and being beat by a very weak notch at WVR or just beyond. In my particular scenerio, there were no hills, no nothing, 4 missed shots in good parameters that were beaten by a fluke of the game .. that is my post and my beef .. I just want to throw out my opinion to the developers that it should be very difficult to spoof a missile shot in good parameters, just flying low without maneuvering needs to be fixed, it will up the skill level of everyone in the game. It would also effectively end unrealistic engagements of the 25T and 15, or similar things. In my mind, the 25T is out there to move mud and get away with it. In other words, fly low level routes get in, get out undetected. That, to me is how this aircraft would be employed. Simply getting rid of the fly low and never get shot bug would force people to fly their 25 or A10 with tactics more appropriate for that airframe. My tactic as the F15 driver is to fly high and shoot people from a safe distance, your tactic as a 25T driver is to bomb stuff and get away unseen. Once again .. this isn't a jab at anyone in any way. .. as a purchaser of the game, i'm voicing my opinion and displeasure with the ineffectiveness of my favorite airplane and it's weapons. I thoroughly stand by my thought the the F15 should be able to kill a 25 that is flying over flat terrain and not maneuvering without getting killed itself. If any airplane is cocky enough to fly inside of weapons parameters for another airplane, he should be in trouble .. that is my wish and suggestion for the developers, I am not trying to convince testers that this is right, frankly I don't care what the testers think because they are not the developers and don't appear to know any more about the real thing than I do. (ok, that was a slight "poke", but anyway, i'm as qualified here as anybody else to talk about "realism" short of someone who really is/was a fighter pilot)

 

Oh and the reason that I want to see the A10 video is because I strongly suspect that this wasn't an all out battle, I'm bettin that they were flying an extended trail excercize for the benefit of the A10 driver and his training. I would think that an f-16 could get away from the A10 without trying too hard ... the 16 is slightly faster ! anyway .. different subject all together.

[GGTharos]

First of all, if he's in a 'weak notch' (meaning what exactly?) your parameters are bad, not good. 'Good parameters' mean a whole bunch of different things to different people:

 

Most think that 'good parameters' means being in range ... that's simply not true.

 

And actually, the devs do listen to beta testers who -do- in fact heavily research these topics. A real fighter pilot won't tell you squad: What they know is classified. No public source of info? No info from fighter pilots. And believe you me, we keep finding new public sources of info all the time, but it sure ain't easy ... even THEN a fighter pilot might not be able to confirm nor deny what's in those documents ... so you should probably re-think your attitude towards beta-testers. A lot of us know more than you think ;)

 

If he flew so very low so the radar guided missiles wouldn't track him, tough - that's something we've been trying to squash for a while, but it isn't going away any time soon so learn to defeat it.

 

 

The simple fact is, your description of weapons employment is lacking, and just because you consider the shots to have been in good parameters doesn't mean they were.

 

As I already pointed out, tactics and info for these weapons in real life are classified precicely to avoid the sort of thing you see online, ie everyone knowing exactly how to defeat them.

 

 

Furthermore, flying high and shooting at planes very low isn't going to work well as your missile will slow down very quickly at low altitude and have no effective maneuvering capability when it reaches the target, unless the shot is taken at close range. And close means NEZ, not 7nm - your DLZ is there to show you what the NEZ is ...

[rlogue]

You might consider adjust your attitude toward the public, a lot of us know more than you think to .. truth is, we all have read and learned our info about our favorite subject here, and i have heard nothing here that convinces me that anyone here including testers know any more about it than I do. I don't claim to be an expert, but I haven't seen any expertise on this thread yet either.

[rlogue]

Good idea, who am I to voice my opinion and disagree with testers .. shame on me, I'm being a trouble maker.

[Pilotasso]

Im still awayting to see a reasonable post explaining why are missiles too weak. All I see is complaints about missiles missing on poor guidance conditions. Chaff too strong? Perhaps. But anything else is speculation unless you have any records stating otherwise.

[D-Scythe]

And as Weta43 shows, the Su25T gets shot down a LOT! As it should. And I have never suggested it wouldnt. But, there are situations that are outside the norm. And I described one of them. But continue to argue it, but I wont, I know what happened, and I know it had nothing to do with the modelling of the missile or anything besides a few bad choices.

 

I'm not arguing it. I'm simply stating that you and Fudd shooting down F-15/Su-27s like that is just a perfect example of how Lock On rewards skilled players too much. If you know what you're doing, you're not going to get killed.

 

And no, flying high does not always work. It can be EASILY countered. Try it against the AI, or another human who's good at notching; set up an engagement, Su-25T or MiG-29, and shoot at it 5 miles and 2500 m above. Any radar missile - AMRAAM, R-77 - will miss everytime. The look-down performance of radar missiles in Lock On is extremely poor.

 

So in such a situation, how do you kill a pilot who is pretty good at notching and can drive missiles into the ground?

 

Anyway, I don't even know what we're debating about anymore. Whatever it is, let's just agree to disagree or something. Yeah :p

 

Yeh I consider us fortunate to get out of the engadgements alive, but the terrain, AWACS, bandit mistakes, and the 2v1 situation helped us.

 

Yeah, I know.

 

WTF, he described a situation in which they hid behind a hill, popped up and surprised low flying F-15s (which couldn't use the radar/missiles advantage because they were flying too low) and it was a too close a shot to give them time to react (it's not unlikely that they didn't see the missiles even). In that situation (low alt, low speed), being in an F-15 doesn't count for much.

 

Yeah, I don't think that's what happened. They drove missiles into the ground, so no they did not hide behind a hill, and where did you pick up the fact that F-15s were flying slow?

 

I thoroughly stand by my thought the the F15 should be able to kill a 25 that is flying over flat terrain and not maneuvering without getting killed itself.

 

Which happens in LOMAC - it just takes four AMRAAMs to do it. And no, anything with the ability to shoot back has a small probability of winning - a guy on the ground with an AK-47 has a chance of shooting down a Maverick missile. An F-15 shouldn't always win, but it shouldn't be taking that many AMRAAMs to get the job done either.

[rlogue]

Look, I'm not dismissing anyone's knowledge, i've said it before, i'm no expert either ... I'm just pointing out some very rediculous flaws (as I see it). The last thing I want to do is get everyone mad at eachother. I've posted some good common sense point of views that I won't drop just because someone says "you are wrong". I said before, I wish to pass this along to the developers, I have no desire to convince GG or anyone else that i'm right, and I don't feel at all that I am wrong to disagree. I think if cooler heads will prevail, this could turn into a very constructive thread .. why not all interested throw up links and articles and maybe as a group find out how realistic or unrealistic the missiles are. And if noone is interested in that .. then I go back to .. this is my feedback to ED, not to the testers.

[rlogue]

Look, I'm not dismissing anyone's knowledge, i've said it before, i'm no expert either ... I'm just pointing out some very rediculous flaws (as I see it). The last thing I want to do is get everyone mad at eachother. I've posted some good common sense point of views that I won't drop just because someone says "you are wrong". I said before, I wish to pass this along to the developers, I have no desire to convince GG or anyone else that i'm right, and I don't feel at all that I am wrong to disagree. I think if cooler heads will prevail, this could turn into a very constructive thread .. why not all interested throw up links and articles and maybe as a group find out how realistic or unrealistic the missiles are. And if noone is interested in that .. then I go back to .. this is my feedback to ED, not to the testers.

[D-Scythe]

Im still awayting to see a reasonable post explaining why are missiles too weak. All I see is complaints about missiles missing on poor guidance conditions. Chaff too strong? Perhaps. But anything else is speculation unless you have any records stating otherwise.

 

Chaff currently in Lock On is most effective at low aspects (e.g. head on or tail on). This is absolutely false against monopulse radar missiles like the R-27 and AIM-120 because doppler only sees chaff as clutter (like ground clutter) and filters it EVERY single time at low aspects. Chaff should thus only work in beaming situations, because it presents clutter for the target to hide in.

 

There is also some reason to believe that at shorter ranges chaff effectiveness decreases because the LOS correction it would present to the seeker would be far too great. Not modelled in Lock On.

 

Thus, in terms of monopulse radar missiles, the current modelling in Lock On models its weaknesses (i.e. they can be beamed) without modelling its strengths (immunity to chaff at all aspects except the beam). Furthermore, the limitations of chaff are ignored.

 

Just a couple reasons right there.

[Pilotasso]

Just a couple reasons right there.

 

key sentence:

 

Chaff too strong? Perhaps. But anything else is speculation unless you have any records stating otherwise.

 

I was rather mentioning the notch and ground clutter and speed of target.

[D-Scythe]

I was rather mentioning the notch and ground clutter and speed of target.

 

Um, what about them? Sorry, I don't understand what you're getting at. If you are asking for some proof that notching can be defeated, then there's this: http://www.ausairpower.net/amraam.html

 

Though never openly stated, Amraam is likely to use many of the processing algorithms developed for the C model Phoenix, these are reputedly able to defeat the beam turn, a favourite evasive manoeuvre which breaks lock on Doppler radars by rapidly changing both the Doppler and the strength of the reflected return (the latter is termed scintillation; an aircraft reflects different amounts of microwave energy from different angles).

 

There's also this article: http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Radar-AAMs.html

 

Faster and more capable microprocessor chips (or even faster bit-slice processors) will give the weapon itself a better ability to resist jamming and discriminate between targets and clutter. Powerful signal processors would allow the guidance itself to take over many of the functions currently handled by the launch aircraft's fire control, such as resolving individual targets in a formation.

 

So...yeah, newer missiles should at least be able to deal with beaming better, which again is not modelled. The AMRAAM should be the most resistant against beaming, due to the fact that has the most computing power than the others in Lock On (except MICA maybe) and the most extensive software.

[Pilotasso]

Look, I'm not dismissing anyone's knowledge, i've said it before, i'm no expert either ...The last thing I want to do is get everyone mad at eachother.

 

No one is dissmissing you, We take your point, Any opinion is enriching. Either by its truthfulness of by exposing needed corrections to facts. No one is mad and its a good comon sense to listen and be listened without going overboard. :)

 

 

I'm just pointing out some very rediculous flaws (as I see it).

 

This is what goes in contraditction to what you said preiously (yo are no expert) And aside from chaff (like I said in a previous post) There is no obvious flaws unless you have a source saying so.

[Pilotasso]

Um, what about them? Sorry, I don't understand what you're getting at. If you are asking for some proof that notching can be defeated, then there's this: http://www.ausairpower.net/amraam.html

 

 

 

There's also this article: http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Radar-AAMs.html

 

 

you lost track of what I said earlier. Of course I know notching defeats missiles, this is Why Im wondering some people think IT SHOULDNT BE SO with the missed SU-25's unless they have recordds saying otherwise.

[GGTharos]

Unfortuantely, 'common sense' just doesn't cut it ... common sense told us the R-17ET had a data link ... the MiG manual later told us it didn't.

 

And as I said, again, we've concrete examples of missiles both hitting AND missing at low altitudes ... under different circumstances. There's even a video which seems to show a 120 missing a co-alt beaming target, though it's hard to see and uncertain.