Its an AIM-9M with more pull and more range.
In honesty its a bit of a consolation for the F-2s lack of HMD, and lack of ARH missiles compared to contemporaries.
The main thing that it can do that the 9M cannot is that you need to watch for the 6km top down shots. If you are on the deck always watch out for an F-2 up in the sky because those AAM3s can absolutely reach you.
Ive gotten many kills on enemies who never expect an AAM3 from space.
Maybe AAM-3 pulling 10+ more Gs than AIM-9M while also having more range has some… impact on its performance worth noting?
A Fox-3 slinger gets blown up by an IR missile. How unexpected…
it definitely needs a nerf its unflarable
It has pretty much the same seeker stats as a 9M.
It’s very much flarable
Should I start collecting clips of me flaring IR missiles as well as notching now? @Beeschurger
with upcoming sales? defo, since we will have new wave of these posts again
Idk about nerfing them but flaring them off in the f18 is a pain in the rear because the f18 runs very, very hot.
AAM-3 flare resistance is not heat dependent
You can flare them just as well with afterburner on as with afterburner off
TIL, I know it has a different seeker that makes it very hard to defeat from side aspect or top down is that right?
In game it’s a “seeker shut off” IRCCM, when it sees the flare it turns off the seeker and keeps flying on an intercept for the course you where on when you flared, then tries to re-acquire you once the seeker turns back on. So you need to flare then change course to avoid being re-aquired.
ah ha, I see, still gonna be a pain to fight off the horde of premium F2’s, the people playing those are rabbid.
AIM-9M uses effectively the same seeker as well.
Same for AIM-9L/I and L/I-1
Lowkey i find it kinda funny/weird/annoying how the only difference is the AAM-3 has a lower rejection threshold.
So, like, a lower rejection threshold sounds good in theory, seeker turning off faster and all that. However, even with the 9M’s threshold, its turning off well before when it needs to. Since turning off early means that its turning off tracking when it could otherwise keep tracking.
Now, for why I find this funny/weird/annoying, is about how clutter rejection detection actually works IRL. Basically, it compares the waveform output signal of the seeker, but with a phase delay rotation of 180 degrees (or another multiple of 90, depending on if its done additively or subtractively). Then, by overlapping this previous signal with the current one, you can find when the signal you’re tracking is being disrupted or if theres multiple signals in frame.
However, once you have two seeker bands, this changes a bit, as now you can compare waveforms from different bands. Now, in a dual band system, there’s a few potential changes to how this filtering can be done. The first one being that there’s no change, and that it works the exact same way. There is no reason to do it this way as its more complex then other new methods, however even so it would see an improvement to single band, as it would allow for a higher threshold to be effectively used without falling for flares.
The other methods are where it gets more interesting. Basically, you can use the UV layer as a masking layer for the IR layer, instead of of the phase delayed signal. However, there are two potential cases from here, the first being that the UV signal is used as a gain mask for the IR signal, and the second is that the difference in signal output is used to deactivate the effective IR signal to the sensor. However, its also important to note in the case of the first case, that depending on how its wired, is that the UV mask may not shutoff the seeker in cases where the flares are too close to the aircraft that’s being targetted.
So, this provides us with four potential changes to the AAM-3’s IRCCM.
The first one being that it stays just tracking suspension, but with a raised rejection threshold, which would basically mean the missile wouldn’t turn off its seeker unless it was actually about to be defeated. Hence why I think its funny that it has a lower rejection in game, as the easiest method to get it closer to IRL would be to raise the threshold.
The second being that it gets tracking suspension + gatewidth.
The third, being that it would solely being gatewidth. While this sounds weird for a missile specifically said to have clutter rejection, if its assumed that the filtering is solely a UV gain mask, with no other failsafe shutoff, then this is the closest approximation of the behavior we would get. However, it is important to note that this would be much tighter then the effective gatewidth of normal gatewidth missiles, as instead of being IFoV, this would be down the minimum difference the filter can detect. So this would be much lower then current gate width, potentially down in the 0.2 degree range.
The fourth one, would be a new method introduction, where the missile’s range bands would automatically change based upon the detection of flares. IE, if a flare is found, it would lower detection in those bands, instead using only the UV band, which would potentially allow the missile to keep tracking the target through flares at closer ranges.
Now, for which one is the closest to how the missile would behave IRL? Its kinda hard to say, however given whats known about the missile, I personally believe either the second or fourth method would be most accurate, although its rather hard to say with a proper degree of certainty.
Hoooooly yap.
Cool to know either way lol
yes, why not make the F2A spam even worse, excellent idea.
This isnt even the most clear cut way the AAM-3 is underperforming. While seeker performance is somewhat underperforming its a bit ambiguous to just how much it actually should perform.
Meanwhile, the missile is very well and clearly confirmed to be largely underperforming in manueverabilility. Its missing a substantial amount of G-pull from BTT missing. But lesser known its responsiveness and high speed turning capabilities are also lacking from the RSS not being modeled fully on missiles. Along with the general buff to fin response speed that should be expected from electric motors… And this isnt even getting into unconfirmed things, like atleast 1 secondary source claiming it should use augmented PID guidance instead of conventional PID guidance.
The AAM-3 irl is closely on par with the python-4. But this wasnt quite so clear when it was added, and the things that give it its performance arent really in game yet.
And it is still not clear in question of seeker about gatewidth
Even ignoring any of the questions around functionality around the IRCCM, since yes, as I said in my earlier post, its not clear how exactly it works; the seeker is still underperforming if only for lacking dual band attributes. UV light has very favorable atmospheric absorption, which should lead the seeker to having much more favorable characteristics, particularly around range band 0.