Because it has a unique seeker to all the others.
Yesn’t. Phoenix seekers correctly activate themselves ±16km away from IOG indicated targets. Given you rarely are fired upon when travelling at top speed, missile indeed does activate “in your forehead” when you fly predictably enough to still be within seeker FoV of a missile flying with IOG and without datalink assist.
However newer ARH missiles do activate themselves further away, I had cases of them going live as far as 20-21km with or without datalink, which further makes BVR a gimmick.
2 Likes
Hey bro, thanks, I didn’t quite understand that, but now it makes more sense why ARH missiles from the top tier are detected by the RWR much earlier than Phoenix and Fakour missiles. Perhaps that makes dodging AIM-120s and others in that range relatively easy; in this respect, MICA missiles are very difficult.
MICA when used in BVR is equally easy to deal with, arguably even easier as you can just outrun the missile as its not exactly stalwart of energy retention.
1 Like