Good day everyone,
I’m just making this topic because I’ve noticed a bug in the AiM 7 platform where the missile will attempt to go after targets outside the locked aircraft and receives a radar return from aircrafts FAR outside the radar scope.
Link to the bug report is AiM 7F broken and attempts to track targets nowhere near radar // Gaijin.net // Issues. Please make sure to go and add to it so we can get this fixed.
Respectfully,
ww2planes
This has been a issue with the AIM-7s since they were added, its been reported and talked about at extreme length and nothing has been done about it sadly.
Sure it happened sometimes but it got so much worse in either Sons or Attila or Kings of Battle (can’t remember exactly). They actually worked quite reliably before that.
Sparrows are not reliable? I used SuperTEMP and 7M quite extensively past weeks and they are extremely reliable. They sometimes run to a random target, but similar things happen to pretty much any other radar guided missile, like R-24R or R-27R (although R-27 can actually re-lock to a proper target because of a datalink). I haven’t found Sparrows behaving any differently from comparable Fox-1 missiles.
In my experience Sparrows are the most unreliable CW missile.
Here’s how I would rank them in terms of reliability
R-27(E)R > 530D > AIM-7F/M
Haven’t used the new 7P so I can’t comment on that.
I had a significant amount of sparrow shots stop tracking moments after launch in perfect conditions (target is approaching fast and directly towards me, target is higher than me, target is against a clear backdrop, there are no planes near me or the target.
they haven’t behaved that for me, but i only have like, maybe 200 games in F-16ADF and Tornado ADV combined. Reliability of R-27 is out of the question simply because until 7P it was the only SARH missile with a datalink. I haven’t used Matra so can’t really comment there. Apart from that Sparrow served me well, even when i played F-14 IRIAF (first time i ever got to use Sparrows so i wanted to give them a proper test because bunch of people are crying about how bad they are)
It prioritizes the fastest-approaching target no matter what your plane’s radar locks, frustrating
Depends tbh, they’ve been a literal sine wave effectiveness wise over the years.
I’ve never had a R-2X series missile yeet off on it’s own, which is expected since they all sport far more powerful seekers than any of the sparrow series.
So the P used to preform very similarly to the R-27 guidance wise, with the datalink making up for any guidance issues, just in the recent patch though I’ve noticed they have started going off on their own just like the 7F and M do, which should not be the case due to the P’s datalink.
But after using them quite a bit in sim, that datalink in the P seems to not be taking precedent when the seeker looses track or something as it is routinely tracking air, chaff, or just ground, even with the radar maintain a positive track. I expect such with the F and M but the P’s should not have such a issue.
I’m actually wondering if DLs in general are slightly bricked for a number of missiles, EG, I’ve been using 54s and Fakours in sim quite a bit and have noticed that they just cease to be sometimes on the datalink tracker on the radar, yet, they are still getting datalink data and guidance. I’ve never had such occur before, with even missiles that have lost their targets still appearing until they reach their self destruct limit.
I will say they are more reliable when used with good radars like on F-16s and F-15s etc but even there they go haywire a lot more often than other missiles.
They would sometimes ignore a high closure short range target and turn to a low closure long range one who is 20deg away xD
This is an F-18 related issue, not the missile itself. Other sparrow platforms like phantoms or F-16 work fine.
What platform? I mainly see it as an issue with the F18 as the launch platform but occasionally get it in the F16/F4s.
Thing is, I’ve also seen it occur on the F16A ADF (can’t speak for the other F16 platforms from other nations as I just don’t have them). I just happened to have had enough to file a bug report when doing the F18 and it was the most egregious time I’ve seen it be an issue.
I could understand that if an aircraft is in the radar scope but the second launch had it somehow getting radar return from an aircraft far outside the track radar (this is in regard to the bug report).
I haven’t played the ADF in a long time, since I have the MLU and the AJ. Those didn’t give me any issues, and the AJ is virtually the same as the ADF except for the weight.
I doubt that it would be the case, but anything goes with spaghetti code I guess.
In march I researched the TT F-18A with the F-4J and the F-4J sparrows were reliable except that I couldnt lock mig23 going over 1400kph or so, but that happened with lots of jets. (fixed), then I started playing the F-18A and both sparrows acted like garbage sticks every so often, especially when launched at slight off-bore.
I played the F-14A and F-16 AJ to check for issues and I found none, for me only the F-18A had issues with sparrows, it got better much better now but still happens, if you think its bad now imagine before
Just got done with a match where my AiM 7F went between two Ai MiG 15s. Watching the replay, it somehow saw the radar return for both of the aircraft and failed to go for either one, which is funny b/c once the second contact left the radar cone, it lost contact on the aircraft WITH the radar on it and still had radar from the second contact. Makes 0 sense but having seen where when I turn, the radar beam is way off from the target that’s being locked, I wonder if that has something to do with it. Not even joking, when I launched, the edge of the radar beam was like 3 aircrafts behind the target aircraft.
EDIT: Photos were out of order
So, did they make the AiM 7 (semi) ARH? Attempted to get this Mirage in front of me (relatively same speed but still) and it instead attempts to get an A10C WAY off in the distance outside the radar scope (screenshot 1 and 2). Try a second time with a larger speed difference between me and the target but my radar starts going for the ground instead of the target for some reason and then the missile keeps tracking until it is about to hit, goes under the target and ALSO locks onto the A10C in the distance (screenshot 3, 4 and 5). I try a THIRD Aim 7 and to no surprise, it misses and goes after THE A10C! Keep in mind, this Warthog is NOWHERE near my radar lock beam (screenshot 6, 7 and 8). The last two screenshots show how the AiM 7 goes on its own and almost nails the A10C on its own with 0 radar guidance nor ever had a lock in the first place.
Like I can’t even start to explain how this is happening.
