The AIM 7F, and the AIM 7 in general I think I can put them in 1st place in the top 5 of the worst missiles that exist, and now I’ll explain why: after the countless horrors I’ve seen, first case, point the target, the radar locks onto it, you fire the missile, it suddenly decides to change direction upwards for no reason and explodes. second case, you lock onto the target, fire the missile, and it decides to change direction and kill an ally for no reason. third case, you lock onto the target, fire the missile, it first goes up, then down, then tries desperately to close the turn to shoot down the target and obviously misses. fourth case, you lock onto the target that runs towards you, fire the missile and it decides to explode for no reason. fifth case, you lock on the target and fire the missile, the missile decides to crash into the ground. I sincerely doubt that in reality the missile is so bloody unsuccessful, so I think it needs to be fixed properly.
Could you provide some replays/video? I have been using them a lot during this summer event and I have not had any issues with them. In fact, the only bug I have seen with them is when the enemy uses chaff and my aim7 decides to ignore my radar lock on the chaff and continue to follow the enemy plane.
I assume that this is at or near tree top level. A common tactic to defeat aim7s, or any radar missile, at low alt is to use their leading mechanic against them. You fly low to the ground and do a partial turn towards the ground. The missile will try to lead you which will cause it to hit the ground.
In fact, the only bug I have seen with them is when the enemy uses chaff and my aim7 decides to ignore my radar lock on the chaff and continue to follow the enemy plane.
That’s not a bug, the AIM-7s are semi-active RADAR missiles, they need a lock to get off the rail but once they’re flying, they’re independent of the RADAR lock, they just go after whatever the biggest RADAR return their seeker head sees. If they’ve already pulled lead to hit your target travelling horizontally to you, they’re not going to see the chaff your target dropped, and even if your plane locks the chaff, the RADAR will still be illuminating your target for the missile.
This is also why it’ll hit friendlies between you and your target even with the enemy locked, so always pays to be vigiliant.
AIM-7Fs also use a CW head, which IIRC acts like pulse doppler mode for RADAR, insofar as it’s much more resistant to chaff, but can be notched.
You are thinking of the aim54. Aim7s need a constant radar lock to guide them in. Semi-active radar homing is when the missile follows guidance from a radar dish that is separate from the missile, aka your plane’s radar. You are correct that CW, Continuous Wave, is a form of pulse doppler however, CW is not in the head of the missile. It is the signal used to connect the missile to your aircraft so that it can receive guidance.
SARH isn’t data-link, missile is only slaved before launch.
After lanuch it uses one or more gates (distance gate, speed gate, etc.) to try the best tracking same target, but could be confused if several targets have similar gate properties, and results a different target being tracked by missile than what the plane think.
I am just going off this rn.
Found this too that seems to also say that semi active radar requires the use of an external radar system to provide guidance.
The fact remains that the missiles of the mig do not have this excessive behavior, like the AIM-7, the aim 7 if an enemy is close to the ground it will surely crash, while the R-24T have a more stable and linear flight.
R-24T is IR missile not radar missile
I know it’s IR, but even that missile has better stability and doesn’t crash into the ground
You need to learn what is Multipath effect. And of course it doesn’t affect IR tracking.
https://wiki.warthunder.com/SPAA_radars#Multipath_.28Ground_echo.29
For Conical Scanning AIM-7’s (AIM-7C ~ -7F) specifically, it would actually be caused by the AGC (Automatic Gain Control ) action causing the target to fade into MLC clutter / Noise and the subsequent difference in the Ground return between scanned sectors causing the autopilot to make the missile oscillate in the vertical plane degrading guidance quality. But is otherwise unimpacted by low altitude flight in most scenarios due to the doppler filter allowing the missile to ignore ground clutter so it would only impact abeam intercepts, and so it would probably fall outside the Radar’s ability to track, or cause issues with the Fuse’s sensitivity / early detonation, before the missile began to have issues guiding on the target.
These filters / conical scanning properties aren’t actually implemented in game anyway so its definitely for balance purposes since DECM / ECM isn’t implemented (yet).
I know the ground effect, but we’re not talking about that here, the problem is that the AIM 7 is strongly disturbed by many factors, first of all, the quality of the flight, much more irregular, it often performs senseless trajectories taking or losing altitude excessively, then trying to recover later and missing the target, as well as already swinging, moreover the kill rate at low altitude compared to an R-24R is much lower, as the R-24R managed to maintain at low altitude a linearity in flight without making strange maneuvers and causing the crash. to make you understand I was 10 meters above the ground, a mig 23 was also at the same altitude as me, with an angle of attack of 45° with respect to me at about 10/15km, its R-24R despite me trying to force the missile to duck and crash, it remained perfectly linear and shot me down, it didn’t suffer that annoying problem of the AIM 7. if you add that the F4S/J doesn’t even have ir missiles with front lock, it is heavily penalized in the clashes, since for how is ARB developed you are currently forced to fly at low altitude and the first engagements take place head-on, since above 1000m it is the territory of MIG-29-F16-F14, add to this that the performance of US missiles is much worse, and is literally equivalent to having nerfed the kill capacity of an aircraft.
I’m not arguing about its performance issue compared to R-24R, my reply was only about you comparing it against R-24T for generic radar missile issues.
It does at high speed and low alt
I think that you being a user of the aim 7f are much more aware of its shortcomings and tend to see the counterparts as severely overpowered. However i can tell you that the r27s are just as prone to these issues and more i.e. notching than the american counterparts.
Radar missiles lead the target and if the instantaneous velocity vector of thr target gives the prediction that the target will be lower than the ground at a certain point in time then the missile will lead into the ground. This happens willth all missiles in warthunder right now unless the target pulls away too early and hence the missile does so too.
Are you sure he didnt radar lock you and then fire a r24T? People to that to trick the enemy and i have done so as well.
I’m not saying that only the aim 7F does it but that it does it more markedly. and seeing how the missiles that kill me and that I see coming visually behave much better and trying to bring them to crash you can’t do it as easily as with the aim 7f.
unless the kill report is false, it was an R-24R
Then provide a video or replay of it. You telling us via text of your experiences does not give us anything to go off of.
you can do the tests yourself if you have the means to do them, just fly with f4s/j and mig 23 or any aircraft that can carry R-24Rs and I could test the difference yourself
You are trying to prove that the aim-7f is somehow faulty compared to other radar missiles. The burden of proof is on you. I have used these missiles on both ends and do not experience this. The only way to help you get better is by analyzing the gameplay you are having trouble with.