It doesn’t let me when i play air rb but when i was playing in ground rb a helicopter locked and shot a missle ehile i was going straight at hime
IR missiles need heat signature to follow target, so they lock pretty much from behind.
but on the other hand that heli probably had other types of missiles.
Not sure if I’m more surprised about the question or the answer… ;-)
Early IR missiles are what we call “rear aspect” IR guided missiles , meaning they can only lock from the rear, where the engine exhaust is hottest.
With ongoing technological advances however more sensitive IR seekers were developped, which need less heat energy to be able to see a target and lock it, and thus are also capable of locking targets from the front, but at much lower distances. In this case we talk about “all aspect” IR guided missiles.
More info see also the WT wiki: Air-to-air missiles - War Thunder Wiki
Take a very early AIM-9B: it’s only capable to lock targets from the rear hemisphere (“seeing” the hot engine…) from max. 4km away.
It’s most modern (in WT…) brother AIM-9M on the other hand is capable of seeing even lower heat signatures also from the front hemisphere up to 3km away, and from the rear aspect even up to 11 km away, as its seeker is much more advanced and sensitive.
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Infrared homing: IR.
Rear Aspect, refers to the fact that it’s used to engage the engines. However, if you were fighting a propeller craft they have worked on those as well. Despite IR’s also being rear aspect, they have been used countlessly in front engagements, to variable degree’s of success and failures.
Due to how the game handles IR signatures, there are edge occasions where early rear-aspect missiles can engage things frontally.
You can do things such as fire a missile at an incoming missile, or fire a missile that is locked on to a rocket you fired, allowing the missile to then switch lock to an enemy from the frontal quarter.
This sort of behavior is… strange, but apparently intentional. In reality, it was possible for a IR seeking missile to lock a weapon fired by the same aircraft earlier, that’s why MiG-23 pilots were (apparently) trained to launch their long range IR missiles before their long range SARH missiles.
What missile are you using?
Helis have all-aspect missiles
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As the others have said, there are rear aspect and all aspect IR missiles. Missiles such as the AIM-9B - AIM-9H are rear aspect only, and can only lock targets frontally from very close, in most cases sub 1 km. AIM-9L - M series are all aspect meaning they can lock from any aspect whether it’s from behind, or from the front.
Helicopters often have MANPAD like missiles like the AIM-92 Stinger or the Russian 9K38 Igla, which often are slightly less maneuverable all aspect missiles. For example, if you’re flying in a MiG-21S R13-300 you have both R-3S (AIM-9B copy) and R-3R (radar R-3S) loaded your R-3S is only rear aspect, but your R-3R is a radar missile for all aspect. If you’re going head on with say, an F-8U, your R-3S won’t be able to lock it but your R-3R will because it doesn’t have an IR seeker.
In your case, pretend you’re flying the MiG-21 and you see a Westland Lynx, a British helicopter fitted with AIM-92 (or ATAS) Stinger missile, which is (in game) all aspect with a 13g overload. Unlike most all aspect air to air missiles, like the R-60M(K) or AIM-9L+ they don’t have a high maneuverability. However unlike the American Sidewinder series (Up to M or L/i) and up to the Russian Archer it has IRCCM (Infrared Counter-Countermeasures) so it’s harder to flare.
Hope this makes sense.
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In Air Assault Arcade you can lock onto prop bombers with IR missiles from the front.
I mean, it was true in reality too. The only difference between a rear and all aspect missile is the sensitivity of the seeker (at least in terms of how it works), so even rear aspect missiles could have limited all aspect capability as long as a target was hot enough, though it was often too close to be useful for actual combat. For example, in Afghanistan there are a few anecdotes about Hind pilots using R-60s against Mujahideen trucks at night, since the cold desert allowed the truck’s engine to be detected by the R-60’s seeker, and crews either would fire the R-60 or simply use it to detect targets, and then saturate the area with fire.
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and whilst I dont want to confuse matters, it should be 14.5km not 3kms.
i’ve locked some planes in a head on with aim 8bs before