That was what I was told by a developer. Clearly engine temps play some part in the band at which you get detected, but to defeat the missile only the ratio between the two matters.
Yeah that’s not right, this is AIM-9L’s capability against IRD’s;
Rear aspect shots (less than 10°) at MIL your chance to flare the 9L is at best is 42% at worst 20%
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Wasn’t this test against a Jaguar?
That would mean that in game it should easily track targets that are defending when fired in rear aspect.
This is what I specifically remember from the Harrier manual.
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Yeah and that decoy graph has 10° from the stern “no decoy will occur”. It describes (due to aspect) the seeker FOV will be completely encompassed by the Harrier so no IRD’s will enter the FOV in order to decoy it and the seeker can’t move quick enough to capture them.
The no decoy area marked is exactly the same as the AIM-9L performance from multiple other tactics manuals, area in red it will always decoy, 10° stern it won’t;
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AV-8B’s manual lists Litening II at 445 lb though
Will be interesting to see (in terms of “dev behavioral science”) if they use the additional evidence from my report or if they will make them all 240kg
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/k091OhJj9cVl
Interesting
Yeah and that’s the same for most planes is it not??
Yeah that is what this behaviour is describing
Harrier isn’t meaningfully different here other than some advantageous angles where the nozzle can’t be seen, but even then the airframe will still provide lock.
Rear aspect less than 10° - ignores IRD’s most of the time
Greater than 10° - always goes for IRD’s
Reheat - always ignores IRD’s
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Well yeah didn’t say it was magically immune to IR locks.
More on the note of how it seems to be much more difficult to defeat IR missiles in the Harrier compared to other aircraft even with afterburner.
Despite it IRL decoying them very easily.
Thrust to IRD ratio is what matters and means as you slow down in a defensive turn the Harrier gains thrust and such it lowers the value between the two reducing the likelihood the IRD will work. But the whole IR mechanics really need a rework, they don’t fit with any primary source materials presently. And my understanding is thats currently a game limitation.
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Gotcha it is what it is for now.
Pretty much. We have reports in for it all so its just waiting for the game to catch up.
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I never recall having any issues with 9L trying to lock, but in all my tests, Aim-9M and Aim-9L seem to lock on at the same ranges, its really wierd.
There is an incident described in “Sea Harrier over the Falklands” where Sharkey Ward’s [assumed to be Aim-9L] failed to lock onto a target he was diving towards which turned out to be Harrier Gr3s and the fact he couldnt get a lock made him realise that they might Harrier Gr3s and not Dagger/Sky Hawks and so aborted the attack.
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Probably because they have the same seeker head other than the irccm, the range band values (distance to lock) is the exact same between them.
9L
Spoiler
9M
Spoiler
Yeah, they are, but Ive never been frustrated with the 9L lock ranges (though still think we should get Dechirped) but I am constantly by Aim-9M and I have no explanation.
Maybe it’s just what they are facing at their respective BRs / what I’m firing from
Too add to the locking and all IIRC we British had de-chirped sidewinders and could lock and launch from much greater distances then the standard sidewinders.
I don’t recall any specific or even if this is how it works. My initial impression is that you could sling a front aspect sidewinder at a target from farther away.
Flames breakdown:
Spoiler
Over in the Tornado thread I’ve alluded a couple of times to a previously unknown British modification to the AIM-9L. Now that I’ve got a bit of time I thought I’d write a proper explanation for what it was.
As a bit of background: the AIM-9L seeker produces an acquisition audio tone whenever an IR source irradiates the detector cell. The pilot can then fire the missile in boresight mode (where the missile will just fire and try to lock onto whatever is in front of it), or press a button which will cause the seeker to attempt to the lock onto the the target and then uncage before launch (like we have in game), the latter being the normal mode of operation. In the case of the Tornado F.3 the button the pilot pressed to lock the seeker on was known as the “Target Acquisition Enable” (TAE) button.
The absolute minimum IR intensity the AIM-9L can detect is 15pw/cm -2 , but it needs about 35 pw/cm -2 in order to track a target reliably. It seems that when the AIM-9L was in development the Americans were concerned that the pilot couldn’t easily tell from the audio tone what the IR intensity of the target was; so the pilot may end up firing the missile without a strong enough return for it to track properly. They therefore implemented the “chirp” system into the missile (so called because it made the missile make a chirping sound when locked on). Basically (I’m simplifying a little) when the pilot attempted to lock the missile onto the target before launch the seeker would be repeatedly driven off-centre from the target, meaning that the target needed to have an IR intensity of about 70 cm/pw -2 before the missile could successfully lock on it, as the seeker wouldn’t be looking straight at the target. This would ensure that if the seeker had managed to obtained a lock it would easily be able to track the target after launch (because the IR intensity required for lock was much higher than that required for tracking).
The British decided that the chirp system “constitutes a very conservative confidence factor”, and that it wasn’t even needed because the pilot could use the sidewinder seeker symbol on the aircraft’s HUD to determine if the missile was tracking properly before launch. They therefore set about developing a way to remove the chirp system from the AIM-9L so that they could lock and fire it at greater range.
This is where the Tornado F.3 STF 113 de-chirping modification comes in (a proper British bodge job). They worked out that by modifying the wiring inside the LAU-7 missile launcher they could trick the AIM-9L seeker into thinking that the missile had already been launched (even though it was still attached to the aircraft) meaning the seeker could be made to lock-on to targets without the chirp system coming into play (as chirp was disabled as soon as the trigger was pulled). This modification to the launchers enabled the Tornado F.3 to lock onto targets with the AIM-9L at much greater ranges than other AIM-9L equipped aircraft could. According to the Tornado F.3 tactics manual the lock on range of the AIM-9L was essentially doubled under some conditions (which makes some sense as it now only needed half of the IR intensity it previously did in order to lock on).
I’m aware that this sounds like bit of a wild story, so here is the proof to back it up
And the 9M lock ranges are from the Dechirped 9L lock ranges and the RAF comparing the 2
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I see so my assumption was sorta correct.
Would be excellent for planes like the FRS.1 as it would add a limited “standoff” capability when flying to intercept as the frontal range of the AIM-9L is actually very good.
However we are limited to using it at near point blank range.
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