Sure I guess. But I don’t understand how this video proves anything. Missiles have IR signatures? That is true.
Flir tracks infrared. That’s the video.
Surface to air missiles have immensely powerful rocket motors and are larger and brighter than sidewinders.
All burn differently on the spectrum. Now look at Flir footage of an F-14 tomcat or any fighter. The signature difference is immense.
Yes, but it’s not burning long enough to reach the same temperature to match the IR emission of an afterburning turbofan engine. It “looks” bright to us but its emitting different wavelengths.
Interestingly, the AIM-9M type IRCCM may very well be vulnerable to decoying to a fired missile. The signature is similar to afterburners, and the missile will usually take a trajectory similar to the fighters. The “push-ahead” IRCCM may decoy to this. Since the FoV is “pushed ahead”, and the missile is being fired ahead… it seems to the seeker that the target is instead just banking, or creating large angular velocity increases when in reality it is chasing a missile.
The other type of IRCCM relying on small FoV and sometimes focusing the detectors wavelength closer to that of the targets would also be vulnerable… they rely heavily on the flares having a slow rise time so that they are no longer within ~15m of the target by the time the signature picks up. (In the case of the Magic 2)… for example.
A missile does not have rise-time, it is a hot signature present in the FoV from the moment it is launched.
Had the same though about flare rate bias actually being a disadvantage when trying not to track a launched missile. Suppose this is exactly what IIR and the image recognition is there to fix. And why stuff like BOL IR making a big chaff like IR cloud is to help fool.
Wouldn’t that require a prohibitively large laser to actually project that sort of energy to reasonable ranges? I’m sure the Stryker with 50 Kw laser can destroy optics (it’s already managed to destroy rockets and mortar bombs), but L-370 with emitters vastly smaller?
I’m curious, is there a video of missiles heading towards the IR camera? I’ve been curious about seeing what it would look like in a frontal aspect view
It is relevant, you said it was a baseless British theory, I was pointing out that an American manual says the same thing as one of the British excerpts.
IR missiles being able to lock onto the exhaust of other IR missiles is a real thing. Not “a theory the British developed which doesn’t have a single smudge of evidence”. You are correct that flares are a more effective counter, however as has already been explained in this thread the issue is not that missiles lock onto other missiles too easily, rather that missiles lose lock on afterburner plumes too easily.
Such seekers should autogate as well to prevent such damage as well, if anything it might degrade performance, but as stated earlier, you need a LOT of power to burn out a seeker.
Such features exist on most thermal cameras and image intensifiers of the modern age for both system safety but also operator safety.
The wavelength of the IR signature is dpendant on the compositon of the exhaust/material being burned.
The um wavelength of IR seekers is specifically tuned to the emmisions of C02 and H20 exhaust emissions
Intensity is how bright/hot the the emmision is.
The Intensity as shown the FLIR is one extremely bright point of signature many magnitudes greater than an engine exhaust as SRB’s sypically burn at 3000-4000 kelvin, a similar temperature to flares.
The point of the tactics manual is to explain that it it is perfectly possible for an IR guided missile to switch targets to the signature of a fired missile, much in the same way that it would be attracted to a flare, and it clearly indicates that it is not guaranteed, much in the same way that a flare is not guaranteeed to decoy a missile.
It is a very bright signature of the correct wavelengths due to the emissions of an SRB being extremely similar to that of a liquid engine exhaust, which is the wavelength that InSb and PBs detectors are specifcally attuned for the exception being that the SRB produces a lot of solid particulate IR signature which can have an obscuring effect.
Scientifically, it has the exact same effect as a flare, so there stands no reason as to why it couldnt act like one.
The argument of the effectiveness of different types of flares is a moot point and is due to a techncially in the software programming more than any actual percievable difference in specification.
The F3 manual does not say this whatsoever. It’s a misinterpretation.
The F3 manual says YOUR missile mayintercept an oncoming missile if launched at close range.
it DOES NOT say that your Aim9L will magically serve as a flare, the opponents missile magically to decoy away and save your life.
All it says is that your missile may intercept the opponents missile.
You’re defeating your own argument.
A sidewinder motor signature is not big enough nor does it burn long enough to reach intensity of an afterburning turbofan jet engine in after burn.
The motor burns for a mere few seconds. It will never reach the intensity of an after-burning jet engine or flares designed to burn near or even brighter than those emissions.
The opponent’s missile is already tracking. Even the F3 manual says all you can do is hope to fire an aim9L and it may intercept the missile. Not break its track.
This unproven British combat theory regarding F3 tactics is quite clear & written in plain English and leaves no room for interpretation.
It states the Aim9L “may just intercept the opponent’s missile”. Nothing more.
Not “may just, & also….”
The only possibility as stated in the F3 tactics manual is the missile “may just intercept the opponent’s missile”.
Read the sentence in its entirety.
Now lets, read the rest of the scenario in its entirety shall we???
Read carefully.
"Attempt to induce a miss off the tail by greater than lethal distance…"
That means whoever wrote this British F3 tactics manual is already well aware that the opponent’s missile will still track you regardless in the event your Aim9L does not intercept it and offers zero possibility or a scenario that the opponent’s missile will magically decide to abandon a well-established signal that is many times larger in Infrared wavelength and frequency than a much smaller, weaker IR Missile traveling much too fast to stay in its fov long enough anyway.
This is a 100% clear cut case of confirmation bias. Because the word “decoy” is in the manual you and many others make the mistake of ignoring the entirety of the manual. No where in the F3 tactics manual (that you shared) offers the possibility that an opponent’s missiles will stop tracking. In fact, it prepares a pilot ONLY for the inevitability that an opponent’s missile continues to track him if his Aim9L fails to intercept it.
