How are the vampires at 8.0?

You are right that it compresses at high speed, but slight pre turns when you expect one to he launched can help a ton.
Barely played it myself; I think it’s bad but not as bad as people say, so maybe 7.7?

At around 20 seconds in, you can see the straight line contrail of the sidewinder and the La-200’s perpendicular contrail. The sidewinder took a straight line to the Lavochkin. No afterburner

This is going to blow your mind but that shot was a rear aspect shot.

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Still rear aspect.

If you brought up how slow it is, I’d get it, but let’s please not pretend the AIM-9B is any kind of issue for someone who is neither unaware nor desperately slow or stalling.
The only time I died to one I saw coming while I wasn’t stalling was a time I was compressing so badly I couldn’t turn at all.

I’m not arguing it’s fine where it is, would probably deserve a 7.7 because it’s incredibly slow, but it’s not that bad and the missiles are certainly not an issue at that br

Am I talking Greek to you?
The shot was rear aspect but the missile calculated a straight line route instead of directly following behind the aircraft.

What is your point

The aim-9b is a good missile, people just treat it like a Aim-9X and expect everyone to be a Cessna 172

The missile is rear aspect upon launch. It will adjust itself on turns to hit the target, hence making it not impossible to hit a Vampire as everyone says it is

The aim-9b is a good tool at that br but it has a lot to do with the fact most players will target-fixate very easily or just panic when they see a missile
If you just check your surroundings are don’t let yourself compress, you should always be fine

The vampire can and will always dodge this if he is awake

Get flinged with 4 AIM-9Bs then (G.91 R-4)

The Vampire will dodge all 4, very easily mind you, then probably die to the G.91 because its a G.91 and it didn’t need 4 AIM-9Bs to kill a vampire

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Go above 200kn and see this maneuverability

Do we really need to go in a custom with me in a vampire and you in an AIM-9B mobile to prove this? It is REALLY not difficult to dodge 9Bs in a jet as agile as a vampire

Try in a real battle, customs are easy

Do you really want me to go play a Vampire long enough to get a clip of a 9B dodge?

If you want

to the Sea venom BR? a better plane thats still heavily mid for its BR?

It can still see the engine. So long as it see the engine, it’s technically “rear aspect” and wil track. What’s confusing about this?

Homing missiles work by acquring the target (Be it by IR, optics or RADAR signature). They then, by comparing how the target moves between intervals, figures out the targets speed and direction. By knowing how fast it can go, it then attempts to pull the lead it needs in order to intercept that target at a specific point of it’s trajectory.

It doesn’t just follow in it’s wake like it’s following a trail of breadcrumbs. As long as it can see the target (Whatever that means for the missile, in this case, can see a heat source hot enough to track IE the engine), it will figure out where the target is going and move to intercept.

This isn’t Hollywood, where a missile will just follow a plane around like a serial killer in a horror movie.

How to dodge a missile 101:

Every missile has a limited range, due to the limited burn of the motor and unlimited drag on the airframe. For entry level missiles like the AIM-9B, this is an extraordinarily limited range, especially at lower altitudes. At high altitudes, where the drag on the missile is far less, this range can actually be pretty surprising. But, at low altitudes, if you’re fast enough, you can just outrun the missile. by staying in a straight line. This won’t often happen in the Vampire, but can if you’re redlining at the target launched the missile at longer range and while in a low energy state themself.

However, this typically relies on bad shots, so the other way to do this is start pulling. The missile, attempting to intercept where it thinks you’re going, will start pulling as well, only it bleeds a lot more speed than you do, especially once the rotor motor has burnt out. An (energy efficient) S turn at higher speed and longer ranges will easily beat short range IR missiles.

But what if you aren’t fast enough or at long enough range to dodge the missile kinematically? You can still dodge it acrobatically. The AIM-9B can only pull 10G at it’s most, and it can’t pull that for long. A Vampire (That isn’t locking up from excessive speed) can easily pull more than that, meaning if you just turn hard, the missile will fail to pull enough lead to keep up with you and sail harmlessly past.

But what if you’re not in a good energy state to dodge a missile? You can still position yourself to make missiles not an issue.

The AIM-9B has a caged seeker. This means that in order to launch at a target, it has to by physically pointed at the target. Sounds trivial, I know, but that also means that the aircraft can’t pull lead for the missile. This means medium range side aspect shots are entirely out of the AIM-9B’s abilities, assuming you have some speed in the tanks and you aren’t in low earth orbit.

So, if you see a missile armed plane closing, just start turning. The less of a rear aspect shot he gets, the less likely the AIM-9B will be able to pull sufficiently to hit you. You generally want to be forcing planes armed with AIM-9Bs to turn anyhow, as they almost always have terrible energy retention (A-4E, G-91, F3H), and so by forcing them to turn you put them into a vulnerable low energy state which the Vampire excels in capitalizing on.