I researched the Israeli Barak II earlier today but I can’t seem to get the stock Derby missiles to hit. It says they are ARH+IGO+DL missiles but do I have to maintain lock for them to work? From what I understand ARH missiles are supposed to be fire and forget? For example, my last match I peeked over a mountain top, and launched two Derbys then dipped back under the mountain top. Both targets were about 9km away flying in my direction and neither of the missiles hit. I then got clapped by an AIM 120. I know skill issue is playing a role but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I noticed I can lock before the lock indicator is red Which I assumed was launching as SARH so I wait for it to become red before launching. I have hit with them but the ratio is like one hit to every ten launches… Any tips or advice or knowledge is appreciated.
For this particular instance a replay, preferably in sensor mode, would be needed. In general FOX-3 missiles all have a 16km “activation” distance. When they are within 16km, either after being guided by the plane or if the launch distance is under 16km, they will turn on their onboard radars and guide themselves. When launching within 16km you can basically treat them just like a SARH missile except you can break lock as soon as it’s away. Outside of 16km you have two options. Option one is to lock the enemy just like you would with a SARH missile. Though this is not the preferred way as it’s going to alert them on their RWR. The second option is to switch your radar mode to Track While Scan (TWS) mode. While it will ping their RWR it will not alert them that they are being targeted. In addition you can guide multiple missiles at the same time. As long as the target stays on your radar it will send updates through the data link (DL) until the missile hits the 16km limit and guides itself. Note planes have different limits to their DL capacity and can only guide so many missiles. Other than that they are still missiles. The person you fired at likely went defensive and defeated the missiles. Unfortunately War Thunder doesn’t really do anything to explain missile combat so if you don’t go looking it is all very mysterious. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that missiles are subject to the same physics simulation as everything else and so, despite what the statcards imply, there is a lot of nuance to what a good engagement envelope looks like that depends on the missile, the plane launching the missile, and the target. I would highly recommend Tim’s Variety War Thunder’s two excellent tutorials as a starting point. Unfortunately I don’t have anything with Derby’s so I can’t give any specific advice there.
Missile Tutorial
Thanks you, I’ll go have a look at those turorials. I was hoping for some wiki page on the missile but the one I found has no useful intormation.
TLDR:
You have to guide them yourself until they are within 16km (i think this is stated on the statcard?) at which point their own radar takes over.
This guidance you can do in TWS mode (no actual lock required at any point in the process) and if you look at the plane in x-ray mode in hangar it says how many missiles you can guide at one time if you hover the pilot.
As already stated, watch the replay. It will be your best friend. They are indeed ARH missiles, meaning once it’s within a certain range it activates its own radar in the seeker head of the missile and tracks it from there. However ARH are quite prone to notching and chaff, especially being easily defeated by enemies going cold (flying away from the missile) and chaffing, as well as any enemy that’s using multipathing.
Thats just how ARHs are.
Anyway what others said.
ARHs either fly by data from your radar you feed them by your datalink (hence the DL guidance), if it cant get DL updates they fly by IOG (which simply doesnt take into account any changes in course) and once they reach certain distance from the target, they activate its own, weaker radar.
I usually try to guide them in TWS as long as possible as to not give any warming and once they go pitbull, i hard lock the target if i am able to, as to increase the chances of hit.