I bought it today since it was on sale for and I need help on how to use Aim-7Ps, do they need constant radar lock and what can I do to improve?
They are SARH, which means they need constant radar lock. Besides that, just practise notching and stay low, you might have an uptier problem with the SU-30 spam though.
Sort of, unlike most SARH missile they will not self destruct if the TRK lock is lost or switched off, they will continue towards the target on an intercept of their last known course using IOG (note that the DL will not update the course with TWS like it will with an ARH), but you will need to relock the target as the missile gets close to actually hit it.
I would suggest reading @Beeschurger s’ guide on them:
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Something that I advise on the premium hornets is giving up one of your sparrows for a zuni pod.
The largest threats you have to deal with in a premium hornet are the Su-30 and the F-14, both of which have much better armaments at only a mildly higher BR. However, both of these planes share a weakness, they lack NCTR. What this means is that if you bring zunis, you can fire them off while entering into engagement range with them, and they’ll act as decoys which the other person may waist missiles on.
Something much more generally to keep in mind, although related to that, is that early hornets are very matchup dependent. In a downier they will do very well, and in an up tier they tend to suffer a lot, so learning what enemies are in a match, and specifically what enemies you’re fighting at a given moment, end up being very important.
Id advise against this tactic as it is not reliable, even with radars lacking NCTR, radar will still detect two targets, with one seemingly originating on position of the previous one, and one will have much higher velocity.
All the attacking plane needs to do is to read radar correctly.
Maaaaybe if the zuni pod did not occupy sparrow slot but it absolutely isnt worth giving up an entire sparrow for unreliable tactic that borders on funny gimmick.
tbf, its not just one target, its cycling between 4+ decoys at a time. Also for most their flight life zunis have relatively similar velocity to a player, spending most their time a bit subsonic. A bit low but not a ton. Even if it takes them just 2 seconds per target, that can nearly an extra 10 seconds of time for them to find you.
Also like, F-14 or Su-30 users who spam missiles off at the beginning of a match aren’t really known for paying great attention to targets.
Like okay yeah it doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it is lowkey enough where i’d rate it above being a funny gimmick, as being a kinda usable gimmick.
Right, i get the anlge youre coming from, its certainly interesting proposition so i think the response deserves some actual thought.
Let me get back to you once I can test this, but im assuming the launched zuni will have at least the same initial velocity as the launching plane and it will only grow before it starts to slow down due to their rocket booster.
Thats assuming the player will cycle the TWS in third person target after target instead of selecting the slowest one from the cluster directly.
These dont usually support their launches with DL in the first place so slight manuevering can completly counter their missiles.
And if they do, at those ranges missile wont have enough energy anyway so again basic defensive manuever will take care of it while being more reliable.
Id say it is simply too conditional to be useful or justify the cost of one whole sparrow.
You need to be unspotted, outside of HMS range, the attacking player cant be too experienced otherwise he would simply read the radar etc.
And perhaps most importantly, zunis very likely need to be already in the air before the attack begins so that they overwhelm the TWS.
And i sure as hell am not betting my life on the off chance that enemy ARH will switch its tracking to zuni post launch.