Done ))
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Okay let’s do a quick review of what happened in the passed 6 months regarding the SLM.
- Maximum speed and range: We went from top speed of 700 m/s to 975 m/s, most sources suggest the speed is relative to M3 which should be 1030 m/s but ofc due to lack of a specific numbers and Diehl unability to provide info due to secrecy we can’t make further bug reports about this matter.
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- Speculations about missile dimensions and weight: proven to be some what accurate to what it is in real life, ppl in here did some pixel measurement, and it was enough to conclude that the in game version dimensions is some what near the real life version of the missile which is a Caliber (from the base) of 180mm and a length of 3.4m, weight wise the missile have a weight of 155kg and after booster burn it have a weight of 92kg which is in a very reasonable limits.
Note: that before this the missile use to have a sustainer but that was removed and now it have a booster that burns for 12 seconds with thrust of 12600N again there is no sources about these numbers these are all guess from the devs to try and make the ingame version match the real life missile performance.
- Lofting and pathing: lofting of the missile is still to this day incorrectly implemented, the missile do always a turn after the lunch then it start ascending again and start lofting normally, which compared to irl behaviour make no sense since in lot of videos and demonstrations the missile always fly vertically up to gain some altitude then it start turning towards the target, this in game translates to that the missile should start lofting immediately from the start by doing a 90° vertical ascending then turn to the target when it reach the optimal altitude.
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- Data link: some where actually fixed, and some bug report about data link behaviour and missile tracking other missiles or switching targets mid flight where mostly labelled recently as fixed or labelled not a bug when they first submitted, but i can assure you the the seeker activation range change from 10km to 4km fixed non of these problem, and the data link still not working properly to this day and have lots of problems related to it.
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Note: pathing and DL both heavily effected the missile ammo interception further info about this isn’t really clear but for a missile that have almost a 100% interception rate irl, it fall short in game from what it should be.
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Warhead, engine smoke, AOA and overload: same as before due to lack of specific numbers most warhead bug reports were labelled as not a bug in game the warhead is a SAPHE with a TNT equivalent of 5.76kg and a proxy of 6m, data from irl say that the war head weight is 11kg to 12kg but nothing is specific about the explosive mass.
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engine use to have heavy smoke but now with the new implantation of smoke trail the engine is noticeably less smokey.
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AOA is game is at 27° but irl is should be up to 38° and same thing for the overload it’s now at 40G when it should be up to 50G.
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TRML-4D radar: there is lots of problems related to ingame SLM radar but the most important ones is the slow update rate and scan missing features like back scanning, ofc there is some bug reports that where fixed but the radar is still far from being optimal.
- And lastly and arguably the most important one of all the IIR seeker detection range and DLIRCM resistance: here is where the disaster struck, the missile IRCCM use to work perfectly and thanks to its old seeker activation range of 10km the missile performance was great and put it on par with systems like BUK and ASTER even though they are better in terms of range and speed but the SLM IIR seeker was the strongest feature of it that made it arguably the best SPAA at toptier in both ranges that surpassed 20km and less than 2km, ofc compared ot irl the seeker should have lock range of 25km according to SAAB and other primary sources that say that the missile seeker lock range matches the kinetic range of the missile, ofc this was related to the A2A version of the missile, but as stated in a lots of time before the SLM use the same seeker only difference that is the seeker is updated and improved on the SLM and have DL, ofc the seeker should possess high resistance to DLIRCM which in game is absent now.
Now the IIR seeker ingame is just an IR seeker that have 9km lock range in all aspects and 12km lock range in rear aspects, and IRCCM type of FOV + Seeker shut off so we don’t have a truly modeled IIR seeker in game, ofc on the SLM version there is a seeker activation range it use to be 10km and in the last update it was heavily nerfed to 4km allegedly to increase IRCM resistance, it did do that but now the seeker won’t work until the missile is 4km away from the target now, and bc of this once radar lock or ping is lost the missile will just switch to IOG and lose the target completely, this change ofc didn’t effect the LDIRCM resistance the missile is still effected by this.
This nerf rendered the system unusable and reduced the effective range from beyond 20km to barely 6km and make it miss most of the time ofc this is due to the radar not working properly too.
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- Ofc there is other problems some got fixed other got adjusted, and most can be seen up there in the original post in here i wanted to highlight the most important problems that directly infected the missile performance.
Thanks for reading.
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The lock of 4km btw is pretty much bs. Just like when it was 9km before, now with 4km its under the “best possible case” where itll give you an IR lock at 4km when the weather isnt bad, the afterburner is well visible and in the rear.
In most cases from frontal or side aspect the IR signature range will be decreased.
On a recent Fulda match while playing the SLM, i fired upon a norwegian F16AM and the missile has gone into IR phase less than a kilometer away from the plane.
The IR nerf was just that, a nerf. The switching of targets occured during DL phase, not IR phase so it makes less of a sense to lower the IR phase activation range.
When asked about it, Smin has said that it was a report result and not a balancing decision but that feels extremely doubtful. As a result altho the missile might be slightly more resistant to switching targets (ive still had it happen to me in regular games after this change went live) the performance decrease from having its IR phase range decreased by over a half is absolutely massive.
Previously a smart CAS player was more than capable of just abusing SLM without much of an issue. This has been exacerbated even more now with the IR reduction, because remember, its not 4km unless the perfect conditions apply.
Does anyone know which report hes talking about? That just sounds like a fat lie tbh
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he said series of reports but not specified which ones, Its generally assumed that it was @DevilO6 bugreport about the DL that was a part of it.
Its a really backwater way of fixing the issue given that the IR activation range should have been left unchanged and instead the DL phase should have been strengthened. A plane thats flying in an unchanging straight line firing a missile breaking the DL guidance somehow shouldnt lead to the IR phase that was the one redeemable part of the missile to be reduced.
Additionally;
this matters little in the context of both the game and also the bug that has been plaguing this vehicle since release. The plane thats completely visible, flying in a straight line is not going to disappear from the radar when it fires a missile. Neither will the datalink between the guidance vehicle and the missile get spoofed. The guidance vehicle is actively telling the missile which target its going for, that is the point of the datalink. This is just a mistake in the game that needed to be fixed, and while currently slightly “more resistant” against planes flying in straight line, it is not protected against firing off ordinance at an angle (not even in a notch or anything, just in an angle). Plus as a cherry on top locking targets in IOG is essentially neutered to nothingness.
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Ah so Smin is not talking about an actual real life data report about vehicle capabilities and its rather a bandaid fix for sloppy work?
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And what about the dircm issue? Just had another match where a single Z10 dismantled most of the team. Iris missiles still getting spoofed, even if you spam them.
Any change planned? Cause its currently abused. Dircm helis everywhere, untouchable.
Haven’t heard anything on that but helis definitely need a nerf especially now that so many are running 8+ 16km FnF missiles lol
Yeah wounder whos making these kind of decisions. Its currently a bit special. One Z10 or Mi28 and the match is lost. Nothing you might do about it. Would gladly use Flarakrad with saclos missiles, but they’re usually far out of range.
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After testing with a friend honestly it seems gaijin wanted to try and bring the SLM in line with the rest of the SPAA but honestly i think thats the wring way to go, they need to bolster the other SPAA to pre nerfed SLM.
Its super easy for me to fire rockets and completely screw over an SLM and just overwhelm them with radar signatures, even worse is i can just sit and fire KH-38MT from my runway, you’ll run out of ammo eventually and once you do you’re dead.
Helis are equally as bad, honestly super lethal. I just fire RB75/AGM65 at them or GBU because those are more reliable than missiles sadly.
It would still be interesting to know on what they based the 12,6 kN for twelve seconds thrust of the booster. The SLM doesn’t use the usual aluminium based solid-rocket booster, which would have a bright orange flame, as multiple videos show a crimson red flame which indicates that the rocket-boosters fuel is lithium based which should give it a stronger thrust and higher impuls.
Idk actually as i sed the devs probably put theses numbers only as guess and place holders, other wise in this video it can clearly be seen in the second missile launch that the missile booster have a brun time of greater than 15 seconds my theory is that the booster have a brun time of about 20 seconds, since light from the flame can be seen all the way till impact.
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And in the first two seconds you can wonderfully see the red flame :D
I would guess if you made a bug report for the booster burn time with this video as a source it would get rejected because “you can’t see the weapon system in the dark, so no way to know what it shows.”.
woah can you do bug report with this
Don’t worry i have another one with 18-20 seconds burn time
Plus there is a bug report about the flame color bc it’s very iconic for the SLM
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/rhpLrm3CfIP9
And yee probably bug reports with only videos will probably get rejected unfortunately, but i don’t fully know.
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Not quite as a video should be as good as a primary source actually?
I could but idk what results we will get both videos in here clearly shows ghe SLM having a booster brun time if about 20 seconds but idk if that’s enough to make a bug report.
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You will be surprised of what excuses they will make to rejecte bug reports TwT.
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/zZM17RNCkery
Oof, alright…
