I missed this on my first read through (I scan read)
Maybe…
But personally I found the gameplay of flying at an absolute maximum altitude of 200ft far more boring. Which is basically what I did for an entire year in the Tornado F3 vs Mig-29s in SB, because my missile would be defeated by MP and theres I would have to try and notch and chaff, which was basically impossible with the old Tornado FM
Is MP even a notable thing for ESA radars (irl)?
I don’t know, I’m not a military pilot or a radar engineer. It probably is close to being non-existant, but at that point the proximity fuzes of the missiles become the limiting factor anyways, rather than the minimal amount of MP
ASRAAM and MICA IR would jsut outrange everyone else. British Typhoons and Rafales would basically always win because they could fire beyond everyone elses max range and normally that wouldnt be an issue because they could just send a BVRAAM instead, but if the target can defend with MP alone, then that isnt really an option.
Post inverse monopulse seekers.
and yes… But also a lot of those early SARH missiels were also paired with radars without PD or MTI. So would largely be useless anyway if the target was simply in ground clutter. I dont precisely know which missiles did and did not have that and especially if any are also paired with MTI/PD in game.
Maybe the R-24R? Maybe R.530? But I simply dont know.
But for a vast majority, if it can see a target at low alt, it probably can engage it too.
For example. Mirage III radar
(from Harrier 809)
(ground clutter is MASSIVELY muted in game too)
The MICA IR would definitely outrange the rest, but IRIS-T, R-74M and Python-5 definitely can keep up with the ASRAAMs range and they will likely all have their pros and cons. However at that point you also have to factor in that most planes that carry those missiles can carry a boatload of missiles and these IR missiles are supposed to be pretty good at destroying incoming missiles.
I’m not sure when exactly each nation started using inverse monopulse seekers, but the F-4J/S and their AIM-7Fs are the main example I can think of. The R-23 and R-24 actually already had monopulse seekers, but I believe there are plenty of PD equipped NATO planes in the game that do not get AIM-7Ms.
I thought it was an earlier variant but yes, looking it appears its not until the M that IMS was added to them.
So yeah, the Phantoms would perhaps be the most heavily affected then if seekers were set accurately. Though could they just get the Ms I wonder?
Though also isnt a half bad way to balance the FGR2 vs F-4S or Mig-23MLD vs F-4S (and raise the BR of the Mig-23MLD)
And there are live fire test results showing AIM-7Fs, which essentially shares a seeker with the earlier Es, being effective well below that 5000ft number the mirage pilots gave. @Morvran and it was done by the British themselves when evaluating the 7F vs Skyflash. I believe the number of the top of my head is ~200ft even in a lookdown scenario.
I’ve seen many different numbers for the minimum altitude for non monopulse seekers over the last years, but I am farily certain that the 200ft number stems from tests against sea skimming targets rather than against targets flying above solid ground
Yes. And calm seas present basically the best case scenario for multipathing to occur. Even slightly sea states will interrupt this.
And ground is only a good reflector when it is basically impossibly flat, like Bonneville Salt Flats level of impossibly flat. Even slight deviations in the surface interrupt the coherency of the multipathing return, which will cause it to either be filtered out, or have such a minor affect on guidance that the control surfaces cannot react in time and essentially act as a dampening force against being decoyed.
The thing you need to understand is it is not as simple as ground= reflector= multipath. It must be coherent enough of a return to overpower the already stronger normal return. Any features will obstruct portions of the multipath return and make it less likely to result in a guidance deviation, without even bringing Inverse Monopulse into the equation, which further limits the number of erroneous returns that even can affect guidance.
So you could make an area mp-proof by scattering large rocks and planting trees?
I wouldn’t call it “MP-Proof”, theoretically any number of spurious returns could cause an error in guidance. What I would say is it would create an area that is highly unlikely to have multipathing cause a miss outside of proximity fuse distance.
The other thing that is incorrect in-game is the “multipathing layer” should not just be a flat level where it occurs below, but a band that begins at a certain altitude (lower than 60m) and effectively ends if you get to close to the ground anyway(but at that point it should be the proximity fuse minimum altitude that fails anyway, if they were to fix everything in one fell swoop). The closer you get to the ground, the less the deviation in guidance is, which amplifies the dampening effect of the missiles control surfaces.
Im not necessarily surprised by the result if the missile is being fired down onto a target. As we already see with 60 MP, with the right angle. It hits anyway.
The question is when the missile is fired from low at something low.
Then multipathing would not even be in effect. It requires a look-down approach to even generate a substantial return
Ah right, it’s been a while since the last time I’ve looked into this stuff. I have to admit that I never got deep enough into it to gain a full understanding on how multipath propagation works.
What I do remember though is that there are more factors than just multipath propagation at play in real life, but accounting for all of them (mainly ground absorption, clutter and multipath propagation) at the same time might be a bit too much work for this kind of game.
Anyways, for the purposes of a game like War Thunder limiting the effectiveness of radar missiles at extremely low altitudes is less of a realism thing and more of a gameplay thing
and yet that is where MP is most effective in game.
For example
But i’ve slapped things hugging the deck even when MP was at 100m with the Tornado F3 before (though was rare for me to climb until the Typhoon) and often hit things hugging the deck in the Typhoon
I 100% agree with this, but I also feel it isn’t necessary anymore.
In other words, ditch the radar missiles and force dogfights.
That’s no reason to ignore the multipath problem. There are no exemptions.
Your argument only strengthens my argument that the ground player negates the height advantage, has the initiative, and cannot lose unless he abandons his methods or makes some mistake.
When the enemy is hanging low and killing allies with flare spam, all the BVRer can do is abandon the BVR. Meanwhile, the dogfighter can easily negate the BVRer’s attacks as long as he stays on the ground, so there is no risk of abandoning the dogfight.
In other words, you have to evade in the right way. Meanwhile, the enemy will nullify your missiles with multipath and close in without the need for evasion. There is no BVR and the dogfight begins.
They can remove it if they give every plane that is able to face them stock chaff at the very very least
They shouldn’t remove it though. It should be modelled more realistically (as in on a per missiles/radar basis or on a per BR basis), but keep it at a value that lets people still make use of it, if they are able to follow the terrain well enough.
If the majority of maps doesn’t get reworked and they don’t cut the trees down to a reasonable size, 60m should stay (maybe lower it above water to ~30m). After improving the state of the maps they can lower the threshold to ~40m, but not lower.
At altitudes below 40m the chance of taking damage from the missiles exploding nearby is pretty high, so there is a fair amount of risk involved for the terrain following players.