Please explain me what tf happened. I then played rb and the same thing happened also in rb…how…what did they mess up??
Also, ir misisles in general are not tracking, even here the first magic I shoot doesnt even try to track
Once you launch an SARH missile it will begin tracking whatever is in front of it within the same trajectory and speed brackets of it’s filter… which happened to be the friendly F-14 that was between you and the target you locked. Once you saw the missile was tracking the wrong target you should have dropped the lock, instead you killed your friendly because you don’t understand how the radar / missiles work.
The second shot was against a rear aspect target that was turning left, this was not a realistic shot to make. The third shot was going to be difficult for the missile to hit regardless, the target was on the edge of the weapon employment zone. Presumably the missile accelerated so quickly that the target soon left the field of view entirely, losing the track.
The final shot of course, killed him. You could have avoided all of these issues had you just ensured not to fire a radar missile at an enemy from head-on while he was chasing your friendly and both were traveling at a same relative direction and speed. This would not have been a safe launch in real life for the same reason.
How can a sarh track a target that isnt illuminated by the radar?
To remain simple in words, even if you Radar illuminate a target if something or someone cross the path between the missile antenna and the original target the missile will track the closest target to it, meaning the person who crossed the radiations of the missile head.
Is this a new feature? This is the first time ever this happens to me. It happened in the past that those missiles would switch target, but only when they were very close in a dogfight. Never ever happened at those ranges and with such distance between the 2, and I played extensively at top tier…so I was wondering. Also, evey other time this happened the hud would actually show the target switching (usually after a merge) while here it was showing a solid lock on the enemy all the time
Not really “new” feature but it has improved with time as more advanced techs and coding techniques are being employed by gaijin making some rare occurence of the past become common now. And the target was not changed because your plane has an IFF which prevent the radar from switching target but the way the missile acts with his seeker only concerns the missile not the radar.
They could have at least written that on a patch note then XDD ok so you cant use sarh to help friendlies I guess, too dangerous
If you knew the number of silent changes there is each update you’d be shocked
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yeah i know…too well. I always notice the effects like in this case. Right now also all IR missiles struggle in sim, sometimes they either dont appear to launch, like they make the sound but no misisle is visible and no contrail, or they launch but instead of immediately tracking they go straight and then after a bit they start tracking, like the early radar missiles…very annoying, and this I believe it’s a bug and not a feature
Unfortunately the “Beam” from the radar is not as narrow as it “should” be in war thunder, if there is one modeled at all. Leaves room for error like this, and it’s just something you must consider when playing the game.
Yeah, I was surprised because I didnt expect it…now I know. In any case the mirage is so incredibly fun, probably my fav top tier at this point. If you’re good with it you can also kick f16 and mig29 in dogfights
has that been reported ?
There is no way to directly report the issue, videos of missiles behaving the way they did in that video have been sent in reports already but the issue was never properly resolved. It should be noted that this is realistic behavior for the missile if he is traveling in similar direction / speed within close proximity of the target that is locked.
@Smin1080p Do you know if radar beam width being the cause of missiles tracking the incorrect target has ever been deliberately reported?
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Does it count ?
That’s referring to the speedgate, essentially the radar is looking to lock an object flying +/- “X” speed based on what radar data said pre-launch.
What we’re talking about is how the friendly target should not have been illuminated sufficiently for a radar missile to track in the first place because he was not the target that was locked up.
It’s good to note that the chance of missiles misbehaving is way higher when you launch at target 15 degrees or more from the center of the seeker, ex: when the lock circle is no longer red. This is prevalent on R-27/R-24 and AIM-7 missiles with huge off bore seekers. Missile essentially doesn’t have pre-lock info, only radar info.
Its that Tracking loops and gates were / are essentially entirely unimplemented for missiles, as far as we know, since they use CW guidance, as FMCW isn’t implemented at least by inference, and Conical scanning is abstracted so it doesn’t provide variable angular gain(via reduced dwell time within the FoV for a target not near the center of rotation) to prevent the successful seduction by a false target.
The SARH’s should really not be switching targets in flight, due to how the tracking loop itself should work, as the targeted aircraft should capture the loop which sets the range gate(FMCW tracking), and so ignores other targets.
The way to test for the sidelobes being modeled (as the missile tracking may be currently simplified; to track the closer target [stronger return] as long as it is within the illumination cone) would be to have a target off angle sufficiently to be the weaker target, but sufficiently closer and watch the missile track.
The thing that is unaccounted for is the missile’s own antenna since that would have a further impact on the overall gain, and effective FOV of the system as a whole, so its much less likely.
Looking at the following excerpt(for the AIM-7 & F-4 combo, but most others should work similarly), target switching mid flight should not occur at all, it should only occur at target lock on / launch;
- If the non-targeted aircraft is within a +/-7 degree cone of the Antenna’s train angle.
- Has an apparent closure rate within +/- 150kts of the Range Rate return / Aspect knob setting, assuming a Narrow Speedgate, otherwise this step is bypassed, the Wide setting is used for ECCM / HOJ functionality.
if the above two conditions are met then things proceed to comparing the strength of the radar returns of the potential targets, to determine which it locks onto.
- Round trip distance power falloff
- The offset of the alternate target from the Antenna angle which is tracking the primary target; the impact of Sidelobes of radiated power may not be modeled, and only checking to see if it falls within a wider cone.
- Effective RCS, which we know is currently simplified to a flat value, irrespective of aspect angle and the missile then should home on the stronger return.
Basically with the AIM-7, without knowing the FOV /gain of the seeker, this cutoff would occur at roughly 84% of the tracked target’s range assuming that the alternate was sitting at a constant 7 degrees.
Range derivation
We are attempting to find the range where the radiated power of both the reference, and tracked target(fixed) are equal.
For the Reference target the Transmitted power (P) is halved (due to sitting at HABW), and needs to be accounted for in this case, all else being equal by the distance (R) being reduced.
So reducing common terms leads to 1/(1^4) = .5/(x^4), where x= 0.8409 ~85% the distance
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It kind of is a new feature. The radar sidelobes went from being negligible (if they existed at all) in the game to having almost as much range as the main lobe. That’s why your RWR is blaring with track tones the entire game regardless of where you are on the map.
These sidelobes also illuminate targets, and these secondary illuminated targets can lead your missile away from the one you have locked if they’re more enticing (such as higher relative velocity or maybe RCS too)
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There’s currently no reports I can immediately see specifically on that. Possible one was put in worded differently.
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Here’s another example but this time in air rb.
Any news about IR missiles? They work perfectly in rb, never had any problem recently, but in sim they keep either not launching despite you hear the sound and see the flash (hard to verify though from cockpit view, you just dont see the missile and contrail it at all) or launching but completely fail to track, or some other times launching, failing to track, then acquire target post launch and only then starting to track
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