Total deltaV can be calculated but I simply input the best known data from public sources, found specific range information and then used that for comparison and was able to (with a high degree of certainty) replicate the missiles drag coefficient based the correct thrust, propellant weight, missile overall weight, burn time, etc.
The R-77 data I have is less comprehensive than the AIM-120’s… but it is still well supported with known burn time, propellant mass, etc. There is just less available information for launch parameters to do affirmative testing of the in-game model.
It’s interesting, and worth noting that the AIM-120C-5 switched to an 8s all boost motor. This is something more useful for close engagements, but it also allows it to do some other unique stuff like high-angle off-bore launches and instead of the initial <2s booster being used up in the turn, it can chase down a target.
In the case of the R-77, that is true… but to less of an extent than a conventional missile like the AMRAAM since grid fins have much better high supersonic drag coefficients.
Its not just an impression, lofting is extremely rudementary in-game, and missiles that depend on trajectory shapping for extra performance have all sorts of problems with it in-game.
AIM-54C physically cannot be made to loft to the 45° degree loft NASA determined was “ideal” for a parabollic shot, as gaijin has coded it to be impossible for it to loft optimally and still track a target despite the missile being very much capable of doing so. Max loft is the 15° limit you can acheive via manual lofting pre-launch, and the missile will tend to curve down to keep the target within -7.75° of elevation
AIM-7M just straight up doesnt have trajectory shaping (nor does it have many other things like most notably its low altitude smart fuze and direction warhead, which the 54C also lacks)
AGM-114’s loft code is atrocious, which is why instead of falling on targets, it falls before it reaches the target and then tries to hit it from the side after burning all its energy trying not to slam into the ground…
In WT, lofting is done in the ultra simplistic way of setting a hardcoded angle at which the missile will try to fly and a hardcoded angle at which the missile will keep the target.
Some loft codes:
Spoiler
AIM-54C:
Loft angle: 17.5° (optimal according to NASA is 45°)
Target elevation: -7.75°
Generally speaking, it can be seen that the americans repeatedly have the worst loft code ingame on their weapons which have it, the germans are substantially better, but remain nowhere near both the russians and Spike ER’s. This isnt commonly known tho, as the russians tend to use direct laser guided munitions if theyre using PGM’s at all in-game, so the fact they have some of if not the best lofting weapons ingame is irrelevant to them, and the Spike’s are a relatively new addition, while the PARS are finnicky and rare.
As of this moment tho, no nation uses lofting in air to air missiles except america, and seeing as russia apparently doesnt use it with their R-77 either, I doubt gaijin will give enough of a shit to revamp the lofting mechanics in-game or even revisit the lofting code for american missiles so they arent so bad at lofting…
Maybe it can also help it loft quicker. But that’s a if, and frankly speaking i don’t know what choices made the egieneers go that way. One counter example would be meteor, which basically is a air to air cruise missile (kind of)
True for AMRAAM, but it doesn’t work for MICA
Also the amraam A is stated to have less range than a r-77 is you go by publicaly available numbers. from what i could find, 60-70 for amraam A and 80 for r-77 (what paremeters of launch is a mistery however). So i’m not denying that r-77 should be longer range than a Amraam A, just that i highly doubt it can go further than 80 km.
The Lofting codes are indeed quite broken, the Hellfire being a prime example.
But i also wonder if the drag is modelled correctly.
I often “loft” my 530Ds “manually” (pointing the nose of my plane up to force a high angle loft, around 20° or 30°) and it has to do a sharp dive at the end of its course. It also seems like what the missile gained by going through less dense air was lost by the longer trajectory and added maneuvering required at the end of the flight path, which is what makes me wonder if it’s modelled correctly (other than the loft angles that are obviously wrong).
I just stopped doing it all together now, and only fire it when 15/20 km from target.
As a side not, it really doesn’t help that most fighting occurs at low altitude in an extended furball. The multipath bug which makes radar guided missiles plant themselves in the ground and the overall draggier environments makes those missiles perform quite poorly
The AIM-7F already incorporated an optimized dynamic autopilot (control surface deflection response to input based on altitude and, target look up / down) , replacing the existing Autopilot band A/B/C response curve(s).
So for the first 1/3 of ToF, MH guidance signals are damped to give a maintain a loft(only MH). It also doesn’t seem to be a traditional IOG loft, the missile just knows that for the first 1/3 it needs to fly a muted profile with the induced loft.
I have told you straight up that the tested scenario is severely and obviously broken. 30% higher drag should result in major time to target losses, but your tests don’t. Like look at the R-27ER velocity plot, that missile has lost more than half of its peak velocity by 60 seconds at 15km. Having no difference in time to travel at 80 seconds is clearly wrong. You are jusrt refusing to acknowledge this.
He says that CxK is varied as drag coefficient, but the problem as I’ve noted is that varying it doesn’t produce appropriate drag response. I suspect that Warthunder’s missile model doesn’t actually expose a pure parasitic drag coefficient and CxK is actually a induced drag coefficient multiplier, while parasitic drag is calculated based on missile body parameters.
@MiG_23M The chinese claim the 100km range comes from a mach 1.5 launch against a mach 1.5 target at 20km altitude for the R-77, they still claim it superior to the AIM-120A/B though. If you could reconfigure your test missile to have its max range at 100km in those conditions and recompare to the AIM-120A could be interesting
The documentation I’ve found suggests the AIM-7M received updated memory or guidance software. The only difference between AIM-7M and MH is expanded memory module with additional stored target info to aid against ECCM environments.
They make a lot of claims, although I’m unsure which model of R-77 they got. (There was an initial batch of R-77, later the revised “RVV-AE” which we’ve come to believe might have worse performance as an export missile… Even though Russia didn’t produce the domestic model for themselves and opted to continue development of the R-77-1. Later the R-77M for the Su-57 (wouldn’t want to launch something with grid fins from the stealth fighter and give away your position instantly).
