These Two missiles in game seriously underperform. I’ve not had a singe missile track today well within the operational requirements. The only A2A kills I’ve gotten all day are from guns. The F18C early. I can understand not Giving it Aim-120s since its an early version of the platform, But I’ve fired well over 65 missiles today and only one tracked and it was a sparrow.
It doesn’t seem like the aspect matters, no matter if the enemy aircraft is showing his burner, they Aim-9L will ALWAYS go for flares.
Lima used to resist flares. now every missile that is not IRCCM has 0 flare resistance and will go on random spot in the cloud before it lock your opponent.
and sparrow is just dogshit. the only way you can win in sparrow is if you have a good radar and can fire first before Apex or Alamo can be fired and you actively notch their lock attempt.
The 9L has no IRCCM, being flared is not surprising.
But you say didn’t kill one with it, maybe you just used them improperly. Before fire you need to make a judgement that if the enemy has noticed you. For example if you’re chasing someone, don’t use 9Ls because they’ll be flared the moment you fire them. Additionally, target selection is also important. Attack hot engine planes like multi-engine planes(except F-5s).
If you remember a few years ago this was more accurately implemented in War Thunder, however since then the 9L flare resistance has been nerfed a couple of times, presumably for balance reasons. Low BR attackers like A-10 and A-6 with 9Ls used to be insanely powerful on full downtiers where they faced jets with few or no countermeasures.
Since then the BRs have been corrected a bit and I think it’s fair to buff the 9L again.