I haven’t really ever tried to just straight notch a missile above ground level, I almost exclusively go cold when launched on above contrail alts. Does anyone have experience notching at 8 - 12000 meters, and how difficult is it?
With a clean background and no clutter you need chaff. Most HPRF and MPRF radars will track through a notch in lookup without issue, largely in part as you’ll be the only thing up there reflecting radar.
Now is this the case for ARH missiles?
ARH missiles have their own seeker head that “goes pitbull” (activates) at 16 km for AIM-120 iirc. Other than that they use tws datalink and IOG until at target. They are easy to chaff if not being updated by TWS while pitbull. If the opponent has a hard lock while guiding their ARH you will have a significantly harder time to dodge as you have to fool the missiles radar AND the enemy’s radar which is significantly more powerful.
From what I understand. All missiles have a 20 km lock range where pitbull activates, except for R77 and PL12 which are at 16 km.
I know that this is the case IRL, but are you aware if this is modelled in game? Does keeping lock or TWS track actually help the missile track after it goes pitbull? @Gunjob Do you know?
I think someone checked with the sensor mode in a replay. They said that the missile will switch to tracking once it pitbulls. This should mean that the missile’s radar will override the plane’s radar.
Ah ok thanks for correcting me
I believe so yes. At least they may supplement each other if one fails. This is out of my depth game wise though.
They’re all 16km
Source?
This is my suspicion too…
Is there any way to check this in the code?
Although useful, that document has been wrong before. Looking at the actual code, isn’t this what determines the pitbull range? “lockDistance”.
Probably yes
So should I attempt to notch at high alt to reduce my time till re-commit or just turn cold??
Well that value is 20000 for everything except R77 and PL12, which are at 16000. I’m about to see in test flight, one second
Oh interesting. I’m assuming that’s the game code, how did you access that?
Wait so will the missile not go pitbull until the missile is within 20/16km even if radar lock is broken before reaching that distance?
At the moment, chaff is ridiculously powerful, so I would not find going cold necessary unless there’s several missiles heading for you. They are very easy to defeat alone. However it really depends on the situation…
Fox 3 missile won’t pick anything up beyond 16-20km no. However that doesn’t mean the missile is completely useless if you broke lock before it reached pitbull range. These missiles have IOG which means that they’ll keep going in the general direction where they last saw the target, so if the missile only has a little left to go before it reaches pitbull range when lock is broken, it still has a high likelihood to find the target and go pitbull without having to guide it with TWS or STT.
Chaff doesn’t feel especially powerful imo, I notice that I have to spend upwards of 10 or more seconds in a notch angle dropping chaff before my RWR stops screaming at me.