Over 450 kmh, target not far from the center line of sight and it just can’t do its job??? Is it really a top tier missile?.
It is the easiest missile to avoid with pre-flaring (Bigest Fov 4.5 vs 3.6/2.4/2)
At short range the Magic 2/ and PL-5EII work much better. And they accelerate faster, beneficial for the ircm type.
At long range the aam-3, the aim-9 beat it by far since its ircm does not benefit from distance, even the PL-5II still works better.
Even ignoring everything and having a perfect launch there is an 80/20 chance that the missile will miss by the grace of god.
That’s not counting that the A-10C is in the same br in aerials and has 4 aim-9m and HMS?
and yes, its easily tied with the Magic II in being a top tier dogfighting missiles. Much stronger than the Aim-9M in a close quarter dogfight.
Looking at the replay. The First missile appears to have bugged out. This is known issue with all TVC missiles at the moment and I dont have much of an explanation beyond that.
The second missile did go for the mass spam of large calibre flares the Mig-23 ejected and the replay apperas to show the Mig-23ML remaining on full reheat, but I do not always trust the replay to display things like that correctly at times.
Assuming they were, then I would have assumed it would have gone for the reheat plume, but between the Mig-23 being a relatively “cold” airframe and the large number of large calibre flares deployed. Im also not all that surprised it was defeated.
Under similarly conditions, I doubt Magic II or Aim-9M would have faired much better.
R-73 is a perfectly worthy top tier missile with comprable performance to any other IRCCM missile in the game
Historically only the SRAAM suffered from problems when launched at low speeds, not the R-73 since it had more conventional control surfaces and did not spin like the SRAAM.
under similar conditions, yes, they would have worked better, the magic 2 has a FOV of 2.5 which would have made it more difficult to see the flare spam (which was already far from the plane), and the aim9m even if it had seen the flares it would have still seen the plane because it does not have the speed to leave its FOV and reacquire the lock.
And yes, the plane had the afterburner on. If he had decided to go for the flares anyway, he would have had no reason to go into a spin and fall out of the sky.
That is because SRAAMs have a minimum launch speed, but even when fired at the fastest speed their respective aircraft can fly, they will spin out randomly under certain conditions.
I see the list something like this.
1A- AAM3
2A- AIM-9M 2B-PL-5EII
3A-R-73 3B-Magic-2
At short range, acceleration is very important for FOV IRCM missiles. To close the distance and prevent flares from entering.
Something that the R-73 does very poorly as it takes a long time to accelerate.
It is also easier to pre-flare, the R-73 has 4.5 and the PL5 and Magic 2 3.6 and 2.4 respectively.
At long range, it only beats the Magic 2 because it runs out of energy faster, but it is still just as sensitive to flares.
Where the AIM-9M and AAM-3 win, especially the AAM-3 which accelerates similarly to the R-73 but loses much less speed and is just as strong at any angle. The ircm fov missiles necessarily need to be behind the enemy, since frontally and laterally unless it is an F-14/15 or a Su-27 the enemies can unwittingly save themselves by firing a missile…
Not forgetting that the TVC makes it have a probability of spontaneous failure
In close range, tight dogfights where you are practically fighting to get your guns on the target, especially when you have HMD. The Magic II and R-73 massively outperform the AAM-3 and Aim-9M
(I will be honest. I dont have much experience with or against the chinese missiles at the moment. Very rarely encounter them at top tier in SB currently)
Where Aim-9M and AAM-3 are better, are in the longer ranged shots at the start of an engagement or after you have bled the speed of the target and can set up the shot accordingly. They are pretty poor off-boresight, even with HMD.
(I do not consider the Aim-9M a bad missile in anyway, but are simply different and need to be played to its strengths)
My experirence with the IRCCM is much the same. I dont think they are all that different in performance, but different in functionality. Aim-9M can be both easier and harder to defeat as it takes a specific method to defeat. The others are more based upon launch conditions rather than the player defending.
Yeah, I agree. All TVC missiles have an imherrent bugginess. I dont think MICA is even totally unaffected and has a slight ossiliation that bleeds speed and range iirc.
Their seekers are almost identical. Their FoV after they launch is the same and that’s the most important thing for IRCCM. Might as well be the same I guess.
In my experience + excel data/statshark.net data, the order goes as follows:
S Plus-Tier: PL-5EII (low burning time) >Magic2 (less range than the rest but pulls a lot) >> R-73 (thanks to the thrust and high G)
S-Tier: AAM-3>AIM-9M almost identical in performance
They have the same seeker FoV upon launch. R-73 has the largest FoV before launch but that has nothing to do with its IRCCM since the IRCCM isn’t active before launch.