Hello all. I was wondering how everyone here uses the R27ET in either ground, but mostly air battles. It has a much further range than its seeker can (usually) lock at, and firing into a furball usually just results in the missile getting flared or going wild. How do you get the most out of it in game?
I mainly use it against people trying to run away, or stealthily firing a missile at an oblivious player.
You can fire the missile at a target running away as far as 8km on the deck (assuming both you and your target are Mach 1)
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Sometimes I also use them at extremely high altitudes extending its range substantially. I’ve locked targets as far as 30km.
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Oh wow. So the seeker seems better at high alt. Ill have to give that a try. Ive been afraid of going high.
The seeker is always good. Its just that it can lock things at further ranges if it can see the afterburner plume (ie. side aspect, or rear aspect).
The farthest I’ve locked front-aspect is around 19km against a hot target like an F-15 or a Flanker. Colder targets like the Gripen will mean you have to get much closer.
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Really not worth giving up a precious R-27 slot on the MiG-29s but if you’ve got an Su-27 a pair could be useful.
Ideally use IRST to be stealthy. It’s technically got IRCCM but only FoV gating and a poor one at that so don’t expect it to reject flares. Best used against unaware opponents at pretty long range, because at shorter ranges the R-73 is always going to be a better option. 8-10km seems to be the sweet spot where players won’t see the missile before burnout but it will still have enough energy to hit.
It can sometimes be used in an early head on where players will assume it’s an ER and rely on multipathing to avoid the missile, not flaring, only for it to slap them across the face. But I’ve also had ETs seemingly multipath into the ground so idk what’s going on there.
The R-27ET’s IRCCM is not really poor. It shrinks down to 1.33deg FoV which is still substantially lower than non IRCCM missiles though it is larger than other gatewidth of 0.75deg. It kinda makes up for the difference in FoV gating by having a slightly lower sensitivity to flares relative to sensitivity to the plane. For example the R-73 has a “plane to flare” sensitivty ratio of 1.1:1, the R-27ET has 1.2:1.
So you can get shots like these:
Its still not 100% unflarable and still probably worse at defeating flares than the R-73 but its there and it works enough to where I can trust its IRCCM and is definitely not “poor”.
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Had some good luck firing at people running away, thanks.
As has been said, it is best used as an ambush weapon.
I use it on those who may be unaware of me. It works wonders on those heading back to the af.
I agree. It is easy to flare until it get within around 3.5km. At the range, the flare resistance ramps up