Why does the rb71 act like a arh missle and fully ignoring my lock? Im not complaining but im really confused as how it can do this.
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It’s because the 23ml had a higher relative velocity to you than the phantom. The sarh seekerhead just follows whatever is the brightest signal in the cone of the radar, think of the radar as a flash light, and the radar missiles just follows the return thats the strongest
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RB71 is a CW (Continuous Wave) missile, which means it goes for the highest radar return, the Phantom you were shooting at was flying cold which means it has a very minimal radar return for your missile (Seeker is independent of your radar, think of it like the radar tells the missile where to look, instead of telling it where to go), so it went for the MiG-23, which was coming towards you, because for a split second the missile’s seeker passed over the MIG-23 and went for it because it has a higher radar return
Edit: Spelt “went” wrong
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This is a very common issue with sparrows specifically, but can happen to other missiles too afaik. The missile goes for the strongest radar return it sees when it activates, and that may be someone you’ve not locked. It’s not a bug, but it can certainly feel like it in some edge cases.
thank you all for the replies, didnt know sarh missles were even capable of tracking independant of the planes radar