The AIM-120 'AMRAAM' - History, Design, Performance & Discussion

It’s only HPRF, statcard is incorrect. It should state Front-aspect intstead of All-aspect

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Screenshot_20240630_084205_Samsung Internet

According to Stepanovich it has MPRF

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Can tell in game through the radar display, in long range shots the missile will go active and if the target manages to notch or go cold quick enough the seeker goes back to IOG until its abit closer and gets a MPRF lock.

So if I’m reading this right, SD-10 was made and then PL-12 was an improved SD-10 and then PL-12A was an improved PL-12?

China developed the PL-12 and an export model, the SD-10.
When the PL-12 was upgraded, they also offered an upgraded export model… the SD-10A.

So PL-12 → SD-10 and PL-12A → SD-10A…

There exists practically no solid information on what was modified with these missiles.

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In code is just a seeker with specific values, not two different for 2 signals. And we know how MPRF is modeled ingame(nothing different just lower notch speeds which isn’t a thing irl and max velocities) so don’t expect much of it. Mprf/hprf on amraams issue is probably just a balancing thing, you know how below room temp players can be + many middle schoolers.

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Another goofy ahh AMRAAM deciding to change targets randomly.

Launch, Goes active.

Tracks MiG no issues. AMRAAM seeker has solid lock on MiG.

AMRAAM decides to switch target to a dissipated cloud of chaff, 90 degrees off the seeker head.

Now if it locked a just dispersed cloud right behind the MiG, i wouldn’t have too much of an issue, but the fact it swapped targets so a chaff plume that had been deployed a few seconds BEFORE the missile seeker locked the MiG…thats some goofy stuff.

What gives?
Am i missing something?

This isn’t the first time I’ve had my AMRAAM go goofy.

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Send me the replay file and server replay link in a DM.

What are we thinking?

Something funky going on or is it just me being an idiot?

just a thought on my part, but it MIGHT be that the aspect was relatively close to the notch and the missile bit off on chaff?

Also, I think the sensor view shows the missiles main beam, but its possible the seeker still picked something up in its sidelobes? The ARH’s are all pretty bad with the notch from what I’ve seen, so thats my best guess at what happened with the info provided.

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I thought it may have been the notch too, but the angle I launched at I thought it’ll make it.

The missile tracked fine but all of a sudden pulled a hard 90 degree turn, which is what I don’t get.

I think with the fox 3’s particularly, its harder to figure out if a plane is notching or not since the missile has its own onboard radar, so the relative angle and velocity of the target you get from your radar arent necessarily accurate to what the missile see’s.

That being said, the ARH’s all have REALLY large angleHalfSensitity (presumably to make the missile more reliable at finding the target when going pitbull?) but dont seem to compensate much in the sidelobe sensitivity aspect.
angleHalf/sidelobeSens:
7M: 10/-30
7M(F-14): 2.8/-35
7M(F-15): 3.0/-35
7M(F-16): 4.0/-32

R-27R/ER: 3.5/-35

SuperTemp: 2.6/-35

120A/R-77/MICA: 15/-30

54A/C: 9/-19
probs explains why the fox 3’s are so easy to decoy, and why the 7F/M (particularly on the F-4’s) tend to wander off to hit random targets sometimes

My current understanding is based on the idea that:

  • angleHalfSens → smaller = harder to decoy
  • sidelobeSensitivity → smaller (larger negative number) = harder to decoy

This would likely mean the SuperTemp is the hardest missile to decoy in-game, followed by the F-14’s AIM-7M (this doesnt account for the fact SARH’s require the planes radar to hold the lock tho. The AWG-9 is terrible at holding a lock so in practice the F-14’s 7M’s are likely on the easier end to decoy, but dont wander as much if it does hold its lock)

Didn’t get a chance to check yet.

Anglehalfsens is beamwidth if i rememebr correctly

thats my understanding as well, larger beamwidth means more chance to pickup something that isnt the target.

For comparison btw, 15 deg (all the new fox 3’s) beamwidth at 20km (AIM-120A lock range) gives a scan area of 90.22km^2

At the same 20km range, the AIM-7M from the F-14 has a scan area of 3.00km^2, putting the AIM-120A scan area at 30x that of the AIM-7M fired from the F-14…

To get a similar scan area as the AIM-7M at 20km, the AIM-120A needs to be at ~3.65km from the target… this is despite the fact that the 7M and 120A share a same sidelobe sensitivity.

Should go to illustrate pretty well how much more stuff like chaff and other planes end up in the AIM-120A’s seeker in-game vs that of the 7M, and therefore how much more likely they are to be pulled off target in a near notch scenario.

Keep in mind, this is just my understanding of the seekers atm, i could and likely am missing some crucial info, and if someone has a better understanding, feel free to correct me.

He said PL-12 is not same as SD-10. != means not equals to.

This isn’t a fair comparison because a SARH missile has two beamwidths, the beamwidth of the transmitter on the supporting aircraft and on the receiver.

So the AIM-7M has a 3.0 degree transmitter on the F-15 and it has a 13 degree receiver. So only a little smaller than the AIM-120 which makes sense given the slightly larger missile.

Gotta read it more carefully, he said PL-12/SD-10 =/= SD-10A, so he is equating PL-12 and SD-10

No, SD-10A=PL-12. PL-12A is known to just be an electronics upgrade. The initial SD-10 was an export offering but nobody ever actually bought it.

good point, any idea what the transmitter portion of the code for the SARH’s is for then?