I’m honestly quite surprised loft in-game isn’t modelled in a similar manner as time to gain for long range SARH’s. Seems extremely rudimentary and quite lazy tbh.
Regarding what would be an ideal loft, I think its more dependent on the range to target relative to the current max kinetic range of the missile, granted that’s just a logical guess rather than backed up by documentation.
For example, a very high loft trajectory may maximize kinetic energy at intercept, but would increase the time to target as well, giving the target more time to maneuver and avoid the missile. This would likely be optimal when the target is already close to the max aerodynamic range, where noticing the TWS launch is less likely, and what’s more important is maximizing energy at range.
A closer launch may loft less and take a much more direct route as the range would be insufficient to really gain good altitude anyways, and the target is much more of a threat to the launch aircraft.
There’s likely a set of guidance rules and sets of equations to determine optimal loft for each individual missile as well irl. A higher drag missile will likely favor lofting more aggressively to reduce drag, so will a long burn motor missile, as not only does drag decrease with altitude (due to decreased air density), but thrust of rocket motors INCREASE with altitude, and the %increase is proportional to the length of the motor burn as well.
This would explain why irl, the AIM-54 has been known to loft to altitudes as high as 103500ft to intercept a target flying at 50000ft from a 44000ft launch.
I dont think WT actually models differential rocket motor thrust based on altitudes, and we know for a fact they dont model base drag reduction from long burn motors either, so its questionnable as to if any missile which lofts ingame actually acheives realistic loft trajectories or peak performance.
That actually leads into a major concern I have in the near future with gaijin and their missile modeling; around what parameter will they base their missile modelling in the future when missiles become more varied and sophisticated?
The AIM-54 lofts aggressively to achieve huge ranges and speeds by leveraging low air density and its large and long burning motor, both of which benefit the increase in rocket motor thrust at higher alts.
The R-77 may achieve good ranges from high speed launches, but suffers massively from its grid fin design at subsonic/transonic launches, which would lead to it underperforming in typical WT scenarios.
The MBDA meteor lofts very little so as to maximize thrust from its ramjet engines, and varies said thrust to mitigate the effects of the targets evasive actions and maximize pK.
Those are just 3 examples, but are applicable to a whole host of future medium and long range BVRAAM’s for WT. I seriously believe the complexity of the missile models will have to be increased to be realistic, although I personally believe gaijin will take the easy way out and model things in a way in which there are clear winners and losers.
A great example of this “winners and losers” modelling are long motor burn missiles in WT. Missile diamonds appear within 10km range (aced crew) for missiles where the motor is still burning, so shorter burn missiles have a massive advantage in visibility, which improves their pK. This even has ramifications for low smoke motors like the AIM-9M, which should have a visibility advantage over something like the P3, but comes out with a disadvantage due to the longer motor burn and missile diamond.
It will likely be near impossible to model a more modern missile accurately in WT within the confines of gaijins current missile modeling. You may be able to fine tune for one specific scenario, but it by no means means that the missile would be accurate for all scenarios, or even the scenarios most commonly seen in WT matches (low alt low speed launches).
