The AIM-54 Phoenix missile - Technology, History and Performance

it can’t track notching targets if thats what you mean, if you arent close to the notch it seems to track ok from what ive seen

Something is very VERY wrong with the AIM-54C this update. I’ve watched it sail past head on targets at any and all altitudes. It can’t hit shit anymore.

I’ve gone from a steady 50-75% hit rate down to hitting 3 in 20+ games, 2 of which only were “hits” not even crits

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Highly likely this Firebee drone was eqipped with reflectors to give it enormous RCS.
Normal practice if you want to test everything, but not detection range.

Still haven’t gotten a response to certain concerns for the AIM-54. Mythic has made several lists already. Are you able to respond to these?

If there is information missing, or not sufficient sources… or perhaps another reason? Why hasn’t the AIM-54 series been fixed?

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No idea how “Dogfight mode” can make AIM-54 a dogfight-capable missile with its slow acceleration.

In the game multi-path effect is the same for all types of surface. IRL it is different and creates more random effect. We can make it missile-dependent (beam width e.t.c.) later.

All CW missiles have the same problem: targets with close radial speed are not separated as long as special signals like FM are used, but they have their own disadvantages. Using HPRF (giving 1-2 km unambigious range) make the problem a little bit less severe, but not much.

How?! If the target is above (>7 deg) the horizon notching doesn’t work against all CW SARH missiles and against AIM-54. Below - it works against all.

Having NCTR anboard missile seeker doesn’t look realistic, it may be someting else.

Missile cant hit a target under 95m in-game.

Chaff clouds dont look like planes in a signal return… same as flares dont look like a plane in an IIR seeker.

I wouldn’t trust a word that guy says any more than id trust Putin, hence why he’s perma-blocked for me.

Its honestly getting fking infuriating at this point. Some of these bugs could easily be fixed with as you said, simple copy pastes, or even like 2 key presses, but they take YEARS to change, and then you get just the most back-breakingly stupid crap as replies to why they arent doing it.

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These are mostly things that have been answered already… dogfight mode just means the missile comes off the rail active and it’s not a real “mode” iirc on the F-14.

I think the primary concerns are the combined plane overload from AIM-54’s unique guidance system… and the reduced smoke motor issue. It is quite clear that it should have reduced smoke, and not so apparent that it should be 25G overload. Is there missing information for either of these issues that has prevented them from being implemented thus far?

@MythicPi I’m not going to entertain your antics today. The way this forum works, you would not be able to view my topics if I was blocked. Instead you have me muted and can read everything I put in the threads albeit without notifications when I respond to or tag you.

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Ive considered making a topic on this. Getting devs to implement radar and missile reports require more work than doing the report itself. One shouldn’t have to bug all the tech mods and Smin to get anything done. It seems players from all tech trees agree that more priority should be done on missile and radar simulation.

Not only does the AIM-54 have a dedicated dogfight mode, which is a known thing, we have a congressional hearing stating the missile is very capable in dogfights. MAYBE if it wasnt modelled missing a full 32% of its max G pull it might actually do something at closer ranges despite its “slow acceleration”.

I understand this point, it doesnt change the fact that were now dealing with 4th gen IR AAM’s like the R-73 and yet radar missiles are worse at low altitudes than the AIM-7E was 3 years ago, and have become a borderline non-credible threat because theres an easym,ode “I win” way of defeating them by just flying kinda low which has literally no disadvantage besides fuel consumption at this point because of the ungodly contrails that make flying at high alt for ambushes complete suicide.

The AIM-54C’s seeker upgrades are quite literally stated to improve capabilities against targets close together and at low altitude and high EW envorinments. A must when an intended use of the missile is fleet defense vs waves of AShM.

What else explains “An ability to identify targets by individual characteristics through pre-stored computer simulations”
image

It quite literally describes NCTR

Pretty sure its difficult for a missile which lofts UP to very high altitudes before dropping down on targets from above to get beneath a target to take advantage of this in-game feature…

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Below 3nm head-on the AIM-54 has worse performance than the AIM-7F… from 3-9 nautical miles it has the same maneuvering performance, and beyond that the AIM-7F drops off and the AIM-54 continues to have improved maneuvering performance against targets until guidance limit.

Likely just incorporates HPRF and MPRF modes like AIM-120.

It could mean something much simpler. Identifies targets based on speed, RCS, or EW techniques and knows what mode to best intercept with… idk.

Doesn’t always need to loft above the target irl, especially at ranges where it will still be burning.

This is about targets close in angle and radial speed, not close in range. I am not sure if AIM-54C seeker is able to track targets in range at all. For example all AIM-7, Skyflash and R-27R - they can’t.

I suspect that AShMs don’'t notch and don’t turn away.

No idea, it is not specified in this short text.
There is actually no need to identify target for the seeker, the seeker only needs to distinguish btw targets and chaff or ground returns.
R-27R seeker for example can reject returns from large ground areas (not from high-reflective small ground objects) by spectrum width and angular noise parameters - this is very far from NCTR.
In the game all SARH and ARH seekers don’t track ground returns, but can’t see through them.

Typical target of AIM-54 is a missile or a bomber. And they seems don’t notch.
Anyway even fiighter radars like AN/APG-68 with their narrower beam width, multiple modes and complex signal processing can be notched, because it the MBC and target return overlap both in range and doppler speed, they just can’t be separated.

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The dogfight ability of the AIM-54 at this point is quite frankly a horrid joke as well seeing as one of the technical moderators @_David_Bowie posted a whopping 7 secondary sources on the old forums, all claiming the AIM-54 was dogfightable (among other things these sources discuss, such as AIM-54C seeker improvements).

So its not like the info isn’t already very much available, its just being ignored, just as the AN/AXX-1 TCS bug report is being ignored, just as the smokeless motor issue is being ignored, just as the fuel tanks on the F-14B are being ignored.

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Its not how they ‘look’, in the frequency domain you just get a return that quicky goes towards the MLC as it slows down. This can be handled by V gates. If you got a beaming and chaffing target, the ability to keep track would depend on the resolution cell, which depends on the radar(beamwidth and range gate), and on the radar power centroid created by the return of the chaff & sideaspect target RCS.

Take for example a beaming plane against the sky. The power centroid is directly on target and RCS is 50m². And lets take that the beamwidth of the radar is such that the cell has a radius of 400m at a certain distance. If the plane starts chaffing, the power centroid will slowly shift to the growing chaff cloud. As the chaff is slowing down and the fighter continues on its speed, the distance between it increases. As the chaff cloud expands, its RCS increases thus it shifts the power centroid towards it. Because the diameter of the radar beam is finite, 800m, and the distance between the chaff and plane increases, the power centroid will be closest to the strongest signal. At some point either the chaff or plane will leave the resolution cell, and it will be the one that is farthest to the power centroid.

Look, no NCTR involved.

But ingame there’s no such thing as power centroid and side aspect RCS…

NCTR is pretty classified, we don’t really know how spectral analysis is done or what they do. We only know one type and its through JEM.

MPRF…

They do… the CW signal from the illuminator has the the frequency modulated. From multiple sources. Awg10( F-4J) CW signal is frequency modulated.

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AIM-120 has both. AIM-54C - ???
The main advantage of MPRF is all-aspect look-down capability.
Very doubtfull that it is highly desired for missile developed for long-range interception of Anti-Ship missiles and heavy bombers.
Range unambiguity solving can be done for HPRF for furthre range tracking, however, it is really complex and time-consuming. It works for N-019 radar on acquisition-track phase in HPRF mode.

AIM-54A was developed initially for that, AIM-54C specifically required better all-aspect look-down capability and use against more modern, fighter like targets. The AIM-120 seeker was also developed off the basis of the AIM-54C so it is likely.

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Players dont either when they can LITERALLY just flight straight an somewhat low altitude to have total immunity against all radar missiles ingame.

Majority of claimed AIM-54 kills in real life were fighter targets hit during the Iran-Iraq war and that wasn’t even an AIM-54C, those were AIM-54A’s. Clearly their ability against fighter targets wasn’t exactly lacking
image

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Fighter targets who mostly lacked RWR, countermeasures, training, etc.
Oh look, wiki… nice

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AIM-54C had specific provisions made to the upgrade seeker to improve capability against sea skimming AShM’s, clearly something that may require enhanced look down capabilities. This has been stated over and over.

provide the capability to track through the target’s beam aspect and to guide on targets in a stream raid".

Stream raid are fighter in a line to the f-14. If you fire missiles to them, all phoenixes will home to the first target despite you launching them to individual targets

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AN/APG-59 and N-019 can track target in PD mode both in range and speed with HPRF only. Some complex pre-calculations in acquisition phase and tricks are made, but if the target is tracked in range it doesn’t mean that it is gated well in range against ground clutter due the high range ambiguity.