I wonder the same (about the name of the document), the schematics looks very detailed, appears to be genuine, and appears to be part of a technical doc related to the rocket motor.
That link also has picture related to the solid rocket motor of AMRAAM too (page 58), including the shape of propellant inside the solid rocket motor which helps determining the thrust curve
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We already have comprehensive documentation on the AIM-120A’s thrust curve. The in-game model is using this data.
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Well, it seems they are working off public data and came very close to the (now) known numbers of the AIM-120 prior to them being publicized or referenced. Depending on the quality of their sources, they may have accurately ascertained the thrust of the motor.
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Can someone explain to me in quick words why the Phoenix in DCS is great and manuverable while it’s absolutely trash in War Thunder? Also did they nerf it or the F-14 radar in the last micro patch? My radar keeps glitching out like crazy when firing in tws.
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DCS missiles can two-plane maneuver, while WT missiles are forced to only one-plane maneuver.
Apart from that the AIM-54 probably has way less drag in DCS so it gets up to speed fairly quickly.
Which variant is the more realistic one? Could it be Gaijin artifically nerfing it to reduce the crazy whine it would cause if it worked like in DCS?
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I have absolutely no idea if either missile is closer to the real weapon.
We’re unlikely to ever find out how the AIM-54 performed IRL with concrete data until the missile becomes completely obsolete and Iran has to totally retire their old F-14 fleet.
This being said as advanced mid-range ARH are coming, AIM-54 should be given more performance to compensate. If gaijin ever decides to stop having multipath be a crutch for bad players, of course.
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It seems capable to shoot down surface skimming anti-ship missiles with a 100% intercept rate and it can shoot down target drones pulling high-g manuevers irl with tons of claimed Iranian successes against Iraqi fighter targets using the early 54A variant with a worse seekerhead than the C and especially late C variants.
In War Thunder with the latest micro patch 8/10 phoenixes will miss, before the patch they actually hit if people did not properly dodge.
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I did it again!
Now I have the only two 6 phoenix kills clips ever recorded in WT(I think). Took me nearly 2 years of playing the F-14A/B to have the first, and now I got the 2nd in just a few weeks.
I don’t think the aim-54 is trash, it can be frustrating to use but you can definitely make it work if you know what you’re doing, I still use it as my main weapon over the sparrow. I wish Gaijin would give it its full capabilities though.
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It’s just super unreliable and can still completely fail without user error, for seemingly no reason.
Nice clips though
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At what range does the Phoenix go active, y’know, assuming its working as intended? Or does it go active off the rails?
Seeker detection ranges in war thunder are simplified. The numbers in-game are arbitrary due to lack of concrete information. The real world performance would differ based on target, altitude, etc.
If you want to know the performance in-game, we can view the file data;
As you can see from the “receiver” section… the detection range for a target with a radar cross section of 2 meters squared in-game is approximately 16000 or 16km. The maximum range regardless of target RCS is 25km. There are many other factors that affect (reduce) the detection range but it will never be more than 25km for any type of target unless they change the maximum range code.
The biggest contributing factor to this abstraction is probably the use of both a fixed RCS value(should vary with apparent Aspect and radar band), and the fact that they for the most part are basically arbitrarily assigned to any given airframe.
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The C should go active from the rail, The A needs to get closer, sadly I don’t remember how close.
Even the c needs to get relatively close to go active irl , iircI in game both goes pitbull at 16km
im like beyond 99% certain that the big deal of the C variant is that it does not need to get close to go active. Atleast according to all sources I can remember. Atleast according to various sources I find when I do a quick google, I also have some vague memories of ex-F14 pilots talking on youtube about it.
No… the deal with the c is that they change to digital electronics and the mk 60 engine, for longer ranges you still need to use DL, this is a seeker limitation
active on the rail is when the missile is set to do so, and aim-54A can also do it
One upgrade the C does have is that it can go pitbull on it’s own without the radar commanding it to do so, the A can only go pitbull with loss of radar lock or the AWG commanding it.
EG if you toss a C at a target then fully loose lock until it reaches it’s intercept location it will go active and search for a target on it’s own over a wide area, meanwhile if you toss a A to the same location, unless you enable it to start searching when you break lock, it will just keep waiting for the radar to command it to go pitbull, and if that command never comes it wont actually go active.
Should be an option, especially in ACM since in the F-14 if you get a lock with any of the pilot commanded lock on modes with a 54, that missile is going active off the rail and pulling as hard as it can at the target you are sending it at. Such is by design, but not possible in game right now.
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Part of this is almost certainly that pilots in DCS do not have the same kind of responsiveness and information-control that we do in WT.
In WT you have a red diamond that tells you exactly where the missile is, and you can essentially perfectly dodge any missile as long as you have sufficient energy by doing the the spiral (I mean, I know it is not possible at some speeds and for some planes, but the idea of doing the barrel-dodge is standard). In DCS they can’t do it as reliably because they are actually sitting in the plane and can’t see the missile approaching from ~50% of their vision. Do I think the AIM-54 is not as good as it should be? Well, maybe, but the reason why it doesn’t do as well in-game as it would in real life is because WT is a game and the players of the game can just hammer S and won’t get overwhelmed by the business of actually flying the aircraft.
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