Not necessarily actually, seeing as contrails are excessive in their occurrence altitude in WT for the most part, and the vast majority of gameplay in WT occurs at lower alts. There’s also this paper, published a few months ago discussing the formation of visible contrails from rocket motors which indicate they form/become visible at altitudes between 10-15km (though the steps were in increments of 5km, and other sources such as NASA do discuss contrail formation around 8000m(26000ft), which corresponds roughly to the temperature ranges shown in the above graph I posted regarding H2O contrail formations for missiles (< -35°F).
As for HCl contrail that occurs below -10°F, roughly 6100m (20000ft) alt, that is still well above the altitude most players even bother flying at in WT atm, particularly with the massive disadvantages of flying at alt currently from the mix of H2O contrail formation being much too low, coupled with the specifics of the spotting mechanics and the absurd levels of multipath that all radar missiles suffer from, making it unadvisable to fly at altitude anymore.
So no, in most WT flight cases, barring winter maps, high alt maps, or full EC maps, Pheonix launches would actually occur below H2O contrail altitudes, and might be near/in the HCl contrail altitude, and they may climb for a momentary period of time above contrail formation altitudes, so it ISNT really that “ahistorical”. Its also not “unbalanced”, as as I’ve previously indicated, the missile diamond from the rocket motor burn (visible even on low smoke 9M’s because thats how gaijin models it) would remain visible for the totality of the 30 second burntime of the motor within 10km, while the active radar seeker would trip the RWR out at 16km. The missile would also still be visible on radar due to gaijins frankly absurd modelling of the AIM-54’s RCS. Even with a reduced smoke motor, the missile would still give you tons of warning regarding its impending impact, it would simply allow the missile to be less visually visible at range, punish players who arent paying attention while flying at altitude, and would allow closer range shots to occur in a slightly more favorable fashion.
My argument regarding this statement remains the same; if the 65D, which is closer in size to the 54C than the 9M, and has limited/no proof of actually using a low smoke motor, gets to behave the same as the 9M, there is no reason why the 54C shouldn’t pending a rework of contrails and smoke mechanics in WT. This is an unnecessary nerf to an already niche and heavily nerfed missile with hyper limited usability in WT.
