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

Seems to me more like an issue of someone not taking their pills, but jesus thats a lot of numbers.

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Fr I think breaking into the Navy archives and just stealing the docs on it would be easier

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Dude, where are you?

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Is it even possible to get a final answer on whether or not the datalink works on multiple targets at the same time with the phoenix? (so only keeping targets on the tws radar scope, no soft lock)

According to this thread and the testing done, it doesn’t.

But apparently it does on the dev server with the new arh missiles. I want to know if this is a new thing for the fox-3 update or if it was always there.

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It was always there.

I did this test with a friend of mine back when Aim-54 was released, with two missiles, data link works as advertised as long as the track never disappeared from your scope. But that was long time ago, so I don’t know if this was broken during these two years.

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The issue issue is not and ETA Multiplier booster

Itd be really nice if we could at LEAST get a loft code improvement for the AIM-54C this update… a change to MP3 would allow the AIM-54C to atleast be competitive at range vs the new fox 3’s.


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Any chance of this @Gunjob ? I’ve already done all the testing and provided the code, the change would take minutes at most, and the results of the change are already known and would be positive.

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Probably better suited as a suggestion.

Like in the suggestion post section? I guess i can try that, not sure how well that’ll work though. All I’ve got is a document saying the 54C got “improved trajectory shaping” and my own testing. Ill give it a shot tho.

Posted this in the suggestion section at Gunjobs recommendation, also posting it here, since I figure it will likely get deleted by the suggestion moderators and some of you might be interested on discussing it anyways:

With the advent of modern high performance fox 3’s to the game, I believe its a great time to revisit the AIM-54C. For those who don’t know, the current AIM-54C seen in-game is a near complete downgrade to the AIM-54A that precedes it, being heavier and having a smaller warhead, making it an objectively less lethal missile than its predecessor.

One thing that remains largely unchanged between both variants in-game though is the guidance section of the missile. This is despite the fact that it is known the AIM-54C has an all new WGU-11/B digital guidance section and WCU-7/B control section.

AIM-54A guidance code (left) vs AIM-54C guidance code (right):

I recently found a paper regarding a Russian generals analysis of the AIM-54C back around the time it was revealed:

Spoiler

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This source states a few things, but relevant to the missile guidance, it states:

  1. AIM-54A was considered inadequate vs highly maneuverable targets at high altitudes by the US
  2. AIM-54A was considered inadequate against very low altitude targets by the US
  3. AIM-54A was considered inadequate vs groups of targets that were tightly packed (stream raid) by the US
  4. New inertial guidance system, modeled in-game by reduced inertial guidance drift speed being dropped from 10 → 2 (unit of measurement is unclear, likely m/s?))
  5. More complex and optimized trajectories permitted, improving performance vs high altitude targets that are actively defending when compared to the AIM-54A (not modeled in-game, 54A and 54C loft trajectories and autopilots are copy pastes)

Despite this, we do not have hard data regarding the AIM-54C’s trajectory shaping characteristics, and therefore cant directly bug report it to my understanding.

Fortunately, I have done some extensive testing of various custom guidance codes for the AIM-54C, the results of which can be seen below:

2 Things are immediately obvious:

  1. Addition of an energy management section of code, as seen on Every missile from the AIM-7F and onwards has a mild positive effect on the trajectory, likely due to smoothing out the inputs, particularly at range.
  2. Modification of the guidance code can have a significant positive effect on the missiles time to target and impact velocity, particularly at longer ranges.

My suggestion is to change the guidance code of the AIM-54C so as to offer an improvement in flight characteristics over the AIM-54A while remaining accurate to the missiles stats.

The code I suggest is the MP3 guidance code seen in the chart above, as displayed below:
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This would allow the AIM-54C to actually represent an improvement over the AIM-54A in-game and improve its performance at range without any notable effects on short to mid range performance, and give it a notable long range niche when compared to the other Fox 3’s and the R-27ER, which is specifically what the missile is designed to do in real life.

Would you like to see a guidance code improvement for the AIM-54C now that more advanced Fox 3’s are being added?
  • Yes!
  • No…
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Which guidance code do you think it should use?
  • In-game one
  • Energy management only (EM)
  • Improved loft (IMPL)
  • MP
  • MP2
  • MP3
  • Something else (drop your own guidance code suggestion in the comments)
0 voters
All guidance codes for reference:

In-game AIM-54C:
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EM:
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IMPL (Dark_claw’s loft code):
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MP:
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MP2:
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MP3:
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That’s hardly an analysis… that’s all just written on western press

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Translation of western magazines for russian public won’t help you improve anything. You could just open Jane’s at this point.

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Had i thought about it sooner, i wouldve posted that in the dev server discussion, seeing as it seems the devs actually look at that unlike everything else

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We must Need talk about of the proper engine booster, in fact the aim54C and aim54C eccm/sealed, both are sealed your engines in a proper vaccum pod to conserve the thrust.