The AIM-9 Sidewinder - History, Design, Performance & Discussion

Every missile does this, its pretty absurd. 1-2x afterburning jet engines (and the jet they’re attached to) almost certainly emit more IR than some < 8 inch diameter rocket motor

iirc there was some recommendation to fire an IR missile at incoming IR missiles as a direct counter to not having countermeasures or something. Not sure if I remember currently. Perhaps @Flame2512 or @Gunjob have the necessary reference.

well something like an IRIS-T has the maneuvering necessary to intercept an incoming missile.

Even something like an R27T can do so in-game, though probably by triggering the proxy fuze rather than actually hitting it.

Was rather implying that it’s useful as a counter-countermeasure in head-ons.

oh, maybe for early all-aspects, but I doubt it for later missiles. Just a worse flare at that point

Maybe at the same time they seperate flares and chaff. But I think what it really needs is an overhaul of aircraft heat signatures as well. I dont think the game simulates AB plumes, and still just looks at the engine temp of the aircraft. This means a reheating F-5 is colder than non-max thrust harrier at times.

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I understand other missiles doing it, but why is the 9M doing it? Shouldn’t it treat the missile’s rocket engine being in the FOV as if it were a flare and suspending tracking? How does the 9M determine if a flare is present in the first place? Does do so when the infrared return suddenly jumps? Does it maybe see that the emissions changed in the spectrum? Some other principle?

The flare stops in the air rather suddenly, which is generally how it determines a flare has appeared. The missile would just appear to be the aircraft further maneuvering or rapidly changing direction I would think.

On missiles like the Magic 2 (It’s supposed to have flare decoy rejection as well)… it has multiple elements which allow it to ascertain that there has been a sudden rise in a portion of the IR band that is not similar to the target. In the case that it blinds the seeker enough that it cannot see the target, it continues towards targets predicted position and stops track momentarily similar to AIM-9M.

Since the AIM-9M has no multi-element seeker or reduction in FoV it is more susceptible to such things.

Yeah I haven’t got it to hand right now but that was a suggested counter for an IR missile when you’re lacking any IRDs

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Yep, which is why i went digging and found that the F5 J85 engine temperatures in game are modelled quite low.

and that doesnt take into account that afterburner plume isnt modelled.

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/XA4uTA29qiaR

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Wait, what about that story of the eqrly 9M’ IRCCM not working because Soviet flares were “dirty” and slow to reach peak brightness? Does that not imply that it is the sudden increase in brightness and not the momentum difference that makes the seeker think there is a flare?

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The slow rise time of the decoy prevented it from determining the sudden change in brightness, yes.
On the other hand, the missile needs to know the targets relative direction / heading to continue tracking after it suspends guidance. I was confused with spatial separation prior.

Looks like we might see AIM-9Ms pushed into g2a service in Ukraine

Anyone know anything about this system? Is it just a chaparall?

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More performance of the AIM-9L against Flares;
image

AIM-9G covers using chaff to trigger the radar fuse;
image

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It appears the AIM-9B & AIM-9D proximity fuse arms too soon.

Proximity delay reports:
AIM-9B
AIM-9D

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Shouldn’t this also impact R-3’s and their respective variants as they are reversed engineered copies? at least without evidence to the contrary.

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I would believe so.

Did they still utilize that after the Americans found out about it? You are the one person I have seen refer to them on this forum and the last. Pretty cool.

From what I read that discovery gave rise the Aim-9P series missiles with the updated logic. So, I figured the Soviets developed something else in their CM technology.

Another good point was brought up. The AIM-9B has a separate contact and proximity fuze. The contact fuze has an arming delay of 1.2s after leaving the rail and the proximity fuse is 2.3-2.5s after leaving the rail.
In-game they are 0.5s delay for all AIM-9’s.

The AIM-9-D/G/H all have a 1.8s proximity fuse delay in real life as well.
Source

Funny no one reported this until now. Here I was thinking the Magic 2 had some unusually long proximity fuse delay that was a unique disadvantage. Good thing the R-60 series has such a short delay (small warhead).

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