Even as far back as the 1950’s aim-4 with no proximity fuses, you had the missiles being tested against simulated enemy bombers and simulated enemy cruise missiles, in fact the first aim-4E “kill” was precisely against an out of control matador cruise missile, which was taken down by momentum alone as the aim-4s were practise units with non functional warheads…
There are very good reasons why “iron dome” meta is common in wt but not in real life:
Air combat doctrine relies on positioning the attacker in the most favourable place to launch a missile at an unsuspecting enemy. In real life, if you are in a position where you have to shoot down a missile launched at you, you are already doing something wrong.
Using your radar to shootdown an enemy missile requires you to fly TOWARDS the missile trying to kill you without manoeuvring (It’s only recently that airborne radars have been given more than 180º of azimuth coverage to mitigate the risks of this approach, and yet even advanced jets like the F-22 and F-35 still don’t have that capability), relying entirely on the 95 to 90% chance the missile will be intercepted (assuming it’s not worse because of the very high closure rates involved), making it a very high risk strategy for a gamble with multi million dollar planes.
At best, the very low reward for this strategy is getting closer to your target - that is also in optimum position to launch missiles at you. You will also be more vulnerable to getting targeted from a different angle by one of the enemy’s teammates, since in real life pilots work in teams.
So it’s obvious to see why “iron dome” is so viable in warthunder yet uncommon in real life - the risk is acceptable when losing the gamble means you’ll pay a few repair costs and rejoin a different fight in the next minute (as opposed to losing a multi million dollar jet AND your life), getting closer is no issue when engagement distances are already in knife fight range by real life standards, and 99% of the time the enemy player in wt is fighting on his own without coordinating with the rest of his team.
Note how none of those reasons has anything to do with the performance of the radars, or the missiles themselves… Honestly i think the real problem is that the performance penalties for carrying a truck load of missiles are too low in warthunder compared to real life, all that increased frontal and surface area has a huge effect in terms of supersonic drag that isn’t modelled at all.
R-77-1 also uses a variant of 9b1103m.
Now ofc, we’re unsure exactly which variant of 9b1103m r-77-1 uses.
But, using data from other variants of 9b1103m, we can deduce a range of ranges that it should be able lock onto a super small target. I jsut need to find the source again
Tell me, which requires more skill and is just objectively better from a gameplay standpoint?
A proper joust where neither person shoots the other missiles down or the “hurr durr hurr who can press launch missile more often?” Iron dome playstyle?
“The absence of proof is not proof of the absence” is a very dangerous logic you most definetely do not want to get into.
Nontheless, my stance is basically that realistic or not, this mechanic should be either removed completely or hampered to such extreme to the point its removed in practicality. It does nothing but harming the already trembling state of the game both in short and long term, rendering future additions such as 5th gen fighters completely useless. Imagine an F-22 with only 6 or 8 missiles, going up against a su-30sm2, or F-15C GE with 12 or 14.
This is not a matter of invulnerability, but rather the usefulness of future additions to the game.
My example can be applied even to some vehicles currently in game like the F-16 PoBIT. It already suffers heavily because its capabilities are clearly not good enough to compete against the other vehicles at similar BRs. Now add the fact it only has 6 missiles, what is it supposed to do if someone shoots them all down?
I would like a meta that actually rewards positioning & tactics that goes beyond “lol just shoot down all a whole salvo of missiles” or “shoot a whole salvo of missiles at a single target”.
But hey…if you want to kill a game mode that you do not play because of some off case about potential plane in the future…be my guest…
Trying to shoot down missiles with your own missiles should be very difficult to accomplish and considered an emergency/last-ditch effort.
It’s hard to detect AA missiles even with advanced radar systems. It is also hard to hit a fast moving target with a low RCS. Maybe this is possible irl as a last resort (everything else failed so let’s try to intercept the missile), but I am sure it’s extremely difficult to do this because we don’t see this tactic as a standard in modern air warfare doctrine.
Considering Gaijin doesn’t implement weapon failures, I suggest we maintain the possibility of incoming missiles being detected by the radar, but greatly reducing the locking and firing range. By implementing something like this we could accomodate all aspects of this issue. On one hand, it would effectively end the iron dome meta, since intercepting missiles would be much harder and far less reliable. On the other hand, it would satisfy players who claim air to air missile detection and interception are realistic.
In any case, notching, chaffing and electronic countermeasures (when they are added to WT) seem to be the way to go irl (much more reliable) and it should be the same in Simulator Battles.
Because it is irrelevant. The original claim was “shooting down A2A missiles with A2A missiles is not a thing in real life”
The IRIS-T presence (or lack thereof) in-game doesn’t matter for this claim. They are unrelated, it’s goalpost-moving. Therefore I ignored it.
“I can’t provide any 100% success rate of any AAM; therefore iron dome meta bad”
This makes no sense. Unless you want RNG implementation, which I bet you don’t, then the same argument can be made about missile-aircraft intercepts as well.
If a launch is within parameters, why shouldn’t it hit? Pick a lane.
Once again… every AAM is an interceptor missile… not every interceptor missile is an AAM.
It is absolutely an unnecessary risk. I often get kills from people trying to do this, more often than not, because I don’t make my missile easy intercept. It is not more effective than countermeasures unless you don’t know how to notch.
I’m not saying it is a good tactic, but the arguments being made against it can be summarized into “I don’t like this plz remove”
I didn’t bring up this point, others did. I just challenge the notions by challenging claims and faulty logic by asking for receipts that aren’t “I don’t like this plz remove”.
People say “this isn’t possible IRL”, get proved it is.
“There aren’t any missiles IRL that can do this”, get proven there are.
“But this is not a real life tactic”, which is an irrelevant argument given that IRL the stakes aren’t a death count on a scoreboard, which is why other retarded tactics like flying solo, radar off, sitting in a notch at 10m AGL waiting to dogfight someone who just took off are also not real life tactics.
“yeah but it’s not 100% success rate”, well, nothing is, unless you want RNG, this doesn’t mean anything.
“BUT IT’S BAD FOR GAMEPLAY REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”, debatable. From most arguments it’s just a case of “I DONT LIKE THIS PLS REMOVE”, there is no consistent formal logic beyond opinions being presented.
You cannot control player behavior and tactics. The core issue is the risk in game is nowhere near the risk you would be taking IRL. If the physics is sound, and we aren’t rolling RNG for reliability for every single stage of the missile (ignition, tracking, cruise, pitbull, end-game, and fuze), which we aren’t, then it is always going to be reliable when in parameters.
There is no way to go around this issue without adding either RNG, for mechanical changes, or higher penalties for dying or other game design choices to change player behavior.
ill pick a lane. Iron dome is bad for the game. period. realistic or not, don’t care.
There should be something done to remove or nerf it. Realism out the window i don’t care. people are tired of it at top tier and it absolutely is having a huge negative effect in the game mode in sim and can make its way elsewhere… if this is difficult to grasp please let us know where the lapse in understanding is.
There’s nothing dangerous about pointing out flawed logic.
Finally an honest argument. You have an opinion, based on vibes.
I do not like “iron dome meta”. But i also don’t think 5th gen fighters will be remotely useless because of it. any stealth plane would be able to launch from an angle or aspect which wouldn’t be able to be countered by this tactic, as they would be able to position themselves without being detected unless in close range.
You could give the F-22 an AIM-9B and it would still dominate.
That’s certainly an opinion.
And as with every opinion that isn’t backed up by anything else beside “i don’t like this”, disposable.
If you don’t like realism, I suggest maybe Ace Combat.
