- A bug that caused a significant decrease in the probability of incoming missiles being hit by fragments from other munitions has been fixed.
They even “fixed” the iron-dome meta in the last patch two days ago lol
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I’m not going to deny this meta is annoying, but fox-3 on fox-3 interception is known to have happened
a ship from the french navy intercepted a Mica with an aster (same seeker, very similar in speed and maneuverability compared to a MICA once booster is detached) a while back
Note that the ship in question (a Fremm) has a rotating radar and not particularly impressive range or power for a radar of its class. One could consider large and more modern airborne radars more capable
rate of interception though, that’s an other subject, and Gaijin should use this to nerf that meta. I do believe most armies indicate you need to fire 2 interceptors for one missile, this could be a way of nerfing this counter, as your missile count would become less powerful if you use the iron dome “technique”
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Gameplay > realism
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you did not read my post in its entirety, did you…
Yup. Just make it a 50/50 dice roll and iron dome is fixed
I love the hmd
Shame the defensive kit is subpar
No screw that
Remove it
Completely
For anything other than SAMs and SPAAs
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The event you mention happened in October of last year, under a controlled environment and the Thales Herakles radar used by the ship ( based on public information) has a peak power output of 80+kW with a 250Km detection range for fighter sized targets and the ability to track 400+ Air and Surface targets with a total system power consumption of 150+kW.
Since we really do not have that much information on Russian/Chinese radars I will use a comparison with a NATO radar.
The Raytheon AN/APG-79(V)4 a modern AESA radar on current fighters has a peak transmit power of 15kW with an electrical draw of 30kW.
Soo yeah, a ship radar can guide a missile to intercept another airborne missile due to the fact that is exponentially more powerful.
No, there are no public, officially recorded instances in real-world combat of a Fox 3 missile (Active Radar Homing, like an AIM-120 AMRAAM or Russian R-77) intercepting another incoming Fox 3 missile launched from an enemy fighter jet.
While air-to-air missiles are technically capable of intercepting fast-moving aerial objects (and have successfully shot down cruise missiles, drones, and even artillery rockets in surface-to-air roles like NASAMS), using a fighter-launched Fox 3 missile as a direct counter-missile hard-kill interceptor against an enemy air-to-air missile does not happen in practical warfare
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and the source for that is… ?
It’s also to note Herakles is a rotating PESA, not exactly the state of the art when tracking fast objects
Aster is an ARH, there’s basically no functionnal difference between it and a MICA. Its diameter (180mm) is basically the same as AMRAAM (178mm)
Here are the specs for the Herakles
Page 2 Radar Forecast
Herakles
December 2022
Technical Data
Metric U.S.
Characteristics
Antenna type Active phased array, two-axis monopulse
Frequency E-/F-band S-band
Range (3D air domain) 250 km 135.0 nm
Range (surface domain) 80 km 43.2 nm
Coverage
Range 0 km - 250 km 0 mi - 135.0 nm
Azimuth 360°
Elevation 0° - 70°
Rotation rate 60 rpm
Track capacity >400
Directly from their brochure, not hard to search for Thales Herakles, we are in 2026 we can use our browser/search engine for official public information.
As for the second part “Aster is an ARH, there’s basically no functional difference between it and a MICA. Its diameter (180mm) is basically the same as AMRAAM (178mm)” you are confusing the part where they are similar missiles but omitting the fact that one is guided to target by a way more powerful radar that what is available on a fighter.
Not to mention the ASTER has active RF seeker that is OPTIMIZED to track small, fast low-signature targets while take the aim 120 that has seeker ENGINEERED to look for RCS of an airplane.
Also you mentioned the diameter, but conveniently forgot the aster has a 380MM booster section. that is jettisoned after the initial burn time of 3.5 seconds. Takes the weight of it to 490KG compared to a MICA that is 112KG
It is like stating what a Scania truck and a Ferrari have 600+ Horsepower engines, so both can pull a 20 tone load and do 280 kph on the freeway. You are forgetting specialized applications and purpose of a system. Or that all doctors can help with any medical emergency, you would not go to an ophthalmologist for a broken leg?
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Aster has an AD4A seeker, most likely a bit enlarged
It’s basically a MICA seeker
You are correct they do use the same family of seeker the AD4A but since they are modified for each role it means they cannot do both at the same time, so you can have the Aster 30 that is designed with specific interception requirements since the has a scaled and adapted variant for its larger size and the MICA variant specialized for air to air.
They exclude each other, and cannot fulfill both roles at the same time, the Aster 30 cannot be fired from a plane as the whole package was designed to be launched from a ground or ship vertical launcher with a specialized seeker for its role of intercepting missiles.
The Mica can be used to incept cruise missiles and glide bombs but not the air to air mica, specifically the VL Mica ( vertical launch) since it uses the a tactical radar and a tactical operating center command-and - control system think GM200/GM400. Way more powerful and with a larger bus compared to a fighter radar.
Again tailored modifications and seeker optimizations are made to give it this ability. So no a fox3 fired from a fighter cannot intercept another fox 3. In the future maybe, who knows.
You are not looking at the whole weapons system required and tailor made for such a capability, it is like stating that a knife and a scalpel are both sharp and cut things so you can use them for any task that require a sharp thing to cut stuff.
You use the knife for your food and the scalpel for surgery. You have specialized missiles that with the proper support, system radars, seeker optimization, missile size, booters, launch parameters CAN intercept other missiles in flight and other variants of the same missiles with specialized engineering, seeker optimizations, fin layout, missile size, launch parameters intercept planes.
See where I am getting at? Separate missiles ( albeit from the same family with major changes between them) for separate tasks, it is not one size fits all. So no the versions designed to be launched from jets are not the same version ground launched. So Iron Dome cannot be done with current missiles in game launched from planes.
Want to Iron Dome, ask gaijin to allow ground launched version of the missiles ( way more weight attached) so you can intercept other munitions at the cost of the missiles that can intercept planes.
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yes
No, it’s basically the same seeker, are you using AI ? The reasoning seems to fall apart midway
Regarding the mothership radar, be it on a ship, truck, or plane, the question is to know if it can detect a missile sized target
Considering the RCS of an average sized ARH
Considering the range of modern airborne AESA radars
Considering the range at which war thunder battles are fought at :
it is theorically possible to detect them and shoot them down.
The PK is most likely set too high in game though, and i wouldn’t mind Gaijin nerfing iron dome meta at all.
Been busy with work but let’s give it another go and test your reading comprehension since you ignored all reasoning,
The AD4A is not a universal seeker it has variants that gain or loose certain features,. Different versions of missiles like the mica , aster 15, aster 30 have different versions of the seeker. If you go on MBDA to their brochure section you will see the differences in the missiles and targeting capabilities and their intended roles and use cases.
So no, they are not in fact identical seekers that can do everything at once, they are variations of a seeker that are specialized to do one or the other. NOT both.
To explain it in more gamer terms you have the DRUID in WoW, you can spec into Feral - melee DPS, Bear- Tank, Resto - Healer and Boomie - Ranger magic DPS. All the specs are basically the same class a DRUID but they do different things based on their specialization. Same thing as what you fail to understand or intentionally omit with the seekers, they are ALL seekers but specialized for different things and cannot do everything at the same time.
Wanting to believe that fighter launched fox3 missiles can intercept other fighter launched fox3 missiles does not make it true.
So granted there has been a few successful tests from modified Ground launched versions of certain missiles that made an interception does not make that all fox3 missiles can intercept fox3 missiles.
The fact that you are trivializing everything to It is an ARH that intercepted an ARH shows a lack of understanding of the broader picture.
Also to point out RCS, are we measuring in squared meters or decibels? Do you thing that if simply have an AESA radar you get magical powers that builds the perfect radar, tracking, interception, all bands, all usages like some Captain Planet cartoon (not many people will get his joke ) Electronic Steering, Instantaneous Sweeps, Electronic Warfare, Independent Modules by your powers combined I am CAPTAIN RADAR.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if fox 3s with lazer fuses could intercept other air to air missiles, but fox 3s with radar fuses shouldn’t be able to
you don’t seem very consistent in your reasoning, several messages ago it was the mothership’s radar being different, now it’s the missile’s
AD4A on MICA and Aster work in the same band (Ku or J depending on your favorite naming convention)
and both date back to the late 1990s. Nothing indicates drastically similar seekers or even “specific variants”
Except there’s no reason to, they are designed to intercept roughly the same thing (planes, cruise missiles, helicopters). Aster can do a bit more on high speed and maneuverable threats compared to MICA, but it mostly comes down to a higher speed and PIF-PAF. If the seeker was perfect for this specific mission from the get-go, they wouldn’t have changed it from Ku to Ka when upgrading to Aster-30 B1 NT.
Note that the FREMM who did the interception is not equipped with 30 B1 NT yet.
Ignoring the “humorous” paragraph, decibels as a unit of measurement are a direct result of the m², but represented in a more comprehensible way (thanks logarithmic scales, i guess), so i’m not too sure how that matters in this context.
For your typical AAM, we’re looking at, what, about -20 dbsm, depending on aspect ? (https://www.sige.ita.br/edicoes-anteriores/2008/st/P_2.pdf?x32447)
Unless I got my maths wrong, this isn’t something unachievable in theory for your usual AESA radar present in game for the range AAMs are fired at (10-50 km)
That’s the problem with your reasoning, it is an absolute claim that AAM on AAM intercept can’t be done, while in theory and as far as i can see, nothing forbids it. Note : i’m not making the claim it should be a reliable thing that works all the time and i would be very much incapable of calculating the PK for such a scenario.
To restate my opinion :
- Is iron dome in game fun ? no, and i agree it should go.
- Is it realistic ? None of us can really tell, though one can make an educated guess it should at least not be as reliable as it is, and not reliable enough as a defensive measure.
One small suggestion : no need for the high-horse attitude, makes the exchange less polluted and i think none of us here can claim we know for certain how these systems work. We’re basically stuck with basic formulas and scarce public information, we don’t know the signal processing and computing part. A little humility does not hurt
Aster has a radar proximity fuze and did intercept a Mica so it seems they can to some extent