Except, it doesn’t. There’s no real proof this exists. It was all speculation and French nonsense.
Yes, this is with data link from an AWACs or other Aircraft giving accurate position data to the missile, Typhoon can do the exact same with ASRAAM and AMRAAM in real life. However what they can’t do is guess where an aircraft is in 3D space with nothing tracking the target
Why wouldn’t the Rafale’s radar be able to guess where the aircraft is, and pass that information along to the missile?
Every radar in the game has MEM Lock, where the radar still retains memory of the aircraft’s last trajectory/heading. This is fairly accurate for radars in-game, its just that the MICA and similarly the R-77-1 is now able to have that capability of targeting aircraft beyond its gimbal limits.
ASRAAM has been demonstrated with over-the-shoulder capability yes from a Hornet. There’s speculation that this same capability was not available on the AMRAAM until the AIM-120C-7 that allegedly added HOBS capability.
source?
Asraam yes, but AMRAAM?!
I believe there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how MIDS actually functions. AWACS can provide targeting data to the launching aircraft, and this appears either as a MIDS track or, on sensor-fusion capable platforms, as another system-generated track.
You can engage that track with your own weapons, but it’s your onboard radar that provides the missile’s datalink updates. The missile does not receive MIDS updates. This means that if you fire “over the shoulder” or otherwise outside your radar’s coverage, the missile will not receive any datalink guidance. That wouldn’t prevent an over the shoulder launch, just said missile would be working with pre-launch commands only.
Also I’m pretty sure rafale’s irst IRL extends beyond 90 degrees unlike in the game though the only confirmation of this are non specific diagrams of the irst coverage (kinda like pirate)
Even if that was the case, datalink to a missile is provided by the radar, so you would get some nice target cueing but the missile would still be on its own the second it left the radars FoR.
… which will be similar to an IR missile that goes 180°, then Lock-On After Launch (LOAL) with on-board sensors.
More historical is good, but IRST are useless in game.
Briefly when PIRATE and OLS-30 could fire AMRAAM/R-77 they where certainly not useless. I’d imagine when ASRAAM/MICA IR turn up they will have a bit of a renaissance again.
I use IRST to get hmd locks past thr 20km mark, don’t have to turn on the radar, then switch to pd mode and launch.
They are useful in some cases.
what
just to make thing worse, add the rafale with 6 micas at 14.0
TIGER_TANK1 being TIGER_TANK1
That is the case for early ARH missiles. However more recent ones (namely AIM-120D and Meteor) support 3rd party datalink guidance. So you can fire the missile and then hand over to a 3rd party (e.g. another fighter, or AWACs) to provide mid course guidance.
Part of the concept behind weapons like Meteor is that 4.5 gen aircraft can act as a “missile bus” carrying large amounts of missiles to fire at a safe distance, well behind the front line, and then hand over guidance responsibilities to stealthy 5th gen aircraft which can safely operate much closer to the enemy, but not carry as many missiles.
which will basically never happen in the game,… (because reasons)
