WHY DOES MY AIM 9M WONT TRACK, WHERE IS THE IRCCM? IM DIRECTLY BEHIND THE GUY, AND FIRED UNDER 1 KM, THE MISSILE WAS EASILY FOOLED BY FLARES.
Irccm missiles perform better side aspect, especially if they dont turn into the missile.
If a 9m sees flares between the engine and itself and keeps seeing them its joever the launch is cooked unless the plane is directly behind the flares.
I know this is for defending missiles but you can gleam what a good launch is from knowing how they are defeated. Neither type of irccm missile in game right now is too hard to beat if the person knows what they are doing especially at certain aspects.
First things first.
Aim-9M uses seeker shutoff. This means that when it sees a flare, rather than going for the flare, it switches its seeker off and goes for the targets last known position. The seeker will switch back on periodically, but if you can be outside the seekers FoV when this happens, then it wont update its track So bare this in mind.
At 0:12 you lock onto the target, Im assuming there is a bit of a replay bugginess here, but it also looks a bit like it locked onto a flare. Potentially may have been worth holding for a second longer before firing, but it may have been pre-flared (really hard to tell from the replay, especially a video of a replay)
At 0:30 the target definetly starts dropping flares. This is where the seeker would shut off and continue to “track” the targets last known position. At 0:33 you can see this quite clearly, the missile is going for where the target was, but the Gripen pilot clearly knows what hes doing and breaks off hard right.
Aim-9M is both the hardest to defeat and the easiest at the same time. They require specific knowledge and specific tactics to defeat, but unlike Magic II and R-73 can be defeated at any range. The potency of the Aim-9M comes from longer ranged shots (this is why im heavily advocating for Aim-9M lock range buffs)
Also if the target is already defending/doing something else or its a side aspect shot as Sternlos pointed out, then the Aim-9M is very very hard to defeat.
but if you want evidence of Aim-9M’s being very effective against flaring, watch this clip
TLDR: The Gripen knew what he was doing and how to defend. Personally, in that situation, I would have fired an AMRAAM, the BOL Chaff on the Gripen is useless at those kinds of ranges and he would never have gotten into the notch in time.