So, in the training ground against bots these missiles work perfectly. For my allies these missiles work perfectly, giving them 3-4 frags.
In 6 battles I have never been able to hit a real enemy. What’s the matter?
At the same time, the enemy shoots me down with a return launch of similar missiles.
AIM-54s are a little odd to use and have to be used properly to be effective. AIM-54s can be very easily avoided via notching or just maneuvering as they only pull 17Gs. Personally I’m not very good with them so I don’t have any good tips except to not trust all the targets you see on radar as it can and will pick up missiles in-air
Its possible to dodge them if you notch it, other than that you can’t really outmaneuver one once it reaches a certain distance to you. Another thing how many targets and when they’re picked up on radar is entirely up to how you work the radar, if you sit on TWS and keep the little bar that goes across your screen pointed towards where people fly you’ll start getting locks 10-20 miles away. Once again everything in warthunder has a level of skill behind it that must be utilized for it to be effective, hence why teammates will get 2-3 kills per game while others get none. Honestly my initial answer was horrible but past that this is about as much as I can say. Don’t completely trust me for this since I’m still stock with the Tomcat and my K/D is horrid on everything
hence why teammates will get 2-3 kills per game
That’s my question. What am I doing wrong, what should I do right?
I use TVS mode, take off to about 5 kilometers. And try to fire a missile when I get up to about 1200.
Why doesn’t my radar see the enemy? Why don’t my missiles hit the target?
Every fight is exactly the same. I try to catch the enemy on the radar, catch him, launch two missiles and after 2-5 seconds I die from the enemy AIM-54 regardless of my attempts to dodge.
Radar is a bit finicky, usually targets are a lot farther up than one might think. Search for contrails and point your nose up to them, once TWS catches turn on the seeker and wait until you see two red circles, give it a few seconds to see if it sticks then sling it and switch targets. Past that everything is up to the missile as Phoenixes are ARHs and the enemy might notch it or die before it hits. I havent had much issues with the radar yet as for me it gets locks around 20km
Ok so these are my recommendations, not objective facts, but practices that I find effective.
When employing the AIM-54 you should try to do the following:
1 - Launch from as high and fast as possible. Once you have gained a little speed from the airfield you should climb at 20-25 degrees until you reach 8000-10000m altitude.
2 - Asses your targets carefully, cycle through TWS until you find a suitable target
3 - You want to target aircraft, not missiles. Look at the relative speed to target, missiles are faster than aircraft so a very high closure rate is indicative of a missile. Dense clusters of contacts/smoke trails at altitude are likely Phoenixes, don’t target these.
4 - Asses your target’s heading. On your radar screen you can see a line coming out from the target dot. You want to fire at targets coming straight at you, if they are already going sideways or almost sideways in relation to you, then don’t fire.
5 - Prioritize targets down low, as they are less likely to be competent/confident at BVR fighting, and less likely to pay attention. ARH coming from up high is also more difficult to notch. Even if they successfully evade, the large warhead on AIM-54 can cause critical/lethal splash damage.
6 - Pay attention to what your friendly F-14s are doing. You are basically competing with them for kills, so try to avoid targeting the same enemies. If they are spamming AIM-54 against a certain section of the map, try to find targets outside this area.
7 - Launch at the appropriate distance. If you launch from too far then the rocket motor will burn out too soon and the missile will travel slower, making it easier for you target to react and evade. Too close, and the missile will not have the time to accelerate, it will be too slow and easy to evade. Personally I prefer to launch at 45-50 km away.
8 - Once you have launched your AIM-54s, stay nose-on towards your targets and guide them in for a while. The less erratically the targets are moving, the sooner you may break off. Personally I guide them until they are a few seconds from going “pitbull”, the point where the missile seeker goes active. Still, your survival is more important, so if your RWR is screaming at you, go defensive before it is too late.
9 - Take appropriate fuel load and loadout. For the F-14B I take 6x AIM-54 and 25m fuel. This allows me to climb faster, but still retain enough fuel to stick around in most matches.
My radar just doesn’t see the target. I’ve played about 40 battles now and got my second frag of all time. Apparently you really need to wait for two red circles. But they appear even less often than the radar lock.
Another problem is that when I press to prepare the missile for launch, it randomly (?) chooses one of these actions:
Another question, do I need to continue flying forward until I hit the target, or can I turn back immediately after launch at the red circles?
You can turn back but depending on how you do it you might set yourself up to be slammed by somebody elses AIM-54. Honestly I couldn’t tell you what your radar is doing wrong even if I tried
*forgot to mention wait for the dashed line on radar to become solid before breaking TWS lock, that indicates that the missile is now using its own radar rather than relying on the aircraft
It is very much possible to dodge Phoenixes. In fact they’re one of the easiest missiles to evade.
If you’re using TWS HDN mode, it works best when the target is head-on hence the HDN.
Not really. Sometimes I fire even with just 1 circle, the signal strength will get stronger when the missile gets closer to the target. Also don’t fire at side aspect enemies.
If you launch the missile beyond 16km from the target, you need to provide data link to the missile. Meaning you need to keep the target illuminated with TWS or you need to lock the target until that missile reaches 16km of the target indicated when the circle goes away on the radar screen. From there you can lose lock and turn away.
people know how to notch and multipath a bad shot