more questions: AA weapons

[RAM]

Situation: 2 dutch F-16 groups of 2 Falcons each are on patrol, in passive mode. ESM suddenly detects four Su-30s inbound. I try to do a pincer attack, one group towards his left, other group towards his right. I try to sneak the Falcon groups, to achieve surprise. but one of them fail to do so (low altitude, cruise speed, if I read the AARs right ground clutter is modelled, is that right?).

The flankers turn towards one of the grups group and try to intercept. Knowing the Su-30 missiles have a range of some 50 miles and that my AMRAAMS have only 40, I try to use a run-turn-run attack at reheat. That is; I run away at high altitude and reheat to make them pursue me at max speed aswell. When they are within my AAW range circles, I turn into them: closing speeds of almost 3000 knots make range go down fast, so when they are roughly 1/4th within my range circle, I order a missile attack on them, each plane firing 2 missiles to send 4 AMRAAMS in total (one for each flanker).
My intention is to turn tails and start running away just after firing. Either the Flankers turn and run, or keep following me. If they turn away they will run right into the range of my 2nd Falcon group. If they keep following me, they will eat four AMRAAMS.

So I set the attack ,order the missiles....and nothing happens. I stand looking totally surprised as my missiles simply refuse to fire for something like 5 seconds. Text message says enemy units are firing at me, so I turn tails again and go away running in despair. For nothing. Both falcons were destroyed.

I shake my head in incredulity, my fighters have refused to fire missiles. Still I got another two falcons, so I try to repeat the ruse (but this time if they run away from my missiles they won't hit...oh well...). Again, I order firing AMRAAMS when they are slightly within my range. Again the missiles refuse to fire. Again I lose two falcons. In fact I mostly lose the scenario because I only got two more Falcons and if this behaviour repeats itself, I'll be out of offensive aircraft...

What's going on here? what am I doing wrong?

thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

ORIGINAL: RAM

[...]

So I set the attack ,order the missiles....and nothing happens. I stand looking totally surprised as my missiles simply refuse to fire for something like 5 seconds. Text message says enemy units are firing at me, so I turn tails again and go away running in despair. For nothing. Both falcons were destroyed.

I shake my head in incredulity, my fighters have refused to fire missiles.

[..]

Which game version of ANW you use? I ahve encountered this missiles not firing up to the latest official release I think. But it is resolved in the 3.9.4 betas; at least I haven´t encountered it in these versions.

Regards,
Ralf

[RAM]

I'm playing 3.9.3 ... not really fond of trying betas, but if the issue is solved there, I'll try the latest one

[hermanhum]

ORIGINAL: RAM

Situation: 2 dutch F-16 groups of 2 Falcons each are on patrol, in passive mode. ESM suddenly detects four Su-30s inbound. I try to do a pincer attack, one group towards his left, other group towards his right. I try to sneak the Falcon groups, to achieve surprise. but one of them fail to do so (low altitude, cruise speed, if I read the AARs right ground clutter is modelled, is that right?).

The flankers turn towards one of the grups group and try to intercept. Knowing the Su-30 missiles have a range of some 50 miles and that my AMRAAMS have only 40, I try to use a run-turn-run attack at reheat. That is; I run away at high altitude and reheat to make them pursue me at max speed aswell. When they are within my AAW range circles, I turn into them: closing speeds of almost 3000 knots make range go down fast, so when they are roughly 1/4th within my range circle, I order a missile attack on them, each plane firing 2 missiles to send 4 AMRAAMS in total (one for each flanker).
My intention is to turn tails and start running away just after firing. Either the Flankers turn and run, or keep following me. If they turn away they will run right into the range of my 2nd Falcon group. If they keep following me, they will eat four AMRAAMS.

So I set the attack ,order the missiles....and nothing happens. I stand looking totally surprised as my missiles simply refuse to fire for something like 5 seconds. Text message says enemy units are firing at me, so I turn tails again and go away running in despair. For nothing. Both falcons were destroyed.

I shake my head in incredulity, my fighters have refused to fire missiles. Still I got another two falcons, so I try to repeat the ruse (but this time if they run away from my missiles they won't hit...oh well...). Again, I order firing AMRAAMS when they are slightly within my range. Again the missiles refuse to fire. Again I lose two falcons. In fact I mostly lose the scenario because I only got two more Falcons and if this behaviour repeats itself, I'll be out of offensive aircraft...

What's going on here? what am I doing wrong?

I think that low level clutter is simulated. You can often approach a target and escape detection much more easily from low altitude than from high altitude.

There is also a specific setting possible for radar. It is called the "Look Down/Shoot Down" flag. Supposedly, radar with this capability are more able to search for aircraft flying at a lower altitude from the searching platform. I haven't tested this function, but I think that is what it is supposed to do.

The problem with the missiles not releasing has already been reported:

[link=http://tinyurl.com/6pepx2][color=DarkRed][b]Missiles not releasing[/b][/color][/link] Missiles not releasing even though they are assigned in Weapons allocation window [Originally reported by KlubMarcus].

All you can do is pause the game every few seconds and try to re-allocate the weapons to see if they fire. There's not much else you can do.

You can also try to run with Weapons Free and designate the enemy contacts as Hostile with the 'H' hotkey. As you close on them, the AI will fire as soon as it can.

If both you and the target are both travelling at high velocity, you may not be able to fire until you are at 1/2 your Max Range. This is because the game engine tries to calculate a bit of 'no-escape' envelope. It doesn't want you to just turn away and outrun the AAMs, so it holds fire. The higher your speeds are, the closer you must get.

[hermanhum]

ORIGINAL: RAM

I'm playing 3.9.3 ... not really fond of trying betas, but if the issue is solved there, I'll try the latest one

I am not a fan of the Beta, either. I urge great caution when using a Beta release from AGSI. We tried the Beta for awhile on AoA's public server for MP, but we reverted back to the 3.9.3.

If you decide to use this experimental release, I suggest that you keep a copy of the 3.9.3 version handy for MP play. If you try to log on with Beta, I'm told it causes some problems.

While the Beta may solve some problems, it is just as likely to create others and you will be left scratching your head and wondering, "What the heck just happened?" [:(]

Herman (he who Shalt Not do Beta)

[hermanhum]

This game-killing problem has not been fixed in Patch 3.9.4
[*]Missiles not releasing

Missiles not releasing even though they are assigned in Weapons allocation window [Originally reported by KlubMarcus].