Help with BVR-Engagements

[Grondoval]

Hi,

I´m playing the great Canarys Cage Scenario right now and having a complete breeze - nice performance , nice design. But with the huge amount of enemy planes in the area I started to think about the Hit-Probability of my AIM-120B Amraams. As a relatively experienced Falcon 4.0 BMS Player I remembered I rarerly rippled more than 2 Amraams at a single Target (in optimal DLZ) to ensure a kill. Sometimes I even managed to kill 2 seperate Targets via Track-While-Scan-Mode.
Right now in Canarys Cage I launched 94 Amraams in total against F-16C, Mirage and MIG-29 and got about 20 Kills. When there was a large wave of enemy planes incoming I scrambled 4 Harrier with 12 Amraams in total. Out of the 5 enemy planes I managed to kill one with all the missiles before coming in IR-Missile-Range.

Has anyone have any tips on how to be more efficient with these missiles? I tried launching the missiles when the enemy was closer and always rippled at least 2 missiles, but the enemy always accelerated so fast after dodging the first missile the following AAM rarely hit too.

Thank you for your help [:)]

[mikmykWS]

Hi

Seems you understand the WRA settings and aren't shooting at max range.

Any idea why they're missing from the logs? Decoys or just missing? These provide lots of hints as to why you're not getting the results you'd like.

Mike

[Grondoval]

Thank you for your fast answer [:)],

unfortunatly I disabled the "weapon-hit-roll"-feature in the log because I dont want any additional information about my enemy. From what I get out of my log, every missile was detected before impact so the enemy always started evasive maneuvers. Whats gets me a little curious is that some SU-22 Fitters detected the incoming AMRAAMS at 5 NM with their MK1 Eyeballs regardless that its very early in the morning and still dark. Then the Fitters turned around and jammed in their afterburners (or military power). I suspect the AAMs missed because of the high speed of their target.

I saved a couple of times in the scenario and im checking it with the datalog set accordingly right now. [:)]

[Grondoval]

I got a couple of logs here:

04:31:21 - Weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1618 is attacking Atlas #8 with a base PH of 90%. PH adjusted for distance: 67%. PH adjusted for actual target speed (883 kts): 54%. Atlas #8 has nominal agility: 4. Agility adjusted for proficiency (Regular): 3,2. High-deflection impact (no effect on agility). Final agility modifier: -32%. Final PH: 22%. Result: 97 - MISS

04:31:17 - Weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1615 is attacking Atlas #8 with a base PH of 90%. PH adjusted for distance: 66%. PH adjusted for actual target speed (880 kts): 53%. Atlas #8 has nominal agility: 4. Agility adjusted for proficiency (Regular): 3,2. High-deflection impact (no effect on agility). Final agility modifier: -32%. Final PH: 21%. Result: 22 - MISS

04:31:10 - Weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1614 is attacking Atlas #10 with a base PH of 90%. PH adjusted for distance: 70%. PH adjusted for actual target speed (675 kts): 64%. Atlas #10 has nominal agility: 4. Agility adjusted for proficiency (Regular): 3,2. High-deflection impact (no effect on agility). Final agility modifier: -32%. Final PH: 32%. Result: 35 - MISS

04:30:42 - Weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1611 is attacking Phantom #2 with a base PH of 90%. PH adjusted for distance: 61%. PH adjusted for actual target speed (508 kts): 61%. Phantom #2 has nominal agility: 3,5. Agility adjusted for proficiency (Regular): 2,8. High-deflection impact (no effect on agility). Final agility modifier: -28%. Final PH: 33%. Result: 40 - MISS


Am I still too far out? The missiles got a severe PH-penalty for distance.

[MR_BURNS2]

They probably spot the missile's contrails, something that isn't modeled in BMS (yet?), but on the other hand there shouldn't be contrails in the endgame when the missile is out of fuel and gliding.

Hard to tell how easy it is to spot a small A-A missiles contrail in real life.

[thewood1]

Am I missing the range from which the missiles were fired?

[Grondoval]

Initially I set the WRA range setting to 35 NM which gave me PH of about 20 - 30 %. I checked it again with the firing range halved at 20 NM. This improved the PH to around 60 % which is consistent with what I could read about it on the net.

Is 50 % a recommended value for the range setting?

[Tomcat84]

It depends a bit per missile but it's probably a good bet. For bvr stuff I try to come up with a range that eliminates the "PH adjusted for distance" modifier. 50% is probably a good bet for that.

Of course it also depends on the tactical situation and the type of target (e.g. A transport plane will be less maneuverable than a fighter do I'll shoot farther out.

[Gunner98]

Of course it also depends on the tactical situation

When possible I try and manipulate this. Attacks from multiple angles seems to help, jammers definitely do, take out any support AC (AEW, Tanker, Jammers) if possible. Often trying to draw the bad guys into an unfavorable situation tips the balance.

'Poke out his eyes and kick him in the ...' [:D]

B

[p1t1o]

Jammers, definitely have a jammer a/c with you if at all possible, depending on your opponent it can vastly reduce your losses - you will also be engaged less frequently and less early, giving you more opportunities for attack.

Multiple-angle AA attacks help, if you can set it up, because with missiles arriving from two directions, the opponent will not be in a favorable position to evade all of them, so some of your shots will benefit from higher Pk's.

Range-wise, again it depends on my loadout and theirs, but I try and hold fire until a range where I think my missile will arrive just in time to spoil his shot, ie: as close as possible whilst still getting the first shot in. In practice, this is usually between 50% and 66% of max range.

I always volley 2 missiles, no more no less, very few exceptions, if the first two missiles miss, another two are launched straight away.

With an opponent of comparable technological level though, you can expect quite low hit ratios, 15%-25% in some cases, especially if the enemy has jammers!

As to how this compares with other sims, well Falcon 4.0 is an excellent one, but they each try to simulate realism in their own way, with their own data and you sometimes get differing results - but comparing results from one sim to another doesn't make a lot of sense as there is no real-life data-point in that comparison.

PS: sometimes you just get unlucky on the dice rolls, I have seen relatively obsolete a/c avoid missile after missile after missile...[:@]

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: p1t1o
PS: sometimes you just get unlucky on the dice rolls, I have seen relatively obsolete a/c avoid missile after missile after missile...[:@]

In the first days of the Falklands conflict, IIRC an Argie B707 pressed into MPA duty was shot at by RN Sea Darts. _Six times_. And escaped unscathed.

I can't wait for something like that to happen in Command, followed by thunderous proclamations in this or other forums that "our AAW mechanics are broken" [:D]

[p1t1o]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

ORIGINAL: p1t1o
PS: sometimes you just get unlucky on the dice rolls, I have seen relatively obsolete a/c avoid missile after missile after missile...[:@]

In the first days of the Falklands conflict, IIRC an Argie B707 pressed into MPA duty was shot at by RN Sea Darts. _Six times_. And escaped unscathed.

I can't wait for something like that to happen in Command, followed by thunderous proclamations in this or other forums that "our AAW mechanics are broken" [:D]

Have you ever visited the "Wargame" (the RTSs by Eugen) forums...

[Gunner98]

A line I have picked up from my new job:

'Simulation must be realistic and make sence - reality dosn't!' [:D]

B

[Grondoval]

Thank you for your feedback ! [:)]

After I cut down my WRA-Distance to about 50 % of the original weapon range, I got way better results. Im still victim of some bad dice rolls occasionally but I can deal with that [:D]

Now I try to implement some new tactics like group splitting. After that hopefully I can cut down my AMRAAM depletion rate because in Canarys Cage my supply quickly dried up with 30 % hit rates [8|]

[ExNusquam]

I can't wait for something like that to happen in Command, followed by thunderous proclamations in this or other forums that "our AAW mechanics are broken"

In Play the Fool, I wandered a P-8 a bit close to a Type 052C. By luck of the die rolls, it managed to dodge 3 HQ-9s and escape.

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: ExNusquam

I can't wait for something like that to happen in Command, followed by thunderous proclamations in this or other forums that "our AAW mechanics are broken"

In Play the Fool, I wandered a P-8 a bit close to a Type 052C. By luck of the die rolls, it managed to dodge 3 HQ-9s and escape.

Any idea what the percentages looked like?

Mike

[ExNusquam]

Any idea what the percentages looked like?

No idea. This was at least a year ago. The HQ-9 only has a base Ph of 80%, so 3 misses at range isn't that far out there. I considered it karma for all of the 100 die rolls I've received.

[mikmykWS]

Ok will play around with it and see if anything seems odd.

[Zaslon]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

ORIGINAL: p1t1o
PS: sometimes you just get unlucky on the dice rolls, I have seen relatively obsolete a/c avoid missile after missile after missile...[:@]

In the first days of the Falklands conflict, IIRC an Argie B707 pressed into MPA duty was shot at by RN Sea Darts. _Six times_. And escaped unscathed.

I can't wait for something like that to happen in Command, followed by thunderous proclamations in this or other forums that "our AAW mechanics are broken" [:D]

For this reason, I always engage ECM aircrafts with the cannon. They never escape [:D]

[erichswafford]

I've asked this exact same question before, and Mike answered it: Don't fire missiles at max range if you want them to hit anything agile. By the time they get to max range, they're so energy-depleted that they can barely maneuver and it is entirely realistic that they can barely hit anything. After Mike told me this, I even called up a friend of mine from my USAF days and as I described what I was seeing with my AIM-120's missing fighters at long range in this crazy game he'd never heard of, he was just silent.

Finally, I asked him "So does this sound right?" and he replied in a quiet, serious tone: "Erich, how do you know about this?".

Is that good enough confirmation? lol