[ANSWERED] Missile Accuracy

[bertibott]

Hi,

I have been playing the Canary's Cage scenario from the stock game. Among other things there is a lot of Air-to-air combat going on. And I can't help but find that my planes (F/A-18A Hornets armed with AIM-120B and AIM-9L) are generally getting their asses kicked by the enemies F-16s.
My main problem is that the AIM-120Bs seem to be mostly decorative. Over the first few hours of the scenario only about 10% of them actually hit their target whereas the enemies AIM-7M seem to have almost 90% hitrate.

The situation is that I have set up an AAW patrol with an patrol and prosecution areas. And since I thought my planes were somewhat superior I'd let the AI do its thing... Well.. that didn't work out too well...

Is there a trick to getting your missiles to actually hit anything?

[Schr75]

Hi

Without a save game or message log is is a bit difficult to tell you why your missiles miss, but my guess would be range.

As default the AI will fire at max range incurring heavy range penalties, something like 50%, making it very difficult to hit an agile bird like the F-16.
Try adjusting the WRA so the max launch range is something like half the max range of the missile. This should improve accuracy significantly.

The only AAM´s that can be fired at max range without penalties are the ramjet powered ones (Meteor, AIM-152 etc).

Hope this helps

Søren

[bertibott]

okay.. i shall try that... though to be honhest i thought the point of a guided missile is to constantly re-calculate its trajectory... thereby making the point of origin irrelevant... can somebody explain to ma why distance would make such a big difference?

[FoxZz]

Because most missiles are not boosted during all their flight but only in the first seconds. After that they follow a ballistic path and any change of direction will degrade their energy/speed. When they are out of energy their are litterally falling like bricks.
Launch altitude and speed also impacts their final peformances, basically, fast and high is better because you give more energy to the missile and the air is less dense meaning less drag and less loss of energy.

So when they're close to their max range, missiles have very few energy left and any manuver will make them miss their target.

[Schr75]

The booster of a rocket powered missile only burns for a relatively short period of time, boosting the missile to high speed. After burnout the missile coasts the rest of the way to the target, losing energy all the time.

The longer the coast period, the less energy is available for maneuvering at the end game. That´s why there is a rather steep range penalty. This is also why ramjet powered missiles don´t have this penalty. They are a lot more fuel efficient, and therefore burn their engine all the way to intercept.

Søren

[bertibott]

ah... that makes sense! thanks guys!
I'll see how it goes with reduced firing distances...

The more I learn about this game the harder it gets... maybe I should stop asking questions...

[marksi10]

I had the same problem in Canary´s Cage, and I tried to fix it by turning off ´stand-off attack´ on the ROE. This seemed to have a positive effect.

I really think the US is being a bit shortsighted in this area. I heard the head of the Navy´s f-35 test program say that it needs a longer-range/more kinematic missile, but that industry should take the lead in the development of one, which seems unlikely to happen, unless you asked them to come up with an alternative to buying or licensing Meteor, in which case I would imagine that Raytheon would develop one in no time at all!

They could even do something along the lines of the new UK-Japan project, and mate the Meteor body with a US seeker, if US industry has to be involved.

[Rory Noonan]

Cutting down AMRAAM WRA range to about 70% of maximum will make a big difference. However my understanding of 'stand-off engagement' is that it affects surface units attaching each other, not aircraft.