Matrix Games Forums

Watching some videos of missiles and missile launches, I noticed the following: the smoke trails starting from the ground. So they are not contrails but smoke trails, in some cases enormous ones. They and their shadows are visible tens of miles from launch location. Additionally SAM missiles are giant torches when the rocket motor burns. This can be seen even better. Here is an example of launches seen even through undercast. Imagine this at night time conditions.
CMO pays IMHO no respect to this so far. I added a small test under desert/night time conditions. The missile launch of side B is already ordered, so you have just to hit the play button.


So may be it is easier to divide in contrails (altitude and propulsion depended) and fire ball and smoke trails (as long as the rocket motor burns).

Sorry for being so annoying on this issue, but the more I look the more questions I have.

Pretty sure we already spike the visual & IR signatures of missiles during launch & boost, but we'll take another look.

IR works, I had a test case with an MIG 29 and the KOLS detected the launch instantly.