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This is a continuation from a conversation in AAR section

I notice that if a plane is engaged by A2A radar missile and goes defensive, all members of the flight go defensive. What is more many planes in the near vicinity go defensive as well. This creates some funny situations like one I caused yesterday. Playing Mediterranean Fury 2 (unfortunately no save because I wanted to play without the temptation of reloading) and facing a swarm of 30+ enemy planes, it sufficed to fire a A2A radar guided missile to have a dozen or two enemy planes going defensive and moving away for as long as a missile was in the air.

I would guess that the particular plane that is indeed targeted by the enemy radar will get a "your are locked" signal and engage defensive, while the rest would continue mission. It seems to me that this is not entirely the case and the defensive posture is adopted by more planes.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the above and apologies for the "naked" (no save) post.

This has been discussed before. It's what real pilots will likely do under pressure.

Put yourself in the position of the pilot. You see a missile coming in your general direction. Even if you hear from a wingman "I am locked", you are not certain if the missile you have spotted is the one heading for him (maybe there are more out there that you just haven't seen yet). Or maybe that missile has a non-radar guidance. There are too many things you don't know. The only thing you know with certainty is that a non-friendly missile is near you. If you ignore it, it may be your last mistake - and also doom the mission. There is too much at stake to play cowboy. More than likely, you will maneuver to evade it until it is clear it is not heading for you (or it runs out of energy, or detonates). We have specific AI routines in place that simulate the crew's thought process for determining if a missile seems to be heading for them or another unit.

There are plenty of historical precedents for this. USAF/USN pilots would sometimes fire Sparrows blind against NVAF MiG formations (helped by the Sparrow's greatly-visible exhaust) to break them up, scatter them and put them on the defensive, making subsequent follow-up attacks more likely to succeed. NVA SA-2 operators did the same trick against US aircraft for the same reason. Yom Kippur saw the same trick being used, mainly from Egyptian & Syrian SAM operators - one of the most reliable ways to force Israeli aircraft to low altitude (ie. within the envelope of deadly AAA fire) was to sling a missile at them, guided or not. I'd bet fair money this has been a tactic in Ukraine too, for the same reasons.

It takes a very disciplined (or suicidal) pilot to stick with the desired course in the face of incoming missiles. You can force such a behavior if you want, by setting the "evasive action" doctrine setting to NO. But beware that, if that missile out there is indeed coming at you, you just made yourself an easier target.

Even we cheat a bit, because only the units within a certain angle relative to the missile go defensive

Real life, things are different:

https://youtu.be/HqvDLzU5DXQ?si=BO8I2fdnTAbO0M8B&t=1362

Thanks for the reply. Setting evasive action to NO, I guess would affect also the behavior of the pilot that is indeed targeted and listens the radar locked signal in his cockpit, correct? Which means that one would need to micromanage the evasive manoeuvres of that plane as well, no? In general I don't want to micromanage anything (with the exception of incoming torpedoes sometimes)

If you don't want to micromanage CMO, don't micromanage CMO. If you want to micromanage CMO, feel free to micromanage CMO.
- Confucius, 477 BC

Dimitris wrote: Fri Jun 06, 2025 12:14 pm If you don't want to micromanage CMO, don't micromanage CMO. If you want to micromanage CMO, feel free to micromanage CMO.
- Confucius, 477 BC

I believe the original quote is of Epictetus (around 50-135 AD) as follows:

"εἰ μὴ βούλει τὸ CMO ἐπιστατεῖν, μὴ ἐπιστάτει τῷ CMO· εἰ δὲ βούλει τὸ CMO ἐπιστατεῖν, ἔξεστι σοι τὸ CMO ἐπιστατεῖν."

I prefer the Klingon source material:

CMO yISeHbe' DaneHchugh, yISeHbe'. CMO yISeH DaneHchugh, yISeH.
- Kahless the Unforgettable, 857 AD

Lol yes CMO is very realistic in its approach to this. As a mission planner for the other side, the best realistic approach to counter that "fire a missile to scatter multiple attackers" is to attack from a multiple axis approach. This makes each defensive SAM/AAM only trigger the defensive reaction from one or MAYBE 2. If your attacking aircraft are all bunched relatively close or on the same bearing from the firer then it should be obvious that to each pilot "that missile I see looks headed for me".