Facing 4th generation's: WVR survival tactics

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

I am sure some of you guys like to play as the baddies. 

I am most curious to hear about your survival tactics and your combat strategies while flying MiG 21 & 23 against more formidable western opponents. Or at least better armed ones when it comes to dogfighting.

Hitting the deck to escape the F-15's AIM-7 sparrows more or less do the trick. But does anyone have a suggestion for those pesky sidewinders? I find it quite gamey, but I manage to come within visual range most of the time, flying at tree-top level. But the dogfight is my main issue. How the heck can I counter these AIM-9L/M?!

Actually, the question is valid against Russian/Soviet 4th generation too, 1990's Black Sea is a dangerous airspace as well, even in a F-14/F-15.

 

 

[Snailman 517]

Considering the way this game is designed, how some of the game values are being used in mods and the time I struggled with fine tuning a large bunch of red side missiles -

 

- I can say nothing helps against agile IRM, but ton's of chaff/flares dumped in the way of incoming seeker head.

 

The logic how CM rejection works gives you a sensitive result.  Actually no missile should have lower than about 50 and higher than 92-95. Definitely no 100 ever.

 

Flying low helps against missiles which have low noise rejection or their controlling radars have minimum altitude you can get under. Noise is not only jamming and ground clutter but heat signatures as well.  IRM with low noise resistance performs also badly near ground or can lock on the sun.

[Caesar 305]

I was doing kind of an ACEVAL/AIMVAL mission set with numerous aircraft against the MiG-21 armed with R73s flying F-4E AUP, F-14/15/16/18, and the F-22.  Visual ID before shooting basically nullified any advantage held by the newer fighters, excepting initial position and thus (usually) first shot.  We were always outnumbered.  The biggest advantage I found against the AIM-9M and R73, is if you cut your afterburner and dump flares, you can usually fool a few of them.  I'm guessing the game has some logic for burners; if I ever forgot to drop out of afterburner, I almost always got hit by an IR missile regardless of flares.  If I did drop out and dump flares, I at least had a chance.

[Snailman 517]

Umm I never tried that... its logical however. I will make some test for that too.

 

Have you tried the Red Side Standard package of missiles? JUst curious.

[Caesar 305]

Snailman,

 

I'm pretty sure I have that mod installed.  Had basically every Red missile from AA-1 to AA-12, correct?

[Snailman 517]

Yes, and every Kh (but the most modern ones) and bombs/rockets too.

 

Also I plan to make an upgrade, when I get ready with the ordnance for the Su-17 family.

[Caesar 305]

Quick update to this one: I adjusted my Ace Combat 5 Mission 1 scenario (4v12) to have more modern missiles.  Flew it about 5 minutes ago and had no less than 5 R73M1's fired at me.  Dropping out of burner and dumping flares fooled every one.  I had about 20 to spare (was flying the F-14D_96, so I started with 60 flares and 320 BOL chaff) by the time the last bandit was engaged.  #2 fired an AIM-9M while I was on the last bandit's tail looking to gun him, so I broke, dropped out of burner, and dumped another 10 flares.  I didn't get hit.  #2 finished him off.

 

So, it does seem like the game engine has some value to deal with heat signatures in afterburner vice military power, and flares seem to work MUCH better if you're not in AB.  That or this is an on-going coincidence.  Of note, I am using the Red Side Standard missiles, so there might be another R73 out there that just rejects flares like a madman.

[Snailman 517]

I tried to use sane values of course.

 

Well, that would be good to know about the heat signature -  as there is a default value, but that's just a modifier I think.

 

HeatSignatureModifier=

 

And here, how CM works:

 

[ChaffData]
EffectName=ChaffEffect
RadarCrossSection=100.0
MaxVisibleDistance=12000
DragFactor=0.07
LifeTime=3.0
Length=0.5
VelocityDeviation=0.3

[FlareData]
EffectName=FlareEffect
MaxVisibleDistance=12000
HeatSignature=100.0
DragFactor=0.05
LifeTime=4.0
VelocityDeviation=0.3

 

 

What I figured out, is CM rejection is a mere throwing of a dice - random percentage... cumulatively.

 

50 rejection is  50% - one time. but a second one is 50% of 50%  - 25%   so you can imagine several CM dumped kills this missile very quickly. Take a look at this table

 

 

 

 

 

Also see this topic

http://combatace.com/topic/81788-are-all-aspect-missiles-too-deadly/

 

 

I think - because missiles do improve with the years but CM does not - it could be a solution to add more CM launchers on a plane with multiple eject directions. Worth some experiments.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Snailman