AIM-9X Performance
-
@Master:
If we can come up with it after a short discussion, you bet airforces are way ahead…
Discussions are free. Real-world implementation of fairy tales requires copious amounts of research, engineering, production, testing, and most of all: $$$$.
-
I like how the goalposts of this discussion have shifted from “can a flare defeat the 9x” to “but look! it could be defeated by obsurcation from a smoke counter measure”
incidently, it was stated several times early in this thread that obscuration can defeat a 9x the same way flying behind a mountain can. Or using your wingman as a flare.
-
The “goalposts”? There’s no goal here.
There would be a goal, but the participants have differences of opinion which are axiomatic in nature. This is why the discussion is circular…
-
The “goalposts”? There’s no goal here.
There would be a goal, but the participants have differences of opinion which are axiomatic in nature. This is why the discussion is circular…
Its not a circular argument without goalposts, one side is saying that the current AIM-9X is fine cause Vietnam/history. While were trying to argue with all the technical information available right now. Over the course of this thread it’s moved away from Vietnam to well it can be decoyed by this special flare release sequence that is not in use. Which would still really only be effective if deployed when the AIM-9X is close.
-
The “goalposts”? There’s no goal here.
There would be a goal, but the participants have differences of opinion which are axiomatic in nature. This is why the discussion is circular…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts
This discussion is not axiomatic in nature. It is factual. The discussion is circular because of one end of the argument holds the position that you can substitute irrelevant historical statistics as if they were physics themselves, instead of discussing the actual technical details of the issue.
-
This post is deleted! -
You’ve been given valid explanations of why something works the way it does, which you disregard because it doesn’t meet your starting axioms, of “the AIM-9X is perfect and can tell whether inbound RF is aircraft or flare, and can never be decoyed or blocked”.
-
You’ve been given valid explanations of why something works the way it does
?
which you disregard because it doesn’t meet your starting axioms
I think you have this backwards… We never said that it can’t be decoyed, rather with just pyrotechnics (the only flare type in BMS right now) it is essentially impossible. With the later discussions that moved too also including pyrophoric flares we never said it was impossible for this flare type to beat the 9X just highly improbable and requires the missile to be in a specific spot/range.
“the AIM-9X is perfect and can tell whether inbound RF is aircraft or flare, and can never be decoyed or blocked”.
Yes the 9X can tell if its an aircraft or flare due to IR energy distribution and shape alone.
-
Discussions are free. Real-world implementation of fairy tales requires copious amounts of research, engineering, production, testing, and most of all: $$$$.
So, launching thrusted pyrophoric flares (which exist), that produce multispectral smoke (which exists), in a 360 bubble (that part does not exist) is a fairy tale. Well, we clearly have different definitions of the term “fairy tale”. Lets agree to disagree and leave it at that.
-
@Master:
So, launching thrusted pyrophoric flares (which exist), that produce multispectral smoke (which exists), in a 360 bubble (that part does not exist) is a fairy tale. Well, we clearly have different definitions of the term “fairy tale”. Lets agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Why take it so personally? The proposed technology does not exist. In order for it to exist, it will require all of those things I mentioned.
Everything’s a fairy tale until such a time as it might be invented. If you’re offended by the term, that’s on you.
-
Why take it so personally? The proposed technology does not exist. In order for it to exist, it will require all of those things I mentioned.
Everything’s a fairy tale until such a time as it might be invented. If you’re offended by the term, that’s on you.
Honestly, no offense was taken. We couldn’t disagree more however.
-
On a side note, (and no, this is not moving the goalpost again, just for discussions worth) i read somewhere that the pakfa had an DIRCM developed for it (if that plane ever sees the light) and then i remembered an article in aviation week along time now that claimed a DIRCM was being proposed for the f-35. Are there any news on fighter jet sized DIRCM’s?
-
@Master:
Are there any news on fighter jet sized DIRCM’s?
Nope. But IRIS-T has been prepared to use the DIRCM as a guidance. You can find patent about this. The link is available in Hpasp’s EO/IR doc as I can remember.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nq6i1ja0ds9gqi4/Histoy_of_the_Electro-Optical_Guided_Missiles.pdf -
Nope. But IRIS-T has been prepared to use the DIRCM as a guidance. You can find patent about this. The link is available in Hpasp’s EO/IR doc as I can remember.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nq6i1ja0ds9gqi4/Histoy_of_the_Electro-Optical_Guided_Missiles.pdfSort of laser HOJ. Makes sense. Veer right to the point where the laser beam moves left on the seekers fov - correct to the left. Not to mention that the laser will also rotate to point at the seeker, offering it constant signal to correct on. Smart.
-
this thread is a leviathan monument of armchair generals on the internet in theory. t-72s, in the 1970s were fitted with IR scrambling smoke emitters. Brinks and ADT developed invisible light spectrum bulbs for the consumer market that completely render IR and thermal, starlite, all imaging useless.
the IAI famously publicized a handoff mode of the RWR and their python missile, being able to fire on all aspects in the direction of lock on modulations and missile alerts.
My point is that any thing developed will be countered, anything that purports to be immune to that countering, will in turn be countered. This is basic escalation. Russian flares in sukhoi and mig built fighters especially in their domestic fleet have all been made in the purview of the nato realities.
You might as well drape yourself in a flag, put your fingers in your ears, run around and say “na na na na na na na” I am ashamed to have even remotely participated in this sophist pillar of stupidity.
-
Russian or NATO flares, it makes no big difference. It is still the flare that works like a flare. It is still just a small point for FPA seeker. They may have different energy rise times and so but they are still just small point for a seeker, nothing like aircraft. You have to forget anything about previous seekers when you think about FPA. Flares have different shape than aircraft, simple as that. In some situations AIM-9X may be fooled by flares, but in most of them flares will get rejected.
Brinks and ADT developed invisible light spectrum bulbs for the consumer market that completely render IR and thermal, starlite, all imaging useless.
You mean IR dazzlers, right? Well, TOW-2A and TOW-2B both uses optical tracking in IR spectrum, but thanks to beacon sending pseudo random sequence of strobes it is no longer working against them. Guess why late T-90s went off production line without SHTORA systems installed. It was simply no longer working. Guess why DIRCMs are installed now instead of simple IRCMs. Because regular IRCM (that works much like SHTORA, it sends a pulses to confuse tracking system) is almost useless against modern missiles. It blinds the FPA sensor, but only from very short range. It may increase miss distance, but the fragment will nail the target anyway. This is why they need DIRCMs, because they can concentrate all the energy at a small area and then have much longer working range.
Flare rejecting code for BMS seems to work resonably in 4.34. I noted that in certain situations even weak AIM-9P can reject flares in BMS. Expecially when they do not intersect with engine plume. AIM-9X seems to hit the shit most of times. This seems right because flares, both in BMS and in reality, are not a magic decoys that works in every situation. Well, nothing is perfect and under certain conditions even 9X can be fooled i think. Especially from longer range when there is no easy way to distinguish what is flare and what is not (from distance both the aircraft and flare are just about one pixel, so only filtering by things like energy rise time and trajectory may do something about it).
EDIT: Just have fired some IRIS-T to check the heck in instant action. Seems to be preatty good at flare rejection just like AIM-9X is (same sensor so makes sense). Fired some of them on targets popping flares (both in head on and tail aspect), all of them hit. The problem with them is that they have very low range (at least DLZ says so), so the proper flight model is probably not yet implemented (they seems to be no better than AIM-9P at range).
-
this thread is a leviathan monument of armchair generals on the internet in theory. t-72s, in the 1970s were fitted with IR scrambling smoke emitters. Brinks and ADT developed invisible light spectrum bulbs for the consumer market that completely render IR and thermal, starlite, all imaging useless.
the IAI famously publicized a handoff mode of the RWR and their python missile, being able to fire on all aspects in the direction of lock on modulations and missile alerts.
My point is that any thing developed will be countered, anything that purports to be immune to that countering, will in turn be countered. This is basic escalation. Russian flares in sukhoi and mig built fighters especially in their domestic fleet have all been made in the purview of the nato realities.
You might as well drape yourself in a flag, put your fingers in your ears, run around and say “na na na na na na na” I am ashamed to have even remotely participated in this sophist pillar of stupidity.
Lol, again these all work differently than the FPA and should not be used to say ‘cause this countermeasure worked in the past it is still as effective today!’ Yes the FPA can be countered but as far as we can tell only by pyrophoric when the clouds of IR energy completly block LOS and at close range and high powered DIRCM.
-
For your information without giving you how the calculation of flare chance is done by the code (this is a complex one based on many parameters)
a AIM9X, with a flare chance of 0.5% in the DB has a 12% / 13% chance of being decoyed if all the right actions are done ( head on, idle for a time higher than spooling down time and flaring at the right distance with a correct rate of flares).
In the same time the flaring chance of AIM9X is zeroed in case target is full AB with a >50 deg aspect.
so if released with good parameters with good tone, the AIM9X will hit 100%
but it can also miss if not realeased in good conditions
I did some flights with the 9X and other heaters such as the Archer this past period and had to think back of this thread.
I’m not seeing these numbers in my flights. 9X shots by myself and AI wingmen as well as by red air shot against us are easily spoiled a lot of the times. For example, yesterday I did a 1v1 session against an AI F-18C loaded with 9X’s. I did 4 setups and every fight one or more 9X’s were shot at me, none hit. All easily spoiled by flares. They were fired from the forward quarter and I did go to idle as soon as it was shot. I did no evasive maneuvering.
In other flights I’ve shot 9X’s against aggressor F-18’s and in my experience the first one is usually spoiled by the AI F-18 with a massive flare dump. I have a good tone, I’m on the bandit’s 6 o’clock position and no clouds between us and same altitude. the second shot usually hits, because the bandit is out of flares or not dumping as much again. My AI wingmen often get the same results that their 9X usually misses.
I’m not saying this is unrealistic (the 9X against the SU22 did miss after all…although we don’t know the details of why it missed. But there were stories that it was decoyed by flares), these are just my observations. I’m glad to see that the missiles are not wonder weapons anymore. Just saying I’m not seeing these numbers that are posted in this thread.
-
Just come back from a guns/AIM-9X training mission, and I have to say… emphasis was on the former. Out of four heaters, one hit, against the MIG-21. Now, those were all head-on off-boresight shots, but they weren’t extreme off-boresight. One of those, against the MIG-29, was most likely because I forgot to look at DLZ (he sniped me with his own off-boresight AA-11 last time I tangled with him, so I might have been a bit trigger happy…) and it seemed that it just plain outran the missile, in addition to flares. However, the MIG-23 evaded two AIM-9X shots, mostly by putting the missile on the beam and popping a shower of flares. I had good tone and I’m pretty sure I had good range as well.
All I have to say, thank GD for that gun. Not only it made short work of the Fantan, I also took out two MIGs in a honest old-school dogfight. Of course, one left me at the edge of stall and the other had me, at about FL100, plunging straight towards the ground at mach 1 (I recovered at treetop level, despite pulling to the stops), but in the end they were the ones dangling from parachutes. High-tech off-boresight infrared missile - 1, 60 years old cannon - 3. That said, this actually felt pretty good. If you want off-boresight shots, you want to be close (but not too close), and rear-aspect shots are far more likely to be effective. I have less experience with properly modeled heaters than with cannon (which even the more primitive sims tend to get right), so there’s that.
-
Just come back from a guns/AIM-9X training mission, and I have to say… emphasis was on the former. Out of four heaters, one hit, against the MIG-21. Now, those were all head-on off-boresight shots, but they weren’t extreme off-boresight. One of those, against the MIG-29, was most likely because I forgot to look at DLZ (he sniped me with his own off-boresight AA-11 last time I tangled with him, so I might have been a bit trigger happy…) and it seemed that it just plain outran the missile, in addition to flares. However, the MIG-23 evaded two AIM-9X shots, mostly by putting the missile on the beam and popping a shower of flares. I had good tone and I’m pretty sure I had good range as well.
All I have to say, thank GD for that gun. Not only it made short work of the Fantan, I also took out two MIGs in a honest old-school dogfight. Of course, one left me at the edge of stall and the other had me, at about FL100, plunging straight towards the ground at mach 1 (I recovered at treetop level, despite pulling to the stops), but in the end they were the ones dangling from parachutes. High-tech off-boresight infrared missile - 1, 60 years old cannon - 3. That said, this actually felt pretty good. If you want off-boresight shots, you want to be close (but not too close), and rear-aspect shots are far more likely to be effective. I have less experience with properly modeled heaters than with cannon (which even the more primitive sims tend to get right), so there’s that.
My testing results show a hight hit high rate, so a video from the users that see a low hit rate would be useful.
What do you mean by saying " head-on off-boresight shots" ? Do you mean a 180 aspect bandit with much lower head crossing angle ?