missiles The AIM-9 Sidewinder missile - Information & Discussion topic

[The_29er 654]

Just now, PEAKVIRGIN said:

Welcome to the Soviet R-60 missiles maybe now the aim 9j's track like it aka most of times never 

Is this for real? Is this to get people to use radar missiles more?

Top tier is literally zero fun now because of this,  radar missiles only seem to work for the British (bc good radar) and IR missiles literally dead weight.

Amazing 

[PEAKVIRGIN 1,254]

7 minutes ago, The_29er said:

Is this for real? Is this to get people to use radar missiles more?

Top tier is literally zero fun now because of this,  radar missiles only seem to work for the British (bc good radar) and IR missiles literally dead weight.

Amazing 

Dunno r60 is like this from harrier update 

[Gatsby_WT 136]

I think I found a bug, dunno but maybe @Zetaris can confirm.

 

When you equip Aim-9G, go to arcade custom battle and play a little bit, leave and go to the air rb with the same loadout you had in cb, your Aim-9G will have arcade stats.

 

It's super annoying cuz Aim-9G has so weak engine for 2.2 sec of burn time, I suspect this also affects the fins, for example: R-60 has fin deflection 0.18 base and 0.2 in arcade.

I also suspect this affects all missiles with this arcadeProp line of code.

 

(https://github.com/gszabi99/War-Thunder-Datamine/blob/master/aces.vromfs.bin_u/gamedata/weapons/rocketguns/us_aim9g_sidewinder.blkx).

[The_Monolith 860]

14 hours ago, PhantomRiderWT said:

I think I found a bug, dunno but maybe @Zetaris can confirm.

 

When you equip Aim-9G, go to arcade custom battle and play a little bit, leave and go to the air rb with the same loadout you had in cb, your Aim-9G will have arcade stats.

 

It's super annoying cuz Aim-9G has so weak engine for 2.2 sec of burn time, I suspect this also affects the fins, for example: R-60 has fin deflection 0.18 base and 0.2 in arcade.

I also suspect this affects all missiles with this arcadeProp line of code.

 

(https://github.com/gszabi99/War-Thunder-Datamine/blob/master/aces.vromfs.bin_u/gamedata/weapons/rocketguns/us_aim9g_sidewinder.blkx).

I noticed that whenever I start up my game, my first test flight will make AIM-9Ds have that short 2.2 second burn time. Restarting the test flight fixes it, and I assumed it was only in test flight but you seem to have experienced it in-game. 

[Zetaris 267]

15 hours ago, PhantomRiderWT said:

I think I found a bug, dunno but maybe @Zetaris can confirm.

 

When you equip Aim-9G, go to arcade custom battle and play a little bit, leave and go to the air rb with the same loadout you had in cb, your Aim-9G will have arcade stats.

 

It's super annoying cuz Aim-9G has so weak engine for 2.2 sec of burn time, I suspect this also affects the fins, for example: R-60 has fin deflection 0.18 base and 0.2 in arcade.

I also suspect this affects all missiles with this arcadeProp line of code.

 

(https://github.com/gszabi99/War-Thunder-Datamine/blob/master/aces.vromfs.bin_u/gamedata/weapons/rocketguns/us_aim9g_sidewinder.blkx).

 

Yeah, that seems to be a bug. Even more weird is that it's a purely client-side bug -- by that I mean, the client will load the stats for the missile based on the previous mission. So if you take the FGR.2 into an arcade test flight after flying in RB, you get RB missile stats. If you reload and change the test flight to RB, you end up with arcade missile stats. However, if you try to go from e.g. an arcade test flight to an RB custom battle, the missile's motor will appear (visually) to be using arcade stats, but its performance will be based on whatever the server's game mode is (in this case RB). I determined this by switching between AB and RB custom battles that I'd set up and firing AIM-7Ds at AI. The AIM-7D is an extreme example, because it only has a 2.1s burn time in RB, but a 13.0s burn time in AB. So, when I switched from the RB custom to an AB custom, I saw the missile's motor smoke stop about 2s after launch, but the missile itself continued to accelerate to insane speeds and ended up hitting an AI 15km at low altitude (something nowhere near possible with the RB motor burn time).

[Gatsby_WT 136]

2 hours ago, Zetaris said:

 

Yeah, that seems to be a bug. Even more weird is that it's a purely client-side bug -- by that I mean, the client will load the stats for the missile based on the previous mission. So if you take the FGR.2 into an arcade test flight after flying in RB, you get RB missile stats. If you reload and change the test flight to RB, you end up with arcade missile stats. However, if you try to go from e.g. an arcade test flight to an RB custom battle, the missile's motor will appear (visually) to be using arcade stats, but its performance will be based on whatever the server's game mode is (in this case RB). I determined this by switching between AB and RB custom battles that I'd set up and firing AIM-7Ds at AI. The AIM-7D is an extreme example, because it only has a 2.1s burn time in RB, but a 13.0s burn time in AB. So, when I switched from the RB custom to an AB custom, I saw the missile's motor smoke stop about 2s after launch, but the missile itself continued to accelerate to insane speeds and ended up hitting an AI 15km at low altitude (something nowhere near possible with the RB motor burn time).

Thanks for clarification!

 

It might have been a placebo but I really noticed the Aim-9Gs with 2.2s burn time underperforming (not flying far as they should, even if there should be an invisible burn as you said).

 

I fixed this by changing loadout back and forth in mission screen in air rb.

[Flame2512 3,384]

2 hours ago, Zetaris said:

 

Yeah, that seems to be a bug. Even more weird is that it's a purely client-side bug -- by that I mean, the client will load the stats for the missile based on the previous mission. So if you take the FGR.2 into an arcade test flight after flying in RB, you get RB missile stats. If you reload and change the test flight to RB, you end up with arcade missile stats. However, if you try to go from e.g. an arcade test flight to an RB custom battle, the missile's motor will appear (visually) to be using arcade stats, but its performance will be based on whatever the server's game mode is (in this case RB). I determined this by switching between AB and RB custom battles that I'd set up and firing AIM-7Ds at AI. The AIM-7D is an extreme example, because it only has a 2.1s burn time in RB, but a 13.0s burn time in AB. So, when I switched from the RB custom to an AB custom, I saw the missile's motor smoke stop about 2s after launch, but the missile itself continued to accelerate to insane speeds and ended up hitting an AI 15km at low altitude (something nowhere near possible with the RB motor burn time).

 

That's good to know, thanks

[The_29er 654]

On 08/06/2021 at 23:08, Zetaris said:

 

Yeah, that seems to be a bug. Even more weird is that it's a purely client-side bug -- by that I mean, the client will load the stats for the missile based on the previous mission. So if you take the FGR.2 into an arcade test flight after flying in RB, you get RB missile stats. If you reload and change the test flight to RB, you end up with arcade missile stats. However, if you try to go from e.g. an arcade test flight to an RB custom battle, the missile's motor will appear (visually) to be using arcade stats, but its performance will be based on whatever the server's game mode is (in this case RB). I determined this by switching between AB and RB custom battles that I'd set up and firing AIM-7Ds at AI. The AIM-7D is an extreme example, because it only has a 2.1s burn time in RB, but a 13.0s burn time in AB. So, when I switched from the RB custom to an AB custom, I saw the missile's motor smoke stop about 2s after launch, but the missile itself continued to accelerate to insane speeds and ended up hitting an AI 15km at low altitude (something nowhere near possible with the RB motor burn time).

Hot damn that crazy dude, I wonder if this was something new with Red Skies or has this been around for longer.

[Flame2512 3,384]

I've been reading a book called Tornado F3 in focus: A navigator’s eye on Britain’s last interceptor. It is written by David Gledhill who as well as flying on the Tornado spent time working with the MOD on getting the Tornados various shortcomings fixed, and played a major role in preparing the aircraft for the Gulf War. In the book he mentions this about the AIM-9L:

 

Quote

If a target launched infra-red countermeasures, known as flares, against the attacking Tornado F3, the missile could be defeated. It was some years later before infra-red counter-countermeasures were incorporated into the AIM-9L in the form of the SWIFT and the AIM-9Li modifications.

Quote

Attempts were made to integrate the more capable AIM-9M onto the F3. This missile had been bought by the Royal Navy for the Sea Harrier but was never intended to be used by the RAF. After a number of problems with the missile monitoring system, stray voltages caused some damage to the test missile. Attuned to the risks of inadvertent firings after an incident on the Phantom, it was decided that the problems were too great and the initiative was shelved. Meanwhile eight AIM-9L firings were conducted at the test range at Aberporth in Wales to evaluate a new infra-red counter-countermeasure. This gave the AIM-9L protection against infra-red decoy flares which Saddam was known to use. After a successful test, the modifications were speedily incorporated into service missile stocks providing a huge but unseen improvement incapability. 

 

Anyone know anything about these improvements to the AIM-9L? The only info I can find about the SWIFT upgrade is a bunch of people discussing it here in which the general points are:

• It improved resistance to flares
• It was a UK development
• It was very, very secret and no-one wants to provide any more details on it.
• It may also have been applied to British AIM-9Gs.

Information on the AIM-9L(i) is easier to come by. This forum thread seems to provide some info / links about it.

 

@Iron_physikHave you read anything about flare resistance upgrades to the AIM-9L?

[TimeFaker 237]

question out of curiosty i used to hear that soviet flares was different than us that include material so how much infrared counter-counter measure is effective against russian flare and vice verca?

[Zetaris 267]

8 hours ago, TimeFaker said:

question out of curiosty i used to hear that soviet flares was different than us that include material so how much infrared counter-counter measure is effective against russian flare and vice verca?

 

I wouldn't use this article as a source for technical details, but it illustrates the point that there isn't a single "Soviet flare" or "U.S. flare"; each country likely produces a wide variety.

 

Older U.S. flare typically used a compound called MTV (Magnesium-Teflon-Viton), which worked well enough against "single-colour" missile seekers (as in, seekers that only looked at one particular part of the IR spectrum, e.g. 3-5 microns). Some modern missiles (but not all) use "two-colour" seekers which, as the name implies, look at two different parts of the IR or UV spectrum (e.g. 3-5 micron IR + UV, short-wave IR + long-wave IR, etc). Since older flares typically output much higher emissions in certain wavelengths compared to a jet engine, these two-colour seekers could filter out flares based on their emissions across multiple IR spectra.

 

So, in order to counter missiles using two-colour seekers, modern flares try to use different compounds to mimic jet engine IR emissions across multiple spectra. This is obviously difficult to do, hence why these modern flares cost so much more than older ones. Given the explanation above, a modern flare also is not guaranteed to fool a two-colour seeker -- perhaps a flare mimics a jet engine on the short- and long-wave IR spectra, but the incoming missile uses short-wave IR and UV, in which case the missile can still reject the flare.

 

That said, IR emissions aren't the only thing that makes a flare effective. Modern missile seekers can also reject flares if an IR source intensifies too quickly, or if it deviates too quickly from the target. So, you also need to look at emission intensity, burn duration & intensity rise-time, and flare trajectory.

 

This table here summarises it pretty well:

 

There's also a research paper that goes into a lot of detail about how flares counter missile seekers and vice versa:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/141229.pdf

[TimeFaker 237]

4 hours ago, Zetaris said:

 

I wouldn't use this article as a source for technical details, but it illustrates the point that there isn't a single "Soviet flare" or "U.S. flare"; each country likely produces a wide variety.

 

Older U.S. flare typically used a compound called MTV (Magnesium-Teflon-Viton), which worked well enough against "single-colour" missile seekers (as in, seekers that only looked at one particular part of the IR spectrum, e.g. 3-5 microns). Some modern missiles (but not all) use "two-colour" seekers which, as the name implies, look at two different parts of the IR or UV spectrum (e.g. 3-5 micron IR + UV, short-wave IR + long-wave IR, etc). Since older flares typically output much higher emissions in certain wavelengths compared to a jet engine, these two-colour seekers could filter out flares based on their emissions across multiple IR spectra.

 

So, in order to counter missiles using two-colour seekers, modern flares try to use different compounds to mimic jet engine IR emissions across multiple spectra. This is obviously difficult to do, hence why these modern flares cost so much more than older ones. Given the explanation above, a modern flare also is not guaranteed to fool a two-colour seeker -- perhaps a flare mimics a jet engine on the short- and long-wave IR spectra, but the incoming missile uses short-wave IR and UV, in which case the missile can still reject the flare.

 

That said, IR emissions aren't the only thing that makes a flare effective. Modern missile seekers can also reject flares if an IR source intensifies too quickly, or if it deviates too quickly from the target. So, you also need to look at emission intensity, burn duration & intensity rise-time, and flare trajectory.

 

This table here summarises it pretty well:

 

There's also a research paper that goes into a lot of detail about how flares counter missile seekers and vice versa:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/141229.pdf

thank you very much for the answer

[Flame2512 3,384]

@Zetaris You may be interested in this document: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA495417.pdf

 

It describes the history of US flare development from the 1950 onwards in quite a bit of detail.

[Iron_physik 3,485]

On 13/06/2021 at 13:31, Flame2512 said:

I've been reading a book called Tornado F3 in focus: A navigator’s eye on Britain’s last interceptor. It is written by David Gledhill who as well as flying on the Tornado spent time working with the MOD on getting the Tornados various shortcomings fixed, and played a major role in preparing the aircraft for the Gulf War. In the book he mentions this about the AIM-9L:

 

 

Anyone know anything about these improvements to the AIM-9L? The only info I can find about the SWIFT upgrade is a bunch of people discussing it here in which the general points are:

• It improved resistance to flares
• It was a UK development
• It was very, very secret and no-one wants to provide any more details on it.
• It may also have been applied to British AIM-9Gs.

Information on the AIM-9L(i) is easier to come by. This forum thread seems to provide some info / links about it.

 

@Iron_physikHave you read anything about flare resistance upgrades to the AIM-9L?

the sidewinder book only mentions different materials of the dome to filter unwanted IR radiation (also the one of flares)

it has no mention on electronic ways to defeat flares, that only came with the 9L PIP (Product improvement package) that turnned into the 9M.

 

 

 

looking again into the sidewinder book it says the 9L had a 35g turning ability

Edited June 14, 2021 by Iron_physik

[WreckingAres283 4,262]

37 minutes ago, Iron_physik said:

looking again into the sidewinder book it says the 9L had a 35g turning ability

really or structural overload ? in game its still 30G (would also be a big advantage compared to R-60M, one more reason to add 9P-4 first…)

 

btw can u also add the AIM-9P-xy sub family information to the list ? 
 

[Iron_physik 3,485]

26 minutes ago, WreckingAres283 said:

really or structural overload ? in game its still 30G (would also be a big advantage compared to R-60M, one more reason to add 9P-4 first…)

 

 

actual maneuvering load other docs even say up to 40g for the 9L

structural limit is somewhere above 45g

 

27 minutes ago, WreckingAres283 said:

btw can u also add the AIM-9P-xy sub family information to the list ? 

I can do that, just give me time because Uni and homeoffice has me busy rn

[WreckingAres283 4,262]

1 minute ago, Iron_physik said:

actual maneuvering load other docs even say up to 40g for the 9L

structural limit is somewhere above 45g

sounds like we wont see it till R-73A I guess (on jets, we already have it AH-1Z and 1 more ikr)

 

2 minutes ago, Iron_physik said:

I can do that, just give me time because Uni and homeoffice has me busy rn

nice, is ok, but just to see how they perform, specially P-4 (which will probly be the first all aspect we get for the US some time in future)

[Flame2512 3,384]

I found some reliable info on the AIM-9Li. It is an upgraded AIM-9L manufactured by BGT (the same company who made the AIM-9B FGW.2). It uses signal processing to let the missile filter out and ignore flares (by comparison the AIM-9M uses a two colour seeker):

 

Spoiler

 

Cover:

 

[Iron_physik 3,485]

31 minutes ago, Flame2512 said:

by comparison the AIM-9M uses a two colour seeker

AIM-9M also uses signal processing:

 

 

"In addition to Counter-countermeasures, the 9M had better performance against cloud and terrain backgrounds. Optical filters had provided some resistance to countermeasures, but flares with the right optical signatures could defeat them. The new microchip electronic gave the missile enough processing power to sort out false targets both background and countermeasures, from the real ones"

- Sidewinder, Creative missile development at china lake, Ron Westrum

[Flame2512 3,384]

1 hour ago, Iron_physik said:

AIM-9M also uses signal processing:

 

 

"In addition to Counter-countermeasures, the 9M had better performance against cloud and terrain backgrounds. Optical filters had provided some resistance to countermeasures, but flares with the right optical signatures could defeat them. The new microchip electronic gave the missile enough processing power to sort out false targets both background and countermeasures, from the real ones"

- Sidewinder, Creative missile development at china lake, Ron Westrum

 

In that case is it safe to assume that the AIm-9Li offers a fairly decent improvement over the AIM-9L, but is probably not quite as good as the AIM-9M?

[Iron_physik 3,485]

7 hours ago, Flame2512 said:

 

In that case is it safe to assume that the AIm-9Li offers a fairly decent improvement over the AIM-9L, but is probably not quite as good as the AIM-9M?

thats pretty likely

[TauKion 43]

https://forum.warthunder.ru/index.php?/topic/307965-ubrat-mekhaniku-vklyucheniya-i-avtovyklyucheniya-ik-gsn-s-taimerami-kak-nerealistichnuyu/&ct=1623824654

[WreckingAres283 4,262]

1 hour ago, TauKion said:

https://forum.warthunder.ru/index.php?/topic/307965-ubrat-mekhaniku-vklyucheniya-i-avtovyklyucheniya-ik-gsn-s-taimerami-kak-nerealistichnuyu/&ct=1623824654

Nothing really interesting, as one guy said, balance reasons probly

Edited June 16, 2021 by WreckingAres283

[Sir Rebral Palsy 2,423]

Just out of curiosity,

can the AH-1Z Viper equip and use the modern AIM-9X sidewinder missile?

[Flame2512 3,384]

1 hour ago, VehicIe said:

Just out of curiosity,

can the AH-1Z Viper equip and use the modern AIM-9X sidewinder missile?

 

This image exists on google, so I guess so?

 

That said the AH-1Z apparently doesn't carry Sidewinders much, and this is the only image I can find, so the AIM-9X in that image may just be a mock-up installation.