Combat: Evading Lethal Range Radar Guided Missiles Tutorial | DCS WORLD

[@thoraero]

Q: Why doesn't it hit? Instructor: "Maneuver" Pilot: "Skill" Programmer: "Bug"

[@grimreapers]

lol

[@marcelinemcbride5732]

I'm baked out of my mind and couldn't for the life of me understand what I was doing wrong in star wars squadrons and this was the first video I found, ur actually goated lmfao

[@JETZcorp]

Notch, run, mask, bleed energy, or die. I consider any shot where bleeding energy to be futile to be a really dangerous" shot, and when "split-s and run" doesn't work I consider that the true no-escape zone. IRL Air Force probably use different definitions, but their AIM-120 also flies a lot farther! That leaves notching, masking, or dying. Mirage pilots are used to driving deep into what I consider the true no-escape zone because it's the only way to get close enough for a good hit. Now that the F-14 is on the loose, everyone is now in that position. A Phoenix will run you down at a range where Slammers are little more than an annoyance. Notching is the most important word in these situations. Whether you're notching the mothership of a Fox 1 or notching the missile itself on a Fox 3, you need to get below it and put it off your wing. SPEED IS NOT YOUR FRIEND for doing this. The notch is based on closure, not angle. At 800kts the set of angles you can fly at to be in the notch is half as wide as at 400kts. Plus at high speed it takes longer to get there. If you're really close enough that that missile has your number kinematically, you should get to corner speed, get below it, put it on your 3 or 9 as accurately as possible, and make it rain with chaff. Practice doing this and you can close to guns range against someone shooting Slammers or Phoenixes or anything radar guided. You will, as 104th_Fallen puts it, mine salt.

[@nateweter4012]

I really appreciate your input on this. I’m really new to DCS and modern-ish fighters. Learning everything from scratch and finally up to countermeasures and evasion practice with guided air to air munitions. This was a well put bit that I was able to follow well. If you have any required reading/viewing I’d love to hear about it!

[@RufusRevenge]

Dude this was such a huge help. I have been on the struggle bus for the last few weeks trying to not get shot down. Thank you for making this video!

[@jamielonsdale3018]

Missile was successfully evaded at 32:02. Flight path is 90° to the missile, and the wings are 45° and canopy is shielded by the body of the aircraft, which is reflecting much of the radar energy into the sea, rather than back at the missiles detector. Telemetry on the missile also shows loss of realtime tracking at 32:02. At this point the missile is almost a rocket, travelling towards the last calculated point of intercept with no updated data due to the precision notch. Target is well within the gimbal limits so the perpendicular velocity was not the reason the missile missed. It had already been defeated before the aircraft left the gimbal limit, which is ~60° off-bore. At the time the missile was defeated, the target was approximately 15° off bore.

[@raakeshsingh7852]

Moral of the story, draw S in the air, thanks for the explanation Cap was really helpful :)

[@Norman_Peterson]

no is not only an S. awareness of what to do, to do it in the best way. It's the difference between someone who does an S mechanically, and someone who is master of the situation and knows what to do and how to do.

[@Maeyanie]

The basics of why notching works isn't all that complex... modern radar is pulse-doppler, and it's manipulating a limitation of that radar type. "Pulse" basically means it sends out brief pulses and waits for the reply, and uses that to get direction and range. (As opposed to the early continuous wave radar which can only get direction.) However, the replies come from _everything,_ including clouds and the ground; you can see that on planes like the F-5 and MiG-21, they can't see a darn thing below them in the ground clutter. Modern radar works around that by checking for pulses coming back which are doppler-shifted from the rest, meaning the thing it's bouncing off has relative velocity. The ground doesn't generally move all that much on its own, so it becomes really easy to pick out a flying plane against it. However, an aircraft which turns perfectly sideways has 0 movement speed relative to the transmitting plane, so its radar gets no doppler shift and can't distinguish it from the ground, which makes it difficult to get and maintain a lock. In theory this does mean that notching should work best if you're below the missile, since there's more ground interference. How fully this is modelled in DCS, I have no idea.

[@grimreapers]

My only problem is that, as far as I know, the Fox 3 on-board radars are Pulse, not Pulse Doppler? I stand to be corrected.

[@jamielonsdale3018]

@@grimreapers To my knowledge, there is no difference. All pulsing radars will measure the doppler shift of the radar return to improve the signal to noise ratio. Important side notes for successfully pulling this off: You want your closure rate to be their airspeed. This means flying perpendicularly to the target. I explain it that way because any radar returns that have a Doppler shift matching the product of the emitting vehicles velocity and emission cycle rate at the time of the ping are discarded as background clutter. If you're travelling towards something and the target is stationary, your radar pings will be compressed by a factor of the speed of the radar emitter/receiver package and the emission cycle rate. This factor is calculated in real time by the radar platform, and any pings that return with Doppler shifts matching this expected value are automatically eliminated. This dramatically improves the signal:noise ratio, because while the signal strength isn't amplified by this data filtering technique, the amount of ambient noise is significantly reduced. Secondly, you don't want any of your surfaces facing perpendicular to the target. Radar energy is light in the microwave spectrum. Like visible spectrum light, it reflects from surfaces at the angle of incidence. If that angle is 90° to the target, the radar energy will be reflected directly back at the receiver. While on all non-stealthy aircraft, there will be surfaces that reflect the energy back in all directions, some areas will channel radar energy into a narrower area than the more rounded surfaces. This ideally means avoiding the tail control surfaces or wings being 90° to the radar. 45° on both is good, hiding your tail behind the body of your aircraft and 30° offset on the wings is even better. This does mean you're inverted to the missile and will struggle/find it impossible to visually acquire it, but visual acquisition of a radar guided missile doesn't help you notch it much. Your RWR will do most of the legwork in figuring out if you're in the notch or not. If it's perfectly abeam, your notching. If not, you're not. There is a minor margin for error, but once the closure rate on the missile is missiles own airspeed plus or minus highway speed, then you're less likely to be misidentified as background clutter and discarded. This is also a damn good reason not to break the speed limit on the highway when there's a low altitude dogfight occurring. If your speed is high enough and straight towards or away from the missile, there's a chance your car could be identified as an abeam jet in a reduced energy state. Your Porsche does not have a chaff dispenser, nor can it trade altitude for energy to kinetically evade the missile, so you will just die. But you might save the pilot the missile was fired at, and if he survives he will have a beer in your honour. So there's that. Another interesting physics exploit is using the sun as a permanent flare to reduce the signal:noise ratio of a Fox-2, dumping a string of flares that lead towards and across the sun from the missile perspective, and then breaking perpendicular to the string of flares so that if the flares don't fool the missile, the sun might do the trick, being much hotter than a flare and releasing much more infrared radiation. The sun is actually approximately 3x brighter in the IR spectrum than it is in the visible spectrum, and as it is its already bright enough to blind you in under a second of direct observation. Only the most modern missiles, mainly the AIM-9X can adequately tell that the sun isn't actually a Pratt and Whitney, and I think that's just by having a much, much more sensitive seeker head that can distinguish the cooler jet engines in front of the sun in the background. This is also why 9Xs are better at defeating countermeasures. They don't just search for the hottest thing, but will actively monitor the temperature of the thing they're observing and ignore unrealistic deviations from that temperature. If a plane could only realistically heat up by 70° in half a second through extreme friction in a high speed, high G turn, the 9X won't usually suddenly go for a flare 350° hotter than the plane that's releasing them. The missile is programmed smart enough to know that can only be a flare.

[@NorthernerInSpace]

Really good stuff. Thanks for your efforts boys!

[@grimreapers]

Pleasure

[@svmik]

Thank you for all the effort you boys put in this video, great job!

[@ronniederrick2765]

Love the Grim Reapers video's thanks for all your hard work.

[@grimreapers]

Pleasure

[@207rb]

Really useful video for those of us who don't understand modern dcs and very well presented. Thank you

[@rogersmith9506]

10 Chaff per second?! The F18 holds about 60, along with the flares, so you maybe have enough chaff for defeating one missile. Won't you just burn through your chaff leaving you open to more subsequent attacks, don't most opponents fire two missiles at a time anyway? One to make you go defensive and the other for the kill. Honestly, I want to know.

[@jayeshkurdekar126]

This has been my long standing question with no convincing answer yet

[@magnitudefallout3944]

normal people have countermeasures on override, and paralleling a missle, rolling and using 5-12 chaff bundles seems to do the trick

[@michaelrosenfeld8055]

appreciate the effort boys! thank you.

[@gilchecksix]

Very interesting video. Thanks a lot. For the scenario on deck, another possibility is to climb then immediately dive with notching to force the missile to go down in advance pursuit. The missile will hit the ground before intercepting.

[@akisakis7980]

Class time boyzzzz...take notes

[@porkwena1611]

holyshit this guide is amazing!!! detailed and clean

[@paraflamdragonruff9487]

Thanks so very much for this outstanding video. All if ypur vids have been extremely enlightening especially for me the noob. Well done 👍

[@omarishot5445]

Thanks for the info: Since the video is kinda long I would recommend 1.25 to 1.5X speed.

[@FlopD0g0]

I can't process this stuff fast enough for that haha 😅

[@brucewelsh1969]

Does the radar on the amraam lose track when you turn 90 degrees due to its radar? Similar to if an aircraft turns 90 degrees you lose it on your radar due to pulse doppler effect. I might have that wrong.

[@robinflack231]

that's right because the to the missiles seeker the aircraft is not moving and he is low to the ground so the missile can't distinguish the difference between the terrain and the aircraft. also called notching

[@brucewelsh1969]

@@robinflack231 Thanks for that. I thought so. 😀

[@graphbobby]

The ones in the game do quite often, but AMRAAMs behave very unrealistically in DCS. The real world ones on the other hand have proven very resistant to beaming/notching ("turning 90 degrees"), even the old A-models.

[@sebastianbenner977]

How am I supposed to deploy countermeasures at a rate of 10/sec? I can't press the button that quickly. Or is there an automatic countermeasure button?

[@DLEGION666]

yeah, good useful video ! i really wish you explain how dodge an AIM54c shooted from 10 miles or less !

[@krzysztofgawe1089]

Thank you for your work

[@premxpower]

Nice Video and good explanation

[@BobSmith-uu5kj]

Hello, thank you for your videos absolutly amazing! Btw, today I was tankering without cover and got a bogey shooting a missile from my 10 o'clock. I noticed that I could hide behind the tanker to avoid the missile. I don't know what would have happened with an IR missile but maybe you could do a video about this technic. Basically by putting the tanker between you and the missile it loses radar lock. P.S. I shot a radar missile in the meantime and got lucky. Keep the good work. Speedmaster

[@michaelwilliamson6061]

Great tutorial, thanks!

[@lerostudios2050]

One thing that works for me most of the time, is that i will point my nose up and manuver around and then point it down, this will cause the missle to slow down and not be able to catch you.

[@title4303]

Most of these manovers seem to rely on speed, are they the same in an A10 or another slow moving planes?

[@BlackHawkFR]

I think you mostly need to rely on the huge number of chaffs/flares available and eventually turn to the beam. But I don't have much experience.

[@pd28cat]

Tip: you can do a really fast corkscrew and spam countermeasures to dodge

[@jamielonsdale3018]

Hot Aspect Deck evasion shouldn't be a full 90°, it should be closer to 80°. As the missile leads the target, the angle of approach wants to be 90° to the missile as the wings are re-levelled, before you roll hot or cold. Chaff will be most effective at this time, because like the chaff, your Doppler velocity will be within highway speed of 0kn.

[@jamielonsdale3018]

Turning out the full 90° actually finishes with the missile 100° from your nose, not 90°. The rule isn't 90° turns, it's 90 degree to the missile vector. It doesn't matter if you're climbing, diving or just deck turning. What matters is the missile is most likely to lose you at 90°. Increased success can be had by also rolling the canopy 45° away from the missile to hide the tail fins and reflect most of the radar energy into the sea, which doesn't have radar detectors as of 2020.

[@Commander_Rockwell]

@@jamielonsdale3018I know this is a three year old discussion, but what about drop tanks? If you roll 45° away from the missile, it would still leave the drop tank in full view, which is a rounded metallic surface. Would it be better to face the canopy or the drop tank towards the threat? Moreover, has it been tested in DCS whether or not radar reflections from surfaces are actually realistically modeled?

[@madisondines7441]

So, I have a stripped down and simple(r) question. Assuming that we are only using Fox-3s, is there an equation for computing peak radar output to tracking range vs RCS?

[@scarecrow1323]

hey GR.. how long have you lads been playing DCS? I'm about a month in and I feel like I'm substantially behind the curve. just curious how long it takes to become at least a semi-competent player.

[@alexmelia8873]

Ben dont feel bad. I've had DCS for about a year (albeit just now playing more often) and I'm just now getting to where im not cannon fodder to AI anymore

[@TheZippaduppa]

Its simulation so Couple months to year Know your plane lol

[@sasquatchycowboy5585]

About a decade, and I’m still learning. I play mostly SP but am planing on changing that in the near future. Don’t feel bad, these things are really hard.

[@TheZippaduppa]

@@sasquatchycowboy5585 lol ive been playing year now, and yesterday i again learned a new thing Always suprises me🤣

[@adamsmith5151]

First shot I think Joker pulled up from his dive instead of continuing to go down was because the missile was going down too and wouldn’t be able to gain altitude to match joker without bleeding so much energy as to not catch him. At least that’s why I would do it.

[@control_the_pet_population]

This is a fair point... But Joker was also bleeding energy with the firing aircraft still pursuing from the 6 o'clock. In pretty much any similar scenario, Cap was going to have an easy follow-up shot. Now I am hardly an A2A expert, but I would think gaining energy in a dive away would give you more options to deal with the pursuing plane after you defeat the first missile.

[@zawadlttv]

so thats at max range the missile will surely hit or what? its not at the minimum range at which the missile can hit right? so how about notching if the missile is fired from way closer?

[@willievstudio]

Numero Uno!!!

[@rossolinger4477]

Hi Grims what is the math function for Range Lethal for the AIM120 at X altitude? Would love to know so I can crank and engage very precisely in the future and estimate the range in my head. Thanks!!

[@grimreapers]

Im a bit rusty, but assuming co-alt and head on: 0ft = 6 miles 20kft = 11 miles

[@stephenfowler4115]

It looks like the missle passes under the target which suggests that the its not actually seeing the target.

[@desmendETKILLAZ]

More f15 vids! Keep up the good work! 👍

[@alexanderbeck5998]

Wich License of tacview do you have cap?

[@grimreapers]

I have no idea. My tacview doesn;t actually work. I can review files but not create them. V annoying.

[@alexanderbeck5998]

@@grimreapers ok

[@MoparAdventure]

I gain speed then go engines cold and deploy chaff in half second intervals when missile is close trying to get it to explode into my flares thinking its my engines

[@jamieee321]

You need to do a video on what NOT to do.

[@StevieTheBush]

After evading any of thoes the bandid will be closer to you than ever before and finish you . you have extended your free trial of life by 10 seconds, CONGRATIULATIONS (you really showld have mentioned how important it is to conterfire )

[@leogibney]

lmao I keep getting slammed by F-16 AMRAAMS every 5 minutes in GS open conflict

[@grimreapers]

Yup - so do I.

[@simondever2587]

Spamraams*

[@BradyBaseball13]

Idk if something in DCS changed but these don’t work

[@Demonukey]

It does, you just have to react sooner that you could to pull this off

[@BradyBaseball13]

@@Demonukey for that reason alone it is unrealistic

[@rat276]

Expecting max range JDAM drop from a Hornet video sharpish Cap

[@grimreapers]

we'll have to wait until Auto JDAM drop is avail for that.

[@Flightsimmovies]

I don’t even know where it shoot from 😂

[@YuriHabadakas]

Look mate, I respect the effort that went in to this, but this is a terrible tutorial. You spent 22:30 upfront doing nothing but explaining your methodology - that's not helpful at all! Learning and memorising that isn't going to help me evade AIM-120s, so why bombard me with all that upfront? Put that at the end, or in a follow-up video. Second, it would have been helpful to include cockpit footage from the plane dodging the missiles, to help learn what it actually looks like to be engaged under these conditions. 3: How do I actually *know* that I'm in this scenario? What does the RWR/Radar look like under those circumstances? Is this BVR? Should I perform these maneuvers whenever the RWR tells me I'm being fired on, regardless of what I think the range is? I'm inclined to want to conserve my countermeasures until when it's going to be the most effective, rather than blast them all out as soon as I get launched at, since I've only got so many, I'm dropping them at a hell of rate, and I'm presumably going to have to deal with more missiles before the mission's out. 4: How do I know whether or not I've lost the missile and can stop shitting out all my chaff? 5: This is at half combat load and mach 1. What do you do if you're at full combat load, angels 20, and 300 odd knots (where the F-16 seems to want to be without afterburning), and you're making initial contact with the enemy? Just kiss your arse goodbye? Because that's what happened when I tried this out with a friend shooting at me. 6 (bonus): what CMS program used would be nice. 10/sec, sure, but for how long?