Whats up with missile Poh?? (after the update)

[SchDerGrosse]

I mean what the actual ****?

Kashmir Fire, firing AIM-120Ds from F35Bs from very close distances (~30nm) utilizing the planes' stealth capabilities and getting a miss. And another one. And another one.

I repeat the same from around 45 nm with my F/A-18s and what a surprise they fail to hit the target.

Result: 6 state of the art missiles, 6 misses.

I take a look and the log and see a neat little modifier that has just been introduced with this allegedly great patch: base PH reduced from 95% due to weapon speed by 43%, then we subtract some agility modifier from the J10s and tadaaam end up with a final PoH of a whopping 33%.



1. What on earth is happening?
2. Is there a way to counteract this?

If you say that it is "normal" or "more realistic" I am sure gonna roll back to earlier versions because having 33% PoH for one of the most advanced missiles of the world when launched from practically 1/3 range is just ridiculous.

(sry for the tone but I was hoping to play some Command tonight and am pissed)

thanks in advance for the explanation/workaround,

[SchDerGrosse]

Did some further testing.

Missile behaviour is just pure bonkers now.

Received some retaliatory launches by the angry J10s. PL12, max range 50nm. Yet they peter out after a few nautical miles (i got the same message for 2 of my 120Ds too, which were well within their max distance).



I would really appreciate if someone could tell me what is going on.

[thewood1]

So as not to rehash multiple threads on adjustments to missile engagements, try searching NEZ in the main forum. You'll find a few threads going into detail.

[thewood1]

btw, would suggest not getting so emotionally involved with the game.

[SchDerGrosse]

So as not to rehash multiple threads on adjustments to missile engagements, try searching NEZ in the main forum. You'll find a few threads going into detail.

thewood1, thanks for the quick reply. Will do.

[SchDerGrosse]

btw, would suggest not getting so emotionally involved with the game.

You are absolutely right.

I am just pissed cause I finally had some free time the evening, dld the patch, wanted to continue my campaign and run into this THING, which at least for a first glance is a totally and utterly flawed mechanic.

Anyways, I'll poke around on the forum to find out more.

(just a short question: is there a way to roll back to a previous iteration of the game? I am using the steam version)

[thewood1]

Can I suggest reading the threads on the topic?

[SchDerGrosse]

Okay, I looked through some threads re. no escape zones, and also watched P Gatcomb-s videos on the subject.

This however has nothing to do with my question, i.e. what is the new mechanic called "PH adjusted for weapon speed: x% (pure aerodinamic attitude control)". A penalty which basically guts missile hit probability - see above pictures.

If this has already been discussed, i would very much appreciate if you could kindly direct me towards the corresponding topics. My search attempts have yielded no results.

Thanks in advance,

[thewood1]

It has a lot to do with NEZ. The NEZ is adjusted for target type, speed, course, etc. It draws CMO BVR a lot closer to how real missile engagements are supposed to work. Thats laid out in some of the threads. Also, from the dev site:

https://command.matrixgames.com/

SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN DEFAULT AIRCRAFT DEFENSIVE MANEUVERS
Instead of beaming and diving to the deck by default, now they will first try to outrun an incoming missile while matching its relative pitch (i.e. climb if the missile is below them, or dive if it’s above them), and if the missile closes the distance they will then attempt to beam it (or its parent guidance) while also reversing their climb/dive.

To counter these counters, new additional WRA firing-range settings (including “No-Escape Zone”) are available, offering a much more comprehensive set of range options (see the UI improvements article). A2A and S2A missile engagements are, as a result, both more dynamic and far more realistic now.

(NOTE: These two changes have been arguably the most controversial ones during the public beta of the War Planner. The typical complaint by many players is “My AMRAAMs are now useless unless if fire them almost at point-blank range”. Our response to this is: EXACTLY. Welcome to the real-world kinematic limitations of most AAW missiles. This part of the reason that most (all?) real-life BVR kills have been achieved at significantly less-than-maximum launch ranges. Watch this BVR tactics video from F4 BMS and note how on each case the missiles are dragged-out rather than outmaneuvered. WRAs and configurable firing ranges are a thing – and with the new percentage-based settings and NEZ they are more powerful than ever. Learn them, practice with them and use them. Or get used to becoming your adversary’s chew-toy, first by the enemy AI and later by other human players as MP comes to commercial CMO.)

Probably good to look through and search that entire page.

[KnightHawk75]

2. Is there a way to counteract this?
... wanted to continue my campaign

...
Play with separate install of 1147.52 if you prefer the older mechanics vs the newer ones (more realistic) but still with issues to be resolved? That's what I do when playing most existing scenes prior to now as they were designed with those mechanics in mind. Can't argue with woods advice about just having to get used to all the changes moving forward though.

[TempestII]

It's also worth pointing out that, despite its upgrades, the AMRAAM is a 30+ year old weapon. The newer AIM-260 does better, as do Ramjet Meteors, JNAAMs, AIM-152s, and the beast that is the PL-21. If you get really desperate, adding SM-6 Blk IBs to a B-1R can also be very effective.
Another option is to get VLO aircraft in behind or even the flanks of enemy aircraft and pincer them with missiles from multiple directions.

[SchDerGrosse]

It has a lot to do with NEZ. The NEZ is adjusted for target type, speed, course, etc. It draws CMO BVR a lot closer to how real missile engagements are supposed to work. Thats laid out in some of the threads. Also, from the dev site:

https://command.matrixgames.com/

SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN DEFAULT AIRCRAFT DEFENSIVE MANEUVERS
Instead of beaming and diving to the deck by default, now they will first try to outrun an incoming missile while matching its relative pitch (i.e. climb if the missile is below them, or dive if it’s above them), and if the missile closes the distance they will then attempt to beam it (or its parent guidance) while also reversing their climb/dive.

To counter these counters, new additional WRA firing-range settings (including “No-Escape Zone”) are available, offering a much more comprehensive set of range options (see the UI improvements article). A2A and S2A missile engagements are, as a result, both more dynamic and far more realistic now.

(NOTE: These two changes have been arguably the most controversial ones during the public beta of the War Planner. The typical complaint by many players is “My AMRAAMs are now useless unless if fire them almost at point-blank range”. Our response to this is: EXACTLY. Welcome to the real-world kinematic limitations of most AAW missiles. This part of the reason that most (all?) real-life BVR kills have been achieved at significantly less-than-maximum launch ranges. Watch this BVR tactics video from F4 BMS and note how on each case the missiles are dragged-out rather than outmaneuvered. WRAs and configurable firing ranges are a thing – and with the new percentage-based settings and NEZ they are more powerful than ever. Learn them, practice with them and use them. Or get used to becoming your adversary’s chew-toy, first by the enemy AI and later by other human players as MP comes to commercial CMO.)

Probably good to look through and search that entire page.

Thank you for the explanation. I will look into the website/experiment with ranges.

However, I still think this is silly: "My AMRAAMs are now useless unless if fire them almost at point-blank range”. Our response to this is: EXACTLY."

Then why do missiles keep having more and more range if they are useless apart from point blank, knife fighting ranges (as the quote "EXACTLY" clearly confirms it)?

Lets just stick to sidewinders as you wont hit anything beyond 20 nm anyways..

[morphin]

Sidewinder is use to about 5nm. And yes the AMRAM againt potent fighter is usefuel to ,max 20nm. Behind that you will get mostly misses. It seems that this is realistic behaviour???

[SchDerGrosse]

2. Is there a way to counteract this?
... wanted to continue my campaign

...
Play with separate install of 1147.52 if you prefer the older mechanics vs the newer ones (more realistic) but still with issues to be resolved? That's what I do when playing most existing scenes prior to now as they were designed with those mechanics in mind. Can't argue with woods advice about just having to get used to all the changes moving forward though.

How do I do this?

I have the steam version of the game.

My biggest concern is, apart from me hating these brand new and "ultra realistic" mechanics, that I highly doubt that any of the scenarios, or the campaigns (which I have paid good money for) have been re-balanced to cater to the changes.


(and on the side note, Command has been around for almost 10 years now, how come that the devs have suddenly found out that ugh oh, erm actually your AIM-120Ds can only reliably hit targets at a fraction of their range?)

[SchDerGrosse]

It's also worth pointing out that, despite its upgrades, the AMRAAM is a 30+ year old weapon. The newer AIM-260 does better, as do Ramjet Meteors, JNAAMs, AIM-152s, and the beast that is the PL-21. If you get really desperate, adding SM-6 Blk IBs to a B-1R can also be very effective.
Another option is to get VLO aircraft in behind or even the flanks of enemy aircraft and pincer them with missiles from multiple directions.

Apparently, it has nothing to do with the "modernity" of the weapon system.



Using the AIM-260 JATM, with a potential range of 120nm, but firing the weapon at only 50 nms, i still got a 48% penalty.

Whats the explanation here?

[Tcao]

Welcome to the new world

with the new Missile dynamics, CMO feels like a totally new game now.

as other suggested, to get used to the new game mechanism you will need a lot of searching, reading , trial and error.


Basically , if you don't want to go with NEZ, then please remember that almost all BVR missile tend to have limit effective range against nimble fighters.

the effective range is roughly 30% of its max range. (NEZ might be even shorter)

and yes, now missile speed matters. You will notice that an advance missile speed will quickly reduced from 2000+kt to 500kt. The final PoH is decided by missile current speed.

[DimiHendrix]

I have no idea about air combat but in some videos i ve seen from sidewinder he looks to get as close as he can even if he is in range of the missile . He only shoots from far away for defense (make the enemy plane turn ). So my opinion is this missile behavior is much more realistic .

[Dimitris]

Okay, I looked through some threads re. no escape zones, and also watched P Gatcomb-s videos on the subject.

This however has nothing to do with my question, i.e. what is the new mechanic called "PH adjusted for weapon speed: x% (pure aerodinamic attitude control)". A penalty which basically guts missile hit probability - see above pictures.

If this has already been discussed, i would very much appreciate if you could kindly direct me towards the corresponding topics. My search attempts have yielded no results.

The nominal Ph (the 80-90-95% value you begin with) represents the probability that the weapon will catch up with a big, fat, cooperative target (think Boeing 747/B-52 flying straight and level) while it is at the peak of its energy level (ie. right after burnout).

When you are shooting missiles at any significant range, they will almost certainly arrive at the impact point with much reduced speed, ie. energy reserves. The "Ph adjusted for weapon speed" reflects this grim reality. After that step, other modifiers (pilot evasion etc.) take their turn at crunching that nominally high Ph into an (often hilariously) lower "actual" figure. This is how even very advanced AAW missiles can be aerodynamically defeated (setting aside the electronic battle).

Some missiles deal with this "energy at distance" problem better than others. Some missiles deliberately loft and thus re-energize themselves towards the endgame point; others have long-burn motors (dual-pulse, multi-stage, ramjet, plain long-duration rocket) that reduce the "speed bleed" etc. Some even use non-aerodynamic control at endgame (Aster-15/30 or 9M96 say hello) to further reduce the negative effect of reduced speed.

See here what happens when you shoot missiles at long range against an alert opponent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7y-NUzhaKk . You are lucky if you get a chance at impact at all.

[Dimitris]

However, I still think this is silly: "My AMRAAMs are now useless unless if fire them almost at point-blank range”. Our response to this is: EXACTLY."

Then why do missiles keep having more and more range if they are useless apart from point blank, knife fighting ranges (as the quote "EXACTLY" clearly confirms it)?

Lets just stick to sidewinders as you wont hit anything beyond 20 nm anyways..

The high nominal range is still useful if you are shooting:

* At incoming missiles, who will oblige your long range shot by flying right into it instead of evading it.
* Against non-agile, high-value targets like AWACS, tankers or transports, who cannot do much to outrun your shot even if they have early warning of it.
* Against high performance aircraft that are not warned early enough to react.

Furthermore, a long-range shot even with a low actual Ph can be very useful to "pin down" the enemy (put him on the defensive, deny him a counter-shot opportunity) while you close in for the actual kill shot. This was, for example, how NATO fighters shot down the majority of Serbian fighters in 1999: Flood them with AMRAAMs until they are out of speed, altitude and ideas.

[Dimitris]

My biggest concern is, apart from me hating these brand new and "ultra realistic" mechanics, that I highly doubt that any of the scenarios, or the campaigns (which I have paid good money for) have been re-balanced to cater to the changes.

Wrong again. Kushan has painstakingly rebuilt all official scenarios (incl. all DLCs) so that AAW weapons by default use the No-Escape Zone range setting. This makes AI shooters far more "conservative" in their shots.
This has the dual effect of:
a) Making them shoot at generally lower ranges, which _can_ provide you a first-shot advantage if you risk shooting at longer range
b) Severely reducing (possibly altogether eliminating?) the gamey tactic of "dancing at the edge of the enemy's missile envelope" to make him deplete his missile inventory with kinematically-hopeless shots.

(and on the side note, Command has been around for almost 10 years now, how come that the devs have suddenly found out that ugh oh, erm actually your AIM-120Ds can only reliably hit targets at a fraction of their range?)

It's called knowing your abstractions and living with them until you can remove them where it makes sense.

And just to be extra-clear on this, the "Ph reduces with range" effect has been there all along from the beginning (Don't just take our word for it: Fire up CMANO, do a simple BVR engagement and read the message log).

Until now we modelled it by measuring the launch-to-impact distance and adjusting the Ph accordingly. This _mostly_ worked, but had the significant flaw that it did not account for altitude changes (e.g. a Sidewinder fired from low altitude at a high-flying target at short range would be considered to be highly energetic at the endgame, because of the small horizontal distance, whereas the energy depletion due to the climb was ignored).

The new energy-based missile kinematics rectify this flaw.