Explanation of the new AIM-54 Phoenix Missile Model and New Tactics

[Bones]

So after talking to some length with a Heatblur guy, I was able to get the Phoenix missile to work, I won't say perfectly like it used to or even say better, but more realistically.

So the big change in the Phoenix came about as they had gotten more accurate data as to how the Phoenix operates and its capabilities in actual use. There is a ton of technical detail on that but in a nutshell, a reason why the Phoenix can be fired at and hit targets as far as 110 miles away is because it has a powerful rocket motor to get it there. No, this does not give it the ability to travel that far per se, but it gives it the power it needs to loft up into thinner atmospheric air, thus giving it more kinetic energy from the rocket motor as well as potential energy from the altitude to convert to kinetic energy for when it dives back down on the target. This gives it speeds of Mach 4 or higher to use to maneuver against a target that is trying to dodge it.

Also the Phoenix is huge because it has to have that fuel to make the long range flight, but also to carry the huge warhead, the largest in an AA missile AFAIK, because its main purpose was to kill Bear and Backfire bombers. In any case,the missile size and also the weight of the warhead means that it also gets that added kinetic energy from gravity when it dives down on the target.

So what this means is that to effectively deploy the Phoenix against a long range target, you have to get up high into the thinner air. This will give the Phoenix the least air resistance so that the rocket motor will last longer and also give the missile a head start on its loft. Ideally you can even give it a "boost" by pitching up to say 15 degrees while firing to give it an extra toss by transferring your forward momentum to it. Now this also means the target will be at a lower altitude than you, which is normally bad because then ground clutter can interfere with seeing a clear radar contact, but the AWG-9 is sophisticated enough to filter that out in pulse doppler modes and normally won't have a problem. Don't get me wrong--it is still better to look up at the target than down, hence the usual Tomcat tactic of being 1000 ft below the contact. But for long range shots, where you are at high altitude, you are so far away from the ground that the ground clutter is no factor compared to the big shiny MiG between you and mother Earth. Keep in mind that if your target is 25000 ft below you, that is alot of altitude for the Phoenix to cover in addition to the range so you might not want to be at 30000 ft or more in firing then. However, if you are at a closer range with less altitude difference between you, the missile only has to loft a little bit through the denser air before it will come down quickly and still give you a very good chance of a kill. Also, the MiG will probably try to climb up to intercept you and thus lose his ground clutter cover anyway and decreasing the altitude difference, making your AWG-9 see the bandit much easier and the Phoenixes' job to kill it as well.

Speaking of the AWG-9 seeing the bandit, that is point 2. The AWG-9 has to be able to see the target(s) effectively to not only be able to track it, but to guide the Phoenixes to it. I use the plural because although in the Hornet, for instance, you can use RWS/TWS mode to track up to (10) contacts, you can only fire on (2) targets at once. But in a Tomcat, the AWG-9 in RWS/TWS mode can track up to (24) targets at once, prioritize (12) of them, and fire Phoenixes at (6) of them simultaneously, up to 90+ miles. It takes alot of fidgeting around with the radar to pull that off for that many targets compared to the (2) in other fighters, and this would be too much to do while flying the airplane. Hence why the RIO is so important to the Tomcat team to operate such a powerful and capable radar. But this means the RIO has his work cut out for him to configure the radar properly to give the Tomcat the best chances of seeing and hitting the bandits.

But the pilot is important too, as he has to fly the aircraft to position the Tomcat in the most advantageous position to deploy the Phoenix as well as be mindful of where he should be in case of a merge and going to BFM. So he follows the RIO's prompts to do so until they are WVR in which he takes over and the RIO becomes a 2nd pair of eyes, an "R2-D2" to the X-Wing Fighter.

That said, the best way to insure that the radar can see the targets effectively for long range Phoenix shots is to crank. This brings us to the topic of AWI (All Weather Intercept), which is the RIO's bread and butter, and will have to be saved for another "lecture" but basically you want to position your aircraft about 50 ATA max from the target thereby giving you another 40 degrees of crank to notch him should he fire on you with a radar missile while still keeping him on your radar scan for your missile. That is SOP even for other fighters like the Hornet. But in this case, at long range with the Tomcat, it also give the radar another angle to view the targets, and thus a better chance at killing them.

Consider having (2) apples in front of you at eye level, one behind the other, or even close to each other. At long range, they may appear as (1) big apple. Now walk off to one side where you have to turn your head 40 or 50 degrees to the side to see them and look again. You now clearly see (2) apples and not (1). This is where angle aspect comes into play. Similarly if the (2) apples were behind eachother, but one was up higher than the other, you can now see there are (2) apples not (1). This is similar to the separation of contacts from differing altitudes. This is what the AWG-9 needs to do as well, and in terms of angle aspect, that is why we crank.

In effect, gone is the tactic we were using where we have multiple bandits on our nose at 50+ miles out so we fire Phoenixes on them and call it a day. Back then, the Phoenixes' flight model was not tweaked so they were fine flying out there and killing the targets. But now, when doing this, since the AWG-9 is not a B-Scope radar and has a conical scan representation in the Tactical Information Display (TID) that is the RIO's "crystal ball," multiple contacts at long range will sit very close together and may even appear as one big massive blip rather than say 4 aircraft...and the Phoenix will not be able to track each one individually because the radar is not seeing individual targets. Rather the AWG-9 will tell it it is (1) big target and even though you fire 4 missiles at it, they may not guide on each one because they can't see them clearly and separately. The Tomcat does not have the EXP mode that the B-scope radar does to split the targets up, but with the crank, it can see them as individual targets much better as described in the previous paragraph.

Now I'm a big supporter of the AWI concept but if I had targets that were 80 miles away and I was carrying then-unrealistic Phoenix missiles, I wouldn't bother doing AWI because by the time I intercept them, the Phoenixes would kill them. So on the nose they stayed until their demise. Aside from the realism, this also made me complacent. Not anymore. So in a way I am glad that the Phoenixes are more realistic now because it now compels me to do AWI until the engagement ends.

The last point I want to bring up actually doesn't have anything to do with the Phoenix and AWG-9 at all, but bandit tactics. I found out that once the AI bandit realizes it has been fired upon by a radar missile, especially if it is pitbull, they will break off their attack to notch it, chaff it, etc. What this means for you whether you are in a Tomcat or not is pretty valuable. If you fired a missile and then and it went pitbull and then they fired a missile on you that has not gone pitbull and is not IR, they will realize they have been fired upon and will maneuver to notch thus breaking their lock. So you can pretty much ignore their missile shot because in turning to notch your missile they will trash their shot. At first I thought this was cheating in a way, but then again, in real life, wouldn't you do the same thing? So, especially when you have Phoenix launches at long range, if they fire on you, you can pretty much ignore their missile shot. You will see that once your missile is pitbull, the annoying deedle deedle deedle from the bandit will stop because they are dealing with your Phoenix. Again, I stress if their missile is pitbull, this does not apply. So if you see the M on your RWR, make your move to trash their shot. They may not be the same way if you fire a SARH missile like a Sparrow. However, they have more tendency to break off if they realize that the radar locking them up is a Tomcat's (Just like the Iraqis when the Iranians lock them up with the Tomcat).

See the video below. Sorry the mic isn't loud enough, but I'm basically explaining the above:



Last point: As Hammer pointed out in an earlier post, these Phoenixes, though powerful and deadly, are not infallible. But you can position things on your terms to make their PK higher than 70 maybe even 90 if you know what to do. But they CAN miss...just not like before when they missed all the time.

In this video, you will see that they can miss, and that you have to be prepared to react to it, possibly in BFM. You will also see that as soon as I locked on a follow up Sparrow and fired, they broke lock to defend. What was neat was Jester lost the lock, so I fired a Sidewinder and when I reacquired the bandit with the radar, the "lost" Sparrow saw the Fulcrum again--and both it and the Sidewinder hit!



Questions? Comments? Please do.

v6,
boNes

[Hammer]

I think b scope is just a display preference/method. can the hornet not display both b scope and 'regular' conical? pretty sure the Mirage can. it is just a different way to see the same data. i think if you have exp, you would have it with a b scope display or conical display.

[Bones]

The b scope is a conical scan, but it is displayed differently in a graph form rather than the actual conical form like the Tomcat. The Hornet only displays as b scope, and the tiger only displays as conical

v6,
boNes

[Hammer]

here is what i mean (text) from the Mirage, it does both:

The
RDI radar has two display modes PPI (Plan Position Indicator) and B Scope
•PPI is typically used on the Su 27 and shows a polar view of the radar
•B Scope is typically used on US fighters like the F 15 and shows a 2 D top down
representation of a X Y axis grid space

[Bones]

What do they mean by polar view? Like a circular radar sweep like air traffic control?

Yes that would describe a b scope. Think of the X axis as azimuth and the Y axis as range. So instead of the contact being shown as they physically are in your space, it is plotted on this graph.

v6,
boNes

[Hammer]

polar=cone

[Bones]

OK, had some more talks with the HB guys because I noticed that our kill ratio in Snowfox for Phoenix went from 0 to 50% with the new tactical approach.

So here is where I modify something that I said. Gone are NOT the days of approaching head on---at least like I had said. The idea of the crank is primarily to draw the bandits away from each other, more than giving the radar a better aspect angle to look at them with. By cranking when you are approaching them, the bandits in close formation will most likely split off a bit to try to intercept you, but then when you turn back, they will too but will have more separation and thus make them more distinct blips on the radar.

So really, the approach should be crank and get high. When you are high and have good Phoenix locks on the target, turn back to get the bandits nose on, and launch.

This also helps the Phoenix because if you cranked and then fired like I had said earlier, the Phoenix also has to turn to face the bandits and that wastes precious energy as the motor burns out while it has to turn to face the targets. Give them all the oomph you can: high altitude for lower air density, high speed to give them a head start, nose up as you fire to give them some toss momentum, fire head on so they don't waste unnecessary amounts of energy in initial turns.

That's not to say you CAN'T fire off boresight--it is a good ploy in that the bandits think you are running or shying away from a fight when really a Phoenix is onto them, but it is not so good for the Phoenix PK, unless you are closer.

v6,
boNes

[Grifter]

So, I stand corrected. I did, in fact, read the whole of your original post. I thought I had not. Is this tactic born out of ED crappy AI, that is, to get them to separate, or is this something that we might see in RL?

[Bones]

So, I stand corrected. I did, in fact, read the whole of your original post. I thought I had not. Is this tactic born out of ED crappy AI, that is, to get them to separate, or is this something that we might see in RL?

A little bit of both, I think.

The HB guy did mention it in PvP too, and added that after a whle they get wise to that idea.

From his talk I am coming up with what I am calling the 30/30 rule. If engaging targets more than 30 nm away, be at over angels 30 when deploying Phoenix.

Also know the difference between the 3 versions of the Phoenix to better deploy them.

v6,
boNes