Why are sparrows so garbage?

[Hammer]

i literally only got a single kill out of the nearly two hundred sparrows i've fired by now, all of them self destruct for no reason or just go to the moon because apparently thats a more attractive radiation source than the plane with a city block sized RCS i am beaming with my radar.

not to mention, when i do get them to hit, its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ regular hit that just takes off their aileron or something and not a crit or severe... what the ♥♥♥♥?

[VosDesperoYT]

most likely this a case of skill issue.

[Jaes]

Working just fine for me.

They're even easier to manage now more than ever after Gaijin implemented automatic radar management on aircraft that had more advanced computing systems.

If the Sparrow is getting confused and "going for the moon," it's because you're picking bad targets to engage. Getting a radar lock is only part of successfully guiding a missile. You also need to know how the missile's guidance logic works and what the limitations of your own radar system are in order to ensure a high hit probability.

What aircraft are you using? What radar modes are available to it? Where is the ideal engagement distance for your radar? Do you know what is a good target? What is a bad target? How does the Sparrow guidance work? When is the best time to launch your Sparrow? Do you know the differences between each Sparrow model and how to employ each of them?

If you're not sure on any of those questions, you need to start your learning curve there before anything else.

[Hammer]

Jaes původně napsal:

Working just fine for me.

They're even easier to manage now more than ever after Gaijin implemented automatic radar management on aircraft that had more advanced computing systems.

If the Sparrow is getting confused and "going for the moon," it's because you're picking bad targets to engage. Getting a radar lock is only part of successfully guiding a missile. You also need to know how the missile's guidance logic works and what the limitations of your own radar system are in order to ensure a high hit probability.

What aircraft are you using? What radar modes are available to it? Where is the ideal engagement distance for your radar? Do you know what is a good target? What is a bad target? How does the Sparrow guidance work? When is the best time to launch your Sparrow? Do you know the differences between each Sparrow model and how to employ each of them?

If you're not sure on any of those questions, you need to start your learning curve there before anything else.

F-4J, it has PD mode and some other mode i dont know the name of, it pretty much just locks from any angle but is susceptible to ground clutter and chaff.

i could fire at the most easy to kill target, a nice 10km front aspect shot using PD mode without the target evading, and the missile will still self destruct for no bloody reason even with 100% signal strength

[Hammer]

the only time i managed to get a sparrow kill was when an F-14B was in a headon with me but the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ doesnt know you're meant to crank after firing a missile, so mine got to him before his got to me

[✿Sqüirrel✿]

The issue is with you and not the missile, they are very easy to use. From the 7e-2 to the 7m, they all work perfectly good for what they are meant for. All of your misses are either user error on launch/radar or the opponent countering it because you fired in a non optimal setting.

[Xenophage2112]

I get more kills with sparrows than with sidewinders.

[nirvana_sth]

Hammer původně napsal:

Jaes původně napsal:

Working just fine for me.

They're even easier to manage now more than ever after Gaijin implemented automatic radar management on aircraft that had more advanced computing systems.

If the Sparrow is getting confused and "going for the moon," it's because you're picking bad targets to engage. Getting a radar lock is only part of successfully guiding a missile. You also need to know how the missile's guidance logic works and what the limitations of your own radar system are in order to ensure a high hit probability.

What aircraft are you using? What radar modes are available to it? Where is the ideal engagement distance for your radar? Do you know what is a good target? What is a bad target? How does the Sparrow guidance work? When is the best time to launch your Sparrow? Do you know the differences between each Sparrow model and how to employ each of them?

If you're not sure on any of those questions, you need to start your learning curve there before anything else.

F-4J, it has PD mode and some other mode i dont know the name of, it pretty much just locks from any angle but is susceptible to ground clutter and chaff.

i could fire at the most easy to kill target, a nice 10km front aspect shot using PD mode without the target evading, and the missile will still self destruct for no bloody reason even with 100% signal strength

F-4J has both Continuous Wave and Pulse Doppler mode.
CW has problems against ground clutter and chaffs and PD is only for head-on on F-4J.
nowadays people know much more, and it is more difficult to get kills, but sill you should be able to get a kill or two.
take AIM-7Fs. they have quite a long range, and when used with PD it can take out targets some 20 km away.
however as i said people know nowadays how to counter them, so you are looking at vulture type playstyle... wait for an enemy plane to burn their energy dogfighting others, and when they fly towards you within 5~6 km get a lock and boom... easy kill!

[Hammer]

nirvana_sth původně napsal:

Hammer původně napsal:

F-4J, it has PD mode and some other mode i dont know the name of, it pretty much just locks from any angle but is susceptible to ground clutter and chaff.

i could fire at the most easy to kill target, a nice 10km front aspect shot using PD mode without the target evading, and the missile will still self destruct for no bloody reason even with 100% signal strength

F-4J has both Continuous Wave and Pulse Doppler mode.
CW has problems against ground clutter and chaffs and PD is only for head-on on F-4J.
nowadays people know much more, and it is more difficult to get kills, but sill you should be able to get a kill or two.
take AIM-7Fs. they have quite a long range, and when used with PD it can take out targets some 20 km away.
however as i said people know nowadays how to counter them, so you are looking at vulture type playstyle... wait for an enemy plane to burn their energy dogfighting others, and when they fly towards you within 5~6 km get a lock and boom... easy kill!

i do use 7F's, but every time i run CW mode on the radar it just randomly loses lock, relocks onto chaff or for whatever braindead reason locks onto my teammate, which i didnt even know the radar could do outside of boresight mode.

the other thing is, i keep getting uptiers and facing planes that have AT LEAST double the amount of countermeasures that i have, meaning they can just sit there dumping one flare and one chaff cartridge every two seconds and have enough of those countermeasures to sit there for 4 minutes being pretty much invulnerable to my sparrows.

also probably worth mentioning, i dont really play this br other than the F-4J, the grind for this goober comes from the rank bellow it

[✿Sqüirrel✿]

Hammer původně napsal:

nirvana_sth původně napsal:

F-4J has both Continuous Wave and Pulse Doppler mode.
CW has problems against ground clutter and chaffs and PD is only for head-on on F-4J.
nowadays people know much more, and it is more difficult to get kills, but sill you should be able to get a kill or two.
take AIM-7Fs. they have quite a long range, and when used with PD it can take out targets some 20 km away.
however as i said people know nowadays how to counter them, so you are looking at vulture type playstyle... wait for an enemy plane to burn their energy dogfighting others, and when they fly towards you within 5~6 km get a lock and boom... easy kill!

i do use 7F's, but every time i run CW mode on the radar it just randomly loses lock, relocks onto chaff or for whatever braindead reason locks onto my teammate, which i didnt even know the radar could do outside of boresight mode.

the other thing is, i keep getting uptiers and facing planes that have AT LEAST double the amount of countermeasures that i have, meaning they can just sit there dumping one flare and one chaff cartridge every two seconds and have enough of those countermeasures to sit there for 4 minutes being pretty much invulnerable to my sparrows.

also probably worth mentioning, i dont really play this br other than the F-4J, the grind for this goober comes from the rank bellow it

So in other words, you know next to nothing about how it all works, and are instantly choosing to say the missile sucks...good job friend...good job.

[nirvana_sth]

Hammer původně napsal:

nirvana_sth původně napsal:

F-4J has both Continuous Wave and Pulse Doppler mode.
CW has problems against ground clutter and chaffs and PD is only for head-on on F-4J.
nowadays people know much more, and it is more difficult to get kills, but sill you should be able to get a kill or two.
take AIM-7Fs. they have quite a long range, and when used with PD it can take out targets some 20 km away.
however as i said people know nowadays how to counter them, so you are looking at vulture type playstyle... wait for an enemy plane to burn their energy dogfighting others, and when they fly towards you within 5~6 km get a lock and boom... easy kill!

i do use 7F's, but every time i run CW mode on the radar it just randomly loses lock, relocks onto chaff or for whatever braindead reason locks onto my teammate, which i didnt even know the radar could do outside of boresight mode.

the other thing is, i keep getting uptiers and facing planes that have AT LEAST double the amount of countermeasures that i have, meaning they can just sit there dumping one flare and one chaff cartridge every two seconds and have enough of those countermeasures to sit there for 4 minutes being pretty much invulnerable to my sparrows.

also probably worth mentioning, i dont really play this br other than the F-4J, the grind for this goober comes from the rank bellow it

You would have to stop using CW and use PD instead. There are some caveats to PD, in that case I made a guide a few years ago:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2803148061

Also I used F-4J alot, and to this date it is the highest scoring plane in my stats. It was back when 11.3 was the top tier, unfortunately it is not meta anymore. Yes you will face 12.3s, that is why I stopped playing F-4J.

[Hammer]

nirvana_sth původně napsal:

Hammer původně napsal:

i do use 7F's, but every time i run CW mode on the radar it just randomly loses lock, relocks onto chaff or for whatever braindead reason locks onto my teammate, which i didnt even know the radar could do outside of boresight mode.

the other thing is, i keep getting uptiers and facing planes that have AT LEAST double the amount of countermeasures that i have, meaning they can just sit there dumping one flare and one chaff cartridge every two seconds and have enough of those countermeasures to sit there for 4 minutes being pretty much invulnerable to my sparrows.

also probably worth mentioning, i dont really play this br other than the F-4J, the grind for this goober comes from the rank bellow it

You would have to stop using CW and use PD instead. There are some caveats to PD, in that case I made a guide a few years ago:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2803148061

Also I used F-4J alot, and to this date it is the highest scoring plane in my stats. It was back when 11.3 was the top tier, unfortunately it is not meta anymore. Yes you will face 12.3s, that is why I stopped playing F-4J.

im not the one choosing to use CW mode, it automatically switches to CW mode even in a scenario where PD wouldnt even dream of losing the lock, but no hey lets switch to motherfukcing CW mode for literally no reason and get chaffed shall we?

[Hammer]

i've only had a few times where my sparrows still railed the guy i intended to hit after my radar got chaffed, but the radar shouldnt have gotten chaffed in the first place because any real system would not have switched the radar to CW mode

[Hammer]

✿Sqüirrel✿ původně napsal:

Hammer původně napsal:

i do use 7F's, but every time i run CW mode on the radar it just randomly loses lock, relocks onto chaff or for whatever braindead reason locks onto my teammate, which i didnt even know the radar could do outside of boresight mode.

the other thing is, i keep getting uptiers and facing planes that have AT LEAST double the amount of countermeasures that i have, meaning they can just sit there dumping one flare and one chaff cartridge every two seconds and have enough of those countermeasures to sit there for 4 minutes being pretty much invulnerable to my sparrows.

also probably worth mentioning, i dont really play this br other than the F-4J, the grind for this goober comes from the rank bellow it

So in other words, you know next to nothing about how it all works, and are instantly choosing to say the missile sucks...good job friend...good job.

none of anything thats being said to me here explains how and why my sparrows choose to fly to the next galaxy over instead of chasing the perfect signal lock on the enemy plane.

[I AM THE LAW!]

Sparrows are the only sarh missile at top tier that suffers at side aspect and especially rear aspect. but people will cope cause every game or two they get 1 sparrow kill.
I don't see how people can gaslight themselves into thinking a 11.3 missile is still good at 12.7, but ok.
If ya'll want good sarh missiles that are consistant and hard to notch, use the matra 530Ds, my favorite missile rn.

[SvarogX]

Hammer původně napsal:

Jaes původně napsal:

Working just fine for me.

They're even easier to manage now more than ever after Gaijin implemented automatic radar management on aircraft that had more advanced computing systems.

If the Sparrow is getting confused and "going for the moon," it's because you're picking bad targets to engage. Getting a radar lock is only part of successfully guiding a missile. You also need to know how the missile's guidance logic works and what the limitations of your own radar system are in order to ensure a high hit probability.

What aircraft are you using? What radar modes are available to it? Where is the ideal engagement distance for your radar? Do you know what is a good target? What is a bad target? How does the Sparrow guidance work? When is the best time to launch your Sparrow? Do you know the differences between each Sparrow model and how to employ each of them?

If you're not sure on any of those questions, you need to start your learning curve there before anything else.

F-4J, it has PD mode and some other mode i dont know the name of, it pretty much just locks from any angle but is susceptible to ground clutter and chaff.

i could fire at the most easy to kill target, a nice 10km front aspect shot using PD mode without the target evading, and the missile will still self destruct for no bloody reason even with 100% signal strength

I find the Sparrows and radar to work A LOT worse since the update that changed them a month or so ago.

Whatever people claim on here, I had far more kills with it before and it was pretty decent. Now its just a joke.

Craftfaster původně napsal:

Sparrows are the only sarh missile at top tier that suffers at side aspect and especially rear aspect. but people will cope cause every game or two they get 1 sparrow kill.
I don't see how people can gaslight themselves into thinking a 11.3 missile is still good at 12.7, but ok.
If ya'll want good sarh missiles that are consistant and hard to notch, use the matra 530Ds, my favorite missile rn.

Spot on.
I do this btw, I rather use heat seeking missiles, and matra missile series is pretty effective at this BR against highers.