Locking flares or missiles

[-G_O_A_T-]

In this game, they try to do everything according to real life. But I wonder this. Is there such a thing as locking onto the missiles or flares fired at you in real-life air battles? As far as I know, the missile is fired at the enemy plane and you start throwing chaff and flare to confuse the missile. But your radar doesn't lock on flares. Or when an enemy plane fires a missile before you in a head-on approach, your lock system will not lock on to the missile first.

[Eftwyrd]

Flares are for IR, not radar guidance. IR seekers can and do lock onto everything from flares, to the sun, to heat reflections off the ground

As for radar, a missile has a lot smaller radar cross section than an aircraft, even relatively rudimentary filtering to prevent it locking onto something like a large bird is going to prevent that.

The actual countermeasure for radar is chaff, which is a whole lot of small pieces of reflective material that expand in a cloud and together their reflections trick radar into thinking there is something there so yes radar can lock onto it and that’s exactly what happens when a missile goes for it

Not to say it isn’t possible to lock on to missiles themselves, that’s literally what CIWS do. Try taking out one of the more modern coastal boats and your radar picks up and can lock on to all sorts of projectiles so you can shoot down rockets etc because the radar is literally tuned for that purpose

[-G_O_A_T-]

Originally posted by Eftwyrd:

Flares are for IR, not radar guidance. IR seekers can and do lock onto everything from flares, to the sun, to heat reflections off the ground

As for radar, a missile has a lot smaller radar cross section than an aircraft, even relatively rudimentary filtering to prevent it locking onto something like a large bird is going to prevent that.

The actual countermeasure for radar is chaff, which is a whole lot of small pieces of reflective material that expand in a cloud and together their reflections trick radar into thinking there is something there so yes radar can lock onto it and that’s exactly what happens when a missile goes for it

Not to say it isn’t possible to lock on to missiles themselves, that’s literally what CIWS do. Try taking out one of the more modern coastal boats and your radar picks up and can lock on to all sorts of projectiles so you can shoot down rockets etc

For the avoid locking something stupid should i always turned on my radar guidance right?

[hellbilly]

Originally posted by Agni:

Originally posted by Eftwyrd:

Flares are for IR, not radar guidance. IR seekers can and do lock onto everything from flares, to the sun, to heat reflections off the ground

As for radar, a missile has a lot smaller radar cross section than an aircraft, even relatively rudimentary filtering to prevent it locking onto something like a large bird is going to prevent that.

The actual countermeasure for radar is chaff, which is a whole lot of small pieces of reflective material that expand in a cloud and together their reflections trick radar into thinking there is something there so yes radar can lock onto it and that’s exactly what happens when a missile goes for it

Not to say it isn’t possible to lock on to missiles themselves, that’s literally what CIWS do. Try taking out one of the more modern coastal boats and your radar picks up and can lock on to all sorts of projectiles so you can shoot down rockets etc

For the avoid locking something stupid should i always turned on my radar guidance right?

as long as you have the target close to the cross hairs in your sights you should be good.. sometimes you just dont know what it is you're trying to lock onto.. could be a heli way out there or a drone.. either way i lock on after activating a AAA order and shoot it down lol

[jaxjace]

Originally posted by Agni:

Originally posted by Eftwyrd:

Flares are for IR, not radar guidance. IR seekers can and do lock onto everything from flares, to the sun, to heat reflections off the ground

As for radar, a missile has a lot smaller radar cross section than an aircraft, even relatively rudimentary filtering to prevent it locking onto something like a large bird is going to prevent that.

The actual countermeasure for radar is chaff, which is a whole lot of small pieces of reflective material that expand in a cloud and together their reflections trick radar into thinking there is something there so yes radar can lock onto it and that’s exactly what happens when a missile goes for it

Not to say it isn’t possible to lock on to missiles themselves, that’s literally what CIWS do. Try taking out one of the more modern coastal boats and your radar picks up and can lock on to all sorts of projectiles so you can shoot down rockets etc

For the avoid locking something stupid should i always turned on my radar guidance right?

Not necessarily. First off Slaving the launch to the Radar with an IR missile is not a universal feature, but all that slave does is correct the launch position and initial target, in does not hold the lock for you to guide it in any better, it can and will break target lock instantly and go to the next hottest thing, a flare, or a missile, and if you are using a non pulse Doppler radar the radar will not be able to keep an initial lock on the plane to direct the IR missile anyway, it will simply keep locking the chaff which is the biggest radar signature that it can see. Finally, any time you hard lock someone with your radar your target will know they are being locked which negates the point of the IR missiles in warthunder; to attack and kill people without them knowing you are there, there is no warning for an IR missile, but there is a warning for a radar lock, slaving your IR missiles to your radar just to ensure the missile is targeting what you want is not really worth it imo. Unlike in real life you can turn on and turn off missiles repeatedly and they spool up very quickly so if its not tracking the target you want just turn it off and then back on again really quickly.