3D AAR works great!

The question of how to do a report file in SAM!

Russian PVO Museum

Hpasp

The other day I was reading a document (thesis) regarding Wild Weasel missions against the SA-2 SAM in Vietnam and it mentioned a couple of interesting things about the SA-2 that I wanted to run past you and get your opinion on for accuracy:
'......the SA-2 system usually required a high degree of operator skill to engage fighters, for there was an appreciable delay between the time a need for a direction change was recognized and when the missile responded to the new flight path.'

'The SA-2, despite its radar guidance and maneuverability, was not physically capable of making drastic changes of direction to compensate for significant evasive maneuvers made by its intended target. There was about a 5-second delay between the time the Fansong's computer recognized a need to alter the missile course and when the missile actually responded to the new guidance command.'

Would you agree with these statements? I'm quite surprised at the apparent delay in missile guidance if true.

Thanks

Humm, this really seems strange and it kinda reeinforces my convinction that something is perhaps wrong regarding the Vega's radio fuse. Like I previously said I never go a missile detonation above 18 meters since it's strange that with the SA-2 I get detonations up or even more than 100 meters.

Regarding your question, yes I do get the KRO signals when the SA-5 missiles miss their target.

Regarding the target's range, you're mentioning the Left dial on the "-C" button console, right? If yes, I usually place that range near the real target range - there could have been one occasion or two that I may have forgotten this but I think that usually don't forget this.

Anyway, I still think that after firing large dozens (maybe a hundred or so) of SA-5 missile that all of them either hit by a very CLOSE proximity (less than 18 meters, with an average of perhaps 4 to 6 meters) or completly miss (more than 300 meters?), this again I think it's very wierd inded...

Remember it is the only homing missile so far - the guidance precision is as high at long range as the lesser missiles can attain at their optimal short range.

If guidance is lost the missile will fly wide, but a good track should result in a close pass. The missile will fail to guide if the target return signal is lost, or if the gimbal or gimbal-rate limits are reached during the lead turns, other wise cross track error reduces with proximity to the target due to attempting to maintain a pseudo-constant lead angle relative to the missile/target LOS.

The command guidance gives increasing lateral error with range for a given lead angle.

Almost every shot that I took with the SA-5 NO signal/lock was lost and also in every situation that I got hits in the targets they were flying directly towards my radar (thus having good Doppler velocity). Every target that I shot (and got a hit) at was either a target drone or a SR-71 (in 1967 - Op. Tallinn) which meant that the target wasn't manouvering at all (target drone) or hardly manouvered (SR-71/A-12).

Unless I'm doing something wrong or I read something more concrete regarding the SA-5 fuse/detonator which concurs with the current SA-5 behaviour I'm not "buying" any of the explanations given so far (please don't get me wrong) and the reasons are:
-> The SA-5 and the SA-2 have a similar warheads
-> The SA-2 warhead is capable/designed to shot down an aircraft if it detonates at distances up to 100 meters from the target (which is modeled in SAM simulator)
-> Therefore the SA-5 warhead should have the same explosive power (capable of shooting down aircraft at distances up to 100 meters) so it doesn't make ANY SENSE that this missile should only detonate a small distances (less than 18 meters) or is built with this behaviour in mind.
-> The reason why missiles that the SA-5 and SA-2 have such powerfull warheads is to give those missiles an excelent capability of shooting down aircraft even if the missile passes at considerable distances from the target (up to or even more than 100 meters)
-> So I honestly believe that the SA-5 must certainly have a fuse that detonates the missile if it passes at considerable distances from the target (up to or more than 100 meters).
-> If the real SA-5 missiles only detonated at very short distances like currently happens in SAM Simulator, why would this missile have such a powerfull warhead in the first place?? If such a behaviour was true than it would make much more sence to have a much smaller warhead in the missile (SA-5), making the SA-5 a smaller and more manouverable missile or instead adding extra fuel and giving the missile even more range or even perhaps add more electronics and make the missile more precise and/or more reliable (instead of having such a large warhead).

I have just managed to get Vega's detonation at 280 meters from the target. It appears that everything is fine with its proximity fuze, just your successful shots passed very close to the target, and your missed ones passed much farther than 300 meters from it. Have you tracked your missed shots by your P-14 radar? They often fly far enough from the target to be noticeable there. Here's my AAR:

Asuluk training ground.

Practice target:
RM-217 Zvezda [program-3] simulating F-117A Stealth

S-200VE Vega-E


00:30, Practice target RM-217 Zvezda [program-3] simulating F-117A Stealth launched

19:11, Missile launched from launcher-2
Target distance: 41km
Target azimuth: 80°
Target elevation: 19°
Target angular speed: 677m/s (2,4 Mach)
Target altitude: 14km
RPC mode: MHI - Narrow Beam
GSN mode: Acquire target before launch
Received signal strength: 25,7dB


19:18, Missile launched from launcher-1
Target distance: 37km
Target azimuth: 82°
Target elevation: 21°
Target angular speed: 624m/s (2,2 Mach)
Target altitude: 14km
RPC mode: MHI - Narrow Beam
GSN mode: Acquire target before launch
Received signal strength: 27,5dB


19:43, Missile exploded
Practice target RM-217 Zvezda [program-3] simulating F-117A Stealth hit by SAM. (miss distance: 280m)

19:48, Missile exploded
Practice target RM-217 Zvezda [program-3] simulating F-117A Stealth killed by SAM. (miss distance: 35m)

Total, SNR On Air Time: 2min 1sec

Military training in the Nizhny Novgorod State University (formerly Gorky).







Pictures from:
http://www.unn.ru/rus/fvo/?main=8&abc=1

Very interesting video to download:
http://www.unn.ru/rus/fvo/video/fvo_nngu.zip

Could you send me more about the third type?
(Not so artistic?)

the original third is more than 5Mb, you can dowload it from her:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dyf2y6y3ib0x75u

this Pics is for Hpasp

















I have an others pics, but not ready yet (lost some whee in my HDDs , must found them first!

Dear Hpasp,

About 3D AAR - it is certanly a step forward. As we know, a lot of tests in Ashuluk were traced with telemetry, so why don't we haven,t one? Vintorez gave even better idea - to include the data from SAM kiling zone in that picture. I thing it's still "realistic to the switch" and also helps to us to have data, which was "downloaded" from military during real test shootings.

What is your plan - to have this AAR only on Ashuluk and Ustka, or even for historic scenarios?

What is your plan - to have this AAR only on Ashuluk and Ustka, or even for historic scenarios?

Im just playing with this idea.

If I do it, than it would be done for all scenarios.
(I have no idea currently, what load would it cause at the Hanoi Scenario, where 120+ planes are around...)

Very interesting AAR, thanks for sharing it Lonewolf!

This is IMO getting really and even more wierd. Yes, it's noticible that the proximity fuse worked at a distance of 280 meters which concurs with what Hasp said: The Vega has a proximity fuse that detonates at distances up to 300 meters - At least this is a very good news!
But what's still wierd is by reading your AAR that your shoot parameters are not diferent than what I usually do in the shooting range (and I never got any proximity detonation at longer distances, like you did). Also you even use the suposedly "less precise" MHI RPC mode which I also often use but somethings I also use and tested the other suposedly more precise mode (called FKM or something like that - sorry I'm not at home to check the name of this mode ) but with the exact same results!

Regarding your question about tracking the missiles using the P-14 radar, NO I admit that I often do not use it to track my missiles (only rarelly I did it) but that's a good sugestion and I will definitly take a better look into the P-14 not only to search for my targets but also to track my missiles.

So and according from what I've experienced coupled with you AAR I still think that maybe there's something wrong here (but I could be wrong thou as I was before) but now I'm convinced that the problem doesn't seem to be related at all to the proximity fuse, like I previously suspected.
I now suspect that there's something wrong with the proper missile behaviour (it's flight path and precision). And here's why I have this oppinion:
1- Aparently there's nothing with the missile's fuse (great news and I'm glad that I was wrong regarding this)
2- But IMO, it's still strange that the SA-5 missile either passes VERY NEAR to the target or VERY FAR from the target (more than 300 meters so that the fuse won't work) and there's no "MIDDLE" distance passes at all! I think that my experiences seems to somehow confirm that the missile either passes VERY NEAR (less than 18 meters) and yours also confirm this (detonation at 35 meters - longer than what I've experienced but still relativelly very close) or that the missile passes VERY FAR from the target since from my experiences I never got a long/longer distance detonation and your experience shows that you distant detonation was in fact VERY FAR - 280 meters which is almost outside the 300 meter fuse range.
3- So if Hasp decides to reduce the 300 meter range fuse, you would basically end up with exactly the same experiences that I get with the SA-5 since the first missile (280 meter) would never detonate and the other is a rather very close detonation/pass (35 meter).


So and resuming, could there be something in the simulator code that either makes the SA-5 missile to either pass VERY NEAR or VERY FAR from the target with absolutelly no "middle term" like for example 100 meters?

Hm, Hanoi is tough job... Maybe it's good to pull down data only for target which are fired against. Even if it doesn't load too much the sim, all 120 target could create a mess in 3D AAR (like they allready do on plotting board).
But if AAR presents the path only of killed, or fired against targets, how could pick them from all? we could fire (with SA-2's) against target which are not tracked at all (but still must be tracket in any dimension at least for a while), so maybe this could be your rule for selecting from a list. Of course if it is posslible to put this kind of selection....

Hm, I have something like that in mind about SA-2's, because in ver 932.3 missiles had different behaviour,( I've wrote about it), but Hpasp told me that everithig is fine...

Maybe you're a sharpshooter ;), so lay back and wait for 3D/AAR

Yes, I understand that the fuse behaviour was somehow changed with the newest version (923.3) but even so with this latest version I still can get proximity detonations at distances of for example 60 to 120 meters (or less and sometimes even higher distances) with both the SA-2 and SA-3, situations that I cannot experience with the SA-5 and this really puzzles me...

The 3D/AAR is definitly a great addition to this already great sim

No,no!.. I wrote about missile behaviour, not for fuses, fuses are reseted, as I asked Hpasp long ago... Check this post:

That's for what I am talking about. Completely same situation, total diferent behaiviour (see where are missiles marks, compared to the epsilon and beta boresights).

Ah ok! I really missunderstood your post, sorry

The question of how to use AAR 3D?

It's not released, yet.