Weapons
Development Progress
Appearance of Missile Contrails at Low Temperatures
Modern missiles use reduced-smoke solid-fuel rocket motors, as well as liquid-fuel motors. However, these cease to be “low-smoke” at altitude due to the drop in air temperature. The exhaust of solid-fuel missiles, such as the AMRAAM’s HTPB/AP fuel, contains Hydrogen Chloride HCl, which at low temperatures forms crystal hydrates that generate a dense contrail. The exhaust of liquid-fuel missiles contains water vapor, which also generates a dense contrail in cold air.
In winter, a contrail can appear even at low altitudes. At Arctic temperatures, the contrail may appear even at ground level.
In the screenshot, an F-15C aircraft launches a missile at a target high above it. As illustrated in the image, the first part of the missile's flight has a “low-smoke” trail where the air temperature is above -25°C. As the missile climbs, a dense contrail appears as the air temperature falls below -25°C.
On the Kola map, you can set the air temperature down to -30°C, and this results in “low-smoke” missiles having trails at surface level. This is an important tactical point, as the smoke trail reveals not only the missile launch but also its trajectory.
Trajectory Fluctuations of Older Generation Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) Systems
We recently added authentic guidance algorithms for the older Soviet SA-2 and SA-3 SAM systems. Due to the low angular accuracy of first generation radars, and the design features of the radio command control system, noticeable fluctuations are observed in the flight path of SAM missiles. These limitations lead to increased errors in the targeting, which was compensated for by large warheads.
We have implemented two guidance modes for these missiles. By default, the improved proportional navigation mode is used, but if the target uses a jammer, or has a velocity of less than 100 meters per second, pure pursuit is used.
Realistic Pattern of Proximity Fuze
We recently added new and more realistic SAM missile proximity blast patterns for fuzes. The proximity blast pattern is now a more realistic, “wagon wheel” shape (blue shape on screenshot) rather than spherical.
This allows the SAM missile warhead to more effectively fuze when the target is in the lethal area of the expanding rod zone. This increases the SAM lethality. This new mechanism allows us to set unique shapes and sizes of patterns based on fuze and warhead types. It is an important step in the development of munitions for DCS. You can expect the first implementation of this feature for the AIM-120 air-to-air missile in the next update.
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