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Spoofing Adders
A while ago it seemed almost impossible for me to defeat SU-27's that were loaded with notorious AA-12 Adder missiles. The only two options that I had was run like hell or try to stay undetected. Option 2 was often not a real solution so most of the times when I was engaged by SU-27's with Adders the end of the story was that I was going down in flames. Of course I was not very satisfied with this so I started to study a way to defeat these deadly missiles.
To understand the rest about this story you have to understand the Doppler effect that modern A-A radars use. The basics about "radar" is that you send a radio signal into he sky. When it hits a hard object like metal it will bounce back. If you receive this bounced radio wave with your antenna you know that something is in the direction that you send your radio wave to. When you also measure the time between the moment the radar signal is send and the moment the radar signal is received then you know the distance of the object.
As you can imagine there is always a lot of clutter from the ground. When you want to filter out all kinds of ground objects like rocks, houses or whatever you can use the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect is the effect that moving objects have on waves they transmit. When a moving object is coming your way and it sends out a wave-signal then the wave is sort of compressed. This makes the wavelength shorter and the frequency higher. When the object is however moving away from you the signal is stretched out and therefore the wavelength is longer and the frequency is lower. You can notice this effect when cars are moving by. When the car is moving towards you it will make a higher sound and when it moves away from you when it passed you it will make a lower sound. This same effect is used by Doppler radars to filter out radio returns from static objects. Static objects won't have a Doppler effect but moving objects like enemy planes do.
Of course there is one exception when a moving object like an enemy plane does not have a Doppler effect. That is when it moves in an angle of 90 degree on your radar beam. In that case it does not come towards you nor does it fly away from you. In that case it will be filtered out on your radar screen. You can't get a lock either. This is called "beaming".
So how can you use this beaming in your advantage? The basic answer is really simple. You shoot your missile first and then beam the enemy plane so he does not get the opportunity to shoot at you. Of course when the enemy plane shoots at you with an active radar guided missile like the AA-12 "Adder" you put the missile at your 3 or 9 o'clock and drop chaff packages.
So how does this technique work in SP3? To train this you can best set-up a dogfight against a SU-27 with 2 Radar guided missiles. The initial range is 40 NM. You also select ECM since the Flankers will also have that in campaign. At first you can try at Rookie level and then proceed to Veteran and Ace level.
When you get in the jet you quickly check where your enemy is. You can do that by watching your RWR which usually gives you the direction. Now you point your nose towards the Flanker and kick in the full afterburner. Soon you will need the extra speed. While you swing towards your target you set the HSD screen in your right MFD with a range of 15 NM and in depressed mode.
When your target is on your nose you start an ACMI recording and try to get a lock. Most times the lock is immediately broken when the enemy selects its ECM-jammer. When the Flanker is only 20-25 NM away you get a study lock In the most ideal situation the Flanker is flying straight towards you because then it is easier to predict where he is and how to get him exactly on your 3 / 9 o'clock. Now you wait patiently until he is well in range. Determining the most ideal range to shoot is not very easy. When he flies straight at me I get very satisfying results when I fire when he is 13 NM out. When I wait longer I have a hard time outmanoeuvring his missiles but when I shoot earlier there is a good change he can spoof my missile. When the SU-27 is trying to beam me or when he flies away from me I wait until he is 10 NM out. This depends a little on the Aspect angle. When he is almost flying straight at me I shoot at 13 NM.
After I shot my missile I don't wait any longer and I start to beam him. On my HSD (which is selected in my right MFD) I can see exactly where he is and which course I have to fly to get him 90 degrees on my heading. While I make my turn I put my nose down about 20 degrees. I do that for 3 reasons. The first reason is that I will get more speed. Even up to more the 800 kts. The rocket engine of the AA-12 Adder only burns for a few seconds and after that it reduces speed. So when I can stay long enough ahead of it, it won't be able to follow my moves as well because it does not have enough energy left. The second reason I put my nose down is because the Adder's internal radar has more difficulties tracking me with all the ground clutter. The third reason is that the Adder will try to fly a lead pursuit on me. It can't do that when I fly nose down because it will smash in the ground if it does. That way I force the missile to fly a pure- or a lag-pursuit which is easier to spoof . When I try to beam the missile or the Flanker I need to fly a smooth turn towards the enemy with only a small bank. 10 - 15 degree bank should be fine. When a missile is fired at you, you start to drop chaff. If you are jamming you shut of your jammer immediately. Otherwise the "Adder" will home on jam.
You might think that your AMRAAM will be lost the moment you break lock but that is not the case. In most cases the Flanker will not turn off its jammer and the AMRAAM will home on jam. Even when the Flanker turns of its jammer the AMRAAM will keep flying towards the last known location of the Flanker. As soon as the internal radar of the AMRAAM picks up the Flanker it will guide it self the last miles. Because you waited patiently before you fired the missile, it will go autonomous very quick after you fired.
When you reach ground level you keep beaming the missile and try to stay as low as possible. It would be ideal when you can get a mountain between yourself and the adder. Because you are flying very fast it might take a while before an incoming missiles gets close enough to you. Don't think to early that you spoofed the missile.
I uploaded an ACMI file with the explained technique. In most cases you are not shot at and that is good. This means you are beaming correctly. On tape5 you can see however that the Flanker did shoot and how I spoofed the Adder. On tape5 the flanker got away because I shot at a range of 15 NM. On tape13 you can see a shot at 13 NM and this time the Flanker had no change. Of course, while practising this manoeuvre I get better at it and now I almost never got shot down at ACE level. You can try it yourself and practise a lot.
Edwin "RazorBlade" Versijp.
Outruning Adders
In a previous article I showed you with a corresponding ACMI file that it should not be to difficult to down an SU-27 equipped with the deadly AA-12 adder. There is however a downside to "beaming" which was the technique I showed. To beam an in incoming missile you have to place it on your 3 or 9 o'clock position. As you can understand you have a big problem when there is more then one enemy fighter firing missiles at you. In that case you can't beam both missiles because they are coming from different angles.
So what should you do when more then one enemy fighter is hunting for you? The answer is actually very simple, "you run like hell". It is not bravest thing to do but we are not ready yet. We want those guys to eat dust (or worse) so keep reading.
When you approach the enemy fighters you have to have a clear understanding what they are capable of. We are now talking about SU-27's, which is the deadliest enemy, so if you can beat them you will have less problems with older soviet build jets. The SU-27 will carry most likely two types of medium range missiles, the AA-12 "adder" and the AA-10C "Alamo". We know from my previous article that the AA-12 is very similar to the AMRAAM. They both have their own radar and can fly autonomies when they are close enough. Although this is a big advantage we should not underestimate the AA-10C. The big advantage of this missile is its long legs. The SU-27 can probably fire this missile before you can get a good radar lock and force you in a defensive position. When we are in defensive position the SU-27 has no problem to support the fired Alamo.
So how can we get out of this undesirable position and make a victory? We approach the SU-27's until we hear either a missile warning or we are 13 NM away from them. When we are closer we can't escape anymore but when we are further away it is most likely that the SU-27 can outrun our Slammer. It is important that you fly towards the Flankers at maximum speed. This means you have to drop external fuel tanks and any Air-to-Ground ordnance. In order to reach the required speed you need to go in full afterburner when you are at least 20 NM away from the nearest Flanker. We need that high speed for two purposes. The first reason we fly that fast is because it gives the AMRAAM a higher speed to start with which means that it can fly further. The second reason is that you have a higher speed to start with to outrun any missiles that are fired on you.
When we are at the 13 NM turning point we fire our AMRAAM and run like hell. The fasted way to do this is roll inverted and pull hard until you fly in the opposite direction 20 degrees nose down. If the Flanker is equipped with Adders then it is most likely that you hear right after you made you turn the sound of an Adder radar and an "M-symbol" appears in your RWR. This is now nothing to worry about. As long as you keep flying in full afterburner it can't catch you. You don't even have to drop chaff.
When you notice that after a while the M-symbol disappeared from your RWR then it is time to pull up and make a half loop. It is important that you try to fly towards the flanker at an altitude of at least 15,000 feet so when you make this half loop you try to get to that altitude. This means that you do not pull as hard as you can but a little more gentle. This altitude is required to make the evasive manoeuvre I described above without colliding with the ground.
It is of course also possible that the Flanker did not fire any missiles at you. You can notice that when you are running and there is no "M-symbol". In that case you might decide to go offensive again. This depends of course also on the situation if other Flankers are engaging you as well. When there are no "29-symbols" on your RWR then it is save to engage again.
Keep in mind as well that this technique costs a lot of fuel. You are flying at full afterburner for a very long time., from the moment you engage until the moment you shot all the Flankers. With this technique you can shoot down perhaps 3 Flankers but then your tanks are dry. It is therefore important that you shut down your afterburner as soon as you notice that you are not fired at.
Although this might sound strange but this is also a good technique if you do not have AMRAAM's. When you are at 13 NM away it is very likely that the Flankers fire their missiles at you. If those missiles are their last medium range missiles then you can continue to attack on an equal bases.
I hope this will give you more confidence when you engage Flankers.
Edwin "RazorBlade" Versijp.
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