This is a little pedantic and more out of interest than anything: say you have a target comprising a single unit of three closely formed planes and you fire three missiles (eg heat seekers). Say you get three hits, now there is a likely hood (in reality) that two hits are on the same plane and so there is one survivor. This doesn't seem to be the case in Harpoon where the hits appear to be divided up evenly. Doesn't really cause a problem (in my mind) as both sides have the same situation and it isn't too far off, but an interesting case of minor deviation from reality.

 

Don

I've thinked sometimes in that issue. Two calming answers can be:

- If the shooting group has more than one plane, each shooting plane/pilot is targeting a different plane.

- If the shooting group has only one plane, the single pilot is an ace, or in this moment is inspired to shoot like an ace (or he has the sun on his back, or every other circunstance not modelled in the game engine ).

 

More seriously, I remember in old iterations of the game active AAM (only AIM-54 Phoenix, it was time before the service introduction of AIM-120 AMRAAM) engaging and shooting-down friendly planes near to his trajectory, we've lost this feature a lot of years ago (same about anti-ship missiles engaging own ships at long distance). About infrared guided missiles, I don't remember this same effect, but I'm not sure, and I think the probabilities for a short range IR guided AAM engaging a near frienldy plane are more low than for a long range active-radar guided AAM engaging an erroneous target at long distance.

I've seen this lately modeled in Dan Verssen Games 'Hornet Leader - Carrier Air Operations'. Some weapons in this card based game are rated 'independent', which means one can engage different targets with it per round. Non-independent weapons can only hit one target. While this cannot be translated directly to Harpoon, I guess it could use a similar model where a weapon system either locks on one or multiple targets. Maybe an wish list item

I've thinked sometimes in that issue. Two calming answers can be:

- If the shooting group has more than one plane, each shooting plane/pilot is targeting a different plane.

- If the shooting group has only one plane, the single pilot is an ace, or in this moment is inspired to shoot like an ace (or he has the sun on his back, or every other circunstance not modelled in the game engine ).

 

More seriously, I remember in old iterations of the game active AAM (only AIM-54 Phoenix, it was time before the service introduction of AIM-120 AMRAAM) engaging and shooting-down friendly planes near to his trajectory, we've lost this feature a lot of years ago (same about anti-ship missiles engaging own ships at long distance). About infrared guided missiles, I don't remember this same effect, but I'm not sure, and I think the probabilities for a short range IR guided AAM engaging a near frienldy plane are more low than for a long range active-radar guided AAM engaging an erroneous target at long distance.

 

Keep in mind that like a bullet, a missile once fired has no friends.

 

You have some options with radar missiles, at least those which do not have an active terminal phase (active terminal phase pretty much means you are hosed). Most semi-active missiles are designed to self-destruct if they lose rear reference (e.g. if the firing platform shuts off its radar), but again, if the bird has an active mode and it loses illumination or midcourse guidance, it is designed to go active (the design intent is that even if the launcher is killed, the missile may still complete its task).

 

Passive missiles will chase whatever they detect. It is possible for an IR (heat-seeker) missile to be decoyed off with a flare or maneuver, fly past it, then pick up "something else" (it might be the sun, a cloud, or you). Oh well.