To understand this article requires knowledge of how the radar warning receiver works. To see an introduction of this, see the following video. [see video(Falcon4 BMS 4 3 minutes 37 seconds)

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In the last article on the jammer, you were taught how to use the jammer to help you avoid missiles. The jammer not only can be used to degrade the maneuverability of the enemy missiles, but can also be used to break the lock of enemy radar for a brief moment. Breaking the lock of the enemy radar does not impede the enemy's ability to get updates on your position. The enemy can lock onto you with their radar within a fraction of a second after the lock is broken. The lock is broken way too briefly to have any utility to hide your location and evade the enemy. You therefore, cannot slip past enemy aircraft by jamming their radar and breaking their radar lock.

Using the jammer to break enemy radar lock, however, does have great utility in dodging enemy missiles. If a missile loses lock for only a brief amount of time, then it will likely make the missile unable to maneuver into you in and hit you. The jammer alone cannot break the lock of an enemy radar. But the jammer in combination with the right maneuver can.

Here is how to use both the jammer and maneuver to break the lock of enemy radar and evade missiles. If the enemy missile is to the front of you or near the front of you, use the following maneuver. Turn so that the missile is directly in front of you. Do a climb above 0° pitch and roll left. Continue to pull back on the stick and when the turn reaches about 10:30 o'clock, roll inverted so that you are upside down. Pull back on the stick and dive until you reach -30° to -35° pitch. Then continue to pull back on the stick and quickly roll left. Turn left until you put the object tracking you on radar at the 9 o'clock direction. If you notice that the radar symbol on the radar warning receiver disappears, then you have broken the lock. If the lock is not broken, turn until the missile is directly in front of you and repeat the above maneuver. Use chaff this time to help the jammer break the lock.

Note that in BMS 4, that the surface-to-air missiles will be persistent in launching another missile that you. As you get closer, the jammer will get less effective at breaking the radar lock. At this point, plan to use chaff every missile evasion maneuver, especially if you notice that the maneuver is no longer effective at breaking the radar lock.

If you notice that you do not have time to both place the missile directly in front of you and perform the above maneuver, use this maneuver instead. Turn so that the missile is at your 9 o'clock. Roll to a sort of a barrel roll that rolls to 30° pitch and -30° pitch. It also needs to at the same time turn the aircraft a little past the 9 o'clock direction towards the 10 o'clock and a little past the 9 o'clock towards the 8 o'clock. Keep doing this maneuver until you notice that the radar symbol on the radar warning receiver disappears and you have broken the lock. If you notice that this maneuver is not working, use chaff in addition to the jammer.

If you have successfully made the radar symbol on the radar warning receiver disappear by doing any of the above two maneuvers, press the 7 key to switch to the incoming missile view. This will check whether the missile has been evaded and has given up trying to hit you. Sometimes, even if you have made the enemy lock on the radar warning receiver disappear for quite some time, the missile may still be guiding its way toward you. One explanation may be that it is guiding its way toward you through manual visual guidance. Pressing the 7 key for the incoming missile view will check for this. If you notice that the missile is still guiding its way toward you, be assured that manual guidance is easy to defeat. To defeat it, place the missile at your 3 or 9 o'clock and turn into it so it is at 10:30 o'clock or 1:30 o'clock. Press the 7 key again to check that the missile has been defeated. If pressing 7 makes nothing come up then you have defeated the missile.

Another explanation for why a radar symbol on the radar warning receiver disappears is that it simply fails to pick up the missile threat anymore. In this case a simple turn into it may not work. If it doesn't then maneuver hard, use chaff and do any of the above maneuvers.

To see missile jamming in action, the following video will show an interdiction mission in which the vehicles are protected by SA-2 SAM sites. I will try to conserve the physical countermeasures of thin pieces of physical material called chaff and just use electronic countermeasures. Electronic countermeasures(the jammer) are unlimited and chaff runs out quickly. Since using chaff does not make any sound, I will announce in the video when I'm using chaff. When the jammer alone is effective, I will just use the jammer. When the radar lock is hard to defeat, I will use chaff in addition to the jammer. [see video 1(Falcon4 BMS4 6 minutes 13 seconds). Notice in the video that what makes the game hard is not defeating a single missile. What makes the game hard is the persistence of the SAM site in launching another missile.)

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I will now discuss jamming for air to air threats. For air to air threats, jamming has an advantage over a simple turn away. If you turn away from an enemy missile, you lose the ability to face and fire at the enemy. Jamming, on the other hand, enables you to face the enemy head-on, close the distance, and fire missiles at multiple enemy aircraft. Plowing forward towards enemy aircraft enables you to get close enough to them so that your missiles don't run out of speed and can hit the target. Keep in mind that jamming is less effective against active radar homing missiles than it is against semi active radar homing missiles, because it only works when it is done early against against the AA-12 Adder(Russian active radar homing missile) in Falcon4 BMS4. In Falcon4 Allied Force, jamming active radar homing missiles may not even be possible. There will be more on active radar homing missiles later.

It is a good idea to try to keep your speed up as much as possible when trying to jam air to air missiles so that you prepare for the possibility that an active radar homing missile may be heading toward you. If you see an active radar homing missile on the radar warning receiver(an 'M' signal), quickly do the split S maneuver to put the missile behind you. Then barrel roll to bleed off speed of the missile. This is detailed in video 2 in Falcon4 TipsB1A-General Aggressive/High Threat Enemy. Here the enemy fires an active radar homing missile in addition to a semi-active radar homing missile. Here is that video(Falcon4 Allied Force 2 minutes 3 seconds)

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Here is the technique for jamming semi active radar homing missiles. Jamming them is similar to that which is for surface-to-air threats. However, I will always use chaff in addition to the jammer, because the distance for air to air threats rapidly closes. First off, fire two Aim 120s at the closest two threats. Then maneuver and jam the missile. I will use the first maneuver I used for the SA-2 SAM missile avoidance above to jam and defeat semiactive radar homing air to air missiles. I will repeat the maneuver here. Do a climb above 0° pitch and roll left. Continue to pull back on the stick and when the turn reaches about 10:30 o'clock, roll inverted so that you are upside down. Pull back on the stick and dive until you reach -30° to -35° pitch. Then continue to pull back on the stick and quickly roll left. Turn left until you put the missile at the 9 o'clock direction.

When you have done this maneuver and jammed the semiactive radar homing missile or missiles, judge whether enough time has passed for the to Aim 120s you fired earlier to have gotten close enough to enter the terminal active radar homing stage. If you think they have, turn into the remaining enemy aircraft, quickly fire two more AIM 120s at two other aircraft. Then do the above maneuver again. In the following video the enemy only has and fires semi active radar homing missiles. [see video 2(Falcon4 Allied Force 2 minutes 35 seconds)

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Here is a video of the same thing but done in Falcon 4 BMS 4. The maneuver to jam semiactive radar homing missiles is a little different and harder than in Falcon 4 Allied Force. Here is that which was done for Falcon 4 Allied Force repeated here with some changes. I will mention when a part is different from the Falcon 4 Allied Force video that was above. First off, fire two Aim 120s at the closest two threats. In Falcon 4 BMS 4 you must wait for the first missiles to go active before you can fire a second missile, which you do not have to do in Falcon 4 Allied Force. This is when the 'a' on the heads-up display reaches zero and turns into an m. Then do a climb above 0° pitch and roll left. Continue to pull back on the stick and when the turn reaches about 10:30 o'clock, roll inverted so that you are upside down. Pull back on the stick and dive until you reach -30° to -35° pitch. Then continue to pull back on the stick and quickly roll left. Turn left until you put the missile past the 9 o'clock direction to the 8:30 or 8:45 o'clock. This is different from Allied Force in which you just go to the 9 o'clock. Here is also an additional part of the maneuver that you do not need to do in Falcon 4 Allied Force. Roll upside right so that you are banked a tiny bit to the left. Climb until you reach 30° pitch. Steer the climb so that you turn from about 8:30 o'clock to about 9:45 o'clock. You can stop the climb early if you notice the missile launch light goes off. When that happens, you have successfully jammed the missile.

[see video 3(Falcon4 BMS4 1 minute 17 seconds. The tactical engagement if you wish to try it can be downloaded here.

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You may need to do additional steps to jam the missile. If the missile is still not jammed, roll inverted and turn until you put the missile at about 8 o'clock. Then roll upside right while continuing to pull back on the stick. While continuing to pull back on the stick, climb to 30° pitch and steer the climb to about 9:30 o'clock or 10 o'clock. Use chaff when doing this maneuver.

Some general tips when attempting to jam a semi active radar homing missile are the following. Don't jam and maneuver too early because the above maneuver may not work. Also, the maneuver does not always work. If you're having trouble jamming the missile, dive to -30° pitch, put the missile at the 8 o'clock and then climb to 30° pitch. Steer the climb so that when it reaches 30° pitch, it puts the missile at 9:45 o'clock. Then repeat the maneuver again and again until the missile is jammed. Trying to keep pulling back on the stick throughout the entire maneuver so that it is like a roll the whole time that keeps rotating the missile between the 8 o'clock and 9:45 o'clock.

Also, here is an additional concept to pay attention to. Try watching the above video again and pay attention to the number of G's that are pulled. You should be pulling about 6 to 7 G's. If you pull too many G's and do the maneuver too fast, it will be like you are making a instantaneous change of direction rather than a long-lasting maneuver. This is especially true at long-range. If you do the maneuver too quickly, it will give the missile a long time to make a correction. This is because the maneuver will be over with a long time before the missile reaches you. You will then be going in a straight line and give the missile a long time to make a correction. This applies to long range and medium range missile launches only-which is what happens in this case.

In short range missiles launches, which doesn't apply to this case, you would want to do a quick maneuver. A quick maneuver for short range missile launches would not be an instantaneous change of direction, but would shake the missile a lot and give it targeting problems. This is because at short range a missile would see a quick maneuver as actually a long curvey manuever. It would be like zooming in on a flat looking curve on a graph. Vice versa is true of long-range launches. A curvy looking curve would look flat and linear at long range, because it would be like looking at a curve zoomed out.What this means is that you want large circles at long range and small tight circles at short range. Pay attention to this concept, especially in BMS 4. You can't get away with a maneuver that lasts too short in BMS 4.

Whether jamming a missile is harder in Falcon 4 BMS 4 or Falcon4 Allied Force is a tossup. Jamming a missile takes a little more maneuvering in BMS 4 than in Falcon 4 Allied Force. However, when you do jam missiles in Falcon4 Allied Force a next missile is launched again at you faster than in Falcon4 BMS4. This means you have less time to fire back at the enemy aircraft once you have jammed a missile. This makes it so you get pinned down by enemy fire to a larger extent. The enemy aircraft get closer and closer until you do not have time to maneuver and jam the missile. However, this is not to say that a next missile launch is not launched fast in Falcon 4 BMS 4. This is just to say that the two versions of Falcon are hard in their own way.

In Falcon 4 BMS4 Russian active radar homing missiles can also be jammed. The important thing to remember is that active radar homing missiles need to be jammed early. They need to be jammed before they enter the terminal active stage of the missile-in other words for guidance to be switched from the aircraft radar to the missile's radar when the missile gets close enough.

Here is how to use jamming and maneuver to spoof an active radar homing missile and stay facing the enemy aircraft. 1) First, target the nearest aircraft and fire a missile at it when it gets within 18.5 miles away. 2 ) Turn on the jammer. 3) Roll upside down so that you are 45° below the horizontal and facing right. 4) Pull back on the stick. When you reach -35°, roll so that the turn is horizontal while continuing to pull back on the stick. 5) When the turn has put the enemy aircraft at 9 o'clock, roll upside right and then roll 45° left of vertical. 6) Climb and barrel roll putting the enemy aircraft at 10: 30 o'clock. Make sure you have tilted the air to air radar upward so that the upper and lower limits of the radar still include the altitude of the enemy aircraft for the new closer range of the aircraft. 7) Fire at one or more of the aircraft. 8) Do a barrel roll to the right putting the aircraft at 9 o'clock. Since you are upside down, they will look like they have been put at 3 o'clock on the radar warning receiver. When you roll upside right the aircraft will be put at 9 o'clock on the radar warning receiver, which is as they should be. Repeat steps 6-8 for each remaining aircraft.

When doing the above maneuver in which you barrel roll and put the enemy aircraft at 10:30 o'clock, notice what happens on the radar warning receiver. There is an M for missile that appears on the radar warning receiver. However, the M is not flashing and is not making a chirping sound. This is because the missile is unable to lock on and guide itself to your aircraft. This does not mean you are free and clear of the missile. In fact, you should maneuver away from it to get clear of it and finish defeating the missile. This is because the missile can still reacquire a lock and guide itself to you again.

[see video 4a(Falcon 4 BMS 4(1 minute 41 seconds). This video will be for a tactical engagement I created. In this tactical engagement your adversary will be 4 Mig-29s where two of them carry AA-12 Adder missiles and no other missiles. The other two aircraft will carry no missiles at all. The tactical engagement if you wish to try it can be downloaded here. Note that in the video the enemy fires 2 Adder missiles about 30 seconds apart, according to the mission debriefing.)

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Another video will show the exact same tactical engagement again. This time, however, I will avoid the missiles not using the jammer or chaff countermeasures. I will use a split S maneuver to turn away from the missiles. I will fire at the first aircraft when it is in within 18 miles. I will wait for the missiles go active and then fire another missile at a second aircraft. I will then turn away from the missiles and use a barrel roll to slow them down and defeat them. [see video 4b (Falcon4 BMS4 3 minutes 29 seconds)

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When should you use the 1st tactic( facing the enemy aircraft and jamming their missiles) or the 2nd tactic( turn away maneuver)? It depends on the amount of enemy aircraft in front of you and their aggressiveness. If you are facing many enemy aircraft in front of you and expect them to have lots of missiles, then you might want to try the first tactic. This is likely to be the case during the beginning of the campaign because the enemy aircraft will have lots of unused missles. The enemy in this case will be an aggressive/high threat enemy. This means that they will pin you down with a barrage of enemy missiles, unless you face them and destroy them. If you turn away from the enemy, you basically will have to flee for dozens of miles and abort the mission. This is because they will fire missile after missile as you turn around.

A good time to use the second tactic is when you expect the enemy to not be aggressive. When they are not aggressive, they will fire one or two missiles at you and that will be all you have to deal with. They will not keep firing missile after missile as you turn around. This barrage of enemy missiles can pin you down as you turn around and the enemy quickly gets closer. As the enemy gets closer you will have less time to maneuver and be left in a no-win situation.

The second tactic is more certain to work on a single missile. This is because it is more easy to duplicate. Facing the enemy and attempting to jam their missiles is more dangerous and uncertain to work. If you expect just a single launch, use the second tactic instead.

A good time to use the first tactic is during sweep missions and missions where you expect heavy resistance. It is useful during sweep missions because you can destroy more aircraft in one pass than you can in the second tactic. The first tactic is also useful for penetrating enemy airspace where you expect heavy resistance. If enemy aircraft pursue you as you turn around then you have to travel dozens of miles before you can move far enough away from them to destroy other aircraft and advance toward your mission target. Advancing toward your mission target often requires that you destroy many threats at once and not just to survive ones that are few and far between.