This guide dives straight into tactical missiles topic, it assumes you have basic knowledge of the game and have completed the prologue at least and...

RTFM

Manual:
http://www.microprose.com/downloads/manuals/highfleet/HF_user_manual_latest.zip

The guide explains the stats of the various missile types, how their sensors work, and their targeting logic. The guide does not cover strategic use, plotting missile intercepts, predicting how the AI will shoot you, and how to defend etc. One could argue that learning those advanced tactics is part of the fun. This guide will help you understand how the missiles work so you can then work out the tactics of actually using and defending against them on your own or via another guide.

- Enjoy -

1. Select a fleet with tactical missiles
   
2. Use the knob at the top right of the screen to cycle between the types
   
3. Click the switch (1 to 4) to select up to 4 missiles to launch in sequence
   
4. Each clicked switch loads a missile to your mouse cursor
   
5. Click on the map within the range of the thick white max range circle (it goes red if you are targeting too far) OR click on a red diamond or red (m) missile icon that’s within the yellow circle of a fleet to attempt a SARH guided shot if missile is able (See missile guidance section for more information)
   
6. Click the launch button at top right. Missiles will launch in sequence, not all at once

NOTE: Despite having 4 switches, your fleet can hold more than 4 of the same strategic missile type.

The 3 tactical missiles available come in 3 flavours:

• Kh-15 – Long Range Guided Strike
  
• A-100 – Close Range Guided Rapid Interception
  
• R-3 – Long Range Ballistic Strike

In Practice the Kh-15 and A-100 are the missiles you will encounter in the campaign and use. You may design a ship to use R-3 missiles in the ship editor, but it has no guidance capability and can only be used to hit stationary targets landed in towns.

* The health stat is just to illustrate that the KH-15 is tougher then the A-100 vs AA defence on average.
** The shotgun blast of the A-100 seems to be abstracted into attacks vs missiles or air wings. All other engagements appear to be impact based now.

Note that the missile speeds for the enemy can be a bit faster then what is listed in this chart, due to difficulty I believe.

Guidance Terms:
ARAD = Anti radiation (Seeks out radar or jamming)
ARH = Active radar homing (seeks using onboard radar)
SARH = Semi active radar homing (seeks using external tracking)

Tactical missiles have 2 general families of guidance:

• Radar-Guided
  
• ARAD/Radiation Seeking (P type).

The R-3 is ballistic only and features no guidance.

Radar guided missiles operate in two modes: SARH and ARH.

SARH-mode:
Semi-Active-Radar-Homing
This means the missile is guiding but is being fed guidance from an external tracking system, it is also capable of a fallback mode when external tracking is not available.

P type missiles can not use SARH guidance

If you click on the red diamond target or (m) missile target within the yellow circle of any of your fleets, the missile will use SARH guidance once you launch it. You will know its correct because the arrow will snap to the target icon when you click it to set up the shot.

This means it will guide to target using a fleet’s sensors as soon as you launch it and continue to track as long as the enemy fleet is within the range of one of your fleet’s yellow circles and detected. A red line going from missile to the target indicates a good lock and track.

Advantage of this mode is that targets in the path can not cause the missile to change course!

Should the missile lose track of the target due to it being out of the yellow circle or other reasons, it will go ballistic and switch to ARH mode.

Tracking range - Yellow circle
Note that the yellow circle range is minimum 100 km (80 at night) radius (optical camera based tracking) and is extended further based on ‘Tracking’ range stat of the ship. Tracking stat is based on 'FCR' module type and positioning on the hull. To get the extended range the radar must be turned on.

- Example of SARH engagement against two separate targets, Notice how separate fleets can buddy track for the launcher fleet beyond their yellow circles range! -

ARH-mode:
Active-Radar-Homing
This means the missile is using its own internal radar to look for and track on a target, it has a limited cone of view in front of the missile. The cone is about 83 km wide.

The missile goes to this mode when ever the missile arrives at the location on the map you clicked (see targeting section for details on sensor activation) or it loses SARH track and switches to this mode. A red cone will be in front of the missile to indicate the ARH mode.

The missile is ballistic in this mode until an enemy or friendly fleet intersects the red cone of the missile. Once a target is detected, it will lock on and self guide to impact. This mode has no capacity to detect friend or foe, It will track onto your fleets, use caution!

A missile in this mode can be jammed, this causes the cone to shrink to half size and is easier to dodge.

- Typical Shot Plan -
- Missile is ballistic and en route -
- Missile reaches the 100 km sensor activation point -
- Missile is jammed and the cone goes to half -
- Missile detects the target and locks on for the intercept -

Kh-15P and Kh-15PN operate in this mode. These missiles will home in on radar or jammer emitters, that is to say they home in on the radiation sent out from these sources including your own.

Warning: they can track onto your emitters so turn off radar and especially jamming when you launch to be very sure not to shoot yourself in the proverbial foot.

Radar Seeking Capability:
The range of the missiles radar tracking is 100 km from the missile denoted by a red circle once the sensor turns on. Any fleet in the red circle with Radar on will be locked by the missile and intercepted. The missile can even do a full 180 deg turn to track a radar signal if it can!

If the radar being tracked is shut off it will go ballistic to last known location. Missile will terminate in that spot unless it gets a new lock.

If a choice between two radars is possible it will choose the stronger one or the closer one, it is very hard to test this and be sure if it's radar strength or range to radar that makes the difference; it should not matter in practical use against the enemy if your radars are off.

Missile Jammer Tracking Capabilities:
Jammer tracking is preferred over radar.
The missile will track jammers at any angle.
The missile can track a jammer at somewhere inside 500 to 600 km from the emitter; try to be inside 500 to be safe.
There is no circle to indicate how far the missile can see jammers; this may depend on the jammer strength.

- Notice the inbound missile is ballistic with sensor off and the target is jammer on, the circle is a 500 km radius from the emitter -
- Here the sensor has turned on and the missile has picked up the jammer and has turned to track -

The missile will not track anything in a ballistic sensors-off mode, once the red circle is visible, it will track jammers, and then radars, otherwise it remains ballistic until it finds an emitter or runs out of fuel.

Ballistic Mode
While the missile is flying to a target point on the map with no active target
- no red cone, circle, or lines from itself to a target -
then the missile is operating in a ballistic (flying in a straight line) sensors off mode. In this flight mode the missile is completely dumb and will not deviate until it turns its sensors on.

If the missile is intercepted in this state by an air wing or fleet you will have a missile attack engagement; you will see the missile fly past at the top of the screen and the craft will have a chance to destroy it.

Enemy missile sensor indications
The normal missiles will show red cones when looking for target and red lines from missile to target when they lock on.
Enemy missiles that are P type seek onto your radar emissions and have red rings indicating they are active. The missile wont show a red line when it's tracking, rather you will see it change course to go for your radar or jammer.

Sensor Activation - IMPORTANT
The missile sensor (including P type) only goes active when it gets within 100 km of the target point or when it loses SARH tracking (see missile guidance section for this special case).

As mentioned, you can click on the map to select a target. I recommend that you use the compass tool to draw a circle with 100 km radius at the target point first to get an idea of when the sensor will turn on.

All missiles will continue to fly past a designated target on the map if they don't detect a target to seek onto until they run out of fuel or find a target; this includes friendly units.

Certain missiles such as the P type radiation seekers will go to last known location of a radar emitter should it lose track and if it does not pick up a new track, will detonate without flying past. Against AI this should not be an issue in general since they do not turn off their radars.

Practical example of why this matters
Imagine you wanted to hit a fleet with a Kh-15N that will be located just beyond a city between you.
This is a long range shot with no nearby fleets, the missile is on its own, and you want to spare the city from nuclear destruction by timing the sensor activation, where do you click?

To do this you would want the sensor to turn on just after it passes the city but before contact with the fleet. You can use a ruler or compass to click where you want the sensor to turn on and draw out a range of 100km in the direction of travel to the point you would click on the map to launch the missile.

This prevents the sensor from turning on early and hitting targets in the city.
(I'll leave calculating the intercept timing up to you though)

The A-100 is a purpose built interceptor missile with a short range and 2nd highest speed in the game. You can use this with FCR radar coverage to shoot down missiles and air wings accurately in SARH mode.

This is by far your best option for taking down a missile or air wing (with N type) for low cost.

The following images illustrate shooting an A-100 in SARH mode against an inbound missile.
This only works if the target is inside one of your fleets yellow circles.
The missile must also be a solid colour/moving and not translucent/static indicating a visible radar track to aim at.

- Alarm! Incoming missile!

- load the missile to the mouse cursor

- click on the 'm' icon and note how the arrow snaps to it

- launch the missile and observe the connecting red line indicating the missile is tracking to ONLY that target.

Do not use P-Type missiles, the KH-15, or R-3 missiles to do intercepts, they cant track or are impact based and thus not suitable for intercept and best used offensively; the KH-15N can be used in a pinch however.

The standard A-100 seems to have some decent chance for destroying the target missile; it is not 100% certain unless its type N.
Vs an air wing the standard A-100 will destroy around 2 planes per missile.

The A-100N will always kill the intercepted missile or entire air wing!

List of possible topics not covered in this guide:

• Plotting missile intercepts, strategy and technique.
  
• Strategies for defence against enemy missile strikes.
  
• Techniques for surviving the missile defence action mini-game.

For a quick intro to real life beyond visual range (BVR) missile guidance concepts (I.E. SARH and ARH) check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_guidance#Radar_homing

I really love the immersion and strategy in this game!
Thanks for reading.

Youtube User Caracal made this, 3 good visual examples of all missiles in use!
- I did not make this video but I think it really complements with this guide, check it out. -