- Yes
- No
With this coming update, we are about to see the third generation of AMRAAM added, the Aim-120D and yet, accepted reports for the previous generation of AMRAAM remain in an accepted state. The Aim-120D by all accounts still uses Aim-120B data as the foundation of its performance, the same as the Aim-120C5 and so buffs to the Aim-120B would directly affect both the C5 and the D.
It is time these old reports, some very old, finally saw action and the reports actually fixed for all AMRAAM variants.
Reduced Smoke
The First is the simplest, and often overlooked buff, the AMRAAM’s currently missing reduced smoke motor. AMRAAMs perform poorly in short range WVR encounters and favour being up high and fast, ideally firing with a bit range, removing the very obvious exhaust would reduce the warning that a target has that a missile has been fired and help avoid revealing the location of the aircraft, which pairs beautifully with the overhaul contrails we got only a few updates ago.
Aim-120 Reduced Smoke motor - Reproted 2 years
Aim-120C5 Missing Low Smoke Motor - Reported 9 months ago
Beamwidth Reduction
This next report is more complicated to explain the usefulness of, but would go a long way to making the AMRAAM harder to notch and chaff, that is reducing its beamwidth, Fireball did make an error with the report, and the reduction would only be relatively minor, around +/- 1.5° in FoV, but a buff is a buff nonetheless, which would help in making the missile more difficult to notch
AMRAAM Beamwidth Currently too large - Reported 2 years ago
Kinematic Performance
Whilst there is a lot that could be said about the current AMRAAM performance in this regard, a lot of it is hard to report, especially given the lack of sources available. So instead, this is just purely about the accepted issues submitted by Flame.
The first is fairly simple: The Aim-120B should be able to hit a lower flying aircraft, taking no meaningful defensive action at greater ranges than currently possible, showing that the missile is currently missing a notable chunk of available energy.
The next, and far more important, is that the Aim-120B should perform considerably better against manoeuvring targets, in the reports attached, all 3 test scenarios should have resulted in hits, instead, they all missed, changes made early on for the AMRAAM actually made the miss distance worse, not better. This is a particularly bad issue as it was reported on the beta test and still not yet fixed
Whilst the reports are for the Aim-120A/B, these should also directly affect both the C5 and D which are direct upgrades of the A/B. Failing that, it would still be a meaningful buff for the A/B for those aircraft dependent on them (and many still choose them over the C5)
120A & B - Max range against non-manoeuvring targets too low - Reported 2 years ago
AIM-120A & B - Performance against manoeuvring targets too poor (Original) - Reported 2 years ago
AIM-120A & B - Performance against manoeuvring targets too low (Updated) - Reported 2 years ago
Fixing these main reports would do a world of good for the AMRAAM and their carriers, whilst they will likely have some notable disadvantages compared to the competition, especially as War Thunder tends to favour shorter range engagements, they would actually be able to begin leveraging their performance at longer ranges, by making the AMRAAM harder to spot coming, harder to notch and harder to kinematically defeat.
There are some other more minor reports that wouldn’t have any immediate impact on balance or performance, but reported and accepted nonetheless and yet still fixed
AIM-120A - Seeker range too low - Reported 2 years ago
AIM-120A - Missing re-target option - Reported 2 years ago
AIM-120A - Missing Self-Destruct option - Reported 2 years ago
As a minor side note, it is also about time that LSZs were fixed, whilst this does affect all Fox-3s, I think the AMRAAM is more severely affected than most as it favours being fired high and fast and it is under these conditions that this bug seems to occur most often
