I don’t actually know that that M81 saw service but it was evidently type classified, was tested and at very least saw an initial limited production run, which was likely low volume as evidently documented. I’ve been trying to find evidence that it was canceled but there are so many potential avenues for this to occur and decision points there’s a lot to wade through to find an answer.
There are also other potential defeat mechanisms like the missile falling back on the last predicted point of impact (even an active obscurant system doesn’t deploy instantly, and IOG drift scales with remaining time of flight), to ensure hits and late activation of the seeker vs terminal homing corrections practically ensures that avenues of escape that do not maintain obscuration would not work, or force repeated deployment of a very limited number of system charges.
I just want to be able to delete convoys in ASB, currently only take Brimstones in a very specific configuraiton on the GR4 just because I happen to have a spare hardpoint for 3 to fit on, if it wasnt for that. They’d never be used. (and i’ve only ever fired them once)
I have something on Brimstone-3’s IOG system, and the level of drift is tiny and for the duration of flight is extremely unlikely. So smoking without moving atleast the length of the tank from your previous known position is unlikely to save the vehicle.
The term MMW covers all frequencies from 30 GHz all the way up to 300 GHz. IIRC AGM-114L apparently operates at about 35 GHz, while Brimstone is confirmed to operate at 94 GHz.
To play devil’s advocate it could be that M81 works against AGM-114L and other radars in the low end of MMW, but is ineffective at 94 GHz where Brimstone operates. That would mean both sources could be true.
Without access to a specimen to actually analyze, or cross section to look at there is no way to tell what the specific configuration of the bundled chaff element(s) actually is or how it would be portioned to cover said frequency range, as it is likely that it is not designed with a specific threat system in mind but to cover some portion of the wider listed spectrum for a number of reasons.
It may also worth noting that reflectors with a similar characteristic lengths to the received signal still reflect some energy, though it decays quickly as they diverge so chaff still has some impact across neighboring frequencies even without requiring a contiguous set of characteristic lengths present in the dispensed bundle so performance is variable and coverage depending on quantity and apportioning of lengths that would be tailored to an expected threat mix and then down-selected from presets based of intel and order of battle when selected for loading for a mission.
As a side note there is enough internal length within the 66mm grenade casing reserved for the Countermeasure charge (~115 -120mm of 185mm OAL) to house both a 35 Ghz (wavelength of about ~8.5mm) and 94Ghz (~3.2mm) many times over even if much of the internal volume was dedicated to the IR band obscurant and since Wavelength is inversely proportional to Frequency a lack of space for the multitude of characteristic lengths needed for band coverage is certainly achievable with limited loss of performance (reserved volume) in the IR domain.
Sure, but as with many systems in game band coverage for ESM systems is affirmative and as broad as possible.(many RWR’s include J band due to the Old NATO/US designations being all we have to go off and so overlap and don’t have frequency cutouts due to things not being specifically defined due to lacking information for many systems)
So if implemented as per existing precedent(s) it is likely that the Brimstone would fall within that covered by the M81 (and a hopefully genericized smoke formulation, thus extended to all top tier smoke grenades for all nations). and so pave the way for the addition of MMW seekers without breaking balancing too much, since it won’t differ much from existing IIR implementation, in most respects.
The fact we can’t get post-release retargeting mechanics for stores like the Walleye, GBU-15/AGM-130 and TV MARTEL, as a gaming convention and yet won’t swap / constrain LOAL modes for LOBL for stores like the AGM-114L and Brimstone to ease balancing is so strange to me. (the other option would be to cap loadouts to a low number of missiles at a time) if it was such a large concern.
If they had their prox fuze i would bring 3 at all times, quazy fireflashes for the head ons. Any news on why they havent added this other than for “balance” reasons… When we got vhickers on an su 25 already. Or was it a brimstone 2 thing?
Let me pull an ace combat and launch multiple asraams and brimstones and the scourge of kh38s coming for my team as i send an amraam right into the ass hats face (or ass as hes most likely already heading back to his af).
Honestly, killing su 34s and other carriers of the kh 38 wouldnt be as fun as it is without them instantly going into chat to complain about these guys who keep camping their air spawn… of course i am, i like winning every now and then.
I’d imagine eurofighter (obviously) and possibly tornado? Considering the F3 and GR4 (according to Wikipedia) could carry regular ASRAAM. The ASRAAM wiki also says the harrier gr7 used them.
