Forgot to look two posts down from where I said that and read that post? You don’t need a definitive number to arrive at the conclusion of 0.01 if a provided scenario arrives at that conclusion for you.
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The AIM-54 are very much considered capable fighter air to air missiles, and even then AIM-7F does exist and doesn’t necessarily lack in range compared to MICA. This was in 2002 by the way, not 1980’s or 1990’s.
The thrust values were pulled from the Czechslovakian estimate, same for the Derby.
I don’t necessarily see it like that. A big culprit is the loft value of the MICA. Its loft is something like only 5 degree loft, changing that would already have the missile in AAM-4/PL-12 category if not higher.
When I tested the MICA and Derby with loft removed for both, the MICA ended up surpassing the Derby. The thrust of MICA is similar to Derby with both having the same caliber and nearly the same weight.
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Still wouldn’t change the VL Mica situation though
I remember pretty damn well that no amount of loft could change its pathetic speed past 10km in that little custom mission
But i suppose it has to do with the fact that atmosphere itself isn’t even modelled correctly, so not much that can be done i would imagine (unless they revamp their physics engine entirely)
oh, but i can agree on that, if the source gives that the comparison is given for AIM-54.
my only problem here is that you seem to assume that F-14 was considered armed with AIM-54’s, but nothing proves it ^^"
Congressional hearing let slip that the AIM-54 was far more than “capable” of being used on fighter targets.
The only concern is a minimum range twice that of the AIM-7E-2’s dogfight mode (so, ~600m?)
not my actual point, but thanks for that information.
i was specifically about what DirectSupport said earlier about 2002 Mock-fights with F-14’s and caring about what weapon was considered to be on F-14 during those 2002 mock-fights.
It would have been roughly equal in performance whether armed with the AIM-54 or with the AIM-7E-2. The AIM-7F would provide further improvement over the former missiles but in any case - the maneuvering air combat outcome would be roughly equal with all three so I think it is a moot point.
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Having finally had time to read the paper in question I don’t think you can use it to draw that conclusion. The paper specifically excludes anechoic chambers designed for RCS measurement from it’s list.
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I don’t know if you got a response you consider satisfactory or not, but i’ll throw in my two cents. (repetitive rambling below)
In my experience its best to just think of it like a radar guided r73, in the same way its not impossible to flare an r73 but gets progressively hard and more specific the closer you are, the same goes for the MICA. Same way to defeat it honestly, range is your best friend but a inevitably you’ll end up closer than you want by choice or mistake anyway. Turn on periodic chaff, keep changing direction, and keep speed up. Ironically it has a similar issue as the r73 where in a very close range dogfight its more likely to lose control or tracking than actually be of use.
It’s not really that the missile has any better tracking, if I’m not mistaken its the easiest ARH to chaff (sure was before it got fixed). It just the speed of closure + off bore shots that extend the area thats non-ideal to defend against.
Honestly the dogfights without missiles seem evenly matched most of the time, but if you’re worried about being outnumbered during a dogfight, that’s just the 16v16 curse, if you’ve got US on your team might as well just J out at the runway after you run out of missiles if were being honest.
The biggest weakness as already said is the pathetic range and drag, outside of 8~ miles Ide rather use a sparrow.
But if I were to boil it down, it really just comes down to:
Don’t try to come onto a rafale whos in a notch to you, its their ideal position to be in.
Don’t headon a rafale within 8 miles, farther than that and they really can’t touch you.
Range makes the rafale impotent, and if you must enter the MICA-twilight-zone just do it at 8~ miles and slowly drain them of MICAs.
Don’t enter dogfights in 16v16… This is universal. Blame the snale, I do, alot.
Trust the notch and chaff, really this, most people will keep sending missiles, and every missile that misses is one less chasing you when you close the gap.
Or, just multipath at mach 1+ and you’ll never die to a MICA. Because even if someone manages to get a MICA off at altitude at the perfect 90 look down, it’ll be so slow you’ll outrun it anyway.
It’s really just a missile that is good for instantly taking advantage of someone in a bad position, in as little setup as possible. It gives anyone that has it the ability to punish anyone who can be punished. It’s still a radar ARH, not some multispectral IR guided nightmare. Think of it in terms of not where the plane is, but where you are and how easy it would be if something with 120s were coming from the same direction as the MICA.
TLDR; Multipath at mach1, the snail doesn’t want you to know this, but, the irccm meta never left. :^)
The sentence could be referring to excluding anechoic chambers completely dedicated to RCS measurement or EM/EMI testing and not having any other purpose. In fact, I understand it to be this way when you look further down…
Notice how in your screenshot it says it excludes chambers dedicated to measuring Radar Cross Section or to EMC/EMI testing, but note that in my screenshot it includes chambers that are designed primarily for EMC/EMI testing. So it does not necessarily exclude aircraft measuring RCS chambers if there’s also other provided functions.
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i think its biased
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Don’t be Francophobic. Of course it’s not biased. The Rafale wants to know your location.
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well 1 rafale C would have like 8 AAM right?
10 F-22 would have 60 AIM-120D and 20 AIM-9X total, and i dont think all 8 of rafale missile can be meteors, so even the stars aligned and meteor could target F-22, there would still be multiple angry F-22 with many missiles
rafale can get my location once it beats an F-22 in BVR combat
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So you say but MICA has f-ing NAILED me right in the cockpit at 40 meters RALT on multiple occasions. Edit: So have other ARH’s actually. Multipath is a gamble currently.
But F the Rafales. I have decided that I’d rather just deal with F15s at high alt whilst fighting my own radar in the meantime. I’ll just dodge, crank and notch AMRAAMS up there no problem.
I just wont be down there anymore.
Thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate you trying to help.
It is indeed possible that anechoic chambers capable of RCS measurement were included in that table. However my point is that you can’t use that single source to claim that France had an RCS measuring anechoic chambers “decades ahead of many other countries” because other countries could have had dedicated RCS measuring anechoic chambers which were excluded from that paper. It is entirely possible that France had RCS measurement anechoic chambers before most other countries, but more information is needed before that can be said conclusively.
As you mention it is there actually evidence that Dassault’s anechoic chamber at Istres is used for RCS measurement? This paper about Dassault’s testing capabilities only mentions their Anechoic chambers at Istres being used for ECM testing:
In their list of testing techniques they also declare anechoic chamber ECM testing as having started in 1978, but don’t mention RCS testing:
If the anechoic chambers at Istres were capable of RCS testing then it also seems strange that the nEUROn drone was built at Istres, but then sent over 700 km away to Bruz for RCS testing, rather than just being tested on site at Istres.
Also of note is that RAM times used in anechoic chambers designed for ECM testing are not optimised for RCS measurements:
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It’s not a gamble, what you are more than likely experiencing is actually funnily enough just the missile losing lock on you too early - and flying within proximity fuse distance of your last known intercept point BEFORE it goes stupid due to multipath.
What you must also consider is that multipath only begins to affect missiles at 60m above the surface you are flying over, to get it to decoy a missile and avoid splash damaging you - you’ll need to actively be turning and hope it is not coming from above. The higher the impact angle, the less time it will spend in multipath before it pulls its’ course away from your own point of intercept.
Can you show us a single example of a British facility testing radar cross section of airframes prior to the Eurofighter already having been in production?
It most certainly was, as Istres is the primary facility from which new airframes are developed and tested in France. It is not just an anechoic chamber, it is the “centre principal pour la mise au point” (main development center).
This 1989 document states that the TWO anechoic chambers used there are “without equal in EUROPE”. @DirectSupport
It’s always better to keep turning slightly to different directions while multipathing when missile is close. That way (at least in my experience), missile tends to hit ground earlier before reaching you and cause no damage at all or do minor/moderate damage that still let’s you fly the aircraft instead of turning you into a fireball. But terrain sometimes makes this difficult so you have to plan ahead before committing to a turn.
That is the same image I posted, so I am well aware of that document. As I pointed out it states the anechoic chambers were used for ECM testing, with no mention of RCS testing. And despite the nEUROn drone being built at Istres it was sent over 700 km away for RCS testing, which seems like an odd choice if it could have been tested on site.
I’m not saying that RCS testing is definitely not carried out at Istres, just that so far I’ve not seen anything to explicitly say it is. You’ve not provided any evidence that shows RCS testing was conducted at Istres (beyond " It’s an important place so surely they do it"), so haven’t really answered my question or added anything to the conversation.
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