That’s what you call being efficient
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180x40 holy man
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It will be interesting to see how Mica IR is modelled. According to SAT (who manufactured the seeker), it uses a bi-spectral (operates in two IR bands/wavelengths) seeker:
Spoiler
This means it will have an immunity to conventional flares (a separate excerpt from Sofradir):
“A typical modern air countermeasure flare will generate an intense IR output in the shorter wavelengths but be less intense at the longer wavelengths. A missile seeker with sensitivity in two different wavelengths can detect this difference and the missile will not be seduced.”
However, it is unclear how it will perform against spectral flares for now.
But when compared to the AIM-9X, ASRAAM and IRIS-T, Mica IR should have the strongest IRRCM:
- AIM-9X and ASRAAM both use the same Raytheon 128x128 MWIR (only a single IR band) detector
- For IRIS-T I couldn’t find much info about its seeker after a brief look, but I highly doubt the seeker is better than even the Raytheon MWIR seeker due to Germany not being a particularly advanced nation
TL;DR: The Rafale will only get even stronger from here on out:
What would you even consider a “conventional” flare in this context?
It’s known what the performance of the of the generic & MJU-7 &- 8/A (MTV) is;
Excerpts from the referenced patent
As illustrated in , a magnesium/ammonium perchlorate based flare.
FIG. 2 a magnesium/ammonium perchlorate composition that contains 10% anthracene
FIG. 3 is a graph illustrating the intensity of emissions within two specified ranges of wavelengths generated by burning the composition given in Example 1 (MTV Flare)
The issue is that these are what is used in the ALE-29 / -39 / -40 (early) so are 'Nam era designs.
A contemporary flare is something like the MJU-47/A ,-48/A & -51/A ( all '89), and between them runs things like the, MJU-8A (deployed '88), MJU-22 , MJU-27A/A, MJU-52 (BOL-IR, ALE-58 / LAU-138) and others designed to provide access to for advancements made for the various configurations and form factor of the multitude of available dispensers and pods.
All of which provide improved coverage against threats though various means in comparison to the existing generic Flare.
So would be available to the majority of Western counterparts, though the ALE-40 (Late) / -47 & MJU-12, -13 or -17 modular magazines.
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Flares produce a different spectral signature compared to a plane:
Only a bi-spectral sensor is able to compare, measure and analyse the two detected IR sources.
The caveat here is that a spectral flare is supposed to mimic the spectral signature of a plane, so even a bi-spectral seeker will have trouble making a discernment.
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IRIS-T also has a dual-band seeker. It’s seeker is also rather unique in that it only has a 128x2 Array that is scanned by a mirror 80 times/s to produce an effective 128x128 image. That also has the effect of making it much more resistant to DIRCM and easier to cool than traditional seekers.
If it’s better than MICA-IR seeker? Who knows, we’d need some sekrit documents to make that conclusion.
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The page doesn’t specifically state that IRIS-T uses a bi-spectral (or dual colour - whichever term floats your boat) seeker. It’s just broadly speaking about current trends in “sensor technology” at Diehl:
I don’t doubt that a 128x2 linear array can produce comparable image quality to a 128x128 staring array, but the issue is that the linear array requires a scanning mechanism which takes up much more space compared to a staring array (which doesn’t use a scanning mechanism). I would be surprised if two (comparably large) 128x2 detectors could fit in a seeker head which is what would be necessary to sense two wavebands. I hope I explained that right :)
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The FIM-92 for example gets around this via the use of prisms(Figure. 7).
One thing to remember is with optics is that this type of split only halves the brightness, not cuts out half the image.
My original point was that in War Thunder, Mica IR should have an immunity to anything short of a spectral flare, and even then should have the best performance against such a decoy when compared to other IIR missiles.
One thing it difinitively has over the MICA-IR seeker are significantly better gimbal limits. MICA -IR gimbal limits are ±60 deg vs the IRIS-T’s ±90 deg.
Its kind of comparing apples to oranges though. The IRIS-T is specifically made to have the absolute maximum maneuverability and intercept accuracy, at the expense of velocity and range when compared to stuff like ASRAAM and MICA, and is routinely stated to be capable of being used kind of like a hard kill APS for the aircraft, intercepting inbound threats. The MICA-IR on the other hand has substantially more range and likely speed. They’re effectively 2 different classes of missiles.
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But the FIM-92 still uses a single IR detector as illustrated in that diagram?
It wasn’t until dual band IR detectors (a relatively recent development) that a single FPA could detect more than one waveband.
In the meantime I will read the patent you have linked.
Edit: Its a IR + UV seeker with two separate detectors, not a IR + IR seeker which is what I originally discussed:
Spoiler
Fair point
It’s also possible that each row scans a different band tbf (so one 128x1 for one band and one 128x1 for the other) but that we simply don’t know (and prolly never will). Maybe the Block 2 will bring more clarity once we know more about it’s new seeker.
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That’s literally the IR/UV POST seeker that the FIM-92B, later Stinger variants (and other missiles like the MIM-72G, and prototype XRIM-116) use, US4009393
The point was that that the POST seeker’s arrangement is an example of a notional optical train that could allow for a two discrete detectors to be used, regardless of which bands the detectors are actually optimized for.
The reason it uses UV and IR (in place of MWIR/SWIR for example) is that it magnifies the work required to generate an active formulation that can suitably defeat both detectors simultaneously.
What you are referring to is a dual band IR detector which provides independent sensing of different spectral bands within individual pixels. This is a visual representation:
The two leaders in this technology are the USA and France. As for France, the technology didn’t mature enough for production until 2009/2010 (or so). IRIS-T entered service in 2005 according to Wikipedia (please correct me if I’m wrong), so it’s very unlikely IRIS-T uses a dual band IR seeker.
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This just flagrantly ignores the differences in terms of SWaP between an IR and UV detector. An IR seeker with two separate detectors is possible but this would most certainly require staring arrays as opposed to linear arrays which use scanning mechanisms (such as on IRIS-T).
'05 seems about right. It started development in the 90s, if france didn’t have a mature seeker till '09 then it is very unlikely that IRIS-T had one already. (Unless Diehl just kept quiet about for some reason, also very unlikely)
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From what i searched dual color seekers see from 3 to 5 and 8 to 13.
Excerpts:
“Such seekers, which are most sensitive to the 3 to 5 micrometre range, are now called single-color seekers.”
"This led to new seekers sensitive to both the exhaust as well as the longer 8 to 13 micrometer wavelength range.’
“Modern seekers combine several detectors and are called two-color systems.”
Which i take to mean that the IRIS-T has a dual band seeker.
Unless you guys are talking about something else.
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Holy Racism man (They are the nation the the Meteor propulsion design comes from)
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Can you provide a link to your source?