Meteor requires initial booster to get it up to a minimum speed before ramjet works efficiently. This isn’t good if the missile turns too soon, wasting this energy… Especially from low speed standpoint. The missile will be scrapped.
The AIM-120’s with HOBS capability have an 8s boost lol
Again, the Meteor is not as good for any kind of WVR situation or merge over the other options available. I’m not saying you shouldn’t carry them, in fact you should carry as many as possible… But the other ordnance is far more useful for closer quarters flexibility.
That all depends on the size of the booster: it’s specific impulse and DV which are unknown.
It is supposedly able to accelerate the missile by +2 mach in 2 seconds ~320m/s^2 acceleration atleast
Or I’ve interpreted it wrong and it’s able to reach mach 2 in 2 seconds from an unknown launch speed., most likely the former, bit that is still unconfirmed and quite unrealistic.
I have only seen videos of the first 0.5 seconds of a meteor launch, so it’s hard to confirm how long the booster is active for, but it is much much faster accelerating at the launch than the aim120 videos I’ve seen.
I’d be interesting in seeing some test examples in the games cdk of how effective this could be in HOBS situations compared to the aim120c5, using a low powered, long burning sustainer as an example with the high powered boost motor.
This isn’t true, we have speed over time sources that are somewhat reliable. It accelerates similar to the R-27ER initially, a hard maneuver will certainly harm the performance as the ramjet will be unable to reach appropriate speeds. Thus, turn radius will need to be large initially and the close-in performance practically nonexistent for any off-bore launches that exceed the capability of the current R-27ER.
Think of the close-in performance gap of MICA vs R-27ER, that’s sort of what we can expect… But the ER keeps going fine whereas the Meteor would choke if it couldn’t get up to speed.
Of course as DirectSupport said they might not properly model these limitations.
That’s a fair point, you could always do as has already been shown and carry AIM-120C/D on the second-most outboard pylon and then of course you have your wingtip IR’s.
All depends on how the meta shifts, if the multipath reduction goes through, particularly with no notch-limit concessions then whoever has the bigger stick will undoubtedly be the biggest factor.
Theres already been notch limit concessions, even before the MP change went through. The fox 3 seekers arent particularly any better than those seen on current live server fox 1’s iirc. Theres also been some other things that havent been modelled, such as reduced smoke motors on the AIM-120A/B and MICA.
Edit: Actually the AIM-120A seeker does appear to be better than the AIM-7M seeker, appears to have been changed since the start of the dev server, though i might have been misremembering. As for how much better, not quite clear, the exact impact of every value isn’t 100% clear to me. 7M (left) vs 120A (right)
The only point it would harm the missiles effectiveness is where it still needs the sustainer/ramjet to reach the target.
The speed of the missile, even after a 90 degree turn would still be > mach 1.5 which is a very generous minimum for the ramjet to be effective.
The ramjet can still accelerate the misisle at that speed.
A currant example of a high off boresight misisle with a very high impulse motor is the magic2. The high impulse at the start of the launch allows the misisle to reach the maximum g very quickly, to make a very hard turn almost immediately off the rails, but beyond a 90 degree turn the speed immediately falls off.
Where it would struggle is once the booster finishes and its still trying to do a high G turn, which would be a scenario where the misisle is trying to do a 180 degree turn where the misisle would be too slow even for a boost and sustain motor.
An all boost motor like the aim120c5 would be a lot more effective in this scenario, but a boost sustain motor such as the aim120a and aim120b would struggle just as much as the meteor.
Either way, this exact scenario is what the asraam was specifically designed for and would be better than any aim120 variant at doing.
The magic 2 isn’t a great example, short motor burn and poor top speed. The turn radius and maximum overload by speed are significantly better than something like the Meteor.
Any HOBS launches result in excessive energy loss, the AIM-120C-5 would have superior turn radius, overload, acceleration, lock on after launch, etc over the magic 2. It has still ~4x the booster time. The meteor would be unable to attain nearly as much AoA or it would burn through the available energy and starve the ramjet.
The Meteors turn radius would need to be large to avoid excessive AoA or even at 1.5 - 2 mach the engine would still starve for sufficient flow.
That isn’t true at all, Meteor would suffer for the aforementioned reasons.
No, the ASRAAM doesn’t have the same reach as AIM-120C+ models but there is an overlap where it may be more / less useful depending on scenarios.
I think there is a very specific scenario you are trying to use to say the meteor is inferior, which is likely the case, but in all other situations the meteor will have a higher PK and shorter time to target at all ranges.
You mentioned an acceleration graph, what source is this?
The graph indicates the “booster” is a modified version of the AIM120C5 rocket motor, or something very very similar with the same impulse but slightly lower deltaV due to the higher mass of the missile.
This appears to contradict other information available including videos and statements regarding the capability of the boost motor…
I’d be reticent to read too much into what the origins of the motor are from just that. I doubt MBDA would modify a motor from another companies missile. While the bore is the same that’s probably due to constrains on mounting as most airframes are built with AMRAAM in mind.
Yeah it’s an indication only graph, not something I would rely on as a source, but the implication is clear - same impulse time but lower DV which results in a slightly slower acceleration and lower top speed.
You can see from videos alone that the boost motor of the meteor has flame, and exhaust plume several times larger than the AMRAAM, and it accelerates significantly faster in first few seconds after launch… but there’s no videos that i can find rhat show the missile switching to the ramjet stage while also showing the launch.
I was hoping to see more videos of the Meteor launching from the KF-21, they show the missile being dropped but not the motor igniting.
I saw the chat about ramjets losing efficiency when turning due to the ducts, but given the LSZ’s MBDA published this appears to be of minimal impact, as a manoeuvring target in those LSZ’s is still getting clapped at much much much larger ranges than “current MRAAM”.
Also the missile uses bank to turn but also bank while turning;
My thinking behind this, while traditional BTT is roll then pitch, BWT (at least from my understanding) performs skid to turn while also rolling into a BTT, might be hitting the pipe too hard on that one, but that would be my read.
That just isn’t true, the Meteor will be good in a wide range of scenarios because most of which are just… BVR… But at closer ranges it is at a disadvantage. An AMRAAM can be fired from the notch and still hit closing targets for example.
Thanks, acceleration looks on par for the initial booster of the R-27ER
You have no way of guessing this… Meteor cruises at mach ~3, so whatever it is peaks at just above that. The altitude and other conditions are unknown.
Any such maneuvers will introduce higher dome error slope and sideslip
You are right, there is no way of knowing, it is an assumption based of a graph that is purely for reference and has no actual basis on reality because we know the meteor boost motor is far more powerful than indicated.
The misisle can cruise at anywhere from mach 1.5 to mach 4+ to extend the range and then increase the speed as required for the final stage of intercept.
Maximum speed of traditional ramjets is governed below hypersonic region and minimum required speed for sustained burn is unknown. You don’t have sufficient basis for these assumptions.
As I said, the Eurofighter in war thunder will be thrust into situations that involve low speed and off-boresight launches which are naturally a weak point for the Meteor.
