This isn’t a claim, this is entirely my opinion I have no source saying XYZ is better. I also used the word best for its subjectivity, as though Legion could beat PIRATE in range (who knows there are no figures but PIRATE is beating literally everything else we have figures for), PIRATE has its own advantages.
Legion is passive akin to PIRATE which is an advantage it will have over any other fighter bar Typhoon.
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Irregardless of that, PIRATE is integrated into the airframe, Legion is also described as being ‘plug and play’ I have no proof but that generally suggests a lower level of systems fusion. Furthermore, as of the Director Operational Test and Evaluation report 2021 the pod had angle of attack limitations and could not be used within the entirety of the flight envelope. Thereby ‘gimping’ the aircrafts flight performance, PIRATE has no adverse effects/limitations.
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Secondly Legion has virtually no performance figures available, so for the in-game portion that makes it pretty unlikely it will even be added due to lack of information, hence why for the F-22 portion I note ‘figures are released’. Meanwhile there is strong evidence suggesting at least 150-165km range for PIRATE vs fighter-sized targets and a minimum of 80-93km.
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Thirdly, (and I may be reading too much into this), but Lockheed Martin seem to suggest it has vulnerabilities with range Lockheed Martin Are quoted here ‘In a press release, Lockheed Martin likens the range-finding ability to human binocular vision — in which two eyes, rather than one provide us with rapid depth perception and a 3D view of the world.’. This is the second mention I have found as to its range-accuracy from official representatives. Which essentially suggests pairing the systems alleviates issues PIRATE does not even have (publicly, who knows).
Whereas PIRATE whilst less precise than CAPTOR-M, has never had the suggestion put forward of using datalink between 2 Legion-equipped fighters to obtain precise firing solutions, as can be seen int that source. -
Range-wise, this Superhornet development spokesman Captain Jason Denney is quoted as saying: ‘we’ve improved the optical design and the detector technology to get up with the 30 years of advancements, and then to provide some improved sensitivity and performance’. Which if anything implies that they worked more on its False-alarm rates.
He is also quoted as saying on its accuracy 'I can then tell generally which direction he’s going, but without knowing something about the range or something about the velocity, I gotta make some assumptions… ', here
Its not that Legion won’t have come a long way since Tomcat eyes but it is based on Tomcat Eyes (though that needed TCS to achieve its maximal performance which this naturally lacks) and most of the upgrades have been to reliability and software integration. Also to achieve precise, and long-range detection against bombers Tomcat Eyes required TCS, which Legion lacks.
Again, this isn’t an IRL comparison there are no figures for Legion, but its clear it isn’t quite finished and, based on available stuff on PIRATE and available stuff on IRST21/Legion, I’ll pretty confidently say I think PIRATE will be better.
(P.S pls no-one bite my head off this was a surface level flick)
