I know, still the better dog fight missle out of the 3
Also, went it comes to missiles destroying other missiles, I think there’s a need to consider the failure rate. Maybe IRIS-T performs better since it was design with this capability in mind, but if it fails, it’s a sure death for the carrier.
If you follow the Onion (don’t be there, don’t be seen, don’t be shot at…), the point were the IRIS-T acts is very close to « don’t die ». The rafale has very recently seen what it is like to relay on hard kill systems, since its SPECTRA jamming was visibly not capable of stoping whatever missile killed it. IRIS-T and other missiles destroying missiles is a last resort that I would not want to use.
That’s also why I’m a bit struggling with the « ASRAAM faster so it’s better » logic, since I would rather want a longer range missile to make sure the enemy just can’t shoot at me, even if I need to wait a few more seconds to kill them
Cuz irl missile interception of small and/or very fast objects is a lot more complex than in-game, and the game likely makes it much too easy for missiles to intercept eachother, to the point of seemingly biasing missile guidance systems towards other missiles instead of the original target.
Not worth a whole lot if you cant make it to the dogfight.
The only time the IRIS-T could be superior is if its missile interception capability is unique to it. This would allow the plane to inercept incoming fox 3’s while you fire back fox 3’s from much more dangerous energy states and ranges, but seeing as ingame missile interception is common, its unlikely to be any good once longer ranged missiles arrive.
Its war thunder.
There still plenty times you get to close combat even with bvr
Unless you wanted to intercept a drone, or gotten into a regular jet interception that went wrong, I find it pretty unlikely that 2 enemy jets would end up in the range of the IRIS-T, since nowadays even passive detection methods far outrange the practical range of the missile, meaning you’d have fired all your long range fox 3s and longer range than IRIS-T fox 2s at the enemy. So if someone carrying IRIS-T ended up in the practical range to kill an enemy, said enemy would probably have ran out of missiles long ago and would already be going back to safety
Not if the other jets have longer ranged IR missiles that are near impossible to defeat
Just like ASRAAM has a range advantage over IRIS-T, MICA has a range advantage over ASRAAM
But unlike ASRAAM which is disadvantaged vs IRIS-T at very close ranges, MICA is actually better than ASRAAM at very close ranges, thanks to its thrust vectoring …
People say “But at ranges that MICA out-ranges ASRAAM, EF can just use Meteor or AMRAAM instead”
But the same could be said here … “At ranges that ASRAAM out-ranges IRIS-T, the German EF can just use Meteor or AMRAAM instead”
I don’t see how a 15-20km Meteor / AMRAAM shot would be less lethal than a 50km one …
speed and pull ASRAAM is for WVR and speed it will outperform it
Even at greater ranges that you claim the MICA has the adavantage an AMRAAM would do better (These ranges are out of it seeker range)
Stop thinking about range as just distance, it’s about time. There’s a window where ASRAAM will hit the target faster than your BVR missile. If the enemy hasn’t fired yet, the quicker you can hit him the better.
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Already answered this
looks like a half-complete tube station roundel
Definitely a spoiler for a new RAF themed tube line
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This is not some random theory we’ve made up, it is the stated design philosophy of the ASRAAM programme as laid out in many archived documents. You seem to be mis-understanding the concept behind ASRAAM, so I’ll try to explain it in more depth. Before that I just want to address this point:
Maximum range is not everything. Let’s imagine two hypothetical missiles, both are near impossible to avoid, one has a maximum range of 10 km range and the other 12.5 km range. You can indeed fire your 12.5 km range missile before the guy with his 10 km range missile can fire his missile; however if at any point between you firing your missile and it hitting him the range between your aircraft and his reduces to less than 10 km then he can fire his missile as well. Your missile will then hit him and he will be dead, however his missile is now in the air, so given a few more seconds it will hit you and you’ll be dead too. You can see that simply having a 25% range advantage over your opponent doesn’t solve the problem of modern missiles being extremely hard to dodge. This is where the idea of speed comes in, particularly when you consider that not every engagement will occur at the absolute maximum range of your missile.
Anyway back to this:
As the name suggests ASRAAM is designed to fulfil the role of a Short Range Air-to-Air Missile. By comparison IR MICA was designed to be a pretty unique (how many similar missiles can you name?) hybrid of a short range and medium range missile. ASRAAM is often compared to IR MICA due to them both having a high maximum range compared to other IR missiles, but this is not a particularly helpful comparison because the to missiles were designed for different roles.
Under UK (and let’s be honest - most other countries’) doctrine you have distinct short range (e.g. Sidewinder), medium range (e.g. AMRAAM), and sometimes long range (e.g. Meteor) missiles. ASRAAM was designed to fulfil the role of a short range missile; like the R-73, R-74, IRIS-T, AIM-9X, Python, etc.
At the end of the day not every air-to air engagement occurs at BVR ranges or at the maximum range of your air to air missiles, hence the existence of the aforementioned short range missiles, and why you don’t see Rafales, Gripens, and Eurofighters flying around with nothing but Meteors loaded. You either have to acknowledge that short range missiles like R-73/74, IRIS-T, AIM-9X, etc. have a role, or argue that as an entire class of weapon they are irrelevant these days and all you need are medium / long range missiles.
It is the role of these short range missiles that ASRAAM was originally designed to fill; medium range engagements would be handled by AMRAAM. This brings us back to what I discussed above: at shorter ranges simply getting the first short on a target is not good enough, you need to prevent (or at least minimise the opportunity for) the hostile aircraft firing a missile back at you. This therefore leads to the conclusion that you want your missile to hit the enemy aircraft before they even fire their missile; and so necessitates two key requirements:
- Your missile should have a longer range than the enemy’s short range missile
- Your missile should be very fast to minimise (or even eliminate) the opportunity for the enemy to respond.
The idea was that against enemy with older (but still very deadly) missiles like R-73 & AIM-9L/M the missile should be so fast that it can be fired and impact the enemy aircraft before the enemy can even get within the front aspect lock range of their missile (making it basically impossible for them to engage you in the frontal aspect - as they would be dead before ever getting a lock). Meanwhile against enemy with more modern missiles the high speed and increased range of your missile should reduce the window the enemy has between getting within range of their missile, and being hit by your missile to an absolute minimum.
It is true that an MICA equipped aircraft can fire their MICA at longer range than the ASRAAM equipped aircraft can fire their ASRAAM. But the ASRAAM was never designed for that situation, if you’re firing a MICA at its maximum range then the ASRAAM equipped aircraft is going to be firing an AMRAAM at you.
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You seem to be assuming that all engagements involve situations where aircraft can see each 10s of kilometres away, and so come down to which party’s missile has the longest range. That’s not how combat works in real life, if it were then you’d see air forces doing away with short range missiles and carrying nothing but Meteors (and similar such weapons).
There are engagements that occur within the maximum range of both parties missiles. That is where other factors come into play. For example your missile being super fast is useful, the faster your missile is the less time the enemy has to fire a missile in return before they blow up.
So if medium range missiles are just better why does nearly every air force in the world still operate short range missiles?
You seem to be obsessed with the idea that MICA has better range than ASRAAM, which yes it does. However while ASRAAM does have a high maximum range, which opens up some interesting use cases, it is at the end of the day primarily intended to fill the role of a short range missile (it’s literally in the name) and in short range combat maximum range is not the only thing that matters.
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Again that’s not the point though
The same could be said about IRIS-T vs ASRAAM:
“If you are firing your ASRAAM at its maximum range, then the IRIS-T equipped aircraft will fire an AMRAAM at you”
I appreciate your explanation, but the point remains the same
If we accept that IIR missiles are “undefeatable”, then if you can launch at longer ranges before the enemy gets the chance to launch then you can score a kill without dying
And your example is somewhat misleading
One could further minimize the difference by citing an example of a 1km range missile vs a 1.25km range missile … “Basically no difference” …
While both missiles are classified, MICA and especially MICA NG will likely have enough of a range advantage that you could launch from outside ASRAAM’s envelope and remain outside of it until your missile gets to seeker range (or close enough to seeker range that it could reach the rest of the way using INS only) …
It’s not like ASRAAM is getting to target instantly and MICA takes an hour
The difference is small … And at that point you are basically “hoping” that the enemy doesn’t launch one back at you before your missile gets to him …
Not a great strategy if you ask me …
I think you are assuming that ASRAAM will have shorter time to target than MICA throughout its entire envelope / range, which is not necessarily correct.
For example Magic II accelerates faster than AIM-9M and hits a higher top speed, but it also loses its speed faster and while it has better time to target for the first half of its flight, it has worse time to target for the second half.
Likewise ASRAAM will likely have better TTT than MICA for the lower part of its range, but worse TTT for the upper part of its range …
To change the subject. Was there such a thing as a TWS HMD mode for the Typhoon. Essentially have the TWS scan area be slaved to the HMD (both horizontal and vertical axis) CAPTOR-M was supposed to be extremely user friendly and that sounds exactly like the functionality it would have
Not as far as I can tell
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In this scenario, if user is careful and skilled, he will launch his MICA while already going into notch/off bore (and already making enemy missile go much farther).
For example, I do it, when I spot enemy that was unspotted due to Gaijin mechanic at close range, I simultaneously turn into notch and lock and fire a MICA, thanks to TVC and 6,5 s burn it flings around wasting no time.
Because ASRAAM doesn’t have TVC, it will accelerate into nothingness and then turn very hard to point at the enemy, then will the inertia play its game.
MICA’s TVC works better than R-73, so I can’t say how would R-74, AIM-9X and IRIS-T react (they have failry longer burn times than ASRAAM).
This just isn’t the case.
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Again you are comparing a short range missile (with an admittedly long range compared to other SRAAMs) to a medium range missile. It’s like comparing an AIM-9X or an IRIS-T to an AMRAAM and declaring the AMRAAM as better because it is longer ranged.
You are also assuming that the engagement unfolds in such a manner as to allow a MICA to be fired at it’s maximum range.
I’ll ask the question again then, why does anyone use short range missiles if range is the only thing that matters? Maybe because it’s not. Both in game and real life you see short range missiles being used. There are situations where you don’t want to or can’t use an AMRAAM and where having kinematically superior short range missile is useful.
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