One of the most important design requirements for ASRAAM was known as “f-pole”. Basically if you and a target aircraft are flying head on to each-other and the missile is fired at a given range, then the separation between your aircraft and the target’s aircraft at the moment the missile impacts is the f-pole range.
F-pole range is entirely a function of missile average velocity / time to target. ASRAAM is confirmed to meet the f-pole requirement, while IR MICA does not, ergo ASRAAM has higher velocity:
An official presentation from MBDA or Roxel (can’t remember which) states ASRAAM experiences over 1,000°C of aero-heating during flight. According to a research paper I found on aerodynamic heating of missiles that level of aero-heating is only possible at speeds around Mach 5. Also the average velocity of ASRAAM claimed in documents from the archives makes a peak velocity of Mach 5+ seem plausible.
Thanks for the source. At least it shows that the ASRAAM has a much faster acceleration. I don’t know what are the distances for that F-Pole, but it does not necessarily mean that the top speed is actually that much higher. If the missiles reaches Mach 4.5 faster than the MICA, it would still perform better in regards to that F-Pole, if the range isn’t that high. Again, it would require getting the distance values and compare to the burn time of the missile
It does however makes me wonder about the motor itself. I don’t clearly remember, but I believe it was mentioned that the ASRAAM was a long burning missile, which would be counterintuitive with the high acceleration. The missile is still rather light, so i don’t see how it would achieve both high acceleration and long burn time for it to reach BVR ranges.
It does look more to me that this missile is closer to a long range Magic 2 probably with interception ranges of up to around 30-40km range, but not the previously claimed 40-50km
Yes, but still not as much as IR MICA or IR MICA NG
All in all they all have their niches … Best choice will depend on the scenario …
But ASRAAM’s lack of thrust vectoring (compared to IRIS-T / AIM-9X / MICA) and lack of range (compared to MICA / MICA NG) makes it quite situational …
Not great for point black
Not great for long range
You have to fire it in the sweet spot
There’s also the fact that currently EF’s MAW doesn’t make any emissions
If they did, you would have to make a choice between having a MAW or staying off people’s RWR, making a long range IR missile even more potent …
In defense of the radar MAW, I don’t expect it to make significant emissions beyond it’s max detection range, so I don’t think it would be detectable beyond like, 20, 30km ?
You are forgetting that such systems are not only low power, but also incorporate LPI features. Ofc, at closer ranges it would be detectable, but dont expect it to be a second radar.
And if we wanted to go that way, i want my RWR to detect all radar altimeters etc…
iirc, the RAF basically realised that with how advanced IIR seekers are and how difficult they are to defeat, that if you had to aircraft with similar range weapons fire at each other, they would both die most of the time.
So instead the ASRAAM was created with a “shoot first, Kill first” philopshy. The entire design is based around the idea of killing your target before they can kill you. Which is why speed was the most important attribute for the ASRAAM. Range just came from having all that speed.
And if you are both within ASRAAM’s range, and you both launch, yes, perhaps you will get the kill first, but you still have a missile coming your way.
So “hit a target before he gets a chance to hit you” is actually not that great.
But range enables you to “hit a target before he gets a chance to launch at you” …
The point is though, in ranges where MICA IR would hold an advantage over ASRAAM, The Typhoon wont be firing an ASRAAM, it will be firing a Meteor, and to that end, I doubt the Rafale would be firing a MICA either, instead they too would be firing a Meteor.
But the same argument holds for the use of the ASRAAM. In the range a typhoon can fire an ASRAAM, both would have fire meteors…
Also, the use case of the IR in this case is for undetected long range shots, in which case the MICA would have the range advantage, whereas the ASRAAM would be able to capitalize on the Rafale mistake of going in the range of the ASRAAM
