bear in mind the aerodynamic control of asraam is very good, such that its cleared for launch at 45 degrees AOA
Because they operated on entirely different design philosophies.
Figuring that all these modern IIR seekers were near impossible to defeat like conventional IR missiles the only way to gurantee a win was to shoot first and kill first.
ASRAAM was designed with insane speed and excellent range, that way it will kill long before anyone else gets a shot off.
ASRAAM’s biggest weakness at short range is the speed its off the rails (faster it goes the bigger the turn radius) but given it can still pull 50Gs whilst doing Mach 3 off the rails is hella impressive.
The US, Germany and the UK were developing the ASRAAM together and a lot of that early design requirements were shared by all nations.
But the US left to make use of their surprlus Aim-9Ms and to get the most out of them upgraded them with new seekers and adding TVC rather than redesigning the bulk of the missile, re using the warhead and motor, etc (so ultimately TVC was just required to get anything even close to ASRAAM out of the upgraded Aim-9) there was also some geo-politics in play too iirc and Germany left because they wanted the ultimate short range dogfighting missile which required TVC, whilst the IRIS-T undoubtably has a smaller turn radius to the ASRAAM as its slow off the rails and has TVC, it doesnt necessarily mean that ASRAAM doesnt have a smaller or comprable turn radius to the R-73.
MICA IR is obviously just a different seeker on a MICA-EM and I guess there is an entirely different story why France went with TVC for the MICA. But I dont know it.
Also as a final note. The ASRAAM used some US parts and the US used that to block most sales. If they hadnt we dont know if other countries would have picked ASRAAM over IRIS-T or Aim-9. Australia for example operated ASRAAM over Aim-9 on their F-18s for a while and India looks to be replacing its mix of different SRAAM options all for domestically built ASRAAMs
Will be interesting to see who buys the Block 6 now it doesnt have that export restriction.
True, but I very much doubt that ASRAAM can match R-73’s turn radius
The flip side of that is that it doesn’t mean buyers would be necessarily buying it because it has better performance; But possibly due to more relaxed export policy and less political dependency by the buyer on the US … Especially given the recent world events …
But that also doesn’t mean it’s due to ASRAAM’s superior performance …
Offer for technology transfer can very much convince a country to go with the option with less performance with the hope of advancing their own domestic industry (And it is no secret that India has been trying to do that in recent years)
Plus IRL you have the cost factor (You might go with less performing but more cost effective solution, which is one of the factors as to why some countries buy an aircraft like Gripen)
BTW ASRAAM’s counterparts (from Russia) in WT will be R-74M, R-74M2 and Izdeliye 300/K-30, not the baseline R-73 …
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At which im fairly certain R-74M is still at a disadvantage compared to ASRAAM or MICA IR in terms of range and weaker than the IRIS-T in close range.
When the next gen of IR comes. Typhoon and Rafale will be slapping from longer ranges and Typhoons and Gripen Es will be slapping in short ranges.
(will be hilarious if they just keep doing what htey’ve done so far with the Typhoon and give all 3 nations both IR missiles and allow them to be used at the same time. OP as hell and would be a shame, but nonetheless funny)
The US and USSR will always be on the back foot
Possibly
We will have to see how they model their IRCCM
Maybe the new fuel dumping mechanism has something to do with that …
I doubt it …
Peregrine missile could be last hope of the USA. also 9X-3 and 4 (featured in US presentation that showed AIM-260 design)
R-74M only changes gimble limits and lock range.
We have no data to suggest it is anywhere near the performance of a Western Gen 5 IR missile.
K-74M2 has the new Karfagen-760 (Carthage) seeker made by the Russian Azov AOMZ company and an improved 516-1M rocket motor from the Kartukov Iskra company with increased specific impulse and a longer burn time.
Thanks to an inertial flight control system with radio data link for mid-course correction (absent on the previous missiles) the K-74M2 can be fired in a lockon- after-launch (LOAL) mode, initially flying under inertial control before achieving in-flight lock-on. The K-74M2 is intended to match the performance of the MBDA ASRAAM and the Raytheon AIM-9X Sidewinder (see part one, May, p62-65).
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Aim9x, even 3 or 4 will always be limited by the design philosophy of the missile. At the end of the day, it’s mostly an improved aim9m, which comes with limitations in range compared to the ASRAAM/MICA IR (which is why I don’t really understand the 2 way datalink in the latest variants) and it will not turn as good as the IRIS-T in short range situations.
The US doctrine as always trended towards high performance MRAAM, so they’ll stick with that (until AIM260), and I doubt they’ll develop a Fox 2 as performant as the European counterparts any time soon
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By making a bug report
generaly the fact stays US needed a relatively cheaper missle to equip all their aircrafts.
Else the price becomes to high. Since European nations overall had less aircraft they were able to focus more on quality. Hence Meteor and stronger Fox2s
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Can confirm, making WT bug reports is a sure way to get blue balls
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yep, i also love making bug reports that get ignored
Thats a Ukraine dlc skin!
As a sign of solidarity 😜
Pff, I prefer bug reports where developers look at sources and say, nah, dont think thats possible(not talking about that one EF report now).
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The block 3 9X apparently has 60 percent greater range than current block 2 9X. Which should put it at around 32 KM range. Which is still less than mica and ASRAAM. Also, what’s the peregrine? Never heard of it before.
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Small Raytheon missile, in development, supposedly AMRAAM level range with 9X manueverability and advanced seeke
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I don’t really see how they can increase the range of the missile by 60% without changing the outer body. They changed the front fins a bit but I don’t believe that this is going to reduce the drag by such an amount to allow for 60% greater range.
Since they also kept the length I don’t think they added a lot more propellant either. I guess they mainly imporved the seeker and it now gets
“+60% range! At a very specific test window at bad weather conditions”