I never disagreed with that statement, though I draw objection to the word behind, they were monetarily limited, but they had developments in such systems within a similar, if slightly later timeframe. Firstly, you’re lumping it in as Europe but Rafale exists with a PESA in such a timeframe, secondly prototype arrays began to appear around that sort of time. Also PAVE PAWS isn’t fighter mounted, and the Mig-31 is a PESA on an aircraft that is inept at literally everything else.
The difference between Meteor’s introduction and AIM-260’s will be ~10 years. That’s a similar timeframe to the first fighter-borne AESA arrays and CAESAR, you would likely vehemently deny that the US is behind in fighter-borne missile technology.
You mean that 20 m diameter early warning radar? Not really something you can bolt on a fighter is it?
That radar weighted over 5x as much as the CAPTOR-M and from a quick read online it doesn’t seem that the performance was spectacularly better. Being PESA isn’t everything.
Arguably the US is also behind the curve in SRAAMs as well. With both IRIS-T and ASRAAM outperforming Aim-9X within the respective design envelopes. With ASRAAM entering service 5 years before Aim-9X iirc
this is true, i think the block 2 closes the gap a bit though no? further improvements will likely put us on par/maybe slightly better than ASRAAM or IRIS-T
A bit. but ASRAAM is still faster with longer range and IRIS-T still pulls way more Gs at close range
Spoiler
IRIS-T
Characteristics:
Length: 2.9m Width: 0.127m Fin span: 0.45m Weight: 87.4kg Maximum Speed: Mach 3+ Minimum Range: 200m Maximum Range: 25km (Up to 10-12km max range and 6km altitude when ground launched) Propulsion: Solid fuel rocket motor (High boost, Low thrust for initial turn, High thrust for max speed, Low thrust sustainer). Seeker capabilities: Dual band imaging seeker based around a 128 x 2 array which uses a scanning mirror to build a larger picture (effectively a 128*128 pixels 80 times per second) .90° Gimbal limit. Warhead: 11.4kg blast frag Guidance Type: LOBL, LOAL, INS. Maneuvering Capability: 60 to 80G with TVC. 1/2 the turning radius of the R-73. Can do a 180° turn in 2s.
Aim-9X
Characteristics:
Length: 3.02m Width: 0.127m Fin span: 0.445; 0.353m (canard span) Weight: 86kg Maximum Speed: Mach 2.5 Minimum Range: 200m Maximum Range: 35-40km (Up to 15km when ground launched) Propulsion: MTI/ Hercules MK.139 Seeker capabilities: Imaging seeker with 128*128 pixels with 90° gimbal. Warhead: 9.4 kg WDU-17/B annular blast-fragmentation Guidance Type: LOBL, LOAF, INS, LOFTING, DATALINK Maneuvering Capability: 50G with TVC. Can do a 180° turn in 2.5s.
ASRAAM
Length: 2.9m Width: 0.166m Fin span: 0.45m Weight: 88kg Maximum Speed: Mach 3+ Minimum Range: 200m Maximum Range: 50km (Up to 16km when ground launched) Propulsion: Solid rocket motor with low smoke Seeker capabilities: Updated seeker with higher resolution than the Block1 Warhead: 10 kg blast frag Guidance Type: LOBL, LOAL, INS, (LOFTING?). Maneuvering Capability: Around 50g dual plane. The missile likely uses dual plane. Can do a 180° turn in ?s. Managed to shoot down a target behind the fighter at a range in excess of 5km at low altitude.
IRIS-T is reported to pull 60-80G, but has an advantage of being quite slow off the rails, so pulls hard on launch.
It is by far the best close range dogfighting missile.
ASRAAM has longer range and is scarily fast of the rails. The key difference between ASRAAM and AMRAAM though, is that one alerts your RWR the other does not. If fired used PIRATE, you would have no warning until MAWS detected it;
We are sort of missing the point here. NATO’s member states are unlikely to be shooting at each other.
The gaps in one air arm’s arsenal would likely be filled by those of an allied air arm. They do talk to eachother about what they are developing and there is probably a certain degree of co-ordination as to who is earmarked to do what if the war went hot.
So long as the overall NATO Air component had a healthy mix of types, abilities and roles - whether fighter X had a slightly worse missile than fighter Y would be a bit irrelevant. The main issue would be if they could turn the Soviet Aviation (VVS and later VKS) into colanders. Which I suspect they could.
After all, Ivan is probably not too bothered which Block of AMRAAM is currently chasing him across the sky. Nor is he likely to be overly concerned by the lack of AESA on the Typhoon that has just sent a Meteor rocketing towards him from silly distances away…
the delta canards is even worse off with large AoA. The breakdown does not begin with the wing. And a canards , as a result of which the plane sharply turns its nose down
i mean, with newer amraams, it could be possible to not turn ARH seeker on and run on other methods of guidance purely, like LPI AESA radars, and F-35 IRST/F-18 IRST21/F-15 and 16 LEGION pod
even the RWR’s on US fighters can guide in AMRAAMs
Frankly AIM-9X seems like a worst of both worlds kind of missile. IRIS-T is a better missile at short range (and is likely better than or equal to at medium range); while ASRAAM is likely better at medium and long range. The only thing AIM-9X has going for it is that the US could re-use bits from their existing AIM-9M stockpile.
Edit: I guess the other thing AIM-9X has going for it is that it’s American so keeps the defence industry lobbyists happy…
We’re using IRL performance to get a rough idea of what to expect in WT in future. However, we’re going to run into the issue of some nations having different weapons abilities purely due to the IRL realities.
The additional curve ball is that with modern weapons - true figures as to IRL abilities are going to be thinner and thinner on the ground. So we are into certain realms of guesswork…
idk, i think the AIM-9X would be the best at medium ranges off the stats, but not too far off the IRIS-T in short range, and not insanely worse than the ASRAAM in long ranges
I think the part about the 9M is quite important though. That and this;
Seem to have been the primary reasons behind its selection. AFAIK after the Off-bore restrictions of ASRAAM compared to AIM-9X were realised the TVC P3I ASRAAM could have completely negated any significant advantage whilst yielding iirc virtually no reduction in range.
And I suppose that’s backed up on CAMM featuring a further derivative of that TVC module.