Typically the best strategy to get BOL chaff to work is to use periodic chaff release and drop 4-8 rapidly instead of 1 or 2.
In something like the Tornado GR4, defeating an AMRAAM is trivial with a few large chaff releases. In the Typhoon or anything else cursed with BOL, you need a lot more to create the same radar signature as a stanadard chaff
Frankly it doesnt really matter, both achieve broadly the same results, and it isnt really the case that a H-inf controller is just better in ever circumstance.
Do you have a source for that? Ive never actually seen any sources even provide comparative performance of the ASRAAMs turn radius, and I somewhat doubt that a very high acceleration, non-TVC equipped missile is surpassing the R-73 in turn radius, parricularly when basic math would indicate that with both missiles being 50G missiles, and ASRAAM being the faster of the 2, it would make sense that at any given point in time post launch, its turn radius would have to be larger than that of the R-73 until the point where the aerodynamic control authority of the missiles begin to drop below the 50g levels.
I recall something about ASRAAM being designed to be superior to the R-73 in every single respect after NATO got their hands on a load after the reuinification of Germany and were able to test them, but I dont know if that includes the off-the-rails turn radius
I think the fact that the US and other European countries didn’t adopt the ASRAAM and designed 3 other missiles as a result, and all 3 have thrust vectoring is quite telling …
(Not saying they didn’t adopt it due to lack of TVC, but the fact that their alternatives all have TVC shows that they did not find the performance of a non-TVC missile satisfactory)
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)
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)
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).
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
