F-14AM - The Iranian Tomcat - History, Performance, and Discussion

Well, yes, but seems like their current stance on this is that it will get AIM-7E2 and R-27

I don’t much care for speculation on the available ordnance. Let’s focus instead on collecting sources. Thanks.

Rumor round up is for speculation.

“Prior to the revolution, Iran had received some Sparrows (Aim-7Fs) for the 80 Grumman F-14s that had been delivered.” https://www.forecastinternational.com/archive/disp_pdf.cfm?DACH_RECNO=600

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Janes is not a valid source we will still need two other valid sources.

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Does anyone know exactly what ground ordinance the Persian Cat is going to feature?

I believe it can use the same ground ordinance as the base F-14A, as well as the Yasser, or 750lb bomb “not so tiny-tim”

The Yasser. Aka: Tactical Nuclear Bomb

390kg rocket with CCIP is overkill lmao.

Will be a very good SEAD weapon.

Sure will.

It should be a fair bit heavier than 390kg

It uses a 750 lb M117 bomb (340kg) as warhead strapped to a Hawk rocket motor.

Spoiler

Iran Equipped Its F-14s With Modified Hawk SAMs That Had Bombs Attached To Their Noses

There is a guided version with a TV seeker called “AGM-379/20 Zoobin” which also uses the M117 bomb as its warhead and has a total weight of 560kg, but it’s not clear if it uses the same rocket motor as Yasser. Also there is no information regarding its carriage on F-14 (there is only proof of its carriage on F-4E).

Spoiler

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F-4E AG 1

It looks very similar to the R.530… is there any relation to it?

I don’t think so.
Iran really was never into French stuff.
The only French thing you have in Iranian military that I’m aware of are the Iraqi Mirage F1s that escaped to Iran during the US invasion of Iraq and the PL-7s that Iran subsequently bought from China to arm those Mirage F1s as well as the J-7s that they bought from China.

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BTW, there is also this obscure export-oriented (!) AD-40A:

Spoiler

AD-40A Air Defense Missile Weapon System | Mindex

https://mindexcenter.ir/sites/default/files/2022-07/ad40a-1.pdf

The 74 kg warhead is likely MIM-23B’s warhead. Which also should be what is used on Fakour-90, instead of the 60.3kg warhead of the AIM-54.

But at 465 kg it’s 172.3 kg lighter than the 637.3 kg Fakour-90 (AIM-F90).

Also the specs state “All sustainer” rocket motor.

My best guess is that the export-oriented AD-40A is basically a Fakour-90 without the boost stage.

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Ah ok thanks

I was thinking the deltaV of the Fakour being over 2,000 m/s was surely a result of the thrust being peak and not average. This may not be the case, because the propellant mass between the two is almost exactly equivalent to the % difference in total deltaV.

The Fakour has 1.726x as much propellant in net weight as the AIM-54A. The AIM-54A has a total deltaV of approximately 1,225 m/s in-game. 1,225 x 1.726 = 2,114.3 m/s.

The deltaV of the proposed Fakour-90 from above is 2,268.1 m/s. This is only 7.3% off the expected change provided impulse is the same between the two propellants.

Anyhow, even so we must consider that the grain pattern indicates a ramp up and ramp down in thrust. We need to find the averages before coming to conclusions on overall deltaV and it will certainly be less than 1.73x the AIM-54A’s.

The grain pattern is something between a simple star and dogbone. This I believe lends itself towards a traditional boost-sustain curve. It will likely ramp up in thrust, then ramp down to the sustainer thrust.

The sustainer on the other hand has no grain pattern. It is a circle surrounding the boost phase. This is referred to as “tubular” and is what we call “progressive”. That means the thrust increases as the motor burns. The result is a slow initial acceleration that picks up over time towards the end of the burn.

Here are some examples;

Here is what I believe the Fakour-90’s burn should look like;

@DirectSupport @_Fantom2451
Obviously the ramp up in thrust for the sustainer is exaggerated as the difference in circumference of the sustainer propellant (thus, difference in surface area) is not actually that large.

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Boring math stuff

Spoiler

370 - 59 = 311 mm diameter at the start, we will go with a wall of 10-11mm thickness for a end diameter of 359mm.

To find the surface area of the inside of the tube is simple, 2πrh. We can ignore height as we are only comparing the difference in surface area as a % between pre and post-burn for the sustainer.

We will assume a height of 10mm for each section because we are trying only to find the % difference in surface area pre and post burn.
Radius is 185mm (370 / 2), inner radius is 155.5mm ((370-59) / 2).
Inner surface area for pre-burn is “9770.353152664256”.

Post-burn
185mm, inner radius is now 359mm (assuming 11m thick sidewall of motor).
Math shows “11278.317626387357”.

11278.317626387357 / 9770.353152664256 = 1.15434083601

The sustainer should increase by about ~15.4% in overall thrust from start till end of burn based on the difference in available surface area.
@DirectSupport @_Fantom2451

Now to determine if the given thrust values for sustainer are the peak or the base and then we have the ability to ascertain the average and make it a “flat” burn for the sake of war thunders simplistic thrust model for missiles.

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Loading performance of the I-HAWK (MIM-23B) is known.

SAST - 1

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I don’t know if that is accurate. They differ from the other more reputable sources regarding motor burn time and thrust values.

Additionally, it seems to indicate the peak velocity at sea level conditions is 340 m/s from ground launch which would indicate that a high subsonic launch would yield higher maximum overload.

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