it makes no sense in reality, only in tanks and possibly the space next to them. If the foam were in the plane completely, it would be additional mass, which is not welcome in aviation.
At least that’s just my opinion.
Yep, that is what I suspected.
Realistic yes, but unbalanced, also yes because of how limited they are on modeling anything else for everyone else
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Foam can both do its job and be relatively light weight but the priority for the Su-25 could have been for it to get in and out and the extra mass wasnt all that big of a concern. Its not uncommon for ground attack aircraft to actually be a little over-engineered when it comes to available thrust that way they can limp home on one engine if needs be.
Ok, maybe, but I’m not sure if this foam is made of Kevlar or some other similar material and how effective it is against heavy hits from MANPADS and HEI.
Yes, it is known that attack aircraft should be able to return on one engine back. But here too the problem is that attack aircraft are already heavily burdened with the mass of armor and additional duplication of many control and life support systems. As a result of this, the attack aircraft’s thrust-to-weight ratio drops significantly. I do not know how much the Gaijins have underestimated the aerodynamics and thrust-to-weight ratio of the A-10 in the game compared to reality, but even it clearly shows how hard it is to get out of maneuvering near the ground, especially carrying weapons. Now let’s imagine that you can pour foam into the body of the aircraft, how much will this worsen the maneuvering parameters, which, frankly speaking, are already pretty sad? And if the attack aircraft encounters a MANPADS and it tears off its control surfaces? The mass of foam and other unnecessary options will further hinder it from returning to the airfield, most likely after such an encounter the attack aircraft will go into uncontrolled flight and generally crash into the ground. Design is all about compromises; you can’t just throw the best of everything into a piece of equipment.
Conversely, this is my opinion, maybe in reality they are really filled with foam throughout the entire body, which would actually be very strange.
Entire airframe filled, I doubt it, But I could certainly see critical areas having layers of foam protection that act essentially like a spall liner.
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Now I get it, it sounds logical.
It’s generally interesting to listen to the pilots who came under MANPADS fire and how they returned to the airfield. I think it was a great stroke of luck and their planes were completely uncontrollable, not like in the game, when a burning, falling apart plane/helicopter can kill you, your allies and calmly return to the airfield. This is Hollywood/Bollywood level fantasy.
For example, in Afghanistan, Su-25s, when encountering stingers, were almost always shot down after the engine was torn off during the stinger explosion (the engine mount was torn off). Later, according to rumors, this problem was solved, but obviously the fire of engines, tanks and loss of control surfaces simply could not disappear.
Yeah, I think this comes down to the total lack of modeling when it comes to internal modules, as well as the overly simplistic airframe models. This nerfs aircraft in some respects and buffs them in others.
You have the accounts from the Tornado pilots during Op Granby that they were able to maintain some control for a little while after being hit, but it only got worse as time went on and eventually had to bail out.
So I think airframes should have a degree of control after being hit, but where is more important than anything else. Definetly time to see a total overhaul of aircraft models, bring them more on-par with tanks and helis
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+1
gradual loss of control may be associated with damage to the hydraulics (I don’t know where in the aircraft it is used or is not used at all) or failure of the generator or auxiliary power unit supplying power to the control element drives.
I disagree here, a more developed model of high-level helicopters does not provide any realism at the moment. As I wrote above, they do not die from MANPADS and even large anti-aircraft missiles, for example, the AH-64, when a full-fledged anti-aircraft missile hits the gun/gunner area, remains alive and combat-ready, because the entire blow is taken by the shield of the onboard electronics and the gunner. The pilot remains alive. Realistic? I highly doubt that the designers planned something like this even in their wildest dreams. The same applies to the EC655, it survives MANPADS (2-3 Stingers/Igla), although protection against single hits from 23mm shells is declared. The same can be said about the Soviet-Russian helicopters of the Ka-50/52 series.
The true survivability of helicopters can be clearly seen in the current war in reality and how they are shot down en masse by MANPADS.
Here is an example of the Igla warhead (Stinger has either higher fragment energy or more fragments). It is clear that the fragment energy fluctuates between 800-1200 J, comparable to 7.62 at some distance. This is quite enough to cause very heavy damage to aircraft/heli armor and components, there are very, very many fragments.
Not like to took 15 Afghani Stingers to take down during the Soviet afghan war.
brutally, MANPADS should have a considerably harder time locking these, from even 1km.
Its the lack of directional IR signature/actually modeled exhaust for the seekers to lock onto. Most IR missile combat would be radically different if they coded this.
Some hope on the horizon its on its way though with the proto-code being found on helis at the moment
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depends on the MANPADS model - the sensitivity of the seeker and the type of seeker. For example, Stingers in the UV channel should not care about the IR radiation of a helicopter if the weather (the main thing is not night) creates good UV contrast. Type91 does not care at all about the lack of IR radiation of helicopters, the main thing is good weather and no night, then in theory the TV CCD seeker of the Type 91 should capture a helicopter from 5.5-6 km at least. I do not know the sensitivity of the IR CCD seeker of the Mistral, but the Mistral 3 was able to capture and hit a drone from a distance of 7 km, it can also capture ordinary motorboats - you can easily guess, that a motorboat produces much less heat than a helicopter with all the precautions (shielding the exhaust and mixing it with cold air); perhaps similar results can be expected from the Type91 Kai. The only thing that can guarantee complete immunity to helicopters at night or in bad weather is an infrared jamming station (CIRCM). Conventional IR traps fired, practically unable to disrupt the IR CCD homing system’s lock-on.
Let’s be honest, this statement (1km) only applies to Igla and some other MANPADS with only IR guidance with bad sensitive. It seems you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
In Afghanistan, a variety of MANPADS were used, ranging from the FIM43, Strela 2, to the FIM92 (and according to some sources, the RBS70). In Soviet memoirs, Stingers are mostly mentioned.
So the Gaijins are going to make things even worse than they are now? When you can’t capture a helicopter at a distance of 1.2 km with a Stinger and at that moment it shoots at you with impunity. The same applies to other MANPADS.
This is so stupid
Yeah, they need to work on adding more IFVs with prox fuse rounds
There is no need to give a bunch of IFVs with proxy fuse. Every battle I see “geniuses” standing at the base on IFV just waiting for aircraft, and stealing frags from SAMs. Thanks to such “misunderstood geniuses” teams constantly lose. It is necessary to provide adequate drawing of LODs and sensitivity of TV homing head/IR to them.
Gaijin need to finally accept that the current situation creates a massive unbalance between people who know what they are doing, and people who don’t. You can see it by the rift in opinion on the Pantsir, with the majority of people calling it a no-fly zone, all the while actually competent CAS players see it as a mild annoyance at worse.
Then we might get proper air defense systems, including MANPADs being restored to their actual performance, kinetic and seeker wise.
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Oh my God, I was wrong about the poor sensitivity of the Igla IR seeker. In reality, according to the table, the Igla can lock on to a Soviet Mi2 helicopter (two 400 hp engines) from a distance of 3.5-3.7-4 km. And the Bo105 helicopter (~also two 400 hp engines) in the game is not locked on by the Stinger even from 1.2-1.5 km. Same thing with the Igla. It turns out that the sensitivity of all IR seekers in the game is significantly underestimated, I knew that the damn Gaijins were deceiving us as always.
Sensitivity of the seeker Igla 4.25
Naturally, I say this without taking into account the cooling of the engine exhaust (which is not installed on all helicopters), but even with it, many helicopters have a problem with heating of the blades under the exhaust, which glow in the IR range and become an excellent bright spot for the IR seeker of MANPADS.