The French top-tier air tree currently faces a significant capability gap at BR 14.0 regarding BVR saturation and heavy multirole performance compared to other nations (such as the US F-15 or USSR Su-30 series). While the Mirage 2000-5F is a great lightweight fighter, the heavier branch abruptly ends at the initial Mirage 4000 prototype.
My proposal :
Introduce a modernized “Production Concept” variant of the Mirage 4000 at BR 14.0 (rough idea) , positioned directly after the current Mirage 4000.
The Key Features / Specifications it could get:
For the Radar : Thales RDY (carried over/upgraded from Mirage 2000-5F) with active radar homing capabilities.
The Avionics : Addition of a Helmet-Mounted Display (HMD) for off-boresight target acquisition.
( Wich was a prototype project of Dassault / Thales industries if productions was acquired. This upgrade bridges the gap at BR 14.0 by pairing a realistic 1990s French project (Sextant Topsight HMD) with an existing airframe and in-game missile layout. )
The possible armament Loadout : Capability to carry up to 10 MICA EM ( or 12 with the double missile wing adaptation we can already see in-game for the Magic 2 ) missiles, along with 2 Magic 2 missiles on wingtips, leveraging the massive payload capacity of the twin-engine airframe.
Why it should be added :
It provides France with a competitive “missile bus” that matches the meta of current 14.0 top-tier matches without introducing unreleased or hyper-futuristic hardware like the new Rafale generations or meteor, before the addition of the MICA NG, or MICA IR Gaigin was studying.
Thanks for just reading my supposition. trying to bring justice to early French tech tree, New suggestions coming soon.
( im open to in-game messages about my idea in you want to contact me )
With 10 MICA on a decent platform, 14.0 would be the absolute minimum, and not with the full radar + HMD suit. I would propose 14.3 with or without HMD, that might be a more realistic BR let’s be honest
Maybe, but i did point out that its a “BR supposition” especially because the mirage 2000 5F has the RDY radar and a Helmet-Mounted Display, on a really good dogfight platform and a light design. my BR supposition wouldn’t be bad if it happens because the M4k is heavy, has a worse turn, and roll rate and no AOA capabilities. Wich, compared to the SU’s at 13.7, with 10 to 12 RVV-AE’s and a preaty similar flight performance. it would be a more balanced option to deal with the missile spam against Fox 1’s at 13.0. And a way to kind of kick of the R27’s domination at the BR.
but gotta think about it, and add documents to prove my research.
he probably thinks of the su30 prems at 13.3 and the su27 at 13.7, but let’s be honest, a M4K with 10-12 MICA even without HMD is infintely better than the Su30/27 below 14.0.
The max loadout is honestly more than unlikely as France didn’t develop bi or tri-racks for MICA. The max 14 loadout is including those tri-racks.
The most likely loadout probably would be around 8-10 missiles including belly mounted ones probably. Maybe 10 under the wings with bi-racks
true, I still feel like it would be a viable option as a new vehicle in the tech tree or even as an event. but what actually could be great is to give the rafale its full load and not limit it to 8 mica’s while F15’s and SU can take 10-12. but yet again, its my opinion.
Rafale’s absolute full load is correct at 8 missiles however. The fuel tank hard points are not opened for A2A missiles, and France doesn’t operate multi A2A pylons
That’s also questionable, only on the early proposals it showed that it “could” carried super 530s on the belly, but with just 2 or 4 wing pylons, later ones never mention them, realistically the best that you could have would be 6 micas or 4 micas and 4 magic-2, as there really isnf a twin pylons for the mica either.
Also just as a reminder the current mirage 4000 already is a “production concept”, from the rdi radar and the super 530d, as it was only ever fitted with an RDM and super 530f
Yes totally. Only the current Magic loadout was fully aerodynamically tested in game. Thats why I think it would be hard to justify a MICA version of the plane, as much as I’d like it.
Contrary to the Yak141 for example, where it was pretty clear that it would have the same kit as the mig29, the M4K didn’t have a finished armement layout proposal before the export projects were scrapped before that.
It’s possible, that just like the rafale A, some or many armement propositions and testing would have not sticked to the final version (Rafale A testing ventral mounted MICA which are not implemented on the in service rafales for example)
