I think it should get the Option of the MK2B Rapier missile.
Which was a Dual Fuse, High Explosive Anti Tank or Anti Aircraft version of the Rapier.
It could make use of the new Fuse Switching mechanic that is being implemented on the M107 Proxy shells, Allowing it to switch between being a Proximity fuse AA missile, And a what would be low power, but High speed HEAT missile
The HEAT action of the MK2B’s Warhead in HEAT mode apparently was not very powerful in testing, only penetrating around 300-350mm of RHA. So this would not be a ADATS situation where its a better AT missile than a AA missile, But it would allow it to have some fight back against tanks if needed.
Just my thoughts, I know there is also the chance of it getting the SAP warhead Rapier, which would be funny, But i believe the SAP warhead was never actually Tested at Anti tank work, since well… It was for shooting down planes still.
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An interesting concept, but I admit I’m worried about how that would affect it’s BR balance. Right now, it’s at 10.7 on the test server, which is the only lineup Britain has until 11.7. Giving it a multipurpose missile might cause Gaijin to up BR it, stranding it at a tier where it has no lineup.
It already can’t go much higher due to the limited range of the missiles. 7 km is already the shortest range non-IR SAM at the tier, and frankly I find that range questionable against common ATGMs like Mavericks.
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That kinda leans into the main issue with the Tracked Rapier, this thing should have been added the game like 2-3 years ago, Before the British got the Copy and paste Russian stuff, Or the Stormer AD with its American Gun, Missiles and turret.
Its just gonna be outclassed these days.
I’ll never understand why they copy pasted those vehicles in the same update that they pledged to give Britain more usable SAMs (including explicitly stating the Tracked Rapier was coming). It seems the preference for vehicle development is on vehicles that can be copy pasted to as many nations as possible, in order to extend the grind for as many as possible without paying for any more models than strictly nessesary.
Despite the short range, the otherwise very high BR would suggest the missiles themselves handle well. It was well regarded IRL in terms of efficacy and accuracy, so perhaps Gaijin won’t butcher the missile’s flight profile nearly as badly as other SAMs at the BR (looking at you, Rolands).
The only other British SAM of note that I’m waiting for is a Stomer HVM using Martlet missiles. All the benefits of the Starstreak in terms of stealth, but on dual purpose missiles with a proxy fuse so it’s actually usable with Gaijin’s netcode.
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That is basically entirely why the British get rarely anything, They don’t use anyone else’s Equipment, at all.
They have TESTED some, but never fielded it.
And most people don’t use British Equipment either, even tho it is QUITE good.
The Challenger 2’s are heavily under rated, same for their small arms and such.
Well uhh… Its bad. VERY bad.
Testing it out in the test drive and it takes upwards of 10 missiles to take down a IL-28.
Yeah, as I feared from the test server we have an AA20 situation. Where the trigger radius for the proxy fuse is way larger than the splash damage of the warhead.
For reference, it has a 4m trigger radius, one it shares with the Strela, only that has around three times the TNT equivalent.
Meanwhile, Stingers, which have a fairly comparable warhead size, have a 1m proxy trigger.
For the AA20 issue, I’ve heard (But never confirmed) that it’s due to Gaijin not properly modeling fragmentation from missiles. They basically just act like HE-VT shells. It’s ironically similar to why the Hispanos sparked so frequently for so long, Gaijin only cared about the HE content and not the amount of fragmentation that would be produced.
They could reduce the proxy trigger radius to 1m (Which would be annoying, but still better than the Starstreaks) as a quick fix for the moment, but they need to add in a mechanism to simulate fragmentation to fix them and AA20s properly.
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TBH im pretty sure the Warhead should have like double the Explosive filler…
Possible, but online sources for the size of the warhead are hard to find. Everyone focuses on how novel the guidance method was. If you can dig up a decent source, I’d be happy to do a full report to try and get it fixed. I was so looking forward to a decent all purpose SPAA at the tier.
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I do have a book from the mid 80s that Says the Warhead was 1.4kg.
But that is for the earlier Semi Armor Piercing version of the Rapier.
Yeah, unfortunately this is for the contact fused version of the missile, so it’s not much help to us.
I mean, logically if they were to put in a proxy fuse you’d expect that the charge might be reduced to make room, but not to the point where the missile ceases to do any useful damage (Which would rather defeat the point of the system). Cutting it down to a third of what it was when it relied on a contact fuse seems a little absurd.
But Gaijin doesn’t work with logic, they work with whatever bits of information they can find that they like the sound of.
Even then, they’ll sometimes just decide a source says one thing and ignore the other dozen sources that say something else. Looking at you, M735 getting XM735 pen stats.
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TBH i would think they would INCREASE the Warhead load for a Proximity Fuse. To increase the chance of getting meaningful damage.
That would need a substantial redesign of the missile to achieve. Proxy fuses take up a lot more space than contact ones for obvious reasons, so they’d need to make extra space just to get it to fit, let alone add more explosives to increase the lethal radius.
It’s possible this happened, maybe even likely depending on how significant the impact of a proxy fuse had on the lethal hit ratio, but that’s what we need sources to prove.
All I can say with 100% certainty is that if this new proxy fused missile performed IRL as it is doing in game, it would never had been adopted. Unfortunately, Gaijin is seemingly immune to common sense.
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I mean they managed to squeeze a Proximity fuse, and a HEAT fuse in the Mk2B variant of the Rapier, And it STILL be effective at both.
So surely there is more space in that warhead than we think.
Probably. From what I’ve been able to glean from people talking about the Rapier’s missile, it’s a fragmentation based design, not an explosive one. Think 20mm Hispano SAP versus MG151 Mineshells. Indicating that if it had a small warhead, that was an intentional design with most of the space inside being devoted to material which would fragment.
AFAIK, Gaijin doesn’t model much fragmentation at all for missiles. You can test this yourself, the Begliet’s 57mm HEVT produces far more fragmentation than the 135mm Rapier missiles. Fixing that (And giving it the forward projected shrapnel pattern it’s supposed to have) might make a big difference.
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