someone posted that in the old thread or at least something very similar
but ig this is the final version now. pretty cool.
also btw, there is an extra thread just for the SL variant
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Yeah MICA is a pretty interesting missile in terms of western missile development, reminds me a lot more of an R-27 in its range and modular seeker type, but obviously more advanced.
I actually think thats a very bad thing for France in-game though, as it leaves Gaijin limited in their implementation of next gen French missiles, seeing as the MICA is likely similar in reach to things like the AMRAAM and R-77, and is Frances first fox 3, but afaik is also WILDLY more maneuvrable than them, being over the shoulder capable pretty early on iirc.
I think its likely the MICA will be added as Frances first fox 3 in-game, but nerfed hard for balance reasons, and French players will cry (since thats their favorite thing to do in WT aside from being elitist snobs) while the Magic 2 will likely be retained as the french short range missile, but buffed?
I think in general were on the cusp of missiles gaijin will have to seriously think of redesigning maps and teams around tbh, as even early R-73’s in a 16v16 are likely incredibly hard to deal with due to their range and HOBS capabilitiy, while the upcoming BVRAAM’s such as the AMRAAM will require players to seriously reconsider how they play, particularly early game, unless gaijin continues to keep the extreme levels of multipath error, radar missile unreliability, problematic spotting system, limited radar capabilities and limited RWR capabilities along with RWR oversensitivity currently in-game which are all causes of the extreme lawnmower meta we currently unfortunately deal with…
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In terms of modular seeker capability, France was simply turning back to its roots with that design. The first missiles, R-511 had an EM and IR seeker, although the IR seeker was horrible and never entered into service. Then you have the R-530s with IR and EM variants. France then had a new doctrine with Super 530s and Magics similar to the US, before now going back to MICAs again, which greatly reduced logistic burden, costs, among other things. These same missiles were able to be put onto ships and vertical launch platforms as point defence missiles, further reducing costs.
As for implementing them in-game, they could give it 4 MICA EM and keep the 2 Magics as that was it’s early configuration, and hold off on MICA IR. M2K can only carry a maximum of 4 MICA EM if there’s no MICA IR anyway, while other countries like Mig-29/F-16 can get its 6 AMRAAMs/R-77s. Then as US/RU gets more advanced AMRAAM/R-77, then France can get the MICA IR, where 6 of them can be used on one platform. 6x MICA-IR where there’s no warning at long range launches.
And unlike AMRAAMs, you can’t avoid MICA-IRs by hugging the ground and relying on multipath. AMRAAMs would still deal with that silly gimmick.
They could further buff the M2K by introducing jamming into the game as datamine indicates is happening. F-16s have to carry a jamming pod while M2K has two internal jammers, one facing forward and one facing backward. So it’s able to carry 3 fuel tanks, 6 missiles, and still jam the F-16s/Mig-29s, while the F-16s have to carry a heavy jamming pod sacrificing the centerline fuel tank greatly limiting its range.
All in all, there are a lot of options going forward.
The jamming pod can be left on, dropped and continue to jam a missile / redirect it. The on-board jammers leave the Mirage 2000 susceptible to the AIM-120’s fantastic home-on-jam modes.
It still leaves you without a centerline fuel tank. A competent M2K pilot at long distance could decide to drag the fight out knowing you expended a lot of fuel to get to high altitude and high speed. And they can continue using afterburner all throughout the fight knowing you have to conserve speed.
And it really depends on how the jammers are implemented, M2K has jamming modes to make it less susceptible to be homed-on. Further, there may be limitations to home-on jam modes. A Mirage 3 manual states that the home-on jam mode for R-530 EM could obtain bearing but not elevation. So who knows what limitation there is on the home-on jam for AIM-120. I’d imagine extensive jamming modes + chaffing can make things difficult.
The AIM-120 had quite a good improvement in HOJ capability due to the onboard radar.
But there’s always a cat and mouse game when it comes to jammers and home-on jam. In fact, I’d bet that later AIM-120s had home-on jam capability upgraded over time simply because jammers were getting better, more sophisticated, and able to elude the missile’s seeker, and we’ll probably see that in WT unless they wanna simplify things.
Honestly somewhat questionning/worried about the implementation of jammers in WT atm.
Radar is in a horrible state atm, on all vehicles. Radar locks are much easier to break as of a few months back, radar locks bob all over the place (more noticeable on SAM’s since they have high zoom, but you can see it plain as day on the F-14B now if you use the TCS to look at a target, even at very high altitudes far from any clutter), radar missiles seem to VASTLY prefer targeting other missiles than the enemy jet you have locked in a head-on, leading to dice roll missile shots, and multipath feels like an immense cop-out since its basically a free “i win” way to play radar missile jousts. Even the Pantsir with the most modern radar in-game is incapable of holding anything near a steady lock and bobs all over the place, which is fortunate as a balancing decision, but makes no sense otherwise.
Its honestly just getting aggravating at this point that radar employment feels so much more RNG. The fact I was more confident with missile shots with AIM-7E’s 2 years ago than I am with AIM-7M shots nowadays is absolutely insane. Aircraft subsystems are also becoming quite numerous, and all have to be handled by a single player with little to no assistance and often janky and unreliable mechanics (think F-14’s TWS randomly breaking its own manually designated locks for absolutely no reason and sending your AIM-54’s god knows where).
Unless gaijin fixes these issues, I cant see jammers being a positive addition to the game tbh.
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There’s a lot that can be said on what you pointed out, but it is true that radars and SARH missiles are picking up on missiles too easily. The RCS of a missile is greater than it should be currently and needs to be reported. Half of the issues we have in-game would be solved just from that. There’s no reason why my radar should be able to pick up on a AIM-54 launch from 90km+ away, or even an R-24T launch going away from me at 40km away. Someone should look into this and report on it.
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thats all great but this is still the post about the IRIS-T…
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Youre right. Thats enough off-topic.
i love my tornado but i have to agree with ya bro. no one has a right to get kills. you have to earn them
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You wont be able to use the high offbore capability on the Tornado. It neither has the HMS (although this probably could be somewhat compensated using the radar) nor does it have the digital data bus required for using IRIS-T to its full potential, only relying on the analogue bus originally meant for Sidewinder.
This means your lockon angles are limited to the same you already have with AIM-9L (red on the graphic), only after lock on the seeker gets fully unlocked (violet)
yep they did this to allow for backwards compatibility with 9L platforms
Want to add something to all the comparisons. The ASRAAM can be used in a 360 degree field of combat can be launched and then target aircraft directly behind the aircraft. This comes from a document from Australia when detailing the combat envelopes of ASRAAM against R73. Also from a slide from MBDA detailing the missile. Now I know other missiles have similar capabilities but from what I’m aware only ASRAAM is the one that can launch and target aircraft directly behind.
thats just kinda a thing with all(at least western) SRAAMs. IRIS-T, ASRAAM, MICA-IR, AIM-9X Block II all do that.
For the IRIS-T i believe its mentioned in some of Diehl’s brochures but it was also said to be the case by Lw pilots.
In the video series with JP Performance the pilot specifically said that with the IRIS-T he could look behind himself and launch the missile and it would do its job.
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Don’t forget the Python 5!
Plus the Mica IR cannot really be shot at 360° without an allied datalink or an HMS.
The Mica IR only has a 60° glimbal compared to the 90° of all the other modern IR missile which means it has a harder Time for HOB shot.
Otherwise all those missile can turn 180° but the question is : In how mutch time?
The Asraam is probably the slowest ( no TVC and low surface control) while the Iris T / A darter are probably the fastest (180° in less than 3 sec)
the ASRAAM has thrust vectoring tho iirc
It does not
really? ok wow, nvm then. I thought I read that somewhere, besides basically every modern missile has it, just seems odd the ASRAAM doesnt have it.