I want you to reconsider the amount of value you’re given to a single schematic. We have NO other proof of ANY redesign. Nothing ever mentions it, nothing ever talks about it, we dont even have as much as a single picture of a missile with this redesigned fin.
Even the book where the schematic is from mentions 0 changes in regards to fins when talking about R-24RM. It infact only has 1 single sentence about it, in which it just states this.
Literally the only change to the R-24RM is the GOS = seeker. Nothing else.
Altogether, we have two book sources about this missile (correct me if I’m wrong). Don’t you think it’s more likely that he simply forgot to mention it in text rather than made a mistake by adding an extra image that took him time to create? You can’t say with certainty that it’s wrong.
Two book source, neither of which mention any fin redesign. I already did this in the R-24RM threat like I said, I went through the books given and none of them say anything about increased G load, different fin design etc.
I really do urge you to read my response there as I have all the passages and translations in that post I made
Yeah I readed it. That two books is too little for the confirmation or refutation of anything. We need more data. But until then, the scheme should be taken into account, because for now we don’t have anything better.
A good chunk of the things I mentioned in the MLDG post could be added to all 2nd/3rd gen Floggers as well. The ML, MLA and MLD should all get HMS, R-73s and R-24Ms. The specific appeal of the MLDG is the Gardeniya-1FU I-Band radar jammer pod and the improved radar (Sapfir-23MLA-IIM, very similar to the MLD’s radar but with better reliability and resistance to jamming/noise/clutter/ECM etc). But if gaijin only wants to add those 80s upgrades to only the MLDG, well alright fine ig (though I’d strongly argue the MLD specifically should get HMS, R-73s and R-24M).
Alright, since I wrote the thread on the R-24M (and MLDG) I’ll chime in: the notion that the R-24M has better maneuverability than the R-24R is me speculating based on both the different schematic which shows it having slightly different fins than the R-24R, and a dataset I read (originally posted here) which I thought stated it had ±55° seeker boresight vs. the R-24R having ±50° - I now recognise I misinterpreted this. The way this person phrases the sentence before the dataset makes it sound like they’re talking about the R-24M, but upon checking the source they cite, they’re actually just reciting the data on the R-24 as a whole. The R-24M is a very obscure missile and it was a real pain to find any information on it, and a lot of sources were simply something like this sentence EstrogenKitten provided:
Seeing the dataset and various (albeit conflicting) drawings of it, I thought, “well, I don’t know that much about rocket kinematics, but a quick google search shows that a different fin design could give it some extra overload, plus that extra five degrees of launch boresight has to translate to something, right? What, one, one and a half, maybe two Gs?”
Actually checking the source (М. Дрофа, Е.А. Федосова - Авиация ПВО России и научно-технический прогресс: боевые комплексы и системы вчера, сегодня, завтра: монография / под ред, 2005, I dug up a PDF of it for the purposes of this post) states nothing about the R-24M specifically in the dataset and only has one sentence about it in general. The ±55° seeker boresight is referring to the the R-24T, and as far as I know there was no R-24TM.
So, the boresight is the same as the R-24R. But, that doesn’t explain the different drawings. Obviously, EstrogenKitten has claimed that the R-24M drawing showing it with different fins from the R-24R isn’t real, and I don’t know how to refute that since it is virtually the only picture I’ve ever been able to find that is explicitly stated to be Izdyelie 140M/R-24M. I do think there is some credibility to the claim that it’s wrong, given that other drawings of R-24R look remarkably similar to R-24M, but others still show it looking different.
Again, this missile is barely a footnote in most sources. A paragraph at best.
The only thing that I can confirm with certainty about the R-24M is the new seeker, which gives it “vastly improved” countermeasure resistance, specifically against ECM and chaff, as well as improved low-altitude performance, specifically in terms of ignoring ground clutter. I will push back against the claim that it was designed specifically to down helicopters - it was tested against a helicopter, and it has better targeting against helicopters, if I remember correctly that was part of its design brief, but it was also tested against MiG-21 drones standing in for ICBMs. Generally speaking the R-24M (or R-24RM) is just an improved R-24R with a more reliable seeker. Kinematic improvements - if they exist - are only minor.
Update turns out the drawings of the R-24M with different fins from the R-24R are real, I found a photo of a real one mounted on a MiG-23P
The tapering on the fins is pretty easy to see and it’s very obviously different from the R-24R. So, unless this photo is fake, it’s all but confirmed that the R-24M did indeed have minor kinematic improvements.
That is amazing and job well done @TheFinalStarman ! I take back what I said previously and @csla1972 I think I owe you an apology since it does seem that the schematic was indeed right!
The ML, MLA and MLD should all get HMS, R-73s and R-24Ms
I am curious why you said this though, R-73 was only ever used on the MLD and the pylon for it too, I have not seen any further information on why it would be backwards compatible to the others.
Also HMS? Not even MLD had it, it was tested on an M but I think that was about it for ML/MLA/MLD?
Oh don’t apologise, everything you said was perfectly accurate at the time. There was zero mention of the fins being different in no source whatsoever, only these schematics - and considering the “variations” in which the R-24R is depicted, it’s perfectly reasonable to assert that it could be likely the authors were wrong or got confused. And, absent any photographic evidence, there’s no reason not to think the R-24M would be totally identical to the R. Your conclusion was perfectly reasonable, the only difference is that now new evidence has been discovered!
Though, tbh, in hindsight… I never saw any source explicitly say that the R-24 had different fins from the R-23… so that could be why they didn’t describe that for the R-24M… ah well, not that it matters. Mystery solved!
I have a problem with reading things, repeating them later online, and then not writing down the source where I got them from, but! today is not one of those days. That picture is from Markovsky and Priohochenko’s book “Jet Fighter MiG-23: Protecting the Skies of the Motherland”. You can read a translated version here. Aside from being an interesting read, the chapter on the MLD (Page 182 in the PDF) and “Projects and Experiments” (Page 215 in the PDF) does talk about the use of the R-73 and HMS on the ML and MLD. It seems the MLA didn’t have it (so I was wrong there) - on the ML, it was only for testing (which still counts, for WT’s purposes! Well, kind of), and the MLD began to be equipped with the R-73 starting in 1983. Curiously, while the MLD did receive the R-73 in standard service, it only received the HMS for testing, like the ML. MLD-based subvariants, like the MiG-23MLDG (Izd. 23-57), were intended to receive it as standard. So I guess that kind of counts.
Also:
From Page 205 - interesting, seems KDS-23 dispensers being mounted in places other than the fuselage and wings was indeed a thing-
