Aim120d3 isnt a new missile. It absolutely is relevant to the conversation in the context of it being an american clean slate design.
Your point about spear 3 is eh at best, the us is the single most experienced country when it comes to SEAD/DEAD and its not even close really, spear 3 isnt even in service and on its head whilst good its essentially a small diameter cruise missile with a wide capability range, but its not outperforming an agm88g in its own role.
Aim-120D3 from what I can find entered service in 2024. That is relatively new within this context
Its still just a reshuffled aim120d though. Thats not even comparable to a clean slate design.
Uhh, these weapons are like apples to meatballs. You can’t really compare them. AARGM-ER is designed to eliminate AD radar systems from range while Spear-3 is for lower value targets from much closer.
Except you can. Spear-3 is specifically intended as the main stay SEAD weapon for the F-35 (at least in RAF service) and Typhoon.
Spear-3s max range is unknown, but estimates still place it at 140+ km.
For greater ranges than that, Storm Shadow and its upcoming replacement would be used.
AGM-88 has the limitation of ONLY being usable against active radar systems and cant be used against different types of targets. That heavily limits their usefulness. For the US this doesnt matter much, they can waste loads of money on having a different weapon for different situations. Most countries cannot, so instead building one weapon that does the job of multiple is much better.
Zan was making hte claim that the AGM-88G-ER is somehow special and operating in a vacuum and that is somehow evidence that hte US is ahead of the curve in missile technology. It doesnt. All it shows is that the US is happy building highly specailised weapons with some quite major drawbacks. Other nations have built just as advanced weapons, with a far less specialised role
Spear 3 at even optimistic ~170km range isn’t comparable to AGM-88G AARGM-ER with 225+km range and significantly increased speed.
You can pretty clearly see this disparity, they’re not the same class of weapon. Spear 3 is comparable to ADM-160 (decoy version) and GBU-53B (attack version) with similar form factor, size and mission.
Stratus LO is also incomparable with the reduced speed and L-O design. There exists the AGM-158 to actually be compared to Stratus LO with broadly similar design and mission.
Apples and meatballs. Even AGM-88J SiAW isn’t really all that similar to Storm 3 or Stratus LO with expanded mission to attack more targets.
I know there’s discussions going on about PL-15 vs AIM-260 when comparing in real life performances. Is there any reason to believe that the AIM-260 isn’t going to outright clear the PL-15 in terms of range when it comes to in-game modeling by Gaijin (aka using sources that actually exists)?
AARGM-ER is capable of hitting other targets, its just optimized for killing AA
the 9X block 3 was going to have a rocket motor that would improve its range by 60% over the block 2 before it was cancelled in 2016. the 9X block 3 has been publicly known since at least 2013, with all the time since then American HLG technology has only improved with new HLG motors being made by Raytheon and Anduril, so the fuel has gotten significantly better from the AIM-120D. considering everything else on the rocket that has also improved, with a significantly longer motor and the missile being slightly wider, and less fin drag, i think it can readily beat the PL-15
PL-15 will have same drag coefficient with PL-12 so I don’t think it’ll go as far as JATM, R77M may be in the same boat as PL-15 even though it no longer has grid fins.
Why would the pl-15 share drag coefficient? That is honestly not what is going to screw it over (see drag coefficient 120A to C/D), but more the lack of fins.
Is just the datamined values(no r77m or jatm in files yet though) and are of course subject to change before its release, if not mistaken pl-15 in files still have pl-12’s old pid values as well but don’t quote me on this one. It’s wing areas are also copy pasted from pl-12 so I guess there may be a lot of changes made to it(or not) so it may js be a PL-12A sidegrade if gaijin lazy.
its a complete C&P rn nothing actually was changed, its just a PL-12 file with a different name
Since the power that Gaijin has currently given to the PL-12A is still far from sufficient, I am pessimistic about the PL-15’s performance in WT.
Does anyone have some info on the Turn Performance of the R-77M? I’d assume it’s worse than the 77/77-1, but is it like the 120?
I wish…
A missile being as bad aim120 depends on gaijin devs mood. Look at pl12, one of these days aam4 is getting the same treatment i wager
I doubt that, they wouldnt be making Siaw if aargm er could already engage other targets
It has a mmW radar to track targets when their radar is off, so it wouldnt be a surprise
according to wikipedia: “In September 2015, the AGM-88E successfully hit a mobile ship target in a live fire test, demonstrating the missile’s ability to use antiradiation homing and millimeter-wave radar to detect, identify, locate, and engage moving targets.”
“and the ability to beam up images of the target via a satellite link just seconds before impact.”