AIM-120D and PL12A are at best a nice quality of life addition for these nations, but in the bigger picture nothing has really changed significantly in terms of overall balance.
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they all perform the same with very little flight performance that is noticeable at distances over 60km, which rn is too small to have any effect on the current meta, there is pretty much no point in the aim120d and pl12a as they function the same as their older variant just a pit of rp, time and sl
nothing will change until D-3 or PL-15 are added,
and even then, it will have to come along other modern FOX-3s, like Meteor, AAM-4B, R-77M (no current carriers for it in game iirc) I Derby-ER, etc,
and realistically for these missiles to even be worth it, air RB would need a rework for larger maps, otherwise existing FOX-3s are effectively the same / better than those will be in a War Thunder context
I don’t believe D-3 warrants Meteor and R-77M, especially if D-3 = a bit more propulsion. AAM-4B should have been added awhile ago already. I’m not sure how PL-15 will be modeled but I’m sure they’ll have it modeled with PL-15E stats (145km range) and that itself won’t warrant Meteor either.
PL15 and PL15E direct counterpart is the meteor missile
IRL meteor might be probably the best Missile there is, but in game i don’t see it being that good, it has very slow acceleration, probably only a bit faster than a phoenix outside of the initial short booster
if we ever actually got longer range maps where we could use meteor to its best effect, then AIM-120C-8 (thats the latest ones seen on typhoons isn’t it?) / MICA-NG might be the best we could see for a while, which would also not be poor close up (MICA would still be excellent thanks to TVC)
Even then though, would Meteor get cucked like the Magic 2 was for so long because gaijin wouldn’t be bothered to model the variable thrust motor?
meteor has a ramjet engine, variable thrust and a 2 way DL, so it can use th booster to gain speed and alt, turn it off and glide and then turn it back on once its within 10km for sharp turns
but gaijin wont model any of that in and keep it has a solid rocket booster like other fox 3s removing the meteors biggest advantage
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I got it while playing the BT-7M for the first time in months. It’s really muddy(my green BT was really bumpy looking and brown) but it plays extremely well and was a balanced game
Meteor cant turn off its motor, it can just reduce the power to save propellant. Once the propellant is gone, the missile is just a glider like any other missile. Though the meteor has a lot of fuel for a ram jet.
it has a variable thrust engine, it says on MBDA website it can pretty much turn it off
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The booster is very short, around 2-3 seconds. Its whole purpose is to get it to Mach 3 for the ramjet to operate.
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“Variable” in this instance is likely to be in >60 km shots, anything under that and it could operate on a sprint setting, like other missiles. Of course, being a ramjet it’ll still accelerate slowly compared to an AMRAAM however at ranges where an AMRAAM would be ~Mach 2, it would still be Mach 4 or just a little under.
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Sure, “sharp”, when it’ll have the same or slightly worse turn performance than the AIM-120C-5 :p
lol
Gaijin has already started attempting to model dual-pulse missiles… I think ramjet isn’t that far off.
Variable thrust means pressing gas 100% then 30% and etc dependent on a number of variables. It does not mean turn off.
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It can’t turn it off though. If the engine goes out, the missile is dead at that point, it cant relight the engine. It would also slow down to the point of stopping due to drag if the ramjet is unable to engage. The point of the variable thrust is to reduce propellant use, which is also the point of the ram jet. Ramjets are far more fuel efficient than regular rocket motors. So they reduce the propellant used to the point where the missile can keep its speed and use the ramjet’s fuel efficiency to keep burning out to like 60km.
How would it even reduce propellant use if the ramjet propellant is solid
Sip vs guzzle
unless there is some stage between solid propellant and getting exposed to the air the best they could do is reduce efficiency by changing how open the intake is
Well first, they dont have to put oxygen in the ram jet fuel portion because it pulls oxygen in from the ramjet. I’m not 100% sure of the exact mechanism but I’m pretty sure its by limiting the air flow from the intake which less oxygen, less burn, conserving fuel. Also apparently it is a solid fuel propellant but it turns into a gas before combustion.
Congrats. You’ve discovered a throttle valve xD
But seriously, the intake doesn’t (well, can’t) change how open it is. All the magic happens internally by limiting how much fuel is fed to the air being pushed in
it could reduce overall fuel burn, but would it not make the fuel to air less optimal
does it turn the solid propellant into propellant gas before combustion like a Raptor engine?
This exactly. It turns the propellant into a gas before combustion. It also self ignites when it hits the air coming in from the ramjet.
From Wikipedia,
" The gas generator. The gas generator is ignited by the hot gases from the booster combustion which flow through the open control valve. The gas generator contains an oxygen deficient composite solid propellant which produces a hot, fuel-rich gas which auto-ignites in the air which has been decelerated and compressed by the intakes. The high energy boron-loaded propellant provides a roughly threefold increase in specific impulse compared to conventional solid rocket motors. The result yields a no-escape zone more than three times greater than that of the aim120.
Thrust is controlled by a valve which varies the throat area of the gas generator nozzle. Reducing the throat area increases the pressure in the gas generator which increases the propellant burn rate, increasing the fuel mass flow into the ramcombustor. The mass flow can be varied continuously over a ratio greater than 10:1.
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