I need to speak for an opinion, one that is not heard of too much. But R-60Ms are among the best IR missiles for 11.0 fighters, maybe even better than Aim-9Ls.
I feel I can be justified by placing all aspect R-60Ms in comparison with rear aspect missiles such as Aim-9G, because they usually occupy the same BR, think MiG-21bis VS F-4EJ at the same BR.
The R-60M is a dogfight missile, which means it is better than most others for dogfighting needs.
The main strength it has are:
All aspect (important)
Fast activation time (between launch and manuvering)
Good G
It allows for the maximum amount of practical situations that can be fired while minimizing the chance that the target could evade it. An example is the famous 1km head on “punch”.
Missiles like Aim-9G or even the P variants are not practical for dogfighting.
Flaws that they have:
Slow activation time
Low G
The Aim-9 missiles excel in these fields:
Lower FOV
Longer Range
The Aim-9 missiles are better than R-60M in these niches:
When target is NOT flaring and he is running from 3km away, and you are facing his engine
When target is 1km away and he is a high thrust plane (think Phantoms), preferrably on AB, and you are moving onto him
When target is AFK and you need to snipe them
Situations that the Aim-9 missiles are horrible at:
During a turnfight
When target is closing in (sometimes even 3-5 km targets away from you can be missed if they are moving towards you and maneuvering)
The situations where Aim-9 ignores flares that R-60 would not is fairly rare and inconsistent. If we go by the reductionist logic that “flare = live, no flare = die”, then R-60Ms has WAY more situations where they can be used in “no flare” situations where for example, the target is distracted, the target is G locked in a turn etc.
R60 is a dogfight missile but if the dogfighting opponent has flares and paying attention the r60 is useless.
+r60 doesnt have good range like 9g,d,L or even 9j ,e
far smaller fov as you mentioned, which just makes them see less flares
have much better flare sensetivity, flaring them rear aspect (especially 9L) can be quite problematic for jets with hot engines, which isnt the case for R-60 (it ignoring flares is rather God feeling bad for you and helping you a bit rather than norm), best you can get is R-60 from below 0.7 km going for flares and simply because of how wide the FOV is it will reacquire the target, other than that if person is aware of it they’re as good as useless and you can pretty much drop them because atleast that way you will have lighter fm to gun them down (since they have so bleak range and you’re probably already close enough for guns)
Not only that but even if R-60 DOES hit (thank god) it may just not make much damage, remember its a 50kg missile, you can literally carry it yourself by hand, so any AIM-9 simply has a higher chance to kill the target when hit due to being almost 2 times heavier
Forgot to mention, all sidewinders past D have a giant uncaged seeker so its very easy to compensate for their 18-20G max overload and it will increase their range even more, while R-60 has a far smaller seeker and hence wont help that much with its range (not bringing up the pull since it pulls fairly hard)
R-60M is not very good for killing people, but it has its uses.
-Genociding AI Planes for free SL
-Killing flareless planes in the full downtier without wasting precious ammo or better missiles
-You can use one as a single mega flare in a headon with something dangerous like a Magic 2
-Even though they don’t need to, a lot of people instinctively turn when flaring one, giving you a bit of a chance to close the distance.
I’ve been pretty down on the R-60M but I’d rather have 4 of them than two more R-13M1s on the 21Bis, even though R-13s can actually kill people (almost a guaranteed kill on an afterburning target below 1 kilometer in my experience.) Any all-aspect is going to have utility.
In fairness, this is 100% the same for the Aim-9. Though with the added challenge that the Aim-9s are pretty useless with a target within 1-1.5km if they are turning at all
There is no situation you can’t flare an R-60. Further, the R-60’s fuse doesn’t activate at these ranges and requires a direct hit even if it doesn’t go after your flares (it will)
I was using the Su-22 with its R-60MKs to get head-on kills just a couple days ago.
I approach a target at supersonic sppeds, fire when I’m <1 mile away, pull away hopefully without getting shredded by guns, land watch them blow up b4 they can react and flare.
