Anduril conducted a test with Raytheon on a HLG motor for AAMs back in October last year. Given that AIM-424 is a Raytheon product, not a stretch to imagine that tech from this Anduril motor was applied in some form, if not directly used.
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Brother I’ve already given you two sources of the MK104 being updated, you don’t have to totally rebuild a design to get more performance out of it, the SM-6 itself, as you are showing here is proof of that.
The AIM-120 has been updated over its lifespan. The AIM-260 still was developed to replace it and improve performance.
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Those would be minor motor improvements over decades, not a complete overhaul like the AIM-424. None of your sources say the SM-6 AIM-174 is based on has HLG motor.
It’s not unreasonable to think a brand new clean slate AAM is better than a stopgap air launched heavier SM-2 with an AMRAAM seeker, even though AIM-174B does have considerable range
As was the SM-6 to the SM-2, your point?
Its still a modern motor with modern propellants of a vastly larger weight class. HLG designs aren’t a miracle pill that suddenly makes all motors infinitely better, they serve a niche where weight is not at a premium, mainly ground launched rockets, hence why this tech is being put into HIMARS rockets currently.
So lets run a little hypothetical here real quick, if we took a PAC-2 GEM+ missile and and a AIM-120D-3 and put both on the same plane, got that plane up to speed and launched both, which missile do you think would reach out further?
For reference, the PAC-2 GEM+ has a maximum intercept range of 99 NMI from the ground, 0 speed, 0 anything.
Heck you can even try such for yourself by taking out a SLAMRAAM and seeing how much worse from the ground the AIM-120 does kinematiclly.
Ground launched missiles have to make up for having no starting energy, if said missile from the ground already exceeds the performance of a air launched rival, it being air launched would make that gap even wider by virtue of it not having to make up for it’s energy difference.
This is why the Sedijl and Fakour 90, even though they sport ancient HAWK motors and frames in game, just dumpster every other AAM in sheer energy at all stages of flight, even the modern AIM-120D.
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No, the propellants are not actually advanced, only in some of the manufacturing techniques they use to make the same Mk104 has it improved. Realistically this would mean better quality so better reliability and maybe a slight performance boost. We also don’t know if those were the motors used on the AIM-174B in use.
I don’t mean this in a rude way, but do you know what highly loaded grain rocket propellant actually is?
PAC-2 GEM+ weighs 2000lb and AIM-120D-3 weighs 360lb, not a good example. AIM-120D-3 is also fully optimized for a2a so if you were to put PAC-2 on a jet, the difference would not be nearly as big.
Fakour and Sedjil are bad examples too since next to nothing is known about them irl and they could easily be overperforming
Ground launched SM-6 has a giant booster as well, a2a doesn’t.
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Same statement can be made about the 424, HLG tech is very specifically worthwhile for ground based systems like HIMARS, for which the tech was developed for.
The 174 was derived from the 1a block, Aerojet’s last publication I can find on the SM-6 was from 2009 which predates both the 1 and 1a block, it can be safely assumed that the motors used are of 2009 or later vintage.
Yes and you do also understand what happens when you attempt to increase propellant density within a volume.
The difference already exists in their standard launch configurations, the PAC-2 outranges the AIM-120D-3 launched from their respective standard energy states, that is a 2002 vintage SAM vs a 2024 vintage AAM, a 20 year gap.
Air launched that gap would only grow as the PAC would not need to catch up to the 120 to begin with as they would both launch at the same energy state.
Fun fact, we can actually visualize this in statshark as the PAC-1 (same motor as the 2) is in game.
I will note that I did have to unfuck the launch logic in the 104 because gaijin coded it to slam into the deck when air launched due to it’s loft code being present to get it off the deck because ground launched and all that.
But as we can see here, the PAC mirrored the performance of the likes of the Fakour and Sedijl quite closely, brutal initial acceleration (up to almost 5000 KM/H) with the extra mass carrying on the cruise.
Currently their motor stats are identical to the ground launched I-HAWK we have in game, so if anything, per the propaganda around them, they would be underperforming as they are currently slaved to a historical motor which is currently accurate.
I won’t post the missile spreadsheet screen caps here since such is easily viewed here to save space.
Edit: thought that would come out smaller, I’ll replace the link tomorrow with just screen caps, the I-HAWK is the same as the Sedjil delta V wise, the Fakour is actually just a tiny bit worse.
The ground launched version also still has to content with being stationary and at sea level.
There’s literally no information on it and since it was only released yesterday we’re not going to see this until 5 or so years down the line.
For aim-424 ? There are already a lot of informations including it’s range.
Nice, though i really hope it would have TVC
HLG just means the binder is much better so you don’t need as much which means you can pack in more actual propellant where binder used to be. Maybe some overall change in density but not the way you make it out to be.
Gaijin also doesn’t model modern air to air missiles very well, particularly lofting and the high altitude cruise
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Why? Its a long range missile, TVC is detrimental to long range
I wonder how good an ARM version would be
I’m no aerodynamicist, but this looks like a bicone? Although it’s very small relative to the rest of the missile (or to the RV, if it’s actually two stage, though it’s proportionally bigger after the two stages split), in comparison to other biconic MARVs like AMaRV, Pershing II, YJ-20, etc.
the in flight pictures of AIM-424 dont have a cone like that
Dunno, the magnified pic from TWZ is still quite grainy, and the cone is really small. And it could be different phases of the prototype. We’ll have to wait for more high quality pics to settle it.
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Is it not a ARH missile?
If so maintaining lock at 100km+ could be a challenge.
ARM means passive homing anti-radiation missile
It’s very likely ARH irl, and they have datalink for mid course guidance
So its an AWACS killer, got it.