Quite a ways shorter than the SM-6 / AIM-174, closer to a AIM-120 in length which is rather interesting.
Way less visible motor and a far smaller warhead section when compared to the 174/ SM-6 too.
two stage and dual pulse are different things
its tail controller, tail controlled missiles can achieve very good maneuverability without tvc.
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The Naval News article doesn’t mention TVC, just aerodynamic controls, though manoeuvrability is apparently still decent for its size.
Specialized aerodynamic fins and strakes also enable the missile to retain significant amounts of maneuverability even with its larger size compared to the long-fielded Raytheon-built AIM-120 AMRAAM and in-development Lockheed Martin-built AIM-260 JATM, according to the official.
TVC would only be needed if it jettisons the aerodynamic controls at some point, although something like DACS could also work. Even in War Thunder people are probably going to be using it as a Fakour 90 on steroids instead of trying to do HOBS shots with it.
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Its definetly meant to replace aim174b with time, the navy doesnt want to use the aim174b more than it has to as it eats into the sm-6 production, having a dedicated missile allows for more performance too. Gunslinger was always meant as a stopgap
Maybe we’ll get a super gunslinger with the block 1B that has 21” motor and is hypersonic
i think its far more likely that the 424 becomes the baseline rather than aim174. navy wants to keep sm-6 for its ships
Think of how potent an even longer range, hypersonic air launched munition could be. Maybe it’ll be on the F/A-XX
sure but we dont know the perfomance of the malice it might as well be more easily achievable through it instead of the aim174b.
Maybe if they beefed it up and gave it the 21” motor
My point is that even upgrading a legacy design may not be able to reach the same performance as a clean sheet design. The aim 260 will fit in the same footprint as the aim 120 but is expected to have considerably more range.
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As of now the 260 is claimed to be using the same exact motor as the D-3, weighs almost the same, and has very similar aerodynamics. Right now there is no reason to expect it to somehow get vastly superior range to the existing D-3.
I’d wager this is why the AIM-120D-3 has been shown to not be supplanted by the AIM-260 either in some military presentations on the matter, rather, the 120 is getting another upgrade.
You have literally no solid evidence to back the nonsense you are spouting. That presentation says nothing about motors
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Such lines up with every claim currently made about the 260, with the only exception being HLG info which has yet to be found anywhere, especially given the 260 does not diverge from the 120’s own weight substantially enough to indicate such.
Reminder, increasing the density of a motor will increase it’s weight.
Neither did my statement about the picture to begin with, read it again.
SIP 4 is just a software upgrade to let it make full use of the D-3’s better processors
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We can see by the markings on the AIM-260 that the motor is longer than on the AIM-120.
The AIM-120 will be kept as a low end medium range missile while the AIM-260 will be the high end medium range missile.
And? The original claim to fame of the 260 was to supplant the 120 in service in totality.
Are you speaking about the brown band location? Its roughly the same as the 120, with the forward black band being right about where the fins on the 120 would reside. Combine that with the fact that the 260 has a visible change in the frame mating after that grey line, I would consider that a different component, not more motor. Someone could make a case for a possible peregrine style second stage, but we don’t really have any other images beyond that one F/A-18 carriage photo.
I don’t have access to any actual information but it seems like the AIM-120 will be kept around until stocks of AIM-260 have been built up sufficiently. There’s still a large number of foreign AIM-120 users that may not make the switch.
Even if the AIM-260 does use a similar size motor as the AIM-120, that just shows the benefits of a clean sheet design over an upgraded system.
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lol
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there is little to no way the aim260 shares the motor with the aim120d-3.
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