If fired from long range
The only advantage of AMRAAM would be ability to go Pitbull at certain range, allowing pilot to lock another target. Up until that range, the missile still requires input from radar source
Pitbull is the difference between an AIM-9J and an AIM-9L.
To elaborate on the R-27ER not being an AMRAAM equivalent:
It’s true the R-27ER has some kinematic advantages over the AIM-120B and R-77. It’s safe to say it’s probably the best flight-performance wise of the three, though not by much.
However, these advantages are only really effective in 1v1 jousts. In an actual battle, the speed and acceleration of the R-27 is completely outclassed by the fire-and-forget capability of the R-77 and AIM-120.
In an actual battle, aircraft using AMRAAMs or R-77s will be able to fire 6 or 8 missiles on as many targets. Even if each missile has only a 25% chance of hitting, 8 launches from something like an F-15 gives a 90% of at least one kill. Compare that to an aircraft using R-27s, which can only engage a single target at once and therefore has a much more difficult time getting kills. It’s similar to how many players prefer to take AIM-9Ms over AIM-7Ms despite the better flight performance of the sparrows- it’s more effective to keep throwing shit at the wall and hope something sticks than to put all your eggs in one basket.
From the defensive side of things, FnF is a huge advantage. When using an AMRAAM or R-77, you can turn completely away and the missile will still be able to hit. R-27ER does have IOG and datalink but you’d still realistically need to regain lock for that terminal phase of intercept for a kill, which Fox-3s take care of themselves. In addition and building on the offensive portion, a theoretical team of all fox-3 users will have a much easier time avoiding fire from a theoretical team of fox-1 users. On average, the first team will have to dodge a single missile from a single direction each during the initial engagement- not too bad. However, the second team will have to attempt to avoid 6-8 missiles from 6-8 directions each. This can’t realistically be done with a single notch, giving the Fox-3 team a huge advantage when it comes to surviving in a team battle.
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ARH missiles will still give off radar warnings as they are rarely used with the internal radar as their only guidance. Past the last 16km it still needs to be guided by the launch aircraft as the target will likely be moving, requiring flight path correction that only the launch aircraft can give.
It is not in any way, until you show me stats/sources that prove that any AIM-120 before the AIM-120C-5 has a single aspect to it that is better than the R-77 I’m just not going to respond to this blatant lie.
Not in terms of getting to a target first.
AARHs only give off launch warnings once off datalink, real datalink; when they go pitbull.
I stated equivalent, not better than.
AIM-120 gets to its target first cause R-27ER & AIM-7 went into the ground when defeated before the AMRAAM & R-77 were even launched.
Here, check out this page, it’s got great info on a lotta Fox-3s.
And these two
Specifically, the AIM-120B is lighter, has a more powerful engine, bit better seeker, and most significantly a far, far lower drag coefficient. The grid-fins of an R-77 produce a huge amount of wave drag- that’s drag in the transonic regime. The wave drag is primarily responsible for the much lower range of the R-77 when not launched at over ~Mach 1.2 or very high altitude. You can clearly see this difference when looking at SAM variants of the two missiles, the AMRAAM-B has an extra 4-8km (25-50%) range when surface launched, and this would translate to the low-transonic, low-altitude fights you see in War Thunder.
The sam variant of the R-77 was never produced. The 12km range figure thrown around by not-so-reputable sources could be anything from seeker limitation to distance target is at point of intercept.
What we know is that at an altitude of ~12km… the R-77 with a 0.9 mach launch towards a 0.9 mach target has around ~80-100km range. The AIM-120B in the same conditions has just 74km range. The information regarding the AMRAAM and R-77 is pretty solid - but we have been able to find less information verifying the maximum range in such conditions for the R-77. What I’ve found is that the R-77 model I’ve made in-game for testing matches most available datapoints now and leans towards a battery limited range of 80km at such altitudes.
What is more interesting is that it is 80km maximum range without lofting… the AIM-120 needs to loft to reach 74km in the same ~80s. I think the increased seeker (active range) of the AIM-120 and the larger drag penalty on the R-77 for maneuvering targets will make both missiles somewhat equal. I don’t think Gaijin will consider the AIM-120C-5 initially seeing as they currently don’t care about the performance difference between AIM-7M and R-27ER. They didn’t care about the difference between the AIM-7F and R-24R previously either…
Of course at close ranges the R-77 being able to reliably hit 12G targets is going to be important. The AIM-120 is also pretty maneuverable at ~50G’s. (If they do not introduce combined plane it will be just ~35G… which is still un-dodge-able for the most part).
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Suffice it to say that this is not a settled issue and that many people including myself disagree with this assesment.
I don’t see anyone else doing real testing or disputing the sources.
People have provided alternate sources that disagree with your conclusions and I specifically have contested the credibility of your testing. You can disagree with that, but don’t act like there’s some universal consensus.
Alternate sources that are tertiary do not dispute primary sources. There doesn’t need to be a universal consensus to understand that the missile cannot feasibly have such a low ground launched range. The grid fins would have to be nearly solid to produce that much drag.
I disagree here. Missiles like the AIM-9L/M acellerate way too slowly.
The R-27EM isn’t a ARH missile. Only the R-27EA is an ARH missile.
About the R-27EA seeker, i’ve found it used the 9B-1103K seeker and not the 9B-1103M you linked, maybe a translation issue on my part or different block of the missile. Fantom said it used the 9B-1103 seeker.
And this picture clearly shows testbed for the R-77 not the R-27
The R-27ER will still be pretty balanced against early AMRAAM (120A/B). It’s a lot faster than them so if shot at the same time, the R-27ER will shoot down the ennemy before the AIM-120 will activate its own radar (cf Mig-23 test).
The Amraam will be better if you just shoot them and go defensive immediately, but then the PK of you missile is horrible.
TLDR, the R-27ER will be pretty balanced versus early Amraam, not so mutch against later version.
On the other hand , the AIM-7M is really a step backward compared to the AIM-120. Better kinematics, but not enough to counter the ARH of the AIM-120.
I can still easelly find video/ picture of russian equiped with R-27ER even today. The missile is still equiped because its still sufficient against most of the airforce in the word (early amraam included).
The 40G figure was mainly taken from the R-77 thread by Mig_23.
The 40G for the R-77 is logical since the missile uses lattice fins which make it capable of achieving very high angle of attack (at the cost of drag and RCS). It was statted to be able to it “up to 12g” target .
Unfortunalty almost all IR missile underperform in game rn. Seeker range wise they are all underperforming, IRCCM wise 9L and Magic 2 should be better. Kinetic wise it depends on the missile but is pretty close to IRL.
Nah the R-77 is sligtly better than the 120B but the C5 will be a lot more potable than both of them.
Just add the 120B ad the R-77. The difference in capabilities between both of them is smaller than between the AIM-7M/SUPER 530D and the R-27ER.
The equivalent of the C5 is clearly the R-77-1, similar kinetic and seeker wise.
The R-77M is similar to the AIM-120D with is 190km range (compared to the AIM-120D 160-180km range).
The R-37 is really a bigger phoenix. Long range and medium maneuvrability (around 25G).
The fact that the R-27ER is going to hit the AMRAAM carrier before the 120 goes active means that is not so mutch behind :). Obviously if you break the lock before and the ennemy doesn’t change trajectory then the Amraam is going to be at an advantage.
The EA/EM both use the same 9B-1103K seeker, though the EM had a very slight range extension to contend with the R-77.
There is little to no difference between seeker heads, the primary iterations were only changed due to the turbulent arms race between the R-27 and R-77.
No specifications seem to have changed between any stated variant of the seeker.
Can you point out where it says it, or highlight it? I’ve read through it twice and I din’t see anything referencing the seeker. It may just be me.
5/8 pylons.
It bugs me that the R-73 and 550Mk.2 have the same IRCCM properties, yet it feels like it performs worse.
Yeah I meant to say the R77-1 not M, my bad on that part
R37 was a joke so dont bother with that lol
If you go straight head on without trying to do anything yes but if one knows how to defeat a missile (no idea how deep its even implemented in WT and if air density even exists) AMRAAM will always win pretty much because 27ER is really bad at energy retention even though initially faster iirc
Are there reliable sources available for R-77?
The issue is, that the US will only get the AIM 120 A, to face the R77, so first version vs first version, which is an advantage to the Russians (shocker), not the AIM 120 B vs the first version of the R77.
Similar like the US only has AIM 9 M’s and not the AIM 9 P’s (better low alt performance), against the R27 ER, from a decade later
AIM 120 B will come first
they said, that every nation will receive FOX 3 at the same time, so it will be simulatniously.
Also therefore I think, we’ll get the A, and maybe later, if they see the suffering etc, the B
AIM-120B will come same update as AIM-120A. The A was produced in relatively low numbers and wasn’t exported. The B was the first widely used AMRAAM and the first Fox-3 for most of the game’s nations.
Check out here for my guess at the introduction of Fox-3s
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