R-77 wasn’t seen on RuAF aircrafts becouse R-77-1 appeard only somewhere in 2010 and were hold in storages. R-77-1 appeard in big amounts on public only with current conflict, they were just keeped in storages (same thing with Vikhrs ATGM, rarely seen on Ka-52 before) and none aircrafts carried R-27 instead of R-77-1 in combat. “R-77” wasn’t ever used becouse only export RVV-AE was produced, which RuAF won’t use.
Yeah if funding is lacking, id expect that to be roughly in line with what one would expect.
They did R-77-1 orders in 2015. Which is presumably a R-77 (ignoring upgrades) that is nolonger dependant on former soviet block countries. This is roughly in tune with the period they finally upgraded their R73 derived IR missiles also nolonger dependant on former soviet block countries.
Doesn’t seem like they spent a ton on missiles between 1991 and 2015. And when they finally did it replaced older suppliers.
Edit:
R-37 id put in the category of long range radar missiles, certainly possible the R-27ER has some use, be it for deterrence or certain target sets. Even an Aim-9L or standard R-73 is potent, i dont see why one wouldn’t keep a relatively capable missile around if it still works
Well, they did in small quantities in 2016 Syria after a incident in late 2015 with Turkey(i believe?). Same time countries abroad started ordering aswell as Moscow doing a order in 2015
2010 is test flight period for R-77-1 from what i gathered.
So how many there are is anyones guess. Id hedge on the side of not that many.
The only reason is that there is still high amount of R-27 in storages and there is no reason to take and waste R-77 lifespan instead of old R-27 in non-combat missions. And R-77 can’t fully replace R-27T.
I think the presence of the R-27 simply confused people when used in Syria when in reality the higher kinematic performance was the reason for its’ use.
So is the 80 km range figure for R-77 Mach 0.9 @ 12 km altitude co-speed, co-altitude? Just trying to work out the conditions as earlier you give a range of 80 - 100 km.
Some primary sources indicate 80km for the R-77, I generally say 80-100km as the missile doesn’t loft so for comparison against the AMRAAM we can consider game conditions. A manually lofted missile having ~25% more range isn’t unreasonable.
Additionally, since we lack information on the missile the 80km maximum range is potentially given for a slower or lower engagement… we really don’t know without context. On that same note ROSONBOROEXPORT could be giving it for a higher altitude or higher speed launch but the data from testing doesn’t seem to support that at all.
In short, yes. My assumption (that is all it is thus far without verifiable sources) is that the R-77 has ~80km range without lofting at an altitude of ~12km and speed of 0.9 mach launch against co-altitude and co-speed target. I would say this is well supported with the known datapoints… just not confirmed.
But aren’t R-77 and AMRAAM both battery life limited at altitude. So manually lofting the missile would not net you much extra range (it’s presumably unlikely to increase average velocity by enough to significantly overcome the increased distance it must cover in the same battery life span)?
Only when high speeds are involved, and it should be noted even more so for the R-77 who thrives by staying at higher supersonic speeds for longer. Launch speed has a big effect on that missile in particular.
To overcome the drag problem higher altitudes and higher launch speeds would greatly improve range in comparison to something like the AIM-120, especially when manually lofted. In similar circumstances… the R-27ER achieves much greater than 25% improvement in range in-game when manually lofted from subsonic speeds.
I never said the AIM-7M was…
By “manually lofting” Do you mean firing by pointing nose higher/towards sky instead of straight at the target?
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Yes
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Then I was doing it all this time without knowing the technical name / term, nice.
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Pretty sure that would be Super-elevation, in most contexts.