same, the rare occasion I need the TVC isn’t worth all the times the raw acceleration and speed of the 8B gets it up their exhaust before they can flare, sure you can take a mixed loadout, but I just end up trying to shoot the wrong missile when I do that
War thunder secondary armement selection is also pretty pisspoor.
First, it doesn’t go in any logical order, jumping from AGM, IR missiles, radar missiles without any logic (could at least go up->down on the weapon indicator on the top left of the screen). It can also switch IR missiles → AGM → radar missile → guided bomb, which makes things even more confusing
Second, there’s no « local » setting to only switch between AA armement, guided armement and dumb munitions, which would also be very beneficial when using a very mixed loadout.
it’s considering the entire program cost, not the product cost of the missiles
it’s only considering the purchases up to 2013. The missile is still in production up to today (tho, probably under the new MICA NG standard since it’s due to enter service very soon)
These 2 factors artificially inflate the « production » price that you are comparing to the Aim9X. Of course, the Aim9X, being so vastly produced, will have a lower portion of the price of each missiles be of the « development cost ».
Many French media are claiming a current unit cost of 600-1000K euros, some claiming the 600K euros as a DGA value, but I honestly can’t find the original document for that
That’s how you figure out how much an AUR costs, it includes a fraction of the money spent on R&D
The -9X was only purchased by the USN in lots between '03 & '17, so it also has a fixed timeframe. It’s still procured by FMS clients and existing Sidewinders can be turned in for some quantity of FMS credits, which count towards offsetting Defense Spending allotments that the US makes (Often FMA Funds are transfer to a virtual account, that can only be spent on US offerings so it remains within the US MIC ecosystem).
Similarly the AIM-9X also has later subvariants that are priced differently. Technically the cutting edge service missile is the “-9X-2”, where the -3 & -4 implement changes that fix issues with parts obsolescence & reliability. Which were tabulated in the linked comment.
Which is the entire advantage of retaining the Sidewinder airframe instead of a clean sheet design, which is not something that will apear in War Thunder, even if all eligible airframe were conferred access. There is still a massive gulf in actual performance considering the baseline missile shares the motor with the -9M; so we’ve seen how it performs at range.
I doubt that the US Tree would be arbitrarily conferred the, AIM-95, AIM-132 (ASRAAM) or AIM-2000(IRIS-T) either. So it’s not an option for the most part
It’s likely the cost of materials and labor for an additional AUR, without factoring in the cost of R&D as it’s already been recouped Which would be relevant for newly ordered missile Lots.
There is a debate to be had though that the next Gen IIRs being added to all would actually increase balance.
A major im-balance at top tier at the moment is nations with an abudance of HOBS (R-73, R-77/R-77-1, MICA, Magic II) vs nations with no HOBS (AMRAAM, Aim-9M, etc) and this creates a major issue at shorter ranges where something like an F-15 or Typhoon has to fire directly at the target and is dependent on guns at short ranges vs something like the SU-30SM2 or Rafale that can fire whilst being turned quite a bit and can use missiles at short ranges.
If everyone had HOBS. It might help level the playing field a bit
I think the meta is just going to continue shifting more and more towards medium range anyway and its not like the first time we’ve had aircraft ill-suited for WVR excepted to fight WVR monsters (Tornado F3 vs F-16 for example)
T[quote=“Morvran_, post:118, topic:320669, full:true”]
I think the meta is just going to continue shifting more and more towards medium range anyway and its not like the first time we’ve had aircraft ill-suited for WVR excepted to fight WVR monsters (Tornado F3 vs F-16 for example)
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Agreed, the meta will be high missile count monsters with good medium/close range performance. Just like how it is now.
This makes the future for 5th gens look a little bleak