Prelude
13 days ago, a bug report about the SU-39 having the kopyo-25 radar but missing the missiles it would guide, the R-27ER1 and the R-77, was accepted. Below you can see for yourselves the bug report:
Missing R-27ER1 and R-77 bug report accepted
When first the addition of the Khod/Kinzhal pod and the “missing missiles” was discussed, the problem for adding these were how could they be balanced, considering they were the top performance missiles at the time. The discussion started one year and a half before:
In the Khod pod discussion, also there was discussed the missing A2A missiles:
The manager answered as follows.
Which is valid, considering the top tier for that time was much more compressed(I think it only was up to 11.7 for air and there wasn’t yet separation of Ground BR and Air BR for aircraft. As for the Khod:
Basically saying: at that time the SU-39 seemed like a balanced aircraft at it’s BR, and there wasn’t much room for moving it up adding the missing features without creating a balancing hell, so there wasn’t much of a balancing reason to add them.
In any moment seemed like the veracity of the “flesh” – of the existence of such experimental containers – was doubted. The Kinzhal is probably the only who can’t be proved because of lack of information.
There was even more to the discussion, but this brevis prelude may give you some enlightenment on my reasoning behind this “proposal”.
Present
The bug report about the “missing missiles” was accepted, which do represent a different approach of the devs to the balancing of the SU-39. Before only the kopyo-25 was there, maybe because they already thought about the possibility of adding them.
And it also seemed like they thought about the Khod/Kinzhal pod.
Now R-27 and the R-77 are to be added in the future for the SU-39, which seems great for all lovers of the SU-39, but it is mister one not forget about this: the missiles implies in BR changes for the SU-39, in ARB and specially in GRB.
With these missiles, most likely the SU-39 will be moved up to RB 12.0 GRB, considering it have lesser weapons loadouts when comparing it with the SU-25SM3 but still good ground strike power. The Sea Harrier that carries four AIM-120 is at a RB 11.7 GRB, without having any guided weapons at all, being also an subsonic.
At this BR, long range SPAA will be the rule, and more than that the aircraft that populates that BR are much more dangerous. And the state it’s ground pounding capabilities are right now hardly can match any strike aircraft at those BRs.
The SU-39 is a strike aircraft: no matter how much air power it gets, it will always have to fly defensively because it is a fat flying whale, so it’s performance depends on it’s ground pounding capabilities.
Almost every SPAA will be able to cock you in any engagement you make, because the De Facto range limit the SU-39 have for it’s laser guided weapons or for the distance it can obtain a TV target lock is always under 10 kilometers. Excluding the problem it’s targeting pod already have with the angles in which it can aim it will be a very situational strike aircraft in that scenery.
Even the weather and the damned sun are great opponents to the performance of this aircraft because of the lack of a thermal imager.
As I’m seeing right now, the addition of the R-77 and R-27ER can only occur with, also, the addition of the Khod/Kinzhal pods.
These two will give an edge to the SU-39, because then you will have less trouble acquiring targets. Less time wasted exposed to enemy fire while searching for that ADATS you seen there. You still will be overly exposed when firing any of your weapons, but you would be able to acquire your targets outside the range of the enemy fire.
Kinzhal addition is a must too
If the Khod/Kinzhal were to be, following my reasoning above, added, other problem arises: the lack of several specifications on the milimetric wave radar.
The amount of information other members of community already have gathered surely is enough for the Khod to be modeled:
Ralin’s Khod container research thread
Devs didn’t doubted the existence of the Khod on the bug report, but just decided to not add the thermal imager.
But that is not true for the Kinzhal:
And:
There is too much missing specifications of the Kinzhal radar. In this moment, only the Khod could be added. The lack of the ground radar could hurt the Su-39 performance.
Considering a RB 12.0-12.3 GRB, it’s certain that the the Su-39 will suffer full uptiers, facing F-16C, F-15 and JA39 Grippen; with the armament it already have it can’t be compared with the Su-25SM3, which have IR+IOG and Laser+IOG guided missiles with 40 kilometers of range and sits at a BR 12.7 GRB – even with the Khod thermal imager. The Kinzhal would make acquiring targets and guiding missiles even easier, only leaving the problem of being overly exposed to enemy fire when doing an air strike.
The problems I mentioned about it’s performance with it’s BR changing were my reasoning to why the Khod pod should be added, but those also are the same reasons why the Su-39 should get the Kinzhal.
But it would need much more info about it’s container and it’s specifications before anything. “Guessing” isn’t exactly a healthy practice for a game that tries to have historical accuracy. But if ever those informations get to see the light of the day, it would be marvelous. The Su-39 would be a pretty unique aircraft, and won’t have trouble acquiring any targets, specially if the hypothesis on the Khod/Kinzhal sharing the same container were to be proven right, and it would be able to chose on having good ground pounding power or good air power.
IGNORE THE FIRST POLL, IT IS BROKEN******************
- Yes, in a BR change it would needs it too.
- No, it wouldn’t be needed.
- The Su-39 needs both Khod and Kinzhal containers when it’s BR get increased
- The Su-39 only needs the Khod container
- The Su-39 will perform well the way it already is