That’s not the “Russian government”. It’s the Russian export industry’ Rosoboronexport. A secondary source at best, they only take procured weapons from the defense industry and export them elsewhere. The stated range of 80km is as meaningless as the Air Force saying the AMRAAM is “20+ miles” range.
NAVAIR doesn’t even have the correct weight for the AIM-120A/B. It’s all classified, so the public numbers may be over or understated.
Hughes themselves show a weight of 326 pounds for the AIM-120A. This is a primary source, and one that is backed up by other secondary sources for various places. We don’t have this kind of accurate information for the R-77 (yet). If Gaijin wants to use restricted Russian documents in the background to model the R-77 they’ll likely get a missile with a maximum range stated as 100km. Doesn’t mean it will reach there, same as the AIM-7F.
The sole state intermediary for Russian arms import/export. A state corporation. They have no reason to undersell their weapons max range. Seeing as its an export item, they are more likely inclined to overclaim, not underclaim. There’s no reason to believe the missile can exceed its publicly stated max range by a whopping 25%.
Trying to compare this to AMRAAM claimed range is idiotic as well. 20+ miles is highly ambiguous, and considering the previously shown procurement papers, as well as just basic logic, the idea that the AIM-120A cannot match, or more likely exceed the AIM-7M’s range is dubious at best. The R-77 on the other hand has a stated max range, along with other stated max figures (alt and target speed). Those are not ambiguous figures, they are stated maximums.
There’s no reason to suggest that Rosboron needs to state a realistic range publicly at all. The R-77s range is going to depend highly on the circumstances as I’ve shown.
They provided both of these seeing as they stated the min/max alt of 0.02/25km and max target speed of 3600kph. They also state max vertical separation between launch aircraft and target of 10km.
Considering they state its literal engagement envelope, its pretty dang hard to understand why there’s anything ambiguous about it. I could entertain the idea that maybe if the target was flying at 3600kph 25km alt and the firing aircraft was flying at Mach Jesus at the same alt or something, it would theoretically be possible to exceed the stated max of 80km, but at that point why tf are we arguing about missile ranges?
If you can’t take the only official public source, from the Russians, regarding their missiles engagement envelope and want to nitpick about launch aircraft speed and altitude, there’s no point in even debating this at this point because you refuse the stated limits of the missile off your theoretical assumptions tailored to fit your world view.
The Russians historically provide launch conditions of missiles at 10km alt. So your point is widely off the mark here. Fasterboi is right. We need target alt/speed and launch aircraft alt/speed. Anything else is insufficient.
There’s a lot of ambiguity about this. You’re even assuming here that the 80km range could be at 25km.
Im assuming the stated max range of the missile within the stated altitude limits and stated target speed limits for a non-maneuvering shot is correct. You guys are the ones assuming things that have no hard evidence backing them.
Assuming max as “under ideal conditions” really isn’t making some major assumptions here…
The chart you called “Questionnable at best” that doesnt match DirectSupport’s claim of “The Russians historically provide launch conditions of missiles at 10km alt” that only matches the actual official export paper in 1 factor, being the max alt of 25km?
Stop being hostile, it’s not necessary. Our presumptions on the range of the R-77 will not change the performance when it comes to the game. Even if the absolute maximum range is 80km, the R-77 does not loft as far as we know. The AIM-120A/B has a similar range and has to loft from high launch speed and altitude to reach such a range. Russian aircraft also have better acceleration and time to climb. It’s best to assume that the R-77 will be outranging the AMRAAM until the AIM-120C-5 arrives regardless of whatever discussion has gone on here.
My assumption is that the Russians would not abandon the R-27ER so quickly rather than putting a better seeker on it if the R-77 did not offer sufficient range. They at the time thought the AMRAAM had a range of nearly 120km. There is no possible way they’d wait until 2015 to produce a missile with still less range if they already had better, knowing full well the enemy did too.
Range >80km for the R-77 makes sense when looking at the size of the missile, the aerodynamics… it makes sense when we know how Russia tends to state missile range. It makes sense when we look at what else they have available.
Hostile? You accuse me of making assumptions and useing bad sources, meanwhile th majority of stated performance for the R-77 from those of you currently arguing is purely based on assumptions and you call my source “secondary at best” while supporting your argument with what is a low effort grpah with no actual proper sourcing on an enthusiast blog?
You 3 having been accusing me of stating erroneous facts when im the only one who actually provided a source with a decent bit of actual official publicly available performance data.
If our presumptions on the range of the R-77 wont change its performance in-game, why are you even wasting our time with this argument? You’re just moving the goalpost at this point
Yet again, everything you provide is based on assumptions. Yet you accuse me of making assumptions and provide no actual source to back yourself up besides napkin math and logic skewed to your view, and dispute the only actual source any of us has provided.
Your source is wrong though, lol. Rosboronexport has stated erroneous things in the past and isn’t considered a primary source by Gaijin. Likewise, the US Airforce and NAVAIR both intentionally misquoted the weight of the early AIM-120s. It’s just propaganda or what have you.
The information is generally assumed, but backed with good reason. You fail to see the reason and you want desperately to be right. You’re not going to be able to prove it and the best we got is the napkin math which points to my conclusions.
