Except barring your book, which you havent linked or quoted, just shown a drawing from and told us matched other manuals, you still dont have a primary source, and Rosboronexport/KTRV, both of which are much closer to, primary sources, both state a max of 80km range for the missile, along with other information your graph does not provide. So up til now, you have “trust me bro” (despite having tried to pass off a fake source as real in this argument already), a hand drawing with hyper limited information from an unstated secondary source.
Rereading your napkin math assumption also just makes things worse, since you do some interesting mental gymnastics regarding the R-77’s superiority such as:
[quote=“MiG_23M, post:76, topic:2584”]
Both accelerate approximately 4 mach over launch speed.[/quote]
Which would indicate the AIM-120A reaches similar speeds in a shorter period of time.
This directly contradicts your earlier assumptions, as the sustain portion of the motor burn does not accelerate the missile, but instead sustains its speed (the clue is the word sustain). Which means by your own stated sources, the AIM-120 reaches similar speeds in shorter time and sustains its speed via motor burn for longer.
The R-77 has extremely similar dimensions to the AIM-7M (same diameter, similar lengths), and barring the high supersonic drag advantage of lattice fins over conventional ones, suffers other major drag penalties in compairisons, such as the substantially shorter motor burn (4.5-6s according to you vs 15.5s for the AIM-7M and 6-8s for the AIM-120A).
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Its dubious to believe that a missile with very similar size to an AIM-7M (200mm diameter, 3.6/3.66M (R-77 vs AIM-7M), and an arguably worse drag profile (better fins for high supersonic speeds, 1/3 the motor burn time significantly impacting drag) would so handedly outperform the AIM-7 in terms of range, with the AIM-7M’s stated max range of 70km, vs the R-77’s stated 80km being possible via advances in rocket motor technology and guidance, but not a wopping 100km+ range you like to state, which would be an almost 43% increase in range.
Your entire analysis basicly boils down to “well the R-77 is better straight-line, its also better at higher alts because drag doesnt matter as much at higher alts, and its also better at lower alts (where drag matters more) cuz I said so, it pulls more, it has a longer seeker duration, its basicly the second coming of jesus as a missile!”
Your entire analysis is just non-stop mental gymnastics that comes to the totally suprising conclusion that the R-77 is just better in every way to the AMRAAM, which is basicly a garbage missile cuz its worse than a SARH from a decade earlier made by the soviets, and offers no advantage besides its seeker, over a SARH also made a decade earlier by the US, which could totally have been easily upgraded with said seeker if that was really all the AIM-120A had over the AIM-7M.
Except we know its not, seeing as the only available document from the US we have publicly available shows the AIM-120A matches the AIM-7’s range in frontal shots, and exceeds it using command inertial guidance, all while being a smaller missile, allowing for more to be carried as well.
You also state wonderfully questionnable things like:
Stating that Rosoboronexport OVERCLAIMS the R-27R1 range by a wopping 40km and that the provided numbers by KTRV are propaganda, but for whatever reason underclaims the R-77 range by 20km+??? That completely illogical as an assumption.
Or:
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They didnt “abandon” the R-27ER quickly, its still in use and commonly seen ALONGSIDE the R-77 on their top of the line Su-35!!!
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The reverse of that is true as well! You think the Americans would wait 6 years to develop a match to the RVV-AE despite the fact that it was initially developped for export customers and likely fell into US hands within the first year of its existence???
Back to technical points:
Theres also just the fact of looking at other long range air to air missile developments, particularly Russian and Chinese ones, as both nations have used the R-77, and wouldnt you know, neither of them use lattice fins on any long range air to air missiles, and certainly not on hypersonic missiles, with the R-37M, PL-12, PL-15, PL-21, and most damningly, the Russian R-77M/ME currently under development with conventional fins!!!
Which is not a great look for your beloved lattice fins when its considered that one of the primary advantage of lattice fins is packing, which is important on an aircraft like the Su-57 which may carry missiles internally!
All in all, you’ve made questionnable assumptions, bent facts to suit your tastes by revising your assumptions about the R-77 and AIM-120A to better suit your narrative, made just outright laughable leaps in logic, refuse to take the closest thing to publicly available sources for either missiles we have, effectively claiming counter-propaganda(???) with regards to the R-77 while just ignoring the AIM-120 one since it didnt suit your narrative, and posted dubious sources which corroborate your views and tried to pass them off as legitimate! (As seen with ur indian defense forum graph, wouldnt be the first time you tried to pass something off as a legitimate source when it wasnt either.)
You even tried wording your post regarding your most recent “source” , an undisclosed book, in a eay for it to be easily misinterpreted as a primary source, which you claim got the other missiles (with publicly available figures) right, and therefore MUST be getting the R-77 (with no publicly available figures besides the Rosoboronexport/KTRV ones) wrong???
