The AIM-120 'AMRAAM' - History, Design, Performance & Discussion

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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689

Damage? No, Accuracy. When a bullet or other ballistic projectiles are fired out past their maximum effective range it loses accuracy. They start to spin less and are more subject other forces around it.

Shooting an arrow works on the same principles. Have you shot an arrow before?

When a rocket is fired out past its maximum effective range the motor has burned out, it has become a pure ballistic projectile. The longer it flies, gyroscopic stabilization will weaken, and accuracy will drastically weaken if it has to maneuver to a target.

That is why analyst do not care about max range and it is public resource available to us all. Any missile can fly to ungodly distances. They look for maximum effective ranges of their adversarial peer’s weapon systems.

690

@TheArcticFoxxo Can you take this argument into DM’s with him? It’s not very productive discussion and the thread will get very long in the tooth if you two keep arguing the semantics of “effective range”.

This all stems from the fact that Ziggy made a claim about the AIM-54 I showed wasn’t true so he shifted the goalpost to “oh, well the effective range…”

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691

bruh

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692

I’ve actually had some decent success using PDV to lock on targets flying away from me in the Tornado ADV

693

PDV on the Tornado F.3/ADV is only a scope display. The locking is still done by PD HDN.

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694

Ohhhh okay that makes sense

Been using it to find people returning to their airfield after I rearm because I can see their high speed moving away from me, filtering out all the AI contact clutter

695

Once the AMRAAM comes to the game I’ll make some comparisons using the sources and information available and update the stat card. I’ll also begin putting together the framework and sources necessary to determine the performance of later iterations of the missile and include a more detailed history in the OP.

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696

Some new British documents I found put the maximum kinematic range of AMRAAM (AIM-120A/B) at 60 nautical miles for a high altitude, head on, launch:

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697

Can we get some more context about the “ASF”?
(Active Skyflash?)

Also, we knew it was going to be > 40 nautical miles due to the fact that we presumed 40nm was the subsonic launch criteria in head-on co altitude and speed for the Harrier. Also why I left the range as “62 miles” or whatever in the stat card lol

698

Active Skyflash was basically Skyflash SuperTEMP with an active radar seeker and longer lasting battery.

699

That struggles 40km in some conditions already doesn’t it?

700

TEMP* no mention of the ST motor.

701

No, in the context of that document it’s Super TEMP:

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702

It’s an upgrade of the TEMP standard, and from what I’ve read only changed the fins, motor remains TEMP 🤔

703

I refer you back to this image from the same report that the range figures come from:

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704

Mmm, it’s just wierd they mention the fins changing to ST standard but not the motor.

705

Under what conditions does the “ASF” (SuperTEMP?) reach 40nm? I can replicate the test and use my AMRAAM custom missile file and see if it matches the 60nm range datapoint.

706

“Developed from”

a SuperTEMP is only different from a TEMP in Fins and Motor. The ASF project will have spanned the development of TEMP and SuperTEMP. It cannot have hit the 40nm ranges if it only had the TEMP motor.

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707

Under any conditions? In theory they’re discussing the absolute maximum launch range

708

I mean I’ve never come across a AIM-7E2/Skyflash in the best conditions that would hit out to 40nm.

Largely is a not worth arguing over, the text says developed from a SuperTEMP and only replacing the seeker.