When will AIM-54 range and speed be fixed?
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It’s not an absurd assumption, there are some unofficial accounts for those who are still in the military claims Aim-120D restores some capability of Aim-54 that USN lost when Phoenix was retired. Since, by your definition, Aim-120 had better lighter electronics over Aim-54, and we know Aim-120 turn better and has better trajectory shaping, then the only thing those people are referring to is range.
Also, many retired USN pilot calls retiring Aim-54 is a mistaken since it is the only thing that can counter Chinese PL-15.
We will likely never know the details since these missiles are still in active service until we are all old.
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How exactly does it restore the hole the AIM-54 filled if the time to target of the AIM-54 is still double for certain ranges that of the AIM-120C-5? The usefulness certainly wasn’t there for the Phoenix unless the later models had upgraded motors or performance.
There is absolutely no way an aim 120A/B can hit a target at 40nm in any realistic scenario… The battery is dead long before that.
As for the TTI, while the C-5 is faster in certain scenarios, when we are talking for high altitude, realistic engagements, (like the example I provided) the 54 first of all outranges the C5 by quite a bit, and even on a 50nm shot which is a long shot for the 120, the difference on time to impact is a few seconds at best… If I remember correctly between 40-50 seconds
Again, all this is from simulations and simulations is all we have to get data from. Pilots that are willing to talk and have talked about such things, speak of engagements in much shorter ranges because first of all, ROE, second of all, High Pk shots… Yea the phoenix has a max range of 114nm… Will it ever hit anything at that range? Other than a dummy aircraft, unlikely…
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Never because they refuse to fix the extreme amount of drag the missile has…
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Theres primary sources of those kinds of shots iirc.
That being said, 40nmi is nowhere near adequate for the range of striking long range bombers, and is significantly below the range demonstrated by the AIM-54, with the AIM-54A and its subpar guidance system and inferior trajectory shaping being able to hit a target at a launch range of AT LEAST 110nmi in a shoot up scenario.
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You might not like it but during OAF, Cesar Rodriguez fired his amraam
beyond 38 Nautical Miles
at the MiG 29
Categorically not true and easily disproven
… They do though.
Also you’d be surprised to find out that the AIM-54 is fairly heavily overperforming in maximum range at 20,000 feet according to some new data.
It’s also overperforming according to the sea Phoenix test I conducted by a similar amount.
I suspect a change is imminent and it may not be a positive one.
Wish it is possible to even get remotely close to that range in game, but nope its beaten at range by the R-27ER.
At this point I’ve pretty much just accepted that the only games that will get the 54 correct are BMS and DCS now.
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Well, you missed one thing, according to the post that was deleted, in addition to its overperformance at sea level, it is also underperforming at high alt due to increase in thrust (from less atmosphere).
At sea level its motor generate less thrust hence less total impulse due to atmosphere, but at high alt, it gains more total impulse due to less atmosphere.
And the maximum range is obviously launched at very high altitude, missile climbed to even higher altitude due to trajectory shaping. So this means Phoenix is underperforming while overperforming at the same time, depending on specific situations.
Leaving out the increase in total impulse at high altitude while focusing on the loss of total impulse at sea level is selective bias.
This indicate you don’t know anything about the effort of modern air force on eliminating the need of
fighters to guide ARH missiles during midcourse.
For example, China developed high precision meter-wave anti-stealth radar to counter F-22, and how does it counter F-22? It guides missile (say PL-15) launched by J-10, via data link, to F-22’s location.
Yes, J-10 get spotted first, but J-10 don’t need to spot F-22, ground radar and AWACS spotted it for J-10, all J-10 has to do is press spacebar (just kidding) then immediately evade or run. Where as F-22 has to guide its Aim-120 until it is close to pitbull, while F-22 is already deep within no escape zone and has to risk its life to defeat it with evasive maneuvers + EWS.
The closest equivalent in game will be, imagine PL-12’s seeker has range of 70km (J-8F’s TWS in game cannot see target farther than ~70km) and has a burn time of 30 seconds, J-8F can launch then immediately starts evading and never need to worry about it misses target and not acquiring a lock. This is a massive advantage.
In this scenario, Time to Impact (TTI) don’t matter! Since the whole point of improving TTI is to make missile cross its A-pole distance, so that the launch aircraft can evade earlier than opponent. But what if you can evade immediately after launch? Using AWACS or ground radar to guide missile during midcourse made TTI almost meaningless.
The doctrine of PLAAF is: I know you are good at notching timing or just turn and run and have better BVR tactics than me, but I will simply make my missile have more energy than you, much more than the range of your missile, and not needing fighters to guide it, plus multi mode guidance so that you never able to notch; so that even if your Aim-120 has less TTI at same distance and pilot is more experienced, you never out run or break lock from the missile. On the other hand, PLAAF’s fighter can evade immdiately due to help of ground radar or AWACS to guide the missile, all while F-22 continue to provide mid course update to Aim-120 and flies into its demise.
The only way to counter this is either, use EWS and hope it works, or build their own system to guide Aim-120 using AWACS to achieve similar effect. Sadly, Aim-120 has less range than PL-15.
Aim-54 with such long range is a perfect weapon platform to modify and counter PL-15/17.
Yes, the TTI will be twice as long as PL-15/Aim-120, but when trading blow against PL-15, Aim-120’s probability of hit is 0%, no matter how fast Aim-120 can fly, it can’t hit anything if its target is out of range or don’t have energy to keep up.
Where as Aim-54’s probability of hit is at least non-zero. This is exactly why US is rushing Aim-260 and wants it to have longer range than Aim-120, and want it NOW (as early as 2022, and hoping in 2023, now 2024). Since all of sudden they have no way to fight back, they are holding a 1m sword, but China is holding a 7m long lance (PL-17, jokingly referred to as “7m power pole” in China, 某七米电线杆).
Now, with PLAAF’s doctrine in mind, does US’s “wild of idea” of putting laser on 6th gen fighters to shoot down missile makes sense now? Fighters are becoming missile carriers, they will fire and forget, guidance is done by ally AWACS that is far behind the arena. (Then comes PL-17 which is designed to conter this tactic and kill AWACS, so that you can’t guide missiles with AWACS anymore).
Back in 2022, Kenneth S. Wilsbach mentioned the encounter against J-20 and was impressed by the command and control that J-20 received. Which approached F-35 without F-35 knowing it. This implies it is tracked by AWACS or Ground Radar with high accuracy to allow an intercept, and he mentioned the ability for KJ-500 to guide long range air to air missile in place of fighters.
The KJ-500 plays a significant role in some of their capability for long range fires. Some of their very long range air-to-air missiles are aided by that KJ-500. Being able to interrupt that kill chain is something that interests me greatly.
If Aim-54 is still around, USAF can order modernized improved Aim-54 and mount it on F-15 or F-16.
It may even have longer range than PL-15 due to its enourmous size that you can fill with propellants 偶or even make it fly like a ballistic missile (then use dual pulse for course correction).
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That isn’t true, it is overperforming at mid and low alts because of the fact that it was modeled to match a certain high altitude and high speed metric. This is the reason all other missiles in the game are modeled around ~5km alt performance when possible. The R-27ER for example underperforms in max speed and alt launch scenarios due to this.
Right, and since it is modeled for a high alt scenario it is overperforming at low alt considerably. Nearly 20-30%.
It reaches somewhat correct maximum altitudes and distances when doing the maximum launch range scenario it was modeled to match.
Still, it doesn’t quite reach the correct top speed and thus also doesn’t slow down as fast as it should either or it would match a wider range of performance data.
The AIM-120D has a two way datalink, also there is no requirement for the F-22 to use its own sensors to support guidance or the reverse, where the F-22 can have its’ targeting data offloaded to an airframe with its own missiles via MADL / Link-16 transposing & repeating equipment(e.g. TALON HATE) that rebroadcasts networking data to other aircraft to take over missile support, targeting or launch.
And with a single wingman, at combat spread. IRSTs can be used to Master (Triangulate) a contact to silently derive weapons grade solutions, and this doesn’t touch on the evolving field of CCAs, and their support mechanisms.
The AMRAMM-AXE; -Air launched eXtended Envelope(a RIM-162 ESSM 10" propulsion stack mated to AMRAAM 8" forebody, basically an Air launched variant of the NASAMS(AMRAAM-ER) ) will likely cover the range gap in the short term, at least until the AIM-260 gets spun up and apparently fits internally in the bay of US 5th gens except for the -35B.
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It kinda blows my mind they havent used the ESSM for the capability gap of the AMRAAM yet tbh…
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Oh yes, this. Thanks for sharing.
However, Aim-120C still has less range than PL-15.
This means F-22 has to get dangerously close, even J-10 can trade billion dollar F-22 given AWACS/Ground support.
I’ve heard about this variant, however I doubt it will make it into service, since, every year, USAF is claiming Aim-260 is going into production in that year. This shows how bad USAF wants Aim-260, which means they probably rejected AMRAAM-AXE which was already in testing.
Same for me, I think this probably means there are a lot of juice in Aim-120’s number and/or PL-15 is much more horrifying to USAF than we had imagined.
Also, just a fun fact, in China, we don’t measure missile’s range with launch range, we measure them with distance covered with origin set to the position at the moment of launch. In Chinese, this is written as 杀伤远界, English: Max Range。
When we say 200km max range, it means missile can fly 200km from the position where it had launched while retaining sufficient energy to pull sufficient Gees to maneuver, assuming target maneuvered at last moment. It is a very precisely defined term, given the definition, the launch range of Chinese missile has this equation:
launch range = max range * target speed * time to intercept
This is opposite to the max range specified on western missiles, where max range are often larger than the launch range. In China, launch range is strictly greater than max range.
So, I’m not sure how much confusion are due to difference in the definition of terms.
But if we take 200km as max range in Chinese definition, then PL-15 has launch range of well over 300km when fired against F-22 flying head on at Mach 1.
In China, it is rumoured that J-20 can detect F-22 at 100km range. For the sake of argument, let’s say F-22 can do it against J-20 at 200km range, then F-22 is still within the range of PL-15. That’s how scary the PL-15 is, if max range of 200km is using Chinese definition of max range.
Also, an interesting graph from Chinese analysis on Aim-120C’s kinematic performance.
Assuming Aim-120 can fly for 110 seconds to cover 45km distance, and fires against a target flying headon at 900m/s, then the launch range against such target is: 45km + 110 * 0.9 = ~144km
This shows Aim-120C has much less range than Aim-54.
Sure, but the same can probably be said about getting those support systems into SM-6 range.
or illuminating anything with a radar that might have the AGM-88E, -F or -G (or even eventually the SiAW(Stand in Attack Weapon) ) onboard, depending on the target set those platforms probably aren’t outrunning those even at excessive range.
Its still a capability that can be exercised if things start to get warmer. Or for Client nations that won’t be given advanced missiles.
A potential issue is that since Supersonic flight lights aircraft up on an IRST like a Christmas Tree, stealth is best maintained by staying subsonic, which of course limits the range of missiles. So Its likely that accelerating to Supersonic speeds would telegraph the intent to launch well before launch conditions are met, also making the release aircraft far more visible to a defender.
Take for example the following excerpt and note the detection range difference between a Sub- & Supersonic target, and this is for a IRSTS, that didn’t even work that well and isn’t digital so doesn’t take advantage of significant advances that have occurred with signal processing since the early 70’s
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It’s a good job that the F-22 is being armed with the AIM-120D then (which has recently achieved a kill at over 200 km launch range).
Also you are working on the assumption that the F-22 would be detected that easily.
I’m not sure I get your argument here. If the F-22 can detect the J-20 at 200 km, but the J-20 can only detect the F-22 at 100 km, then the F-22 will be able to fire an AMRAAM and disengage before the J-20 can even see the F-22 and be able to fire a PL-15 at it.
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