The AIM-54 Phoenix missile - Technology, History and Performance

Not really on topic to the AIM-54 but I also find that answer dubious;

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Unfortunately, like I previously mentioned, the devs dont seem to really care much about what western sources say anymore if it doesnt match up with what eastern sources say about completely different weapons or systems, or just what the devs believe to be true…

Even just to keep it on topic of the AIM-54, we’ve been arguing about dozens of different issues for months now, and seem to be no closer to any of them being fixed. Issues such as the 54C’s max G-pull, the smoke profile of the motor, the seekers capabilities, and more recently, the directional warhead and smart fuse for very low altitude intercepts.

I doesn’t help that many players here just hurl insults and doubts about any and all claims that may result in the AIM-54 being buffed/fixed or flag everything they don’t like though

Has this source in particular been Considered?

It is in the report for it so I guess so?

Likewise I don’t think the dev’s interpretation is correct. By design the Stinger constantly rolls (I gather at many revolutions per second) as it flies. Therefore manuals / reports specifying the g load as the maximum g load the missile can pull when the control surfaces are perfectly aligned with the target plane wouldn’t make much sense. The fins would never be aligned with the target plane for more than a tiny fraction of a second.

Also as you know that excerpt comes from the Jaguar Tactics manual, which is meant to brief pilots on the Stinger’s capabilities and how to counter it. If you are a pilot then you don’t care what the missile can pull for a tiny fraction of a second, you want to know how many g’s it can sustain while it’s chasing you down. So in my mind that supports 20g being the average acceleration.

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Follow up on this there is a chart for the various missile types;


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As per the Redeye history document the Redeye that the Stinger is based off spins axially between 10~16 RPS (avg. 13Hz) before self destructing and with 2 sets of independent control surfaces they align with any given direction 64~40 times per second(16~10x4).

You’ll note that SA-14 is assessed as 10G, if they used the same assessment to get a 20G figure for Stinger then they would be reporting SA-14 as 20G as well. But they don’t because the Stinger isn’t an SA-14…

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the MIM-23s werent able to be guided by the AWG-9 the concept was far more goofy in that the missiles would still be guided by ground radars they’d basically just be launched from the air to improve kinematics

I think peak 20g makes since with the idea it will always pull 20g’s but towards the end of the turn, I disagree with gaijans whole roll concept with the missiles but its fair to point out something with such tiny control surfaces would need a much higher velocity to pull a higher overload.

Considering for example the AIM-9D/G/H fins for example, from normal launch conditions the missile cannot pull more than 18g laterally and if launched at a high speed maybe 20g+ (theres that british manual that claims up to 23g) but despite the fact the AIM-9H has stronger actuators, it still has the same normal g overloading which implies its an aerodynamic limitation (of the fins) and these navy sidewinders could only pull 20g+ at very high speeds at the end of their burns.

Also it claims interception of a target pulling 7G’s is possible, and as a rule of thumb that is taken a 1/3rd the maximum limit so somewhere between 18~22G should be possible with further aligns with the Redeye history document (Capabilities are referenced PDF page#95, 157 ), and other excerpts.

The TY-90 control surfaces aren’t much bigger, if bigger at all compared to the size of the missile, yet it pulls 20g’s just fine. The Mistral is also gimped with similar control surface layout to the TY-90.
Stinger:
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Mistral:
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TY-90:
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Correct and the TY-90 seems far too maneuverable right now for what it is, its more maneuverable than Magics at lowspeed which is dead wrong. maybe if it was meant to be a late TY-90 with double delta control surfaces it would be more logical, but the TY-90 is certainly overperforming right now with its current 3D model.

That part of the internal report?

That answer is a may rather than conclusive because they’re still obviously researching the missile.

We actually don’t know for sure what Igla overload is. The source 10g is came from is just study guide. Due to one study guide Tor’s 9M331 was held to 16G, R-27 to 30G instead of 35G, and I have one study guide stating that Strela-10 9M37 overload is only 3G that is of course complete nonsense.

Another thing to point out about the TY-90 is that its seeker VASTLY outperforms the seekers on other heli-borne IR missiles in-game, or really ANY IR missiles in-game, which is… questionable… seeing as its literally from the same timeframe as the mistral and stinger

  • TY-90 in service 1990
  • FIM-92 in service 1981, FIM-92E 1995
  • ATAS Block 1 (FIM-92E for air to air role) in service ~1996
  • Mistral in service 1988

the seeker is the exact same as the stinger right now

IF they(the great individual actually) aint fixing the sparrow’s seeker. I have less hope for the phoenix that has less sources.
Literally its we wont because we wont
4 different sources that say guidance under PD has hell alot more range.
2023-11-03
-2m^2 figure comes from the APG-66 performance document and the line for the F16 lines up with the document figures.
This launch envelope should be from the 7M as 7F has lower values.
The red line is the 45km max range(independent of RCS value which shouldn’t be the case either way) and green is for the seeker range (40km for a 2m^2 target)under 200watt CWI guidance.
Actually 5 sources total with the recent one including a firing test of the 7F at 48km.

And of course, he closed the topic 3 hours after my last reply.

The biggest advantages with PD guidance are longer range, FM thus range to target is known and no missile warning. Why no missile warnign? Because the Sparrow homes on the main radar’s STT signal, and this one doesn’t change. It’s CW illumination that gives the warning. But with this you can’t change track from PD to pulse. But why would you use pulse, a single chaff removes all track.

The funny thing about this is that before the report was closed was that I could fire sparrows up to 53km(which is how I could determine the RCS of several planes) and the 45km limit was still there. I now can’t fire beyond 45km at all lol.

Uhm… no…
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Most notably, the TY-90 has a track rate of 40deg/s, almost 4x that of the stinger and 2x that of the Mistral. Its one of the primary reasons why the TY-90 is borderline unflareable in-game, since it manages to keep targets within the flare ignoring “inner FOV” much better than any other missile in-game, and until the R-73 was added, was the highest track rate in-game barring the SRAAM and its (frankly ludicrous and questionable) 100 deg/s

I also highly doubt the TY-90 has similar/better flare resistance to the A/FIM-92B and onwards (Stinger POST) seeing as the Stinger POST uses a quasi-imaging (rosette) dual color (IR/UV) seeker, which would mean 1980-1990 China had better seeker tech than the US/France/USSR, and we all know that isn’t true, unless these TY-90 are newer variants from the 2000’s which would make more sense, but then also puts into question gaijins balancing decisions by making only the base ATAS, if not maybe ATAS Block I available to western nations while allowing all chinese helis the equivalent to ATAS Block II

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trackrate has no affect on flare resistance only 3 things ingame do

Rangeband ratios
FOV/IFOV
bandmask (seeker shut off)

the first TY-90 entered service in 2006, the program didnt start until 2000