The AIM-9 Sidewinder - History, Design, Performance & Discussion

When missiles were first added 0.5 seconds was pretty much universal IIRC; so everyone treated it as one of Gaijin’s simplifications, like the 5 second warm up time 10 second maximum active time.

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What’s interesting is that the Magic missiles had 1.8 seconds fuze delay this whole time, and devs presumably had access to these sources detailing fuze delay time for AIM-9D and etc.

So it will be interesting to see what will happen and what they will have to say.

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It’s not a 100% 1:1 copy, but from what I’ve read most changes involved slight decreases in quality while adapting it to producibility in the Soviet logistics chain, so if it was different it probably wouldn’t be different as in better.

The mechanical / electrical safety and arming device should be simple enough that it operates the exact same way. Other issues like track rate are already inferior to AIM-9B in-game.

nah fuse is different, according to the manual for the R-3S fuse arms in .8 seconds

0.8s after burn (deceleration), so 3s delay total vs 2.3-2.5 for AIM-9B.

Modern flares do burn at different wavelengths, unlike them being “dirty”, they’re now intentionally made that way.

It’s normal to load different types of flares in a bucket to cover multiple threats.

I found a technical description of the AIM-9M’s flare rejection system in the archives:


Also confirmation that the reduced smoke motor did not have any negative impact on performance:

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In any of your visits have you found anything related to the AIM-7M?

Not yet. Britain never used the AIM-7M, so I wouldn’t get you hopes up (it’s not impossible that there will be something, but it’s unlikely).

9M has feedback to seeker, mean it shouldn’t track another target like unguided rocket, missile even another plane

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Reduced smoke* not reduced thrust I think you meant.
But yes, the performance drop expected going from higher performance CTPB fuels to HTPB ones didn’t happen because the earlier AIM-9s had a relatively low ISP for their Mk36 motors to begin with.

Yes, fixed

Looks like all the reports on proximity fuse arm time are going to be implemented.

They’re showing up in datamine, 1.8s fuse delay for all AIM-9D+ models (excluding AIM-9E/J/P & variants).

Source?

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/a3H8PyQbp4rI

Is this a buff or a nerf?

Nerf, the proxy fuse won’t go off until 1.8s after launch now instead of 0.5s

It’s also a buff amount of times 9L has detonated my tornado the moment it launched from the rail angers me