The Kh-38MT is not 3-4 times better than the AGM-65D. It’s certainly better, but the AGM-65D available in greater numbers on many of the aircraft that carry it, and more importantly can be brought with other weapons.
The Su-34 can carry 6 Kh-38MT’s and 1 FAB-3000 UMPK, whereas the F-15E can carry 6 AGM-65D’s and 5 GBU-31’s (or 20 SDB’s, depending on your preference).
It’s also premature to call the Kh-38MT fake, as it’s very much unclear if the weapon made it to a functioning state at any point.
There’s nothing to fix. Apache don’t have problems vs tanks
In general, yes. In the context of purely killing tanks, they are quite on par after the damage buff. For all other targets teapache has starstreak so hellfire’s low utility vs non-mbt is irrelevant.
I agree it was probably canceled, but it is less clear to what extent it was prototyped before this.
Neither side in this spat has found great evidence. People who think it exists point to mockups and the existence of the Kh-38ML, people who think it doesn’t exist point to a lack of visual evidence and edits made on the manufacturer’s website. One does not have to be a deep skeptic to find both arguments uncompelling.
Agreed, but unfortunately that’s what you need to do to have something removed.
Had people pointed this out a year ago when the Su-25SM3 was on the dev server, I think Gaijin would have removed the missile. However, now that it’s on the live server on 3 different planes, and Gaijin has added more powerful CAS weapons to other nations (the AASM in particular), and is planning to add more powerful SAM’s across the board, it seems hard to imagine them removing it.
They also added Brimstones and SBD’s, which most don’t think are as strong as AASM’s or Kh-38MT’s, but Gaijin probably thought of them as somewhat analogous regardless.
And to echo another comment, I also suspect more powerful CAS weapons to come fairly soon. I could see them adding an IR Brimstone as well as Stormbreaker, likely in limited numbers though.
Just to see, I also tested what roughly the terminal velocity is of the Mav in a free fall.
Spoiler
Not sure if this is a testament to how draggy the maverick is, or that bombs are too low drag, or just realistic. Anyway, it’s pretty draggy. Not sure if the mav would’ve gone even lower if given more time, considering it did have the benefit of banking off the extra speed from the engine. I like how the JDAM wasn’t even that much slower than the Mav for the distance traveled.
EDIT: The heavier (by about 70kg) 65G seems to be able to hold mach 1 though, just, despite being a bit heavier than the GBU-38. Though drag wise it makes sense, the blunt nose (for the IR seeker) is inherently going to be more draggy than than the nose of the JDAM.
So it’s pretty draggy currently. But mind you, the mav even correctly modelled to irl performance will probably not be amazing still. Well, at least don’t expect it to match the Kh-38 at all probably not even Kh-29. It will be better, but it won’t magically solve all the issues people point out with the Maverick.
Spoiler
Anyone happen to live in Washington btw? Near the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum? They apparently in the archives there have a document about the TX-633 engine (smokeless engine used on AGM-65D/G, etc, should have same performance as the earlier mav engine as well. Could be helpful information to complement my Mav bug report.
