I imagine that isn’t a problem. Probably ordered them with a requirement for that sort of stuff. Like probably some just to be mounted, some with detailed seeker, etc. I wonder though if there’s a picture of the aircraft with Kh-38MTs at all other than that brochure picture. Quite funny otherwise for them to commission for at least two of these missiles just for this picture.
Then again, they might just have some old ones laying around, slightly modified for the purpose, idk. They have a lot of these models so why not I guess.
And frankly it’s a pretty low bar given we can find a multitude of even better proofs for weapons that have been completely passed over for some reason.
We are potentially down another source since starting, as we may have found the company which produced the mockups seen, which would confirm they were entirely non-functional mockups.
We started with 3 sources (Website, brochure, mockups), and are now down to 1, truly not looking good for it.
I know it’s KH-38ML. I’m agreeing with him that a similar picture of the 38MT is about the only thing that would prove its existence to me. And I’m pointing out that frankly it’s a pretty low bar to make(and pretty easy to get a picture like this TBH) given how much more evidence there is for many more munitions that aren’t in-game for some reason.
Could just as easily be any base in Russia for a training sortie.
That’s probably just the different lighting conditions and the dull seeker optic window being polished to look nicer when the missile is in front of potential buyers. Both the confirmed mockup and the potentially mounted mockup have dark tinted windows over their seeker.
It may be just that the sun makes the highlight sharper, or the makers of the mockup decided to snap a photo of their current missile projects before finishing up on the KH-38MTE with a bit of polishing for the seeker window. Either way it’s not particularly difficult to change a dark tinted matte window into a dark tinted polished window.
Heck, with enough effort you can polish a ball of mud to reflect light like a brown mirror.
