The R-77 'ADDER' - History, Design, Performance & Discussion

i think we will get r77m along with aim120D/pl15/mica ng and maybe meteor/r37m.

this is a pretty terrible arguement. the base model R-77 might as well have been nonexistant operationally we know what we actually mean when referring to it as such.

thats completely to be seen theyre both unconventional designs, but astra mk1 if it works as advertised should be an equal purely going on stats(real life isnt a game its to be seen how the fin layout pans out and how the tech actually works) but i wouldnt say anything yet, and the track record for r-77-1 specifically is far from stellar, still better than a early design undergoing testing i should add(despite what india seems to claim)

r77m is unlikely, they claim to achieve parity with aim120d, but then say they want “dual pulse and aesa seeker” which would squarely be pl15-pl17 territory.

This is true, but Gaijin has a history of doing such things. For example Fakour 90 and Seijil don’t have a lot of information about how they work, and yet we have them in-game. Or completely made up F-16AJ that was just a guesstimate on how this thing would be if Japan actually bought it. Or Yak-141, or… you get the picture.

fakour 90 shouldnt even be ingame imo, sedjil tho? its literally just a HAWK missile its fine, i agree with f16aj should be removed

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Just an issue with the logic, China got PL12 before R77 cause Russians didn’t give them any until much later.

thats a pl12A, much like r77m does they couldve “modernized” to use lattice fins if they were as good as some people here are trying to paint them as, not to mention, pl15 and pl17

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well obviously china didn’t need as much pull as R-77, since grid fins’ main advantage is low fin aoa to missile aoa, but partially China wanted to follow american examples and partially China envisualised AA combat to be a lot more BVR heavy.
They did change the aerodynamics of PL12A slightly but not much overall.

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probably because everyone realized 99 percent of air to air combat is bvr and not wvr, so why go grid fins?

becasue of russias doctrine

back when they made the r-73 most countries thought that 99% of A2A is going to be BVR

and yet russia made the r-73 and developed their doctrine of look at shoot at

might as well have made a thrust vectoring fox 3 instead

No one is painting them as the better alternative. Now you are putting words in the mouths of others.
We have always maintained that the lattice fin is a great option and provides many advantages (and disadvantages) over planar fins. Some of the advantages are much better control at high angles of attack, reduced torque required to turn the fins, and better drag at high supersonic speeds (which is becoming increasingly relevant).

In theory, a hyper modern missile with sufficient thrust to push itself to hypersonic speeds would not be concerned about the main disadvantage–high radar cross section–as the plasma barrier caused by surface heating at such speeds would obscure the missile from radars anyway. The only way to track such ordnance is through IR systems.

The argument was always against the idea that they are some worthless design that is drastically inferior to planar fins which is the picture you and others have painted. There is no putting words in your mouths here, your position on grid fins is that they are air brakes. This simply isn’t the case and is refuted in many many articles. We need not repeat these discussions hundreds of times because you (and others) refuse to concede from that position despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

It is not a doctrinal issue. Clearly they found the grid fins to be the superior option for their use-case until stealth become a larger concern and when it did - they switched. The existence of the R-77M proves that they could have switched from grid fins long ago if it was such a big issue, but of course, it isn’t. That’s also why you don’t see R-77-1 being retrofit with a new rear control module with planar fins.

Thrust vectoring adds complexity and offers little advantages over grid fins from a performance per dollar standpoint imo. They already have the R-73 for use cases where TVC is more pertinent and the R-37M for use cases where range is more pertinent. The R-77-1 fills a gap in the middle, almost like it was specifically designed to.

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i would argue that the existence/firing of r-27a actually proves that but i digress

That is a mid body wing control design and doesn’t really prove anything. They are trying to make it out to be this thing where Russia switched to planar fins because they are better - yet they continue to use the grid fins on all of the other variants of the missile.

I guess the AIM-120C-3 clipped the wings because larger wings = bad right? No other reason.

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iam not saying that their doctrin is an issue iam just pointing out that Russia seems to be prioritizing closer range engagments more than 200km BVR engagments

even tho they also have a missile for that

unrelated

mica-em

I don’t think they are prioritizing close range engagements at all, in current conflicts they have been doing extended BVR primarily it seems. This would indicate they rely more on the R-77 as a means of self defense and instead fire long range ordnance at enemies offensively.

fair enough

most air to air kills i’ve heard of were scored by the r-37m. does the r-77-1 even have kills yet?

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