Prelude
The Su-39 is one of the most unique strike aircraft, not because of things like the Khod FLIR or the R-77 and R-27ER1, which it still don’t have. It is because of one of its ground strike capabilities in game:
The Su-39 is the only strike aircraft in War Thunder that has an A-G weapon capable of being guided by radar! It is not a TGP enslaved to the radar lock, not any trick nor a mistake. It looks like it is, really, a SARH+DL guided weapon.
I say “capable of being” because the primary mode for guidance for that weapon is beam riding, the weapon being the Vikhr.
As you will see in this video I made, the radar TWS lock guides the Vikhrs as if they were like Pantsir-S1 missiles, even if there’s no laser.
The Vikhr, though I haven’t had any luck in finding information about the use of these on the Su-39 with a radar, seems very odd to perform the way it does in game right now, but no matter as the issue is other: how unusable, unplayable and “miserable” it is this mechanic as it stands now.
I don’t believe this is a matter for a bug report, specially because Gaijin seems really enthusiastic in ignoring anything related to the Su-39 or to other half baked interesting mechanics and details; and also because a discussion is more suited.
Using the radar – on the rare occasions it worked – were the most fun moments I ever had on War Thunder while playing top tier. I hit ground targets while blinded by clouds enslaving the TGP to the radar lock, killed Merkavas as the radar guided Vikhrs don’t trigger laser warning. Even got a 10Km double kill with a Kh-29TE, again, blinded by clouds.
The Su-39 ain’t worth to be bought for grind, as GRB don’t give enough rewards and strike aircraft are pariahs on ARB.
This is just as unfair as denying the most unique feature the Merkavas have: the very very strong armor. See: how fascinating would it be to have a truly “heavy tank” at top tier instead of just receiving five seconds of reload as everyone else – or weighting the same every other NATO MBT does?
It is the same with the Su-39. TV guided missiles with 40Km of range? 10Km of range laser guided Kh-29ML? What about the unique stuff? How many fixed wings have ATGMs? How many of them missiles are radar guided?
This plane can’t continue being an almost De Facto copy of the Su-25T and be bad at grind, so I propose to make its unique feature, the radar guidance on the Vikhr, worth in a practical sense to be used.
The Idea
– The Kinzhal-S 8mm wave-band ground radar
Yeah, this is old story but hardly “lack of info” ever was a problem for Gaijin, as they themselves made this mess with the frogfoot, making a unique, half baked, mechanic and then forgetting it was there in the first place.
From the start they knew the history behind the developments of the Su-39, as:
This document that Gaijin used as source states the existence of Khod for the Su-25T.
The same thing with this datamined model:
And better not forget how they added the Mi-8AMTSh-VN, which barely entered service with the russian troops and has most of its info classified because of it. Even more with the AESA radar it has, the Zaslon VN-001.
The reason why I think the Kinzhal-S would be a very good addition for the Su-39 playstyle is the fact that it can detect and track static targets, and it does that much faster, and probably more reliable, than the Kopyo-25 does.
How do I know this? The GMTI modes in the Kopyo-25 works over the high resolution maps created by synthetic aperture, as it is stated in this:
"Air-to-surface operating mode:
– mapping:
low resolution (real beam)
medium resolution (Doppler sharpening beam)
high resolution (synthetic aperture)
– interfacing with the Kh-31A antiship missile
– detection of moving ground targets"
Kopyo Radar | MiG Alley Military Aviation News
The Kinzhal-S is a 8mm wave-band, functioning at 34GHz, but the Kopyo-25 is a X-band(I in game) radar, having a wave length of around 3 centimeter and a frequency of 10GHz.
Techniques like the Doppler Sharpening Beam or the Synthetic Aperture increase the resolution of the surface maps, though they also increase the scan time, but the Kinzhal-S don’t need those as its Real Beam already captures enough detail on any scan. Enough to detect and track ground targets.
The Kopyo-25 would be a choice for versatility, as it can designate targets for – in the future – the R-27ER1 and R-77 that the Su-39 will receive, but for using the Vikhrs as a radar guided A-G weapon, the Kinzhal-S would make feasible a very unique playstyle for the frogfoot.
“How would Gaijin get the info necessary for modeling the Kinzhal-S?” The same way they did with the Su-34, I guess, because the company that developed the N004 PESA radar for the Su-34 was the same that developed the Kinzhal-S: Leninetz.
And for the concerns around the balancing of this, I bet that most people – if both Khod and Kinzhal-S were to be added in separate containers, which would be historically accurate – would chose the Khod FLIR over the Kinzhal-S 8mm wave-band because it is more pratical and would have a more reliable performance, as the radar probably didn’t had a IFF nor any kind of identification for targets.
– The missile doesn’t know where it is
Another thing beyond the missing radar is the mess that is the flight path that the radar guided Vikhrs make.
As you will see below, only got two or three hits on ground targets though I fired 20 missiles:
The missile doesn’t know if it wants to loft and fly like a SPIKE or if it wants to follow its brother Khrizantema, trying to beam ride the radar waves.
I say they should fly like SPIKES, as any top attack with the Vikhr is lethal, unless historically they were considered to beam ride the radar waves just like the Khrizantema. Then they need to act like SARH+beam riding.
