The mass of the warhead also decreased by 1kg. Though im not sure what impact that might have. If one is pre and the other post. Then maybe some minor redesign?
The missile will already satisfy 80km launch range in symmetrical Mach 1.6 engagement at 11km. This represents a lower end interpretation of the British mission profile in ESR-D and is well below the Rafales and Eurofighters service ceiling. This engagement profile is also not far removed from the AMRAAM/Sea Harrier profile that is calculated/shown to have similar range.
AFAIK MICA was left completely untouched until the NG variant which is now being tested
It probably comes down to :
- Hubert the communication guy asks the egineering team what the warhead, to which Jean-Luc from said team replies 12.5kg. He rounds it up to 13
- Same scenario 10 years later, except Robert is now the com guy, and he decides to round the value down to 12
I doubt you’d win 8km by removing 1kg of warhead anyway
Yep, which is why I reckon the only meaningful issue is battery life which is a notoriously hard thing to source/report
The paper was presented in April of 1999, when MICA-EM was in service while MICA-IR was not.
I know the context of your post is regarding the two sources here. But it should be noted that even with newer sources, French equipment often understate its capabilities.
For instance MICA VL is stated to be capable of doing 30G at 12km in newer sources yet older sources state it is capable of doing greater than 12km.
Yeah, that is entirely possible.
Probably not, but it does show at least a minor amount of inconsistancy and MBDA has a bit of a notorious reputation for underselling a little. So it is possible the first figure was a conservative number (which again would make sense if it was pre service) and the other a more realistic figure
To be clear i agree
I was arguing for a change to Cx before we had the source given by DirectSupport, but now that we know what the engine is all about, buffing the drag would indeed lead to a missile overperforming.
A Cx of 1.65 or even 1.7 with a diameter of 160mm would give a missile that is somewhat inline with all sources (except the 750m/s, but this one is quite the odd one out, and MBDA’s communication on the VL MICA in the late 2000s was quite conservative it would seem)
Plus an engine burning harder for 3.5s with the removal of the sustainer (3.75s), making the motor inline with both the source from Roxel (or the company bought by Roxel, can’t remember the name) given by Fireball and the one given by DirectSupport yesterday
Yeah, so
- Reduce drag marginally
- Reduce burn time
- Reduce max DeltaV
- Remove Sustainer
- Increase acceleration
or have I missed something
I’d say, from the limited understanding of all the sources at hand and following the small testing i did on statshark :
- Leave drag as is or increase by 0.05 (1.65 → 1.65 or 1.7)
- Fix diameter 165 → 160mm
- Reduce Burn engine time, down from 3 (booster) + 3.75 (sustainer) to 3.5s (booster)
- Increase thrust on booster (my estimate would be by 5 KN (from 22.5KN to 27.5 KN)
- Remove 50km artificial limit (this is not a thing IRL for any missile anyway)
- Check if the Battery time needs any adjustment
It would be a mitigated fix, which might improve the way the missile handles slightly in some areas, so considering the current meta i’d say it can wait
Meanwhile, do something about the AMRAAM seekerhead, this thing is pathetically bad and the range advantage isn’t really felt in game currently
So Gunjob now has evidence that the requirements were met and also has evidence that the velocity increment is for aircraft separation and targets. Fireball has been trying to nerf the MICA every step of the way arguing that the 750m/s was the motor delta-v (ignoring that French companies often understate their capabilities) and arguing that the 1,000m/s velocity increment was for in a vacuum. But those claims were nonsense.
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I still don’t understand how you came to the conclusion that it’s a requirements document. MICA entered production in 1995, entered service in 1996 (meaning testing before that) and this doc appears to be from around 2000
Looking into it, it’s looking like the MICA VL range specifications are for the MICA IR at the bare minimum. So we know the MICA IR should be capable of 20km range and 33,000 feet in altitude for if/when it gets introduced into the game in MICA VL setting.
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Tbf the snippets shared here only use the words requirements. So I can understand the confusion.
Which is the standard for missiles and rockets yes.
Is the 50km a hard limit or is it just that the battery dies around 50km usually?
Though SRAAMs also have a hard limit in game, very annoying but I think possibly accurate.
So if it is battery life limiting range, then this would fix both, though again, getting this changed is near impossible I think without a lot of effort.
That its completely OP and not a lot can compete with the MICA EM and this change would actually nerf it quite a bit?
- Ignoring that the presentation paper had been talking about the use of MICA in air-to-air performance.
- Ignoring that you had been sent the whole page in where it specifically states the velocity increment was for aircraft separation and air to air performance against short and long range targets.
Hard limit, but it’s the battery life and lack of lot that causes most of the problems.
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Yes? I don’t understand your point, motors are always rated with a deltaV. Because everything else varies depending on launch conditions…
This misunderstanding would be understandable if you had changed your mind when presented with opinions from others who had been studying missiles and rockets and what their assessments were. Yet you remained steadfast in your belief. You’re still ignoring point 2. I will state that you were right about the burntime though of ~3.5 seconds. You stated something like 4.5-4.75 seconds which were far closer than the current 6.75 burntime.
The 750m/s could also be attributed to the MICA IR configuration. As it would have much higher drag, it’s not impossible that it only reaches around 750m/s in the same configuration