Afaik but I personally not sure myself about everything, cos there is none official info about that, the next improved R-73 that actually went mass production is R-74M and R-74 is R-73 with russian made seekers (because in USSR seekers production was in Ukraine)
İmo now that Su-27 and SMT cannot face 11.3 they should add R-73M with more gimbal limit and a bit better İRCCM at least, the İRCCM on this is a joke, along with MAGİC-2.
You can see in my videos how much of a joke this missile is Vs Gripen and F-16
You can have dual band seeker with less gimbal limit > R-73M. But I doubt gaijin will implement dual band seeker anytime soon. Magic-2 is proved in bug reports to have this, but it has copy paste useless İRCCM of R-73
This would also explain why there’s a ~15 year gap between R-74 and R-74M. They would’ve needed to rebuild production equipment and re-learn how to make an IR seeker after Ukraine left
Possibly, but again I can’t find anything that points to that missile having a dual-band seeker, or even really having an improved seeker at all. It might have gotten a better motor though, as it gains 5kg of weight and 5km of range in front-aspect.
Looks like I’d expect, Gaijin incorrectly models thermal signatures across the board (severely underestimates), and/or Gaijin severely underestimates IR lock range, making all missiles much more sensitive to flares than they should be.
Then, you’ve got the bad PID they haven’t been able to tune because of thrust vectoring + maneuvering fins (see SRAAM)
And then, you’ve got a lack of modeling electronic filtering, it’s not quite IRCCM but it should help. R-73 IRCCM is effectively irrelevant above a 1km distance, especially when your target doesn’t appear to be after burning.
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in the front and rear hemispheres, against the background of the ground and with active radio-electronic counteraction. The upgraded R-73 RMD-2 missile could also boast resistance to external influences. The dual-band TGSN missile, which has been in service with the Russian Air Force since 1999, has had outstanding performance.
“In particular, the largest target designation angle is 120 on the pylon and 180 after launch,” military expert Alexey Leonkov noted in an interview with Zvezda. If we compare the R-73M RMD2 with foreign models (namely, any domestic weapons are usually compared with them), then the aircraft missile also differed in its target acquisition range - 18.5 kilometers in free space and almost 7.5 kilometers against the surface.
R-73M RMD-2 (RDM-2?)
Almost 8Km front aspect lock range, 19Km rear aspect
60* gimbal limit
Dual band seeker
Apparently there are 2 versions of R-73M, RMD-2 is first one.
What I wrote is about RMD-2, so the next model after what we have in game.
Later version is RMD-3
5KG heavier, so a little bit more rocket fuel, a little more range, reinforcing what I have read about a bit more range. R-73 has 34 KG fuel in the game right now. It will be 39 KG.
So corroborating info from those pictures to known values of the missiles:
R-73 = MK-80 seeker, ±45 degrees, possibly outside gimbal targeting available using HMD/Radar/IRST
R-73M/R-74 = MK-2000 seeker, dual-band IR, ±60 degrees, known to have outside gimbal targeting.
R-74M = MM-2000 seeker? Focal Plane Array, ±60 degrees, known to have outside gimbal targeting.
R-74M2 has a datalink and all that stuff
So, it seems like our current R-73 is missing an outside-of-gimbal targeting system too.
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So it seems I was tight about R-73M having dual band
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MK-80 is ±45 before launch and ±75 after
Yep, though I suspect it may not have been planned originally (hence varying claims) and at some point it ended up getting put in.
The what?
It seems like the R-73 series uses some kind of system that coordinates external sensor targets (such as HMD, IRST, or Radar) with the R-73 guidance system similar to SEAM for Sidewinders.
I’m not entirely sure what this coordinator is, but it seems like an early and specialized inertial navigation system to aid in off-boresight engagements. It would also explain how R-73 variants before the datalink was added were able to engage targets very high off-boresight, despite having relatively limited gimbals.
It does not seem like the ±75 degrees gimbal limit post-launch figure is accurate, but it should have some engagement capability outside of the ±45 degree gimbal.
