Vympel R-73 'ARCHER' - History, Design, Performance & Discussion

Sounds unrealistic. 2500 m/s or 7.3+ mach missile?)

50km would be a very high altitude launch, certainly it does not outrange the R-77 at low altitudes. The R-27T/ET would stilll outrange it and so would MICA-IR, likely also IRIS-T, PL-10, PL-8B, others. It is a dogfight missile with poor aerodynamic features for extended range flight. It is a poor assumption to say it shares 20s battery life.

The datasheet you posted states that is not the case:

Время управляемого полета, с = 38

Or in English:

Time of controlled flight, seconds = 38

The 50 km range listed on the R-74M2 is likely the maximum possible range (which would be for a high altitude, high speed launch).

ASRAAM is publicly advertised as having a 25+ km max range, with most secondary sources putting the max range at around 50 km. I’m still trying to get to the bottom of what the max range of ASRAAM truly is, and under what conditions. I have seen one declassified document on ASRAAM development in the archives stating it’s maximum range is over 6 times that of Sidewinder in a head on launch. That would make 50 km possible from a subsonic launch.

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Interestingly, that puts the head on lock range against a max power F-15 as 10 km. Isn’t that pretty underwhelming for an IIR seeker?

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It isnt iir, it is dual band seeker

I thought the R-74M2 was meant to be Imagining Infrared? Did that not end up happening?

No

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R74m2 seems very long, could possibly reach those ranges

Battery for only 20 seconds? Seems too low

Asraam kindish range, but with tvc but no iir

So does Russia not have any IIR air to air missiles?

Even for a non-IIR seeker though 10 km seems pretty dismal. That’s worse than what the AIM-9M / Magic 2 could manage (both are significantly underperforming in game), and those missiles are 40 years old.

As I said in my post, the data sheet says the R-74M2 has 38 seconds of flight time.

Then the 50km range is probably just its ballistic range

And yeah no iir, they have iie agm tho (lmur, kh59mk2)

Yeah I misread it, just took the value form the previous r-74m

What range for what target? And what are the engine parameters?

Where have you found this information?

It was a misread on my end. Don’t pay attention to those numbers

I know, but why u write this me? I wrote about the discrepancy between the data and the message in the post and in the brochure.

Ahhh sorry I’ve replied to the wrong post oops.

It says, the guidance time us 38s, a launch range of 50km would mean the average speed is likely around 900m/s at high altitude/max range, that’s accounting for a 35km travel range, it’s possibly even less.

Yup, as I said in a post above, I misread it, just took the 20 seconds from the previous r-74 battery life. with 38 seconds that makes a lot more sense

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I should really have read this thread before posting ahah, I blame gaijin for making threads open to the last place you were ahaah.

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The R-74M2 has a better engine than the R-73.