Everyone has their own opinions, we will all cope with the ones Gaijin makes. It is what it is.
all we can do is hope
Under what EXACT launch parameters are you making this judgement call? Where are your time to target data set coming from? Substantiate this claim before blathering all over this thread.
Gaijin does what they will do, regardless of reality, they have shown this many times. With that said…
AIM-120A/B has reliable sources showing it to reach excess of 100km, that is both western AND Russian. And while time to target is very important, current War Thunder engagements all occur at or under 50km, with 50km being an outlier unless you very intentionally play for altitude and happen across an opponent doing the same.
Caveats aside, within a 40km or less engagement, the AMRAAM will beat out the R-27ER handily in the vast majority of engagements, this comes down to the Active Radar Homing (ARH), already found with the Phoenix, but on a far more capable platform. The AMRAAMs ARH seeker, will grab you, it will hold on to you, and it will be very tricky to get rid of, even when notching. That and the commonly recognized range of the seeker is ~10nm or about 20km. Meaning that for an engagement at 20km, you can fire and forget immediately, or at 40km you can let it go half way to target. In a simplified sense, the AMRAAM will always hold an advantage over the ER unless used at extreme range and speed, even then the time to climb for the firing aircraft will be important, an advantage the US currently holds.
All of this is AMRAAM specific but with the advent of ARH the balance of top tier will shift majorly, currently there is a modicum of balance, but Mig23 has protested that the AMRAAM should be facing the ER, which as amusingly OP as that would be, is grossly imbalanced.
*All references of AMRAAM are the AIM-120A/B
Comparing the AIM-120A to the Active SkyFlash (ASF)
Russian estimation of the AIM-120A
For extra tid-bit, the AIM-120A/B range superimposed over the R-77s
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Alright, time to unpack this I guess since you obviously aren’t going to read two entire threads on these missiles (That I made btw). I don’t expect anyone to do that kind of digging for info, but you’d be surprised.
That is not disputed. The maximum range when launched at 0.9 mach towards a 0.9 mach target at 10-12k meters is ~74km based on more credible data than what you have presented. A mach 2 launch on mach 2 target will yield much longer range results.
That is fine, the AIM-120 when launched at 30-40km against a cranking target will simply not come within active range before the R-27ER hits them. It’s just a powerhouse of a missile. The difference is that the AMRAAM launcher can choose to go cold at any time (and scrap his missile as well in the process)… since the R-27ER launcher can do the same thing and it will not be within active range at that time.
I really don’t think this to be the case. You could probably make it for 25km or less.
Sure does, difference is that as I said… the R-27ER gets there first in practically any neutral scenario. To guide the AMRAAM to active homing would require attempting to fit a whole R-27ER in your mouth.
We will see how that is implemented, people said the exact same thing about the Phoenix before it was added… behold… it’s not OP as people said it would be.
Yes, meaning you can fire it knowing the enemy will just turn around and chaff it off if things don’t change. They’ll know it is coming for the majority of the flight.
I think we can put that nonsense to bed.
No, it’s really not. They could just allow the MiG-29SMT to carry the 4x R-27ER it can IRL and fire two at two separate targets at a given time.
No, they’re not.
It clearly claims the AIM-120 is wingless in this one. It is referring to Northrop or Raytheon’s version(s)… which was lower drag and longer ranged than the Hughes AMRAAM. It had a superior seeker among other benefits but was deemed the loser on cost grounds iirc. The AMRAAM program was hugely worried about cost and risk reduction techniques were employed quite often to bring them down.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/955829235493273680/1136495240140820540/HRy17v9.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/955829235493273680/1136495481393008811/QQaUuEz.png
The Russian estimate is far from realistic, heavily over-exaggerating the performance of the AIM-120A. They expected it to be just inferior to the R-27ER… it was not quite that powerful.
The next combined graph you used is of the R-77 from another forum created by users with less data than is currently available showing it to be false.
Most of the range data is based on the Harrier and Tornado manuals. These show a maximum DLZ of the AMRAAM of 40 nautical miles for the Harrier. This suggests at 12,000 or so and a top speed of mach 0.96 the peak range against 0.9 mach target is ~40nm. This is corroborated by the other manuals showing higher for supersonic launch platforms having I think a peak of 60nm.
I’d have to ask @Gunjob or @Flame2512 to post those sources as I do not have them handy.
Anyhow, we tested my AMRAAM model against real world scenarios from HUD footage and compared it to the maximum DLZ’s and found it to be very very accurate (once adjusting the loft to a medium ~30 degree climb)… to give it a good margin of error. (This means it is likely slightly overperforming, but it gives us a better idea of how it might be added in the game with current Phoenix loft code).
So, in these conditions;
60km launch, 10km alt, 0.9 mach… for both launch and target aircraft.
The R-27ER hits in ~58s when the AIM-120A hits in ~80. This leaves 22 seconds, but of course since I ran those tests there were changes to the R-27ER. I’d need to re-test… but the R-27ER was slightly buffed. This should yield even better results.
When I did the test I did not consider that either target would notch. If you take this into account, the AMRAAM only becomes a problem at less than 30km distance. Even so, it will go active traveling so slowly that I could turn around and run from it - chaff it off - or out-maneuver it. This is assuming they don’t use combined plane and stick to 35G maneuverability limit.
Please let me know if any of this isn’t satisfactory testing for you, I welcome anyone to try and find more data / information or test criteria for me to validate the AMRAAM model I’ve built. If anyone wants a copy of the custom missile file data I can forward that to you in DM’s and such.
Also, if you wouldn’t mind continuing this conversation on my own thread dedicated to the AMRAAM so we can keep all the pertinent missile data and testing in one area.
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No tangible proof of anything, diversion from topic excuses and a “i did muh testing”
If you want to go for any realism how about getting the R-27ER its realistic limitations?
At the same extreme ranges you seem so certain will be relevant the exact same defensive maneuvers would inevitably neutralize the ERs performance against a defending target, the same for the 40km example. If you launch in TWS, hold it till 15km and go cold the Russian pilot will be holding an AMRAAM to his face as the ER goes stupid on a defending jet.
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This comparison comes from 1992, and describes the AMRAAM as “operational” and “in full production”, so it is talking about the finished AMRAAM (presumably AIM-120A)
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Maybe it was a LRIP contract and not actually an EMD or full engineering contract since in the configuration section, it refers to a wingless body which aligns more with what Mig mentioned.
Just speculating.
By 1992 the AMRAAM competition was over though, and the missile was in service with the USAF.
The next page confirms it is the Hughes AMRAAM they are using for their comparison.
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Very odd that they mentioned “Hughes”, either way we are already well aware that in some scenarios it can reach past 100km range.
So you’re going to ignore my entire post is what I am getting out of this. You don’t want to validate anything, so what is the point of discussion?
If you follow the thread you’ll see there isn’t much in the way of “realistic limitations” Left for the R-27R/ER. What you’re suggesting would be that the missile is unable to adjust where the seeker is looking for the target and I think that’s a simple error on the part of the translation… especially since that’s essentially how the basic R-23R should work when fired outside the seekers’ acquisition range… which it is not allowed to do in-game.
I still see F-14A/B in orbit slinging out multiple of them.
I’m unsure how AIM-120 (whichever Gaijin adds) will work exactly, what I’m saying is any plane that can sling 4 self-guided radar missiles has a certain advantage. The situation you describe is representing a duel, and OK our AIM-120 slinger may lose the duel because R-27ER carrier notches them, I’d say the advantage is in where the other 3 AIM-120 are going.
AFAIK AIM-54 rely on TWS for guidance until they reach terminal guidance which is their own radar, right? I’m not sure of the specifics here. If AIM-120 is relying on TWS and doesn’t guide itself for a large part of the flight journey then I suppose the R-27ER in this scenario is hard-countering since all launched AIM-120 by the plane R-27ER is going to hit, will fall out of the sky, explode or otherwise be nullified.
I suppose I’m just concerned that we creep closer to ASRAAM or A-Darter types of nearly un-dodgeable long range (by war thunder map standards) essentially free kill missiles.
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I totally agree, the disadvantage being that if a single dude with an R-27ER commits to you and you don’t immediately turn away you probably aren’t going to just kill him either. It’s not some infallible weapon and I think the balance struck would be much closer than what we currently have with R-27ER vs AIM-7M.
I’m describing air RB. It would just make the job of slinging R-27’s harder. There is also the point that the Su-27 has more R-27ER’s to sling than the F-16 or F-15 could have AMRAAM’s.
The AIM-54 and AIM-120 are guided by mid-course updates provided from the TWS mode of the radar or a hard lock. You can technically do either. They need this support until they are within active range, or very close to active range or the notching target may never be picked up / can maneuver away from the search area and scrap the missile.
These may be a legitimate issue, since radar missiles are generally easily fooled in-game (pending changes to chaff and radars)… the AMRAAM will be no different imo.
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I mean in the sense that R-27ER can only take one plane at a time, meanwhile ARH will all be able to attack several targets simultaneously.
If we imagine a few F-16/F-15 coming around a corner to find a few MiG-29/Yak-141/Su-27, the AIM-120 group will basically spit out loads of missiles.
It’s ok to notch a single AIM-120, but what about 2 or 3?
What about from different angles?
This is what I mean about a “duel” because mano a mano spamming 4 AIM-120 onto the same target, they can all be notched with ease, but if even two AIM-120 are attacking the same target from different angles, seems only ground clutter will save you.
This problem about basically AIM-120 deathblobs, where groups of planes engage each other, maybe different groups from different angles, leaves those being targeted basically guarunteed to die and at best they can drag a few down with them before succumbing to the inevitable.
R-73 and such missiles are much less of a problem since they can at least be pre-flared, provided you have enough flares to do that when you fly near high concentrations of enemies.
I suppose this is the important principle. If players choose to use AIM-120 as basically a longer range AIM-9M, hugging the ground and then spamming out AIM-120 within their self-guidance range, then we’re basically having an even more flare resistant all-aspect sidewinder with presumable much longer range.
Seems to me this won’t make the game better, but simply exacerbates existing problems and adding a new powerful tool with essentially the same counters, but radically more powerful.
Reminds me how people complain that PARS-3 is useless since it can break lock. But to my mind, any helicopter which can spit out 8 potential kills then go back into hiding has a radical advantage compared to any helicopter that has to guide the missile for the entire journey.
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No, the R-27ER can be fired on multiple targets IRL as well - just not a feature in the game at the moment.
That’s fine if they want to scrap all their missiles on targets they can’t possibly hit first unless they get within 25km or so.
They’d have to re-commit and stagger launches putting themselves in grave risk of having an R-27ER for dinner.
Or just turn around and chaff them off before they’re active. If I notice I’m high and naked against multiple enemy I probably won’t get within the MAR (minimum abort range) of the AMRAAM and just play it safe by outrunning them.
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What other plans are you referring to? Something like a staggered launch similar to the R-73 being released on less capable airframes for “testing”
Id rather the testing to be longer to include
F4 ICE
Sea Harrier FA2
AV8B+
Su39(Late)
stuff like that
I’d rather a fully fleshed out dev server where we can use these missiles and the devs can sort their shit out before going live. I know it’s just a suggestion but it was a little annoying seeing the SU-25BM get R-73s while my 29 9.12 wasted away with R-60mks.
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The added the smt too early
Gaijin stated that they’re attempting to add FOX-3s for all nations at once, unless I am mistaken.
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