From what I have read CAMM and ASRAAM do indeed share the same motor. The extra length and weight comes from the soft launch booster and the longer RF seeker.
I think it has to do with the fact that Block 1-5? did not had a data link, so shooting any further would be useless in a IR missile, or battery life, why make a battery that will last longer when you will not be using it in such distances. It might be possible for it to go further, but there are multiple factors that can limit it.
Seems that a ground launched CAMM / ASRAAM would have a ballistic range of 60 km (obviously effective range as a weapon is significantly less):
Before conducting a missile test, engineers the need to define the area of terrain that a missile flight will place at risk. The ‘worst case’ from the point of view of safety is that a newly launched missile will turn to face the worst-possible direction, then make no further manoeuvres but fly until it runs out of energy. The resulting distance from the launch point may be inconveniently long, but any location closer to the launch point could be at risk from a malfunctioning missile. In the event of a guidance failure, the missile used for these early cold vertical launch trials could have landed up to 60 km from the launch point if powered by an off-the-shelf ASRAAM rocket motor. So, in order to meet range-safety requirements, a short-burn version of the ASRAAM motor was used for these test firings.
I’m almost certain the ASRAAM always had Datalink, you sure it didn’t? Because the 50km range would be useless without Datalink since the seeker would probably never see that far (except at very high alt against a very hot target).
The things i’m now thinking about is how a 88kg missile can have more than 50km range kinematically (not talking battery into account).
When you think about it, the 9X Block 2 is only able to do 40km, and while it’s draggier , it was also designed to reduced drag to a minimum.
Damn, that’s impressive if true. But i’m still not conviced because like the AIM-120C7 has 30km range when ground launched.
So if true, the battery would be the HARD limit on both of those missile (but they could theoricatly reach a lot further that what we know). Like kinetically they fly for 4min but the battery only last 60-90s.
Well, i doubted it at first too, but i simply cant find anything that will say it had, nowhere. So with that i accepted it reliad heavly that target does not change course not expecting anything to intercept it. Only now with Block 6 claims of DL started to appear. First with the Indian NGCCM and now with the Supacat.
I don’t think so.
Being able to hit it ballistically is not the same as being able to hit it in a operational (even testing) scenario.
The 60km doesn’t take into account the battery life, if you want to achieve 60km range you’ll proabably have to wait like 5min for a hit and the battery will never last that long.
Not sure how long motor burns, but when it does it goes Mach 3, so around 1km/s
The life of a battery is also one thing i talked above that could limit it. But they mamaged to do 60km with ground launched RF seeker, so 25 with IR seeker and more energy waste at the start should be possible.
Problem is not of kinematics, but that the missile would require datalink and extended battery life to engage targets at or above those ranges because it would need to loft.
