Legacy Hornet vs Su-30MKM

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

So we can assume, that Hornet C/D, F-16 Bl. 50+ with AIM-120 c-5, and Mirage 2000 with RDY2 and Mica, SU-30 MKM with R-77 are in the same ballpark in air to air?

Nope. The Radars may be of comparable detection capability, but the missiles are far from comparable. The R-77 is closer in range to the AIM-120A. The C-5 has much greater range.

[swiss]

So we can assume, that Hornet C/D, F-16 Bl. 50+ with AIM-120 c-5, and Mirage 2000 with RDY2 and Mica, SU-30 MKM with R-77 are in the same ballpark in air to air?

Nope. The Radars may be of comparable detection capability, but the missiles are far from comparable. The R-77 is closer in range to the AIM-120A. The C-5 has much greater range.

I fully agree with you spurts. So lets say then R-77-1.

[milosh]

So we can assume, that Hornet C/D, F-16 Bl. 50+ with AIM-120 c-5, and Mirage 2000 with RDY2 and Mica, SU-30 MKM with R-77 are in the same ballpark in air to air?

Nope. The Radars may be of comparable detection capability, but the missiles are far from comparable. The R-77 is closer in range to the AIM-120A. The C-5 has much greater range.

I fully agree with you spurts. So lets say then R-77-1.

Don't forget R-27ER it is SARH but Su-30MKM have PESA radar so penality of STT doesn't exist, I think N011M is capable for at least dual target tracking with R-27ER.

Indian AF is ordered 1000 R-27ER in 2019 for Su-30MKI after downing of MiG-21 Bison.

[boogieman]

SARH still suffers a penalty vs ARH due to the need to maintain a lock on the target for the entire missile flight time. This means you have to keep the target(s) within the gimbal/FOV limits of the radar right up until impact which prevents you from turning cold or immediately ducking behaind terrain after a missile shot goes pitbull. Su-35 is less affected by this due to the wide angular coverage of the Irbis-E, but it is no substitute for a high quality ARH capability (hence R77-1, R77M & R37).

[marauder2048]

SARH still suffers a penalty vs ARH due to the need to maintain a lock on the target for the entire missile flight time. This means you have to keep the target(s) within the gimbal/FOV limits of the radar right up until impact which prevents you from turning cold or immediately ducking behaind terrain after a missile shot goes pitbull. Su-35 is less affected by this due to the wide angular coverage of the Irbis-E, but it is no substitute for a high quality ARH capability (hence R77-1, R77M & R37).

I thought most of the Russian PESAs employed interrupted continuous wave illumination?

[boogieman]

That is my understanding, but it still leaves them restrictively "tethered" to both the target and outbound missile in a way that is not the case for an active weapon. I suspect there is a reason that investment in SARH AAM development has dropped off precipitously in recent years/decades...

[marauder2048]

That is my understanding, but it still leaves them restrictively "tethered" to both the target and outbound missile in a way that is not the case for an active weapon. I suspect there is a reason that investment in SARH AAM development has dropped off precipitously in recent years/decades...

An active missile still needs pretty good handover and the SARH missile has a better Vbo
by virtue of not carrying the weight of Xmitter so I'm not totally convinced.

I think what discouraged further ICWI is that unless you have digital beamforming, the
sub-arraying required for simultaneous ICWI and other radar functions is costly since
analog beamforming requires physical replication.

And of course the fact that inertial-active (with in-flight alignment) provides for much better
reaction time.

[boogieman]

I guess it depends on what range the handover is generally occuring at relative to the overall distance the missile has to travel. If it is happening at or beyond the "rule of thumb" ~10nm mark then the ARH launching platform's advantage in BVR freedom of maneuver is likely to be more pronounced. If it's significantly less than that then the advantage degrades accordingly.

Suffice it to say that the pattern of modern BVR AAM development appears to be toward more sensor agnostic, network enabled weapons that can prosecute the target independently of the parent platform's sensors when needed, not SARH weapons that are generally tied to them (eg. old school R27ER). I'd submit to you that an ARH weapon (possibly with complementary SARH/IIR options) provides a better fit to this end than a strictly SARH based one. While yes, I am sure it is possible to use offboard sensors to complete the kill chain for a strictly SARH AAM launch, this does not seem to be a direction being heavily pursued in future AAM development.

[element1loop]

Which is all a bit meh now if you have EOTS and a laser ranger, plus a beam-forming directional LPI/LPD datalink, and a VLO launch platform 100 km away, which didn't get seen, even if a launch did get detected. If clouds intervene between launch aircraft and target there may be 3 other EOTS in a flight that can maintain EOTS LOS updates, and range the target via triangulation. So no need to even lase for target-quality vector with and active of passive terminal seeker.

Fire and forget, plus continuous precise passive tracking, so neither ARH, nor SARH. NPH + NAH, maybe? i.e. Network Passive Homing" or "Network Active Homing"?

[boogieman]

Which is all a bit meh now if you have EOTS and a laser ranger, plus a beam-forming directional LPI/LPD datalink, and a VLO launch platform 100 km away, which didn't get seen, even if a launch did get detected. If clouds intervene between launch aircraft and target there may be 3 other EOTS in a flight that can maintain EOTS LOS updates, and range the target via triangulation. So no need to even lase for target-quality vector with and active of passive terminal seeker.

Fire and forget, plus continuous precise passive tracking, so neither ARH, nor SARH. NPH + NAH, maybe? i.e. Network Passive Homing" or "Network Active Homing"?

Indeed. I am not sure whether you would still need the missile seeker to take over in terminal phase here to ensure it connects (will defer to others on that one) but the less reliant you are on ownship RF emissions in general the better I would have thought. Strict SARH-only guidance (R27R/ER) strikes me as a method that is rapidly approaching obsolescence in modern AAMs (if it isn't there already) tbh.

[element1loop]

~10nm mark then the ARH launching platform's advantage in BVR freedom of maneuver is likely to be more pronounced.

This won't matter if the VLO aircraft is not located and a vector known, even if you know it's out there (and at least one other is tracking and sharing too). 10 nm is a bit of a meaningless distance now if you don't know the real missile or sensor performances. Plus passive "within visual range" radius for F-35 exceeds 100 km. The traditional ways of considering A2A have evaporated, and distinctions between WVR and BVR, and SARH verse ARH considerations, while 'no-escape zones' have expanded greatly.

Strict SARH-only guidance (R27R/ER) strikes me as a method that is rapidly approaching obsolescence in modern AAMs (if it isn't there already) tbh.

I think it is against an LM 5th gen (including SAMS attempting same).

[madrat]

Passive sensors haven't become obsolete, they've simply changed roles. All active radar homing have a passive sensor but also contain an emitter. So SARH development never waned, it just gained independence. But the passive modes are utilized in some missiles for things like HOJ.

[hornetfinn]

Don't forget R-27ER it is SARH but Su-30MKM have PESA radar so penality of STT doesn't exist, I think N011M is capable for at least dual target tracking with R-27ER.

Indian AF is ordered 1000 R-27ER in 2019 for Su-30MKI after downing of MiG-21 Bison.

According to Tactical Missile Corporation JSC the range of RVV-SD has slightly longer max range than R-27ER. R-27ER does seem to have about 20% longer range than original R-77. If public information is correct, then AIM-120C-5 and higher have quite significant range advantage (especially -120D version) over all those Russian missiles. Of course range performance is only one part of effectiveness and other qualities are also important. It doesn't seem like R-77 or R-27 have been updated much and I'd say that later AMRAAM models, Meteor and MICA all have advantages when it comes to seeker performance and guidance systems. Not to say that R-77 variants or even R-27 are not dangerous against most 4th gen fighters.

[marauder2048]

I guess it depends on what range the handover is generally occuring at relative to the overall distance the missile has to travel. If it is happening at or beyond the "rule of thumb" ~10nm mark then the ARH launching platform's advantage in BVR freedom of maneuver is likely to be more pronounced. If it's significantly less than that then the advantage degrades accordingly.

Suffice it to say that the pattern of modern BVR AAM development appears to be toward more sensor agnostic, network enabled weapons that can prosecute the target independently of the parent platform's sensors when needed, not SARH weapons that are generally tied to them (eg. old school R27ER). I'd submit to you that an ARH weapon (possibly with complementary SARH/IIR options) provides a better fit to this end than a strictly SARH based one. While yes, I am sure it is possible to use offboard sensors to complete the kill chain for a strictly SARH AAM launch, this does not seem to be a direction being heavily pursued in future AAM development.

Handover at >= 10 nautical miles from the target? That's like SM-6 handover range.
Typical AAMs are going to be 3-5 nautical miles.

There's no argument that active seekers are inherently more flexible than semi-active radar
seekers no matter what you do with illuminators (GD's AAAM had a podded PESA with spherical coverage).

Are active missiles truly better in BVR? I'm not so sure. But on balance they do everything else better.

All of the active missiles out there are increasingly reliant on radar-based datalinks.
Same with most of the IIR missiles. If there are AAMs that can rely on other datalinks then I'd like to hear
about them.

[boogieman]

Handover at >= 10 nautical miles from the target?...
Typical AAMs are going to be 3-5 nautical miles.

Do you have a source on that one? 7-10nm is the terminal handover range I have generally heard passed around for AMRAAM et al. This wrt "typical" 4th gen fighter sized targets and corresponding RCS values etc.