First ASRAAM kill

[Dawes]

OK, so it was a small drone. But I think that counts:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59615769

[Stuart Galbraith]

That missile was so long in development, its actually in a 1972 copy of Janes air weapons.

 

[TrustMe]

In the link it says ...

It is the first time the British military has downed another enemy aircraft since the Falklands War nearly 40 years ago.

 

The RAF had a blue on blue kill sometime in the 1980's. A Jaguar I believe. 

[shep854]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

That missile was so long in development, its actually in a 1972 copy of Janes air weapons.

 

And Sidewinder slithers on...

[Harold Jones]

21 hours ago, shep854 said:

And Sidewinder slithers on...

What's left of the original sidewinder besides the name? The paint color?

[DB]

28 minutes ago, Harold Jones said:

What's left of the original sidewinder besides the name? The paint color?

Apparently rocket motor, warhead and fuze. Tube diameter limits the performance by limiting the rocket motor total impulse. interestingly it looks to be a combination of tail fin and thrust vector control (the latter via vanes in the exhaust), which means it is a bit more like ASRAAM than previous Sidewinders which were steered by the forward fins.

Although wikipedia makes much of the link between ASRAAM and Taildog/SRAAM, I don't think that it's fair to call it a development of that concept - if ASRAAM had turned into IRIS-T, that might have been valid, given that the latter emphasised close-in agility and therefore used TVC.

ASRAAM has a bigger tube diameter, which all else being equal would give it better total impulse and potentially a larger warhead, but obviously more drag. It also has no forward "wings" and uses body lift for manoeuvring. I believe that it's generally regarded as having longer engagement ranges than other WVRAAMs, but that would likely be disputed by Raytheon, who also pretend that the latest AMRAAM has longer range than Meteor (aha, ha, hahaha).

[Stuart Galbraith]

The seeker tone probably.

 

[bojan]

5 hours ago, DB said:

...who also pretend that the latest AMRAAM has longer range than Meteor (aha, ha, hahaha).

Maybe theoretical vs non-evading target head on, but it can not have better "no-escape zone" by any means.

Edited December 19, 2021 by bojan

[DB]

We believe that Raytheon claims maximum range when launched from an F-22 at maximum speed, at maximum altitude by measuring the distance that the furthest bit of debris lands. Same with AIM-9X.

To explain a bit more. Performance of a missile degrades sharply as drag takes over when the motor runs out of juice. Against manoeuvring targets, a missile's effective range is far shorter than its ballistic performance might suggest as manoeuvres further degrade speed until it basically falls out of the sky.

Meteor has a rocket/ramjet of novel (for the time) design that means it retains thrust for far longer than any pure rocket design of similar size. You cannot compensate for this even by using radical launch/sustain motor grains, the difference is that the ramjet has hugely better specific impulse than a rocket motor, so it goes further for the same mass of fuel.

This means it has far better end-game speed and manoeuvrability, which means that for any given target set it will have comparatively longer effective range. (The "no-escape zone" mentioned by bojan, which is the volume within which a target cannot evade or outrun the missile.) 

One might be able to manufacture a trajectory where the Meteor wouldn't be able to air breathe, negating its thrust duration advantage, but at that altitude neither missile would steer worth a damn, so would only hit the ground.

The above does assume that both missiles are otherwise comparable - i.e. they'll engage a target they can actually reach with equal probability of kill. This isn't a given, obviously.

[Olof Larsson]

13 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

What's left of the original sidewinder besides the name? The paint color?

Nothing. The AIM-9X retains the engine and warhead of the L/M-versions. But that engine and that warhead, is the forth engine and forth warhead used since the AIM-9A/B.

[BJE]

1 hour ago, Olof Larsson said:

Nothing. 

The general shape and dimensions? Everything else has been replaced at least once.

[DougRichards]

Grandpa's axe......or the ship of Thesus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

[Daan]

3 hours ago, Olof Larsson said:

Nothing. The AIM-9X retains the engine and warhead of the L/M-versions. But that engine and that warhead, is the forth engine and forth warhead used since the AIM-9A/B.

Not the L-version, which has a different and still smoky motor.

[shep854]

Still, the Sidewinder 'brand' was supposed to be completely replaced by ASRAAM decades ago.

[Stuart Galbraith]

The idea seems to be, NATO would buy AMRAAM, and they would buy ASRAAM. However, the development of AMRAAM was protracted, the threat arguably disappeared before it was available, and NATO had something better in Meteor anyway.

Be nice if we could have figured out internal carriage on the F35.

[Dawes]

The AIM-9M was supposed to be the final Sidewinder variant, then the canceled "R", and now the "X". There's two more letters left in the alphabet, so I'm not holding my breath.

[Daan]

36 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The idea seems to be, NATO would buy AMRAAM, and they would buy ASRAAM. However, the development of AMRAAM was protracted, the threat arguably disappeared before it was available, and NATO had something better in Meteor anyway.

Be nice if we could have figured out internal carriage on the F35.

Well, most NATO countries eventually bought a version of the AIM-120, only those with Dassault airframes or a whole Russian fleet did not. Aside from legacy SARH missiles and the MICA, for a long time it was only modern medium range air-to-air missile available. For the ASRAAM the Brits made some idiosyncratic choices and by the time it finally landed on the market there were competitors, which proved to be more successful convincing potential customers.

[Dawes]

Anything was better than the AIM-7.

[Daan]

It is still in service in several countries, including those that have stocks of AIM-120 missiles, as seen in these photographs from October 30, 2021.  It must have certain qualities against particular targets. Its warhead is larger.

 

Combined AIM-7(M?), AIM-120B and Python 4 or 5 load:

[Stuart Galbraith]

The irony is, the Aim7 did really well in Desert Storm, far better than it had in any previous conflict. And it's not as if BAE hadn't been mooting an active version anyway.

[Dawes]

The AIM-7's performance in Desert Storm may have been due to other factors.

[DB]

The AIM-7M was good enough, the earlier versions not so much. Allegedly, performance comparable with Skyflash which was a UK product improved AIM-7-E (IIRC, might be an F?)

The agreement was for the US to build AMRAAM as they were clearly the lead in active radar homing seekers, with ASRAAM being European based (it was perceived that the UK had an IR seeker lead at the time, but manufacturing proved to be a problem and Hughes eventually built the seekers.) Both were to be generally procured under the NATO umbrella.

The Germans moved away from the developed ASRAAM concept, emphasising a close-in agility requirement that led to IRIS-T.

ASRAAM suffered serious delays, with a significant problem being a USN versus USAF pissing contest that meant any decision passed by one would be automatically rejected by the other. The missile was qualified for launch from F-16 for testing purposes. There are promotional videos from MBDA showing these firings. Obviously, it was also fitted to the Australian F/A-18s. Eventually, though, the US pulled out and went with AIM-9X, which uses a development (according to some sources) of the ASRAAM seeker, now produced by whichever company owns the Hughes IP.

[Stuart Galbraith]

As they are going with external carriage on F35, one wonders if it might make sense to go back to a podded missile, as was clearly demonstrated by the early adverts. That could do a lot for reducing radar cross section.

[TrustMe]

The AIM7M performed poorly in Desert Storm with only a PK of 25.8% out of a total firing of 31 missiles.

The AIM9M performed better with a PK of 50% out of a total firing of 4 missiles.

The above were for F15C aircraft only which flew most of the anti-air missions.

 

Both performed worse than theorists had predicated. The next US led war in Serbia 1999 the use of AMRAAM was widespread. I don't know exactly the PK or number of AMRAAM missiles used but my guess would be a PK of 50%. However Serbia was outnumbered hundreds to one so it was never going to win.

Edited December 21, 2021 by TrustMe

[bojan]

Less then 50%. Don't have numbers ATM, but more than 2 were fired for each plane shot down + there were misses.

Edited December 21, 2021 by bojan