American and European Air to Air Missiles.

[BON PLAN]

How will MICA take down stealth aircraft with its new seeker ? Please explain

First of all with IR seeker. A bird as a F35 is all but stealth in IR wave lenghts. Even with 12tons of dry thrust it can supercruise, because it is shaped as a sugar piece : so the engine is used at a higher thrust (*) than another bird with the same load, and its skin is also slightly hotter.

And with AESA seeker, it is also something that can help to track a VLO.

The main difficulty is not the missile, it is how to find the VLO, because once it is found (thank to IR seeker on board, or low freq radars) it is dead.

(*) https://www.airforcemag.com/ge-pratt-whitney-pitch-their-f-35-engine-plans-at-farnborough/
Pratt & Whitney is arguing that its “Enhanced Engine Package” will solve what it believes is the F135’s main issue—thermal management.
“The problem statement, even though there’s no official requirement, it’s sort of derived, is around this cooling issue. … You would never in a million years put a new engine, brand-new engine, into an aircraft to solve the cooling issue,”

 

[johnj]

AIM9X is so effective that it was unable to shoot a old Su22 over Syrian coast.... Jammed by 30 years ols chaff....
The SH18 had to use an AMRAAM to do so.

block 2.
chaff jammed iir missile ?? jammed ??

 

[Flying Dagger]

First of all with IR seeker. A bird as a F35 is all but stealth in IR wave lenghts. Even with 12tons of dry thrust it can supercruise, because it is shaped as a sugar piece : so the engine is used at a higher thrust (*) than another bird with the same load, and its skin is also slightly hotter.

And with AESA seeker, it is also something that can help to track a VLO.

The main difficulty is not the missile, it is how to find the VLO, because once it is found (thank to IR seeker on board, or low freq radars) it is dead.

(*) https://www.airforcemag.com/ge-pratt-whitney-pitch-their-f-35-engine-plans-at-farnborough/
Pratt & Whitney is arguing that its “Enhanced Engine Package” will solve what it believes is the F135’s main issue—thermal management.
“The problem statement, even though there’s no official requirement, it’s sort of derived, is around this cooling issue. … You would never in a million years put a new engine, brand-new engine, into an aircraft to solve the cooling issue,”

That's what I asked ... The relation in between finding a stealth jet and a missile (MICA).

There is none..

In order to shoot an aircraft once identified offcourse it's directly related.

VLO as adversary means by the time it is identified it will use its missile against other aircraft. It doesn't mean that aircraft can't be identified.

 

[Super Flanker]

block 2.
chaff jammed iir missile ?? jammed ??

It's an incident which happened in June of 2017. On that day a US Navy F/A-18 had engaged and shot down a Syrian SU-22. The SU-22 was shot down using an AMRAAM.

Intially the F/A-18 Pilot had fired an AIM-9 at the SU-22 but the SU-22 evaded the missile with the use of Chaffs/Flares. After the unsuccessful attempt at hitting the SU-22 with an AIM-9, the US pilot fired an AMRAAM and this time it was a successful hit, the SU-22 later fell to the ground after the AMRAAM hit. The Pilot of the SU-22 luckily survived the ordeal.

"Image taken from video footage of the incident recorded by an F/A-18."

 

[johnj]

It's an incident which happened in June of 2017. On that day a US Navy F/A-18 had engaged and shot down a Syrian SU-22. The SU-22 was shot down using an AMRAAM.

Intially the F/A-18 Pilot had fired an AIM-9 at the SU-22 but the SU-22 evaded the missile with the use of Chaffs/Flares. After the unsuccessful attempt at hitting the SU-22 with an AIM-9, the US pilot fired an AMRAAM and this time it was a successful hit, the SU-22 later fell to the ground after the AMRAAM hit. The Pilot of the SU-22 luckily survived the ordeal.

View attachment 168081

"Image taken from video footage of the incident recorded by an F/A-18."

I already searched it, sh used 9x and 120, 120 version unknown.
Its used Flares, but Chaffs usage unknown and no jamming.

 

[Super Flanker]

I already searched it, sh used 9x and 120, 120 version unknown.
Its used Flares, but Chaffs usage unknown and no jamming.

I just read through the Wikipedia page on this incident and here is what it says :-

"The Su-22 shot off flares and was able to successfully avoid the missile. Tremel then quickly locked on with an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile and fired at the Syrian aircraft, successfully reaching the Fitter and blowing up on the jet's backside."

The AIM-9X is a heat seeking missile, heat seeking missiles Have a guidance system that directs them toward targets emitting infrared radiation (as the emissions of a jet engine).

The SU-22 fired flares and flares are most effective way to deal with heat seeking missiles.

 

[BON PLAN]

block 2.
chaff jammed iir missile ?? jammed ??

sorry, not chaff, but flares.

 

[BON PLAN]

That's what I asked ... The relation in between finding a stealth jet and a missile (MICA).

There is none..

In order to shoot an aircraft once identified offcourse it's directly related.

VLO as adversary means by the time it is identified it will use its missile against other aircraft. It doesn't mean that aircraft can't be identified.

A low band radar is used to give a non accurate enough position to fire a missile, but enough to help the optronic search and track IR system on board of all the modern fighter. With it, you can easily fired an IR missile. Rafale's OSF has a range of more than 40km. At such a range it can magnify the picture so as to positively identify a target.

It is interessant to note that France only ordered a small batch of Meteor : we need to have it for some special targets as tanker, awacs... and not to let to the other eurocanard such a prestigious weapon for export.
But the main AtoA missile for french air force is MICA, and MICA NG no specially increase the max range of the missile, but the NEZ from >15-20 to >25km for a radar free fire.
MICA was fine tune with OSF perf, and MICA NG will be with OSF NG.

 

[Flying Dagger]

A low band radar is used to give a non accurate enough position to fire a missile, but enough to help the optronic search and track IR system on board of all the modern fighter. With it, you can easily fired an IR missile. Rafale's OSF has a range of more than 40km. At such a range it can magnify the picture so as to positively identify a target.

It is interessant to note that France only ordered a small batch of Meteor : we need to have it for some special targets as tanker, awacs... and not to let to the other eurocanard such a prestigious weapon for export.
But the main AtoA missile for french air force is MICA, and MICA NG no specially increase the max range of the missile, but the NEZ from >15-20 to >25km for a radar free fire.
MICA was fine tune with OSF perf, and MICA NG will be with OSF NG.

Aware of this development already. Thanks

Regarding Meteor , 60-70 km of NEZ gives it a fair chances against any fighter jet.

France isn't in any active war with any major air power like China or Pakistan. They don't really need a huge stocks of such expensive missiles.

Though countries like India or even Greece will need so.

 

[BON PLAN]

Aware of this development already. Thanks

Regarding Meteor , 60-70 km of NEZ gives it a fair chances against any fighter jet.

France isn't in any active war with any major air power like China or Pakistan. They don't really need a huge stocks of such expensive missiles.

Though countries like India or even Greece will need so.

Some source in Europe said the maximum range of Meteor, at the end in a near ballistical flight, is in the 300km... NEZ is good against a very agile target, as a fighter, but against a slow moving target as a tanker, the operationnal range is somewhere between 70 and 300km.

It's not because we are not as you said "in any active war with a major air power (it's true) " that we reduce the number of Meteor. The way the french air force operates is to positively identify the target before opening the fire.

If the two USAF F15 had positively identify the UH-60 UN helicopter in Irak during Provide Confort in 1995, they wouldn't have shooted it ! 26 killed !

 

[Hari Sud]

Do not consider the AAMRAM to be ultimate in air to air missile. To project it the best, it is mostly marketing. Five of these missiles were fired at Indian Su-30mk1 during the last India - Pakistan engagement two years back and all the AAMRAM did not find the target. They ran out of something ….. fuel or electronics wizardry and never found the target. Hence I would not put American air to air missile in the higher league.

 

[DumbPilot]

Do not consider the AAMRAM to be ultimate in air to air missile. To project it the best, it is mostly marketing. Five of these missiles were fired at Indian Su-30mk1 during the last India - Pakistan engagement two years back and all the AAMRAM did not find the target. They ran out of something ….. fuel or electronics wizardry and never found the target. Hence I would not put American air to air missile in the higher league.

Where do you get this figure of 5 missiles

 

[Hari Sud]

Where do you get this figure of 5 missiles

‘Keep reading the newspapers of that time and you will find the information and their broken and busted parts with AAMRAM printed on them

 

[Super Flanker]

Do not consider the AAMRAM to be ultimate in air to air missile. To project it the best, it is mostly marketing. Five of these missiles were fired at Indian Su-30mk1 during the last India - Pakistan engagement two years back and all the AAMRAM did not find the target. They ran out of something ….. fuel or electronics wizardry and never found the target. Hence I would not put American air to air missile in the higher league.

Pakistan has AIM-120c5, this is an older variant of AIM-120, there are better & newer versions of AMRAAMs like AIM-120D/7 etc. They have better electronics, better ECMs, more range in Comparison to their predecessors.

According to sources, PAF F-16s had used 4-5 AIM-120c5s against 1 SU-30 which had callsign Avenger 1, I also heard heard that AMRAAMS were fired not only at Avenger-1 but also at Avenger 2 so PAF wasted AMRAAMs on both Avenger-1 & 2.

To be fair, there are many contradicting claims and counter claims made on this issue.

-Some say that SU-30s jammed the AMRAAMs with their israeli Elta jammer pods.
-Some say that SU-30s out-manouvered the missiles.
-Some say that the missiles were fired from very far away (out of their Effective NEZ zone) and therefore the SU-30s could easily have dodged them.
Etc.

No offence but I think so that PAF pilots were also to be blamed, I have repeatedly read posts on this forum Which say that Pakistani F-16 pilots are very unprofessional and were given passing marks in their training, this could explain the desperation of Paki pilots to score a hit on an IAF SU-30, and to do so they just spammed missiles at the SU-30s in hopes of shooting down one of them. Ofcource they never managed to shoot down a SU-30 in real life.

 

[BON PLAN]

Do not consider the AAMRAM to be ultimate in air to air missile. To project it the best, it is mostly marketing. Five of these missiles were fired at Indian Su-30mk1 during the last India - Pakistan engagement two years back and all the AAMRAM did not find the target. They ran out of something ….. fuel or electronics wizardry and never found the target. Hence I would not put American air to air missile in the higher league.

The missiles used to indian Su30 were fired far from the NEZ. The best missile of the world, when fired againt a too far target or a moving target without mid course refresh position is lost.
The AMRAAM qualities or weakness are not in question here.

 

[Super Flanker]

The missiles used to indian Su30 were fired far from the NEZ. The best missile of the world, when fired againt a too far target or a moving target without mid course refresh position is lost.
The AMRAAM qualities or weakness are not in question here.

If it is true that Pakistani F-16s fired those AMRAAMs out of their effective NEZ zone then this just proves how unprofessional Pakistani pilots truly are.

PAF used AIM-120 "C" against the SU-30s that day and unit cost of "C" variants of AMRAAMS are estimated to cost between US$300,000–$400,000 dollars so AMRAAMs aren't cheap and no professional pilots would "spam" a barrage of missiles at a given target unless they know that their shot has the highest probability of scoring a hit against their target.

In BVR, closer your target to you when you launch your missile, the more probability of the target getting hit and the farther your target is from you when you launch your missile, the lesser probability of the target getting hit.

On twitter Sameer Joshi though was saying that one of the SU-30s evaded an AMRAAM in it's NEZ zone. As I said before, there are always claims and counter claims in such cases.

Whatever it is, PAF Reportedly fired 4-5 AMRAAMs at SU-30s that day with all failing to hit their targets. So that means PAF waisted 2 million+ in dollars worth of missiles only in taking potshots at SU-30s.

 

[Hari Sud]

The missiles used to indian Su30 were fired far from the NEZ. The best missile of the world, when fired againt a too far target or a moving target without mid course refresh position is lost.
The AMRAAM qualities or weakness are not in question here.

‘Too technical about distance. The pilots who used these knew the distance hence your argument is unbelievable. Something else was done to neuterlize it. What was that Something else?

 

[DumbPilot]

If it is true that Pakistani F-16s fired those AMRAAMs out of their effective NEZ zone then this just proves how unprofessional Pakistani pilots truly are.

This is absolutely false.. most missiles are not fired in NEZ.

NEZ(no escape zone) is that portion of the missile's flight in which there is an almost 100% guarantee of hitting the target while the target is running away, and during ballistic(missile motor has been spent already) flight.

Due to the nature of BVR combat, for you to fire your missiles inside NEZ means:
1) Your opponents have a shitty missile that does not have as much range as yours.
2) You, for some reason, have not turned away from the bandit group even though by now you should have(as launching in NEZ also places you inside the enemy's NEZ if he has a comparable missile)

For example here is an AIM-9L range chart

If the max limit is 26,000ft(4 nautical miles~) then NEZ would be around 8,000ft(1 nautical mile~). Something usually goes very wrong or very right if you have to fire at NEZ..

 

[Dark Sorrow]

If it is true that Pakistani F-16s fired those AMRAAMs out of their effective NEZ zone then this just proves how unprofessional Pakistani pilots truly are.

It is a common practice in all AFs when engaging in contested airspace. Nothing unprofessional about that.
Modern BVRAAM have seeker and target acquisition capabilities when can detect and lock on to target on end run independently.

This has two goals

1. Create airspace denial for some time in designated area.
2. Increase psychological pressure on enemy making him search, jam or dodge the missile on priority breaking his engagement/lock

This frees the enemy to carry out their operation.

However small chance that such BVRAAM will hit an aircraft it still has a chance and no one would endanger a priced asset like fighter aircraft unless stakes are not high.

 

[Dark Sorrow]

NEZ(no escape zone) is that portion of the missile's flight in which there is an almost 100% guarantee of hitting the target while the target is running away, and during ballistic(missile motor has been spent already) flight.

One correction NEZ is that portion of the missile's flight in which there is enough energy available to the missile to hit target but doesn't guarantee 100% of hitting the target while the target, as the target may have ECM and other such counter measures.