Early Russian BVR Missiles and other useless additional weight

[InvalidTargetArea 0]

So I've got a couple of questions. I bought this book called F-15 versus MiG 23/25 over Iraq 1991. I was looking for sources about the MiG-25 and sadly this is the only book I found on the MiG-25 available to me. I say sadly because even though it tries to be neutral and objective in it's assessment they still say a lot of opinionated things against the 23 primarily. However it is still not as biased as Strike Fighters can be. I was looking for sources on actual missile performance because the game simply dismisses early Russian BVR missiles as additional weight to the aircraft at best. In the book I found an account of an Iraqi pilot who shot down an F/A-18 (which was going in full afterburner) from 30km away with a single R-40R missile. Unfortunately there are no mentions of whether the F/A-18 pilot was aware of getting shot at (which I assume he would be since RWR exists) and if he was performing evasive maneuvers and/or deploying chaff. Now considering this account I would expect the in-game R-40R to hit something occasionally. Considering it was able to hit a state of the art fighter plane of the mid 1980s when itself was designed in the early 1960s

To support my claim that the game simply denies the existence of Russian technology I present you with a test I conducted today. In this test I flew a flight of 8 MiG-25PDS with all of them armed with 4x R-40R's (except myself I had 4x R-60TMs and 2x R-40Rs) against a flight of 4 MiG-29s. The hostile MiGs were completely unaware of our presence, so I descended from about 10 000m to around 3k lining up behind them, I went full burner reaching up to Mach 1.35 while the hostile MiGs were going around 450Km/h. From a distance of about 30km I ordered both my flights to start firing with me joining as well. We fired a constant barrage with varying salvo sizes from distances of 30Km down to around 15km. The picture I added says it all I think. The hostiles didn't even bother with maneuvering too much, they just popped a couple of chaffs and all our missiles simply missed. Out of frustration I fired all 4 of my R-60TMs at one of them, using salvos of 2 missiles from 8-6 km they all missed again just to play with me a little bit more.

This issue I have observed not only with the AA-6 (R-40R), but also with the AA-9 (R-33) missile on the MiG-31 though that missile is veeery slightly better, or at least the range is. If you're going to say that these missiles were designed to shoot down bombers/AWACS/strike planes etc you would be wrong with at least the MiG-25 as it is a fighter/interceptor so it was intended to use against fighter planes as well, and evidence that it CAN do so exists as I have shown with the Iraqi example. I would expect the MiG-31 to be able to use it's missiles against fighters as well as I refuse to believe the Russians would think their interceptors would not themselves be intercepted. When it comes to my R-33 experience I very often fire 4-8 missiles at a single Su-25/24 with zero hits. Only kills I get are E2Cs, P3Cs, MiG-21s and 27s.. So with the rant over I'd like to say that if you want to improve your experience then you should edit the missile performance for the Russians. Everytime I fly US planes It just feels like complete easy mode with missiles getting very good hit chances and planes being extremely stable and agile, never have I been able to get one of them into a spin in combat, which after transitioning to Russian planes I have done a decent few times before getting used to it (MiG-21 especially, but also 25 and 31).

 

Now finally I come to questions. I'd be extremely happy if someone suggested some MiG-25/31 tactics. I've been basically avoiding dogfights as they're suicide with most NATO aircraft, but since BVR missiles are so useless then that almost makes these two planes useless. Now that I intend to change the missile stats I might want to see what I can do with them instead of firing them from decent range before finding out they missed and running away.

 

I'd also like to know how a MiG-25 can tell what kind of missile is fired at it and from what direction. The one I use in game has that thing that is basically a picture of a plane with 4 LED's around it, in the MiG-21 they light up roughly showing you where the missile is. But it doesn't seem to work in the 25 and there are accounts of Iraqi pilots dodging 3/4 IR and RADAR missiles before being shot down, always deploying the correct countermeasure. But I don't know how they knew what to deploy since there's no standard RWR display like on the MiG-31.

 

Last question. The export PDS variant in the MiG-25 package found here in the download section does have chaff and flares, but the non-export one doesn't. Do we simply not know IF they had them or is it sure that they didn't have them. Because I assume that if the export version had them then the Russian version would have them. I think I'll add them because it seems sort of nonsensical that this would be the case. But if someone knows anything about this then pretty please share the information.

For me historical accuracy is more important than adding things that the plane didn't have just because I have a hunch it did or I simply want them there.

 

For clarity I mostly play the Black Sea Crisis mod and I'm using the MiG-25 in single mission, but I primarily used it on a non modded version of SF2E. In Black Sea Crisis I fly the campaign with the 31. All settings except Radar and HUD displays are on hard (those two are on normal). The AI is set to Easy in BSC and in non modded SF2 games I play on Hard AI. The test against the MiG-29s was conducted in BSC.

Sorry for the EXTREMELY long post. I feel like I needed to have this rant and if you find something wrong with what I said then please feel free to let me know.

Edited January 25, 2017 by InvalidTargetArea

[PFunk 198]

American pilots of the F-4 Phantom used to call the AIM-7 Sparrow the Great White Hope and would fire two at a time during Vietnam, just to rid themselves of excess weight.

[+Gepard 10,241]

The MiG-25P was a pure intercepter. It was intendet to intercept the XB-70 Valkyrie bombers and when the USA decided not to produce the Mach 3 capable bombers the MiG had no real target. The SR-71 could be intercepted by MiG-25 only in a small corridor over the Baltic Sea, between Sweden and the GDR, where the SR-71 had simple no space for flight path changes. There the SR-71 was intercepted nearly every time. In the north (Murmansk area), the MiG-25 was unable to intercept the SR-71, because already slight flight path changes of the Blackbird were enough to evade the MiG-25. With the MiG-31 the soviets had a fair chance to intercept the SR-71.

 

The MiG-25P were only used for intercept missions. Never for escorts, CAP, recons, air-to-ground etc.

The MiG-25R flew only recon missions.

 

The tactic was simple hit and run. Avoid enemy fighters by high speed, high altitude flying. Fire the missiles and run away.

[MigBuster 2,861]

So I've got a couple of questions. I bought this book called F-15 versus MiG 23/25 over Iraq 1991. I was looking for sources about the MiG-25 and sadly this is the only book I found on the MiG-25 available to me. I say sadly because even though it tries to be neutral and objective in it's assessment they still say a lot of opinionated things against the 23 primarily. However it is still not as biased as Strike Fighters can be. I was looking for sources on actual missile performance because the game simply dismisses early Russian BVR missiles as additional weight to the aircraft at best. In the book I found an account of an Iraqi pilot who shot down an F/A-18 (which was going in full afterburner) from 30km away with a single R-40R missile. Unfortunately there are no mentions of whether the F/A-18 pilot was aware of getting shot at (which I assume he would be since RWR exists) and if he was performing evasive maneuvers and/or deploying chaff. Now considering this account I would expect the in-game R-40R to hit something occasionally. Considering it was able to hit a state of the art fighter plane of the mid 1980s when itself was designed in the early 1960s

.

 

 

In the book the Iraqi pilot (Dawoud) clearly states he fired an R-40RD which was an upgraded variant of the R-40 from the late 70s I understand and came into service with the PD/PDS.

 

Even with Soviet test fire data it would be unlikely you would get an accurate picture because of all the other factors beside the missile that occur in combat...........the disparity between test and combat performance regarding technology of this era was well and truly demonstrated in the 60s/70s.

[Stick 773]

Try this weapons pack...

http://combatace.com/files/file/15167-red-side-standard-weapons-pack-full-beta/

 

The Acrid is a good missile and I have been hard pressed attempting to defeat it, both in the Baz and the Netz when flying against the Foxbat over Israel.

 

Tactics would typically be High Speed High Altitude, as mentioned by Gepard. Why would you want to get into a turning fight against an opponent with superior weapons and situational awareness? 

[Snailman 517]

For evaluating missile performance we need to know

 

- Which plane (mod) you used

- against what target (mod?)

- which missile (weapon pack) version used (perhaps my RSS pack?)

in what situation (launch window, altitude etc)

 

Beware that the current MiG-25 mod might be using faulty radar data (range/strength, minimum altitude) - all of which will be revised in all red aircraft.

 

Missile hit depends on a lot of factors... And not only from the missile data (CM resistance, Noise resistance, reliability% and lock on% etc etc) but radar performance (Search range/str formula AND Track range/str formula)

 

Even the best missile cannot hit if it is guided by a radar from the plane and it is poorly performing (bad data settings)

Edited January 26, 2017 by Snailman

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

It's a well known old facts : missiles are either too crappy or too god-like in current patches. The performances of the AIM-9B is way under what it's supposed to be, sparrows as well as Matra R-530 are better than reality : hence the easy killing of early MiGs. And soviet missiles either useless or way too sensitive to counter-measures. As soon as ECM, flares or chaffs are in, good luck scorring a hit except with the most modern ones.

Side question : is this pack compatible with all-inclusive mods?
Also, is there a blue-side pack. I'm fed up with the AIM-9B.

 

As a side note : I am getting my ass handed over in Black Sea Crisis, be it by blue or red side. ;) So I guess I am terrible in modern environnments.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Emp_Palpatine

[InvalidTargetArea 0]

Hello guys,

Thank you very much for the answers much appreciated. I'll try to address most of you in this one post. Starting with Gepard.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I believe the PD version was also meant to be used as a fighter/interceptor combination. I'm really sorry, but I can't remember where I've seen this information though I suspect it was in a documentary about the defection of Belenko. It was a translated documentary originally in Russian, and I don't intend to watch it again just to find this quote, sorry .

MiGBuster

You kind of caught me by surprise with this. The D version is indeed a decent upgrade from the standard R-40R. I read a lot of my information about the R-40 from wikipedia, and only just now found out what a mistake it was as it basically says that the D upgrade only appeared on the heat seeking version - the R-40T. That made miss this kind of important detail in the book as I just saw what I wanted to see. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. But despite this I would imagine that shooting literally 20 of the unmodernised R-40s would not result in exactly 0 hits.

Stick

Thanks for the recommendation I'll take a loot at it.

Snailman

A lot of what you ask I have already answered in the original post, but I'll write it up here answering everything. The MiG-29 I attacked is the one in the BSC mod, the MiG-25 I flew is the one that can be found here in the download section, I used the complete Foxbat package. The export version of the PD to be precise. I only used weapons found in the BSC and Foxbat mods (I'll give your mod a try though, looks very nice). The engagement started at 3000m ASL although we probably descended a little bit at the end of it. Missile launches started from a distance of 30km and the last ones was fired at a 15km distance. Our speed at the start of the engagement was 1.35 Mach, the 29s were doing aroung 480Km/h and were at the same altitude as us, maybe slightly lower. In total 20 R-40Rs were fired, the 29s didn't really do any  evasive maneuvers, as I said they just popped a couple of chaffs.

Emp_Palpatine

Well known old facts. Well known to you probably, but as you can see I'm a relatively new member so I'm just finding this stuff out :). I've seen complaints around the forum about missile performance but I've never seen something so extremely bad as the R-40s and R-33s are. To answer your side question I don't actually know, I just assumed that if the pack runs then it's all fine and dandy. Modern enviroments are harder definitely, but it's not that bad once you learn to fly 2m AGL below all Radar known to man

Edited January 26, 2017 by InvalidTargetArea

[Snailman 517]

@Emperor

 

Use the RSSW pack, even tho it is Red Side but includes AIM-9B as well, part of the Rear60 fix I am experimenting with.

 

@I.T.A. (sry for the abbreviation)))  Try this. Use strictly stock enemies and use a clean install of the Red Side Standard Weapons. At least AAMs can be considered final in RSS. I am doing the SAMs at the moment. You may use RSSW compatible test planes, which are stock planes with original data but with modified loadout and added cockpit to be flyable. You have been using many mods, and it is hard to say which is erratic.

At the first look, I would say that you are firing SAHM (semi active homing) missiles under the minimum radar altitude, that means the radar track strength is way too weak.

 

I propose you a test mission.  Targets  Tu-16 badger (early with no jammer or CM)  at 10000meters or more. Don't use R-40 series against fighters, they can easily outmaneuver them. Check and note the distance where they appear on the radar. If you are using RSSW, I will know the data of the missiles. Please look for the data.ini file from the MiG-25 you are playing, tell me the DetectSystem section, the RadarSearchRange RadarSearchStrength RadarTrackRange RadarTrackStrength  values. Do the same with Avionics.ini  there are the same values there as well (if we are lucky they are the same) and also check for RadarMinimumAlt value.

Believe me NOTHING was as bad as the AA-2 Atoll, stock version. out of 2000 launches, less than 5 hits (straight flying dumb AI bug). Now, IF you launch from a proper situation, surprise, and from the optimal distance, you have a good chance of hit before the target could enter a high G turn usually 1000-1200meters. It is, the most important weapon in the game, as red you have almost nothing else to shoot with.. and if you play blue, you need enemies which can actually do harm to you... ))

 

I might throw together a test MiG-25... well I did test the Acrids for RSSW so my version of the MiG-25 must be correct.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Snailman

[PFunk 198]

It's a well known old facts : missiles are either too crappy or too god-like in current patches. The performances of the AIM-9B is way under what it's supposed to be, sparrows as well as Matra R-530 are better than reality : hence the easy killing of early MiGs. And soviet missiles either useless or way too sensitive to counter-measures. As soon as ECM, flares or chaffs are in, good luck scorring a hit except with the most modern ones.

 

Side question : is this pack compatible with all-inclusive mods?

Also, is there a blue-side pack. I'm fed up with the AIM-9B.

 

As a side note : I am getting my ass handed over in Black Sea Crisis, be it by blue or red side. ;) So I guess I am terrible in modern environnments.

 

This.  I'm just about ready to completely scotch the stock weapons for this exact reason.   Yeah, yeah, I know the engine apparently can't tell you that you're getting shot at by an active-homing radar missile, but STILL.

[MigBuster 2,861]

Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. But despite this I would imagine that shooting literally 20 of the unmodernised R-40s would not result in exactly 0 hits.

 

 

For sure...........as long as they are fired within the missile and the radar parameters of the guiding aircraft and the target is cooperative.

 

When I say cooperative, flying straight and level like the typical bomber they were designed to be fired against is a good example. As for Chaff......well it was proven quite effective in Vietnam against fire control radars....the radar and missile technology here (mostly pre solid state) was very limited and primitive compared to even 1991 DS (let alone today) and didn't have the processing power to filter out Chaff...so radars usually just saw a valid target. 

 

As for parameters..........in game as a rule with aircraft without lookdown radar (like a lot in the 60s/70s) you should be getting well under the target (not level) for SARH missiles.

 

Not sure about the pack but as an example the MiG-25PDS used by Iraq had by accounts the same radar type originally in the Soviet MiG-25P. This was not a Pulse Doppler radar and thus had very limited look down capability (can't filter out the ground return)..........and the real thing couldn't even distinguish targets at all below 500 mtrs.

 

One thing that was in the game from the start was a degree of missile unreliability which was a very big part of Vietnam although TK never implemented it fully. What I mean is all missiles had a terrible reliability rate in Vietnam and big part of this was due to handling and weather.....the technology was too fragile, meaning hung missiles, missiles that drop off without the rocket firing, missiles that go stupid in flight and some AIM-7 types had a tendency to not guide and prematurely detonate.

These last 2 are in game but hung missiles and no motor fires were likely seen as a step too far.

Edited January 26, 2017 by MigBuster

[PFunk 198]

Is the Weps Pack in the download section that much better than the stock weapons?

[Snailman 517]

Is the Weps Pack in the download section that much better than the stock weapons?

 

I can say, yes ... in both good and bad meaning. Some blue weapons are much overrated, not intentionally but rather due to the game engine does not support post 80's technology. Countermeasures... we have just one type at a fixed value, CM resistance is a cumulative percentage (90% of 90% of 90% etc). Modders simply want to make a difference between modern equipment by giving 1% more CM resistance... over 90% it is no go. 100% value is simply godlike. Don't do it. Since it is proportional, the difference between 80% and 90% is almost double chance to hit.

Also, adding more than one jammer system (of the same type) and adding more than 2 chaff/flare dispenser (or the same type) also breaks the fragile balance of "effectiveness system".

[+Gepard 10,241]

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I believe the PD version was also meant to be used as a fighter/interceptor combination. I'm really sorry, but I can't remember where I've seen this information though I suspect it was in a documentary about the defection of Belenko. It was a translated documentary originally in Russian, and I don't intend to watch it again just to find this quote, sorry .

 

The MiG-25 fighter versions were used only by PVO Strany, what means air defence, and not by VVS, what means frontline air units. The training of the MiG-25 pilots was only intercept, not dogfighting. The plane had had no dogfight capabilities. It was designed as a very fast, very high flying, fast climbing airplane with limited air search abilities. The pilot relied only on ground control for target search. He has a very limited field of view from his cockpit. No chance for dogfighting.

Even the MiG-31 was intended only as interceptor.

The ability to carry the R-60 missiles is only to see as a psychological aspect. Neither MiG-25, nor 31 had a internal gun or could carry a gunpod. With the R-60 the pilots had a little weapon for selfdefence, but with the poor agility of the MiG-25 or 31, they would never had a chance to use it successfully.

It is like the R-3S Atoll missiles on a L-39 Albatros trainer. Nice to see, but no real chance to use it.

[Snailman 517]

The MiG-25 fighter versions were used only by PVO Strany, what means air defence, and not by VVS, what means frontline air units. The training of the MiG-25 pilots was only intercept, not dogfighting. The plane had had no dogfight capabilities. It was designed as a very fast, very high flying, fast climbing airplane with limited air search abilities. The pilot relied only on ground control for target search. He has a very limited field of view from his cockpit. No chance for dogfighting.

Even the MiG-31 was intended only as interceptor.

The ability to carry the R-60 missiles is only to see as a psychological aspect. Neither MiG-25, nor 31 had a internal gun or could carry a gunpod. With the R-60 the pilots had a little weapon for selfdefence, but with the poor agility of the MiG-25 or 31, they would never had a chance to use it successfully.

It is like the R-3S Atoll missiles on a L-39 Albatros trainer. Nice to see, but no real chance to use it.

 

The MiG-31 has GSh-6-23M gatling gun. But, generally agreed.

Although without hearing the opinion of an actual pilot who flown these things, we cannot be sure. The "opinion of american pilots" is usually a heavily biased source. For example, the Fitter family was constantly bitched about - yet a veteran MiG-21 instructor told me the Su-22M3 we had repeatedly defeated MiG-21MF in training fights mostly in the vertical due to it's engine power and "comfortable" stall characteristics. Soviet test pilots who flown the new planes onto Taszár air base performed vertical climb out of take off. Note that our export Fitters had weaker engines over the soviet variant, shared by the MiG-23MF. Floggers could, however defeat the Fitter having the same engine and variable wing - but much lighter airframe.

[InvalidTargetArea 0]

The MiG-25 fighter versions were used only by PVO Strany, what means air defence, and not by VVS, what means frontline air units. The training of the MiG-25 pilots was only intercept, not dogfighting. The plane had had no dogfight capabilities. It was designed as a very fast, very high flying, fast climbing airplane with limited air search abilities. The pilot relied only on ground control for target search. He has a very limited field of view from his cockpit. No chance for dogfighting.

Even the MiG-31 was intended only as interceptor.

The ability to carry the R-60 missiles is only to see as a psychological aspect. Neither MiG-25, nor 31 had a internal gun or could carry a gunpod. With the R-60 the pilots had a little weapon for selfdefence, but with the poor agility of the MiG-25 or 31, they would never had a chance to use it successfully.

It is like the R-3S Atoll missiles on a L-39 Albatros trainer. Nice to see, but no real chance to use it.

Thanks for the info. What I meant in saying that the PD was also thought to be a fighter plane is not that it can dogfight, It has trouble outturning the planet let alone a different fighter plane. What I was implying with this is that it was thought to be able to shoot down fighter airplanes as well. Otherwise why call it a fighter in the first place. Also the MiG-31 does carry an internal gun, I once killed a MiG-29 with it. First I made him dodge my R-33s and R-60s which wouldn't score a hit, but got him into a bad position, and then I just sprayed him with the gun. It's no dogfighter but if you're careful you can do stuff with it. I also shot down an Su-27 and dodged three R-73s in a dogfight. I mean it's definitely not the norm with this plane but it's somewhat usable. 

The 25 however is just trash in all regards except it's speed. It's missiles can't hit anything at all and only carries 4 of them, dogfight is impossible, radar is terrible. I'll try snailmans and MiGBusters suggestion to go lower. And also RSSW pack. I simply refuse to believe something this useless would even be implemented.

[+Gepard 10,241]

As recon bird, the MiG-25 made a great job. It operated from Egypt over Israel in the early 70th and evaded HAWK missiles and F-4E fighters by high speed high altitude runs.

There were rumours, that some MiG-25 were refitted to carry medium range Anti-Radar missiles (IIRC Kh-58 or so, with a range of approx 100km). I have never seen such refitted birds in real life.

[InvalidTargetArea 0]

Alright so I tested the RSSW pack and I also tested the stock R-40R against the MiG-23MLA. Against the 23 I achieved my first kill ever with the stock missile. 15 of them were fired in that sortie. With the RSSW pack I achieved 3 kills with both the R-40R and the R-40RD, both have shown decent countermeasure resistance even at long ranges. Also I only tried the RSSW missiles once against the 23s where the stock missile got two attempts to achieve a single kill. So I decided to do the MiG-29 test with the RSSW R-40R and was able to achieve 2 kills (admittedly I had to restart the sortie three times to achieve this, so it doesn't make the missile OP either). So the RSSW pack transforms the MiG-25 from an unguided missile carrier to a very worthy opponent.

Thank you very much for this Snailman, I think that where the missiles are right now is about how I would expect them to be. They can hit even more modern planes, but you have to get lucky and in a very good position. Unlike previously when it was literally impossible.

If I had something like an R-27 (and an Su-27) I would probably wipe out the entire flight of 29s in my first attempt, but because this missile is technologically very inferior it took a couple of tries and some luck to get the two of them. So this is exactly what I wanted.

I only remember how many missiles were used for the MiG-23 fights with the stock and RSSW R-40Rs so percentages for the remaining tests are not to be taken too seriously. A lot of the missiles fired at the 29s were used in very bad parameters, and I only estimated the number of missiles fired. The R-40RD test is not shown because I remember too little of it, but the missile is definitely much better than the base model.

Against the MiG-23MLA

The stock R-40R achieved a 6,7% kill probablity (not including one failed sortie)

The RSSW R-40R achieved a 19% kill probability

Against the MiG-29

The stock R-40R achieved a 0% kill probability

The RSSW R-40R (likely) achieved a 5% kill probability (all three sorties included, only one was succefull with both kills in that single sortie, in which a 12,5% probability was achieved)

[Snailman 517]

Thanks very much for testing!! It is a great help in making things - usable - if not completely realistic.

 

In some cases we will never know how effective some weapons were in reality. One thing must be considered: if any soviet weapon would have had 1% accuracy... while each of them cost the price of 5 brand new Volga cars - just imagine yourself in the place of the designer... you'd get a free train ticket to Magadan.

 

To my best knowledge, the israeli Shafrir-2 had the best combat hit rate (which also reflects pilot skills as well) of above 50%.

 

In defense of the players of SF2, most of the RSSW missiles were modeled to be used correctly. That's my fault that I could not finish the weapons guide that would help people to keep up to launch restrictions.

Also, again said, the same missile performs differently on a different plane - due to radar performance.

 

 

EDIT>  My version of MiG-25PD has

 

RadarSearchRange=100
RadarSearchStrength=100
RadarTrackRange=50
RadarTrackStrength=100

 

I presume these are the original values from the Mod.

 

My database, after calculations resulted these values

 

RadarSearchRange=100
RadarSearchStrength=90
RadarTrackRange=75
RadarTrackStrength=90

 

But I still lack adequately reliable (soviet/russian) data on the RP-25M. 

 

Radar on the older MiG-25 radar (before "Dorabotka"), RP-S Smerch-A  (Bignose)
 

RadarSearchRange=100
RadarSearchStrength=80
RadarTrackRange=50
RadarTrackStrength=80

 

this one has no doppler lookdown, not even limited one.

 

Data on RSSW R-40 series

 

 

Check your radar data, 100 range @ 100 strength means you detect a 10m² cross section at 100km.  -> 3m² at 30km. Same for track str. Note that you have to distract jamming strength (if any) from the radar/track strength.

CM resistance must be higher for long range missiles since the terminal approach will be long, more time for the target to dump CM. Each piece of CM triggers a percentage roll of CM resistance. More CM, more rolls = less chance to hit.

Short range IRM, launched from within 1000 meters need only 1-2sec to hit = better chance to slip through 2-4 packs of CM.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Snailman

[PFunk 198]

You guys do realize the R-27 SAHM missile has achieved a stunning 4% effectiveness in the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, right?

[+Gepard 10,241]

It happend under unbelievable bad conditions. The missiles were stored not properly. The maintanance of the missiles was poor. The ground crews were not special trained for the R-27 missile. And the targets were high agil MiG-29 or Su-27, which were able to outturn the incoming missile.

The AIM-7M had had 33% hit rate in Desert storm. Where the american ground crews were high skilled technicians, and not uneducated farmers. The Sparrow was stored under perfect condition and the maintanance was perfect. Additionally the RWS of iraqi planes were so outdated, that they often were unable to detect the radar guidance beam of the Sparrow M.

AIM-7M and R-27R were comparable. And both were bad missiles. Thatswhy the AIM-120 and R-77 were developed.