Russia unveils scary new air to air missile that "can't miss"

Zaphod58
reply to post by JohnnySasaki

 

Cruise missiles can be shot down. The F-117s are technically in flyable storage, but would have to be put back together. And that only gets you something like 59 airframes, also not really set up for Weasel work, and certainly not for fighter work. This is an air-to-air missile, so B-2s, cruise missiles, and F-117s don't get you any advantage. You need a fighter, which means F-22s, F-15s, and F-16s.

They have the T-50 in development, and the Chinese currently have two in development.

edit on 12/11/2013 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)

The air to air part was the key point I overlooked. However, those air to air missiles have to land at some point. That's were the B2's, F-117's and cruise missiles come in handy (which I believe we have some sort of stealth cruise missile now, don't we?).

BTW, 180 F22's, plus however many F-35's we're getting is a crap load of aircraft. That's assuming the F-22's don't all fall apart on takeoff, lol.

reply to post by JohnnySasaki


I wouldn't put much stock into the F-35 honestly. But it's going to come down to numbers. Even with 185 F-22s, if you're up against someone that can put up 300 Su-30s, with 4-500 backups, 185 aircraft doesn't seem so impressive suddenly.

Add to that some new radar systems that render a lot of stealth systems less effective and you have the makings of a VERY interesting fight for air superiority on your hands.

Here's a little nudge that I can give, that shows just how scary this missile really is.

Imagine for a minute, if you were to take a missile capable of using a datalink (oh, for the sake of fun, let's say a K-77M), and added an LPI datalink to it. Oh, and for fun, it's rearward facing.

Now, just to add some more fun, let's throw a BACN type platform into the mix. No radar signal of its own, but it can receive the radar picture from another aircraft just fine. And retransmit that datalink (that's LPI) to the incoming missile.

Now, let's not forget Russian doctrine is to fire bunches of missiles. So we now have a group of missiles, launched from VLO platforms, one of which is acting like a BACN platform with an LPI datalink, and thrust vectoring.

Now with that BACN link, how far out do you think that the missile has to turn its radar on? Five miles? Six? I guarantee it's less than 10. So now you suddenly have a pop-up target, that's already traveling at respectable Mach numbers, with friends, that you have to recognize as an incoming missile, and try to defend yourself against. You're instantly on the defensive, with seconds to see, identify, and react. Oh, and if you get away from one, you have three or possibly more to get away from as well.

NOW do you start to see why this is so scary?

reply to post by Zaphod58


Join the navy.....

reply to post by Zaphod58


You went there.

reply to post by Bedlam


Went where? I'm just throwing some hypotheticals out there to give an idea of what's possible and trying to show how frightening this really is.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I still think a beefed up CMWS with mm wave radar(at least a more beefed up version of it) plus a laser countermeasure in conjunction with flares and chaff would probably do the trick in defeating this threat. The key would be to adapt it to existing airframes.

Well, plasma's real reflective to radar if you want it to be. Heck, if you get the electron temperature just right, it looks like a big fat #ing target to the radar, seems way bigger than it is.

Maybe you could dangle a big plasmoid out there behind your plane, let it shine in the AESA's frequency range. Maybe move it along with your plane, only sort of off to the side.

Plasma. Is there anything you can't do with it?

How does Russia's K-77M compare to Japan's AAM-4B?
2nd.

reply to post by projectvxn


Chaff and flares have gone about as far as they can as a countermeasure. Detection has gotten so advanced that they aren't nearly as effective as they were.

As for the laser it would work, but you have to see the missile. Which is part of the problem. At mach 4, under ten miles you have zero reaction time.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Chaff and flare works great for common missiles. But as we both know this isn't a common missile.

Millimeter wave radar systems can detect these missiles. CMWS combined with a beefed up mmW-RDS, LDS, and laser countermeasures would defeat this threat. Remember this missile was created with existing technology, and in turn, can be defeated with existing technology.

Knowing what I know about the CMWS system and what threats it can detect and how, I am confident this will be but a small blip in the near future.

reply to post by projectvxn


You have the same problem with a millimeter system though. They're short range because of the wavelength used.

reply to post by peck420


The AAM-4 uses an AESA, but from what I've been told, the K-77 will be a better missile.

Zaphod58
reply to post by projectvxn

 

You have the same problem with a millimeter system though. They're short range because of the wavelength used.

Of course, a missile-borne AESA has the same issue - you have to use very short wavelengths to get enough spacing between elements in the array, and thus get the element count up to form a better beam with fewer sidelobes and get a better sweep angle.

You can improve things a tad by using a *coffnonplanararraycoff* but it makes the calculations worse on the array phase computer.

reply to post by Bedlam


That's one of the beautiful things about the K-77. The launch platform steers it into short range when its own radar takes over.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Few things come to mind.

Drones, or more unmanned fighter aircraft. I personally think you can't replace a good pilot but the navy and the air force think you can. They can pull gforce a pilot can't and can fly faster and supposedly outmaneuver these missiles. They also hive. Hive tech with missile jamming tech and even laser and sonic weapons, both of which are rumors of rumors.

Stealth, the new stealth 2.0 is much better than before. Missile can be deadly but you can't shoot down what you can't see.

Missile defense on board, there are a whole slew of new missile protection systems coming. Some of which they say will render their missiles obsolete. Talk about sci-fi, sonic weapons, lasers, new miniature electronic magnetic rail gun pods etc etc.

Speed, wow now they fly so high and so fast it is really hard to shoot at em lol. We are getting really good at taking out air defense systems from afar without putting pilots at risk.

Sooner or later they will have to face these bad boys, let's just hope some of this new technology is deployed to help protect them.

The Bot

Zaphod58
reply to post by JimTSpock

 

There is no FMRAAM. That's the ramjet based AMRAAM. The Meteor is a totally separate missile. The FMRAAM never entered development, since it lost the competition. Meteor will be able to be fielded on UK and Italian F-35s, but not the F-22, or US F-35s.

Has Meteor on F-35 been confirmed? Last I heard it was aspiration but not a funded programme, the standard Meteor wont fit in the F-35 bays and MBDA needs somebody to pay for the clipped fin model development and integration.

reply to post by justwokeup


From what I heard, the plan is for the UK to mount them on their F-35s.

reply to post by dlbott


Stealth 2.0 is much better, but the legacy aircraft still make up the vast majority of the fleet.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Maybe the DoD had foresight and saw this tech coming (oxymoron I know), hence the push for an all stealth fleet.