KA50 can shoot down aircraft in ArmA why?

[ricnunes 0]

Hitting with an air target with a Hellfire is just as plausible as hitting that air target with a Vikhr, for the reasons that I just mentioned before and I won't post again because I don't want to sound repetitive and I think that the reasons that I previously gave are more than realistic ones.

The only diference between both missiles is that the Vikhr has a proximity fuze/fragmentation warhead which can damage an air target in case of a near miss while the Hellfire has only a contact fuse/HE shaped charge warhead.

But in the other hand the Hellfire is more precise and more agile than the Vikhr. But nevertheless the employment of both weapons against air targets (and ANY targets) is exactly what SUBS17 described, you aim an optical targeting system (a camera, which can be TV or IR) to the air target, fire the laser and fire the weapon and keep the camera pointed at the air target until the kill is achived.

So if you are against the possibility of the Hellfire to lock air targets than should be against the possibility of the Vikhr locking air targets as well in ArmA, afterall both missiles lock air targets EXACTLY the same WAY!

So lets resume a comparative capability of both missiles against air targets:

Vikhr advantage over Hellfire:

- Proximity fuze and fragmentation warhead

- Speed (this advantage is however not so big is we consider the Vikhr spiral flight profile)

- Less prone to jamming

Hellfire advantage over the Hellfire:

- Higher agility (since it has a 3D control surfaces against the 2D of the Vikhr. Also the flight profile of the Hellfire is potencially better to deal with air targets than the spiral one of the Vikhr)

- Higher precision (the Hellfire in some situation is capable of hitting and going thru a window of a building while the Vikhr is a much less precise weapon)

- More powerfull warhead.

I won't say which one is better. I also won't say that the Vikhr can be better than the Hellfire against an air target. But I say that the diference between both isn't that BIG and that I'm 100% sure that definitly the diference between both isn't that big enough to justify that the Vikhr can lock air targets while the Hellfire don't!

So I think that BIS have 3 choises:

1- The easier one, which is to remove the ability of the Vikhr to lock air targets (like we had in previous versions to v1.12) so that NO air-to-ground weapon locks air targets (including the Vikhr)!

2- A bit more dificult one, which is not only to give the ability for the Hellfire to lock air targets but reducing the Vikhr (and Hellfire if needed) effectiveness and accuracy against air targets.

3- The extremelly dificult one, which is implementing what SUBS17 said in his last post. I doubt that BIS will ever implement this in ArmA but I HOPE that they WILL implement this in ARMA2!

Anyway, I agree and would be happy with any of those 3 options!

Replying to the following statement:

Quote[/b] ]Now I'm not sure exactly which version of Hellfire it is that is provided in ArmA.

The Hellfire modeled in ArmA is the AGM-114K HellfireII, which is the "standard" Hellfire version for the AH-1Z Viper. The AH-1Z can also fire the AGM-114L (radar guided) since it can also be equiped with the Longbow radar but that's not the case in ArmA so the Hellfire in ArmA should definitly be the AGM-114K HellfireII (laser guided).

Quote[/b] ]In *theory* you could hit an aircraft travelling at supersonic speeds and pulling lots of G with an LGB, even if you weren't actually aiming at it Just very unlikely, two objects happening to be at the same place at the same time. Heck, you could theoretically bring down a plane with a mortar if the plane was very very unlucky.

What we always talk here about is the ability to hit a target with a guided weapon while guided and not by pure luck (or unguided like you mentioned)

[ShrubMiK 0]

"The only diference between both missiles is that the Vikhr has a proximity fuze/fragmentation warhead which can damage an air target in case of a near miss while the Hellfire has only a contact fuse/HE shaped charge warhead."

You do seem to be glossing over this. Another way of looking at it is: what you have just described is one of the fundamental differences that distinguishes AA missiles from AT missiles *in general*. Along with speed and agility, of course.

"you aim an optical targeting system (a camera, which can be TV or IR) to the air target, fire the laser and fire the weapon and keep the camera pointed at the air target until the kill is achived."

You make it sound so simple! I wonder why any AA missile ever fails to hit its target, especially ones using semi-active radar homing, since it is much easier to keep the target painted with a radar cone than a linear laser?

Again I repeat: the ability to keep the laser designator painting the target is the trivial bit.

I'm not sure you took on board my earlier point about how semi-active homing modes tend to lead to curved flight paths and tail chases against crossing targets, unless the missiles are smart enough to navigate themselves ahead of the target ("proportional navigation"). It's not impossible that Hellfire can do this, I'm just sceptical it has been designed into the standard missile seeker since this seems to be a role it was not explicitly designed for.

The spiralling of the Vikhr seems to be not much of a worry in an AA role, since it has the proximity fuse. How does the radius of the spiral compare to that of the proximity fuse? I'm guessing quite a bit smaller.

Anyway, I don't think we fundamentally disagree on the principles, I think we just disagree on what the hit probabilities would be and at what speed the target would become too hard to hit.

Me, I'd be tempted to say that ArmA should stick with simple approaches, expecting full-flight sim type flight models for all missiles in the game and realistic modelling of the differences between control and guidance systems is only going to lead to disappointment ArmA2 may be better in this regard, we can certainly hope So, my opinion: ArmA should simply have should be some maximum target speed at which both missiles can lock air targets, probably a bit higher for Vikhr than Hellfire due to the desing features for secondary AA role. Exactly what those speeds should be I don't know. but clearly a heli moving no faster than a tank must be an easy target, whereas a heli moving much faster than a tank will be more difficult. Pick some sensible numbers. Reduce the probability of a hit in some relatively simplistic way for higher target speed, and perhaps depending on the amount of manoevering done by the target during the missile flight (keep a count of the number of degrees the nose turned in either direction during this time?). Roll the dice. If the dice roll says it hits, Heelfire should do more damge than Vikhr.

Result should be (IMO) that Vikhr should be more usable against air targets than Hellfire, but certainly not the massive disparity we see at the moment. And if somebody is sitting there in auto-hover hosing down my base and not taking any notice of me, I certainly would expect to have a good chance of ruining his day with a Hellfire.

While we are on the subject, should similar abilities be extended to ground-launched ATGMs as well? Even a manually guided TOW should have a good chance to hit a very slow moving heli.

[subs17 9]

What Janes LB2 did was allow Stingers to be carried on the Apaches and that was what you used for A/A or the cannon. IRL if you had to face an enemy air threat then they would most likely refit AAMs to the Apaches. The AH1 can still carry the sidewinder and its probably better for both the KA50 and AH1 in Arma to have a dedicated AAM like the sidewinder for the AH1 and R73 missile for the KA50. Better that or else you have to make the weapons employment more complex to make it necessary for the pilot to guide the AT missile himself.

[Frank-O 0]

Just add 2 stingers to the Cobra and close this topic... you're arguing in circles, guys.

[hailstorm 4]

ok, all the data about each missile is great and all, but to be honest, this *all* boils down to how ArmA handles targeting - the 'tab lock'. We can all agree that it's way too easy to do - and the whole debate about the vikhr wouldn't exist if both it and the hellfire had realistic/more complicated/time consuming means of targeting stuff. think about it. if it took longer to lock and fire off a missile, would it really be that 'overpowered'?

ideally, the best thing to do would be introduce a 'time delay' between the designation of a target, and the time the missile achieves a lock - to simulate the pilot operating the various systems to lock on. this delay means the pilot shooting would seriously need to think about aircraft position, prioritizing targets, etc.

failing that, if anything should really be done in the engine to fix this, it would be to change the maneuverability of the missiles so they can't hit fast-moving targets (i.e. jets). as it is, the current missiles have a turning radii somewhere around 20-30 meters, and a vikhr fired head-on at an a-10 can fly past it, and turn fast enough to clip the tail and cause damage. missiles definitely don't need this kind of maneuverability to hit a tank that's practically stationary in comparison (and would also remove the '180 degree off-boresight' AA ability the vikhr currently has).

personally, i don't mind the Vikhr being able to target helicopters and the hellfire not, provided it's restricted in it's application to a realistic degree (i.e. can't hit jets or fast-manuvering helicopters)

[NoRailgunner 0]

If there were no proxy/AI issues with planes and helicopters and realistic armament... well the discussion/moaning could be about different missiles range ingame. Lets hope BIS will work on such real things and don't listen too much to people saying "I don't care about realism and AI".

[Neon Samurai 0]

What Janes LB2 did was allow Stingers to be carried on the Apaches and that was what you used for A/A or the cannon. IRL if you had to face an enemy air threat then they would most likely refit AAMs to the Apaches. The AH1 can still carry the sidewinder and its probably better for both the KA50 and AH1 in Arma to have a dedicated AAM like the sidewinder for the AH1 and R73 missile for the KA50. Better that or else you have to make the weapons employment more complex to make it necessary for the pilot to guide the AT missile himself.

Ya that is true with regards Longbow 2, though the Hellfires tended to be better at downing big choppers like the Mi-24 Hind, They rarely missed unless it was a smaller fast moving helo. The stingers however frequently got decoyed by flares, and even when they hit they often wouldn't bring down a Hind or similar. In LB2 and Enemy Engaged I personally tended to use hellfires against other helicopters and save the stingers for fighters.

Also the point you bring up of the US refitting dedicated AAMs like the stinger on the apache would be true if they were in a war where they did not have complete air dominance (they probably got removed in the first place because the US figures it is done with fighting wars where they don't have utter control over the sky, thats also why AtA/GtA variants of the hellfire were not developed (why bother when you really don't need them, and there are existing systems which function sufficiently like the stinger).

Oh and as a general statement, the sims Longbow and Longbow 2 were indeed from Janes.

[ricnunes 0]

"The only diference between both missiles is that the Vikhr has a proximity fuze/fragmentation warhead which can damage an air target in case of a near miss while the Hellfire has only a contact fuse/HE shaped charge warhead."

You do seem to be glossing over this. Another way of looking at it is: what you have just described is one of the fundamental differences that distinguishes AA missiles from AT missiles *in general*. Along with speed and agility, of course.

The proximity fuze/fragmentation warhead is inded one of the diferences from AA to AT missiles because those kind of fuzes and warheads allow "near miss" kills and since aircraft aren't armored (even "armoured" gunship helicopters aren't armored as an armoured ground vehicle) such kill can be achived. But this doesn't mean that missiles can't kill their targets by contact, actually AA missiles seem more often to achive their kills by contact rather than by proximity.

Quote[/b] ]"you aim an optical targeting system (a camera, which can be TV or IR) to the air target, fire the laser and fire the weapon and keep the camera pointed at the air target until the kill is achived."

You make it sound so simple! I wonder why any AA missile ever fails to hit its target, especially ones using semi-active radar homing, since it is much easier to keep the target painted with a radar cone than a linear laser?

Again I repeat: the ability to keep the laser designator painting the target is the trivial bit.

ShrubMiK, I didn't say that it was "so easy" to aim a laser (using FLIR) into an air target (but not that hard for trained crew) and much less that it's as easier to aim a laser than aiming it with a radar or with an IR seeker (from an AA missile like the sidewinder). What I meant was that it's as "easy" to keep a laser aimed into an air target using the KA-50 optical targeting system (Shkval) as it is with the AH-1Z optical targeting system (TSS) or with the Apache optical targeting system (TADS) which means that targeting an air target works the same way for both the Vikhr and Hellfire (actually the KA-50 is in disadvantage here because it doesn't have a gunner which means higher workload for the pilot).

Quote[/b] ]The spiralling of the Vikhr seems to be not much of a worry in an AA role, since it has the proximity fuse. How does the radius of the spiral compare to that of the proximity fuse? I'm guessing quite a bit smaller.

Well I kinda disagree here. For a missile to manage a proximity kill it must detonate very close to the target (it must be a "NEAR miss") or else the detonation will have absolutelly NO effect on it's target. This is specially true for small missile like the Vikhr.

In order for the missile to get close enough it must be agile enough to keep with the air target a thing that due to it's flight profile the Vikhr simply isn't, as opposed to dedicated A/A missiles (like the Sidewinder or R73)!

So resuming, if the missile doesn't have the agility, it doesn't manage to get close to it's target and if it doesn't manage to get close it's proximity fuze/fragmentation warhead becomes useless!

Quote[/b] ]Result should be (IMO) that Vikhr should be more usable against air targets than Hellfire, but certainly not the massive disparity we see at the moment. And if somebody is sitting there in auto-hover hosing down my base and not taking any notice of me, I certainly would expect to have a good chance of ruining his day with a Hellfire.

Yes, I don't disagree with that aproach. Actually I always left open the possibity that the Vikhr could be better than the Hellfire against air targets but only slightly so and like you said not the disparity we see at the moment. But the Hellfire shouldn't only be used against hovering helicopters but slow flying helicopters as well.

Quote[/b] ]While we are on the subject, should similar abilities be extended to ground-launched ATGMs as well? Even a manually guided TOW should have a good chance to hit a very slow moving heli.

That's a very good question which definitly comes with the opening by BIS of the "Vikhr's pandora box".

Actually and regarding to the TOW, you can already hit a slow moving air target with a TOW in ArmA. I usually do this in Evolution for example

You just need to aim and keep the TOW's sight into the air target. Of course if the air target is moving fast and manovering you will almost certainly miss.

The BMP-2 ATGM works the same way as the TOW so the same rules apply to it as well

The other ATGM left in ArmA is the Javelin, which is real life have some anti-air capabilities against helicopters, at least according to this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin

but in ArmA it's doesn't have any capability of locking air targets therefore it can't be used against such targets. So again if the Vikhr can lock air targets the Javelin should also lock them as well, one more reason why I say that BIS opened a "Pandora box" or a "can of worms" with the implementation of the Vikhr's capability to lock and engage air targets.

[subs17 9]

Oh and as a general statement, the sims Longbow and Longbow 2 were indeed from Janes.

Yeah I quite enjoyed Janes sims F-15E, F/A-18E, LB, LB2 etc The only sim that was better was Falcon 4 but that was not until later on when F4s mods were released. BTW Janes were supposed to do a new sim after Janes F/A-18E which was going to involve lots of addon aircraft and merging flight sims with ships etc but changes to their company resulted in it never happening.

[Neon Samurai 0]

Yes that was one of the nails in the coffin of the golden age of simulations.

As for F4 I agree, it took a couple of years but it ended up as "the" ultra high fidelity fighter sim (imho anyhow). Btw I still fly LB2 from time to time, its still one of the best helo sims ever made (Enemy Engaged has gotten really good too, Its also been modded to heck like F4)

[rstratton 0]

Perhaps it should be added that the Vikhr is not good against fast movers such as jets (which can move fast and pull a lot of g's to expend the missiles kinetic energy)

well if they dont know its coming how can they evade it

[Jex =TE= 0]

Oh and as a general statement, the sims Longbow and Longbow 2 were indeed from Janes.

Yeah I quite enjoyed Janes sims F-15E, F/A-18E, LB, LB2 etc The only sim that was better was Falcon 4 but that was not until later on when F4s mods were released. BTW Janes were supposed to do a new sim after Janes F/A-18E which was going to involve lots of addon aircraft and merging flight sims with ships etc but changes to their company resulted in it never happening.

Still flying LB2 today as it goes on XP. Can't say it doesn't have it's quirks (works better on Vista) but it does work and we're having a blast - did some front seat/back seat last night. As for the discussion here - lot of people talking about nothing they know about - wow there's a suprise

[Neon Samurai 0]

well if they dont know its coming how can they evade it

Same way they avoid IR missiles (they don't give warnings either).

Good combat pilots are constantly looking around for bogies & missile trails and never fly straight and level for very long at low altitudes while over a combat zone.

I still think the vikhr would be next to useless against fighter jets, I don't think it has the turning rate & circle, or speed/momentum needed to hit a maneuvering fighter. Plus by the time the pilot locks it up the jet would probably be long gone (or the helo blown out of the sky by a sidewinder or similar).

[vilas 477]

walker....

you know ARMA was advertised as "military simulator" but in fact... ekhh... it is not :/

it has many unreal bugs

you tell about rockets, than i will tell you that AKS74U from AK74 differs in this game only in model, not in balistics...

it seems that we both expect too much :P

[ShrubMiK 0]

>well if they dont know its coming how can they evade it

Somebody else who hasn't stopped to think about the non-trivial physics of achieving an interception by any sort of missile on a fast moving target, even when it is not evading

And leaving that aside...

Aside from the possibility of a pilot spotting the incoming missile or its contrail, or somebody else radioing him to tell him, there is also the possibility of automated systems detecting that a fire control laser appears to be locked onto him aircraft, which might give him a big hint to start taking evading action

>Same way they avoid IR missiles (they don't give warnings either).

There is also such a thing as an active missile-warning radar which attempts to identify incoming missiles, deduce that it is IR (from the lack of an active guidance signal) and automatically trigger flares if the missile is too close to evade.

This is immaterial of course, since the chances of getting realistic guidance modes, ECM, and ECCM into ArmA is somewhere between "non-existent" and "really really really non-existent"

[ricnunes 0]

There is also such a thing as an active missile-warning radar which attempts to identify incoming missiles, deduce that it is IR (from the lack of an active guidance signal) and automatically trigger flares if the missile is too close to evade.

Yes, that's true! The only thing that's not entirely correct is that the system you describe which are called Missile Warning Systems don't use radars (at least usually) to detect incoming missiles but instead uses several IR sensors located around the aircraft (covering the areas around the aircraft) which serves to detect any incoming missile, doesn't matter if it's Radar-Guided, IR-Guided, Laser-Guided or simply Unguided (like for example a RPG).

Examples or aircraft which already use these systems are the AH-1Z (which is modeled in ArmA) and later versions of the Apache, between many other aircraft.

[Frank-O 0]

I wonder how the argument would change when Kamov's get the R73 and Cobra's get the AIM-9X with a reduction in AT loadout. Or even better, a human decision to choose what load out to take before he takes off.

Posted on the 1.5 Warfare topic about a gaming situation. Thought I'd summarize it here.

Playing in a long and drawn out 1.5f Warfare game. Front was pretty much stabilized at Corazol.

I had 28k, so I thought to assemble an AI Kamov and myself and along with another human KA-50, flew in formation SE towards the south island.

A player A-10 came into detection range, and the AI helo and I started triangulating fire with Vikhrs on him, I'm not sure if the other human Kamov fired too. i thought he was shot down or bugged out.

Vikhr's had a tough time locking on, and I had to repeatedly tab to update the A-10's position as he was flying low and fast at 600+. 2 missiles each to get him into defensive evasive mode, then following the AI's cue, I laid down a volley of 4 Vikhr's spread out like a sub/convoy torpedo spread attack. When he had to turn, deflection was not an issue. The A-10 was shot down at a range of 3.3 km, and I suspect 1 of the 8 Vikhr's had nailed him in the exhaust.

I like the idea of a lock-on delay for the "diamond" lock when changing targets. This prevents a Robotech style multi-AT missile firing volley at a 3+ tank volume.

How about a missile lock-on warning message? Then flares deploy when

the missile is within 600m range.

[whisper 0]

But this doesn't mean that missiles can't kill their targets by contact, actually AA missiles seem more often to achive their kills by contact rather than by proximity.

Sources, please.

Everything I've read so far lead to most A2A missile kills being done through proximity detonation and not actual hit on the target.

[ricnunes 0]

Sources, please.

Everything I've read so far lead to most A2A missile kills being done through proximity detonation and not actual hit on the target.

1- Look at that "famous" (youtube) video posted here where the Vikhr destroys the Tu-16 drone. I think it's clear that the Vikhr kills that Tu-16 by contact and not by proximity.

2- If you can, watch History's Channel dogfight series (not the Korea or WWII episodes of course    - but the ones from Vietnam or Desert Storm for example).

3- I've already posted here that for example the AIM-9X Sidewinder has contact fuze. The link to the site is here:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/aim-9.htm

Actually most air-to-air missiles seem to not only have proximity fuzes but also contact fuzes. The AIM-7 Sparrow and the AIM-120 are examples of this:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/aim-7.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/militar....am.html

http://designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-120.html

4- Older missiles such as the AIM-4 Falcon, seem to only have contact fuzes, see here (in the AIM-4 Falcon section):

http://www.canit.se/~griffon/aviation/text/missiles/aam.html

[whisper 0]

1) single event do not prove the majority of kills are done by contact.

2) I can't

3) 9X is state of the art air to air missile today, so yes, maybe its guidance system is good enough to make contact fuze viable. I doubt it's the case for the Air-to-Ground Hellfire, as excellent as Hellfire is.

Sparrow has contact fuze as a backup for the prox fuze, the main detonation system is proximity.

AIM120 has apparently a wearhead with contact fuze tested against bombers (according to your source), which, yes, may be efficient for such target, and is perhaps (it is not said) just a new version of a possible backup contact fuze like there is in AIM7.

4) the first version ever, yes. Not mentionned for all the following versions of the same missile. I wonder why

So, maybe the best A2A missile today can achieve most kills by contact, but I still think it's far from the case for "normal" older generation missiles or missiles not specifically designed to chase high speed maneuvering targets.

For these latter missiles (older gen, and/or not A2A), proximity fuze will dramatically improve the pK, imho.

The war reports I read mentionned most of the time kill by proximity (though I can conced most of the war reports where the actual kill was seen first hand were often quite old, Vietnam area)

The fact that missile kill by missing their target was the first thing I've read concerning A2A modern combat. It was for example the 1st fact mentionned in Falcon 4 A2A documentation (partly made if I remember well by a former USAF pilot, or at least double checked by him).

Lastly, there are entire PDFs and such that run around the web describing method and new technologies for prox fuzes and detonation time calculation, showing how important improving in this area is for missiles efficiency.

That said, I've put some water in my wine (local saying here in my country ) and I can appreciate adding air-lock on Hellfire missiles, though I still think the pK for it should be really lower than Vikhr (without Vikhr being as efficient as it is today in game, cause it is quite ridiculous currently)

[max power 21]

The premise that since a2a missiles have backup proximity fuses therefore the hellfire is a fine air to air weapons since it only has a contact fuse is categorically ridiculous.

Futher, that dogfights always show the missiles slamming through aircraft like spears. The show is highly theatrical. I doubt that it is 100% accurate in all cases, least of all in the particulars of each missile flight. This is especially true for the cases where the missiles were fired BVR or at medium and long ranges. The pilot's guncam nor the pilot would be able to distinguish the missile in flight itself other than its con trail never mind how close it got to the aircraft he shot at. Throw that in with 20 - 40 years of erosion on the pilot's memory, subjectivity, and vague paper records and the last thing you can glean from that show is the exact flight of each object involved down to the hand full of cubic meters that differentiate a direct hit from a proximity hit.

And finally, whether or not the vikhr in that video hit directly or not is in no way relevant to the discussion. We know it has a proximity fuse. We also know that all other air to air missiles have a proximity fuse. What fuse it was using to down that bomber for the purposes of that test is unknown to us, just as whether or not its proximity fuse was triggered is difficult to discern. So not only is it difficult to figure out / impossible to know what's going on in the video, the video only demonstrates that the vikhr has hit an aircraft at some point. By your own argument, that tu-16 was a weak target given its size and slow speed, regardless of the fact that its speed in that video is unknown to us (it may have been anywhere between its stall speed and its maximum speed of 1000 km/h). This video in no way can be used to support your argument that hellfires are an effective air to air platform.

[ShrubMiK 0]

The Rapier SAM used to be nicknamed "hittile" because it was supposed to be so accurate it didn't need a proximity fuse. I believe they gave up on that idea a long time ago, probably partly due to it not living up to expectations in real combat situations, primary the Falklands.

Ricnunes: you may be right that there are IR-based missile warning suites nowadays, as I've said before I'm out of touch nowadays. But if you look at the Harrier you will clearly see a lump sticking out behind the tail. I can tell you with 100% confidence that that is an active radar missile warning antenna, and that when testing it on the ground it was necessary to attach a box full of radar-absorbent material to avoid frying anyone nearby (slight exaggeration but it wouldn't have been good for your health, anyway).

A passive missile warning system would have advantages - mainly not giving away your position, particularly important for a helicopter trying to sneak up on and ambush targets from cover...but might not be as effective as a radar based system (the hottest part of incoming missiles is facing away from the detector).

[ricnunes 0]

The premise that since a2a missiles have backup proximity fuses therefore the hellfire is a fine air to air weapons since it only has a contact fuse is categorically ridiculous.

First of all, ridiculous is your granny!

Secondly if you want to argue with me or with anyone do it with respect! I disagree with the vast majority of your points but never called them ridiculous because I must respect others points of view even if i think they are ridiculous too like yours, so I reply to any points including yours with respect and I apreciate that you do the same of else I think you should leave the discussion.

Third, I never said that the Hellfire was/is a "fine" A2A weapon. Actually I said that both the Hellfire and Vikhr are NOT "fine" A2A weapons and their ability to engage aerial targets is very limited (again for both the Vikhr and Hellfire), specially if the air target is flying either fast or manouvering hard.

One can argue that the missile seen hitting aircraft in History's Channel dogfight series may be "theatrical" or that missiles detonate so near an enemy aircraft that we can't tell if it was a contact or proximity detonation. But while I may have deviated a bit from my course here, my point wasn't to support if most kills are done by contact versus proximity or vice-versa but instead my point supported with the previous links that I gave together with the facts that A2A or anti-air missile have hit enemy aircraft in combat and due to a failure in the detonator returned inside the targeted aircraft are more than proofs that missile can hit and destroy air targets BY CONTACT! This is also one more proof that the Hellfire while not having a proximity fuze and/or fragmentation warhead can still kill an enemy aircraft! So this together with the fact that the Hellfire has a good agility for an air-to-ground missile (better than the Vikhr in this regard) and excelent precision are more than enough evidences that support that the Hellfire can hit slow moving aircraft, and everyone seems to see and accept this except you!

Quote[/b] ]By your own argument, that tu-16 was a weak target given its size and slow speed, regardless of the fact that its speed in that video is unknown to us (it may have been anywhere between its stall speed and its maximum speed of 1000 km/h). This video in no way can be used to support your argument that hellfires are an effective air to air platform.

The video can also in no way be used to say that the Vikhr is an effective anti-air weapon like you claim, or even like some sources claim. But one thing is sure, a Hellfire could hit that Tu-16 as well as the Vikhr! And NO that Tu-16 wasn't definitly flying fast, for starters it had it's landing gear extended, so no way it was flying fast

Also, while not clear enough it seems to me by looking into that video that the Tu-16 flaps were also extended.

Anyway, due to the extended landing gear that Tu-16 was definitly much nearer to the stall speed than it was from 1000km/h!

[Frank-O 0]

lmao, ric. Video. 30 fps. Sidewinder airspeed Mach2.5. Vikhr airspeed Mach 1.8.

The analogy is like using a Polaroid to take a picture of Japan's bullet train, and claim it teleports.

Proximity fuses. You know the thing that helped us win the war in WWII?

Sidewinder uses a magnetic proximity fuse. You see it better in "Behind Enemy Lines". Looks like a SAM-13 to me. That's a modern AA missile detonating. Please fact check before posting.

[ricnunes 0]

Ricnunes: you may be right that there are IR-based missile warning suites nowadays, as I've said before I'm out of touch nowadays. But if you look at the Harrier you will clearly see a lump sticking out behind the tail. I can tell you with 100% confidence that that is an active radar missile warning antenna, and that when testing it on the ground it was necessary to attach a box full of radar-absorbent material to avoid frying anyone nearby (slight exaggeration but it wouldn't have been good for your health, anyway).

Humm very interesting inded, I never heard about an active missile warning system before but please note that in the previous post I never said that there wasn't any. I only said that usually (and nowadays) they use passive IR sensors (seekers) for those systems.

One of those systems is this one:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/siircm.htm

By the way, is there any data available (or still available) for that active system in the web? Really would like to know more about that active warning missile system that you described.

Quote[/b] ]A passive missile warning system would have advantages - mainly not giving away your position, particularly important for a helicopter trying to sneak up on and ambush targets from cover...but might not be as effective as a radar based system (the hottest part of incoming missiles is facing away from the detector).

It seems that these passive missile warning systems like the one that I posted above, detects incoming missiles using the signature of the missile plume.