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Subject: Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?
Aces    2/3/2004 9:42:28 PM
Their F/A-18Fs Super Hornet that 've been to replaced F-14 are lack of range and munuverability compared to older F-14 and absence of long-range AAM, although they take advantage of having semi-stealth when detected head-on. AMRAAM are less range than those russian active-radar guided AAMs; AA-9 Amos and AA-12 Adder, the longest range AAM in the US inventory; AIM-54C due to phased-out soon with the retirement of F-14, AAAM; AIM-155 cancelled, although USN planned to increase range of AMRAAM but still unclear of this program. What's in mind of USN air war planner?
 
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Bob    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/3/2004 9:56:17 PM
>> What's in mind of USN air war planner? << The Phoenix missile was developed to defeat high flying, long range Soviet bombers. The AIM-155 was to be devloped to replace the Phoenix. The USN isn't going to be facing the threats these missiles were developed for anytime in the near future. In future conflicts, the Navy is not going to require the capability to win extreme long range air battles, so, that's what's on their minds.
 
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boris the romanian    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/4/2004 7:02:15 PM
don't forget, the amraam is also inferior in range to the sparrow, the baseline r-27 and far inferior to the r-27ER (but nobody is denying the amraam's accuraccy). but i agree with Aces, the americans are too overconfident in the aim-120. there are other BVR fire and forget weapons. the r-23t, r-24t, r-40t, r-27t, and r-27et are all fire and forget weapons and have the added advantage of being passive (and the r-27et is longer ranged). they are less accurate and i don't know about using them when there are friendly aircraft about, but they can be deadly because they emit no signals. and personally, i consider the amraam inferior to the RVV-AE (r77)
 
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Mark F    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/4/2004 10:22:28 PM
Who cares? Is the superiority of missile X over missile Y really going to matter in the real world? Against the USA, probably not. The weapons themselves are not so important these days as the systems behind them.
 
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shawn    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/5/2004 10:13:10 PM
MArk F has a valid point, but you also have to consider that many users of Soviet aircraft are integrating Western technology into their platforms. This means that in many cases, the systems behind these missiles may be jsut as advanced as those behind the AMRAAM. For example, the latest export customers of SU-27/SU-30 are integrating Israeli or French systems, and the modernised MiG-29 that Germany recently sold to Poland are apparently quite deadly in air combat.
 
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   RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/6/2004 6:19:20 PM
How can a passive guidance system be F&F? By definition, it requires the firing aircraft to maintain radar lock. Am I wrong about this?
 
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Scorpene    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/10/2004 8:51:04 AM
Passive guidance systems are fire and forget, as in the case of IR guided missiles. The newest kind use a two-color IR imager that locks onto and guides onto part of the target airframe. What I find most interesting about the current debates on air systems are these missile versus airframe arguments. It seems like half of us are saying the missiles matter most, whereas the other half are saying the performance of the platform matters most. I know a lot of fighter pilots say the last one, but what I find amazing is that the arguments can change among the same groups of people depending on whose country built the things.
 
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Bob    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/10/2004 10:30:32 AM
that is definitely true. I wonder about the airframe / missile argument too. When people go on about the extreme ranges of the new Russian missiles, I wonder both 1) what are they going to get into the air to launch those missiles, and 2) what are they going to be shooting at, and at what range will their radars detect that target? a 300km missile is pretty much overkill when actual detection range is 40km and below. I like to think that maybe success is ultimately around 80% airframe, 20% missile? 70/30 maybe? An F/A-22 carrying Sparrows wouldn't have much trouble, just as an F-4 carrying AMRAAMs wouldn't either (both configured to carry them, of course). And of course, 99% pilot.
 
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jacques    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/12/2004 5:03:13 AM
The Phoenix and the AMRAAM were built from differenc=t period of time and tehnological progression. The Pheonix was built to shoot down russian bombers at long rangebefore they can launch their missiles. The AMRAAM was built to shoot down the missiles from those bombers. They are 2 different kinds of missile, not just in range differences.
 
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sentinel28a    RE:Why USN are too confidense in their AMRAAM?   2/12/2004 2:57:07 PM
Well...the AMRAAM was actually designed to kill other aircraft, though it could be used against cruise missiles. The Navy does have a reason to like the AMRAAM. It has damn near a 100% success rate in air combat, it's fire and forget, and it doesn't leave a smoke trail. It's also a lot cheaper than the Phoenix. It does have a tendency to attack anything in its cone of detection, friendly or not, but that's not a problem confined to the AMRAAM. The R-77 is very good in theory, and I would say that the two are comparable. I'm interested to know if any have been used in actual combat (say, over Eritrea). The Navy was fooling around with a box-launched long-range missile system about the size of an AMRAAM called Pomona. Anyone know what happened to that?
 
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Scorpene    Beware missile range distances, and a question for Boris   2/18/2004 5:31:20 AM
One thing we need to remember when discussing the ranges of various missiles is that there is a difference between effective range and maximum range under ideal conditions. For the AMRAAM, the designers used a measurement called the "No Escape Zone" as the envelope that the AMRAAM operates in, because in this envelope it was not expected that an air target could defeat the missile by energy bleed, either dragging or turning. Further, AMRAAM is different from previous AAMs. AMRAAM can be shot "cold", with no homing signals emitting, and only turn on it's seeker in the endgame to allow the minimum time for target ECM to affect it. It also has a home on jam feature, and a steerable gimbal that probably allows it to turn and chase a target that it would otherwise miss. The new Sidewinder AIM-9X has this ability. I am not sure that the Adder has all these capabilities, although obviously the Russians won't give up a lot of data on it. Perhaps Boris the Romanian could weigh in here. Last I knew, the Adder was a very agile and fast radar homing missile, but was not quite as autonomous as what I understand the AMRAAM is. We should also remember that regardless of the missile range, it does no good to fire on a target unless you can get a meaningful detection return off of it. The lower RCS of some of the newer US and some European systems might well make the "maximum" range of a weapon irrelevant..
 
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