As much drag as the R-73 presents with the AOA 'whiskers' and the tandem strake/canard quads PLUS the taileron fins AND the TVC petals, I find it utterly inbelievable that the weapon is capable of 40km ranges. However; the '12G' statement is inaccurate as the Archer is very much a 50-55G weapon. Which makes it capable (Heart Of The Envelope) of /running down/ a 12G maneuvering target.
Which is typical for the '5:1' advantaged maneuvering ratio on a supersonic missile vs. subsonic maneuvering target.
Not least because the Russians maintain both SARH an IRH Alamo short burn weapons to cover that same engagement zone with a 230mm motor class.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/aa-10-DDST8809324_JPG.jpg
I also frankly have a hard time believing that the weapons /system/ is capable of exploiting a 40km kinematic with the original Su-27 IRST was rated to only 30km in the front quarter and 60km on RQ/burner targets. The R-73 (and K-74/R-73M2) don't even have the simplistic radio link that the R-27s do and furthermore, why put more sensitivity into a 'throwaway' seeker when you cannot even get _imaging_ (dual TV/IRST) up in the cockpit to make an ID with?
No. Pure exaggeration to make the 'one gun principle' (the only missile the Russians were 'famous' for, in the 80's and 90's) seem like more than what it was.
Keep in mind folks that on the R-73M2, the extended range (15-20km) is bought and paid for by _locking out_ the TVC. So that you don't waste energy in making launch excursions that lower the weapons overall initial impulse efficiency (though mechanical TVC always has a negative effect on plenum pressure recovery).
That means that the 20-40lbs of actuators and heavy weight vectoring ramps on the back of the missile is WASTED for 90+% of the 'NBVR' shots you are taking.
And why indeed make such a performance capability seem so critical?
Because you are facing 40-60km AIM-120 and 60-100km AA-12 and BVRAAM respectively.
Now ASRAAM is a pretty slick weapon. It gets you absolute minimum drag on the front end and puts powerful, compact, actuators in the rear of what is almost certainly a dynamically unstable missile so that ALL of the aft through midsection is motor. And there are no canard drivers to effect not only drag but also internal warhead and GCS packaging, 'up front'. The latter is particularly important because, if the weapon is truly pushing Mach 4 as many claim, it will need a HUGE cooling capability to keep the blackbody spots from 'clouding' the seeker noise threshold completely.
OTOH, the ASRAAM has a major penalty for it's '20:20' (20km seeker, 20km kinematic) capability too. In that, at the very far end of the trajectory, any endgame play is going to be at a large penalty in aerodynamics as you have nothing to stabilize and direct the shocks coming back over the forebody. This latter being why the AIM-9X went with a BOA style forebody instead of the 'nekkid' Box Office testbed design. What this means is that there will be both absolute authority and authority-at-stabilization penalties for the small tail controls in making the cutoff turn on an agile target. Like a Cheetah coming around the corner described by a Gazelle fawn, if the nominally slower victim times a cutback (orthagonal roll with altitude loss most likely) while the cat has 'all for feet off the ground', the bigger animal may not be able to reverse in time.
Which brings us to the Python and 'engagement geometry' for a close in fight. This is utterly ridiculous. First because it's a 2D drawing and the first thing I'm going to do if somebody fires an across-circle shot at me is _move out of plane_ to defeat the seeker expecation zone (a predictive search volume essentially) while maximizing my own jets G potential with the freebie vertical.
Again, the P4 is 1990s technology while the P5 is the one with the improved autopilot AND datalink (in the same overall missile configuration). Which brings us right back to the notion that playing pitbull-goes-maddog with a weapon that can supposedly miss it's target by several thousand feet, execute a 180` reversal and 'make another pass' is just _stupid_. When EVERY MODIFICATION OUT THERE is 'AIMed' towards increasing the farend of the envelope performance rather than the near.
At which point I would like to make two defining statements as regards the 'value' of WVR:
1. Pyrrhic Victories Are Worth LESS Than Neutral Extension/Survivals.
One F-15C, in 1991, ran for something like /35 miles/ before somebody could shoot a Fulcrum off his tail because he had the gas but not the pol metrics to defeat a potential Archer shot on the pitchback.
At the same time, the only jets in DS with operational tactical (intraflight) LINK were a few F-14s with AWS-27C. Now EVERYBODY has it and it can actually go all the way back to the AWACS. So picture data makes the likelihood of 'surprise' tap at close range very low. Especially with most fighters looking to maximize pol differentials by climbing up to 30K. No 'snap up' performance in the world can make the grade on that with an SRM weapon. While the lack of serious VLO investment to defeat the AWACS as much as the Fighter nose means that ONLY AND IDIOT plays with an enemy at close range.
When he can long spear him and then run away.
Remember, the fighter lead sweeps are there for one reason: To keep the strike packages from taking mission kills as the enemy breaks them up and forces stores jettison and/or missed BOTOTs. As such, they MUST have the engagement flexibility, in both time and space, to deal with the enemy 'as they come'. Which in turn means that the PDI/GAI units will themselves only have X-window to get aloft and starting ramping up and forward-faster before they become effectively wheel-in-well kills. LONG before the strikers are on the scope. This is the lesson of 1991 when Iraqi defenders had to flee their own MOB in order to get 'out from under' a Tomcat broom team (AWG swoosh-swoosh hear us comin'). And could not 'work their way around' the fighters which were then on the FAR side of the baselane, chasing them. As H3 was plastered.
SRM's do nothing whatsoever to advantage a DCA team in such a scenario because the quick-draw option against the overrun threat simply never happens because the COST differential the OCA platform they put at risk comes down to a 117 million dollar F/A-22 for a 20million dollar MiG-21 Bison in-trade. And we can shoot you from the NEAR side of the baselane defense using extended motor AMRAAMs without even having to overfly or approach the runways.
2. Differentials In Pole match Statistical Levels of Engagement Size.
Such that, not only are you looking at upwards of 30-50km worth of 'first I throw two pilum, then I lockstep-march to gladius stabbing distance'. But you are also facing 2-4 jets per engagement rather than the 20-50 that we feared would saturate the radar defenses of the NATO era. Part of this is distance from base expectations on offensive engagement (fewer jets per attack means more attacks with a give force size but also more stress on the initial raids in terms of numeric disparities). Part is simple cost of the airframes.
But most of it is, again, the simple assurance that with FOUR shots supportable by a decent sized (100km TWS as a baseline for the 1m class apetures of the F-15 and Su-30), it is BETTER to have two jets up front run a chainsaw and peelback attack. While 2 more behind act as the cleanup crew on whatever is left.
Since the overall size of the engaged forces has gone DOWN, there is no point in risking closure to the secondary pole, even if you are out of rounds (and most of the heavy jets will have at least 2 more BVR class weapons in reserve).
Such a replacement for the 'Wall of Eagles' stylistic (brooming-of-airspace with STT-as-SARH driven shot counts as a formation multipler) with more ingenious, layered and offset tactics will only become MORE effective when supercruise becomes standardized as the 'bar' definition of A2A combat capability. And jets begin providing guidance for forward-section fired weapons from aft section MCG tracking platforms. i.e. We will no longe fight at 'unified' division levels but rather Wildly Detached Support element separated ones.
Which is where stealth will show it's true advantage because no Jammer support airframe will be able to create a wide enough corridor to support conventional jets 'free range' (small-pack) hunting tactics. And no Area SAM like the S-300/400 will be able to prevent the RADARS of the stealth flight leads from 'picking away at the edges' of MEZ threat bubbles on whatever secured-baselane a Flanker or Canard Clone optimized force thinks to 'safely exit from'.
Such is what the true, 2-way, LINK capabilities of MICA, BVRAAM and AIM-120C7/D will make possible on a daily basis and with them, there is no reason not to expect 100km separations between the jets you 'hear' (illuminating you) and the jets you /watch/ running away from an unknown (pole overlap) firing distance. While you yourself are another 50-100km short of NEZ on either.
It is also why only fools continue to invest in high leverage systems like the Sukhoi without any real option for integrating Stealth. Because the only thing you can reasonably do is make a fighting retreat away from the MOBs or a banzai charge forward from dispersal basing. Using LRAAM to try and take out the C4ISTAR systems which are what is effectively guiding the Stealth Platforms in.
In such a scenario, the SRM is reduced to little more than a bootknife backup for very oddball one-off _mistaken_ encounters. Or as terminal goalkeeper aids to kill terminal MRM/LRM which are not responding to decoy or crosseye type techniques. And believe you me, I would rather have a Sorbitsaya or DASS-Towed Decoy combination hanging off my jet than another Archer or an ASRAAM for that matter.
KP
