Vikhr vs. Hellfire

[Yellonet]

Range:

Vikhr: 10 km from fixed wing aircraft, 8km from helo, 5 km in darkness.

Hellfire: 8 km (couldn't find any more info)

 

Armor penetration:

Vikhr: 1000mm behind explosive reactive armor

Hellfire: Unknown

 

Speed:

Vikhr: Mach 1.8 - less manueverable, shorter time to target?

Hellfire: Mach ~1.2 - the other way around?

 

pk:

Vikhr: 0.95 against stationary target, 0.8-0.85 against moving tank

Hellfire: Unknown

 

 

Anybody feel like filling in some info on the Hellfire? :) It was hard to find info :(

[Flanker15]

I've seen a couple of sites stating the Hellfires fly at M1.1 but that's the old Hellfire A.

The new Hellfire K (or Hellfire 2) can go 8-9Km and has a tandem warhead so I would imagine it is the same as the Vikhr in all stats except it uses the same engine type so it might not go much faster than M1.1.

[Mugatu]

Pretty much all you want to know about the Hellfire:

 

Pk doesn't really miss ;)

 

http://www.missilesandfirecontrol.com/our_products/antiarmor/HELLFIRE/product-HELLFIREII.shtml

 

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/agm-114.htm

 

ps the Vikhr is closer to the DAGR below:

 

 

http://www.missilesandfirecontrol.com/our_products/antiarmor/DAGR/pic01-DAGR.shtml

 

I've seen a couple of sites stating the Hellfires fly at M1.1 but that's the old Hellfire A.

The new Hellfire K (or Hellfire 2) can go 8-9Km and has a tandem warhead so I would imagine it is the same as the Vikhr in all stats except it uses the same engine type so it might not go much faster than M1.1.

[Sundowner.pl]

The Hellfire have 9kg tandem shaped charge warhead, so it should do the same damage as Vikhr. Yet when fired in one of three* LOAL modes it will hit tank from above, the Vikhr, since it's a beam riding missile, will always fly to its target in straight line, like TOW or HOT.

 

You can't fire Vikhr without locking on target, and firing your laser, so after launching missile, you pretty much have to sit in one place (or fly toward the target) for the whole missile flight time.

 

When firing Hellfire, even in LOBL mode, you can do actually anything, as far as you don't brake TADS LOS. In LOAL you can fire few missiles for behind the cover, pop up and in last second aim them on few different targets.

 

That's when we talk about the laser hellfires, the AGM-114L is a whole different story, actually each Apache can fire 16 L-Hellfires almost at once, each at different target, and that particular Apache don't even need to have the FCR - it can fire missiles at data-linked targets. Not even seeing them before.

 

 

*LOAL have three submodes: LOAL-DIR, LOAL-LO and LOAL-HI

[Groove]

Judging from some videos i would say the missiles trajectory is steeper in the initial phase than shown on this charts. But maybe i saw some LOAL-HI profile videos.

[Sundowner.pl]

Well take a closer look at those charts, the X and Y axes are not in the same scale.

[Yellonet]

Well take a closer look at those charts, the X and Y axes are not in the same scale.

Exactly, the Y scale would be 1/10th of the length of the X-axis in height if they were in the same scale.

 

Like this:

 

|________

 

That means that the trajectory of the missile in reality is rather flat.

 

How does the Hellfire strike the target from above?

[Groove]

I considered that already.

[Yellonet]

Personally I think that the versatile nature of the Vikhr is interesting, as it can be used against armor, area targets and air targets due to its proximity fuse and fragmentation belt.

[Sundowner.pl]

"Above" do not mean vertically, actually the trajectory was specially adapted to the T-72/80 family tanks, to be pretty much perpendicular to the tank turret armor curvature to achieve maximum performance. I modified a bit the diagram of LOBL trajectory, and it would look something like this:

 

 

So yes, the LOAL are pretty flat... on maximum range !

[Yellonet]

"Above" do not mean vertically, actually the trajectory was specially adapted to the T-72/80 family tanks, to be pretty much perpendicular to the tank turret armor curvature to achieve maximum performance.

Likewise a Vikhr against an M1A1's turret side would likely have a pretty close to 90 degree impact angle.

[Sundowner.pl]

Exactly, T-72/80, M1, Challenger and Leclerc tanks armor was optimized against rounds fired by other tanks - not modern ATGMs

[Malleus]

Is it true that the Vikhr is like five times cheaper than the Hellfire? Not a factor in the game, but important IRL.

[Yellonet]

Is it true that the Vikhr is like five times cheaper than the Hellfire? Not a factor in the game, but important IRL.

Most likely yes, it's much simpler technology wise.

[GGTharos]

Range:

Vikhr: 10 km from fixed wing aircraft, 8km from helo, 5 km in darkness.

Hellfire: 8 km (couldn't find any more info)

 

Try 6km from a helo.

 

Armor penetration:

Vikhr: 1000mm behind explosive reactive armor

Hellfire: Unknown

 

It'll penetrate any known armor - the warheads on those things are always updated; in addition, the hellfire will happily execute a top-attack profile.

 

Speed:

Vikhr: Mach 1.8 - less manueverable, shorter time to target?

Hellfire: Mach ~1.2 - the other way around?

 

Maybe, but you're talking a few seconds in this case. Plus, hellfire deals with terrain better due to the lofted profile.

 

pk:

Vikhr: 0.95 against stationary target, 0.8-0.85 against moving tank

Hellfire: Unknown

 

Pretty high. I don't think there's much doubt there ;)

 

Anybody feel like filling in some info on the Hellfire? :) It was hard to find info :(

 

 

Yep....since it's not really 'for sale' it's hard to find info.

[arneh]

Judging from some videos i would say the missiles trajectory is steeper in the initial phase than shown on this charts. But maybe i saw some LOAL-HI profile videos.

 

Those charts are pretty accurate (although they are for the A-model of the Hellfire, the later models use a flatter trajectory to help keep them out of clouds when there is low cloud cover). The Hellfire has a capability of climbing above a 1000 ft obstacle if fired from 1500 meters away in LOAL-HI mode, so that's not a very steep climb, just a little over 20% (which of course is still pretty steep, but maybe not as much as it looks like when viewed from behind where it looks like you're launching a satelite or somehing :) ).

 

That means that the trajectory of the missile in reality is rather flat.

 

How does the Hellfire strike the target from above?

 

Relativly, but keep in mind that it is much steeper toward the end of the flight, as it dives toward the target. It hits the target in a fairly steep dive, which is significantly less armour to penetrate.

 

 

We had some interesting discussion around this when I implemented the Hellfire flight trajectories for EECH last year, check this thread: http://www.simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=327386&fpart=1

 

Pay particulary attention to AlphaOneSix, he used to work on the AH-64A.

[GGTharos]

It would certainly not. The 'straight' flight path forces an AoA on the missile, meaning that, like TOW, it would definitely reduce warhead performance due to impact angle.

 

Likewise a Vikhr against an M1A1's turret side would likely have a pretty close to 90 degree impact angle.

[Yellonet]

Try 6km from a helo.

For Hellfire or Vikhr?

[Sundowner.pl]

Is it true that the Vikhr is like five times cheaper than the Hellfire? Not a factor in the game, but important IRL.

No, actually the Vikhr can be 8 times cheaper :smilewink:. Hellfire costs around 47k USD, the Hellfire II costs around 64k USD, and the Longbow Hellfire is close to 100k USD (!). And the Vikhr costs only 12k USD :music_whistling:

 

 

It's hard to compare both missiles though, the Vikhr was designed differently, it suppose to be cheap. The Hellfire supposed to be lethal, universal and independent from its launch platform. So the price tag represent it quite well.

[Yellonet]

It would certainly not. The 'straight' flight path forces an AoA on the missile, meaning that, like TOW, it would definitely reduce warhead performance due to impact angle.

Eh... sorry?

What would be better than 90 degree angle?

[Yellonet]

It would certainly not. The 'straight' flight path forces an AoA on the missile, meaning that, like TOW, it would definitely reduce warhead performance due to impact angle.

Eh... sorry? What would be better than 90­­ degree angle?

[Sundowner.pl]

For Hellfire or Vikhr?

Actually ... all. The TADS suppose to have 15km engagement range, but that's purely theoretical. Humidity, earth curvature, air movement, fog, clouds, rain, etc. etc. all of these reduce the engagement range below 6km. I've seen some study on that material, and in central European environment (Germany, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary etc.) the engagement range for NV and IR based systems is as short as 4km for most the time of year, the punchline was to get hands on FCR based systems like W/AH-64Ds and AH-1Z.

[GGTharos]

Vikhr.

And, nothing is 'better' than a 90 deg angle, but a Vikhr won't be making that angle thanks to the AoA it has to fly at ;)

 

For Hellfire or Vikhr?

[Yellonet]

Vikhr.

And, nothing is 'better' than a 90 deg angle, but a Vikhr won't be making that angle thanks to the AoA it has to fly at ;)

Really... in my example it was the turret side of a M1A1 which is hit, that is only angled to a small degree which would seem to fit the Vikhr's impact angle, but maybe you meant that the target was moving and therefore achieves a "horizontal angle" at the time of impact?

[GGTharos]

No, what I mean is that the Vikhr flies with an AoA - ie. nose pointed up, in order to maintain altitude. Therefore, no 90 deg impact angle.

On the other hand, the M1's turret side is pretty thin, so it wouldn't matter.