Early R73 missile

[Gunfreak]

So in DCS there is only one R73 missile used by all "semi modern" Russian aircraft (su27 can only use it)

But just going from Wikipedia the original R73 had a off boresight of 40 degrees) a modernised R73M showed up in early 90s. And wiki doesn't say anything about it off boresight capabilities. While the R74 has 60 degrees and R74M has 75 degrees.

In DCS the R73 seems to have 60 or 70 degrees off boresight ability. So not suitable for cold war. So if you want a none high off boresight  missile in your MiG29A you have to give it the R60Ms.

While it's impossible to give the Su27 a cold war missile. 

So basically soviet/Russian aircraft goes from the equivalent of a Sidewinder P5 to a Sidewinder X. Skipping the equivalent of L and M.

With a full fidelity 29A. I hope some of this  can be remedied.

[JAPman]

I too think some caution should be exercised about the possibility of overbalancing the game at the expense of the reality of the simulator.

[AeriaGloria]

On 2/23/2024 at 9:10 AM, Gunfreak said:

So in DCS there is only one R73 missile used by all "semi modern" Russian aircraft (su27 can only use it)

But just going from Wikipedia the original R73 had a off boresight of 40 degrees) a modernised R73M showed up in early 90s. And wiki doesn't say anything about it off boresight capabilities. While the R74 has 60 degrees and R74M has 75 degrees.

In DCS the R73 seems to have 60 or 70 degrees off boresight ability. So not suitable for cold war. So if you want a none high off boresight  missile in your MiG29A you have to give it the R60Ms.

While it's impossible to give the Su27 a cold war missile. 

So basically soviet/Russian aircraft goes from the equivalent of a Sidewinder P5 to a Sidewinder X. Skipping the equivalent of L and M.

With a full fidelity 29A. I hope some of this  can be remedied.

The one in DCS should be the original with 45 degrees off boresight 

The Su-27/J-11 can still use IRST up to 60 degrees off boresight, but should still limit R-73 LA to 45 degrees. I can test it in game 

[pepin1234]

The R-73 from DDR inventory was a 45 degrees targeting, thrust vectoring on his outlet engine made the rest of the job to get him to turn amazingly 90 degrees very quick. 

Edited February 26 by pepin1234

[WinterH]

On 2/23/2024 at 8:10 PM, Gunfreak said:

So basically soviet/Russian aircraft goes from the equivalent of a Sidewinder P5 to a Sidewinder X. Skipping the equivalent of L and M.

They never necessarily had AIM-9L and M equivalent. They had R-73, which much superior in off boresight, but was somewhat less countermeasure resistant. It is stil not quite an AIM-9X equivalent, which isn't a surprise, as there are like a couple of decades between the two.

The one we have in DCS is, afaik, indeed the cold war R-73.

Wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to things like this.

On 2/23/2024 at 8:10 PM, Gunfreak said:

In DCS the R73 seems to have 60 or 70 degrees off boresight ability.

I think, If the missile launch is only possible at up to 45 degrees off boresight, but the missile still can pull the rest as the angle increases, I don't think that's unreasonable. If the launch is allowed at greater than 45 degrees, than there maybe something wrong.

13 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

So if you want a none high off boresight  missile in your MiG29A you have to give it the R60Ms.

That's the thing, R-73 was always a high off boresight missile, and indeed if you want to give something without this capability for whatever reason, you should give the MiGs R-60Ms. Which I think still may have slightly greater off boresight launch ability than AIM-9Ms, but are much shorter ranged, and will go "ooooh shiny!!!" whenever it sees flares.

[AeriaGloria]

16 minutes ago, WinterH said:

They never necessarily had AIM-9L and M equivalent. They had R-73, which much superior in off boresight, but was somewhat less countermeasure resistant. It is stil not quite an AIM-9X equivalent, which isn't a surprise, as there are like a couple of decades between the two.

The one we have in DCS is, afaik, indeed the cold war R-73.

Wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to things like this.

I think, If the missile launch is only possible at up to 45 degrees off boresight, but the missile still can pull the rest as the angle increases, I don't think that's unreasonable. If the launch is allowed at greater than 45 degrees, than there maybe something wrong.

That's the thing, R-73 was always a high off boresight missile, and indeed if you want to give something without this capability for whatever reason, you should give the MiGs R-60Ms. Which I think still may have slightly greater off boresight launch ability than AIM-9Ms, but are much shorter ranged, and will go "ooooh shiny!!!" whenever it sees flares.

According to MiG-29 weapon employment manual R-60 work off boresight up to 20 degrees 

[Gunfreak]

1 hour ago, WinterH said:

They never necessarily had AIM-9L and M equivalent. They had R-73, which much superior in off boresight, but was somewhat less countermeasure resistant. It is stil not quite an AIM-9X equivalent, which isn't a surprise, as there are like a couple of decades between the two.

The one we have in DCS is, afaik, indeed the cold war R-73.

Wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to things like this.

I think, If the missile launch is only possible at up to 45 degrees off boresight, but the missile still can pull the rest as the angle increases, I don't think that's unreasonable. If the launch is allowed at greater than 45 degrees, than there maybe something wrong.

That's the thing, R-73 was always a high off boresight missile, and indeed if you want to give something without this capability for whatever reason, you should give the MiGs R-60Ms. Which I think still may have slightly greater off boresight launch ability than AIM-9Ms, but are much shorter ranged, and will go "ooooh shiny!!!" whenever it sees flares.

If you give a MiG29/Su27 the R73 and give an F-16 the X there is very little if any difference in performance. Both seem to be able to lock on about 70-90 degrees with the helmet. 

[Ironhand]

18 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

The one in DCS should be the original with 45 degrees off boresight 

The Su-27/J-11 can still use IRST up to 60 degrees off boresight, but should still limit R-73 LA to 45 degrees. I can test it in game 

I’m not clear on something and, hopefully, you can explain it. “Field of regard” is the total area that can be captured by the sensor. “Field of view” is the angular cone that can be perceived at a particular moment in time. What is the “targeting angle” and why is it different from the “field of regard”?

Or is the targeting angle simply how far the sensor can slew? In which case there’s no problem covering the 75* field that it can cover. Sorry. It’s been a rough few days and my brain’s a bit fuzzy.

Edited February 26 by Ironhand

[AeriaGloria]

59 minutes ago, Ironhand said:

I’m not clear on something and, hopefully, you can explain it. “Field of regard” is the total area that can be captured by the sensor. “Field of view” is the angular cone that can be perceived at a particular moment in time. What is the “targeting angle” and why is it different from the “field of regard”?

Or is the targeting angle simply how far the sensor can slew? In which case there’s no problem covering the 75* field that it can cover. Sorry. It’s been a rough few days and my brain’s a bit fuzzy.

 

As far as I’ve been able to tell, while it seems possible for the sensor to slew 75 degrees, it can only be aimed 45 degrees before launch. For example, the R-60 on MiG-29 with HMCS seems to have 20 degree off boresight targeting angle even though the sensor can slew 45 degrees. So for some reason, the Soviets/Vympel decided to not take advantage of the whole slew angle for off boresight launches. Perhaps it was for kinematic reasons, or they wanted to make sure the sensor had enough wiggle room to be able to comfortably make off boresight shots without going over any limit. Your guess would probably be good as mine 

[okopanja]

1 hour ago, Ironhand said:

I’m not clear on something and, hopefully, you can explain it. “Field of regard” is the total area that can be captured by the sensor. “Field of view” is the angular cone that can be perceived at a particular moment in time. What is the “targeting angle” and why is it different from the “field of regard”?

Or is the targeting angle simply how far the sensor can slew? In which case there’s no problem covering the 75* field that it can cover. Sorry. It’s been a rough few days and my brain’s a bit fuzzy.

 

 

Field of regards vs field of view:

As for targeting angle, I am also wondering. If you were correct FOV of 5x5 would allow only 62,5 FOR, so I do not thing this is the case, more likely this is maximal angle at which the seeker is able to capture and track the lock (likely the extreme angles are very likely to loose the lock, unless the missile itself turns).  But this is just me guessing...

There are also other definitions of target angle...

Edited February 26 by okopanja

[Seaeagle]

8 hours ago, Ironhand said:

I’m not clear on something and, hopefully, you can explain it. “Field of regard” is the total area that can be captured by the sensor. “Field of view” is the angular cone that can be perceived at a particular moment in time. What is the “targeting angle” and why is it different from the “field of regard”?

Or is the targeting angle simply how far the sensor can slew? In which case there’s no problem covering the 75* field that it can cover. Sorry. It’s been a rough few days and my brain’s a bit fuzzy.

 

The 4,5 x 4,5 degrees is the immedeate FOV(cone) - when the seeker is looking in a particular direction, this is the area in which the seeker can pick up a target.

75 degrees is the gimbal limit of the seeker - i.e. the maximum deflection angle of the cone

45 degrees is the maximum off boresight angle at which you can designate a target, There is a difference between this and the above in order to ensure that the seeker doesn't "gimbal out" before the missile has time to align itself with the target after launch.

BTW I believe that the seeker options in the chart are Ukrainian - IIRC the original seeker of the R-73 is called "36T" or something like that(or is that the seeker for the R-27T?...cannot remember).

Edited February 26 by Seaeagle

[okopanja]

26 minutes ago, Seaeagle said:

The 4,5 x 4,5 degrees is the immedeate FOV(cone) - when the seeker is looking in a particular direction, this is the area in which the seeker can pick up a target.

75 degrees is the gimbal limit of the seeker - i.e. the maximum deflection angle of the cone

45 degrees is the maximum off boresight angle at which you can designate a target, There is a difference between this and the above in order to ensure that the seeker doesn't "gimbal out" before the missile has time to align itself with the target after launch.

BTW I believe that the seeker options in the chart are Ukrainian - IIRC the original seeker of the R-73 is called "36T" or something like that(or is that the seeker for the R-27T?...cannot remember).

 

Geofizika 36T is on R-27T, Mayak-80 =>R-73

[Seaeagle]

21 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Geofizika 36T is on R-27T, Mayak-80 =>R-73

Yeah I suspected I was confusing the two.

On another note, looking at the "missile corporation" site, there are now 3 new versions of the missile on offer;'

- RVV-MD with 60 deg off boresight designation angle

- RVV-MDL - same as above, but with a laser fuze instead of radar,

- RVV-MD2 with increased launch range and a different seeker with radio correction channel - i.e. LOAL capability!

Продукция (ktrv.ru)

Edited February 26 by Seaeagle

[Ironhand]

Thanks all, for the explanation. @Seaeagle, that all makes sense now that I understand the reasoning behind it all.