I dunno about that, based on the views of many air force engineers and pilots who have hands on experience with the PL15, 70km NEZ is damn impressive. But as I said, these are views, not official figures which probably will never be released.
J-10 Thread IV
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
this is the official website and article from one of the major players in the manufacturing chain of the meteor. and even the manufacturer says that is max operational range is 120km while, at minimum, the maximum operational range of the PL-15E is almost 150km. If we go strictly by the maximum ranges, NEZ probably won't even come into play for the meteor since the rafale will have PL-15s hunting it down a good 30kms before it gets a chance to launch even a single meteor. and if the rumors of a 70km NEZ for the PL-15s are true, then even if the rafale is lucky enough to launch one off, it would already be in the PL15's NEZ by then. just think about it, PL-15's speed is mach 4 (4900 km/h), that's 82 km per minute or 41 km in 30 seconds. The PL-15E out ranges the meteor by 30kms at minimum, that means that when launched just at the outer ranges, the PL-15E would travel its 145km range in less than 2 minutes, like 1 minute and 72 seconds. That gives the Thunders/J-1Cs a 20 second head start in launching the PL-15s against the rafales and then hitting the deck in evasive maneuvers...furthermore, if the PL15s are launched in a TWS mode, very good chance that the rafale's rwr's won't even pick it up as we saw on Feb 27th when abhi-none-done was shot down. as per him, his bison's isreali made rwr never picked up on the AMRAAM approaching it until it was too late. That makes matters even worse for the rafale cuz it would still be trying to find the Thunders and the J10Cs not knowing that it already has PL15s coming after it while latter would've already launched and gone for the deck to hide against the ground clutter.
Can the AMRAAM burn one motor to reach altitude, coast to cover distance, and then ignite a second motor when it goes pitbull?
That's the capability a pulsed rocket motor allows. And on top, the PL-15 has an AESA seeker.
So no... it's not 'simply a larger AMRAAM.'
PL-15 is more like AIM-260, less like AIM-120.
The reason you go for the deck is primarily kinematic.
You wanna force the incoming missile through denser air and shed energy.
But this standard tactic would be much less effective against the PL-15's second pulse.
Yep, but as far as we know, the 260 isn't going to have an AESA seeker either.
agreed...but forcing the missile to get into denser air is not the only reason. it is also make detection harder against ground clutter, ESPECIALLY when you are flying over mountainous terrains. in air combat, mountains and trees are your friends. deserts? not so friendly.
Does Saab's operational range means NEZ? Because it doest make sense as effective range etc. On a shooting war between J-10C and Rafales, we have no idea how powerful the AESA on both aircraft. Rafales designer said the frontal RCS is as small as a pigeon (probably 1st production model) and we don't know if they have upgraded it since. On the other hand no much data is available on J-10C frontal RCS. A few military commentator said J-10C has smaller RCS compared to rafale due to DSI but still no evidence to support. I suspect the radars will pick up each other within 100km and by the time missile launches both aircrafts will be in each missiles NEZ. Then it boils down to how effective the spectre system on rafale is. Not much info disclosed on J-10c's EW capability either.
Neither Rafale or J-10C have the frontal RCS of a pigeon when armed. Neither of these fighters use non-compromising stealth design. For starters, spherical IRST on both are already less ideal than faceted types. Neither have special tapes and covers for gaps like on F-35 and J-20. They are not full VLO fighters and they don't need to go to those efforts because they need to carry weapons externally which are already going to produce RCS spikes well above the existing gaps and designs.
A missile's conical tip or a fuel tank's may be fairly stealthy but the gap between the pylons, the pylons themselves, the material of everything, are all far from proper VLO which I'd consider a solid steel pigeon to be at least fairly LO.
There is no information on how effective each EW suite is.
A missile's conical tip or a fuel tank's may be fairly stealthy but the gap between the pylons, the pylons themselves, the material of everything, are all far from proper VLO which I'd consider a solid steel pigeon to be at least fairly LO.
There is no information on how effective each EW suite is.
could be, entirely possible they could be evenly matched. it also boils down to the reader ranges, I wonder if there is a correlation between the number of TR modules and the range. J10Cs have 1200 TR modules and the WS10 presumably produces enough power for all of them while the AL31 didn't and thus with WS10 more detection range maybe possible then with the AL32. rafales have less than 840 tr modules but has two engines producing power. I'm assuming if the thrust produced also means greater electric power produced by could be wrong. rafale engines produce a combined thrust of 50 - 75kN (dry and after burning) while the early WS10 produced 120 - 150kN (wet and after burning). The latest WS10 probably produces more. if my assumption is correct that maybe the J10Cs' radars have greater range.