…except you are conveniently avoiding my entire point made previously that the weapon loadout is constrained by the high altitude air basing. This is not even considering that the Chinese lack mutually supportive airbases and consequently fuel loadout takes precedence to account for alternate return route diversion in the event that the home air base is disabled. This limit overall weapons load out in any tasking of orders. This is a normal operational consideration that you cannot simply ignore out of convenience.
…. except that you are ignoring the counter measure argument. A 200+ km missile is only relevant to the extent that you can achieve lock on at that distance. There are multitude of reasons why historically engagements are at much shorter distance. During the First Gulf War, average detection for BVR engagements were at 42 nm but missile launch was at 10 nm. (source : CSBA Trend in air to air). There are such things as ROE, fratricide consideration, ECM, limitation on weapons engagement zone (WEZ), et al. Just on the subject of WEZ, the impacting variables include relative altitude; aspect angle on launch; relative velocity; shooter pitch, target angle off boresight; missile loft profile; Delta V of missile; et al. Dual pulse motor itself does not suggest an immediate advantage. Dual pulse and dual thrust sometimes are used interchangeably but all it mean is a booster and sustainer configuration in the former and back to back thrust with a break in between for the latter leading to different lofting profiles to maximize range and kinematic energy at terminal phase.
Essentially there is no way you can argue an outcome when WEZ is highly dependent on engagement conditions and tactics employed in addition to the unknown capabilities of their respective ECM. Missile range itself is meaningless.
I suggest a good reference on this subject is “Fighter Combat Tactics and Maneuvering” by Robert Shaw.
IMO you are making stuff up. I have no idea what “effective” range means and how you derived the effective range of a R-77 to be 20 kms. Give me a technical reference to support your assertion.
Please make up your mind. Is it solid-fuel or dual-pulse? In any case, how is it even related to the conversation?
No doubt range is driven by rocket fuel burnt time and type of fuel but there are also a range of other impacting variables that I had already mentioned. Please refer to an article “Weapon Engagement Zone Maximum Launch Range” for the details.
You don’t know the answer. So how do you end up with a certainty in conclusion based on a number of unknowns? It is not even logically sound in deductive reasoning.
AESA can offer 3X improvement on range? Please offer a real live example.
You don’t know the dimensions, where the radar sits inside the radome nor the performance of the J-16/J-20 AESA radar. When did the conversation shift from J-11 to J-20? You are extrapolating on the premise that the fighter AESA radar and the missile seeker are identical in design and configuration. You don’t know that as a fact. Do you know the RF band of the missile seeker? Do you know the cooling features of the missile seeker compared to the J-11?
What is actually your point? You first need to get the missile to a closing distance that the terminal seeker is even meaningful in the conversation.
I do not think you have any idea about Chinese datalink properties or the type of latency being experienced. Against slow moving platforms like AWACs it might not be a problem but against fast manuevering platforms it may become an issue if latency is above 100 ms. Link 16 has a latency of 30 ms but that is deemed insufficient for the type of cooperative engagement that the US is conducting. With TTNT it is 5 ms. The point is latency will impact the effectiveness of any third party targeting.
You are not even taking into consideration of GPS service denial and disruption which will just add to a reduction in PK especially an engagement at long range.
Do you have a link to the Astra’s terminal guidance range? I am doubtful of such a claim.
The AIM-260 does not exist except on paper. When there is actually a product we can have a conversation about it. The laws of physics apply whether it is AIM-260 or PL-XX.
I'd think you don't understand what I'm saying.
Here's the ranges that matter:
-Maximum aerodynamic range
The range at which a missile can potentially hit the target, ignoring maneuvers on the target aircraft.
-Effective range (or NEZ, but I've seen multiple definitions of NEZ that imply that effective range might be lower than NEZ)
, or the range at which a missile can hit a maneuvering fighter. This is also why I make a big deal of the Rafale's 11G, because it's implying that the increased maximum instantaneous turn rate can further reduce the effective range.
-Self-guided range
This is the range at which a BVR missile no longer requires a datalink, allowing the datalink guiding aircraft to turn home.
The PL-15 can be fired at the maximum aerodynamic range to threaten the enemy fighter, but most likely it won't hit when fired at the aerodynamic range because the target is maneuvering.
The PL-15 can likewise fire at the effective range, but the launching platform would need to datalink guide the PL-15 until it reaches the self-guided range.
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My point is that the PL-15 is known to have a longer aerodynamic range than the equivalent Indian missiles of the R-77 and Astra types. NEZ is usually estimate as 1/3rd the aerodynamic range for a solid single-pulse rocket. We do not know how to estimate a NEZ for a dual-pulse rocket. However, compared to the R-77 and Astra missiles, we can assume the NEZ is higher than on the PL-15 due to its higher aerodynamic range, and that a dual pulse-rocket has a higher
Moreover, the PL-15 uses an AESA seeker, which is usually considered too expensive for missiles, but is seen on the most modern missiles such as the AAM-4. This should result in an increase in tracking range, as the AESA seeker can form a narrow beam to enhance effective power, which allows the datalinking aircraft to stop datalinking and turn home sooner.
The numbers I've provided suggest that the self-guided range on the PL-15 is almost as high as its effective range under some interpretations of such. The implication is that the J-11 or J-10 can fire off a PL-15, then wait a little bit for the missile to self-guide, then turn home, while forcing the Su-30MKI platform to launch counter-missiles while out of effective range (i.e, the missile can threaten, but not hit) and be forced to datalink the missile for long periods of time.
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When I think about it, though, you DO have a point when it comes to the greater effective load of the Su-30MKIs compared to J-11s and J-10s operating out of Lhasa.
This translates into a bit of tactical flexibility for the Su-30MKIs; the Su-30MKIs can launch their BVR missiles while out of effective range, to threaten the J-11s and J-10s. This is possible because BVR missiles tend to have an initial speed of Mach 4, allowing them to close in on a target and force their opponents to turn back or risk ending up in the missile's effective range.
However, the PL-15s are so long-ranged it could be possible that the the effective range of the PL-15 actually EXCEEDS the maximum range of the Su-30MKI's missiles, i.e, implying that the PL-15 can be launched first, and all the J-11s or J-10s have to do is to wait for the missiles to get into self-guided range, and then call it quits.
Moreover, when we're talking about Tibetan altitude takeoff penalties, recall that the J-10 has a max external payload of 7000 kg. The Su-27 has a max external payload of 4700 kg.
The PL-12 weighs 180 kg, let's say the PL-15 weighs 1.5x the PL-12. That implies it's about 270 kg. A load of 4 PL-15s, then, would come out to 1000 kg, which is far below the maximum external payload of both the J-10 and J-11, implying that even when we consider the Tibetan penalties to MTOW, the J-11 and J-10 should be able to pack a decent air-to-air load anyways.
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As for the self-tracking range of the Astra missile:
