Is it still enough?
Not by half a pole.
Rocket propulsion in a 400lb class weapon is as dated as it is in a 250 class weapon which is why the French are doing all they can to buy into Meteor rather than simply stick their MICA GCS atop a streamlined S530D chassis.
The APG-63V(1) is another sign of how far behind the times the JASDF are, given it is nothing more than a DMS solution to keeping a planar array competitive in a world of fast AESA. It isn’t an AWG either (roughly half the ERPs) in terms of peak TWT loads so that you cannot truly take advantage of longrange STT terminal options with a silent midcourse weapon.
Most importantly, the signature of the F-15 doesn’t support the kinds of silent shooter : standoff illuminator options that a similar capability with even (say) F-14 and F-5E would. If you’re out there, they will see you, even against the clutter, with simple upgrades like the Scipio or El-2030 series as bought or stolen.
The unfortunate part is that the F-15 is no F-4. It doesn’t have the internal gas to get by with a single centerline and the CFTs turn it into whale on roller blades. Which effectively means the need for gas and that fixed conical camber wing deny you the option of wing pylons by virtue of a very aggressive aero-acoustics environment.
Hence the aircraft cannot gracefully be reroled into A2G like the F-4EJs were.
If the JASDF want to go somewhere, they need to design a missileer platform with a sub-1m crosssection able to carry a minimum 4-6, 600lb class, Ram-AAM weapons* with a functional (secure, discrete) datalink.
They then need to back this cheap and simple, _endurant_, spear carrier with a high rez AESA capability (Wedgetail as much as 767 AWACS) to scan wide volumes and provide weapons grade tracking for home defense. If they want to take that out into the maritime power projection role to support their F-2s they need to put that radar (and 4 X400lb AAM or 2+2 400/600lb AAM) into a jet like the Shin Shin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g94C5CNIPOQ
So that what the U.S. plays at with MFFC and useless platforms like the F/A-18E/F and F-15/16C in rigged Alaskan exercises designed to make the F-22 look good can be realistically achieved at minimal exposure to a realistic (small) strike force using much more advantageously positioned support enablers.
The key is to understand that length may mean more than weight and a bombbay like the YF-23 may be more useful to the Japanese overall security mission against North Korea and China both.
Either way, it’s better to send the bullet before the pilot and the F-15 which has the ability to loft 2,500lbs of AIM-7 based hardware, no problem, now carries 1,600lbs for no other reason than that GD in the early 80s demanded that our followon MRM be compatible with the F-16 outboard and tiprails so that they could make an even bigger profit.
The result is an NEZ on the order of 8-10nm for AIM-120C and 6-10nm for the AIM-120B and an outer pole in the 15-17nm category which means if the weapon misses, you have one more chance before you eat the merge.
Of course, looked at from this standpoint of wanting to kill threats in the 40-60nm range category (without SSC), the utility of the 7-10nm SRM becomes even more questionable. The shear duration of nose-on foolish closure commitment as you descend not-gracefully from a 4 100km to 2 40km to 2 20km weapons envelope as gaps of mistaken commitment renders the aircraft -useless- as much as dangerous with offboard datalink to hand the missiles outside of a sideband tether.
Now consider what happens is if a threat refuses to commit but simply chucks LACMs or aeroballistics, making at an arrow-not-archer redoubled threat at over 60 or even 100nm standoffs and suddenly the MRM/SRM pairing is just ridiculous. It -pays- the enemy to invest in force multiplier cruise weapons because not only do they conserve their own platforms but they force the shot trade to happen between AAM/CM at an exchange value of 25-50 million yen per shot vs. roughly 10.2 million CMY per cruise.
IMO, DPRK and ROC are stalking horses designed to bleed U.S. money into an imperial/colonial support system that gives away technology and does little else. When China inevitably asserts herself (via currency value normalization) as the U.S. gets weaker and weaker becoming a socialist welfare state, Japan will be the only free nation left facing what amounts to an Asian Monroe Doctrine. We will slink backwards across the pacific. China will develop retargetable ballistic technologies and ROTHR like systems to keep the USN and her Carriers well away and the only way to win will be cheaply with maximum standoff and prepositional uncertainty to keep the enemy on their toes. That doesn’t happen with AAM-3/4/5 which are little more than a 2000s reenvisionment of the same solutions looking for an answer that was 1976 AIMVAL.
MPlic
*As the potential booster baseline for a followon Raptor-Talon = HARM/ASAS cheap and dirty MRBM killer.
hello KP.
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