R-27AE development

Anyways, anyone have any info on the R-27AE?

I agree with Srbin any concrete evidence not just guessing 😮

Sorry I forget to mention AWACS with that.

The Bekaa fighting dates from 1982!!!! At Deci../Sardina they trained BVR. Since 90s they bought AIM-120s. At low level most medium range AAMs are reduced to < 10 km and short range AAMs to < 5 km. At those very low-levels the Radar is not at its best. To avoid blue/blue-fire in a confined area, visual identification is still preferred by IDF-AF. The USAF had changed its general flight-profil to medium and high. (stealth+ECM)

There are not many BVR kills in the Arab-Israeli conflicts. This has led to a belief among the Israeli that BVR isn’t as important as WVR, and WVR is still where the action is at. That is why they have long emphasized development of the Python series over the Derby, and the Derby is still a dogfight missile with added range. Kills over the Bekaa valley were done mostly by one missile—the Python 3.

There have been very few successful BVR engagements and the reason US takes most of them is because they are constantly attacking someone. If it was the Russians who were attacking others, I am sure they’d have notched up many kills.

Also what do u call some of the BVR kills in Arab-Israeli wars? Iraq-Iran where there was quite a few I believe too.

Well, starting wars is a good way to test weapons and tactical theories 🙂

But it all comes down to experience in getting highly complicated concepts to work correctly.

The US as I said had a huge headstart with the AIM-7 in Vietnam. And then the Israelis used the Sparrow effectively in the MidEast and then the Gulf War I, then the no-fly-zone over Iraq, then Bosnia, then Kosovo and now Gulf War II. That huge wealth of information is not shared with the Russians.

The R-27 and the R-77 are still weapons with concepts and abilities that are not quite proven in combat.

It could be that Year 2000 in East Africa for the R-27 is the same as 1965 was for the Sparrow. A teething period for a untested weapon. If that is the case, it might take a while before the R-27 could even match the experience and operational thought processes that was engineered into the AIM-7F in the 1980s.

As far as the Iraq/Iran war, there isn’t a lot of records and the whole thing is left to conjecture. There might have been several bvr kills by French missiles but we hear of far more claims by Iranian AIM-54 (25 kills) than the handful of claims by the R530. I’ve no idea how the AIM-7E on the F-4s performed.

But the Iranians from what I read used the F-4 mostly for ground attacks which means the F-14 probably handled much of the air superiority tasks.

Unless we get more information from the Iran-Iraq conflict, we could only guess. But if it’s bvr, the F-14 would always get the first shot in because of its radar.

There have been very few successful BVR engagements and the reason US takes most of them is because they are constantly attacking someone. If it was the Russians who were attacking others, I am sure they’d have notched up many kills.

Also what do u call some of the BVR kills in Arab-Israeli wars? Iraq-Iran where there was quite a few I believe too.

I don’t think range or training is a problem in the East African experience. They were mainly mercenary Russian and Ukrainian pilots. You don’t have a lot of greenhorn mercenaries. These tend to be people who’ve been career soldiers.

There were at least 4 kills by Flankers against MiG-29s with IR AAMs so at least those occasions they followed up BVR firings by closing in for the kill.

But I wouldn’t doubt the Sparrow 7 analogy. It took the Vietnam war with hundreds of AIM-7 launches to work out the technology and doctrine.

Russian (and the rest of the world) use of BVR even in year 2000 was still working out the kinks in BVR usage.

The US has a 3 decade old head start and wealth of experience that includes about 96% of BVR kills recorded in history (and the 4% left over are faint rumors of French bvr kills in the Iran-Iraq war and a few Russian “possibles.”)

BVR is a sure thing only in US hands or US weapons.

Anyways, anyone have any info on the R-27AE?

The R-27s could have come from the Ukraine, not Russia. Everyone of the Federated states had existing stocks they wished to sell.

The poor R-27 kill rate may be attributed to something similar in the Vietnam and even the early Desert Storm experience, when there was AMRAAM misses. One of the fallacies of BVRAAM use is to shoot the missile towards the end of the range or as soon you get a lock. In training missions or simulations, which only use simulated missiles, it’s relatively easy to lock, shoot and “kill”. In simulations, missiles seem to “work” better than they do in real life.

The Sparrow and AMRAAM misses were due to firing the missile at longer range. When the pilot is more patient and experienced, he should wait for the target to get closer, so the warning time for the target will be much shorter and the missiles will have more reserve propellant to pursue and counter any evasive tactics. Its the modern air combat equivalent of “wait till you see the whites in their eyes” before firing. From what I heard, the majority of AMRAAM kills were close shots, just beyond visual ranges to give the maximum possibility of a kill.

The pilots in the Ethiopian/Eritrean war, in my opinion, do not have sufficient experience in BVR combat. Skills may have atrophied, and these pilots do not have the luxury or the hours to spend on compared to their Indian or Chinese counterparts. For that, they were novices at least in terms of BVR, though they seem to do well enough fighting into the merge. They probably did the same thing, shot the missiles from the farthest extent possible, and expected them to work like magic. I won’t use the Ethiopian/Eritrean experience as an example of how the AA-10 Alamo might work in actual combat in the hands of more seasoned pilots.

what i understood from “war of attrition” AFM, was russian mercenaries on Su-27 etiopia and ukranian mercenaries Mig-29 eritrea, both firing R-27’s and the few kills given to the russian mercenaries and these guys having the better R-27’s via their…”friends in high russian places”
it doesnt surprise me at all. :rolleyes:
but how about the new seeker developed? (well, 1999 :rolleyes: ), it seems to transform it into something real hot. see link

http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/fi014.htm

i’d like your opinion guys. 😉

Camaro.

GD,

Are you referring to the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict involving combat between Mig-29s and Su-27s? Weren’t they flown by experienced mercenary pilots?

1999 Russian/Ukranian pilots couldn’t possibly be judged as “experienced” by any objective standard- the atrophy in flying hours had set in well by then. The Vietnam experience may also be telling- poor maintenance/handling of AIM-7s significantly reduced their effectiveness.

And if so, the R-27s seem to be poor performers. Or could one blame the actuall way they might have been used? That is, incorrectly.

The Eritrea/Ethiopia report is exceedingly vague, and single-sourced. You can see the problems others have with it on ACIGs own forum.

The keyword is seems 🙂

In practice, the R-27 family has not performed well at all. The East Africa conflict shows a score of about 25 odd launches with a single possible hit. This was year 2000 in a low ECM/ECCM environment.

GD,

Are you referring to the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict involving combat between Mig-29s and Su-27s? Weren’t they flown by experienced mercenary pilots? And if so, the R-27s seem to be poor performers. Or could one blame the actuall way they might have been used? That is, incorrectly.

Is this variant of the R-27 still being developed or even being considered?
How far did it go in development? :confused:
It would seem like a VERY deadly weapon, an active radar guided long range missile would really boast the MiG-29 and Su-27s BVR performance, having a greater rrange than the R-77. (I think the range is supposed to be 80 Km?)

The keyword is seems 🙂

In practice, the R-27 family has not performed well at all. The East Africa conflict shows a score of about 25 odd launches with a single possible hit. This was year 2000 in a low ECM/ECCM environment.

It appears not to have interested buyers or parties, so development appears on hold until you have some interest.