Pffft. That’s not an attack. That’s a tit-for-tat asymmetric response for incursions and settlements and certainly nothing that requires an aircraft any better than a AT-6.

Does Fire Shadow give the army something of the RAF’s ability to loiter and strike, or is it more a munition that is targeted accurately in the terminal phase?

It will be interesting to see how this is used in practice. Does the ability to loiter allow them to get targets that have effectively gone to ground then?

Yes it is very much a ‘loitering with intent’ munition.

Russia to See 20-Ton Combat Drone ‘by 2018’ – Industry Source

MOSCOW, October 3 (RIA Novosti) – The prototype of Russia’s first 20-ton combat drone will be unveiled in 2018, a defense industry source said Thursday.The 20-ton unmanned combat aerial vehicle is being developed by the Sukhoi company, and will be based on the fifth-generation T-50 fighter, United Aircraft Corporation president Mikhail Pogosyan said during the MAKS 2013 airshownear Moscow in August.
Pogosyan added that the drone was at a “preliminary research stage” and gave no indication of a timeline for development.
RIA Novosti’s anonymous source also confirmed Thursday that a five-ton drone, being developed by the Kazan-based Sokol company, would be ready in 2015-16.

http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20131003/183921688/Russia-to-See-20-Ton-Combat-Drone-by-2018–Industry-Source.html

Well, if the people I have been talking to over the years do not understand ASRAAM, MBDA has got some major organisational problems!

But if you wish to believe that ASRAAM has a datalink, then feel free to do so.

That’s what my source said but hey, if it’s somehow managing to lock that well and avoid friendly aircraft without a datalink, the phrase ‘dead-weight’ springs to mind.

I have been briefed on ASRAAM more than once. It has no datalink, but it can – and has – made over the shoulder launches. The seeker has a plus or 90 degree field of view, and the missile can attain high angles of attack in flight, so it very quickly is able to see a rear-hemisphere LOAL target.

I’ve heard otherwise but, for the sake of argument, assuming it doesn’t, how does it distinguish between friend and foe? E.g. it’s launched and a friendly fighter happens to be the ‘brightest’, most central target after it turns in that direction.

Give it up man, you are just looking more and more foolish.

You started out talking missiles and now you want to make up fanboy scenarios featuring the PAK FA.

Bring It On has provided more than enough real sources to support his arguments and you haven’t brought anything but ever shifting goalposts.

And you’ve said a lot there without saying anything. I respect the capabilities of the F-35 (stealth and sensors) but I also recognise that it does have some dynamic shortfalls.

In this case it is good information – there is no datalink and LOAL shots are made using INS guidance initially. The object, as I understand it, is not to extend the range but to do shots at high off-boresight angles.

The required accuracy isn’t achievable with just INS. As you know the positional accuracy required for a missile to obtain a lock on an aircraft is fairly restrictive. If that weren’t the case, then an aircraft could just detect the general direction of radar or data comms emissions from a stealth fighter, fire a missile and it would lock itself somewhere on the way. Clearly that is not possible.

You mean the little thing that ended shortly after the YF-22’s first flight? It was always going to be difficult to cancel being that it was designed that way, guaranteeing jobs in no less than 44 different states and hence hand-cuffing most senators to the bed posts.

If the F-22 had been designed to be more reliable and cheaper to produce with slightly more robust F-35 materials and a CATOBAR/STOBAR variant made, you could scrap the F-35A and C and just build the F-35B, which is the only variant of the F-35 that has good performance relative to its class.

Do tell me..How many weapons systems will be sold by 2020 by these players that will be a credible BVR threat to the F-35 kitted with a Aim-120C7? The F-35’s that will be flying will be stealth, have some of the most sophisticated integrated avionics available, Active-Passive sensors, 360 degrees coverage and of course top notch EW capability.

And have some of the worst performance seen since the ’60s in terms of acceleration, speed and sustained g at altitude. It’s not just a matter of what can be used against an F-35 but what an F-35 can use its missiles against. With ground radar working in conjunction with aircraft radar, who knows what the detection range of an F-35 will be in 2020.

WHich the Block III would become given a 60% range increase being sought from the lated Aim-9x which many claim (Blk II) overlaps with the Aim-120D.

Currently it does not have a data link. It uses internal guidance for LOAL…The Aim-9xblkII has One way data link and GPS guidance (adopted from the AMRAAM program)

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-24223-postdays-0-postorder-asc.html

Oh LOL, f-16.net, must be true. It uses the same one as CAMM. How do you LOAL without a datalink and no you can’t do it just from INS against a fighter as the dummies suggested?

Not all shots will be at long ranges..

Kind of defeats the object then. With the motor only on for about one third of the total kinematic range, that would limit TVC utility to around 16km for a 50km missile and using TVC will reduce remaining energy far more severely simply because not all the thrust is pointing along the flight axis. The AIM-9X-III is really just doing what the ASRAAM and MICA_IR have already done except late in the day, just as the AIM-9X-II was an IRIS-T late in the day and with 10g less manoeuvrability.