Soviet Air-to-Air missiles

In fact it is the poor performance of missiles at low altitudes that led to the Soviet and Russian practise of fitting IR seekers to BVR missiles on their fighters.
From a high altitude high speed launch an R-27E model AAM can hit a target that is 80kms away at the time of launch. At low altitude that figure is more like 20kms... which sounds bad till you realise that for a Sidewinder class missile can barely reach a quarter of that at low altitude.
Of course the other reason was that BVR IR guided weapons complimented radar homing weapons of all types. A closing target can be fired upon from long range with a radar homing missile but a receding target is hard to get a lock on and so lock on range for a radar homing missile is much shorter. For an IR guided weapon a receding target is showing its engine exhausts and it is the ideal lock on angle for an IR missile... the only problem is that small IR guided missiles lack the legs to chase down a target heading away from you so BVR IR missiles are ideal.

nastle77 wrote:The Mig-31 in  soviet times carried the earlier models of the R-33 ( i.e before 1990)

1-How effective was it against cruise missiles ? was it ever tested against them ?

2-Can it be used against anti-ship missiles like Harpoon ?

3-Can 4 of them be launched against separate targets at the same time ?

4-Was it tested against fighter sized targets ?

If anybody has details of the tests that would be great
Thanks

Berkut wrote:

nastle77 wrote:The Mig-31 in  soviet times carried the earlier models of the R-33 ( i.e before 1990)

1-How effective was it against cruise missiles ? was it ever tested against them ?

2-Can it be used against anti-ship missiles like Harpoon ?

3-Can 4 of them be launched against separate targets at the same time ?

4-Was it tested against fighter sized targets ?

If anybody has details of the tests that would be great
Thanks

What do you mean by "earlier" models of R-33? The R-33 is used today is basically the same that was used in the 80's. In fact i am not sure if new R-33's has been produced since early 90's, maybe not counting R-33S... So your questions apply to today too.

1 - Yes. In fact they test use it for that purpose about yearly for the last few years. They last did it in may.

2 - No.

3 - I can't remember for sure with vanilla MiG-31's, but yes, i believe this could be done even with them. With BM's, certainly.

4 - Yes.

nastle77 wrote:The Mig-31 in  soviet times carried the earlier models of the R-33 ( i.e before 1990)

1-How effective was it against cruise missiles ? was it ever tested against them ?

Thanks

GarryB wrote:Pretty much all in service Soviet AAMs... AA-2, AA-3, AA-6, AA-7, and AA-10 has IR and SARH versions... later models even had a passive radar homing to lock onto the nose radar of aircraft guiding SARH missiles.

The AA-8, AA-9, and AA-11 did not have both options... AA-8 and AA-11 were IR only and the AA-9 was SARH only.

AA-12 and AA-13 also seem to be only ARH (The inservice ones seen so far anyway).

GarryB wrote:

1-How effective was it against cruise missiles ? was it ever tested against them ?

It would have been rather effective against cruise missiles... they pretty much fly straight and level most of the time and do not defend themselves.

Performance against an enemy bomber would be less impressive.

2-Can it be used against anti-ship missiles like Harpoon ?

It would not matter what sort of missile it was I presume... a Harpoon cruising to its target area would be very similar to a strategic nuclear cruise missile...

3-Can 4 of them be launched against separate targets at the same time ?

Yes, and over a much more widely separated area than the F-14/Phoenix could manage due to the electronically scanned PESA radar.

4-Was it tested against fighter sized targets ?

Its primary role was against cruise missiles and large aircraft like bombers or AWACS aircraft. It would not be ideal against a fighter aircraft.

If anybody has details of the tests that would be great

I seem to remember a test where a MiG-31 was flying at 6,000m and engaged a target 20km away that was flying at 20m altitude int he late 1980s.

Nowdays I suspect they will be transfering to R-37M missiles which can engage 8g targets so would be much better able to engage enemy fighter aircraft as well as missiles and bombers/AWACs/JSTARS/tanker aricraft.

nastle77 wrote:I have read that the main Mig-23 tactics against other fighters was mainly "hit and run" and to avoid prolonged dogfights
But then I see the Mig-23P, ML, MLA  and MLD had the R-60 which was a ultraclose range weapon designed to counter maneuverable fighters ,from a practical standpoint when was the Mig-23 expected to use this weapon ? WHat is the benefit of having 4 of these weapons with a very short range ?
since it was outranged by the sidewinder the Wests most common AAM
Wouldn't it be better to equip the Mig-23 with 4 x R-24 missiles as they would give them longer spear to deal with the sidewinder armed opponents esp when the IR version of this version was essentially a fire and forget weapon

George1 wrote:

nastle77 wrote:I have read that the main Mig-23 tactics against other fighters was mainly "hit and run" and to avoid prolonged dogfights
But then I see the Mig-23P, ML, MLA  and MLD had the R-60 which was a ultraclose range weapon designed to counter maneuverable fighters ,from a practical standpoint when was the Mig-23 expected to use this weapon ? WHat is the benefit of having 4 of these weapons with a very short range ?
since it was outranged by the sidewinder the Wests most common AAM
Wouldn't it be better to equip the Mig-23 with 4 x R-24 missiles as they would give them longer spear to deal with the sidewinder armed opponents esp when the IR version of this version was essentially a fire and forget weapon

RS-24 in MiG-23 were used from Syrian Air Force against Israel's F-16s during 1982 Lebanon War, but claims on its success varies.
Many R-23 kills are also reported in the war between Iran and Iraq from Iraqi MiG-23s vs F-14, F-4 and F-5Es

Giulio wrote:I think the only way to shoot down an F-14 with a Mig-23 is the R-60: to play with a Tomcat on the long range distance it may not be a very good idea ....

nastle77 wrote:I have read that the main Mig-23 tactics against other fighters was mainly "hit and run" and to avoid prolonged dogfights
But then I see the Mig-23P, ML, MLA  and MLD had the R-60 which was a ultraclose range weapon designed to counter maneuverable fighters ,from a practical standpoint when was the Mig-23 expected to use this weapon ? WHat is the benefit of having 4 of these weapons with a very short range ?
since it was outranged by the sidewinder the Wests most common AAM
Wouldn't it be better to equip the Mig-23 with 4 x R-24 missiles as they would give them longer spear to deal with the sidewinder armed opponents esp when the IR version of this version was essentially a fire and forget weapon

GarryB wrote:It was probably available in 1982, but such weapons were not purchased in enormous numbers... the Soviet Airforce neglected purchasing expensive guided weapons.

They had a variety of guided air to ground weapon types but their numbers in service were small and while a wide range of aircraft could carry the AS-13, it was the expensive ground attack aircraft only that carried it... ie Su-24M.

I would not expect them to have enormous numbers of the system but the air units that would have deployed it would have been Fencer units.