Planning to have a long and popular science discussion, Long Yun paused for a while and took two sips of tea.

"First of all, you probably already know that in order for missiles to detect infrared radiation from enemy aircraft, the seeker needs to rely on infrared sensors. Depending on the working medium and structure of the sensor, from the early "lead sulfide" to the later "indium antimonide" to the current "mercury cadmium tellurization", the infrared bands that can be detected are becoming wider and more sensitive at the same time.

However, based on the background analysis of the topic, due to the military technology level of my country and the Soviet Union, practical infrared seekers were still in the era of "cooled indium antimonide sensors" in the early 1990s. The peak infrared sensing of this sensor is at 3~5 micron wavelengths, while in the front infrared radiation signal of the fighter, the radiation energy in the 3~5 micron band is actually very small. Because of this situation, the seeker made of a cooled indium antimonide sensor has a very low interception distance for the head-on target than the interception distance for the tail-on target. To put it bluntly, it can only chase the chrysanthemum, but is not good at head-on attacks."

"……'chrysanthemum'?"

"——Ah, no, nothing! That is to say, you can only chase the tail and attack, that's all, haha..."

I didn't want to explain this vulgar word to the girl in front of me. Long Yun wiped the cold sweat from his forehead before continuing his explanation:

"Ling, think about it, if the missile can only chase the enemy plane at the tail, will it be very passive when the enemy and us approach each other? Of course, it is not impossible to use this type of missile to intercept the enemy plane head-on, but the probability of intercepting the enemy plane by the self-guided head will decrease significantly. In most cases, this is a way of fighting by chance.

To improve the head-on attack capability of infrared guided missiles, sensors of different materials can be used, such as mercury tellurium sensors with peak sensing in the 1 to 24 micron band; however, based on the domestic technical basis in the 1990s, the yield rate of manufacturing is very low and the price is outrageous. Secondly, due to the widening of the sensor detection band, the circuit design required is more complex and the complexity of signal processing is greatly improved. At the time of the technological level, it is difficult to implement it."

"So, according to what you said, it is that due to the technical limitations at that time, our infrared bombs can basically only pursue enemy aircraft? - Then I understand the undesirableness of doing this. If you want to fight air battles, the enemy and us always approach each other at the beginning, right?"

"Yes, this is the case in most cases. So due to the technical level at that time, infrared bombs cannot completely replace semi-active bombs to perform combat tasks. Of course, when it comes to the reason, another disadvantage of infrared bombs is that the self-conducting head of the missile needs to have a semi-spherical transparent cover. This head shape will greatly increase the shock wave resistance of the missile during high-speed flight. Just like the r-27r/r-27t series missiles we imported back then. Although the two types of missile bodies are exactly the same, the range and maximum speed of the infrared r-27t are not as good as the radar r-27r."

"Oh... I understand a little bit after hearing what you said."

Although he still knows little about fighter jets and missiles, he also has the foundation and smart mind of a high-level science student. Shangguan Lingting blinked in interest, and after thinking for a moment, he put forward his own ideas:

"So, if infrared bombs are not easy to use, I have another idea to use missiles with a range farther than the enemy's active bomb to strike the enemy. Is this possible? Since you talk about the range of missiles, the infrared range is not as good as the radar type with the same conditions; then we do not consider infrared bombs. Isn't there another kind of "semi-active radar-guided missile" with an increased range? If you use semi-active bombs with a range that exceeds the enemy's active bomb, is it possible to shoot down the enemy plane?"

"Oh?--You mean,"

When she heard her response ideas, wasn’t she talking about a big guy like R-27er? Long Yun felt a little bit more energetic, “Even if we only have half-active bounces, as long as the half-active bounce range exceeds the enemy’s active bounce, we can hit the opponent first, but the opponent can’t hit us, right?”

"Yeah, that's it. Isn't the reason very simple?"

"Haha, that's it..."

When Long Yun smiled when he heard Shangguan Ling's seemingly reasonable but inadequate words, he looked scheming and laughed. He knew that the view that the young lady had just expressed was one of the misunderstandings of air combat that people repeatedly raised on the Internet and the community, but novices often don't understand.

"So, I roughly understand what you mean, which is to use semi-active bullets with certain advantage in range to shoot against enemy aircraft, and strive to discover first, fire first, and destroy first, right? It's like the enemy holding a pistol, but we hold a rifle, and then we can unilaterally kill the enemy with the advantage of range, right?

But you didn't expect that there was an obvious major omission in this way of thinking.

The reason why this tactic is not feasible is that the active bomb used by the enemy aircraft does not need to provide illumination when the missile approaches the end of the target. In other words, even if we launch the R-27er first to attack the enemy aircraft and successfully hit it after a period of time, the active bomb launched by the enemy aircraft has approached at this time, and we still need to face the threat of the active bomb at this time.

Of course, the specific calculation of this process is quite complicated. You can calculate it slowly afterwards, but I can roughly say that if you want to use the advantage of range against active bombs, the range index generally needs to be more than 1.3 times that of the latter, which is actually beyond my country's technical level at that time. Even if it is an R-27er, with an effective range of 75,000 meters, it still cannot fight against the Aim-120b with an effective range of more than 60 kilometers. One of the reasons is that."

When he spoke out this helpless reality, Long Yun's tone became a little serious. This situation was not interesting to the Chinese Air Force at that time. In this case, the threat to active missiles was nothing to him. He and the air-to-air missiles were always old friends who were easy to disperse; but for ordinary pilots, implementing this tactic is often the result of dying with enemy planes.

"Oh...yes, is that true..."

Hearing a completely novel theory, those data and analysis that were often obscure and difficult to understand were explained clearly by the man in front of him in a few words. The young lady who thought carefully focused on her cheeks and thought about it, and then suddenly woke up and rushed out:

"But - a question that clearly has no answer, why do you want me to think about it!"

"--ah?"

"I have been reading it very seriously for a long time and have searched a lot of information online! - Of course, it is true to learn something, but you said this," to Long Yun's surprise. Ling also took out a tablet computer while saying it, showing him some of the things he did, although naive, but seriously analyzing the patterns. "Then am not like a person who solves the problems of 'turning circles into squares' and 'cube multiples', which is equivalent to thinking about questions without answers?"

Hearing Shangguan Ling's words, Long Yun took the computer in her hand curiously and opened his eyes wide for a while. He felt that the girl's homework was really good, at least better than many amateur military fans. However, if he wanted to say "I was vain to fool her", this was a misunderstanding. He put down the computer and looked directly at the girl's beautiful eyes in front of him:

"That's not the case. Well, what should I say? Can I say that you are not doing your homework in detail? In fact, besides 'semi-active radar guidance' and 'infrared guidance', there are still weapons to deal with active bombs. - Look, did you see it?"

I took a break on the computer and found the corresponding introduction page. Long Yun sent it to the lady:

"It can be done to some extent using anti-radiation missiles."

"Anti-radiation…missile?"

Hearing Long Yun's words, Shangguan Ling opened his eyes wide in surprise. She was not sure what he was talking about.

Anti-radiation missiles are not unfamiliar with most military fans.

Anyone who can say something about this will mention Harm (high-speed anti-radiation missile), which transliterates the air-opposite anti-radiation missile, which is a very popular air-opposite anti-radiation missile in the 1991 Gulf War. Relying on the successful performance of the F-4G "Wild Weasel" fighter jet, the "Ham" missile destroyed a large number of Iraq's air defense radars and surface-to-air missile guidance radars, clearing the biggest obstacle for large-scale air strikes by many forces.

However, here, what Long Yun called the "anti-radiation missile" is not an air-to-ground missile, but an anti-radiation weapon used for air combat; this air-to-air missile, called r-27p, is guided by detecting the radiation signals of enemy aircraft radars, and its combat mode is completely different from that of ordinary air-to-air missiles.

When he saw the eldest lady in front of him, he suddenly didn't know. Long Yun introduced the missile like R-27p to her in a few words, roughly explaining the guidance principle of the missile. After listening to Long Yun's narration, perhaps because he felt that this kind of missile was completely fine to deal with enemy aircraft, Shangguan Ling easily put down the tablet computer in his hand and gave Long Yun a charming smile of understanding and teaching:

"Oh! That's it. - Well, I blamed you wrongly before; if I have time when I go back, I'll take a closer look."

After hearing Long Yun's explanation (actually, it's better to be considered literacy), I probably thought this missile was very interesting. After finishing this discussion, Shangguan Ling took the computer and looked at it again, then put it away with satisfaction, raised his hand and pulled down the soundproof curtain, and called Su Xue across the aisle to sit together. The two of them were talking and laughing in a low voice, as if they were about to start playing chess.
Chapter completed!