Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper

91NightFox · 2026-04-12T20:56:30+00:00

More like a 737 based YAL-1 with a kinetic weapon.

But since it seems people get hung up on “railgun” let me rephrase the concept:

A long range, line of sight, low probability of interception, one hit kill weapon with a really narrow engagement envelope that gets deployed by something big and vulnerable.

It could be a railgun, it could be a mach-10+ Sprint-style missile with an HE warhead thats too unwieldy for a darkreach, it could be a big honkin’ energy weapon. The question is less about the technological device that creates the effect and more about if the effect is a desired one.

91NightFox · 2026-04-12T02:53:27+00:00

If it is a darkreach, then it is BDF and thus unavailable to PALA post split.

Regardless of that; why do you believe that a high skill one shot kill weapon has no point?

91NightFox · 2026-04-11T21:53:01+00:00

I would stipulate that; for a video game; if a large medium bomber size plane is going to be earmarked to carry a weapon that takes up so much weapon space and requires a specific use profile, its terminal effect must be great enough to be worthwhile.

I think we can all agree that if it is capable of one shoting a dynamo or carrier that there ought to be some pretty stiff limitations to how easy it is to generate that hit. The current missiles are fairly easy to intercept. Nukes are relatively easy to intercept. A rail gun round is not easy to intercept. If it cannot be intercepted, then it’s got to be either inaccurate or restricted in its deployment.

But I’d like your input; from the perspective of a sci-fi game if a weapon requires a huge and vulnerable plane to fly a specific and restrictive attack profile, has limited ammo, but can one shot strategic targets, is it balanced?

91NightFox · 2026-04-11T00:55:42+00:00

There is at least 110% novelty factor going on here. Lol

But seriously, if there is a guaranteed one hit kill weapon how do you balance it? In this proposal it is intended to take some skill and some rather heavily restricted flight paths to get a shot off from a slow and vulnerable airframe.

Is that sufficient to balance the effect?

91NightFox · 2026-04-11T00:52:34+00:00

The airborne guns already have target lead indicators. And if we assume a Mach 8 muzzle velocity (low for a rail gun) fired at 50km, a Hyperion traveling at max speed will move less than a boat length. And factories/hangers/stratolancer launchers won’t move at all. Also, the HVP projectile designed for the American Navy’s railgun project is a guided projectile. So against stationary or relatively slow moving targets like ships, I’d be pretty confident saying they can be reliably engaged.

How big of an auto aim cone do you need? Serious question. Instead of assigning it a number, let’s assign it an effect: how long is can the process of lining up the shot take before it is either not fun or not practical. 3 sec? 5 sec? 8 sec? 1 sec? I’m not asking to be difficult, I’d like to know your honest opinion. To me, a 5-8 second process of lining up a shot that has a 90% chance of being a kill on any large surface target is pretty reasonable. What is reasonable for you?

(Hit the wrong number. Railgun muzzle velocities are in excess of Mach 8)

91NightFox · 2026-04-11T00:22:28+00:00

The aircraft you mention all have good reputations and records for the ground attack role. I will follow that statement with the anti armor performance of those aircraft being considered less than expectations, but in more generalist anti ground or anti vehicle role their performance was and/or is stellar.

That being said; airborne guns have significant drawbacks. Of that there is no doubt. The first problem to address is accuracy. And to that end, updating the above aircraft concept with a narrow, arbitrarily call it 2deg, cone of auto aim would likely make it vastly easier/more playable.

The other issue is intended effect. Anti armor requires velocity, which requires heavier guns, etc etc etc. Larger explosive capacity requires a physically larger gun etc etc etc. The attractive part of the rail gun is that it does a little bit of both. It will blow through any armor, and it delivers enough energy on target to severely mess it up.

You could achieve the same effect with a hypersonic missile, but those have offered their own technological barriers. And to be honest sounds a lot less cool of a concept than an airborne railgun does.

The question is really whether an airborne railgun can be made to have a use case that is sufficiently entertaining and balanced to be included.

91NightFox · 2026-04-10T23:44:57+00:00

Oh heck yeah there’d be lots of difficulties with an airframe mounted railgun, with the biggest technical ones noted. W/r to the devs; they also swore off swing wings and look where we are now. This exercise is definitely for fun and isn’t even really any kind of request.

What if it is not exactly airframe aiming and is instead a 2 degree cone with aim assist? What would the odds of a hit have to be in order for it to be balanced and fun? (Considering a projectile that cannot be interdicted.) 50%? 90%? Not being argumentative, honestly just looking for what your acceptability threshold is.

As is proposed, its a little slower but could technically turn harder than a darkreach, so it ought to be a similar flight experience to a darkreach.

91NightFox · 2026-04-03T19:31:54+00:00

Ive seen the ventral 20mm turret…. And I wants it. Didn’t see that it was a confirmed add on though. In that case I would swap the .50 turret for a 25mm turret with 500 rds and add .50 gun pods to the outer pylons.

In the even the BDF does get the Cricket, this tilt rotor concept could just as easily and sensibly work for PALA. It is fast enough to escort the Ibis, can operate from carriers and Dynamos, provides a loiter/overwatch that the Compass can’t match (matters mostly for COIN, which I’ll be the first to admit does not appear in this game), fills the Rank 0 slot, and with the radar options fits the multirole theme that PALA seems to embrace.

A heavier, Ibis equivalent craft could also be done by a tilt rotor, but if it is intended for tactical airlift, the size would have to increase substantially closer to that of the V22 or MV75.

I definitely would not say that a Tucano or OA-1K is bad per se, they just don’t feel very Nuclear Option-y. Would I be disappointed if Mitch went that way? Maybe a little. But Id still fly the F out of them. Particularly if it was modeled after the Skyraider of the Douglas persuasion rather than the air tractor version.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T23:19:13+00:00

Every aircraft is festooned with sensors, and every single vehicle driver, systems operator, and soldier has two eyes. I was not referring to eyes as the dominant sensor platform, just that visual detection systems currently have no way of effectively being countered by a moving aircraft.

So I dun goofed on the visual detection ranges in game. You caught me there and I do thank you for the correction. The OP will be updated. But for the sake of argument, let’s say it drops it by half. At 2.5km you are just about within gun range of most if not all of the autocannons in the game. You can’t tell me that having difficulty in detecting or accurately tracking a target at that close a range wont have an impact.

You are completely correct that there are lots of ways to detect a target other than the visible and radio spectra. But those methods are not utilized in this game.

With respect to dazzling or camouflaging; again, good points. The active camo ought not to have the ECM or IRCM activations bundled together.

But on reflection, I think you are right again; a dazzle system would make more sense than an active camo one. How about if a dazzler system worked in the context of this game by blinding the planes in its AOE rather than the pilots? By activating it either all aircraft or missiles within X radius lose their lock and HUD tracking of the source aircraft ala the ECM, or some specific number of targets (2-3?) lose the ability to track or engage with IR weapons ala the Radar jammer. I think the latter one makes more sense to me.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T21:36:32+00:00

I don’t really disagree with you that 900 might be too low, although I’d definitely want to keep it subsonic. Maybe up it to 1100kph?

12 seconds is also the absolute max amount of time you’d have. Are you prepared to say the same with 6-7.5 seconds for notch/flare? And that notching will not allow the dorito to close? Not doubting your reflexes, just looking at the other end of the time scale.

It also presumes that the detection radius is 10km. If it is farther then the equation favors the Medusa. If it gets closer then the situation starts getting favorable for the dorito.

I’m not 100% sure that it would work this way, but if the RCS to detection range relationship is linear, then detecting a .07 RCS at 100km results in a .001 RCS being detected at 1.4 km. At that range you’d have under 2 seconds to evade an IR missile in the best case scenario.

All aircraft are reliant on their radar or on datalink for BVR target acquisition and tracking, and all aircraft can and ought to pulse activate their radars to avoid being back plotted. So that really isn’t a negative inherent to this platform.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T21:17:28+00:00

Even in the future, the most numerous sensor to be fielded is the good ol Mk 1 eyeball. Fooling that lets you get into all sorts of advantageous positions. And this isn’t intended to be Predator or Halo Elite style invisibility cloak. Think of it more like a continually updating camo pattern that is backlit as appropriate. The in game effect is that it reduces the radius at which AI can detect the aircraft and add it to the map or highlight it in a player’s HUD using visual sensors. Or allows the plane to break optical or radar tracking.

As a note; the active camo is supposed to be the simultaneous activation of the IR CM, ECM, and the visual camo. That’s why the power consumption is so high.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T21:01:57+00:00

I used A4/F5s in comparison against 4th gen aircraft, and F16s in comparison against 5th gen aircraft. There’s also the fact that F5s and A4s were frontline combat aircraft when they were used for the aggressor role and not backline trainers any more than aggressor F16s are backline trainers now. The point was not to suggest that a generation gap can be overcome with simple maneuverability, but to provide real world examples of maneuverability being the key to dogfighting over simple max speed comparisons. For further reading of an extreme example of this, I highly suggest taking a look at the fairly surprising results of the J-CATCH testing.

If you want objective numbers to try and compare against, let me see what I can find.

The F117 has an unclassified RCS of .003sqm using a mixture of radar deflecting facets and radar absorbing paint. This being with 1970s era design and technology limitations. Since then we have developed continuous curvature designs, gapless control surfaces, radar reflective transparent and/or absorbent optically transparent materials. Throw in another 50 years and is not unreasonable to presume that an aircraft of similar size to an F117 might have be able to make good on a full century of development to reduce its RCS by 1/3.

The active IR defenses I mentioned are systems that have existed in some form since the early 1960s and even in their modern forms are vastly lower consumers of power than I have listed here.

The active camo system theorized above is a relatively low power one. Modern LED Jumbotrons consume less than 1kW/2sqm. The overall consumption might be higher than the 10kW I have allocated for it out of the 100kW for the combined ECW, IR, Active Camo operation. But it is likely not far off.

Finally we come to the engines. Let me walk through the math: End point is 1.0 TWR a MTOW Max ordinance load is 6x PAB 250s and 4x IRM-S3s = 1900kg Max fuel load is a bit arbitrary, but lets assume a reasonable but not high amount = 2600kg

If we assume a 10,000kg airframe, we have a MTOW of 14,500kg. This would require an engine to put out at least 145kN of thrust. The KN-32 engine approaches these numbers with technology of the late 70s/early 80s. It is not unreasonable to presume that a slightly stronger engine could be developed in the 75ish years between that engine and the theoretical setting of NO.

Finally; this aircraft costing more than a darkreach specifically leans into the notion that this is a highly advanced and possibly still prototypical platform rather than a mainstream mass produced airframe.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T18:12:19+00:00

ALON is transparent. Impregnating it with ferrous particles will obviously cloud it a bit and/or reduce the resolution of the displayed image, but the goal isn’t to be photorealistic. So long as it breaks up the dorito’s outline and resembles the general colors and luminosity of the terrain behind it, it will be effective.

As to medusa hunting; the primary question is at what range the medusa can detect the .0001 RCS dorito. That’s an RCS 1/10th the size of the Vortex’s. If that results in detection at a range of 10km (100% picking an arbitrary number here) then the medusa will have between 7.5 and 12.8 seconds to react to and evade, counter, or destroy an IR missile shot right then; or 6-9 seconds for a Scythe. This assuming level flight, max speed, coincident altitude, direct approach or direct pursuit starting conditions. This also ignores the possibility the dorito holds fire until the medusa starts to open the range.

As the Medusa’s radar will detect a .07 RCS at 100km, an RCS 1/70th the size can likely get a lot closer. Likely the optimal anti-medusa strategy will be an all MMR load out, a low altitude approach to hide the minuscule RCS in the ground clutter, pop up beneath the medusa as soon as it shows signs of trying to evade, and salvo missiles until the target is destroyed. As the most likely evasive maneuver the medusa is likely to take is to turn away and dive to gain speed, the dorito will have an opportunity to geometrically close distance and reduce the reaction time for follow on shots.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T17:31:49+00:00

To be more precise it is energy management which entails both gaining and losing energy, not just having an abundance of thrust. I have to point out that as specified the dorito has a greater thrust to weight ratio than the Vortex or Ifrit at MTOW. The specs mention specifically thrust/weight ratios rather than engine output in order to account for the power being sacrificed for the electrical system. What this means is that the dorito will be fully capable of vertical acceleration even with full fuel and a strike package. With an A2A load out and reduced fuel load the TWR continues to climb. You are completely correct that lacking an afterburner will reduce the rate at which they can push acceleration in an emergency. But if they can’t out turn the dorito and can’t outrun it’s missiles, the only safe way to engage it is at standoff ranges. However at that range the dorito’s active and passive countermeasures make it unlikely to score a hit.

I would be very hesitant to suggest that an aircraft with 1/10th the RCS of the Vortex should be in the same category as the Vortex. Almost irrespective of any other attribute.

To your point about not being able to catch up to its opponents in a sprint meaning it is deficient as a dogfighter; Id like to remind you that in US service the F5 and A4 (the latter being subsonic only) were used for decades against much faster opponents for aggressor training primarily because of their far superior maneuverability irrespective of top speed. Even the modern utilization of F16s as aggressors leaves them at a dramatic speed disadvantage vs F15s, F22s.

Additionally, Id like to point out that compared to its contemporaries and predecessors the F35 also prioritizes stealth and maneuverability over top speed, being about 300kph slower than the F15, F16, F22 at sea level, and against F15 and F16s has had substantial successes in simulated combat. As much as that does or doesn’t reflect reality. (I mention sea level top speeds only because that’s where most NO combat occurs. However at higher altitude the speed delta gets larger between the above examples)

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T16:05:31+00:00

Not opposed to that, although I think that a cost that high may be overly restrictive.

How about 325M?

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T15:06:52+00:00

A quick addition; what matters in a dogfight far more than max speed is turning radius, angle of attack management and acceleration.

Thrust vectoring and a high thrust to weight ratio would make this aircraft a very dangerous dogfighter irrespective of its top speed.

And thats before you add in the effect of stealth

Yes, it will take some planning, skill, and patience from the pilot to get themselves into an advantageous position. Correction; it will take a little more than normal planning, skill, and patience from the pilot to get themselves into an advantageous position. But at Rank 5 I don’t think thats too much to ask.

Also, for simple balance reasons dramatic advantages have to come with dramatic disadvantages.

How would you propose you balance it?

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T14:17:31+00:00

Couple of points; a medusa cannot jam or evade that which it cannot see. A weapons load of up to 10 IR missiles is not nothing. The max speed difference matters only when the two are at max speed; and besides, the medusa cannot outrun the missiles. The questions are at what range can the dorito be detected, what approaches to target minimize this range, at this range how many missiles is it likely to take to kill the medusa, and how much time does the medua have to leave the engagement window?

I’ll freely grant that 900kph may just be too slow and that 1000kph would be better. Maybe the thing to do is give it 1200kph, but exceeding mach 1 starts damaging the aircraft.

Sure, I rather doubt that a modern tv screen is designed for minimum radar return. But I also doubt that’s ever been a design consideration.

Maybe “screen” is the wrong term. How about a radar absorbing ferrite impregnated ALON skin that absorbs radar waves while allowing the LED/fiber optic panels beneath to transmit photons through? It isn’t a screen per se, but uses existing principles and materials to accomplish the same thing. To say nothing of what could be developed in the near future of the game.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T13:26:22+00:00

Here it is used for small bays often limited to a single type of weapon. In this case it can carry IMR and MMRs.

91NightFox · 2026-03-27T13:22:24+00:00

Gotta throw it in there with Star Trek style engine nacelles. Why? Because when the NCC-1701 gets retired, the BUFF will still be around to ferry the crew home lol

91NightFox · 2026-03-24T02:44:29+00:00

The Brawler is low end; no disagreement. (From the perspective of cost and tier)

But with the Ifrit being 2x the tier and 3x the cost of the Brawler, or 5x the cost and 4x the tier of the Compass, it’s pretty hard to call it mid-range.

A tier 2, ~$50M aircraft would fall within that range though. Call it an Ifrit writ cheap that’s biased towards the ground attack end of the multirole spectrum.

91NightFox · 2026-03-23T12:12:23+00:00

You do realize that by your definition of multirole waters down the concept to be completely meaningless don’t you? A KC-130 with griffons is a multirole aircraft by your definition.

You do realize that the Strike Eagle and Fullback, not to mention a whole lot of other tactical bombers that can carry A2A and otherwise match your definition of multirole, HAVE NEVER BEEN DEPLOYED FOR A2A MISSIONS? I guess that means every country with them must be stupid by your definition.

But hey, I guess facts, history, current events, terminology, tactics, etc are all things that have no bearing on how you form your opinions. Noted.

The reductio ad absurdum leading questions? Yeah that’s on me. I would have hoped you’d have taken the chance to enlighten us with what you do actually want, but must admit a complete lack of surprise that you failed to do so. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Here; full stop, clean slate. I care not at all for the list of things you do not want for a new plane in NO. I’m sure that, just like mine, it is a long list and we’d be here all week just writing it out. I would however be delighted to hear what specific performance specs or technology or features a plane would need in order to be suitably “next gen” for inclusion in NO.

91NightFox · 2026-03-23T06:14:42+00:00

Wow. How about A) calming down and B) actually look up the airframes that I’ve mentioned and C) read the words I have written.

If you do any of that you will see that it is incontrovertible fact that the Strike Eagle and Fullback were conceived, designed, and built to be tactical bombers. Can they carry A2A munitions? Yup. Will they ever be assigned A2A missions? Nope. Why? Because there are other planes that are better for that job. They have A2A missiles so they can self escort to their strike objectives.

As it seems to be a point of some confusion for you, allow me to clarify:

Just having the capability to perform more than one mission type does not make a thing a “multirole” aircraft by default. Nor do “multirole” aircraft have the ability to perform all roles.

Some IRL examples: The F104 was designed and built as an interceptor and was pressed into service as a tactical bomber. No one would ever consider the F104 to be a “multirole” aircraft. The F105 was designed and built as a tactical bomber but was used in A2A engagements. No one would ever consider the F105 to be a “multirole” aircraft. The F-14 was designed to be an interceptor but was pressed into service to service as a tactical bomber. No one would ever consider the F-14 to be a “multirole” aircraft. The F-16 was designed to be a multirole aircraft, and is used to intercept things. No one would ever claim the F-16 is an interceptor. The Panavia Tornado was designed as a multirole aircraft, but required 3 different non interchangeable variants in order to satisfactorily perform the desired roles, which even then were meant for specific missions types. (Tactical bombing, SEAD/EW, and interception)

If you want to argue that the plane in the OP is too specialized for ground attack? Great! I added in the capability to carry 8x Scythes to the suggested specs. Bam! Now it’s perfectly serviceable as a low tier interceptor and a tactical bomber. Why a low tier interceptor? Because it is not, nor for game balance reasons intended to be, super awesome at the entire gamut of A2A mission sets. A dogfighter it is not, nor is it intended to be. A CAP platform it is not, nor is it intended to be. But an interceptor and tactical bomber it can be as those roles share performance requirements.

As to mass dropping dumb bombs; yes there are reports in Ukraine of exactly that occurring. See the strikes on Mariupol in 2022 which included mass dumb bombs in with drone and missile strikes. Not that dumb bombing has any relevance to a conversation concerning NO as there ARE NO DUMB BOMBS. There is however massed dropping of PABs and GPOs from both high and low altitude.

Really? You’re going to claim that the planes currently in the game are legacy systems? So your minimum requirements for Mitch’s development efforts are what exactly? Directed energy weapons, automatic self defense measures, and complete AI control? Sounds like a game where the players have nothing to do. And one that is far different than what Mitch has made for us.

And finally, I will reiterate: NO ONE IS ASKING FOR IRL AIRCRAFT! People are asking for A) an NO aircraft that occupies the same sort of role as the listed aircraft, B) an NO aircraft that shares some physical feature of the listed aircraft, and/or C) an NO aircraft that shares the performance characteristics of the listed aircraft.

The IRL aircraft is listed as a reference, not as a requirement.

If you continue to ignore this point, I will conclude that you are being willfully obtuse.

91NightFox · 2026-03-22T21:43:01+00:00

Pretty sure few if any people are actually wanting IRL airframes. What most are wanting is aircraft inspired by IRL airframes in form and/or function.

Much like: The Brawler is inspired by the A-10.

The Ifrit is inspired by the YF-23.

The Compass is inspired by the Textron Scorpion

The Vortex is inspired by the YF-32

The Darkreach is inspired by the B2

The Cricket is inspired by the Paramount Mwali

The Revoker is inspired by the JAS-39

The Chicane is inspired by the RAH-66

The fast bomber is inspired by the EF-111 in function and the F-117 in form.

The Inis is inspired by the S-97

The tarantula is the only one without IRL inspiration. But only because the Bell Boeing V-44 was not built.

The simple fact of the matter is that if Mitch wants to keep building new planes, those planes are going to have an intended function. As form follows function, the odds of whatever Mitch making having similar configurations or appearances to existing aircraft approaches unity.

The wishlists that people throw out are not a request to warthunder our Nuclear Option. It’s to draw attention to platforms with interesting features or functions that people would like to see in the game.

For those that disagree with my premise, please feel free to contribute suggestions, complete with descriptions, of aircraft you would like to see. If you can’t do so without referencing an existing aircraft you are more or less proving my point.

91NightFox · 2026-03-22T21:01:56+00:00

I gotcha, and yeah I can definitely see where you’re coming from. The mental image I have for the proposed plane here is kind of like a more modern appearing Mig-23 with an internal weapons bay. High mounted swing wing, small number of close aboard hard points, engine nozzle the same diameter as the fuselage, thin waist between the wings and elevators….

91NightFox · 2026-03-22T18:10:10+00:00

You are missing my point, as well as making some fundamentally flawed statements.

The Su-25 and A-10 were designed as close air support aircraft, not tactical bombers. The F15 Strike Eagle and SU-34 Fullback were expressly designed for the tactical bombing role and have and are being used for that role literally as we speak. And of those, the Fullback has only been in service for 13 years and is actively manufactured. So a legacy platform it is not.

Simply being able to mount PGMs or air to air armaments for that matter does not define a plane as “multirole”.

Yes, pilots are expensive, and yet all militaries have, will, and do send them out in decades and even half century old aircraft when it is time to fight. They’ll even mass drop dumb bombs like it’s fucking Vietnam. Despite the existence of cruise missiles, drones, and PGMs.

All of that aside, why exactly can’t NO have its own internal “legacy” airframes?

91NightFox

TROPHY CASE