Raytheon Peregrine MR AAM

It's a mass dump missile.


Just like MICA, which manages to be 'BVR' (80km) in a 246lb missile by dint of being small and short with little carried mass after the motor burns the back end light and as a means to optimal shock carriage across the body length, this weapon will combine what looks like an 8" body diameter with a 6ft body that is likely intended as a staging weapon which uses a booster like an ASAS to achieve optimum Mach for the KV's own specific impulse motor before jettisoning.

As such, given what we have seen of a Stunner/D-Sling styled LREW-



The likelihood seems quite high that the USAF is doing three things:

1. Designing a weapon which compensates for the gross kinematic shortfalls of the F-35 class by incorporating a system which equates to the supercruise pre-boost of an established Mach shock, on the missile nose, as it comes out of the bay.
2. Designing, for the export market, a weapon which is multi-carriage compatible with the fighter mission in a restricted weapons bay airframe while still maintaining a notable differentiation with the U.S. standard model in terms of absolute performance and tactics.
3. Solving for development costs by essentially doubling the funding for a weapon system that may well have substantial NCW/NIFC-CA differences in datalinks, IMU/autopilot trajectory tailoring as kinematic maximums and even seeker spectrum use as JATM but which is nominally the same as a function of overall core system layout in the SACM.

The mini-Standard with a chunky body may well have Mach 5 performance capacity WHEN BOOSTED but is nominally a Mach 3.5 weapon when fired alone. By itself, this is a game changer because it means 'additive manufacturing' is not nearly as important to overall system cost performance as sheer numbers possible through integrating nominally disparate mission requirements across common subsystems.

It will be interesting to see if this missile is restricted to a Sidekick format or is mooted for use from a BRU-61 as early photos of the CUDA seem to indicate. GBU-39 is 5.9ft long, GBU-53 is 5.75ft long. A six foot SACM may or may not be similarly capable, based on forebody taper/fineness ratio requirements and where they place the carriage lugs. Pointy Missiles tend to have a lot longer over-the-nose clearance issues than stubby glide bombs.

Conversely, the use of the weapon from the door station, as a single carriage system, will not notably change the capacity of the fighter in it's primary 'strike' configuration (AGM-88G opposite GBU-53/JAGM as opposed to GBU-31/32), which means that you aren't really improving the F-35's multirole survivability as compared to say an F-16/18 with 2+2+2 as a graceful range point redundancy while still carrying A2G primary mission ordnance.

That last 42,000ft incrementation from an 8nm radar merge/NEZ endgame and the opening of the GAU-22 envelope will be a doozy.

For myself, the big question is seeker vs. parent acquisition. I don't believe in the nonsense about shooting weapons from 400km distance, even at a mile per second, at HDLD assets like tankers, ISR and BMC2. If your RFLO signature control isn't perfect (and the Indian tracking of J-20s using Su-30MKI-2 indicates it may not be) then lighting up the sky with LRS modes that can track even a heavy across that kind of a distance is...problematic. Because you _don't know_ where the F-22s are that use their ALR-94s to walk up and club you, from half the range.

Conversely, if the USAF is asking for longer ranging weapons, it could mean that they are looking at Quantum Radar/PCLS as some genuine threat to contemporary VLO. Certainly the argument that the 4th Gen are going to be missile trucks with big, heavy, LRM if the F-22s/F-35s cannot penetrate the ADGE to fire their own weapons is...wonky.

Having said this, there are a lot of ways to skin the cat in terms of baselane/WIW kills as the threat QRA does the Viking Takeoff. Special forces teams in direct overwatch, wired for sound COMMINT or some kind of stand-in ultra-LO (Dark Star or RQ-180) asset with a very competent passive system using say 5,000X5,000 hyperspectral IRST in a dedicated (14-20") aperture.

As such, the question then becomes-

See Then Shoot, VLO Threat
...........................25km..................................15km............................................35km........................
You---------->Fox-3---------------->Target Impact<<<<<<<<Target Acquisition

Shoot Then See, VLO Threat
.............100km...............................50km..............................................35km......................
You.......>Fox-3-------->Missile Target Acquisition---------Target MAWS Alert

Wherein you don't do the high impulse, huge UV/IR spike, SRM or Gel design. But rather take the route the MIM-160 MALI would have, with a TJ-50M that gives you maybe 100lbf of thrust for a 150nm at Mach .9 and then, in overspeed mode, 25nm at 150lbf and Mach 1.4.

A much smaller, subsonic, IR source will be seen by threat IRST or MAWS/DAS equivalents far later than a fast missile or it's burner sprinting to pole boost parent.

And because the missile is 'out there', a considerable distance off the nose, own-signature compromise and particularly the F-Pole total time of flight variables are going to be skewed because the missile is effectively 'launching' from half the distance it's parent guiding from. If it's powered by a high thrust turbine.

In theory (500nm ADM-160 MALD + MCALS equipped C-130) you could launch a spread of these things, like Torpedoes. And let them be their own broom to sweep forward, into acquisition, using overlapping seeker scans and hunting datalinks, shared by the swarm.

You know there is a bad guy out there. Your launch QRA warning tells you so, even if the threat is also RFLO. But where the decision point is going to be the distance that the target REACTS to an inbound shot, you don't have to have the carried mass of a high impulse/biplateau solid motor. You just need a solid ability to get from .9 to 3 Mach faster than the other guy can accelerate out of envelope.

Concentrating motor energy expenditure and weight in the midcourse transit Mach, when the missile is functionally doing not a thing beyond trying to close the distance before the threat either ghosts out on signature or simply tac turn leaves the envelope (whether it knows it's been shot at or not) is a dumb way to go because when you reach endgame, you are carrying motor tube length/mass that is now empty but which still acts like a whip-the-snake pendulum as the missile tries to pursue a very uncooperative target. This applies, equally, to a simple 'missiles fired!' E-3 or E-2D with a high power S-Band/UHF radar which then turns and drops leaving the prediction zone of a PL-15 fired from a full signature J-15/16 which cannot afford to straight and level provide midcourse datums to the weapon's IMU.

Which is why I worry that a concentration upon very long range AAM may well mean that either directly through an onboard sensor, or through some supporting NCW ground system (with decidedly more power across a greater-gain antenna area) the Chinese may well have found a vulnerability in U.S. stealth design.
 
Any chance Peregrine is the upper stage of NCADE? Only thing that even got me down that path is the name. Peregrine falcons dive on their prey at high speed from above.
 
Is there any chance that this system has some kind of ducting that pops open and that this a ramjet? That's the only way I see such a small airframe having a range approaching AIM-120.

Hit-to-kill means a much smaller warhead. Seeker electronics have also shrunk somewhat. And rocket propulsion has improved a lot. Hence the radical improvement in AIM-120 over its life, and the even newer AIM-260 being billed as having significantly better range than AMRAAM in the same basic footprint.
One article specifically stated it is NOT hit-to-kill. That, and just eye-balling it, I would think it would be both draggier and have less endgame maneuverability than CUDA.
View attachment 618965
Most likely this Peregrine missle uses a very new high energy CL-20 solid fuel motor with a high specific impulse to get this range and velocity comparible to a AIM 120 ARRAM. That is why it is does not need to be and is not a ramjet.
 
Is there any chance that this system has some kind of ducting that pops open and that this a ramjet? That's the only way I see such a small airframe having a range approaching AIM-120.

Hit-to-kill means a much smaller warhead. Seeker electronics have also shrunk somewhat. And rocket propulsion has improved a lot. Hence the radical improvement in AIM-120 over its life, and the even newer AIM-260 being billed as having significantly better range than AMRAAM in the same basic footprint.
One article specifically stated it is NOT hit-to-kill. That, and just eye-balling it, I would think it would be both draggier and have less endgame maneuverability than CUDA.
View attachment 618965
Most likely this Peregrine missle uses a very new high energy CL-20 solid fuel motor with a high specific impulse to get this range and velocity comparible to a AIM 120 ARRAM. That is why it is does not need to be and is not a ramjet.
 
It's a new(ish) energetic material. Lots of articles out there.
 
CL-20 is nasty stuff and the US doesn't have enough production capacity at this time. I doubt it would be used in a missile motor.
 
Enjoy. Title says it all.
Things I Won't Work With: Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane.
(...)
Stabilized or not, I still won't get near it. For one thing, I'm a drug discovery chemist, and if you think a structure like this is going to be a drug, then you must be on some strong ones yourself. No, the thing about these compounds is that they can be handled as long as they're very pure and formulated just right. The side products from their synthesis, well, those might not be so nice. And if a batch gets contaminated, or doesn't come out so clean, well, that might not be so nice, either. Synthesizing polynitro compounds is no chocolate fondue party, either: if you picture a bunch of guys wheeling around drums of fuming nitric acid while singing the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore, you're not that far off the mark. You really have to beat the crap out of a molecule to get that many nitro groups on it, which means prolonged heating of things that you'd really rather not heat up at all.
No, I'll leave the can-you-top-this nitration chemistry to those that love it. You guys just go ahead and stuff as many energetic bonds as you can into the smallest tangles; I'll be over here in the bunker cheering you on, and jumping a foot in the air every time someone sneezes. I'm not cut out for hexanitro anything.

 
CL-20 is nasty stuff and the US doesn't have enough production capacity at this time. I doubt it would be used in a missile motor.
I looked up the chemical structure of it...my god, does that look unstable. I'm honestly surprised carbon and nitrogen can bond that way for any appreciable length of time.

EDIT: And apparently from the post right after the one I quoted, someone thinks the same. :)
 
CL-20 is nasty stuff and the US doesn't have enough production capacity at this time. I doubt it would be used in a missile motor.
On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Is there some reason AFX-757 wouldn't get the job done? How desperate is anyone for an extra 10-20% of brisance?
 
All this speculation aside, what are the odds that Raytheon has actually matured this to a point where they have a SRM identified and are at some stage of early testing? We know that LM's CUDA has been ground launched, and is funded for air-launch applications. The Raytheon variant appears to be more of a PR exercise to make up for the fact that they lost the JATM being the AIM-120 incumbent and needed to show that they are still in the game. They are also pushing for air to air use for their AMRAAM-ER so it would be surprising if they were self funding multiple missiles through demonstration.
 
Does DoD have any program of record for small AAMs like Cuda and Perigrin?

Given they've essentially developed the AIM-260 in secret, even if they did have something that would replace part of the AF's and/or Navy's AIM-9x future buys in the coming years it is probably likely that the effort would also remain relatively secret. AFRL is flight testing the CUDA, and it appears Raytheon is interested in self funding something on the Peregrin. The AF had the SACM contract but it could point to something larger on the classified spending.
 

I'm not going to take that guy's word for it. But none the less there is a lot of utility in an AAM of even similar, if inferior, performance. Besides doubling the slots in 5th gen fighters, 6' and 150lbs is a much more accessible payload for internal UAV carriage for the future CCAs. The XQ-58 for instance could carry four internally, given that it is supposedly able to take an SDB length item in the bay and is rated for 600lbs internally.
 
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I'm not going to take that guy's word for it. But none the less there is a lot of utility in an AAM of even similar, if inferior, performance. Besides doubling the slots in 5th gen fighters, 6' and 150lbs is a much more accessible payload for internal UAV carriage for the future CCAs. The XQ-58 for instance could carry four internally, given that it is supposedly able to take an SDB length item in the bay and is rated for 600lbs internally.
That is a very good point.

because right now the "typical" 2x WVR, 4x BVR missile load is looking more like 1600-2000lbs, and needing a 12' long bay to do it.
 
I'm not going to take that guy's word for it. But none the less there is a lot of utility in an AAM of even similar, if inferior, performance.

It's just a social media reporting channel with little or no technical subject matter expertise in this domain so take it just about as seriously as an article you read on Popular mechanics, Forbes et al. That said, it is certainly possible to get a missile in that class that has significant overlap in envelope over the AIM-120. You do that obviously by having a smaller warhead, miniaturizing the electronics and other components and by making the missile aerodynamically more efficient (the Peregrine may just be a concept and not design representative of Raytheon's actual proposal) and accurate. With Raytheon not delivering any AIM-120D's to the DOD come late 2020s or 2030, and there not really being any significant block improvement funded for the AIM-9X, we may well see something in this class become a program of record for deliveries later this decade. Certainly a more useful weapon for 5th and 6th gen aircraft and CCA's than the AIM-9X.
 
Didn't I see a photo of an F-22 with a full bay of Peregrines? Or was that just some photoshop BS?
 
Because of hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane!
 

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