Matra R550 Magic 2
Contents
Description
The Matra R550 Magic 2 is an aircraft mounted, short range and infrared homing air-to-air missile and was introduced in the weeks closely following major update Update "Wind of Change".
Vehicles equipped with this weapon
General info
The Magic 2 is an excellent addition to the French top tier aviation tree and works incredibly effectively as a short range air-to-air missile, capable of pulling hard turns in very small distances.
Compared to competitors such as the R-60M or AIM-9L, the Magic 2 exerts a huge amount of force on itself due to the incredibly high 27,000N of thrust applied by it's booster, thus meaning it has acceleration on par with missiles such as the PL-5B, a missile renowned for excellent flight performance. To put into context the Newtons of force provided by the Magic 2's booster, the R-60M exerts a force 9,500N of thrust for 3 seconds and the AIM-9L's provides 12,000N for 5.3 seconds.
At sea level, the Magic 2 is capable of destroying targets within 150m to 2,500m (assuming they're travelling directly away from your aircraft). This range is only attainable if the enemy aircraft does not manoeuvre - due to the Magic 2's G overload of 35G, it can pull incredibly high angle of attack (AoA) manoeuvres at the cost of it's energy. Therefore, if an enemy performs a gentle turn the Magic 2 will burn a substantial proportion of it's energy. Therefore, for a guaranteed kill, I suggest launching within 1.7km of your target at sea level.
Of course at higher altitudes the Magic 2 performs substantially better. Because there is less air resistance at higher altitudes, missiles are capable of travelling substantially further than they can at sea level. At altitudes around 5000m, you can safely launch your Magic at an enemy plane travelling away from you at 3.5km, assuming that plane is travelling at an almost identical speed to you. If they are travelling slower, then obviously you can launch at higher distances - this also applies to engagements at sea level. As well as this, due to planes struggling to be able to perform high G manoeuvres at higher altitudes (due to smaller amounts of air flow under the wings), the Magic 2 will always manage to out perform an enemy aircraft in turning performance so, if you're fighting a Mirage F1 at high altitudes, do not turn - cut your afterburner and drop a substantial amount of flares before turning to the left, right or down (do not go up, this only bleeds your energy further).
This also leads on nicely to another great feature of the Magic 2 - Infrared Counter-Countermeasures. In real life, the Magic 2's IRCCM's were substantially better and whilst they aren't fully reflected in War Thunder, they do have substantially better flare resistance to other top tier IR missiles (even beating the R-24T). What this means is that, in order to evade a Magic 2 with flares, you have to follow the proper procedure - cut afterburner, drop flares and then evade left, right, up or down. A small drop of flares will not make this missile miss, and that is why the Magic 2 is one of the most potent and feared air-to-air missiles at War Thunder's top tier.
Effective damage
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Comparison with analogues
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Usage in battles
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Pros and cons
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Pros:
Cons:
History
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Media
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See also
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- reference to the article about the variant of the weapon;
- references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.
External links
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