Antelope
Contents
Description
The Antelope Air Defence System (捷羚*防空導彈系統), officially the 車載劍一系統載具 (Vehicular Tien Chien-1 Air-Defense System Carrier Vehicle), is one of the composition of modern day's ROCAF** air-defense network as the mobile SAM platform of the systems. By early 1990s, the completion of F-CK-1 project and the domestic TC-1 IR AAM marked the capability to develop such weapons on Taiwan Island; due to the future introduction of Mirage 2000-5Ei and F-16 Block 20 with weaponry imported for these jets, the remaining 250 TC-1 missiles has to be utilized elsewhere with the abundance of AIM-9P4 in ROCAF service which are more than enough to arm the F-CK-1 fleets. To further boost the field air-defense capabilities of ROCAF for possible armed conflicts, NCSIST started the program in 1995 to deplete the TC-1 stockpile; first installed on CM31 APC, then HUMMEV, to further reduce the development cost, NCSIST decided to purchase Toyota Dyna U100 trucks as the carrier platform of the new ADS. First shown in the annual exercise of 1997, the Antelope ADS entered ROCAF service in 2005.
Introduced in Update "Dance of Dragons" as a new anti-aircraft vehicle from ROCAF; while the vehicle feels like a supersize Type 93 or a wheeled Improved Chaparral with similar capabilities in terms of acquisition, the TC-1L with IRCCM capabilities and very high overload can be a bad dream for enemy aircrafts. Do remember to stay hidden and use the 4 missiles onboard wisely - it will take very long time to rearm by different means.
*The naming honor of the system is granted to the female chief engineer of Antelope, Dr. Hsia Yu-ling 夏幼羚 with ling 羚 literary meaning an Antelope.
** Ground air-defense vehicles belong to ROCAF Air Defense and Missile Command instead of ROCA
General info
Survivability and armour
The Antelope uses the chassis of a modified Toyota Dyna U100 truck, which is a very common Japanese truck with local CKD assembly line in Taiwan. It has a relatively small profile compared to the MBTs, but its tall radar mast significantly increases its visibility and makes it harder to find a proper cover. With only 4 mm thickness of hull armour overall, the Antelope can be penetrated by a 7.62 mm AP bullet from 500 m. Any hit from HE shells, artillery strikes, autocannons, and air attacks can be lethal. Thankfully, the Antelope has a relatively long hull, and the crew is in an independent compartment at the front of the vehicle. It also has no reserve ammo rack, and the transmission module is resistant to overpressure damage. Therefore, many HE shells and ATGMs may hit the unmanned turret without damage to the crew and movement ability.
Armour type:
- Structural steel (Hull, windows, radar)
- Rubber-fabric screens (Fenders)
| Armour | Front (Slope angle) | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 4 mm (0° - 28°) | 4 mm 1 mm (0° - 60°) Windows |
4 mm | 4 mm |
| Turret | 4 mm | |||
| Radar | 15 mm | |||
Notes:
- Wheels are 10 mm thick.
Mobility
As a workhorse of many transport companies in Taiwan, the Toyota Dyna U100 chassis used by Antelope has brilliant mobility, climbing, and off-roading capability. It has good acceleration on plain terrain that can reach 90 km/h maximum speed within 30 seconds and ~70 km/h on average. Its turn radius is quite small, allowing it to steer agilely in city terrain. However, due to its low floor chassis and tiny wheels, the Antelope can easily get stuck by rocks. Never try to drive over trenches as the wheelbase is not sufficient to cross those on maps i.e. Eastern Europe near the east town spawn.
| Game Mode | Max Speed (km/h) | Weight (tons) | Engine power (horsepower) | Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forward | Reverse | Stock | Upgraded | Stock | Upgraded | ||
| Arcade | 99 | 13 | 7.1 | 206 | 277 | 29.01 | 39.01 |
| Realistic | 91 | 12 | 128 | 145 | 18.03 | 20.42 | |
Modifications and economy
| Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armaments
Main armament
The only armament of the Antelope is the TC-1L InfraRed guided missiles. The TC-1L was originally a 3rd generation WVRAAM that was modified and mounted on the Antelope as a surface-to-air missile. The TC-1L is like a mixture of AIM-9L and AIM-9M, with IRCCM capability from 9M and a smoking rocket motor from 9L. Besides, the TC-1L has a better overload capability of 35 G and a larger explosive mass of 5.81 kg TNTe. These features make it very capable of hunting high-speed and manoeuvring jets. Furthermore, the seeker of the TC-1L can be slaved by the Antelope's radar, which is common in top-tier AAMs yet rare in SAMs in the current game. Such a feature, combined with the suspended animation type of IRCCM the TC-1L owns, helps the TC-1L correctly lock the aircraft that is spreading flares and chaffs.
However, the TC-1L also has many flaws that make it work poorly in its BR. First of all, the TC-1L doesn't have the capability of contrast-seeking guidance. With its infrared seeker, the TC-1L can only lock helicopters from 1.5 km and scout drones from 0.5 km. It is utterly useless against UCAVs and helicopters with HIRSS and DIRCM. Even when fighting jets, the 3 km all-aspect lock range also makes the Antelope very vulnerable to rockets and bombs from CAS. Aside from that, the TC-1L also has a long reaction time of ~0.5 seconds from launch to start steering to the target. It significantly ruins its performance against crossing jets at close range. There are plenty of A-10 and Su-25 CAS around its BR, which have low infrared signals and can only get locked from 1 ~ 2 km for TC-1L's seeker. It's vital to use Antelope's IRST to help TC-1L lock the correct target. Nevertheless, experienced players can still easily dodge the TC-1L with proper evading movement and flares.
| TC-1L missile | Turret rotation speed (°/s) | Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mode | Capacity (Belt) | Vertical | Horizontal | Stabilizer | Stock | Upgraded | Full | Expert | Aced | Stock | Full | Expert | Aced |
| Arcade | 4 (4) | -8°/+90° | ±180° | - | 52.8 | 73.1 | 88.8 | 98.2 | 104.5 | 19.50 | 17.25 | 15.90 | 15.00 |
| Realistic | 35.7 | 42.0 | 51.0 | 56.4 | 60.0 | ||||||||
Ammunition
| Shell details | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Range (m) |
Projectile mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (m) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Arming distance (m) |
Trigger radius (m) |
Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg) |
Ricochet | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||||
| TC-1L | SAM | 745 | 6,000 | 90 | 1 | 0.3 | 0 | 5 | 5.81 | 79° | 80° | 81° |
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 0 (+4) | No |
Radar
Different from the foldable one in real life, the Antelope in War Thunder is equipped with a fixed tracking radar. Compared to other useless tracking radars on the IR-guided SAM launchers, the tracking radar on the Antelope has a unique capability to increase its combat performance. Because the seeker of the TC-1L can get slaved by the radar, the Antelope can use its decent tracking equipment to help the missile distinguish the right target and the flares. Its IRST is very brilliant for ignoring flares and stably locking flying objects except for missiles and rockets. On the other hand, its radar tracking is rather inferior and cannot lock scout drones and slow objects. It will only come in handy when the target is out of IRST's range or the player wants to check the distance of the target.
| Antelope - Target Tracking Radar/IRST | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum Detection Range |
Minimum Detection Range |
Max Azimuth Scan Angle |
Max Elevation Scan Angle |
Minimum relative speed |
| 10,000 m | __ m | __° | __° | __ m/s (__ km/h) |
Usage in battles
The Little Missile Bee
In both PLAGF and ROCA, there are terms to refer to mobile snack bars/food trucks that used trucks platforms to sell snacks or services to soldiers at exercise sites; but in ROCA's case, these trucks are colloquially known as the 小蜜蜂 (lit. Little Bee) [In PLAGF's case, the 强军战车 (lit. Strong Army Combat Vehicle)]. While Antelope didn't provide instant noodles, fried chicken steaks, minced beef rice nor drinks for players, it does brings a specialty of its own - four TC-1L IR SAMs.
If players have experiences on JGSDF's Type 93 which has a Toyota Mega Cruiser chassis, Antelope can be said as the oversize version of it to some extent for its Kuozui-Toyota Dyna U100 truck chassis for budget concerns on the ROCAF side. Instead of batteries of FIM-92 Stingers like Type 93 or Avenger, NCSIST designed a MIM-72 equivalent turret with an independent tracking radar and quad-mount SAMs; the appearance of TC-1L does resembles to previous AIM-9s but the missile is a domestic alternative to the Sidewinders in ROCAF service with upgraded IRCCM capabilities and much higher overload than the Chaparral. In reality, the vehicle has to be cooperated with a separated radar vehicle for early-warning; in-game, players have to rely on their knowledge to enemy aerial spawns and observation to the skies for any unwanted, fast-moving dots or jet engine noise level varied by the Doppler effect in terms of its audibility; this would be improved if players have researched TVD for the vehicle albeit at lower resolution than previous vehicles. Most people will notice its poor ammo amount and all-aspect lock range at first glance. In AB, it takes around 2 minutes to automatically receive the ammo reserves, but in a capture point, it only takes 20 ~ 30 seconds to do so; in RB case, be sure to find a safe capture zone if players are at frontline or building ammo crates behind safe covers. Thankfully, the Antelope has good mobility to swiftly translocate itself after launching the smoky TC-1L. It can also launch its missile at full speed, which gives it the capability to fool some low-tier helicopters with SACLOS ATGMs or bombs. Besides, the Antelope has a pretty high POV in binocular vision, which makes it a competent scout vehicle to help your allies. Although the abundance of UCAV and attack helicopters with long-range missiles, if players are confident on concealing themselves by the time they are within the all-aspect launch distance (i.e. around 2 km for helicopters), a sudden missile with very high overload can certain an antelope that kicks back to its predators.
Although the missile seeker performance and the lack of radar hinders some of its combat capabilities, as mentioned in the introduction of the paragraph, use it as a swift little bee and move to anywhere player's service is needed, hide and wait for the chance to sting back.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Agile IR-guided missile that is very capable of hunting jets
- Brilliant mobility and steering
- Gen 1 thermal sights that help it find the target
- High POV in binocular vision and can launch missiles on the move
Cons:
- Somewhat flawed weapon systems
- Rather low all-aspect range, especially against low heat-signature targets i.e helicopters and drones
- The four missiles are all the ammunitions available; can only be replenished in zones or building ammo crates
- No search radar
- Relatively long warm-up time for the seeker to engage targets
- Paper-thick armour, high profile, and no secondary armament lower its survivability
- Low-floor chassis that can bring trouble when crossing trenches and rocks
History
Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the vehicle in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).
Media
- Images
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| China anti-aircraft vehicles | |
|---|---|
| Radar SPAAG | PGZ09 |
| Gun and Missile SPAAG | PGZ04A |
| Missile SPAA | Antelope |
| Other | ZSD63/PG87 · ZSL92 · WZ305 |
| Germany | ␗Sd.Kfz.222 |
| North Vietnam | Phòng không T-34 |
| USA | CCKW 353 (M45) · ␗M42 |
| USSR | Tor-M1 |
