Firestreak

From War Thunder Wiki
Revision as of 12:20, 10 September 2021 by DnaGonite (talk | contribs) (History)

Jump to: navigation, search
Firestreak fired from a Javelin F.(A.W.) Mk.9.

Description

The Firestreak missile (scale is approximate)


The Firestreak is a British Infrared homing air-to-air missile. it was introduced in Update 1.85 "Supersonic".

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

General info

The Firestreak is a large missile, with a massive 22.7 kg warhead. The Firestreak is a very early air-to-air missile design; It was Britain's first operational heat seeking missile. It has slightly better manoeuvrability than other early heat seeking missiles, and a much larger warhead, and is otherwise comparable in terms of speed and range.

Effective damage

The Firestreak has a massive 22.7 kg warhead, one of the highest of any air-to-air missile in the game, making it capable of outright destroying any target it gets a direct hit on. The warhead has a larger proximity fuse setting than other heat seeking missiles (10 m as opposed to the more standard 5 m), this helps slightly offset the missiles poor manoeuvrability as any aircraft caught in the proximity fuse range is likely to suffer critical damage due to the large explosive mass.

Comparison with analogues

The Firestreak has a warhead of 22.7 kilograms explosive mass, more than four times the payload of the AIM-9B, which only contains 4.5 kilograms of explosives. It is also slightly more manoeuvrable than the AIM-9B with a 15 G max overload compared to the AIM-9B's 10 G.

Usage in battles

This missile is not agile. Do not use them on targets that are manoeuvrable as they will easily evade it. Instead, use them on bombers or aircraft which have no energy left to manoeuvre as it will be more difficult for them to evade the missile.

As this missile seeks infrared radiation (IR), be aware of locking onto other sources of heat which can throw the missile off course such as other teammates, flares and of course, the sun.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Has the second largest warhead of any air to air missile
  • The IR seeker has a fairly wide field of view when slaved to the Javelin or Lightning's radar
  • Highly receptive proximity fuse
  • 15G overload

Cons:

  • Slightly lower velocity than other missiles

History

De Havilland's Firestreak was the first British infrared guided missile to enter service, arming the Gloster Javelin, de Havilland Sea Vixen, and, later, the English Electric Lightning.

Development was the result of a somewhat confused post-war process that started in 1945 with a very ambitious design known as "Red Hawk". When this proved too complicated, a simpler system known as "Blue Sky" was proposed in 1949 and eventually emerged in 1956 as Fireflash. Shortly after Fireflash development started, advances in infrared guidance suggested a new look at the original Red Hawk concept, and eventually a specification emerged as "Blue Jay".

Blue Jay began development in November 1951. Many of the technologies were entirely new, and development took considerable time. One significant issue was the size and power requirements of the tube-based electronics, which took up much of the forward quarter of the missile body. This left no room for the warhead, which had to be moved to the rear of the missile, thereby taking up the area that would normally be used for the control fin actuators. These were instead placed in the electronics section, operating the rear-mounted fins using long pushrods. To further complicate it, the power for the actuators were air bottles in the tail. The layout was quite complicated.

The first launches took place in 1955, and it entered service with the RAF in 1957 and the Royal Navy in 1958. Designed specifically for use against bombers and other large targets, it was not particularly manoeuvrable and its overall performance was less than that of the AIM-9 Sidewinder that had entered US service the previous year. It made up for this somewhat with the use of a very large warhead, well over double the weight of Sidewinder's.

Several minor modifications to the basic design were suggested but not implemented. These eventually led to a much more capable upgrade, the Hawker Siddeley Red Top.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

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 article about the variant of the weapon;
  • references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links


Missiles
USA 
AAM  AIM-54A Phoenix · AIM-54C Phoenix · ATAS (AIM-92)
Sparrow  AIM-7C · AIM-7D · AIM-7E · AIM-7E-2 · AIM-7F · AIM-7M
Sidewinder  AIM-9B · AIM-9C · AIM-9D · AIM-9E · AIM-9G · AIM-9H · AIM-9J · AIM-9L · AIM-9M · AIM-9P
AGM  AGM-22 · APKWS II (M151) · APKWS II (M282) · BGM-71D TOW-2
Bullpup  AGM-12B Bullpup · AGM-12C Bullpup
Hellfire  AGM-114B Hellfire · AGM-114K Hellfire II
Maverick  AGM-65A · AGM-65B · AGM-65D
ATGM  LOSAT/MGM-166A
TOW  BGM-71 · BGM-71A · BGM-71B · BGM-71C
SAM  FIM-92 Stinger · MIM-72 · MIM146
Naval SAM  RIM-24A
Germany 
AAM  AIM-9B FGW.2 Sidewinder · Flz Lwf 63/80
AGM  9M14M Malyutka · Flz Lwf LB 82 · HOT-1 · HOT-2 TOW · HOT-3 · PARS 3 LR
AShM  AS.34 Kormoran
ATGM  HOT-K3S
SAM  Roland
USSR 
AAM  9M39 Igla · R-3R · R-3S · R-13M1 · R-23R · R-23T · R-24R · R-24T · R-27ER(1) · R-27ET(1) · R-27R(1) · R-27T(1) · R-60 · R-60M · R-60MK · R-73(E)
AGM  9K127 Vikhr · 9M17M Falanga · 9M120 Ataka · 9M120-1 Ataka
  Kh-23M · Kh-25 · Kh-25ML · Kh-29L · Kh-29T · Kh-29TE · Kh-29TD · Kh-66 · S-25L
ATGM  3M7 · 9M14 · 9M113 Konkurs · 9M114 Shturm · 9M123 Khrizantema · 9M133 · 9M133FM3 · 9M133M-2
SAM  95Ya6 · 9M311 · 9M311-1M · 9M331 · 9M37M
Naval SAM  Volna-M
Britain 
AAM  Fireflash · Firestreak · Red Top · Skyflash · Skyflash SuperTEMP · SRAAM
AGM  AS.12 · ZT-6 Mokopa
AShM  AJ.168
ATGM  BAe Swingfire · MILAN · MILAN 2 · ZT3
SAM  Starstreak
Japan 
AAM  AAM-3
AGM  Ki-148 I-Go Model 1B
ATGM  Type 64 MAT · Type 79 Jyu-MAT
SAM  Type 81 SAM-1C · Type 91
China 
AAM  PL-2 · PL-5B · PL-5C · PL-7 · PL-8 · TY-90
AGM  AKD-9 · AKD-10 · HJ-8A · HJ-8C · HJ-8E · HJ-8H
ATGM  302 · HJ-73 · HJ-73E · HJ-9 · QN201DD · QN502CDD
SAM  HN-6
Italy 
AAM  Aspide-1A
AGM  CIRIT · L-UMTAS · Spike ER
ATGM  Spike-LR2MR
Naval AShM  Nettuno
SAM  Mistral SATCP
France 
AAM  AA-20 Nord · Matra R511 · Matra R530 · Matra R530E · Matra Super 530D · Matra Super 530F · Matra R550 Magic 1 · Matra R550 Magic 2 · Mistral
AGM  9M14-2 Malyutka-2 · AS-20 Nord · AS-30 Nord · AS-30L Nord · HOT-1 · HOT-2 TOW · HOT-3 · Spike ER
ATGM  HOT · SS.11
SAM  Roland · VT1
Sweden 
AAM  RB24 · RB24J · RB71 · RB 74 · RB 74(M)
AGM  Rb05A · RB 53 Bantam · RB 55B Heli TOW · RB 55C Heli TOW · RB 75
ATGM  Rbs 55 · Rbs 56
SAM  Rbs 70
Israel 
AAM  Shafrir · Shafrir 2 · Python 3
ATGM  Spike-MR
  AAM = Air-to-Air Missile   AGM = Air-to-Ground Missile   AShM = Anti-Ship Missile   ATGM = Anti-Tank Guided Missile (Ground mounts)   SAM = Surface-to-Air Missile