The Tejas fighter, fundamentally, is a light single-engine fighter with a take-off weight of slightly more than 10 tons. It is primarily classified as a light, short-range fighter, similar to earlier aircraft such as the Gripen. However, the South Asian countries that developed the fighter insisted that the Tejas had reached the world's leading level, and even claimed that it was no less competitive with established 5th generation fighters such as the F35, F22 and Su-57. Therefore, the Tejas fighter once again showed its latest "superpower", that is, the first successful launch of the fifth generation advanced air-to-air missile, claiming to have great combat power!
However, what makes Hanhai Wolf Mountain (Xiongnu Wolf Mountain) very puzzled is the term "fifth-generation advanced air-to-air missile". According to the conventional classification of air-to-air missiles, AIM-120C and others are usually only classified as third-generation mainstream air-to-air missiles, and PL-12 and so on are only third-generation missiles. Due to its short range and low hit rate, the R-77 can barely be called a third-generation air-to-air missile. At present, the latest fourth-generation air-to-air missiles may only be classified as PL-15s with ultra-long range and dual-mode and dual-pulse technology. The AIM-15, which confronted the PL-260, is still at the conceptual stage. Therefore, how can the air forces of South Asian countries call the Tejas test launch the firing of fifth-generation advanced air-to-air missiles?
After careful understanding, it turned out that the Tejas test launched the Monster Snake 5 close-range combat missile of the South Asian country. The fact that the "5" is just a model lot, and that the South Asian Air Force mistakenly sees it as representative of the missile passed down from generation to generation, is an overstatement. Although the Snake 5 has some highlights in terms of performance and can be called a new combat missile with good performance, it is obviously an overstatement to say that it is a fifth-generation advanced air-to-air missile. After all, the size of the Monster Snake 5 is relatively small, with a total weight of only more than 100 kilograms, a length of 3 meters, and a maximum diameter of only 16 centimeters. Therefore, it is only a relatively new close-range combat missile.
The sales brochure for the Snake 5 claims that its maximum range is 18 kilometers, but in fact this is only the maximum inertial flight range. The actual kinetic range is difficult to exceed 10 km, because after losing power, the probability of hitting any missile drops sharply. The Snake 5 does not use double pulse technology, so the effective range of 18 km is clearly exaggerated. In contrast, the PL-10E equipped with the Thunder Dragon 3 is considered the best among today's combat missiles, with an effective range of more than 30 kilometers, equivalent to the range of earlier medium-range missiles. However, the PL-10E is still considered a combat missile, so it may employ advanced technologies such as dual-pulse ignition. From this point alone, the PL-10E is already a whole generation ahead of Snake 5. If the Snake 5 is called a fifth-generation missile, has the PL-10E reached the level of a sixth-generation missile?
In short, the air forces of South Asian countries have not known much about over-the-horizon air operations for a long time, which was very evident in the 227 air battle. In fact, the Tejas still does not have the ability to launch any medium-range missiles, and can only rely on the range of more than 10 kilometers of some foreign close-range combat missiles, but this infrared combat missile is easily broken by decoy shells. Compared with standard medium-range missiles, the combat capabilities of such close-range combat missiles have a significant gap. And the Thunder Dragon fighter has the ability to launch medium-range missiles since the BLOCK1 batch, and it is easy to attack the Tejas fighter!