Matra R550 Magic 2
| This page is about the French air-to-air missile Matra R550 Magic 2. For the other version, see Matra R550 Magic 1. |
Contents
Description
The Matra R550 Magic 2 is a French infrared homing air-to-air missile and was introduced during Update "Wind of Change".
Vehicles equipped with this weapon
General info
| Missile characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Mass | 89 kg |
| Guidance | IR |
| Aspect | All-aspects |
| Lock range (rear-aspect) | 6 km |
| Lock range (all-aspect) | 3 km |
| ECCM | Yes |
| ECCM Type | FOV Gating |
| Launch range | 10 km |
| Maximum speed | 3 M |
| Maximum overload | 35 G |
| Missile guidance time | 25 secs |
| Explosive mass (TNT eq.) | 9.6 kg |
Effective damage
Describe the type of damage produced by this type of missile (high explosive, splash damage, etc)
Comparison with analogues
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 thrust applied by its booster, thus meaning it has acceleration on par with missiles such as the PL-5B, a missile renowned for excellent flight performance.
Usage in battles
The Matra R550 Magic 2 works incredibly effectively as a short-range air-to-air missile, capable of pulling hard turns in very small distances.
At sea level, the Matra R550 Magic 2 is capable of destroying targets within 150 m to 2,500 m (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 its energy. Therefore, if an enemy performs a gentle turn the Matra R550 Magic 2 will burn a substantial proportion of its energy. Therefore, for a guaranteed kill, launching within 1.7 km of your target at sea level is recommended.
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 5,000 m, you can safely launch your Magic at an enemy plane travelling away from you at 3.5 km, 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.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Very high overload factor
- Very high initial acceleration
- All-aspect missile, making it possible to shoot planes coming at you, and has an easier time locking enemies from the sides from further away
Cons:
- Low motor burn time of 2 seconds, meaning it has a hard time hitting targets above 1.5 km when chasing
- Prone to flares when not in rear-aspect
- Loses energy quite fast once the motor finishes burning
History
Examine the history of the creation and combat usage of the weapon 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 weapon and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Weapon-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 />.
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
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
