Vympel R-27 AA-10 Alamo

The Vympel R-27 (NATO reporting name AA-10 Alamo, Cyrillic P-27) is a medium-range air-to-air missile developed by the Soviet Union. It remains in service with the CIS and Russian Air Force.

The R-27 is manufactured in IR-homing (R-27T), semi-active radar homing (R-27R) and active radar homing (R-27AE) variants. It arms the Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27, and some late-model MiG-23MLD aircraft were also adapted to carry it. The missile is also license produced in China, though the production license was obtained from Ukraine instead of Russia. The Chinese licensing production does not include the active radar homing version, and China developed their own version by integrating the active radar seeker of Vympel R-77 provided by Russia to the R-27 missile.




"Alamo" missiles are capable to intercept an air target traveling at speed up to 3 500 km/h. Interception altitude varies from 20 meters to 27 kilometers. Maximum altitude difference between target and missile carrying aircraft is 10 kilometers. All R-27 missiles have a minimum range of fire in 0.5 - 1 km and carry 39 kg weight expanding rod warheads.

Initially, as almost all soviet air-to-air missiles, the R-27 came in two variants, having either semi-active radarhoming or an infrared homing seeker. The semi-active radarhoming variant was designated as the R-27R (AA-10A "Alamo-A"), while the infrared variant was designated as R-27T (AA-10B "Alamo-B"). The standard soviet tactic for interceptions is based on firing two missiles with a various seeker types at the same target to maximize kill probability. There are also designed downgraded export versions of these missiles, designated as R-27R1 (AA-10A "Alamo-A") and R-27T1 (AA-10B "Alamo-B") respectively.