The Cheetah fighter series

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DB Selector

DB3K

Affected DBID(s)

All Atlas Cheetah: DB3k 3466, 85, 1551, 1547, 3740, 3467, 3468, 3469, 1545

Summary of Changes

This is going to be a long one.

Sensors Cheetah D should be equipped with the same EL/M-2001B radar as the Cheetah E, the nose radome is visibly the same. There's simply no space for the big radar. A number of sources claim that the 2001B is a pulse-doppler unit of remarkable capability for a range-only system, but honestly I don't have Military Periscope access and I know too little about radars to judge.

Defensive Aids are the RWS-200 based on #2691 but with emitter ID, SPJ-200 and CFD-200. Details and sources are in the comment below. These systems were likely developed specifically for Cheetah and are therefore Late 80s standard. MAWS is not believed to be fitted. The countermeasures dispenser has 11x12 = 132 units, probably with a flare taking up two units.

All aircraft, in common with many SAAF aircraft, should have the Helmet Mounted Sight tag.

Loadouts

All of the fighter loadouts look fine, evidence for the ability to carry four AAMs is scant to non-existent. It looks like there was a project to upgrade the wing profile and add wingtip missiles but it never went ahead. The only exception is that I don't think the RO radar on the Cheetah D can handle the R-Darter.

The Cheetah E has seven hardpoints, with the Cheetah C/D having nine. Five of these hardpoints are normal, the E has two more under the intakes and the C/D has two more behind them. The wet hardpoints are as usual. Note also that the outboard drop tanks are not RPK-10s but are instead a unique SAAF cousin with two bomb shackles on the underside. It looks to me like they're still 500l though.

Images of armed Cheetahs are pretty rare, images of Cheetahs armed with interesting loadouts are yet rarer. Therefore, I'm going to make a series of assumptions about loadouts and anyone can feel free to argue with me in the comments.

• Self-defence missiles are optionally carried on the outer pylons on strike missions. I have not seen a single image to back this up directly, but bombs are never pictured on those pylons either. Mark them as Optional, in accordance with SAAF practice.
• All variants should carry the 'latest' IR homing missile as their self defence missiles, with the exception of Cheetah E which should use the plentiful V3Bs instead of the rare V3Ss. Currently many of the Cheetah strike loadouts have the rare and obsolete V3As.
• The standard long-range strike loadout of a Cheetah is to take all three drop tanks and bombs on the new pylons.
• The standard intermediate-range strike loadout of a Cheetah is to take the 500l bomb-tank combinations and the large centreline tank.
• The standard short-range strike loadout of a Cheetah is to take the 500l bomb-tank combinations and fit bombs to the central hardpoint.

This makes the generic loadouts for the E:

• 2x missile, 2x bomb, 2x 1700l tank, 1x 1300l tank (long range)
• 2x missile, 6x bomb, 2x 500l tank, 1x 1300l tank
• 2x missile, 8x bomb, 2x 500l tank (short range)

and for the C/D:

• 2x missile, 4x bomb, 2x 1700l tank, 1x 1300l tank (long range)
• 2x missile, 8x bomb, 2x 500l tank, 1x 1300l tank
• 2x missile, 10x bomb, 2x 500l tank (short range)

Weapons that are carried in these loadouts include:

• Mk.81 Pre-Frag #2763
• Mk.81 Traan
• Mk.82 Pre-Frag
• Mk.82 Traan
• Mk.81O boosted bomb #2577 (same form factor as a Mk.82)
• Mk.20 Rockeye CBU
• Condib 70 (probably?)

Which creates 21 loadouts per aircraft already, most of them new or modified!

Other weapons are also available:

• Mk.82 Griffin Laser Guided Bomb
• Mk.81 Griffin Laser Guided Bomb
• Mk.83 1000lb bomb
• CB-470 anti-personnel cluster bomb #2433
• SNEB 68mm rocket
• Vicon 18 601E recce pod (DB3k weapon 3461)

The Griffins were on C/D only. They seem to have been carried two at a time on the new intake pylons, requiring buddy designation. The D had a frankly insane sounding 'CLDS' laser designation system, a unit that fitted inside the rear cockpit and was pointed at a fixed position, forcing the aircraft to do a pylon turn around the target and designate for its wingman.

• 2x missile, 2x Griffin, 2x 1700l tank, 1x 1300l tank
• 2x missile, 2x 1700l tank, 1x 1300l tank, 1x CLDS (massless, dragless laser designator, no optical device, port side only) Further research indicates that the CLDS works on similar principles to the AN/AVQ-9 Pave Light/Zot Box designator used in Vietnam, CWDB weapon 1484.

The Mk.83 and CB-470 are both 500kg class bombs. I don't believe that they could be carried on the new pylons, so they are limited to the 'classic' Mirage III positions of the wet pylons.

• 2x missile, 2x bomb, 2x 1700l tank
• 2x missile, 4x bomb (short-range) This is the current Mk.83 loadout, which is nice.

I haven't actually seen any indication that SNEB was carried on the Cheetah, but there's no reason it couldn't be since they're just Mirage IIIs. The current loadout is called 'SNEB 68mm Rockets, JL-100 Fuel Tanks' but for some reason has CRV-7s that South Africa has never had. Up to you guys if you remove this one or replace it with a SNEB/JL-100 loadout.

The Vicon pod was only carried by Cheetah C, apparently. It went on the centreline as part of an unarmed recon loadout with 2x 1700l tanks.

I have no idea how much of this stuff was sold to Ecuador. For now I'd continue to make the Ecuadorean ones a clone of the final South African ones.

Sources

https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/aircraft/68/cheetah-e https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/aircraft/30/cheetah-d https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/aircraft/1/cheetah-c http://www.saairforce.co.za/pdf/South%20African%20Air%20Force%20Cheetah%20E.pdf

Sensor-specific https://www.militaryperiscope.com/weapons/sensorselectronics/airborne-radars/elm-2001b/overview/ https://www.key.aero/forum/modern-military-aviation/16637-atlas-cheetah

Loadout-specific https://www.saairforce.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3059 - Rockeye and HDGP bombs https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/weapons/74/mk20-rockeye-tiekie https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/aircraft?tag=cheetah%2Bd https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/weapons/28/745-griffin-laser-guided-bomb - Mk.82 and Mk.81 visible https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/weapons/37/cb-470-cluster-bomb https://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/weapons/82/vicon-18-601e http://www.saairforce.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6103

https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/cheetah-fighter/

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This is an Ecuadorean Cheetah, what bomb is that? Looks like Lizard, maybe, but with the winglets off.

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I think I found the "Cheetah mystery jammer". I was scrolling through Jane's Radar and EW Systems 1997 and saw the RWS 200 radar warning receiver and SPJ 200 integrated airborne self-protection jammer by Avitronics South Africa, which was interesting. I did some further digging and found two sources which confirm that SPJ 200 and RWS 200 are indeed used by the Cheetah along with the CFD-200 chaff & flare dispenser.

source 1: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Emerging+industries+and+markets.-a013529030

source 2, Hrvatski Vojnik 29, 1993 page 33 right above and below the strike profile images (time and time again I'm amazed how much rare data and pictures can be found in this magazine):

https://hrvatski-vojnik.hr/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/hv_029_91_95.pdf

SPJ-200: 6-18 GHz RWS-200: 0.7-18 GHz I'd say late 1980s tech

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Hot damn, that's really excellent thanks. The RWS-100 mentioned in the Free Encyclopedia entry is likely the #2691 system, same range bands and an implicitly less advanced version.

The Hrvatski Vojnik source is incredible too, not only is it the smoking gun for the Cheetah (and 1993 so it almost certainly means D/E as well as C), it also mentions the #1866, another of my pet projects on the same page. If only it weren't all in Croatian!