Belesarius Posted February 9, 2016 Report Share Posted February 9, 2016 The US Navy is developing additional capabilities for the SM-6. This will give the US Navy a Mach 3.5 350 mile range anti-ship missile. Of course, not broadly talked about is that the SM-2 already had a surface attack mode. http://news.usni.org/2016/02/04/secdef-carter-confirms-navy-developing-supersonic-anti-ship-missile-for-cruisers-destroyers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waffentrager Posted February 9, 2016 Report Share Posted February 9, 2016 Pretty interesting. How much will it take out of their empty pockets this time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted February 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2016 IIRC, between 250k-500k per missile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted February 9, 2016 Report Share Posted February 9, 2016 I wonder how long it will take before electronics are good enough that you can just have a general purpose guided missile. Surface to air, surface to surface, anti-ship, anti-radiation, just tell it what it's supposed to fly into, and it figures out how to do it. roguetechie 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperComrade Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 I would naively guess the restriction is more on the kind of warhead it carries, though? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted February 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 There is also talk about modifying the warhead a bit. But even if the warhead isn't optimal for anti ship duties, an anti ship missiles hitting a modern warship at mach 3.5 and then going boom is not going to do good things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm_kruger Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 I would naively guess the restriction is more on the kind of warhead it carries, though? That and the missile's flight characteristics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 I would naively guess the restriction is more on the kind of warhead it carries, though? Seekers are quite specialized. You can't shoot a heat-seeking air to air missile at ground targets, for instance. The use of radar-guided SAMs against tanks in 1973 was an act of desperation by Egyptian SA-2 crews who were about to have their shit stomped by Israeli armor. It did nothing, because radar-guided SAMs can't lock on ground targets, and the stomping commenced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted February 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 Seekers are quite specialized. You can't shoot a heat-seeking air to air missile at ground targets, for instance. The use of radar-guided SAMs against tanks in 1973 was an act of desperation by Egyptian SA-2 crews who were about to have their shit stomped by Israeli armor. It did nothing, because radar-guided SAMs can't lock on ground targets, and the stomping commenced. You can get laser guided and gps guided both pretty small now so on something the size of the SM-6 it's more of finding the room to cram it in to the existing shell without fucking with other functionality at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperComrade Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 Seekers are quite specialized. You can't shoot a heat-seeking air to air missile at ground targets, for instance. The use of radar-guided SAMs against tanks in 1973 was an act of desperation by Egyptian SA-2 crews who were about to have their shit stomped by Israeli armor. It did nothing, because radar-guided SAMs can't lock on ground targets, and the stomping commenced. Well, if you want to build a universal missile, would the choice of seeker be as hard as making a warhead effective against tanks, aircraft, and ships? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 Well, if you want to build a universal missile, would the choice of seeker be as hard as making a warhead effective against tanks, aircraft, and ships? Particularly hardened or large targets would require specialized warheads, but the majority of military targets are things like a truck, a bunch of dudes standing in a field, an expensive and easily breakable radar dish, an airplane, et plurima cetera. A fragmentation warhead that will reasonably kill one of those things will reasonably kill the rest of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm_kruger Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 Seekers are quite specialized. You can't shoot a heat-seeking air to air missile at ground targets, for instance. The use of radar-guided SAMs against tanks in 1973 was an act of desperation by Egyptian SA-2 crews who were about to have their shit stomped by Israeli armor. It did nothing, because radar-guided SAMs can't lock on ground targets, and the stomping commenced. The AIM-9X has been tested against boats and vehicles. And back during Vietnam they messed around with using a version of the AIM-9B against trucks on the Ho Chi Minh trail at night, apparently the headlights/exhausts put out enough of a IR signature for a lock. You can get laser guided and gps guided both pretty small now so on something the size of the SM-6 it's more of finding the room to cram it in to the existing shell without fucking with other functionality at this point. I suspect that anti-radiation/home-on-jam for the SDB-II and Brimstone will eventually show up, as another mode to their radar guidance packages. (IIRC the Air Force and Raytheon have already worked on a version of the SDB specifically for killing GPS jammers) Collimatrix 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted February 10, 2016 Report Share Posted February 10, 2016 Interesting. AIM-9X probably works much better in this regard thanks to the planar array. Getting a reticule seeker to home on ground targets but ignore ground clutter would be very, very difficult. Planar array also opens up the door to all sorts of software signal filtering witchcraft. Edit: I realize this is jargon-filled. "Planar array" basically means how a sane person would design a heat-seeking missile, i.e. there is a matrix of little heat-sensitive elements under the focus of some IR optics. Analogous to how a CCD in a camcorder works, or the nerves and optics of an eye. "Reticule seeker" is how heat-seeking missiles worked in the stone age when all the electronics were shit and barely worked. You have a single analog pixel, basically, underneath some spinning filters underneath some wavelength filters. It's amazing they worked at all, let alone as well as they did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tied Posted February 11, 2016 Report Share Posted February 11, 2016 I wonder how long it will take before electronics are good enough that you can just have a general purpose guided missile. Surface to air, surface to surface, anti-ship, anti-radiation, just tell it what it's supposed to fly into, and it figures out how to do it. Because the amount of explosives needed to take down even small warships trumps the amount to take down jets. It would be incredibly cost inefficient Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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