GarryB Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:29 am
Also keep in mind that very high missile flight speed means engagement times are much shorter so more targets can be engaged per minute than with a slower missile.
For instance comparing a system launching Kornet missiles at a group of hovering helos at 9km range compared with a SOSNA-R system launching Pine missiles at the same group... the Kornet missile moves at about 350m/s so to engage a target at 9km would take about 30 seconds.
If both systems could engage one target at a time then the Kornet system could engage two targets per minute but the Pine system with an engagement time of 8 seconds at about 10km range means 60/8 = 7.5, so over 7 targets per minute can be engaged.
With flight speeds of 3km/s targets in the middle range should be intercepted rather quickly, so a group of low flying targets at 10km might only take 5 seconds from detection to tracking to launch and kill so while on paper it can engage 4 targets at one time, lets be generous and say one complete engagement per ten seconds, so four times 6 is 24 targets per minute per TEL is pretty damn good, but I agree the domestic model could probably do rather better... shorter ranges and longer ranges will effect the engagement rate of course and some targets might need to be re-engaged...