GarryB Mon Mar 14, 2022 2:23 am
I thought it was interesting, it mentions a US missile that is about 3kgs and has no warhead, but it goes on to compare command guided missiles and ARH missiles and their performance differences in terms of a mass attack.
It appears to show that hit to kill accuracy for the ARH missiles make them more efficient in dealing with mass attacks of drones or rockets or artillery shells or combinations.
I would say that cost is not everything, but being prepared for anything is important so I would say a mix of command guided as well as ARH and perhaps even some IIR guided missiles should be considered.
ARH and command guided use radars for target detection and tracking and engagement or guiding the outgoing missile to the target so they work in all weathers day and night and in the presence of smoke or dust or aerosols or snow or rain or whatever.... ARH is more expensive but also more accurate and allows more targets to be engaged at one time.
It mentions a three or four sided fixed radar is expensive, but I would think it would be worth it because 360 degrees could be electronically scanned meaning super fast update rates for very high speed targets or small targets.
IIR sensors and missiles would allow even the lowest RCS target to be engaged in the right conditions.
Because of all this I would suggest a mixture of IIR and ARH and command guided missiles in the 10-20kg weight range with a small proximity fuse for use against very small targets.
We don't know much about 9M100 but I suspect it will be rather bigger than this, but there was talk of IIR and ARH versions for aircraft and ship and and vehicle applications... I would think having a mix of missile types would make sense but with the S-350 system we are talking 48 missiles per TEL, while this new missile they are talking about will have hundreds of missiles per launch vehicle.
With a fixed four face phased array radar and a mix of IIR and ARH and command guided missiles depending on the situation it would be excellent for all sorts of situations.
You could deploy ARH in high threat areas and have it as a last ditch defence system with other systems or even as part of a convoy watching out for TOW type ATGMs and Javelin launches... obviously not much use with an RPG launched from 20m, but that would be the job of an APS anyway.
In other situations it might also provide general air defence as well so a few command guided missiles could engage larger drones or light aircraft cheaply and efficiently... or in good conditions an IIR guided weapon could be used as a fire and forget system too.
They could unify the design so that it is essentially a scaled down SA-15 TOR missile, where the standard TOR has command guidance, while these smaller missiles carried on a trailer in much larger numbers might include ARH and IIR and command guided smaller missiles optimised for drones or artillery shells or small hard targets.
Perhaps a unit of four vehicles operate together each with two face array radars where two vehicles operate their radars at once providing 360 degree coverage while the rest just have missiles... 200 missiles per vehicle, making a four vehicle unit able to deal with up to 800 targets, with perhaps a 57mm gun vehicle operating with it, and EW/DRCMS vehicle to jam and defeat the fuses and guidance of some incoming weapons or blind optically guided weapons or their operators.
This new weapon is a Verba or Igla or double their weight weapon, so 1/3rd lighter than Kornet... perhaps a Bulat sized weapon?