Weapon question

[+Monty CZ 209]

Hello all,

I know that here are few specialists who could answer my question.

I was lately a little bit surprised watching SF2NA action view (after my death)

that ARM are widely used in game against "radar" planes (soviet reckon, planes with jammers on etc)

 

Do the missiles this capability in real world too?

Can you use HARM against planes? or other ARMs

 

Thanx for the info

 

Monty CZ

[Fubar512 1,350]

Hello all,

I know that here are few specialists who could answer my question.

I was lately a little bit surprised watching SF2NA action view (after my death)

that ARM are widely used in game against "radar" planes (soviet reckon, planes with jammers on etc)

 

Do the missiles this capability in real world too?

Can you use HARM against planes? or other ARMs

 

Thanx for the info

 

Monty CZ

 

In theory, yes. In practice, I can't say. Remember that the STARM and the SM-1 SAM share essentially the same airframe. In fact, the AIM-97 "Seekbat" was also a member of that family, too.

[garyscott 11]

Its feasible, but the capability is still in its infancy.

Evolving missile guidance designs are converting the anti-radiation missile (ARM) design, pioneered during Vietnam and used to home in against emitting surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites, to an air intercept weapon. Current air-to-air passive anti-radiation missile development is thought to be a countermeasure to airborne early warning and control (AEW&C - also known as AEW or AWACS) aircraft which typically mount powerful search radars.

 

Due to their dependence on target aircraft radar emissions, when used against fighter aircraft passive anti-radiation missiles are primarily limited to forward-aspect intercept geometry.

 

 

Quote from here - ARM's

 

Air-to-Air

A MAR-1 um missile mounted under the wing of an AMX attack fighter of theBrazilian Air Force.

More recently, air-to-air ARM designs have begun to appear, notably the Russian Vympel R-27P. Such missiles have several advantages over other missile guidance techniques; they do not trigger radar warning receivers (conferring a measure of surprise), and they can have a longer range (since battery life of the seeker head is the limiting factor on the range of most active radar homing systems).

 

 

 

[+streakeagle 864]

There is a huge limitation of air-to-air ARMs compared to air-to-surface ARMs: what happens when the target shuts down? A stationary SAM site has already revealed its position, so the missile can try to fly to the last known location of the target. It is much harder to hit a 500 mph target if it is no longer being tracked. AWACs is the only practical target for such a missile. I don't know how easy it would be for AWACs to detect such a threat and momentarily cease radar transmissions. I could see a formation of fighters being decimated the first time such a weapon is used. Imagine 4 or more F-15/F-16s charging toward a thread radars blazing. At what point would they realize that the missiles that are inbound are seeking their radars? In an all-out war, US fighters would probably be using LPI pulses anyway (low-probability of intercept). Such radar is difficult to detect with RWR much less use for missile homing. The airplane radar/stealth/ecm game is starting to sound a lot more like the sub/sonar game.

[garyscott 11]

If AWAC's can be shut down for a short time due to threat of an ARM attack, then that is in effect the same as a "kill". The desired effect of no AWAC's coverage for opposing forces is as good as a kill - the enemy is blinded, or at least limited in its SA, which can give the aggressor the edge.

[JediMaster 451]

Of course, with AESA radars you can steer precisely the beam, making it harder for an ARM to home in on you unless you're looking at it directly.

 

For now, only anti-AWACS is practical, but I don't know how good it actually may be as they've never been used in combat.

[turkeydriver 4]

Supposedly A B-52s tail gun radar was damaged by an AGM-88 in GW1. It wasn't uncommon to launched the HARMs behind what you were escorting and lob them over the strikers to have them rain down on the SAMs-might have been a tactic to show they werent any HARM shooters-since the closest target would be what you wanted to shoot down( the B-52 strikers). I'll see what i can find on the topic.

[garyscott 11]

Turkeydriver, see here - Harm versus B-52 .

I particularly like the name that was given to the BUFF after the incident . . . "In HARM's way"

 

And in this link - Profiles - you can see a side view of the aircraft (its 3rd from bottom), plus side view artwork of a great many other B-52's.

 

Edited March 26, 2012 by garyscott

[turkeydriver 4]

Turkeydriver, see here - Harm versus B-52 .

I particularly like the name that was given to the BUFF after the incident . . . "In HARM's way"

 

And in this link - Profiles - you can see a side view of the aircraft (its 3rd from bottom), plus side view artwork of a great many other B-52's.

 

 

Thanks Gary, that's a crazy incident.

[+streakeagle 864]

They don't go into much detail about the damage to the B-52. Was it very light damage? Or did it abort its mission and limp back to base? The HARM is not much use if it can't take down an aircraft with a direct hit on the tail. But it may be simply a matter of selecting the right warhead for the mission as I don't see why it couldn't have a warhead as effective as a Sparrow, but it might also need the fusing of the Sparrow to work against aircraft. The effectiveness of a warhead against an aircraft is definitely affected by the timing of its detonation.

[turkeydriver 4]

They don't go into much detail about the damage to the B-52. Was it very light damage? Or did it abort its mission and limp back to base? The HARM is not much use if it can't take down an aircraft with a direct hit on the tail. But it may be simply a matter of selecting the right warhead for the mission as I don't see why it couldn't have a warhead as effective as a Sparrow, but it might also need the fusing of the Sparrow to work against aircraft. The effectiveness of a warhead against an aircraft is definitely affected by the timing of its detonation.

 

Well the warhead on a HARM is a forward directed area blast with Tungsten cubes now right? I think thats an improvement of the AGM-88A used in Desert Storm. I'd imagine as its designed to decimate a delicate dish or plate for radar guidance, its not really going to be effective as an anti-air weapon. I can see the validity of a anti air designed ARM against AWACS-or even fighters with powerful radars acting as an AWACS. I couldn't see it effective at all against a maneuvering target as the passive seeker would have a difficult time calculating lead pursuit on a target with the radar on the pointy end only. Receiver sensitivity and calculations must be very precise on a piece of avionics to calculate the specific are of a fixed radar site-one moving at 400 knots would not allow the inputs to be used in calculations before they were too outdated to provide any useful information.