kazak

hey, guys, i am a newbie here. im not sure i even have the right to get in the way of such heavy-calibers like you here, officers and experts. But, first question: lurker, were you joking about being a retired Red Army Air-Defence expert? COs if you were, i'd wanna hug you and shake your hand, Comrad. Zdorovo zivete, raket4iki molodzi !!

Anon

Welcome aboard fella.

GabRaz

Quick question:

What's the max range of the SM-6 (AKA ERAM)?

Thanks

sw55

I am an amature here, and I have always thought of the us surface fleet Harpoon SSM as an anemic answer to the faster Russian missiles, but do remember the SM-1/2 series was a SSM as well. (in the first gulf war wasn't it used against some armed oil rigs by US frigates?) Now I wasn''t in the navy, but it does make sense that it be used against surface targets as well, I just didn't know it was a widely thought of as such. My question is, is this the tactic used by the USN to engage surface warships to soften them up with SMs and then finish them off with Harpoon's? It would make sense, and the MK 41 vertical launchers would be particularly deadly as such. And how would you target such weapons as the SM-2 series over the horizon? And are the Russian surface to air weapons also capable of this, like the naval version of the SA-10? I have to admit, the RUssians don't look 9 feet tall any more on a surface to surface ballance after reading about the SSM capability of the SM-2s. (from a laymen's point of view anyway)

Anon

SM-2 has a flight speed of Mach 3.5 making it very hard to intercept, and a decent sized 165lb warhead. A Kidd with the NTU upgrade can illuminate as many as six SM-2s at once(i believe), so using SM-2 the Kidds have a tremendous saturation anti-ship capability as long as the target is visible on the electronic horizon.

(most) Modern warships are very lightly armored, so the SM-2 is a very effective anti-ship missile against most ships cruiser sized or smaller.

Remember, one only needs to mission kill a ship to knock it out of the fight, and a salvo of SM-2s is very good for doing just that.

Once the ship is disabled and defenseless any of a variety of munitions can be used to sink it at a later time.

sw55

"electornic horizon" would be about what for a Kidd, or Ticonderoga, or Burke? I am guessing that would be a function of the antenna above the waterline, at which (waterline) the 'horizon' is about 22 miles??? So I am guessing about 60 to 100 feet above that, where the radar antenna is, it might be about 40 to 60 miles??? (I am guessing) This is of course assuming ship against ship with no external sensor input, like satellite, or E-2, or P-3. With such "external input" can the ship launch a SM-2 against another ship which would otherwise be below that "electronic horizon"?

Sorry for the numerous questions, but I have been curious on such things ever since my cousin, who commanded a Knox class frigate, signed me up to recieve "Proceedings" a couple decades ago. (he has since passed away).

Anon

With CEC(cooperative engagement control) any sensor platform can provide midcourse update for an SM-2, but lacking an active radar seeker it would have to rely on it's IR seeker for terminal guidance, and i have no idea if it can be used in that way, sorry.

But SM-2 can definitely be used out to the electronic horizon of any ship in the fleet that has an illuminator(if CEC capability is present).

CEC has had a lot of problems with implementation because of bandwidth issues, so i've no idea if it's possible to do that yet.

Electronic horizon is a function of illuminator power and height above the waterline, and finally the RCS of the target(which is immense for ships).

sw55

Thanks.

Anon

NP.

Highsea could probably give ya a better answer, maybe he'll stumble onto this thread and do so.