Sunburst Missile - Help, Confused

J

jeets101

New Member
Hello to everyone. This is my first post and I think, no I know, I have come to the right place for definitive answers. I am just developing an interest in Military history and weaponry, which I find fascinating.

I recently learned of the Sunburst (or is it Sunburn) missile which is supposedly unable to be detected or stopped by any type of defense system, thus having the ability to render obsolete the entire US Navy. A very lofty and pretty scary claim.

After some preliminary research, and especially after having discovered the discussions in this forum, I don't know what to make of this so-called invincible weapon.

So, to a novice like me, can someone get me out of the dark and please explain exactly what this missile is, and what it can or cannot do. Also, I know you use a lot of acronyms, which is why at times, I could not understand many aspects of posts made on this missile. I like the use of the acronyms because I want to learn them. So when you use them to answer me, please put in parenthesis what they stand for.

Sorry to be such a hassle, but I guess we all started out green and unacknowledged. I am just glad I found this site and can learn from those who know what they are talking about, who won't slant answers to fit some agenda. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer me.
 
Feanor

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
This is in the wrong forum.

As for your question, the short answer is no. No the Sunburn is not an uber weapon that renders the USN obsolete. It is a rather effective ASM, and in combination with a saturation strike could (in theory) be effective and overwhelming AEGIS and doing some damage. Howver it's not nearly as easy as some would have you think, nor impossible to stop.
 
J

jeets101

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3
Sunburn Missile

Thanks for the reply. I just went through the different forums and found a missile forum. I will delete this post and put it in the missile forum.
 
O

Ozzy Blizzard

New Member
There's nothing truly game changing about the Sunburn, its simply a very fast "sea skimming" anti ship missile. AEGIS is specifically designed to handle threats like this, that's why you see the significant increase in defensive firepower with the introduction of weapons like ESSM, SM2 BII & RAM.

The problem with supersonic, low altitude AShM's is they advertise their presence in a big way through surface heating and ionization (meaning they can be seen a mile off by radar and IR based systems). Again if employed correctly, targeted accurately, used en mass and are able to effectively saturate the battlespace they could be effective, but this is no different to the AS-4 Kitchen in the 80's. Again there's nothing game changing about the Sunburn, and in real terms JASSM will most likely be a more effective AShM.
 
J

jlb

New Member
The Sunburn is not exactly news, it was deployed in the mid-1980's on the Sovremeny destroyers.

And supersonic sea skimmers are not to be lightly dismissed. Defenses have a much shorter engagement time, and so are much easier to saturate than with subsonic missiles.
 
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