Question Active radar homing for land-attack
- Thread starter AngelD
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Sure, why not? Interial guidance by itself might be accurate enough to hit a target as large as an airfield. The effectiveness of the strike might be questionable depending on a number of circumstances.
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- #3
Will the accuracy of these missiles be in doubt? For they cannot perfectly orient themselves in space and their location, only roughly understand where they are
It depends on the missile, and what specifically you're trying to hit. An "airfield" might be a chunk of ground multiple sq kms. Can you hit that chunk of ground? Sure. Will a couple of missiles precisely take out the airfield? Probably not. What if you pepper it with dozens? What is your strike trying to accomplish? Destroy the runway? Hit jets in the open? Hit jets in a hangar? Hit jets in a hardened shelter? Destroy munition or fuel storage facilities? In the Georgian War Russian Tu-22M3s dropped tens of bombs in a traditional WWII-style bombing path, at an angle, to intersect with the runway. The accuracy of piles of free fall bombs dropped from a great height is very poor. But it did work, and the runway was effectively disabled.
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- #5
Is it possible to add an approximate silhouette (the shape of an object that was obtained with the help of reconnaissance) to rockets with active radar homing before the moment of launch? That is, for example, to indicate that it is a building with a certain shape and launch a rocket?
In principle yes. You can have information on target type as part of what a missile recognizes. Even as far back as the '80s Soviet heavy AShMs (Granit) were able to distinguish different targets and prioritize what to target within the group of missiles launched. However the target needs to have a sufficiently large RCS to be detected, and needs to stand out from the background. It's one of the problems with using AShMs against ground targets, something that was in principle often possible, but for that same Granit was often not easy to do.
Big_Zucchini
Well-Known Member
I believe what you're looking for is TERCOM.
TERrain COntour Matching, is the use of typically an onboard radar system to sense the terrain around a missile, and comparing it with a map stored in some memory device on the missile.
Usage of TERCOM requires good intelligence capabilities and specifically the ability to create accurate maps of said terrain before a mission. Such maps are typically created and refreshed periodically during peacetime and then ready for immediate use in wartime.
Modern munitions also utilize jam-resistant GPS to periodically calibrate the INS and attain excellent accuracy of meters regardless of flight range.
GPS signals are inherently low power (significant attenuation over distance between satellites and receiver), so jamming them with white noise on GPS frequencies is very easy. So it is key to make an anti-jam system and not a commercial receiver.
One way to anti-jam a GPS jammer is software-defined ratio which allows utilizing advanced variable-reception-pattern algorithms that can physically block jammers and enhance real signals. They're not cheap though.
One more method that is quite common for standoff munitions is optical guidance. Using a method similar to TERCOM, the user uploads an image of the target, and the missile attempts to identify the target based on that image in its terminal phase.
TERrain COntour Matching, is the use of typically an onboard radar system to sense the terrain around a missile, and comparing it with a map stored in some memory device on the missile.
Usage of TERCOM requires good intelligence capabilities and specifically the ability to create accurate maps of said terrain before a mission. Such maps are typically created and refreshed periodically during peacetime and then ready for immediate use in wartime.
Modern munitions also utilize jam-resistant GPS to periodically calibrate the INS and attain excellent accuracy of meters regardless of flight range.
GPS signals are inherently low power (significant attenuation over distance between satellites and receiver), so jamming them with white noise on GPS frequencies is very easy. So it is key to make an anti-jam system and not a commercial receiver.
One way to anti-jam a GPS jammer is software-defined ratio which allows utilizing advanced variable-reception-pattern algorithms that can physically block jammers and enhance real signals. They're not cheap though.
One more method that is quite common for standoff munitions is optical guidance. Using a method similar to TERCOM, the user uploads an image of the target, and the missile attempts to identify the target based on that image in its terminal phase.