UK test-fires Spear mini cruise missile that will equip F-35 fighters The UK has conducted the first successful guided firing trial of Spear, a mini cruise missile that is set to be the chief strike weapon against ships for the carrier-launched F-35B fighter jets, and can also be used against tanks, target structures and fast-moving vehicles. Spear is described as a next-gen turbojet-powered …
That reminded me...
Hopefully Blighty's F-35s have the necessary...
https://www.theregister.com/2017/02/17/lynx_wildcat_has_no_tactical_data_link_royal_navy/
Fruit and Nutcase,
All F35s have got Link 16 (NATO standard) and also their own even more capable tactical data network, MADL, which means they can inter-operate with all other F35s, plus a few other assets. I think the B2, B21 (when it's built) and the most up-to-date Aegis-equipped ships. Which means the ship can give targetting information for the F35s missiles - or vice-versa. Although that can be done with other means, the UK have shot down a target missile with a Typhoon where the targetting was cued by a Type 45 Destroyer in excercises in the North Sea.
They were still pissing around and testing datalinks for the Wildcat - they may have fitted them already, the MoD are often not clear about this sort of thing. I'm not sure why it's taken so long. Merlin has it, but that does anti-submarine work, which is much more complicated.
Thanks /only ribbing the Senior Service. I have a soft spot / nothing but admiration for them. Would have joined up as an artificer after school, but an ex Royal Marines officer who was a neighbour was quite right when he said the forces were probably not for me as I'd have problems taking orders, but skills wise, just what they were looking for
They're supposed to be relatively cheap.
Brimstone is supposedly under $200,000. Full-fat cruise missiles tend to cost at least a million. Something mid-range like Spear 3 should be somewhere in between. The nice thing about the "spiral development" of families of missiles which the UK (and much of Europe) have been doing with missiles for the last decade or two is that there's some quite nice savings in there. Work done for the seeker head of Brimstone is I think going into Spear 3.
Spear 3 will also have another version called Spear-EW which is a decoy missile with the same technology as the anti-radar decoys on Typhoon and F35. They're also using the engines from pre-existing missiles. Finally, if we can get other people to order them, they get even cheaper.
Brimstone already has a database on board of target vehicles. So you can tell it to go to an area and hit all tanks if finds, and if no tanks go for IFVs. It can tell friendly from enemy. Or at least different types (Ukraine must have to be careful using it as they use Russian/Soviet designed vehicles). Brimstone can be programmed to delay one missile's attack on a target to allow another to destroy it, and will then only engage if that attack fails. Spear 3 is supposed to be capable of swarming - the missiles split the targets between them and so can attack all simultaneously. Presumably you can program a reserve to hang back and hit any survivors.
If anybody's learning anything from Ukraine it is that cost has a quality all its own.
- Ukraine manages to axe costly, costly, Russian assets with relatively cheap homegrown gear
- Modern wars need a lot of ammo. You can't develop a $5M weapon platform and only provision 100 rounds of its main weapon, with an ammo production line that gets shut down 10 years into the system's 30 years lifetime.
- At economic parity, it is a mug's game to be shooting down $50k drones with $1m interceptors.
- Swarming is a thing
- Smartening up 30 year old dumb bombs with cheap-n-cheerful guidance and a rudimentary standoff capability is a thing.
Ukraine manages to axe costly, costly, Russian assets with relatively cheap homegrown gear- Modern wars need a lot of ammo. You can't develop a $5M weapon platform and only provision 100 rounds of its main weapon, with an ammo production line that gets shut down 10 years into the system's 30 years lifetime.
True, but also not true. As with a lot of things, it depends. What you need is determined by the threats you face, and what methods you have of dealing with them.
The Russians have broadly managed to turn the Ukraine war into a version of World War I - because that’s what they have the technology for - and their generals don’t seem to be all that good. It’s not Russia’s pre-war military doctrine, and it’s not what they built their army to do. Although, to be fair, they built their army for defensive purposes - with the capacity to fight small, short aggressive wars, relatively close to Russian territory - and then Putin handed them a large scale invasion and wouldn’t even let them use the conscripts their army was designed around.
Both sides are being forced to use vast numbers of cheap drones, because that’s all they can use. And while these are being effective, they’re not ideal. They’re very vulnerable to electronic warfare - and once militaries start buying large numbers of autocannon or laser weapons, they’re going to become a lot less effective.
Not that they’ll go away as a threat. But the pendulum of measure and counter-measure will swing against drones - because every military can clearly see the threat.
Both sides (particularly Ukraine) have to deal with the constant threat of artillery - because they don’t have the best tools to deal with artillery. Air power, for example. Spear 3 is actually designed to deal with this problem in 2 ways. Firstly it can be used to blast holes in enemy air defences, and secondly to destroy artillery, once that gap has been created. The Soviets, and then the Russians, relied on artillery to a much greater extent than NATO. That means millions of cheap rounds of ammunition - whereas you can also achieve similar effects with much fewer, more targetted air-delivered weapons. Which can then afford to be more expensive, because you don’t need as many of them. You might have to fire 1,000 artillery rounds to destroy one tank - and because you’re waiting for random chance, that tank can do a lot of damage while awaiting the golden shell. In the meantime a single Brimstone missile can destroy it 20 miles from the aircraft, maybe before it even reaches the front lines to kill your troops. Those 1,000 shells were individually cheap, but they’re still several thousand pounds each, and so you might actually spend ten times as much on killing your tank, as a single Brimstone. Plus to get 1,000 shells to the front means an awful lot of vulnerable and expensive logistics.
What you need is the right mix of tools for the job. Some very cheap, and disposable. Some much more precise, and therefore expensive.
The Russians have broadly managed to turn the Ukraine war into a version of World War I - because that’s what they have the technology for - and their generals don’t seem to be all that good. It’s not Russia’s pre-war military doctrine, and it’s not what they built their army to do. Although, to be fair, they built their army for defensive purposes..
True, but also not true. Ukraine pretty much forced the nature of the conflict because they shaped it that way following the civil war that started after the 2014 coup. So extensive trench lines and 'fortress cities' constructed around the Donbas. Which is one of Ukraine's problems now that Russia is breaking through those defence lines, and then has more open ground on the way west, or can flank Ukrainian defences in the south. Plus complaints from Ukrainian commanders that newer defences have been poorly constructed, or just dug in the middle of open fields, leaving defenders very exposed.
Then there's the cognitive dissonance in propaganda. Yes, Russia's military has been primarily defensive, but that rather conflicts with the constant cries of an expansionist Russia..
...and then Putin handed them a large scale invasion and wouldn’t even let them use the conscripts their army was designed around.
That's politics for you, and why there's a very important distinction between calling this 'war' vs SMO, because that restricts what forces Russia can deploy due to their constitution. Or when Ukraine made it's bonkers move to invade Kursk, Russia declared that an ATO and can deploy pretty much whatever forces it wants, military and paramilitary.
Both sides are being forced to use vast numbers of cheap drones, because that’s all they can use. And while these are being effective, they’re not ideal. They’re very vulnerable to electronic warfare - and once militaries start buying large numbers of autocannon or laser weapons, they’re going to become a lot less effective.
I don't think they're being forced, it's just become very clear that drones can be devastatingly effective, especially on a cost basis. Plus as this conflict has continued, drones have advanced to either conduct electronic warfare, or counter it. There's a great video demonstrating this with a Russian fibre optic guided drone flying around a 4x4 fitted with EWAR antenna to strike an APC. Those drones seem to be being used more frequently and starting to appear outside Kursk now.
As for buying stuff, first we need that stuff to buy. So the rise of the drones has demonstrated a pretty clear need for cost-effective anti-drone GBAD. Defence contractors may want to flog billion dollar missile systems, but those aren't exactly very cost effective vs cheap drones. Or there's been stuff like this-
The first three Gepards arrived in Ukraine on 25 July 2022 and by the end of September thirty Gepards and 6,000 rounds had been delivered by Germany
200 rounds per Gepard, or 100 per autocannon isn't that much help when they can fire 550 rounds per minute. So I think we need more systems like that, and NATO nations need the ability to churn out a LOT more ammunitiion.
In the meantime a single Brimstone missile can destroy it 20 miles from the aircraft, maybe before it even reaches the front lines to kill your troops.
That, of course assumes your aircraft can get <=20 miles from your target, without running into the enemies air defences. Which Russia still has a lot of. Which could be back to drones again, ie have a stealthy enough drone that can launch Brimstones or these new ones without risking an F-35 plus pilot. Especially if rumors around Israel's attack on Iran are true and Israel cancelled a follow-on attack because Iran could apparently detect their F-35s.
Jellied Eel,
That, of course assumes your aircraft can get <=20 miles from your target, without running into the enemies air defences.
That's the range of Brimstone. Spear EW has a range of 100-ish miles - but probably only if fired from medium to high altitude. Although you can still launch Brimstone from drones (as you said) or ground launch it. Ground launch has been played with for at least 10 years, and that was used to build it for Ukraine - I've not read how successful that was, but haven't seen it mentioned much so I suspect the answer might be, "not very". Doesn't matter how good your piece of tech is, you need the full "kill-chain" in order to employ it effectively.
You'd only be safe to use Brimstone from aircraft if the air defences are already neutralised. Which is what F35 and Spear 3 were designed to do.
Then there's the cognitive dissonance in propaganda. Yes, Russia's military has been primarily defensive, but that rather conflicts with the constant cries of an expansionist Russia..
No cognitive dissonace or propoganda here. I can say an expansionist Russia (not that I did) because it's invaded neighbouring countries and annexed quite a lot of one of their territories. Hence expansionism / imperialism / whatever you want to call it. The Russian army wasn't built for it, that's one reason the invasion of Ukraine has gone so badly. Russia tried maneuvre warfare, and it all went a bit wrong, except for the Southern Military District - who seem to have done a much better job of planning and execution.
I think that was due to a combination of lack of funds and a desire to look more powerful than it actually is. Back in the two Chechen Wars and in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, they found that a lot of the army units they wanted to deploy just weren't able to. So they improvised and went with the equipment that was better maintained and the troops that were better trained. Which tended to be one battalion per brigade. Hence the creation of the Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) This got formalised in the reforms of the army under Defence Minister Sergetov. Rather than reducing the size of the army, in order to increase readiness - they switched to a mobilisation army.
Each brigade theoretically has all the organic assets needed to do engineering, local air defence and logistics. Plus a mix of conscripts that it's training and professional troops. Ideally 2/3rd pros to conscripts - but I don't think they ever got close to that. That meant that in a full scale war they should be able to deploy 2 full-strength BTGs and then there would be a half-manned third one that could take reserves or new trainees and get into the fight later. That one would also get all the crappiest kit, or get robbed by the other units of anything the brigade was short of.
What it really gives you is an army that's really only 2/3rds the size it claims to be. Because Russia didn't have a reserve system, to keep ex conscripts doing annual refresher training. So the 3rd BTG wasn't really useable. Usually the first BTG could be manned entirely by the regulars and the 2nd was only useable if they deployed the conscripts. Out of about 170 BTGs in 2022 that still leaves 50-60 deployable battalions, so 18 brigades or 6 divisions. A very large army. Russia seems to have used about 120 BTGs in the initial invasion - but without sending most of the conscripts. So a bunch were very under-manned. Lots of equipment, but not much infantry.
That's the range of Brimstone. Spear EW has a range of 100-ish miles - but probably only if fired from medium to high altitude. Although you can still launch Brimstone from drones (as you said) or ground launch it. Ground launch has been played with for at least 10 years, and that was used to build it for Ukraine - I've not read how successful that was, but haven't seen it mentioned much so I suspect the answer might be, "not very". Doesn't matter how good your piece of tech is, you need the full "kill-chain" in order to employ it effectively.
Yep. Something that struck me is Spear's weight. So a 100kg missile includes the mass of fuel, electronics and warhead, which isn't that much. Air launch, and it can inherit velocity from the aircraft, and maybe glide some, but launching from the ground means a standing start and higher fuel burn. But on the plus side, 100kg means it could probably be fitted to existing drones like Reapers, or the 'Loyal Wingmen' in development. But there are maybe some other oddities, like using GPS when Russia seems to be pretty proficient at messing with that. But hopefully TPTB have been taking a very close look at what Russia has been doing & how, and developing counters.
You'd only be safe to use Brimstone from aircraft if the air defences are already neutralised. Which is what F35 and Spear 3 were designed to do.
Sure, if those F-35s can remain stealthy. If they can't, and have to launch at mid/high altitude and 100km, that puts them well inside range of systems like the S-400 & now 500. Which is why Israel's experience will probably be interesting. Normally their F-35s have to fly in a non-stealth mode to avoid hostile, or potentially hostile forces learning too much about their characteristics. Which might be bad if those aircraft were stealthed and still detected. Especially as Russia & Iran will probably be sharing any intelligence gained from that raid.
But you also made a claim that Russia doesn't have effective SEAD. I'd argue it does, and it's becoming more effective both by re-orgs and tech like drones shortening their kill-chain. So on the re-org, missile artillery have been attached at a more local level and becoming more effective at counter-battery enagement, and again drones help with this by being able to spot or designate targets. It seems able to fly drones over cities like Odessa and Kiev unmolested, then with the frequent missile and drone attacks, locate Ukraine's GBADs.. And then service those with their long range missiles, without having to risk SEAD aircraft. It also seems like Russia's improved their drones so they can loiter and be re-tasked, but either way, it's forcing Ukraine to expose their GBAD and expend very expensive and scarce missiles against cheap drones, that might just be decoys looking for their location.
And on the flip-side, Ukraine used it's new power to launch ATACMS into Russia last night, and Russia claims to have shot most of them down. It's an old missile, and again there's the problem that Ukraine doesn't have enough, and we don't seem able to produce enough of either missiles or launchers to allow saturation attacks. Plus of course politicians telegraphing the new ROE and Russia very actively trying to destroy any launchers and vehicles it can find.
Which might also be a challenge with Spear. Ok, it might work for a first-strike, if that can launch undetected. If not, Russia's been busy churning out Pantsirs and other AD that might be able to shoot them down.
Out of about 170 BTGs in 2022 that still leaves 50-60 deployable battalions, so 18 brigades or 6 divisions. A very large army. Russia seems to have used about 120 BTGs in the initial invasion - but without sending most of the conscripts. So a bunch were very under-manned. Lots of equipment, but not much infantry.
That's debateable, more like 50 BTGs and again you're missing the point. Doctrine held the idea that BTGs could be rapidly reinforced in a wartime situation via mobilisation and conscription. Again why the distinction between SMO and claims like 'full scale invasion' and 'war' are just incorrect. Russia can't use conscripts for an SMO because their constitution doesn't permit it, so it's been relying on volunteers instead.. And paying them very well compared to typical Russian salaries. This has allowed Russia to recruit several battalions a month, give them decent training and allow for troop rotations. It's also much like US doctrine, ie regular Army units complemented by National Guard, if required. Ukraine's problem is although it's been busily standing up new battalions, they're mostly paper tigers and woefully under strength. But then after nearly 3 years of very intense fighting in a 'war' of attrition, this might be expected.
Plus Russia seems to have realised that their original BTG concept hasn't really worked. Experts have been claiming that Russia can't adapt, evidence on the ground appear to show that it has been, along with concepts like mechanized infantry maybe not being a great idea in that environment. Which has also lead to some interesting experiments like the reappearence of Dragoons. No horses, just dirt bikes allowing fast probing that may allow weaknesses to be quickly exploited. Some of this might be down to lack of air support, some might be more fundamental and a challenge for NATO planners and instructors.
As the old saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and few planners can survive a Kinzhal to the face.
Brimstone is derived from the Hellfire missile (sort-of, ish, not really), so is basically a long range fire and forget ATGM.
SPEAR 3 is a development of that line. Precision effect so quite a small warhead, suitable for destroying point targets - vehicles and artillery pieces, not a huge bunker buster. Warhead weight will be quite low.
Guidance: GPS and inertial guidance, so as mentioned elsewhere, GPS jamming not really an issue, because the IG is generally good enough to get it to terminal homing distance, at which point it's not using GPS anymore anyway.
As to F35's within range of S-400 and S-500, that's only an issue if the S-400 and S-500 are as good as the Russians claim, which seems unlikely. There's a nice little video of a storm shadow (which the Russians claimed they would easily shoot down, when the Ukrainians first received them) flying in day light directly at, over and then away from an S-300 battery, which launches multiple missiles but still misses. There have been very few confirmed storm shadow interceptions, and considerably more confirmed storm shadow not-interceptions / followed by target destroyed.
"This has allowed Russia to recruit several battalions a month, give them decent training and allow for troop rotations."
Possibly, but the prisoners of war that the Ukrainians are taking typically refer to having had a few days' training at best, and there are plenty of social media postings referring to Russian soldiers complaining about how long the are kept in the front line (basically, until they are all dead). No troop rotations, just destroyed units reformed with new cannon fodder.
If the Russians had such an effective recruitment process, they wouldn't be begging North Korea for troops, with all the culture, language, supply and associated command and control problems that brings.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian's situation may be difficult, but they can still afford to give all their recruits a minimum of five weeks training (eg. UK Operation Interflex, the French equivalent that's just stood up a trained and fully equipped ~4,500 'Brigade'; Ukrainian terminology seems to use 'Brigade' for a unit that's somewhat smaller than traditional western use, but that appears to be a constant from pre-war, so doesn't reflect war losses)
There have been very few confirmed storm shadow interceptions, and considerably more confirmed storm shadow not-interceptions / followed by target destroyed.
Sure, just as there have been claims that Ukraine shot down 144/120 missiles and drones over the weekend. And yet still things exploded. Again beware propaganda, and things that don't make sense, eg-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c206l3qgnx2o
A “massive” Russian missile and drone attack has targeted power infrastructure across Ukraine, the country's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
At least 10 people were killed in the strikes, which hit the capital, Kyiv, as well as multiple targets in several regions including Donetsk, Lviv and Odesa... "Peaceful cities, sleeping civilians" and "critical infrastructure" were targeted, Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said.
If Russia were really targetting civilians, there would be a lot more dead. The claim just doesn't pass even the most casual inspection, especially given when we targeted energy infrastructure in Belgrade, or Baghdad, a lot more civilians were killed. Storm Shadow maybe gets a bit more interesting given Ukraine doesn't seem to have used any for a long time. Some were intercepted over Crimea, some weren't, so maybe Ukraine's found they're not as effective as they'd like, or they don't have enough aircraft or missiles to launch them.
If the Russians had such an effective recruitment process, they wouldn't be begging North Korea for troops, with all the culture, language, supply and associated command and control problems that brings.
And your evidence for this is.. where? There has been plenty of noise from 'experts' claiming the Norks are coming.. the Norks are coming! But as yet, I've seen no hard evidence that they actually have been used in combat.
Ukrainian civilian casualties are being minimised (though not, sadly, prevented) by a good air-defence system on the Ukrainians part, which provides sufficient warning for both active defence (i.e. SAMs and anti-aircraft guns) and, as importantly, passive defence - for civilians to get to shelters. That is in part the benefit of the Ukrainians driving the Russian Black Sea Fleet to the far corner of the Azov sea and in some cases into the Caspian (maybe a year ago I joked that if the Black Sea Fleet ran away any further, they would have to rename themselves the Caspian Sea Fleet, not realising that thanks to a connecting ship canal, some elements of the BSF have done just that) - longer range means more warning time.
If the Russians were shooting down Storm shadow, they would be boasting about it. Plenty of evidence that Storm shadow is highly accurate and highly effective (see for example, my comment above about the remains of the BSF running away to the Caspian). Most likely limited stocks are being held u
I joked that if the Black Sea Fleet ran away any further, they would have to rename themselves the Caspian Sea Fleet, not realising that thanks to a connecting ship canal, some elements of the BSF have done just that) - longer range means more warning time.
And oh how the Ukrainians being sacrificed to feed our 'leaders' egos must be laughing. So you might want to go find some of the missile tracker graphics showing where missiles were launched from. And oddly enough, those are still being launched by Black Sea Fleet assets, from inside the Black Sea. And I realise that the Caspian is connected, and that Russia has also launched from there into Ukraine, possibly just to demonstrate that it can. I'm really curious about this bit though "longer range means more warning time". How's that work, exactly? You do.. err.. know that the Earth isn't flat, don't you? And yes, I know OTH radar exists, and no, Ukraine doesn't have any. Ukraine might be getting help from NATO, but try working out how much additional warning time you'd get with a hypersonic missile..
Plenty of evidence that Storm shadow is highly accurate and highly effective (see for example, my comment above about the remains of the BSF running away to the Caspian).
I don't think evidence means what you think it means. Sure, there were some pics of strikes on a Naval HQ building in Crimea that the Navy wasn't in. Or perhaps you're thinking about Ukraine's strange obsession with the Kerch bridge? That's still standing, and the bridge hasn't really been used for military traffic ever since Russia opened their land bridge and new railway links into Crimea.
But it's rather sad that people here demostrate the way that constant propaganda removes people's objectivity, or ability to think critically. On the one hand, the SMO started with 1m highly trained, motivated and well armed Ukrainians, given the best NATO training, officers trained in the lastest doctrine and the latest(ish) NATO weapons. On the other, 300k poorly trained, motivated and lead 'orcs with shovels' who ran out of ammunition & missiles a couple of years ago, and the 'shock and awe' sanctions crippled Russia's economy to such an extent that it had to resort to raiding museums for tank exhibits.
Yet 1,000 days later, BoJo and Ursula aren't sipping cocktails on a Crimean beach, Ukraine is 20% smaller and Russia's advances have been accelerating.. It's almost as though what we're being told isn't actually true, other than the bit that we'll keep fighting to the last Ukrainian. Maybe, just maybe it's time our 'leaders' got serious about peace negotiations.
"Cheap" these days means a few thousand dollars (US) or less. I believe that Ukraine's had success building drones out of folded cardboard, for example.
I read an interesting Russian perspective on the war in Ukraine recently which described the evolution of the modern battlefield. Thanks to drones and accurate artillery targeting anything larger than a small group of infantry is likely to get pulverized. Mobility is now a matter of motorcycles or ATVs, not IFVs or tanks, they're just very expensive targets.
This isn't what the traditional military providers want to hear, of course. These providers are used to long lead times and huge budgets. There's still a place for sophisticated weaponry but traditional weapons only appear to be useful against lightly armed irregular forces or civilians (e.g. schools or residential buildings).
Yes and no.
Traditional Western stuff seems to be pretty good against T-90s, SU-35s and KA-52s. Western has been doing very, very, well in Ukraine against their traditional Soviet/Russian counterparts. Not good for future Russian weapons sales.
However, what we are seeing is that smart, cheap-ish weapons, with high accuracy and very short firing cycles (from satellite acquisition to launch) are making 30 year old calculations about the attributes of combat platforms (cost, size, numbers, sophistication, even discernment against civilians) a very different world from when history stopped in 1989 and was followed by decades of actions against guerrillas.
And, yes, that means you can't mass troops making attacks more difficult. And yes it means you it is more difficult to carry out Blitzkrieg/Deep Battle into the rear when your $10M tank or APCs easily gets wasted by a $250K missile. Time will tell how this evolves. But keep in mind that the Ukraine war is also highly atypical for the West in the relative scarcity of aviation usage, as well as the absence of serious anti-SAM capabilities from the Russkies (no Wild Weasel equivalents). So now we see more use of artillery, more anti-missile defense needs, the utter necessity of shoot-and-scoot from artillery/missile units, traditional camouflage, electronic warfare, limiting electronic emissions.... Trenches!
Getting out of Afghanistan (on shitty terms first agreed to by Herr Trump, mind you) was a welcome refocus on what Western nations should be more concerned about, capacity-wise: fighting wars of need against peer enemies, rather than wars of choice against irregulars.
Or we just go back into Afghanistan but this time we subcontract with North Korean to supply the soldiers.
We get an (almost) inexhaustible supply of soldiers for cheap. We don't have to worry about, or even count, casualties. North Korea gets some genuine foreign currency and a reduction in mouths to feed. S. Korea gets fewer N. Korean soldiers on its border.
Everyone's happy - except possibly the individual North Korean soldiers.
Yeh sounds like a good idea.
Give lots of weapons to soldiers like the NK so they die a few days later and the Taliban can grab lots of new western weapons.
Hang on that already happened when American abandoned large amounts of equipment including helis which are used by the Taliban today.
Yeh that never goes wrong, because the stinger missile thing never hapepned.
In all sincerity, why would the missille need datalink and ability to abort in the terminal phase?
Assuming the airframe isn't just expendable (piloted or not), that means splitting operator attention from navigation + combat maneuvers to supervise the new-fangled missile's flight to target. So you get tunnel vision and red team throws a SAM - boom aircraft removed from existence.
Close air support / counter insurgency warfare.
Friendlies or civilians move into the area of effect / danger zone, so you abort the missile before impact.
Not all military operations are against an enemy with full air-defence capabilities, plus as the article notes, this thing can be launched from 100km away, so what was a good launch when it was launched might not be once it gets to the target area.
Ive said this multiple times in this very comments section. Super powers like to appear strong, they dont want to show how actual below their appearance they are.
Its a joke the Houthis today are still able to fire missiles, and its even more a of a joke they still get them delivered from Iran in the first place. The entire gulf is one big US naval base and yet the Iranians still manage to ship missiles to the shithole that is yemen under the american nose.
Who aborts the missile before impact ?
I think you have been watching too much tv and games, nobody has a perfect view of each target during an active battle. THey might know something over there is firing stuff, but they dont know how many people are there and whether there are kids etc.
I they did know they wouldnt have pressed the button to begin with. There is basically no way anyone is going to be able to spot some kids at the target in the moments it takes for the missile to travel from plane or heli etc before it hits the target.
If its launched from 100kms away how exactly could someone on our side suddenly learn or see that there are kids or civilians now at the target ?
From what ?
Your capacity to claim knowledge where you have none is unsurpassed ;-)
The missile can be guided by on-location troops using a laser designator.
https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/spear-3/
> The SAL seeker allows a human operator to “paint” a target for the missile using a laser. The seeker locks on to the laser’s reflected electromagnetic energy and flies itself to the target. Having these multiple seekers builds in mission flexibility, allowing the Spear 3 to be fired as an autonomous fire-and-forget missile or a laser-guided missile.
JLV: Your capacity to claim knowledge where you have none is unsurpassed ;-)
cow: Knowing you dont know is far more valuable than pretending that you do know or making shit up.
I would rather my doctor asks questions and admits they need more tests or perhaps to ask someone else, than pretend they know it all and there is nothing left to try.
~
JLV: The missile can be guided by on-location troops using a laser designator.
https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/spear-3/
cow: THat doesnt answer my question.
Anyone can point to a target kms away with a laser. They still wont have a fucking clue if there are civilians because they cant see, which is precisely my point.
Lets be real most of the time there are trees, buildings and many other things in the way, and while they can point to a puff off smoke etc, they wont actually be able to see whats there or what is not there.
We have seen this time and again from Israel, which is why they hit civilians not because they are evil but because they didnt know they were there.
Grow a brain, then again you answer shows that you dont have any.
The IDF are well aware that civilians are there because they are aware of the Hamas human shield tactic.
They just want to show their enemy that a human shield won’t stop them, and they consider anyone using human shields to be the people responsible for the deaths of those civilians,
Target designation is supposedly done by special forces you are very close to the target.
I would guess that an abort would be necessary for a malfunction, there is a data link.
werdsmith: The IDF are well aware that civilians are there because they are aware of the Hamas human shield tactic.
cow: No you are giving too much credit to technology. Sure we are advanced but we are also no where near as sophisticated as what you claim.
Look at Malaysia 370, the flight disappeared and no one has a fucking clue, because all them big planes are flying around the world, and at best they send a beep every hour. Thats right international flights only send an update every hour, thats how the Malaysian airliner disappeared and no one has a fucking clue which way it went, even though it went very close to Singapre which is not a third world country.
Israel might have general ideas kids are nearby but they dont have a fucking clue how many are there or not there, which is a big difference. One is knowing and one is an assumption.
Yes, amazingly enough, hundreds of airliners take to the skies every day and spend significant portions of their flight time outside the range of ground based radars, thus we only know where they are by listening into the signals coming from the airliners themselves.
Thing is, that's more than sufficient under normal circumstances to keep the civil aviation business operating safely and reliably, and the number of times we've had a MH370-type scenario where we genuinely have no idea what happened because of this lack of over-water monitoring capability is so low that it makes provision of anything better than what we've got now a rapidly diminishing benefit.
But please don't presume that, in a warzone scenario, where one or both sides have access to surveillance systems which can be pre-emptively deployed to provide monitoring of areas because one or the other side *knows* they need to know more about that area than they would otherwise do, the experience of MH370 is even remotely relevant. If MH370 had been flying through airspace being monitored by a temporarily assigned asset (e.g. AWACS, air defence destroyers etc.) because someone already *knew* there was a need to be monitoring that section of airspace, then there'd be no question over where it ended up.
Some of the technology we have, when used in the right place at the right time, is exceptionally good. The hard bit is knowing when and where to use it. Hence why MH370 is a good example of how tech can let us down if we forget how limited the deployment of said tech is under normal circumstances, but tells us nothing about how capable that tech is at times when we've already answered the hard "when/where" question - i.e. exactly the sorts of scenarios being discussed by others here.
And your comment about Singapore/third-world countries - neither necessary nor helpful...
One would hope the datalink capability either allows for other friendly resources (AWACS, JSTARS, another F-35 further back from the front line etc.) to piggy-back on the datalink between the missile and launching aircraft so that the pilot of the latter doesn't have to do all the hard work themselves, or preferably allows for those resources to simply take over once the missile has left the launch rail such that the launching aircraft need not be involved at all in the remainder of the missiles flight.
I think the point here is that the F35 is only going to be the delivery vehicle - targetting and control is likely to be performed by someone 'on-the-ground' or on-board ship - a further step on the path which saw laser guidance for bombs delivered by the Tornado in the Gulf War being provided by a crew in a Buccaneer.
It isn't going to tie-up the attention of the F35 pilot during its journey to the target; he will almost certainly have the job of launching other Spears against other targets during the same sortie.
I think the point here is that the F35 is only going to be the delivery vehicle - targetting and control is likely to be performed by someone 'on-the-ground' or on-board ship - a further step on the path which saw laser guidance for bombs delivered by the Tornado in the Gulf War being provided by a crew in a Buccaneer.
I believe Spear 3 will have GPS, inertial navigation, radar, laser-designation and an imaging infra-red seeker. It can therefore be targetted at a specific point, by GPS/inertial - or by laser designation from troops on the ground or an aircraft (including the launch aircraft).
However, the secret sauce is the imaging infra-red and radar. You can upload a database of permissible targets and just fire the thing. This was done in Libya by a Tornado with Brimstone - where one plane fired 12 and they destroyed an entire tank company with no further input from the plane. Which simply designated an area and sent them there to kill tanks - they can tell friendly types from enemy ones - but I’d suspect you wouldn’t want to try that with friendly troops around unless you were really desperate. Spear 3 is even cleverer, as they can swarm and help each other find targets while also avoid all going for the same one.
This gives an awful lot of options - a bunch of which will probably be planned in advance of the mission. But in a lot of cases the pilot will be operating with just the support of their wingman. I don’t know how easy they are to program on-the-fly and how much has to be done during mission prep. But apparently you can already set Brimstone to go to a particular area search for and kill anti-aircraft assets, and only to go after artillery or other military vehicles if it can’t find any before running out of fuel.
The US had comms during the Iraq wars for example and there were many examples of confusion and friendly fire.
War is chaos ,this is simply not going to happen. WIht everything that is happening there is no way or possible for a team to watch each missile and then realise there is a mistake and abort needs to happen.
Do i really need to repeat how they USAF had no clue for over an hour and you want to tell me they see everything ?
That's because the US air force are largely deployed where they see a threat. Which at the time, wasn't New York. Hence there weren't any AWACS flying, nobody was on quick-reaction alert (something it takes a large amounts of resources to achieve) - and the US planes that responded were either Air National Guard or a few regular military planes on training excercises.
In an actual combat zone - everyone's a lot more awake. Also assets are concentrated there, where they're expected to be used.
"Friendly-Fire" happens all the time, and has probably happened in most wars in history. Fog of war. There have literally been cases of sword armed troops attacking each other because of fog. Having an extra capability to avoid it is very useful - it's something commonly done with laser designated weapons - where you can move the laser while the weapon is in flight so that you can either cope with a moving target or make the weapon go somewhere else if it turns out friendly forces are too close to the target. It's even more important to have that capability on a weapon with a large degree of autonomy.
Surely it would be more environmentally friendly if the cruise missile had longer range?
If the pilot could strike the target from 1000km, they wouldn't have use fuel guzzling plane for 900km to come closer to the target and then go back 900km. Plus if the pilot comes too close to enemy air defences they could find themselves ejecting from the seat and even worse annihilating the carbon footprint took to get them to that position.
Then you must think why cruise missile is not using solar power or other form of clean energy or if the targeting system has some provisions to alter the course or beam form the explosion in case there was a rare specie of bat or other protected creature being in danger.
Nice stuff elser, and that can be built on!
To work towards global net zero - let's face it, we're all in it together - supply <insert nasty enemy> with ordnance and get a hot line going. Then instead of launching and using all this messy, green house producing tech, just give 'em a call and get them to detonate in-situ. Eliminates that 100Km of flying and also the ordnance fuel. Same damage, greener planet!
> just give 'em a call and get them to detonate in-situ
Back in the day when Polaris was going to be replaced by the somewhat $$$$ Trident. There was a suggestion in the blowing-things-up-biggly research establishment that if you were at all serious about this nuclear deterrent stuff you could simply bury large number of bombs across Berkshire and blow them up in-situ.
In the grand scheme of USA-USSR thermonuclear war in Europe it wouldn't make much odds to the residents of the home counties and would be much cheaper and easier.
...simply bury large number of bombs across Berkshire...
Blow up Royal Berks! Shocking! Better to blow up someone else's countryside, such as Germany's northern plains, using a chicken powered nuke. Give the device a really macho, but kewl name, like Blue Peacock!
>Blow up Royal Berks! Shocking! Better to blow up someone else's countryside
Since the Berks already hosted Aldermaston, Burghfield, Newbury and Greenham Common it was likely to be the subject of some prompt urban redevelopment by the Strategic Rocket Forces of the Worker's paradise.
Hang on though, you've forgotten to take the carbon footprint of the cargo aircraft required to deliver it to them in the first place... No, what you need is to hand over the IP of your latest weapon system to your opponent, so that they can simply build them themselves using local facilities, thus minimising the carbon footprint of delivering said weapons to where you'd like them to be.
The fact that, in return, your enemies would be expected to hand over the IP of *their* latest and greatest is then a bonus feature of this plan - you get to blow them up without having to spend oodles of carbon credits in the process, and you also get to learn about their latest designs.
Anyone reading this who's about to now go - "ah, but can't they just bl..." will shortly be receiving a knock on the door from their regional security services, because we simply can't be having anyone daring to question the impenetrably secure logic of this master plan...
Better yet, just do it all in simulation and the projected casualties can just make their own way to the extermination chamber and be disposed of cleanly and bulk.
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See! This is what I'm talking about! Working together, building on what we have to achieve unilateral harmony!
Wait up though. Does <insert nasty enemy> have the production capabilities to produce our latest and greatest? Building that entire supply chain and garnering raw materials... could be Net Ouch. Is there anywhere we could outsource to?
And while, of course, I'm all-in on the sharing of IP to achieve like-minded sensibilities, we've already got their IP - after all, we sold it to them. Or they got it through the Rosenbergs, I forget, and I've lost my notes...
Take a look at the front of the missile. That's not a seeker, it's a wind turbine to generate power during flight. If flying into a head wind more than 8 knots, it can generate enough wind powered electricity to keep it flying indefinitely. If it's flying with a tail wind, the wind turbine output is reduced obviously, but the tail wind still extends the range by up to a factor of 10.
Upon detonation, the warhead simply increases the local entropy, which as everyone knows, is a natural process anyway. So it's totally green and ecologically sound.
Against GPS jamming, an advanced radar seeker will go just find, since it uses radar*, not GPS.
Navigation is be means of GPS plus Inertial navigation - yes, you can stuff the GPS signal, but inertial navigation systems have been demonstrated to be highly reliable (in Ukraine and elsewhere) even in the face of GPS jamming.
Jamming a radar is, of course, possible, but it's quite difficult to put a jammer (with sufficient power and on the right frequencies) in the right place to affect the target radar (in this case, the missile), given all the numerous possible targets that you need to protect, and if you do, you'll likely find that the first missile sent your way had a home-on-jam capability, and promptly blows up your jamming system.
Plus the SPEAR program seems to be including dual- or multi-mode terminal guidance options.
In times where US advanced munitions are removed from the Ukrainian front because the Russians have successfully spoofed the GPS targeting function in them, presenting a long-range missile with data link capabilities is an invitation to hack that link and get control over that missile. That and the F-35 ... what could go wrong ?
You do realise that an F35 is useless in RUssia, because Russia is big and the F35 has a very limited range. Nobody is going to be flying tankers to refuel F35s over Russia, it didnt happen with the blackbird and the cold war and is never going to happen even though Russia is a joke.
Surely it would be cheaper to scrap the data link and simply build more missiles.
In reality i would have thought firing missiles is carefully planned months if not years in advance most of th etime. I highly doubt using UKR as an example missile targets are changed after firing. By the time the button is pressed, the target has been reviewed many times, nobody is going to just change their mind during a flight that takes minutes.
To allow another aircraft with a better angle on target to give better guidance or overcome jamming or decoys ?
To allow an aircraft to deploy the missile from a safer position out of sight/detection of the target and allow it to be guided by a more distant or better protected asset like an AWACS
YAAS: better angle ?
Cow: WTF are you talking about ? Missiles are not flying around in circles performing tricks. Nobody is going to making changes midflight so a missile changes its path by a few degrees. These things require significantly planning, you dont just change it because someone wanted too. Physics and all that dont work like that.
"Missiles are not flying around in circles performing tricks."
Some can be programmed to loiter waiting for a target to present itself...
"Nobody is going to making changes midflight so a missile changes its path by a few degrees."
Tell that to operators of guided anti tank missiles such as Hellfire, TOW etc...
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