Comment by cdchn
2 years ago
You don't need them to loiter. You just launch them when you have a target. We've had that for a long time; its called a missile.
2 years ago
You don't need them to loiter. You just launch them when you have a target. We've had that for a long time; its called a missile.
And we had loitering missiles for a long while too. They are a valid use case.
> You just launch them when you have a target.
That is the magic. You can launch a loitering munition when you don’t yet have a target but suspect there might be one. This is very often the case with surface to air missile systems. If they radiate you can use that as a guiding signal to hit them, so most of the time they don’t. You launch the loitering munition which either baits them into radiating or you use something else as bait. Either way you get them to radiate and then the loitering munition already in the air homes in on that signal and destroys the radar, or if it is smarter the personel.
The reason you want these to be in the air before they radiate is to shorten the reaction time. That way you can capitalise even on short burst of activity.
In the end you either destroyed the SAM or supressed them by scarring them into not to radiate.
If this sounds scifi to you, these are weapons from the 80s. Already old news.
You should pay more attention to the war in Ukraine.