3 ms·

The accompanying 'explanation' article suggests such a missile would kill anyone within 3.5 feet of landing. I'd need to go measure, but it seems the driver of

The accompanying 'explanation' article suggests such a missile would kill anyone within 3.5 feet of landing. I'd need to go measure, but it seems the driver of a car and a passenger seated in the back seat (opposite the driver) would not both be killed. So it should be aimed at maybe one or two people, while others in the car might live. Pretty amazing. Reduced deaths are a good thing, and it diminishes the value of innocent 'human shield' usage.

jcims 7y ago
I think that's 3.5' radius (edit:wrong). Both hits I've seen online have been center-punched in the middle of the roof of the car...amazing precision.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  The article is ambiguous on this: > the missile, which is roughly three and a half feet wide when its blades are extended That really sounds like a diameter and not a radius. But on the other hand: > Supposedly, three people were killed in the vehicle when the bladed weapon smashed through the roof of the vehicle.
  - sq_ 7y ago
    From an earlier article on the same site [0]: > The payload area is roughly a foot and a half long and let's say the swords are roughly the same length, this would provide about a three and a half foot diameter kill zone, which is similar to what we see in the images of the vehicles that have been struck. So it seems like 3.5ft diameter is The Warzone/The Drive's best guess based on the length of a standard Hellfire and the vehicle damage. [0] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31310/this-photo-proves-how-the-hellfire-missile-that-uses-blades-instead-of-explosives-works https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31310/this-photo-prove...
  - jcims 7y ago
    OK I missed that part, makes sense. Realistically you could probably skip the blades and still kill all the occupants in the vehicle with just the seeker/body/motor. That's a lot of kinetic energy getting dumped into an enclosed space.
ISL 7y ago
Even an inert missile hitting a car stands a pretty good chance of killing everyone inside. It is going to feel like a small explosion, there will be shredded metal car parts everywhere, a hot rocket motor, and, as a bonus, an impending car-crash. The NHTSA doesn't test cars to protect occupants from injury in a crash after a missile has hit the car, but I bet the outcomes are worse. I'm sure that blades improve the lethality of such an instrument, but it may be more psychological than essential. If such a thing hadn't worked as well as it appears to, I'm sure that engineers could have found another way to make it a little more lethal.

jcims 7y ago

I think that's 3.5' radius (edit:wrong). Both hits I've seen online have been center-punched in the middle of the roof of the car...amazing precision.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
The article is ambiguous on this: > the missile, which is roughly three and a half feet wide when its blades are extended That really sounds like a diameter and not a radius. But on the other hand: > Supposedly, three people were killed in the vehicle when the bladed weapon smashed through the roof of the vehicle.
- sq_ 7y ago
  From an earlier article on the same site [0]: > The payload area is roughly a foot and a half long and let's say the swords are roughly the same length, this would provide about a three and a half foot diameter kill zone, which is similar to what we see in the images of the vehicles that have been struck. So it seems like 3.5ft diameter is The Warzone/The Drive's best guess based on the length of a standard Hellfire and the vehicle damage. [0] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31310/this-photo-proves-how-the-hellfire-missile-that-uses-blades-instead-of-explosives-works https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31310/this-photo-prove...
- jcims 7y ago
  OK I missed that part, makes sense. Realistically you could probably skip the blades and still kill all the occupants in the vehicle with just the seeker/body/motor. That's a lot of kinetic energy getting dumped into an enclosed space.

ISL 7y ago

Even an inert missile hitting a car stands a pretty good chance of killing everyone inside. It is going to feel like a small explosion, there will be shredded metal car parts everywhere, a hot rocket motor, and, as a bonus, an impending car-crash. The NHTSA doesn't test cars to protect occupants from injury in a crash after a missile has hit the car, but I bet the outcomes are worse. I'm sure that blades improve the lethality of such an instrument, but it may be more psychological than essential. If such a thing hadn't worked as well as it appears to, I'm sure that engineers could have found another way to make it a little more lethal.