3 ms·

That's a good question! For something very similar to Trophy, I'd generally say low for at least 3 reasons (weight/size/complexity, issues from moving 1-2 order

That's a good question! For something very similar to Trophy, I'd generally say low for at least 3 reasons (weight/size/complexity, issues from moving 1-2 orders of magnitude faster than armored ground vehicles, and the fact that you need to consummate the intercept at a much further range because airplanes are much more fragile than tanks), but never underestimate what a few billion dollars and several decades of research can achieve. I'd expect to see something like this to show up on transports and tankers long before it shows up on fighters, and probably in the form of an antimissile missile (EFPs might not mix well with relatively delicate airframes) or a similar expendable. This is more in the realm of plausibility, and the idea actually has some historical precedent as a proposed defense against SAMs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pye_Wacket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pye_Wacket That said, there are other forms of active defense against missiles that don't rely on physically destroying their airframes. Generally, I think those technologies are more promising, particularly when they aren't limited by ammunition. Suffice to say, there's a big Red Queen's race going on between countermeasures and counter-countermeasures.

sho 6y ago
> That said, there are other forms of active defense against missiles Ah yes i'm reasonably well aware of some of the EW/optical suites being deployed. Was just wondering if anything kinetic was, er, on the radar. Totally agree that Trophy et al is not really going to work - they just want to avoid a direct hit whereas even 100m away could be fatal to an airplane. But these BVR missiles are active - flinging something back almost seems like low hanging fruit! Perhaps no-one really knows. The lack of any peer air confrontation in 50 years definitely shows. The f-22 is a marvel but I for one have trouble seriously believing it can just boop su-35s out of the sky from a hundred miles away completely risk-free. None of this has ever been tested. Frankly, without some astonishing tech breakthrough, i find the idea of routine BVR shootdowns of peer adversaries to be kind of wishful thinking... And none of this even touches on the real weak point, the tankers, aka. the reason why none of these planes are ever going to fly over a real adversary anyway.. sure, you can probably get an f-22 over Beijing. Once.

sho 6y ago

> That said, there are other forms of active defense against missiles Ah yes i'm reasonably well aware of some of the EW/optical suites being deployed. Was just wondering if anything kinetic was, er, on the radar. Totally agree that Trophy et al is not really going to work - they just want to avoid a direct hit whereas even 100m away could be fatal to an airplane. But these BVR missiles are active - flinging something back almost seems like low hanging fruit! Perhaps no-one really knows. The lack of any peer air confrontation in 50 years definitely shows. The f-22 is a marvel but I for one have trouble seriously believing it can just boop su-35s out of the sky from a hundred miles away completely risk-free. None of this has ever been tested. Frankly, without some astonishing tech breakthrough, i find the idea of routine BVR shootdowns of peer adversaries to be kind of wishful thinking... And none of this even touches on the real weak point, the tankers, aka. the reason why none of these planes are ever going to fly over a real adversary anyway.. sure, you can probably get an f-22 over Beijing. Once.