> Not so. AAMs/SAM can only pull anywhere close to 50g at gigantic cost in drag and can only do that once and briefly. It is a question of kinetic energy becaus

> Not so. AAMs/SAM can only pull anywhere close to 50g at gigantic cost in drag and can only do that once and briefly. It is a question of kinetic energy because the missile that can regenerate kinetic energy and that loses the least kinetic energy relative to it's mass is at a massive advantage. Except since the interceptor has only one chance at interception, the situations of the interceptor and the missile are not symmetrical. "Doing that once and briefly" seems quite acceptable for the interceptor. The missile pretty much must regenerate kinetic energy, or its subsequent suboptimal flight regime might make it even more vulnerable to the second interceptor incoming, or the third one after that. > The window for interception is pretty short. With early detection (orbital, for example), the window seems to be as long as the range of the longest-range applicable interceptor missile. > It would have to do evasive maneuvers at maybe 4G for maybe 30 seconds That definitely seems to be a "too little, too late" kind of situation. Especially in a point defense scenario where maneuvering away from your line to target means not hitting the target in the first place (which is as good as a successful hit of the interceptor), and where being close to the target really favors the short-range defense systems. > Remember that you have no way of estimating distance. You may very well have that way in the end if SpaceX's/L3Harris's system gets implemented.