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The UK Starstreak anti-aircraft missile has 3 submunition darts to improve hit probability. There is nothing wrong with the idea per se, you can design around b

The UK Starstreak anti-aircraft missile has 3 submunition darts to improve hit probability. There is nothing wrong with the idea per se, you can design around backfire. The Metal Storm gun has multiple munitions stacked in the same tube. I figure the problem is more that it’s hard to scale down missiles to the point the plume would make economic sense.

bob1029 4y ago
One well-guided missile can be infinitely more effective than 1000 poorly-guided missiles. Unless you are seeking a penetration aid against defenses, I don't see much point. There are far cheaper ways to deliver mass on target if you simply want to spam the enemy.
- lobocinza 4y ago
  > One well-guided missile can be infinitely more effective than 1000 poorly-guided missiles. Only true if it can target a high value unit or concentration of units which value exceed the missile cost. Anti-air is a different scenario than artillery. Startreak targets are fast evading and employ countermeasures that attempt to trick the missiles target acquisition. I'm out of my depth but I believe the justification for the 3 missiles was improving the odds of hitting the target as that add redundancy and kind of triple the resolution of the targeting systems where a single missile with better electronics might be less effective and more costly.
- chongli 4y ago
  The question I have is: can you scale down the well-guided missile? I thought guidance is mostly an issue of fast chips and well designed software. But perhaps you need big missiles if you want them to fly fast and have a lot of range. Talking about anti-air of course. Lots of small missiles aren’t going to be effective against hardened ground targets.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    But perhaps you need big missiles if you want them to fly fast and have a lot of range. I'm just a layperson but this has always been my understanding. Modern air combat is all about firing from beyond visual range, so I think they optimize pretty strongly for that. See my other answer, though - air to air missiles ARE generally (always) proximity fuzed. They don't need to precisely impact the target, they just need to get close.
    - XorNot 4y ago
      More then that, air-to-air missiles generally are designed to blow a load of metal shrapnel through whatever they "hit": so there's a problem where if you're fleeing from a missile and it explodes behind you, even though it "missed" the payload can still hit the plane it was chasing if the plane doesn't change trajectory.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Sensors matter a lot for guidance. In order to build an effective radar guided missile it needs a fairly large array. So in practice the minimum missile diameter ends up being something around 7 inches. Long range surface to air missiles have to be much wider than that. Data links also make a big difference. So the missile needs another fairly large antenna to receive guidance cues from other platforms.
- rcme 4y ago
  Depends on what you're defending against. Drones are effective because they're cheap so they can be sent in large numbers to overwhelm air defense even if each individual drone is an easy target.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The type of cheap drones that can be sent in large numbers lack the range to attack ships unless they're really close.
    - littlestymaar 4y ago
      “Cheap drone” doesn't need to be off the shelf quadcopter drone, fixed-wings custom drones like the Iranian Shahed 126 are still dirt cheap compared to typical anti-ship missiles.
      - nradov 4y ago
        Those lack the sensors needed to detect and track a moving ship. Good sensors are expensive, and consume a lot of power.
        rcme 4y ago
        A ship isn't exactly a small target. You could probably track it just fine with a satellite and update the target GPS coordinate of the drones manually. An aircraft carrier only moves at 55 km/h maximum.
        nradov 4y ago
        Nope. Ships are very small targets in very large oceans. Have you ever even been on a boat out of sight from land? Reconnaissance satellites will be the first casualties in any future high-end conflict. Modern militaries have to plan around the expectation that their space-based platforms will be unavailable or severely degraded. Radar ocean reconnaissance satellites can detect ships under any weather conditions but they are are large, heavy, expensive, and can provide only intermittent coverage. Smaller satellites with optical or IR sensors can potentially provide more coverage but are less effective at night or with clouds.

bob1029 4y ago

One well-guided missile can be infinitely more effective than 1000 poorly-guided missiles. Unless you are seeking a penetration aid against defenses, I don't see much point. There are far cheaper ways to deliver mass on target if you simply want to spam the enemy.

lobocinza 4y ago
> One well-guided missile can be infinitely more effective than 1000 poorly-guided missiles. Only true if it can target a high value unit or concentration of units which value exceed the missile cost. Anti-air is a different scenario than artillery. Startreak targets are fast evading and employ countermeasures that attempt to trick the missiles target acquisition. I'm out of my depth but I believe the justification for the 3 missiles was improving the odds of hitting the target as that add redundancy and kind of triple the resolution of the targeting systems where a single missile with better electronics might be less effective and more costly.
chongli 4y ago
The question I have is: can you scale down the well-guided missile? I thought guidance is mostly an issue of fast chips and well designed software. But perhaps you need big missiles if you want them to fly fast and have a lot of range. Talking about anti-air of course. Lots of small missiles aren’t going to be effective against hardened ground targets.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  But perhaps you need big missiles if you want them to fly fast and have a lot of range. I'm just a layperson but this has always been my understanding. Modern air combat is all about firing from beyond visual range, so I think they optimize pretty strongly for that. See my other answer, though - air to air missiles ARE generally (always) proximity fuzed. They don't need to precisely impact the target, they just need to get close.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    More then that, air-to-air missiles generally are designed to blow a load of metal shrapnel through whatever they "hit": so there's a problem where if you're fleeing from a missile and it explodes behind you, even though it "missed" the payload can still hit the plane it was chasing if the plane doesn't change trajectory.
- nradov 4y ago
  Sensors matter a lot for guidance. In order to build an effective radar guided missile it needs a fairly large array. So in practice the minimum missile diameter ends up being something around 7 inches. Long range surface to air missiles have to be much wider than that. Data links also make a big difference. So the missile needs another fairly large antenna to receive guidance cues from other platforms.
rcme 4y ago
Depends on what you're defending against. Drones are effective because they're cheap so they can be sent in large numbers to overwhelm air defense even if each individual drone is an easy target.
- nradov 4y ago
  The type of cheap drones that can be sent in large numbers lack the range to attack ships unless they're really close.
  - littlestymaar 4y ago
    “Cheap drone” doesn't need to be off the shelf quadcopter drone, fixed-wings custom drones like the Iranian Shahed 126 are still dirt cheap compared to typical anti-ship missiles.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Those lack the sensors needed to detect and track a moving ship. Good sensors are expensive, and consume a lot of power.
      - rcme 4y ago
        A ship isn't exactly a small target. You could probably track it just fine with a satellite and update the target GPS coordinate of the drones manually. An aircraft carrier only moves at 55 km/h maximum.
        nradov 4y ago
        Nope. Ships are very small targets in very large oceans. Have you ever even been on a boat out of sight from land? Reconnaissance satellites will be the first casualties in any future high-end conflict. Modern militaries have to plan around the expectation that their space-based platforms will be unavailable or severely degraded. Radar ocean reconnaissance satellites can detect ships under any weather conditions but they are are large, heavy, expensive, and can provide only intermittent coverage. Smaller satellites with optical or IR sensors can potentially provide more coverage but are less effective at night or with clouds.