For many air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles, we cheat and improve the hit probability another way: proximity fuses. Example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

For many air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles, we cheat and improve the hit probability another way: proximity fuses. Example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder They detonate near the target rather than impacting it directly. This greatly improves the chance of success. Jets are fragile, so this is almost always sufficient to take them out of commission.