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>During the Cold War there were nuclear anti-aircraft missiles, nuclear anti-missile missiles... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-26_Falcon https://en.wikiped

by phaus 13y ago

>During the Cold War there were nuclear anti-aircraft missiles, nuclear anti-missile missiles... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-26_Falcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-26_Falcon I guess it wasn't the author's fault, but that's the one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. Until about 1990, anti-aircraft missiles were horribly inaccurate. I read somewhere that the chance of scoring a hit with a korean-war era air-to-air missile was about 5%. Why would anyone want to launch a nuclear missile that's pretty much guaranteed to not his its target?

arethuza 13y ago
Because you don't really need to "hit" the target.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> I read somewhere that the chance of scoring a hit with a korean-war era air-to-air missile was about 5%. Why would anyone want to launch a nuclear missile that's pretty much guaranteed to not his its target? Because with a nuclear air-to-air missile in its intended role, you don't need to "hit the target", you just need to detonate somewhere in the general area of the bomber formation that you are trying to whittle down.
- phaus 13y ago
  I should have kept reading the entire article, I hadn't noticed that it used a proximity trigger. That makes more sense.
philwelch 13y ago
It's the other way around. If you're sure to get a hit, you don't need a nuke. But if you don't have very much accuracy, you can make up for it with a big blast radius.
- jfb 13y ago
  If you can hit your target with sufficient energy, you don't even need an explosive.
chiph 13y ago
Think of it as an air-to-air hand-grenade.
CapitalistCartr 13y ago
I used to work on the AIR-2A. It a was a thing of simplicity. Any airplane within a mile that survived had to land immediately. This is before modern guidance systems. The military imagined masses of bombers with fighter cover attacking similar to WW II. Perhaps its a bit of fighting the last war, but it was a simple, effective answer to a real threat.
ceejayoz 13y ago
> Until about 1990, anti-aircraft missiles were horribly inaccurate. That's precisely the point. It's a bit like arming a SWAT team with tank rounds in their guns. Accuracy matters a lot less.

by phaus 13y ago

arethuza 13y ago

Because you don't really need to "hit" the target.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> I read somewhere that the chance of scoring a hit with a korean-war era air-to-air missile was about 5%. Why would anyone want to launch a nuclear missile that's pretty much guaranteed to not his its target? Because with a nuclear air-to-air missile in its intended role, you don't need to "hit the target", you just need to detonate somewhere in the general area of the bomber formation that you are trying to whittle down.

phaus 13y ago
I should have kept reading the entire article, I hadn't noticed that it used a proximity trigger. That makes more sense.

philwelch 13y ago

It's the other way around. If you're sure to get a hit, you don't need a nuke. But if you don't have very much accuracy, you can make up for it with a big blast radius.

jfb 13y ago
If you can hit your target with sufficient energy, you don't even need an explosive.

chiph 13y ago

Think of it as an air-to-air hand-grenade.

CapitalistCartr 13y ago

I used to work on the AIR-2A. It a was a thing of simplicity. Any airplane within a mile that survived had to land immediately. This is before modern guidance systems. The military imagined masses of bombers with fighter cover attacking similar to WW II. Perhaps its a bit of fighting the last war, but it was a simple, effective answer to a real threat.

ceejayoz 13y ago

> Until about 1990, anti-aircraft missiles were horribly inaccurate. That's precisely the point. It's a bit like arming a SWAT team with tank rounds in their guns. Accuracy matters a lot less.