I’d like to know if anyone can shed some light on this. It is well known that humidity and bad weather (clouds, rain) decrease the range of IR seekers. By how much largely depends on the wave-length used, but as always this can be a bit of a trade-off. Is this the reason behind so few naval missile systems having IR seekers, not to mention the overwhelming importance of radar as the primary sensor of the warship itself? They certainly have to deal with very harsh conditions compared to other applications and there seem very few ‘blue-water’ SAMs and AShMs with IR homing technology. Some of the exceptions that come to mind are the Umkhonto, Sadral and RAM for SAMs and Penguin and NSM for AShMs. Some have both radar and IR, like the Taiwanese HS II.
Could all-weather capability be one of the drawbacks for these weapons (NSM seems outstanding in every other way)?
By: Neptune - 4th November 2005 at 01:10
It’s one of the stickies in the Naval section of the forum as most of the info there comes from Naval applications.
By: Arabella-Cox - 3rd November 2005 at 18:55
Thanks, I can’t seem to find that thread on acig though?
By: Neptune - 2nd November 2005 at 21:49
I think it’s because the general range is smaller than a radar’s. Radar is terrible in bad weather too… You really don’t want to rely on it then. I have a few pics to show that. You can see that in the “Radar Formulae” thread at www.acig.org, some pictures of navigation radars are shown there during a storm and during normal operation. You can see what such circumstances can cause. If you have seen the movie of the latest large execise of the Russian Navy, with Admiral Ushakov being blown around, you have an idea how impossible it is to fight in real bad weather.
No matter what radar or what missile/seeker you use, you better avoid fighting in bad weather.
Sign In
November 2, 2005 at 9:10 pm