Radio-guided bombs

thanks for pointing them out, interesting stuff

but both are manually operated, the whole point of computers these days is that they would guide those weapons much better
without placing a large burden on pilots
also many GPS guided weapons today do have radio links that can be used to send target updates. meaning you could use those same links to guide the weapon, and could ditch the GPS and advanced course correcting computers all together, which would save a lot of money I’m sure

In fact radio guided weapons has been used in COIN missions both in Iraq and Syria at this time, since the AT 6 Spiral missiles (9K114 Shturm) and AT 9 Spiral 2 (9K120 Ataka) has been firing by: Mil Mi 24P, Mil Mi 35M, Mil Mi 28N and maybe by the Ka 52 .

The 9K120 Ataka missiles has been credited with better range and accuracy than the 9K114 Sthurm, yet the Ataka’s useful range could be around 4 km ( 2.5 mi) against an MBT, since for long range around 8 Km ( 5 mi) against an MBT there are the AT 16 (9K121 Vikhr) with laser guidance.

So the radio guidance in fact does not provide great accuracy at long distances due to the fact that the sight system( SACLOS) of the platform that launched the missile has been need to correct the missile’s trajectory continually, the inaccuracy problem will increasing as long the distance getting high, once the sight system becomes itself more inaccuracy too. Then every time that missile gets out of the line-of-sight it were necessary to correct its trajectory, but while it has been correcting the missile also could occurred other deviates from correct bearing, so its need of another correction, in summary the missile has been continuously oscillating in the system line-of-sight.

For those who has been playing through the Internet may understand this as the PIN number of the internet connection, which are the time lag between the command has been executed and the action performed in the game, once the missile has been corrected its trajectory after it were deviated from it, so every command sent to the missile corrects its past behavior, then its has been always keeping such time lag and therefore an inaccuracy.

All of these missiles (Shturm, Ataka and Vikhrs) has been used the concept of spin in flight that makes to rotate on its axis, like in unguided rockets, to maintain more stable trajectory until reach the target, indeed it were another major advance over the first radio guided AT 2 Swatter , but for long distances the laser guidance has been used in the Vikhrs too.

the other thing you could do is put some IR reflectors or something on the bomb, making it easy to spot with an IR camera
that way the aircraft can also track the bomb visually with its camera, locking on onto the reflectors. this gives the aircraft more information on the bomb’s flight path

That could be an idea, I don’t know the precision that targetting pods have, would it be enough? Maybe the targetting system can use a laser rangefinder to have the distance. Of course with targetting systems you might have restrictions with clouds and fog.

The big question is why would anyone bother as someone in the 1990s had the bright idea of putting the GPS in the bomb??

The controlling aircraft knows where it is, but how does it precisely locate a radio signal from a single point? Bearing, yes – but distance?
Tracking a bomb by radar obliges an aircraft to keep it in view, while emitting, & the best a radar can do is be hard to locate, not impossible. It severely limits stand-off distance. You’d need to save a lot of money on a lot of bombs to outweigh the cost of losing an aircraft.

good question. well wiki offers a few techniques on tracking a signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmitter_hunting#Equipment
personally I’d put a radio receivers on either end of the wing tip. the input from both of these will give you two bearings, and thus make it easy to calculate the exact distance from the plane. in theory you can also put the two receivers on either end of a pod, that can also carry the computer and the radio system needed to track and guide the bombs, making it a plug and play module. but I imagine the bigger the space between the receivers the more effective

radar would also be a big help to track the bomb, I imagine there’s not much other objects in the space between the bomber and the target
large UAVs would be very good in this role, as they can fly relatively slow, meaning they won’t move as fast from the bomb, and also tend to carry downward facing radars that can help with this

The bomb could send a signal with a time stamp. If the pane and the bomb clocks are synchronized the plane can know the distance by looking at the time difference – knowing that the signal travels at the speed of light. Problem is the plane wouldn’t have the bearing with a sufficient precision.

the time stamp is a very good idea
also signal strength would help the plane figure out the distance

the other thing you could do is put some IR reflectors or something on the bomb, making it easy to spot with an IR camera
that way the aircraft can also track the bomb visually with its camera, locking on onto the reflectors. this gives the aircraft more information on the bomb’s flight path

Bearing, yes – but distance?

The bomb could send a signal with a time stamp. If the pane and the bomb clocks are synchronized the plane can know the distance by looking at the time difference – knowing that the signal travels at the speed of light. Problem is the plane wouldn’t have the bearing with a sufficient precision.

it sends out a radio signal, which allows the controller unit (which has a gps) to calculate it’s location and thus send out course corrections

The controlling aircraft knows where it is, but how does it precisely locate a radio signal from a single point? Bearing, yes – but distance?

Tracking a bomb by radar obliges an aircraft to keep it in view, while emitting, & the best a radar can do is be hard to locate, not impossible. It severely limits stand-off distance. You’d need to save a lot of money on a lot of bombs to outweigh the cost of losing an aircraft.

The Aircraft that guides the bomb would have to be relatively close to have the best accuracy possible for the bomb position and speed.

A stealth aircraft could get close and use its AESA radar to guide glide bomb dropped from further by non stealth planes.

Maybe the bomb could have a cheap IR camera, costing around $1000 or so to lock on the target within a few hundreds meters and correct for a final hit, because I don’t think the bomb would have a very high precision.

yes that’s a good idea, that would work too
you would indeed need to have a radar pointing in the right direction
so a second aircraft or even an AWACS could be used for that

I was wondering if the radar could not be used to track the bomb. Corrections could be sent by datalink. It would take 2 planes for that I think, one to launch and one to guide.

it sends out a radio signal, which allows the controller unit (which has a gps) to calculate it’s location and thus send out course corrections

Without GPS, what does it use to know where it is, precisely enough for targeting?

thanks for pointing them out, interesting stuff

but both are manually operated, the whole point of computers these days is that they would guide those weapons much better
without placing a large burden on pilots
also many GPS guided weapons today do have radio links that can be used to send target updates. meaning you could use those same links to guide the weapon, and could ditch the GPS and advanced course correcting computers all together, which would save a lot of money I’m sure

There were such missiles. One was Bullpup, another was AS.30. But this kind of guidance is not effective and cheap like a GPS guided missile/Bomb.