Using people to guide SAMs

No, I am pretty sure it is possible to make a data link with radio waves which cannot be jammed, using the method I described previously.

The biggest problem with my idea is finding where a stealth target is in the first place. But IF you can get the missile close enough to the target for camera to see the target, or the computer to construct an image from the targets IR rays if this is better, then it is toast.

The comm links would have to be radio waves. There are always radio waves all over the place, so the enemy is not going to notice that. Even if the enemy knows to look for radio waves, how is he going to distinguish the radio transmissions guiding the missile from radio transmissions for the local radio and tv stations?

As for SEAD, yes you are transmitting and radio waves can potentially be traced to their source of transmission. But this is easily overcome, for example by transmitting from a moving van, or better yet by transmitting on a rotating frequency (both the transmitter/receiver on the ground and the transmitter/receiver on the missile switch frequencies in a pre-determined order at pre-determined intervals, say every 5 seconds).

Secondly, the transmitter doesn’t necessarily have to be located near the guy on the ground, it can be kilometers away from him, and if the transmitter is destroyed, no big deal, he just presses a button to switch to another one. Radio transmitters/receivers are so cheap that you can distribute thousands of them across the ground. This will even allow the missile to still maintain contact if it gets out of range of the original transmitter. Kind of like cell phone roaming, if you move out of range of the nearest cell phone tower, you are automatically connected to the cell phone tower that is currently closest to you.

I suppose the enemy could try to jam ALL possible radio frequencies, but this requires him to get a radio jammer close enough to jam the frequencies and keep it there preventing it from being destroyed. Besides, it is possible to filter through jamming to still get a clear transmission. For example, the transmitter and receiver can both be programmed so that every legitimate sequence of transmissions will be preceded by a certain “key”, and everything else is most likely background noise or malicious jamming, and ignored. This is the theory used behind some computer network encryption. And doesn’t the army use some kind of secure unjammable radios? This is probably how they work.

some stuff contradicts each other here…for example, we’re getting more details from you now, the comm is RF. There’s plenty of options, a broad band jamming should work fine. You see, it is not your commands being jammed but the missiles’s tx/rx being jammed. So, doesn’t matter if you have infinite antennas, a la celluar, the closer the missile gets to the target, the worst the signal is …as mentioned by others, not much different from CLOS…which effectively is a point defense system where its only effective when something is coming right at you, say you are a ship. But, for area defense, forget it. Now you can say you’ll double it up with a passive self-homing attack on the jammer…ha ha…that jammer is a decoy. Mind you that most of the fixed communication systems would be gone now anyways…see how the GWII and Serbians wars are fought. As to stealth platforms, you should keep in mind that the hardest part against a stealth is finding it with fine enough resolution from the big volume of space (ok, air for now)…instead of final attack on it. Meaning, most people here talk about some sort of anti-stealth system as capable of finally seeing it and then attack it. But, the hardest part is knowing where it is precisely enough and early enough…and most importantly, far enough. Arbitrarily scanning the sky with any optical systems is not very effective. Certain countries have so many people they can probably put tens of thousdands of eyes on the sky at each target site…well, they’ll still see nothing…especially at night. give them any IR detectors…same thing. The volume of space to scan is just too much. I personally think the most effective anti-stealth is to use a lot of cheap UAVs holding “CAPs” optically (the difference here is they are autonomous and 100% not emitting) with scan boxes say ~10×10 at different altitudes. The trick is you actually don’t need that much because the optimal flight paths can be theoretically calculated to maximize the screenings. A simple flight path phase shift in time is enough to prevent the knowledge of even a “globally” known algorithm. What’s the chance a stealth can penetrate it without being “seen”?

The comm links would have to be radio waves. There are always radio waves all over the place, so the enemy is not going to notice that. Even if the enemy knows to look for radio waves, how is he going to distinguish the radio transmissions guiding the missile from radio transmissions for the local radio and tv stations?

As for SEAD, yes you are transmitting and radio waves can potentially be traced to their source of transmission. But this is easily overcome, for example by transmitting from a moving van, or better yet by transmitting on a rotating frequency (both the transmitter/receiver on the ground and the transmitter/receiver on the missile switch frequencies in a pre-determined order at pre-determined intervals, say every 5 seconds).

Secondly, the transmitter doesn’t necessarily have to be located near the guy on the ground, it can be kilometers away from him, and if the transmitter is destroyed, no big deal, he just presses a button to switch to another one. Radio transmitters/receivers are so cheap that you can distribute thousands of them across the ground. This will even allow the missile to still maintain contact if it gets out of range of the original transmitter. Kind of like cell phone roaming, if you move out of range of the nearest cell phone tower, you are automatically connected to the cell phone tower that is currently closest to you.

I suppose the enemy could try to jam ALL possible radio frequencies, but this requires him to get a radio jammer close enough to jam the frequencies and keep it there preventing it from being destroyed. Besides, it is possible to filter through jamming to still get a clear transmission. For example, the transmitter and receiver can both be programmed so that every legitimate sequence of transmissions will be preceded by a certain “key”, and everything else is most likely background noise or malicious jamming, and ignored. This is the theory used behind some computer network encryption. And doesn’t the army use some kind of secure unjammable radios? This is probably how they work.

…it would be completely passive; it would not be threatened by anti-radar missiles or any other SEAD…chaffs, flares, jamming, towed decoys, or any other countermeasures
… In anycase it should have no problem hitting slower clumsier targets like the B-2.

Let’s test your hypothesis,
completely passive? How about your comm links? probably only with direct line of sight (staight line) communications or wire/fiber communications. In the first case, communication is established by very narrow beams of optical communication, i.e., lasers. The problem is most likely in the air where the rear of the missile have to maintain a direct line path with the shooter’s communications. This may be a bit of a challenge even for relatively slow manuevering targets since the comm setup space/power is rather limited as opposed to what the shooter have on the ground. Wire/fiber? Very very short range and limits the speed of the missile considerably.
If the above links are not pursued, you are bound to be jammed in your comm. So, if your range is short and manuevrability limited…i say it’s better to start running after shooting than shoot and stand there for an “eternity”.
Not threatend by anti-radar?..true, if you’re not using radar/RF emissions. But you are transmitting your signals back and forth somehow, see above.
Any other SEAD?…A bomb falling on you or a bullet coming at you is also SEAD.
No problem hitting clumsier targets like B2? Considering the speed, range, and altitude. Yes, you would have a very serious problem hitting a B2.
Chaff? If you’re not using RF, why would Chaff matter? Unless the Chaff is used to paint a false optical image?
flares? If your detection is TV/IR…you’ll still be bothered by flare if sufficient field of view of your detector is blocked by the flare. Ever suddenly focus a camera into a light source? A human operator can probably be faster to figure out this trick and pan around, but that’s a big space to pan around where you’re originally zoomed in.
jamming? Watch your comms. If commns is of non-jammeable type, see the limitations above.
towed decoys? Similar to Chaff…this only affects RF SAMs anyways.
any other countermeasures?…Others don’t need too much countermeasures when your weapons are that ineffective to start with.
The argument of shooting down a few stealth bombers of what nots…losing such will not make someone surrender. That’s worse than the threshold set recently? It’ll just mean even more massive bombing.
Now, you can appreciate(or lament) why there are many different kind of weapons….there are no one size fits all…except probably for a nuke.

MANPADs should be point- and-shoot weapons.

I agree, but I’m talking about high altitude sams, not manpads.

Considering the height the B-2s fly at you will need rather more than a MANPADS anyway.

I am not suggesting this system to be used at low altitude at all, for low flying aircraft you have manpads and AAA. I am proposing my idea for SA-2’s, SA-3’s, and SA-6’s. My idea probably wouldn’t work at all for low altitude missiles like the SA-7 because the missiles are so small they require a direct hit to bring the plane down which would be difficult for a human to achieve. But SA-2’s are so big that even if they explode 50 meters from a plane they will still bring it down.

If there is a cloud you can’t see through at any level… low or medium or high, if it is between you and the target then it is a problem.

I don’t think you’ve understood me correctly… The camera would be built into the nose of the missile, and would transmit the image from the camera on to a monitor somewhere on the ground. The person looking at the monitor would have a first person view of what the missile sees, and would guide the missile using a joystick which would transmit instructions back to the missile telling it which way to maneuver. So no line of sight is necessary between the person guiding the missile and the missile itself, in fact the only necessity is that radio waves be able to travel from the missile to the controller on the ground and vice versa.

heh, not bad as “man in the loop”, not?

The g forces at launch would make him an unconcious passenger for the flight…

But a person should still be able to hit or at least get very close to slower less maneuverable targets like B-2’s, which are the most important targets anyways.

But an auto target tracker is totally passive and could engage low flying and manouvering targets as well. Why limit yourself to human guidance?

Considering the height the B-2s fly at you will need rather more than a MANPADS anyway. An example is the Pantsir which is a two stage weapon that reaches up to 10km in altitude. The new Hermes ATG missile with a 28kg warhead and various booster types to reach different ranges might also be useful with the right seeker. Even the Serbian solution of R-73s with a solid rocket booster might have potential with the right datalink and guidance package. All these solutions are totally passive and do not need radars to work.

Clouds are only a problem at low altititude, so they don’t even factor into this equation.

If there is a cloud you can’t see through at any level… low or medium or high, if it is between you and the target then it is a problem.

Although TV guidance works only at night, correct me if I’m wrong but with today’s computers an image can be constructed using its IR rays and then displayed onto a screen in real time (this is how thermal viewers work, is it not?), this should allow the person to clearly see the target at night or through light fog.

Yes, and no. Low Light Level Television or LLLTV seekers can see in low light but not in no light. They can see on cloudy days and at dusk and dawn but not at night. A thermal imaging seeker however can see in complete darkness, as can an IIR or imaging infrared seeker. Both view the targets and other objects by the heat energy they emit. (all matter above the temperature of absolute zero emits energy in the IR spectrum). The effective IIR and TI imagers are expensive so one option might be to fit them as seekers for some models of the missile, but to use other versions of the missile with no seeker at all. The latter could be guided by radio command, or laser beam riding to make them very cheap. This would mean that for high value targets like B-2s or F-117s… or even F-22s you would have a good chance for a kill, but for the majority of threats like RPVs and UAVs and UCAVs and indeed PGMs and ARMs you could use the cheaper model missile which could be made in the huge numbers that would be necessary to do the job.

In fact the latest self defence systems involving laser dazzlers or more powerful lasers to burn out the optics in seekers would not be as effective against the cheaper model as it would have to hit the seeker on the ground which it will have to find. (it will likely find the missile itself based on the IR signature of the missiles exhaust plume).

The next step for ground defence will be ground based lasers firing at aircraft.

These things require heavy training, close to being a sniper I would personally say. British Starburst or the Javeline (laser-guided) had gotten a few complaints that it requires to much extensive training for enlisted to use properly on the field. MANPADs should be point-and-shoot weapons. They aren’t there to kill aircrafts, they’re there to make aircrafts nervous, maybe break off approach at times, and (only rarely) actually kill them.

I agree that a person would not be able to hit a small maneuverable target at high closing speeds most of the time. But a person should still be able to hit or at least get very close to slower less maneuverable targets like B-2’s, which are the most important targets anyways.

Even if the person can bring down a target only a quarter of the time, that is still better than any air defence system has ever managed before (ie Vietnam, and not to even mention Iraq and Kosovo).

Clouds are only a problem at low altititude, so they don’t even factor into this equation.

Although TV guidance works only at night, correct me if I’m wrong but with today’s computers an image can be constructed using its IR rays and then displayed onto a screen in real time (this is how thermal viewers work, is it not?), this should allow the person to clearly see the target at night or through light fog.

inshtead, i’d suggest to remove all the electronics by the older, bigger SAMs like the SA-2s and plug in them a capsule with a man inside.. heh, not bad as “man in the loop”, not?

The problem is that it would take an enormous amount of training and even then only a select few would be good enough. Also it would be a daylight fair weather only thing. Automatic target trackers are now quite common… there is no need to manually track a target. (Manual tracking adds a response delay to target movement that would necessarily lead to missing most manouvering targets… especially crossing targets.)

What you are talking about is:

CLOS (Command Line of Sight) or
SACLOS (System and Command Line of Sight)

These methods of man-in-the-loop operation are used in almost all anti-tank guided weapons, either with a wire, laser or beam-radiation in most cases to provide telemtry back and forth from weapon to operator. You can also find such methods in air-launch missiles, such as the AGM-64 Maverick, where the weapon is being fired at a static or rather slow-moving target (hence such systems can cope well with a 2D target environment, and possibly slow or hovering aircraft.

SAM’s are used in a 3D target environment, against high-speed and manouvering targets where electronic warfare can be used to disrupt man-in-the-loop telemtry. Weather such as cloud make optical guidance of a SAM just as impossible as for a human, who would never be able to steer the weapon on to target at high closing speeds .etc.

It makes more sense to let the ground base station (battery fire-controller) and missile do as much of the work as possible, so the operator only has to designate a traget and push a button. It is also an advantage to make the missile autonomous or fire-and-forget.