well, the point is you dont hone any sort of useful skill like that. the scenario in pitch black might be unrealistic, but the skills practiced and the tactics tried are. thats the point of exerises. but can you think of any meaningful skills one can gain from manually guiding a missile to such a target?
manual targeting for missiles is just basicly an excerise in keeping the target in the crosshairs long enough for your missile to hit or get into its seeker range. not very difficilt with a great big huge smoketrail like that and with the target flying in pretty much a straight line. hardly justifies the cost involved. (remeber we are talking about a navy that straps AK47s onto AAA guns for basic gunery practice)
if they were training for manual targeting, then there is no need for a smoke generator as no real missile from any remotely modern navy would have a tail anything like that big. the skills they should be practicing is visually locating and tracking an incoming missile without a smoketrail at all. again, not that difficult for trained naval personnel if you know where and when its coming.
both are possible, just one is more likely then the other. 😉
I’ll admit it does look like a publicity stunt/exercise. But manual systems operation could easily be required if the supporting fire control systems for the missiles has been knocked out due to whatever reason/damage. The likelyhood of that kind of total systems damage I think is low to slim, but the skills required to handle all aspects of the contingency including command, in that case, are very relevant.
Sign In
