So not only is such a seeker not currently in development, there is no way to ascertain its performance against 5th and 6th generation aircraft and their tactics.

The same applies to any missile in development, or even a fielded one against a new adversary. I don’t even think a test shot has been fired against a stealth target because it would be prohibitively expensive but IIR is not fundamentally vulnerable to stealth and higher frequency polarimetric AESA imaging-radars in the Ka and even W band would be notoriously difficult to jam. There are also real possibilities of utilising new SARH effectively. If the launch aircraft can see and target the enemy, then the target will attempt to jam the launch radar rather than the passive seeker on the missile and the datalink would allow the launch radar combined with IRST/EODAS to even guide the missile in on the target if need be. So it seems clear that combining these technologies would produce a very effective seeker. But ultimately, if the seeker doesn’t cut it, it won’t matter how many missiles you have. One thing that agians strikes me though is the difficulty of incorporating advanced multi-mode seekers on a smaller missile and the % penalty it imposes on added weight and reduced propulsion section.

CUDA is in the air frame-prototype stage and its makers are committed to pursuing it at and past that stage. Meanwhile its competitor is currently an R&D program of record. Interestingly, if Lockheed wishes to use CUDA as an eventual competitor it must match Raytheon’s weapon that is required to have a focused warhead (not purely H2K).

Well Meteor is an operational missile (Sweden). So it seems to me that there’s less work in applying folding fins, new seeker tech (MBDA+Mitsubishi since 2014) and developing launchers, than developing, testing and integrating completely new unproven, untested, unfired missiles and developing a new launcher. One requires some mechanical and electronic adjustments, whereas the other is a ‘no idea if this will even work-in progress.’

It is not an either/or choice. Both class of missiles will be deployed since the potential list of targets is diverse.

Well at least that’s sensible. Looking at the wider picture, there is scope for using future AAMs for SEAD/DEAD as well, in which case a warhead would be necessary, as well as long range. Now if you’re carrying Cuda and a longer range weapon, but you use up some longer range missiles on say air threats, then you could end up with none to deploy against ground threats, or vice versa.

Which missiles have these seekers?

As I said earlier, seekers will need to be updated for 5th gen adversaries, regardless of the missile used. But making a dual/tri-mode seeker with a high Pk against 5th gen is a long way from impossible, it just needs investment.

So right now, not even plans exist (that have been made public) on 8 Meteor F-35 carriage?

Well no, but not much exists on Cuda carriage bar a resin, scaled-down mock-up, which is effectively about the same distance from fruition.

Speaking from experience in this field?

I don’t we necessarily need experience to make reasoned judgements on technologies. The other problem with CUDA, as well as trying to pack a control section, DACT section and propellant into 1.8m is the whole ‘what if scenario’. What if detection is possible at longer ranges than it provides for but you’ve limited yourself by an assumption that it wouldn’t be. The longer range missile will still do the shorter range intercept but the shorter range missile will not do the longer range intercept. If you and your enemy can target each other at 60km but you have 8 CUDAs and he has 6 PL-12Ds, you are royally screwed on a truly epic level.

You assume that there is no warhead, and you don’t account for a smaller, lighter weapon either. As I had explained, if you are doing a cooperative engagement using aircraft and missile sensors/seekers a shorter window will be better as opposed to having a coaster come in from 100+ km away. You are simply looking at a 30 km intercept and as I said they are likely looking at faster top speed, and acceleration compared to the AMRAAM.

The shorter missile will accelerate faster but the average speed will be lower due to massively reduced burn time. It’s also difficult to imagine where the warhead goes in a 1.8m long AAM, with a control section, DACT section and propulsion section before the propulsion section becomes so short it’s near useless.

Based on what, and define ‘high chance’.

How do you decoy dual waveband, amplitude filtering IIR seekers. Countermeasures are near useless against them. And the likes of a polarimetric Ka band GaN AESA radar seeker with STAP and MCABF would be extremely difficult to jam even in itself. Then of course you have good old HOJ to fall back on too and the possibility of using SARH in conjunction with AESA ARH.

Ok

Well if the aircraft up front can’t target the target after going evasive, then how would a missile be useful?

Ok. Would love to see them do this. I’ll be glad if you can provide evidence to support 8 meteor/AMRAAM’s internal on an F-35 or a similarly sized bay. I haven’t yet come across details on MBDA’s meteor/F-35 integration effort and what load outs they are aiming for. With CUDA on the other hand you could look for dense packing even with the two-stage sollution given its a 5 inch diameter weapon.

At present there’s nothing planned (that I know of) but a folding fin conversion has already been accomplished in the case of ASRAAM to CAMM, so it can’t be impossible. Once the fins are folded, you have a weapon only mildly wider that the body diameter (180mm (SDB size). So if we stick one in its usual position on the door, then we have a triple launcher down in the bay, with two at the base and one below it on the mount furthest from the door AAM. Can’t be impossible if the bay is wide enough for a GBU-31. Another option is a rotary launcher for 5(!) folding fin AAMs. There is engineering work involved no doubt and someone will have to spend money but I don’t think these ideas are revolve around barking mad, crazy, fringe technologies. Certainly no more far out than trying to make a Hellfire-sized BVRAAM.

Mach 10 missile and SACM the performance of Hellifre. Will love to see this.

The point was that a Hellfire-sized hypersonic BVRAAM with DACT and a warhead has to be at least as hard to develop as a Mach 10 AMRAAM-sized folding fin VFDR missile and a rotary launcher.

Seekers along are unlikely to cover the gap when it comes to intercepting 5th and 6th generation aircraft with the same probability as they do legacy crafts. What you will likely need is some sort of cooperative engagement between interceptors, and targeting aircraft. Here a shorter ranged, faster to target weapon enjoys an advantage as the loop which begins with weapons launch (and all that goes into it) and ends with target destruction is much shorter. In other words it fits in with time compression which low RCS jets are likely to force upon those trying to target them.

I’m yet to understand why a smaller weapon with less propellant will be faster to the target, or why a weapon with no warhead would have a higher Pk. And the launch aircraft is also exposed to return fire in the shorter range scenario, so will likely be immediately forced to take evasive action, leaving targeting to EODAS. If EODAS is good enough, then it will also be good enough for the missile launched from afar. Either the aircraft up front can target the enemy or it can’t. It seems like your argument would also partly defeat the thinking of the F-35, since you’re talking about range of 20km. In a large 24+ vs 24+ scenario, there’s no way all the enemy jets will be killed in a single salvo, which then means an unwanted dogfight would follow. I also think AESA+IIR seekers would have a very high chance of being able to lock a stealth aircraft. If not, then we need to forget about missiles altogether. And the extra missiles are only useful if you live long enough to fire them. If the first missile misses at 20km against a 5th gen threat, you likely won’t live to fire a second. However fire a faster VFDR missile at 20-30km, whilst others fire from 50-60km and you not only improve the chance of the nearer missile hitting, but you also preserve a line of fighter for a second salvo at the 20-30km range.

As an aside, there’s also significant scope to increase the load-out even with AMRAAM/Meteor. Instead of clipped fins, we need folding fins. With folding fins, you could likely pack 4 Meteors/AMRAAMs into a single bay.

Not necessarily given that an LE can be significantly smaller than a conventional warhead given other H2K concepts. They have been working with high density, H2K since the ERINT so its not a new thing for either of the two missile makers granted Lockheed enjoys a significant lead compared to Raytheon.

LE? The control section is nearly 1m long in modern AAMs, even minus a warhead that leaves only 0.8m for propellant + nozzle + actuators+DACT. It’s going to be a push to jump from something barely supersonic, like a Hellfire, to something hypersonic with DACT in the same sized package. And even if you did, the same technology level applied to a 3.66m long VFDR missile would likely give you the Mach 10 missile you referenced earlier.

That is open to debate but will be within the trade space. You are talking about shorter to medium range engagements and significant advantages (advances) over AMRAAM in both acceleration and top speed. VFDR may not be a route they may want to pursue given the size, weight and other considerations given very long range is not likely a design driver. VFDR can, and has been looked at (and test flown) for an AMRAAM class weapon but I don’t think it will be looked at for SACM.

My point was, how to get a weapon to target at the fastest possible time given the engagement window will be a challenge in a 5th on 5th or 6th on 6th type engadgets. If you can maneuver within closer range and launch from those ranges you hold a distinct advantage when it comes to completing the engagement quicker as opposed to data linking targeting to something that may be 100+ km behind you. Against an easier target, you want to do the exact opposite, i.e. preserve your own payload while staying relatively safe within the FEBA, using your long range interceptors carried by aircraft that don’t have similar RCS restrictions as you.

Right, but is it necessary for a single F-35 to kill more than 1 or 2 5th gen enemies in a single fight? And isn’t the smaller trade space missile just a case of more missiles with lower Pk, longer time to target, and less energy once there? Energy is a key driver though. An AMRAAM burn time is around 7-8s. Half its size and that likely reduces to 3-4s. At least with VFDR in such a small missile it might burn until it gets somewhere near the target.

I’m not sure about that really, the success of both missiles would depend on the aircraft up front being able to continue targeting after going evasive. A missile with a faster average speed would also force the enemy to go evasive sooner, whilst also fitting into a smaller time window. The faster, higher energy missile just seems like the better bet from either range. The only question is whether you would configure the burn rate for something a little faster than Meteor in the short range scenario, although we make assumptions about its current peak speed at max burn here.

Yes, that is the situation in UK Tax Law too. Should a tax issue ‘go legal’ nine times out of ten it is down to interpretation of the law, with the defence trying to explain in qualitative terms why the law does not apply in this particular method of avoidance as the purpose of the law is elsewhere.

There is a word for this kind of defence – I forget it now. But my point is that the purpose of any law is moot and completely arguable in court.

But there’s no capacity to have such a defence with a purposive approach, because a defence would normally be based on the wording of the law, whereas a purposive interpretation allows the law to be interpreted well beyond the actual words, simply based on an assumed purpose, even though such laws are often passed by split parliaments of several hundred people, who perhaps all had different assumptions about the purpose.

The whole ‘ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law’ thing breaks down if people are expected to have an awareness of the law that extends beyond the black and white to assumptions, that could one day be made, about the quasi-averaged intentions of several hundred people made by a third party.

I’m assuming that both sides become targetable at 50-75km. And it’s for reasons of targeting denial that CUDA worries me. HTK might work on passive, large RCS ballistic missiles but against VLO fighter employing various ECM and manoeuvring like hell, actually hitting the target dead on could prove difficult, whereas a 20kg blast frag warhead only has to get within say 20m or more. Not being able to target the enemy for long periods would also put the emphasis on faster average missile speed, so it gets within active seeker range quicker.

The fighter at 75-100km doesn’t have to target the enemy, the aircraft up front do that. The idea here is also very much that your missiles out-range the red force missiles, which is presently the case, although signs are that both the Russians and Chinese are looking into longer range AAMs and not smaller AAMs – R-77-PD, PL-12D, R-37 etc.

You’re also misunderstanding me. In this hypothetical 24 vs 24 scenario, all jets are 5th gen, even the ones hanging back, hence why they are completely untargetable, because they’re outside the 50-75km range I have assumed as the extremes of targeting range for these 5th gen jets.

I agree that seeker heads will be an area for improvement. But improvement is better than mere duplication in larger numbers, especially if you’re requiring HTK (going back to my earlier point). I do agree though that a larger number of shorter range missiles could prove advantageous for the aircraft up front, but it does give them more missiles to guide if they’re also guiding the longer range ones from behind them. Maybe one-to-many data-linking will be possible in future, i.e. pass same target info. to two missiles, your own and one from behind. Flinging two stones at the one bird as it were. Undecided on that though. The Meteor would still cover the shorter distance faster and have a 20m kill radius, that then either kills the enemy or bleeds the enemy’s energy and uses some of their decoys, meanwhile the panic may also lead to them being unaware of Meteor number 2 coming in from an unexpected adversary, especially so if the trailing jets are also offset to one side. I do agree that for future progress Meteor needs to consider future seeker options, the AESA version being developed with the Japanese is a start but it could/should possibly be combined with IIR at a later date.

The thing that also strikes me though, is that the aircraft up front may also need to go evasive, which is possibly why a fixed radar with no side arrays is an oversight, although I believe they are optional on the F-22. However, an AESA seeker would allow a missile with less accurate targeting information to rapidly scan a wide area of sky.

In the real world, your opponents won’t be T-38s.. it will be stealth aircraft with similar sensors like you have.. plus kinematic performance on top of that..

But that still doesn’t necessitate fantastic kinematic ability, what it does encourage as a point of caution is something like Meteor, so you can leave 80% of your 5th gen jets back behind the front line out of harm’s way. The jets up front can then do the targeting of the peer 5th gen aggressors, while 80% of the flight fires from a safe distance. It’s kind of odd, but stealth really hasn’t done away with the need for such a missile but quite the opposite in the longer term. The jets up front could even be 6th gen in the longer term.

For the rest, Ryan , rest assured you have to run very fast if you have to intercept anything supersonic carrying nuclear warheads…

Yes but you also have to run 5,500km based on best intelligence, so rather than doing Mach 2+, it’s more important that you can go reasonably fast for a longer period. But more likely in such a scenario, is that you’ll be intercepting something very small and subsonic carrying just one nuclear warhead at low altitude, in which case sensors and sensor fusion are of primary importance. If we’re talking about future BGRVs and scramjet cruise missiles, then no fighters present or currently planned cut the mustard, unless they weaponise the SR-72.

I guess a lot depends on flight altitude. As a typical rule of thumb you go about 3 times further at high altitude compared to sea level. So the question is 900km at what altitude?