SM-3s are exo-atmospheric BMD only AFAIK.

Obviously when they shot down all those SR-71’s the writing was on the wall. But in all seriousness the B-70 was insanely expensive and the right decision was made. The program would have made B-2A look cheap.

The SR-71 got lucky at least once over the Korean DMZ with an SA-2. The proximity fuse didn’t work correctly. That was the only thing between its ass and the grass.

What about using something like Skylon as a bomber/recon aircraft? Uncannily like an Avro 730 too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

I have never seen anything concrete about an ARM meteor. Have you?

Not concrete just rumours. There is a large hole to be plugged in European SEAD capability, so it seems a logical step.

This makes me recall an incident at BNFL about 12 years back when a set of fuel rods were delivered to Japan. There was a process of measurement whereby the rod geometry was precisely measured twice. One day after delivery an extremely bored undergraduate on a placement scheme was looking through these measurements and unwittingly commented to his boss, “Wow, these measurements are really precise and consistent, both sets are exactly the same.” Bearing in mind that these measurements were in nanometres, his boss replied, “No *LOL* you’re reading it wrong,” and took a look. Rumour has it that he turned sort of a pale white and started trembling at this stage. Shortly afterwards he made a call to his boss, who called his boss’s boss etc. until the CEO was rang.

The CEO after probably considerable deliberation called Japan. The rods were removed from the reactor and returned to the UK by ship. The CEO who had nothing to do with it was forced to resign and heavily unionised culprits remain at large somewhere in the nuclear industry.

In this case a product was withdrawn simply on the basis that there was a small chance it could be wrong. Someone had been lazy and only measured the rods once and then copy and pasted the results instead of measuring again. In all likelihood the rods were fine but no one was prepared to take that risk.

Yes, but AARGM is not the same as HSCM. From what I understand, HSCM is a more simple upgrade to the HARMs already in service.

Ah, okay. How much more expensive/difficult would it be give them the AARGM upgrade?

Some interesting stuff did come about before ICBMs though. Like Project Pluto.

The original HARM had a pretty poor hit ratio. Now that the AARGM has a terminal seeker it might not be that bad but the earlier variants would have benefited from better accuracy in case the radar is turned off. The missile would have needed the capability to keep in storage the location of the radar and navigate to the target point as accurately as possible.

Possibly, I guess it does provide an ESM back-up. Question wrt LRASM. Could it be used in a SEAD/DEAD role given the integrated ESM?

I fail to see lukos arguments tying into the OT. We used to call his argument style thread crapping. He’s all over the place, saying lies that are contrary to other posters proofs, and refusing to soak in what is being said. This thread really is done, it’s time to let it go.

You think hitting a submarine with a torpedo is the same as hitting a fighter jet with a missile? I’m not thread crapping, I’m just stating what’s completely obvious to most.

Active targeting is officially combat proven to over twice the range demonstrated by passive targeting in a test environment and unofficially 8 times the range:

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_212.shtml

3-6039 was the F-14A used to shot down an Iraqi Mirage F.1EQ on 20 February 1987 by a single AIM-54A from a range of almost 150km. The Iraqi pilot, 1st Lt. Ahlan, did not survive the hit.