RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2yr ago·Edited 2yr ago
Why not talk about IR SAMs as well as radar guided? There's also SACLOS, where the missile gets sent guidance information by radio from a ground-based observer with a bigger detection system. I guess that's technically either IR or radar guided but there's also a distinction between fire and forget missiles (with their own inbuilt guidance systems) vs ground-guided ones that need a signal painted on the target.
Much of my knowledge only really comes from Wargame Red Dragon. Even so, I found even crappy IR Soviet Strelas more irritating than the more sophisticated Buks and Tunguskas (though they were pretty lethal) because I couldn't SEAD them with my Wild Weasels or EF-111 Raven. Anti-radiation missiles like HARMS don't work on things that don't need radar. Stingers and many MANPADs today are IR, they ought to be worth mentioning.
I also had no idea the S-300 was such an old system (I guess they couldn't put such a long-ranged weapon in Wargame without wrecking the balance, though that didn't stop them putting a Patriot in with a silly 5.6 km range).
Also, what about counterstealth? That f117 that got shot down over Yugoslavia by oldish sams, that would be something to talk about.
Ya my personal knowledge/feel comes from stuff like Wargame and Highfleet too.
Goppy is vastly more knowledgeable about a lot of this stuff, that's part of the reason I wanted to host him.
.
The thing with IR is the range is vastly more limited than with Radar. That's why they get deployed in manpads and air to air missiles instead of longer range anti-air systems.
Usually they're either combined with radar detection, fired, and then the Ir kicks in at a certain point once they've closed with the target (in which case your initial active radar use is giving away your position anyway), or they're used from ranges short enough that IR alone works.
obviously specific ranges are classified... But IR detection of people and vehicles from a $50-100k bubble on a plane or observation tower was 14km when I was Researching my motorcycle warfare piece and i'd imagine you wouldn't get much better than 30km even trying to hit a jet engine against an empty backdrop... just the amount of atmospheric moisture you're looking through at that range is going to scatter IR information
By contrast the radar systems covered in the piece are detecting and locking on 100-150km away.
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Notes -
Why not talk about IR SAMs as well as radar guided? There's also SACLOS, where the missile gets sent guidance information by radio from a ground-based observer with a bigger detection system. I guess that's technically either IR or radar guided but there's also a distinction between fire and forget missiles (with their own inbuilt guidance systems) vs ground-guided ones that need a signal painted on the target.
Much of my knowledge only really comes from Wargame Red Dragon. Even so, I found even crappy IR Soviet Strelas more irritating than the more sophisticated Buks and Tunguskas (though they were pretty lethal) because I couldn't SEAD them with my Wild Weasels or EF-111 Raven. Anti-radiation missiles like HARMS don't work on things that don't need radar. Stingers and many MANPADs today are IR, they ought to be worth mentioning.
I also had no idea the S-300 was such an old system (I guess they couldn't put such a long-ranged weapon in Wargame without wrecking the balance, though that didn't stop them putting a Patriot in with a silly 5.6 km range).
Also, what about counterstealth? That f117 that got shot down over Yugoslavia by oldish sams, that would be something to talk about.
Ya my personal knowledge/feel comes from stuff like Wargame and Highfleet too.
Goppy is vastly more knowledgeable about a lot of this stuff, that's part of the reason I wanted to host him.
.
The thing with IR is the range is vastly more limited than with Radar. That's why they get deployed in manpads and air to air missiles instead of longer range anti-air systems.
Usually they're either combined with radar detection, fired, and then the Ir kicks in at a certain point once they've closed with the target (in which case your initial active radar use is giving away your position anyway), or they're used from ranges short enough that IR alone works.
obviously specific ranges are classified... But IR detection of people and vehicles from a $50-100k bubble on a plane or observation tower was 14km when I was Researching my motorcycle warfare piece and i'd imagine you wouldn't get much better than 30km even trying to hit a jet engine against an empty backdrop... just the amount of atmospheric moisture you're looking through at that range is going to scatter IR information
By contrast the radar systems covered in the piece are detecting and locking on 100-150km away.
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