Electro-optical guidance eg. Maverick

By: Anonymous - 18th January 2005 at 05:50 Permalink - Edited 16th October 2019 at 10:23

Why do no air to air missiles use this type of guidance? Wouldn't this be an ideal way to passively home in on an enemy aircraft? Especially since it cannot be jammed?

Ummm, not much good through clouds or smoke.

Shouldn't it be possible for such missiles to have a range of hundreds if not thousands of kilometres, perhaps by making the sensor see the image through a powerful telescope?

A large powerful telecope would have a very narrow field of view. Also dust, smoke, and many other things like rain will prevent you seeing hundreds of kms. The closest weapon to what you suggest is the AS-18 Kazoo or SLAM type weapons where a high subsonic missile is fired toward a known targets postion. When the missile reaches the target area it turns on a TV seeker and the crew member in the launch aircraft looks at the image sent back fomr the missile, selects a target by placing a crosshair on it and then zooms in and chooses a part of the object to hit... he then presses a button and the missile will continue to fly until it hits that target or is redirected to another target by the launch aircraft via datalink pod.

By: Anonymous - 20th January 2005 at 00:52 Permalink - Edited 16th October 2019 at 10:23

I thought there was no clouds up where planes fly? What altitude are clouds usually at, and what is the highest altitude they can be at?

That completely depends upon the target involved. Many roles require the aircraft to engage low flying targets. Bombers, cruise missiles, CAS, Strike aircraft and helos all operate at low level.

Against a low tech enemy fighting in the clouds has several advantages.

Also, what about tv-guided surface to air missiles? On a cloud day they couldn't acquire their target until after they rose above the clouds, but they can just be launched in the general direction of where the target is expected to be at, and then they can acquire.

The only optically guided SAM weapons I have ever heard of use manual optical tracking of the target with either manual control of the missile (ie Blowpipe) or semi automatic command to line of sight (SACLOS) where a mechanism in the launcher detects the launched missile and its deviation from where the crosshairs are and sends corrections to the missile to guide it at what the firer is pointing the crosshairs at. The only other variation I have seen of these is of course laser beam homing or riding guidance for one of those Swedish missiles (RB70 or something) and that combined anti aircraft/anti tank system the US looked at called ADATs or something.

The standard Russian weapon in this category would be the SA-19 Grison on the 2S6M Tunguska. It uses optically aimed missiles in the early models with flight corrections sent via a datalink through the tracking radar. This makes the early model Tunguska an all weather system only out to 4km and a daylight system out to 8-10km depending upon the model missile. (The addition of Thermal sights to the later models as well as radar tracking for the missiles too gives later versions all weather capability.)

By: Anonymous - 23rd January 2005 at 03:52 Permalink - Edited 16th October 2019 at 10:23

I'm still convinced that electro-optical guidance against airborne targets is superior to radar guidance and I'm baffled why such weapons don't exist.

Radar is cheaper and all weather and day night capable.

Pros:
1) 100% unjammable (tanks can jam it with their smoke dispensers, but this would not work in the air)

No, they are not unjammable. Shtora is one example of an electro optical jammer and laser dazzlers also exist but simply throwing up a large group of flares between you and the missile shoudl work too.

2) 100% passive (until of course the missile itself is detected, but by then it's too late to do anything but eject)

The rocket plume would be visible on an IRST at launch and during powered flight and due to nose heating at supersonic speeds.

3) it would almost certainly be cheaper to produce than a missile which has a radar built in, although probably not as cheap as missiles which have no radar and are guided by the plane, but these are becoming obsolete

Thermal IIR seekers are not cheap but are all weather and can see through most cloud.

Even with the cons, a missile based on this technology would make a great BVR weapon, and a great high-medium altitude SAM.

That is why the AIM-9X, IRIS-T, ASRAAM, R-74 etc etc are considered s potentially deadly.

Also, what about the technology used in night-vision goggles? I have no idea how that works, but could it be applied to electro-optical guidance to allow it to work in the night too?

Put very simply Image intensification (the simple explaination): in low light conditions very small amounts of light enter the front lens and hit a plate. All the photons that hit the plate are converted into an electrical signal. This signal is boosted by a high voltage device and then converted back into light in a sort of TV like display observed through the rear lens. It requires some light to work and will not work in total darkness.
The problem is that if the target releases flares the II device will blank out due to the intensely bright light.

A better night vision method would be Thermal imaging. This doesn't use light at all and you get the same view whether the lights are on or off, in a deep dark cave with no light at all or in the middle of the day in the main street.
the problem has been that they are expensive.

But now even the Russians are building them releatively cheaply.

http://www.cyclone-jsc.ru/prod/sych_e.html

http://www.vimi.ru/orion/prod/kt-3-e.htm

This is the sensor used in IIR weapons like AIM-9X. The advantages over II is that it is all weather day night, it is not effected by bright light sources... in other words you can see the licence plate of a car clearly from 600m at night when the car has its lights on, through fog and rain an even light vegetation. It is not fooled by colour based camoflage as it can't see light. The only draw back is they can't see through glass.

Regarding your idea of future missiles using this technology... well they are. There is rumoured to be IIR homing models of the R-77 and R-77M and R-77PD in the works and that is one suggestion (over and above the cost) why the R-77 hasn't replaced the R-27 in Russian airforce service... the basic R-77 doesn't have longer range than the high energy model R-27s but the R-27 offers a wider range of seekers and versions at lower cost, so until the R-77 can outrange the R-27 it will not likely be ordered in numbers, though some units might use it.

By: Anonymous - 26th January 2005 at 09:01 Permalink - Edited 16th October 2019 at 10:23

The main reason radar guided missiles are used more often than optical is simply because the main long range sensor on most aircraft is a radar. Stealth technology will change this so other sensors and missile tyoes might proliferate. (I have heard that Vympel are developing a fuel sniffer missile that will hunt down aircraft by their engine exhausts. (Don't laugh... during WWII diesel smoke sniffers were used to find U boats and other naval vessels).