Re: Surface to Air Missile Inconsistencies
Now granted, at more recent dates the Russian material takes the lead to some extent, but maybe that's because the US OOB doesn't feature any SAM newer than the late 80s while the Russian developments are better modeled.
There's been a lot of Patriot improvements like:
MIM-104A : Original Production
MIM-104B: Late 1980s. Also known as the SOJC (Standoff Jammer Countermeasures) missile and uses a modified guidance and navigation hardware. The MIM-104B adds a surface-to-surface capability against ground-based radar jamming sources to the Patriot system. The missile can fly an optimized (lofted) trajectory towards the jammer, and use its seeker to select the strongest emitter for terminal homing. The anti-aircraft/anti-missile capability is the same as for the MIM-104A.
MIM-104C: 1990: The PAC-2 upgrade includes further software changes, and an improved MIM-104C missile. The MIM-104C has a blast-fragmentation warhead with larger fragments (45 g compared to 2 g for the MIM-104A/B warhead) to increase lethality against ballistic missile warheads. It also has a new pulse-doppler proximity fuze with two beams, a narrow one for missiles, and a broader one for slower aircraft targets.
MIM-104D: (PAC-2/GEM) 1994: It has a seeker with better performance against low-RCS targets, and an improved fuze against high-speed ballistic missiles.
MIM-104E: (PAC-2/GEM+) 2002: The upgrade consists of a new low-noise front end to increase seeker sensitivity (improving acquisition and tracking of small RCS targets) and a modernized fuzing system for better performance against ballistic missile targets. Reliability of the GEM+ missile is also improved by replacement of older components with new technology.
|