Could the THAAD be reengineered as a SAM?

[Rain08]

If I get this right, the US Military relies on air superiority to take care of aerial threats against ground units. Because of this, the development of SAMs (at least for the Army/Marine Corp HIMAD systems) didn't go much beyond the Patriot system.

From the pictures of the THAAD, it has no control surfaces to make it more effective within the atmosphere. Could adding control surfaces help increase the maneuverability? Could the seeker be replaced from the one in the SM-6 to make it more effective against aircraft? Could reengineering the THAAD be viable assuming that funding would be no problem? Assuming that it's possible to reengineer this, would it have more range than the 40N6 missile if the altitude was traded for range?

However one problem I see is that there would be no "proper" RADAR system to provide detection and targeting information to the missile. But could the SPY-1/6 be made mobile to resolve this problem?

I'm not that knowledgeable in these systems so I may be using some words wrong.

[thewood1]

I would think it would require a new missile warhead, guidance, and radar. At that point, just deploy Patriots. I mean, your suggestion is to cobble together a bunch of components from other systems. If you are going to do that why not just use an existing SAM system.

[Aivlis]

I'm not an expert on this particular system, but my experience says it's easier to just make a new missile.

The lack of lifting surfaces would make it inefficient to trade altitude for range, as sleek bodies have poor lifting performance in exchange for low drag, especially at high speeds. Furthermore, terminal-phase reentry vehicles and aircraft are very different targets, and I'm inclined to believe that a it would be hard to intercept an evading jet with a missile so optimized to hit very fast but relatively non-maneuvering RVs. The lack of a warhead is another problem; I think THAAD lacks a continuous-rod payload for engineering reasons as much as due to target detonation concerns: a conventional continuous-rod payload would only add a slew of problems versus a reentry vehicle, like fuzing, detonation time and shrapnel dispersion patterns when the relative speed between missile and target is of the same order as that of the payload's explosion.

[Cik]

i'm confused as to why that's necessary

>long range radar: patriot (and it's pretty good)

>short range: stinger

where is the necessity for re-engineering an anti-missile system into an anti-fighter system when we already have several anti-fighter systems and the largest air force in the world by several times over?

i mean, could it be done? i'm sure it could be. hand raytheon/lockheed/whoever a kabillion dollars and pigs can fly. not sure there's a reason to, though.

[thewood1]

Isn't that what I said?

[mikmykWS]

I wouldn't modify Thaad. Slamraam, Meads or more NASAMS would be best if you wanted to deviate from the Patriots.

Nobody in their right minds would bet against the Pats unless your last name is Ryan or Goodell [;)]

Mike