General question about ARMs.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I am finally reading 'The Sixth Battle' by Barrett Tillman, broke down and bought a used copy. I'm over half way through it an am really enjoying it.

The passages featuring HARM missiles got me thinking about something.

Anti-Radiation Missiles in an Air-to-Air Role?

Just a quick look at the wiki article on ARMs suggests that the idea has been thought of and is in existence in some form.

Is it conceivably possible to target an ARM, like the HARM or Shrike, at an aircraft that is emitting Radar? The most obvious possible targets would be AEW aircraft I would think.

And is this modeled in CMANO in any way? Perhaps with a prototype missile?

I'm just curious and wanted to thrown this out there. Seems like it would be a good way to carry out a surprise attack on an AEW plane.

[Schr75]

This comes to mind.

Try googling "B-52 in harms way"[:D]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B- ... _and_later

An F-4 attacking a B-52 tail gunner with a HARM during the first gulf war.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Never heard of that! [:D] I guess that accident kind of is the proof of concept!

[Cik]

you could probably make it work. i doubt it would be very successful in combat for western powers.

for the east though, i could see it working on an AA-10/R-27esque platform. like the longer-ranged russian heatseekers (R-27T/ET, AA-7B, AA-6B etc) it gets around the problem of stealth. might be effective for launch and leave if the enemy is overconfident and runs right into them while chasing disengaging sukhois or something.

i'm kind of curious as to why they haven't tried it actually. seems like a reasonable enterprise. money or engineering challenges i'd guess.

[AndrewJ]

Air-to-air ARMs have been trialed before, notably the Brazo, back in the early 70s. They worked, but were not adopted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazo

[tomrlutong2]

Isn't this the same as home-on-jam?

[Cik]

ARMs don't HOJ, they home on radar.

which is worse because most jammers AFAIK are omnidirectional, but radar is nose-emitting which means that as soon as the enemy enters the beam your missile will lose them.

which granted is probably why no one has tried this for A-A stuff. it has it's disadvantages.

[Primarchx]

There have been some Russian long range, anti-AWACS proposals but nothing that I've heard enter service.

[Filitch]

There is R-27EP with passive antiradiation seeker
Manufacturer site: http://vympelmkb.com/products/upravlyae ... 27ep1/183/
Some data: http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-103.html
Maximal range at launch in front hemisphere - 72 km