Raytheon Unveils New Air-to-Air Missile [Peregrine]

[madrat]

That would be pretty impressive achievement given that unsuccessful LM HALE-D was supposed to go to 60,000ft or so. that was (IIRC) 73 meters long and final version was supposed to be able to lift about a ton or two.

Something resembling a four rotor drone attached underneath would be interesting. Rather than 100% passive flight, give it some active power. Its endurance would drop, but it would get to its station faster, and at the same time be able to control its location with more surety. The end result might actually enjoy more useful time in the air.

[hornetfinn]

Given how the Russian war on Ukraine has gone, I think Peregrine missile idea is really good one. Biggest aerial threats there have been cruise missiles and all kinds of drones and loitering munitions etc. That would likely be true in any future major conflict. Current missiles can be used but if Peregrine can deliver what is promised, it would be ideal weapon to be used against such targets. If say an F-35 can carry for example 8 Peregrines, 2 AIM-120Ds (or Meteors) and 2 AIM-9X, 2-4 F-35s would have plenty of firepower to shoot down most missiles in decent sized cruise missile salvo or UCAV/Loitering munition swarm. Of course affordability is a key here and Peregrine must be significantly cheaper than what current AIM-120 or maybe evern AIM-9X cost. Otheriwise having ability to carry a lot of missiles is not very useful if there are not enough missiles to do so.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

Peregrine must be significantly cheaper than what current AIM-120 or maybe even AIM-9X cost.

I think the former is a given, but not the latter. Cost is largely determined by the systems and software. Peregrine will have largely similar systems to the AIM-120 with broadly similar software, all needed for fox-3 capability. Even an AIM-9X is over a third the cost of an AIM-120D, and that is a missile whose legacy I once read as "All the electronic complexity of a transistor radio, and all the mechanical complexity of a washing machine"

Size will not make the missile significantly cheaper. if the AIM-120 is $1.1M and AIM-9X is $0.4M (per Wiki) then I would wager Peregrine to be ~$0.8M. There just isn't any way around the cost associated with having INS/DL supported midcourse and ARH terminal.

[hornetfinn]

Very true Spurts and I agree that it's very unlikely that Peregrine could be cheaper than AIM-9X with all that hardware and software. I think there might be room for a less capable but significantly cheaper missile against relatively easy targets like cruise missiles, drones and loitering munitions. Like Thales LMM/Martlet missile (a lot slower but cheaper than Starstreak missile), but for air-to-air applications.

[madrat]

Cruise missiles by any modern definition are never easy targets. Shooting simulated drones at 100 feet of altitude is easier than targeting any modern cruise missiles. Modern can be like Kaliber that have awareness of fuel consumption and utilize excessive fuel for erratic and irregular maneuvers and optimized general flight patterns to avoid known threats on the way into their targets. But, like any weapon, its use is only as good as the planning involved. The Russians have flown a small number of older cruise missiles into bad weather only to have them emerge in places hundreds of miles away from their intended targets.

[hornetfinn]

Cruise missiles can possibly do some erratic or irregular maneuvers during the terminal phase but I don't think they do any such maneuvers before that. Such maneuvers during the flight route would not make much good as they have no systems to know when they have to do such maneuvers. Flight patterns avoiding known threats are definitely a thing and so fighter aircraft is a very useful method for the defender to detect, track and engage cruise missiles as it's very difficult to plan a route that would avoid them. Especially something like F-35 which the attacker could not even detect most of the time. Route planning is very good for avoiding less mobile ground defences though.

Subsonic cruise missiles are fairly easy targets to shoot down once they are detected and tracked. They fly relatively slowly and usually fly in easily predictable flight path. Biggest problem is detecting them in the first place as they fly at very low altitudes are small and have low signatures (radar, IR and optical). F-35 has the best chance out of all fighter aircraft of detecting, tracking and engaging them with their great sensor system, networking and steatlh. Ukranians have shot down some Russian cruise missiles with their ancient Su-27s and MiG-29s.

F-16s have used APKWS to shoot down simulated cruise missile: https://www.airforcemag.com/f-16-downs-drone-with-rocket-for-cruise-missile-defense-test/

Also: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36345/mq-9-reaper-howitzer-rocket-toting-f-16-all-shoot-down-mock-cruise-missiles-in-huge-test

So there is definitely need and interest to defend against cruise missiles using fighter aircraft as well as ground systems and UCAVs. Of course it would not be easy to defend against thousands of cruise missiles and some would definitely get through no matter what. But shooting down even some of them would definitely help a lot.

[madrat]

In the grand scheme, few cruise missiles of any generation have been intercepted. The more modern versions tend to build on survival with each successive generation.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

In the grand scheme, (a low percentage of) cruise missiles of any generation have been intercepted

FIFY

Cruise missiles have never been used in a "oh we'll launch a cruise missile to attack this target" situation, meaning a singular cruise missile is up for interception.

It has always been "okay let's fire off 100 CMs all timed to reach this target in a 3 minute window" so that it doesn't matter if the AD network shoots down 2, or 4, or 8, or 48 cruise missiles in three minutes, because so many still got through and the target is a crater within a crater.

[madrat]

In all fairness, the U.S. and its allies have used them to overwhelm enemy defenses. Out of 2,000 fired over the past 30 years, we know the number of credible shootdowns is not double digits. But that really isn't why few get intercepted. The Russain cruise missiles, not to be confused with their large ASMs like Silkworm, aren't exactly radiating their positions and saying, "Shoot me." And neither were Tomahawk or Scalp were fired to overwhelm Libyan air defenses. They could not be touched save for random chance because they are designed to be difficult to intercept.

[hornetfinn]

All that is true, although in all cases the defences were a lot less capable than US or NATO forces. Detecting and tracking cruise missiles is difficult due to their very low flight altitude, very low RCS, flight planning avoiding known defences, night time attacks and large numbers of targets. All the cases where they have been used (Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine), the defences were using mostly old systems from 1960s or 1970s and those have been largely ineffective against modern cruise missiles.

However US/NATO/Allied forces defending against Russian or Chinese cruise missile attacks would have vastly superior equipment, sensors and overall system to detect and engage them. F-35 itself is really good example as it has really good sensors to detect and track cruise missiles. Large modern AESA radar like AN/APG-81 is orders of magnitudes more capable against cruise missiles than mechanically scanned arrays of older fighter aircraft. Same with 360 degree IRST in EO DAS and very long range IRST in EOTS compared to something like MiG-29 or Su-27 systems. Networked sensor fusion and SA makes a flight of F-35s even more capable than comparing individual aircraft. But problem still is large number of cruise missiles in cruise missile attacks. Here Peregrine could be really good weapon as it can double the magazine in each aircraft. Of course F-35 being networked with and providing targeting info to other fighter aircraft and ground based defences make the whole cruise missile defence capabilities way more robust. Especially so when those systems also have AESA radars, modern IRST systems and ARH and IIR seeking missiles.

I'm not claiming that it would make cruise missile defences airtight but will make it far more difficult for the enemy to significantly disable or disrupt US/NATO forces with powerful cruise missile strikes.