element1loop wrote:One hit with a modern anti-ship missile in the right place is likely to render most ships unable to fight, or even communicate and defend itself properly. We don't even need more missiles to sink those that are hit properly the first time. Why LRASM's passive imaging to target specific locations on each targeted ship class makes so much more sense.
A couple of JDAM-ER with laser guidance and RF kit options and 70 km standoff would be almost perfect for burning and sinking them from there. Just 1 x SH loaded with 2 x 2,000lb JDAM-ERs per ship, and they're probably done (for $100K tops). We could manufacture those kits like hot cakes.
This was basically the orthodox USAF view in the late Cold War: an ASCM impact would typically result in a
mission kill on an enemy ship that would permit cheaper stand-in weapons to be employed for the coup de grace.
The issue with the non-datalinked Harpoon 1C is getting it to hit the right ship in the first place since
a deliberate or unintentional enemy countermeasure would be to mix the its surface combatant
within civilian traffic.
That the Marines didn't upgrade Harpoon IC to II+ or SLAM-ER* is, in my view, pretty telling.
* You do see the occasional photo of USCM F/A-18s with it.