I have more time to research on the weapons described in the essay.
(1) Naval Strike Missile
(a) Naval Strike Missile. Raytheon, undated
https://www.raytheonmissilesandd ... aval-strike-missile
("Raytheon Missiles & Defense has teamed with the Norwegian defense company Kongsberg Defence Aerospace to bring the fifth-generation missile stateside")
Technology and most assembly are in Kongsberg, Norway.
(b) I found a Web page from Kongsberg that says, "The missile is completely passive, has proven its excellent sea-skimming capabilities and with its advanced terminal manoeuvres, it will survive the enemy air defences. The Autonomous Target Recognition (ATR) of the seeker ensures that the correct target is detected, recognized and hit, at sea or on land."
NSM™ NAVAL STRIKE MISSILE (NSM); NSM provides superior operational performance and high survivability against all enemy soft and hard kill defence systems. Kongsberg, undated
https://www.kongsberg.com/kda/pr ... strike-missile-nsm/
(i) missile guidance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_guidance
(section 3 GOT [go-onto-target] systems: section 3.1 Remote control guidance + section 3.2 Homing guidance (section 3.2.2 Radar homing 3.2.2.1 Active homing, section 3.2.2.2 Semi-active homing, section 3.2.3 Passive homing), section 4 GOLIS [go-onto-location-in-space] systems)
In the active homing, the missile head has a radar to detect target (with bounced back electromagnetic radiation); in semiactive homing, radar is provided by a nearby, say, drone -- presence of the radar makes a missile relying on both either active or semiactive susceptible to detection. A missile with passive homing has an infrared sensor (at the final stage, after relying on, usually, GOLIS system).
(ii) David B Larter, It's official: The US Navy Has a New Ship Killer Missile. Defense News, June 1, 2018
https://nationalinterest.org/blo ... ike-missiles-184679
(" * * * destined for the littoral combat ship and likely the service's future frigate [to date, US Navy has no plan for any other ship or submarine yet] as well. The NSM, which was a joint submission between Kongsberg and Raytheon, was widely expected to win the competition after its main competitors — Boeing’s extended range Harpoon and Lockheed Martin’s Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile — dropped from contention. Both companies felt the competition was skewed towards the Raytheon/Kongsberg offering, Defense News reported last May [by Christopher P Cavas on May 24, 2017]")
(iii) comparison with Harpoon (which US sold several batches to Taiwan throug decades)
(A) Charlie Gao, Why the Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile’s Days are Numbered; Could the Naval Strike Missile replace it? National Interest, Mar 27, 2021 (blog)https://nationalinterest.org/blo ... n-anti-ship-missile’s-days-are-numbered-181235
https://nationalinterest.org/blo ... are-numbered-181235
("But the Harpoon is still being purchased and upgraded. The new Harpoon Block II+ performed well at RIMPAC 2018 and is set to be procured into the near future. * * * First of all, the NSM is smaller and lighter than the Harpoon. The Harpoon weighs in at almost 700kg for its surface-launched variant. The NSM is only 407 kg. These weight difference also applies to the warheads; the Harpoon has a massive 224kg warhead to the NSM’s 100kg. However, the NSM is designed to have a programmable fuze that can select the best mode of detonation per target, as opposed to the Harpoon that simply uses a time-delayed contact fuze. * * * Moving onto the guidance, the NSM uses a high-resolution infrared seeker to home in on specific portions of the ship. Guidance before the terminal stage is accomplished with inertial guidance, so the missile is not reliant on GPS and other technologies. Conversely, the Harpoon has always had inertial guidance, but recent variants have added on GPS capability to allow the missile to navigate more accurately. Terminal guidance is provided with an active radar seeker that’s harder to jam and spoof, but less precise than an IR seeker. The NSM though has some significant advantages that the Harpoon does not. The missile is said to be low observable [see (B) next], which combined with the completely passive infrared terminal mode may reduce the chances for an enemy ship to detect and react to the missile
• fuse
(noun 1; First Known Use 1848): "an electrical safety device consisting of or including a wire or strip of fusible metal that melts and interrupts the circuit when the current exceeds a particular amperage"
(noun 2; less commonly fuze; First Known Use in "1:" 1644):
"1: a continuous train of a combustible substance enclosed in a cord or cable for setting off an explosive charge by transmitting fire to it;
2: a mechanical or electrical detonating device for setting off the bursting charge of a projectile, bomb, or torpedo"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fuse
• For time-delayed contact fuze, see
Ordnance fuze time delay mechanism
https://patents.justia.com/patent/4013013
(table at the bottom: Patent number: 4013013, Filed: Nov 12, 1975, Date of Patent: Mar 22, 1977, Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force (Washington, DC), Inventor: Dale N Davis [he worked for Air Force] (Freeport, FL) )
the first four consecutive paragraphs:
"It becomes necessary in many instances to destroy or disarm thin skinned material targets such as aircraft or the like which are capable of surviving the explosive force of most conventional weapons. There are two basis elements which must be considered in defeating such a target. First, it is necessary for the housing of the projectile to be of sufficient strength to pierce the protective shield of the target and second, the explosive action of the projectile must be capable of destroying the components located behind the skin of the target after such perforation. Merely punching a hole in the skin, in many instances, does not constitute a defeat or disablement of the aircraft.
"Antiaircraft missiles or projectiles will generally detonate upon impact with the target such as an airplane, generally causing damage to the external configuration of the aircraft without doing substantial damage to the interior thereof. It is therefore desirable to incorporate in anti aircraft projectiles and the like a delay which will permit the missile to penetrate the target before the main explosive charge is detonated thereby effecting maximum damage to the target.
"The fuze is the mechanism utilized for igniting or detonating the bursting charge of such a projectile and performs this function upon impact of the projectile with any substantially rigid object, or in the case of a delay action fuze, at a predetermined time thereafter. * * *
"The desired delay time which is necessary in the anti aircraft missiles or projectiles as set forth hereinabove is in the order of 0.25 milliseconds.
(B) Sebastien Roblin, Navy Littoral Combat Ships Are Getting Norwegian Naval Strike Missiles. National Interest, May 1, 2021 (blog)
https://nationalinterest.org/blo ... are-numbered-181235
quote:
"A Naval Strike Missile measures about 4 meters long and weighs 880 pounds, including a 276-pound fragmentation warhead. That makes it a lightweight anti-ship missiles compared to the 488-lb warhead on the venerable Harpoon, or the 1,000-pound warhead on the sophisticated LRASM stealth cruise missile. However, lighter weapons are an easier fit for smaller ships than big missiles that require large vertical launch systems and lack powerful sensors that can detect very distant targets anyway.
"At $2.2 million per missile, the NSM costs over 57 percent more than a $1.4 million Harpoon Block II missile but has a proportionately greater range of 115 miles. Furthermore, the NSM's sensors and stealth characteristics theoretically make it more likely to hit a designated target.
"Like the Harpoon, the NSM uses a solid-fuel rocket booster to leap off a ship-based launcher, then discards the booster and switches to a turbojet engine slung on its back as it skims low over the water to minimize radar detection range at speeds between 537 and 690 miles per hour [subsonic: that is all you have to know]. To avoid the formidable air defense umbrella protecting modern warships, NSMs are shaped to have a reduced radar cross-section, and are built out of non-reflective composite materials. Furthermore, in their terminal approach phase the missiles perform randomized banking maneuvers to evade the target's close defense weapons.
• AGM-158C LRASM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-158C_LRASM
(Long Range Anti-Ship Missile; table: In service 2018 to present, Designer DARPA, Manufacturer Lockheed Martin, Maximum speed High-subsonic, Launch platform Aircraft or Surface vessels: via Mark 41 Vertical Launching System)
• "a proportionately greater range of 115 miles"
But see Harpoon (missile)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_(missile)
Table: Operational range 67 nautical miles or greater, ship-launched Harpoon Block II; 150 nmi (280 km), Block IIER [extended range])
• "randomized banking"
For bank, see flight dynamics (fixed-wing aircraft)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_dynamics_(fixed-wing_aircraft)
("The roll angle is also known as bank angle on a fixed-wing aircraft, which usually 'banks' to change the horizontal direction of flight")
|