PLA Anti-Air Missile (SAM) systems

AndrewS said:

I think this is due to the HQ-9's heritage from the S-300, back when the USSR was significantly lagging in terms of terminal guidance electronics, so they made up for this with a larger warhead. Of course, this resulted in a bigger overall missile.

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No. More like those missiles are also sized for nuclear mission tbh. You see it's a common practice for Soviet Long range SAM's.. S-75, S-200 and naturally S-300P and S-300V may have nuclear mission in mind, this demand spaces and weight. The other consideration is increased charge to mass ratio to help against ballistic targets, producing faster fragment velocity and maybe carry heavier fragments, might not be help as much but as you see from 48N6 to 48N6DM/E3 for S-400, the warhead is only increase.

Terminal guidance etc.. well S-300P was significant departure from old Soviet practices. Monopulse, Phased array radar, use of solid state electronics. I suggest you read about Raspletin, the general designer for Almaz (used to be MKB Strela).

The only system you might be correct in your assertion is S-75/Sa-2 where the radar is a conical scan type. This subject to target scintillation phenomenon, as the radar "sweep" around the target it will illuminate different parts of it, creating scintillation or rapid change of observed RCS. This caused inaccuracy of the command guidance, thus necessitating large warhead for S-75 missiles.

Stealthflanker said:

No. More like those missiles are also sized for nuclear mission tbh. You see it's a common practice for Soviet Long range SAM's.. S-75, S-200 and naturally S-300P and S-300V may have nuclear mission in mind, this demand spaces and weight. The other consideration is increased charge to mass ratio to help against ballistic targets, producing faster fragment velocity and maybe carry heavier fragments, might not be help as much but as you see from 48N6 to 48N6DM/E3 for S-400, the warhead is only increase.

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What do you mean by nuclear mission?

AndrewS said:

What do you mean by nuclear mission?

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Well nuclear tipped SAM's.

There apparently a variant of 5V55 missile which is nuclear tipped. The 5V55S and 6Zh48.

Stealthflanker said:

Well nuclear tipped SAM's.

There apparently a variant of 5V55 missile which is nuclear tipped. The 5V55S and 6Zh48.

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Ok

But the original point still stands, which is that the original HQ-9 missile is oversized compared to today's SAMs.

AndrewS said:

Ok

But the original point still stands, which is that the original HQ-9 missile is oversized compared to today's SAMs.

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One way to look at it.
Other is that sm-6 Ib is only being developed now to reach the same level of multirole capability.

P.s. ii may be wrong, but reason for large warhead on s-300 was navy requirement to replace Storm, be it with conventional or special warhead.

Gloire_bb said:

One way to look at it.
Other is that sm-6 Ib is only being developed now to reach the same level of multirole capability.

P.s. ii may be wrong, but reason for large warhead on s-300 was navy requirement to replace Storm, be it with conventional or special warhead.

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My opinion is that adding anti-ship capability to the SM-6 is a mistake.
It costs $5 Mn per missile and only has a 64kg warhead.

A dedicated antiship missile should cost half? and have a much larger warhead.

AndrewS said:

My opinion is that adding anti-ship capability to the SM-6 is a mistake.
It costs $5 Mn per missile and only has a 64kg warhead.

A dedicated antiship missile should cost half? and have a much larger warhead.

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64kg is still significant, especially as airburst and/or delayed at high speed.
If Ib will reach s-300/hq-9 values (150-180) - it will become heavier than NSM, for example.

It's pretty much secondary or residual. It behave pretty much like anti ship ballistic missile also limited sets of trajectory.

Stealthflanker said:

It's pretty much secondary or residual. It behave pretty much like anti ship ballistic missile also limited sets of trajectory.

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Compare what we know of the SM-6 and the dedicated YJ-21 ASBM launched from the Type-055. The caveat is that the YJ-21 is likely a significantly larger missile.

The YJ-21 has a range of 1500? Km and a terminal speed of Mach 10?
In ASBM mode, the SM-6 has a range of 500? km and a maximum speed of Mach 3.5

A missile travelling at Mach 3.5 is a lot easier to hit than one at Mach 10.
With these numbers, there is a 8x difference in kinetic energy for the same mass.

SM-6(or any big SAM for full cell) with 21" booster won't really lose to ballistic missiles in energy part, it's a hypersonic weapon by itself. Sm-3 with same booster almost reaches medium orbits with enough Vterminal for collision course intercept.
Seeker will be less optimal (or too expensive) for ground/antiship use, and warhead will still be weaker.

Terminal mach 10 is unlikely for any weapon, it takes insane heat resistance and insanely powerful engine working for the whole flight.


But. You don't have to choose between sm-6, sm-6 and sm-6; only asrocs are completely unique in their function(unless your sams are nuclear, hah).
With dedicated missile in uvls, you actually have to choose and risk running out of something first.
Basically, IMHO at least, for uvls ships(destroyers), large dual-purpose missiles are the way to go.

Dedicated weapons make more sense on smaller strike ships with split cell types (using some really large cells at the expense of much smaller others).