Re: GMS Air

Ryan M Gill wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Los wrote:
> But hellfire is not powered in its downward phase towards its target.
It
> is also a laser guided missile. If the target you are shooting at is
> aware that it is being painted, expect smoke and other countermeasures
> including some really harsh maneuvers. A helicopter is likely to try
to
> find some firm cover. Good luck keeping your GLD pointed on the
target.
>

What part of the term "fire and forget" don't you understand? You don't
have to paint
the target for it's entire flight you only have to paint it momentarily
for lock on
either with laser or millimeter wave  fire control radar (AGM114IIR).
Hence you have
the ability to either to a LOBL "lock on before launch" or LOAL "Lock on
after
launch" and then fire & forget. The missiles can even be desiganted for
lock on by
other targets.) Oh and by the way if you "carefully" read the blurb
quoted	from
Janes you would see that the specs called for a capability to "hit
maneuvering
targets at up to 20deg to the right and left of launch azimuth at
distances up to
1000m of the firing platform" with an overall range of 8000 meters (BTW
that's more
thana  shoudler fired STINGER) anything being enageed within those
paraneters would
be dealing with a HELLFIRE under powered flight. Those parameters also
mean that the
missile was designed to include a hip pocket shot against dangerous
targets of
opportunity. NOte that of course the both US attack helicopters carry
purpose built
AAMs to enagage fast nmovers anyway. (Stinger for Apache, much more
capable(and
expensive) AIM9M for Cobra)

>
> I'd think that the reason for the maneuverability was to allow hand
off
> shots from aircraft further back.
>
> > Absolutely correct. That's why you have specialist weapons though
popeye's
> > point still stands. Teh HELLFIRE has a multirole capability.
>
> The selfdefence weapons for the helecopters has not been helfire, it
has
> typically been a variant of a fire and forget weapon like Stinger.
>

Yes that is what the sentence above (Cut off in your quote)
acknowledged.

Los