>Medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) launches, arcs up like a normal BM.
>It’s packing a cluster of air-to-air missiles (think cut-down AIM-120s, METEORs, or PL-15s) as MIRV-style reentry vehicles.
>Gets close to the target (AWACS, tanker, etc., with fighter escorts), pops open, and unleashes the AAMs.
>Each AAM locks on with its own radar/seeker, going for the HVA and its escorts. Total chaos, escorts can’t cover everything.
>Stupid long range (1000km+)
>Ballistic trajectory = sneaky, hard to predict until it’s too late.
>Multiple AAMs could clown on escorts, letting at least one slip through to the HVA.

Could the MIRV concept be used to create an AABM (antiair ballistic missile) to kill high-value air targets like AWACS or tankers from 1000km+ away?

If it were developed by people that measure CEP inside a meter, sure. For the countries I know you're implying, no.

>>63903962 (OP)
>MRBM
Not how these things work guy. A single AA missile is a MRBM you dipshit.

>>63903962 (OP)
>Ballistic trajectory = sneaky, hard to predict until it’s too late
you utter fucking moron

>>63903962 (OP)
The US was looking at this concept (somewhat) in the 80s-90s during the Cold War to destroy Soviet/Russian bomber squadrons coming to attack CSGs. It was called Ballistic Intercept Missile and would've used a MRBM with a Maneuvering Reentry Vehicle (MaRV) that had a radar array on the MaRV. It would fly in a depressed trajectory guided by offboard sensors using Link16, then go active using its onboard radar when close to the target for terminal guidance, diving down onto the Soviet/Russian bomber formation and destroy them with its little nuke warhead. Sandia SWERVE MaRV and Raytheon LORAINE radar where flight tested, but never went further.

>>63903962 (OP)
it probably could. it's just that to have the capability you're describing, you're thinking less MRBM's and closer to IRBM's(pendantic as that may be). there are some extreme-range SAM's already, but to have the lift required for multiple warheads, you're talking about something that stretches into the IRBM territory. IRBM's already cause a panic if you don't know what they are when they launch, because they look a lot like nuclear ICBM, so you'd have to warn any nuclear-equipped countries you're launching the weapon each time, which might defeat the purpose.

now the real struggle would be depending on the actual velocity and maneuverability of each re-entry vehicle, the missiles might be easy to defeat, and have a hard time maintaining lock while they go pitbull on targets if they're too high into the atmosphere, as aerothermal heating can interfere with their ability to maintain locks and communication, meaning there's a risk that a missile could heat up on re-entry, lose lock, and re-acquire the target too late to adequately correct it's intercept. it's almost enough that i'd say a central system guiding each missile, either launched by the MBRM and kept briefly orbital to guide the others, or integrated via data-link would be warranted.

the downside to this system would definitely be cost, given that you're going to have to put some serious radars in the warheads in order to be able to reach down through the atmosphere, filter out the ground clutter, and then track and decide targets as the warhead approaches, or a large, irrecoverable central AESA in the missile. then you actually have to hit the fucking thing, in flight, while it tries to maneuver, while going much faster than most missiles ever could, making it's maneuverability shit.

a pilot aware of the incoming threat could bleed a lot of energy forcing the incoming threat to maneuver, and cause it to lose too much energy to be able to complete the intercept. fun concept though.

>>63904049
fugg, meant to attach this too because i'm guessing the idea came up thinking about oreshniks. but honestly this anti-AWACS/tanker role is something that the R-37M and PL-17(if it's not just a PL-15 in a hat) should be fulfilling in most cases. this is because while tankers might be operating so far back as to not really be an actual target, AWACS must generally be much closer than a tanker ever has to be.

>>63904002
Sneaky in the sense that the enemy won't expect that this missile is going after the aircraft themselves, since ballistic missiles have all been ground to ground, thus

>>63903962 (OP)
Probably but before you start building a missile shotgun realize that putting 10 missiles into a larger missile just creates a really expensive missile and that most of those missiles are just going to splash down somewhere.

>>63904333
Not If you're launching onto a target rich environment, such as the environment close to tankers, cargo planes, AWACS... Where they're accompanied by escorts.

>>63904049
Iran's air force got destroyed when they were still on the ground, leaving their skies wide open for IAF aircraft, tankers and AWACS to run the show. If Iran had such an MRBM/AABM, they could've clapped back hard, hitting Israeli high value air assets and disrupting their air superiority. Look at history, Germans smoked the French air force on the ground during the Ardennes Blitz, and Japan did the same to US planes in the Philippines. Having such a missile, gives you a fighting chance to screw up the enemy's air force's game plan even after your air force got toast on the ground due to a sneak attack.

>>63904520
I like how you addressed none of the points about the severe engineering challenges made in anons post and instead retreated back into your midwit fantasyland of "in my headcanon everything works 100% and it would be so cool to clap aircraft from low earth orbit"
this post was brought to you by Why Dont We Just Engineering, a subsidiary of Ideas Guy Inc.

>>63903962 (OP)
/k/, what is the maximum yield/physics pkg. that can fit in a re-entry MIRV warhead? Asking for a friend.

>>63904089
>Oreshnik Missile

State of the Art.

>>63905441
Put PL-15s inside as reentry vehicles since they actually have AESA seekers.

you'll need too much sensor integration to make sure you don't waste an expensive missile to do this. probably too much effort required when it'd be better to just use longer ranged missiles fired from the birds.

it's better to use irbms to destroy airbases. cluster warheads from a marv dropping lots of darts with he charges prior to high altitude interceptors seems to be the best way to do it. local air defense can't stop them, and saturating the base is possible (most things will be hit by frag and the darts can punch through hardened hangars).

>>63907070
What if a large part air force has been fully wiped out while on the ground like the Iranian Air Force was (or during Battle of France and the fall of the Philippines). It is well known that the main role of the Chinese Rocket Force is to destroy US airbases in the Pacific. In this situation you could rely on such a missile as back up to degrade enemy air ops and delay/deny their full air superiority until your surviving air frames could regroup and reorganize. It would serve as back up the same way TEL and SLBMs are for nuclear deterrence in case your nuclear silos and bombers get destroyed in an initial surprise attack.

>>63904436
The formations are not that tight.

>>63907124
MIRV RVs are supposed to strike different cities that are close by, simultaneously.

>>63907068
>they actually have AESA seekers
A shitty chinsect made one.

>>63907220
Good enough to bypass the french SPECTRA

>>63907260
Proofs?

>>63907271
The Rafales shot down by PAF, unless you're pajeet, then not a single aircraft was lost that night

this exists so why not

>>63907347
That's just multiple hit probability for one aircraft. Why not design a missile to explode ahead of an aircraft and disperse a thick field of metal balls that will get sucked into the jet engines or a dense net of micro drones with like 5 grams of RDX each that will get sucked into a jet engine?

>>63903962 (OP)
No. Go sit in the corner, dumbass.

>>63903962 (OP)
>>63907347
Similar concept to what the Decepticons used in the Transformers movies.

If they're doing it, you're on the right track. It's alien tech.

>>63903962 (OP)
A2A missiles don't work so good without initial guidance and the MIRV module probably can't fit a radar accurate enough for combat. You'd need a spotter to feed the missiles target data as they enter the atmosphere.

>>63903962 (OP)
> highly observable, predictable ballistic trajectory
> plasma sheath blocking radar
> long flight time, insufficient maneuverability for moving targets
Most of your points are wrong or illogical. I doubt it would even work for ships. They'd just move out of possible downrange 15 minutes before reentry.

Maybe, just maybe a hyper-sonic fletchette debris cloud over an airbase or similar target might work as they'd could be too small to track after dispersal in space.

>>63903962 (OP)
Given the accuracy constraints medium range AAM-armed reentry vehicles would have, you are not going to be getting many hits at all relative to the amount of missiles you're blasting off. If that was a use of missiles then you would have L-band radars being used for datalink guidance far more often since it would basically cancel stealth if missiles were as able to area search as effectively as you assume (L-band is resolution limited). That is clearly not the case so the whole thing just seems like wasting a lot of AAMs for a poor chance of hit

>>63905604
5MT.

>>63903962 (OP)
>Medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) launches, arcs up like a normal BM.
>It’s packing a cluster of air-to-air missiles (think cut-down AIM-120s, METEORs, or PL-15s) as MIRV-style reentry vehicles.
>Gets close to the target (AWACS, tanker, etc., with fighter escorts), pops open, and unleashes the AAMs
>In the 20 minute flight time, the intendant targets have moved out of range.
Well hell, that was a waste. Stay in school, o/p.