by DAVID AXE
With a clutch of new long-range air-to-air missiles (LRAAMs) with ranges of 300 km or more, U.S. forces could dramatically shift the aerial balance of power over the Western Pacific.
Traveling at least twice as far as existing U.S. missiles, the U.S. Navy’s new AIM-174 and AIM-424 and the joint U.S. Air Force and Navy AIM-260 promise to extend the outermost ring of aerial defenses surrounding American and allied warships, air bases, headquarters and front-line ground forces.
Adding range to a missile is easier said than done, as it usually means installing a bigger and pricier rocket motor. A bigger motor may then require a bigger and pricier missile body.
The investment should pay off. Firing better missiles farther, USN and USAF fighters could shoot down many Chinese air force and navy fighters and bombers before those targets could launch their own missiles.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of this development. As recently as a couple of years ago, the Chinese military was winning the race for farther-flying jets and munitions. With three new LRAAMs, the Americans are poised to sprint ahead. And they could take any willing allies with them.
At the height of the Cold War, starting in the late 1950s, the Soviet navy began deploying hundreds of heavy bombers armed with anti-ship cruise missiles ranging hundreds of kilometers. The bombers represented an existential threat to USN aircraft carriers.
That changed in 1974 with the first front-line cruise of the U.S. Navy’s Grumman F-14 Tomcat. The F-14 ranged farther than the fighters it replaced, and its AIM-54 Phoenix missiles ranged farther than the missiles they replaced.
Targeting was and still is a challenge. The F-14 and AIM-54 worked because the fighter packed a powerful radar system, the AWG-9, and also had help from Grumman E-2 Hawkeye radar early warning planes. Today, LRAAMs work because fighters can tap wide-ranging sensor networks, including satellites.
Read the rest at The Strategist.
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„they could take any willing allies with them“ - I wish we all could live in the vanished world you are still living in - the US will never fight against China and they will sell their allies by the pound. Actually, these missiles are rather a threat to Canada and Europe than to anyone else.