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From: dnwiebe@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan N Wiebe)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: British ALARM
Message-ID: <1991Feb8.012201.15108@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 8 Feb 91 01:22:01 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: dnwiebe@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan N Wiebe)


	I recently purchased Accolade's Strike Aces attack-aircraft
simulator for the PC.  One of the weapons available for use is the British
(I think) ALARM, which is expanded as Advanced Loitering Anti-Radiation
Missile.  (But then, they expand HARM as Homing (rather than High-speed)
Anti-Radiation Missile, so take it with a grain of salt.)
	This missile is described to work as follows: the pilot of the
strike aircraft fires the missile in no particular direction.  The first
stage of the two-stage solid-fuel rocket motor ignites and propels the
missile straight up to some ungodly height (100,000ft?) and drops off.
The rest of the missile then pops a parachute and hangs nose-down, drifting
slowly down over the target area and listening for hostile radar emissions.
When it hears one, it cuts the chute loose, lights up its second stage,
and homes in for the kill.
	Does this weapon exist?  If so, does anyone know its alphanumeric
designation?  I can think of several problems with the feasibility of a
concept like this, and if the weapon does exist I'd be interested to know
how the problems are overcome.
	How, for example, would the missile tell a friendly radar from a
hostile one?  How would it tell a mobile (aircraft) radar from a fixed
one?  (By the time it gets down from 100Kft, even with rocket assist, it
seems to me like an aircraft radar might be out of the area; even if it
wasn't, it might be turned off, leaving the missile with nothing to home
on (location memorization wouldn't work).)  If five missiles were launched
for five radars, how would you keep several from homing in on the same
unit?  Also, aircraft flying at low altitude are generally under some
fairly strict time constraints to accomplish their mission, and the ALARM
must take some appreciable time to get up to 100Kft and back down again,
even if it finds a target immediately.  Seems it would be more economical
to eliminate the missile's first stage and drop it instead from a
high-altitude aircraft (out of SAM and AAA range) some minutes before a low-
level strike by other aircraft.

Shalom,
Dan Wiebe
dnw@rsch.oclc.org