Ford SIAM (Self Initiated Anti-Aircraft Missile) / SUBADS

Ford SIAM (Self Initiated Anti-Aircraft Missile) or SUBADS (Submarine Air-Defense System)


...1970s DARPA SIAM project, which was short for Self-Initiated Anti-Aircraft Missile. The idea was to develop a completely autonomous air-defense missile. One of the most obvious purposes was for use onboard submarines. The submarine can hear the aircraft or helicopter as it approached since the sound propagates through the water. The submarine could then launch a SIAM buoy to the surface, where the missile would automatically detect and attack any incoming aircraft. It was also theorized that SIAM could be launched vertically from the submarine itself. SIAM was tested in the early 1980s and was generally successful. DARPA handed SIAM over to the Navy, where it was deactivated due to funding.

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http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=6443

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/630072-QzTKbd/webviewable/630072.pdf

I'd have sworn there was already a thread for this one.

Reminds me on the discussion we had about the "Water Piercing Missile":
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,16516.15.html

It's sort of like CAPTOR for ASW aircraft and helos, isn't it?

Kinda, sorta, but no sign this was supposed to lie in wait like a mine for any great length of time. That would create a rather high risk much of blowing up a friendly plane. Its just a system by which an IR missile can be deployed without direct human intervention while the sub tries to escape. Much better idea then MANPADS launchers on a periscope.


Now, on land, when you have defined battle lines ect.... and already have SAM free fire zones, some rigs were tested created to allow IR homing MANPADS to be deployed exactly as CAPTOR like mines, generally with some kind of secondary acoustical or wide angle IR sensor that uncaged the missile seeker and activated the firing mechanism just as CAPTOR has a small sonar to trigger the torpedo launch. These could indeed could be left to lie in wait in a mine like fashion for protracted periods. That led line of thinking led into dedicated anti helicopter mines near the end of the Cold War which would be much cheaper then a MANPADS on a tripod by using an aimable EFP as the warhead instead of a whole missile. I don't think any such weapon was ever mass produced. The US Army project was working on one which would be artillery scattered no less.

Your comment about the risk of friendly fire is well taken, but I'm thinking more along the line of leaving something in wait for helos or ASW aircraft which you KNOW will be dragging MAD probes or dropping buoy lines (or worse, ASW torps or charges) across your position in the next five to ten minutes, as opposed to leaving something floating in the water for whatever might blunder through in hours to days.

That's not very much like CAPTOR at all. CAPTOR was an interdiction weapon; it was meant to be active for a long time (months) after being laid.

SIAM was intended to be launched only after you knew a hostile ASW aircraft was hunting you, and its search element would go active as soon as it hit the surface. No matter how carefully it was done, launching a SIAM capsule would create a launch transient, so it would only be used if it was clear that the hunters were tracking you anyway. The likely SOP would be to kick one overboard and run away from the hunter (clear datum) fast as soon as it went active, then go back to being stealthy again after the hunter was dead (or had at least lost contact while evading the missile).

TomS said:

That's not very much like CAPTOR at all. CAPTOR was an interdiction weapon; it was meant to be active for a long time (months) after being laid.

SIAM was intended to be launched only after you knew a hostile ASW aircraft was hunting you, and its search element would go active as soon as it hit the surface. No matter how carefully it was done, launching a SIAM capsule would create a launch transient, so it would only be used if it was clear that the hunters were tracking you anyway. The likely SOP would be to kick one overboard and run away from the hunter (clear datum) fast as soon as it went active, then go back to being stealthy again after the hunter was dead (or had at least lost contact while evading the missile).

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There does seem to be the potential to lay a field of bobbing SIAMs to deny enemy low altitude airspace over some waterway or sea.

Let me clarify. Mechanically it's like CAPTOR - I accept the tactical usage is very different, but the principle of you dropping it overboard and going elsewhere while it does its job is much the same.


Of course it does open up the possibility of a class of submarine carrying fairly large numbers of these things and offering itself as bait for enemy ASW aircraft (fixed or rotary wing), specifically to lure them in and destroy them. That, plus large numbers of torpedo reloads to fire at surface ships and other subs. You'd need a captain and a crew with nerves of steel and balls of tungsten, who were prepared to take their chances and possibly not come back home, but think of the hole you could make in an enemy's ASW assets (and the panic you could create) if you took a proactive approach and shot at everything in sight instead of skulking and lying in wait.

Now add an airstrike or two and a couple of waves of SSMs to that, and you could give an enemy admiral a lot of headaches.

A class of submarine to lay anti aircraft mines? Just send out a patrol plane with air to air missiles and an air search radar mode for 1/10th the cost and ten times the effectiveness of the sub. Especially today wen both sonar buoys and torpedoes can be dropped from high altitude, and nobody really uses MAD anymore, better and cheaper active sonar buoys took over that job, making a weapon like SIAM effective only against helicopters. You'd also only even be able to use the mines reasonably in shallow water, because of the need to moor them.


Ideas that nobody ever adapted tend to have good reasons why nobody ever adapted them.

pathology_doc said:

Let me clarify. Mechanically it's like CAPTOR - I accept the tactical usage is very different, but the principle of you dropping it overboard and going elsewhere while it does its job is much the same.


Of course it does open up the possibility of a class of submarine carrying fairly large numbers of these things and offering itself as bait for enemy ASW aircraft (fixed or rotary wing), specifically to lure them in and destroy them. That, plus large numbers of torpedo reloads to fire at surface ships and other subs. You'd need a captain and a crew with nerves of steel and balls of tungsten, who were prepared to take their chances and possibly not come back home, but think of the hole you could make in an enemy's ASW assets (and the panic you could create) if you took a proactive approach and shot at everything in sight instead of skulking and lying in wait.

Now add an airstrike or two and a couple of waves of SSMs to that, and you could give an enemy admiral a lot of headaches.

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Maybe as an Ultra-Large UUV, not a manned sub. Subs prefer things like Mk67 SLMM over basic mines. Though if something like SIADs could be packed into a Mk37 torpedo body and sent away, that would probably be the ideal CONOPS. Get the Flaming Datum well away from where the sub actually is in the first place.