AIM-174 Very Long Range AAM (SM-6)

[Ainen]

Bears are not the issue. PRC satellites are.

Satellites, their shoot down/replenish in direct war between big militaries are a rather unknown quantity.

Their ability to generate reliable target level tracks when respective constellations are actively engaged is under a big question mark.

Same is true for OtH systems - convenient during peacetime, juicy and obvious high priority objectives during war.

 

[Josh_TN]

PRC satellites already exist in numbers that are impractical to shoot down, though there may be soft kill mechanisms available.

 

[Scott Kenny]

PRC satellites already exist in numbers that are impractical to shoot down, though there may be soft kill mechanisms available.

For example, it may prove feasible to jam the downlinks. Just basic barrage jamming, drowning out the signals from the satellites.

(I'm assuming this would involve jammer satellites mixed into the various constellations)

 

[Ainen]

PRC satellites already exist in numbers that are impractical to shoot down, though there may be soft kill mechanisms available.

High orbit ones are valuable and rare.
Low orbit ones can be destroyed by CSG itself, establishing sufficient window of ambiguity.
In a longer run, same developments that make large constellations viable - also make their destruction just as viable.

 

[totoro]

No side will be shooting down nor disabling other sides satellites in sufficient numbers. As was said above, we are past that point now. If that was so easy, do you think the US would be investing as much as it is investing in its own satellite constellations? I am not talking about just optical satellites, the US is literally replacing their ground monitoring aircraft with a constellation of satellites to do the GMTI mission. And who's to say how long it will pass before air surveillance will also be done via satellites, and not via AWACS planes?

 

[Ainen]

Because we don't live in a Warhammer 40k world. Global conflicts don't happen every so often.
But if you're talking about how cool it is to shoot at H-6 - this is part of the scheme.
Space is a war fighting domain, not the least due to US own interest of making it such.
Same dynamics that make constellations feasible make fighting them feasible as well, as well as give incentive to develop those counters.

 

[Josh_TN]

For example, it may prove feasible to jam the downlinks. Just basic barrage jamming, drowning out the signals from the satellites.

(I'm assuming this would involve jammer satellites mixed into the various constellations)

I think it would be easier to jam the uplink. A LEO satellite has to beam its data to a relay in a high orbit (GEO, Molniya,etc) using conventional satellite constellations, though massive constellations like Starlink can use the quicker and more secure alternative of cross linking across satellites in low orbit (ideally with lasers as Starlink does). Though I do not believe the PRC yet operates such a network and the initial deployment of a U.S. military system has been delayed several months until early next year.

I consider it likely that by end of decade their will be dual use / dedicated ECM satellites that attempt to jam navigation and down links over specific antenna farms or naval task forces, or potentially even over aircraft or missile groups.

 

[Josh_TN]

High orbit ones are valuable and rare.
Low orbit ones can be destroyed by CSG itself, establishing sufficient window of ambiguity.
In a longer run, same developments that make large constellations viable - also make their destruction just as viable.

There are already low hundreds of PRC satellites; shooting them out of the sky would not be politically, militarily, or even economically practical.

 

[Josh_TN]

No side will be shooting down nor disabling other sides satellites in sufficient numbers. As was said above, we are past that point now. If that was so easy, do you think the US would be investing as much as it is investing in its own satellite constellations? I am not talking about just optical satellites, the US is literally replacing their ground monitoring aircraft with a constellation of satellites to do the GMTI mission. And who's to say how long it will pass before air surveillance will also be done via satellites, and not via AWACS planes?

The GMTI* satellites are still on the horizon (hah!) but the U.S. has deployed 60+ ISR satellites in just the last several months with several more launches this year. About a dozen launches will place >170 Incr1 SDA satellites in orbit next year. China placed about a hundred military payloads in orbit in 2022 and 2023 each. Physically shooting down these quantities likely is not even possible, certainly not without creating a massive collision hazard for everything in low earth orbit.

*IMO it seems likely GMTI just becomes MTI and has a limited aircraft tracking ability from the initial deployment. The LEO missile tracking constellation probably also would have a limited ability to detect , or even track, fast moving or afterburning aircraft.

 

[FighterJock]

It is amazing that countries are even considering shooting down satellites from space, the US tried it once with the AIM-135 ASAT missile and never tried it again.

 

[Ainen]

There are already low hundreds of PRC satellites; shooting them out of the sky would not be politically, militarily, or even economically practical.

In case of war, those are targets the same way reconnaissance planes are.
Yes, they're annoying to cleanse with earth-based interceptors(though by no means a temporary "blank" in coverage and/or transmission can not be created).
That just means that primary means of combating LEO sensor layer should be different, i.e. various forms of multi-kill vehicles.

 

[Josh_TN]

Because we don't live in a Warhammer 40k world. Global conflicts don't happen every so often.
But if you're talking about how cool it is to shoot at H-6 - this is part of the scheme.
Space is a war fighting domain, not the least due to US own interest of making it such.
Same dynamics that make constellations feasible make fighting them feasible as well, as well as give incentive to develop those counters.

I think there will be counters but that they will largely be electronic from in orbit platforms. If they are physical in nature, they probably would involve destructive techniques that at least leave satellites intact - coating/burning sensors, solar panels, or antenna or using high powered microwaves.

 

[Josh_TN]

It is amazing that countries are even considering shooting down satellites from space, the US tried it once with the AIM-135 ASAT missile and never tried it again.

The U.S. also shot down USA 193 specifically with an SM-3, which gets us back on topic (almost).

 

[FighterJock]

Thanks Josh_TN, I had forgoten that they did that.

 

[Firefinder]

China and India did so as well within the last ten years.


But honestly the bigger question is how much uptime the Sats have over the Theater

Cause unless you have alot of sats, talking Dove Constellation size here, in LEO or a couple BIG ONEs like the school bus Hexagons in Geo.

Which China doesn't and even the US Struggles to do.

Its fairy easy to dodge recon satellites, and still possible to do so with the above in play.

 

[totoro]

The US does have the dove satellite constellation (200+ active ones currently?) . NRO office has a contract with planet labs even now and you can bet that in wartime those satellites would be heavily leveraged as well.

Dod has been launching relatively few spy sats of their own precisely because of access to the commerical satellite fleets. This has been going in for some years now.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I think it would be easier to jam the uplink.

Could be, I'm not a twidget/sparky.

I agree that by the end of the decade there will be EW satellites up there, assuming that they aren't already up!

 

[Josh_TN]

Could be, I'm not a twidget/sparky.

I agree that by the end of the decade there will be EW satellites up there, assuming that they aren't already up!

I wonder if any phased array UHF of L band frequency agile “communications” satellites are not in fact jammers waiting for a ground based AI to organize them effectively against specific targets, using a similar hand off technology that enables constant reception. If a couple hundred satellites could, when in range of a specific target, maintain a dozen satellites beaming energy at specific targets…well that might a thing. Especially if organized by an AI so that the only thought ground control has to make is target priority.

There is a real chance that the winner of great power conflicts going forward is the side that can best militarize space. Jamming the entire world’s navigation in the L band would not require a sophisticated LEO constellation given the inverse square relationship between power and altitude.

 

[MihoshiK]

With the strides in laser tech one should not be surprised if someone whips out an ASAT laser array in the coming decade. Especially if it's a land-based design.

 

[sferrin]

With the strides in laser tech one should not be surprised if someone whips out an ASAT laser array in the coming decade. Especially if it's a land-based design.

They could have done that decades ago as both the US and USSR were testing megawatt class chemical lasers. They didn't. Maybe nobody wants to open than pandora's box, because you can be certain that five minutes after the first guy does it their adversary will be doing it.

 

[MihoshiK]

They could have done that decades ago as both the US and USSR were testing megawatt class chemical lasers. They didn't. Maybe nobody wants to open than pandora's box, because you can be certain that five minutes after the first guy does it their adversary will be doing it.

I was actually thinking about a distributed array, maybe even mobile. Just a fuckload of 100 kilowatt lasers on trucks that are centrally controlled.

 

[Josh_TN]

They could have done that decades ago as both the US and USSR were testing megawatt class chemical lasers. They didn't. Maybe nobody wants to open than pandora's box, because you can be certain that five minutes after the first guy does it their adversary will be doing it.

It seems more likely it just was not that effective, otherwise it would be a fairly ideal soft kill weapon (albeit with a lot of engagement limitations).

 

[sferrin]

I was actually thinking about a distributed array, maybe even mobile. Just a fuckload of 100 kilowatt lasers on trucks that are centrally controlled.

The point is it's been previously possible, but nobody decided to get on that train.

 

[Scott Kenny]

They could have done that decades ago as both the US and USSR were testing megawatt class chemical lasers. They didn't. Maybe nobody wants to open than pandora's box, because you can be certain that five minutes after the first guy does it their adversary will be doing it.

MIRACL had terrible spot size, 30cm at 3km or so.

That's not going to do anything more than annoy a satellite, temporarily blind it. Won't even raise the system temperatures any, because the spot size is going to be over 2 meters at orbital altitudes. (IIRC the Russians did that a couple of times. The US politely suggested that if the DSP satellites couldn't see, it'd be indication of an attack.)

 

[NMaude]

On a hunch I checked out to see if TWZ has its' own YT channel and it does, anyway TWZ has a video uploaded early this month about the SM-6:

The Navy has officially acknowledged the existence of a weapon we had posited was in development for years, an air-launched version of the hugely versatile, far reaching, and hard hitting ship-launched SM-6. Designated the AIM-174, this massive, F/A-18 Super Hornet-carried air-to-air weapon is by default longer-ranged than any other the U.S. has ever fielded. While it isn’t clear if the AIM-174 will also retain the SM-6’s secondary anti-ship and land attack capabilities, just what it could provide in the anti-air and possibly anti-ballistic missile roles could be truly revolutionary. Clearly built to take full advantage of the Pentagon’s emerging ‘kill webs,’ this is especially true when it comes to popping China’s vaunted anti-access bubble by going after its most prized force-multiplier assets. So, how exactly could this work and what does it bring to the table? We break it all down for you in detail.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:57 Developing the AIM-174
3:03 Employing the Navy’s Newest Missile
4:21 The Navy’s Air-to-Air Arsenal
6:51 Defending the Fleet
12:20 Pushing Back China’s Force Multipliers
16:12 Future Possibilities

Check out our article about the AIM-174 over on TWZ at https://www.twz.com/air/disclosure-of...