Lockheed Martin AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM)

[BDF]

Putting this here because the version of the image other people here have been using is like 10 pixels and hurts my eyes. Source for the presentation is here.View attachment 760650

you can see some sort of joint just above the base of the fins. I wonder if they're foldable? It may not mean anything but I find it interesting that they put that detail there...

 

[Ronny]

But mostall fighters operate both.

Much harder to do with chaff, the thing about flares is their affect spreads out across the seeker, with the sun itself being the ultimate flare, whereas chaff doesn't.

On the contrary,
Chaff does spread out accross the seeker too, in a significant greater degree compared to flare actually.
Firstly, chaff are group of thin metal strips. A single canister consist of thounsand of these strips, once released from aircraft, they will from a cloud even with a single canister.



Secondly, IIR has significantly greater angular accuracy compared to most RF seeker of the same size. That why IIR sensor allow you to see the detail shape of target while most RF seeker only show vague target as a point or vague shape at most. Radar seeker often have beamwidth on order of 0.5-1 degrees. So it is actually much harder (if not borderline impossible) for the radar beam to penetrate a wall of chaff to see target behind it.

Nevertheless, that wall of flares or chaff can hide your aircraft in second then what?. Aircraft are not stationary like a ship, it eventually will fly out of that wall, and the missile doesn’t stay still either. It will just moving forward and eventually pass through the wall too. The wall of flares/chaff are mostly useful for tank or ship as temporary “smoke screen”, since they can stay still behind it.

 

[bring_it_on]

Apparently, this was not the first time the Navy shared a JATM graphic. Brian Everstine from Aviation Week is aware of another from Tailhook presentation from 2022/2023 where the Navy shared the attached graphic.

 

[bring_it_on]

Are not the TDDs of AIM-120 optical?

I don't think so. They upgraded to the Quadrant Target Detection Device at AIM-120C6 and may have had another upgrade between the D and D3 changes. I haven't looked at details but its located just forward to the warhead. Now that I'm looking at it highlights how forward all these components are on the Navy released JATM graphic. If that graphic is an accurate representation, the warhead is more than a foot forward on the missile than the warhead on the AIM-120..all that space is motor and propellant.

 

[Shusui]

Yes, that makes sense. But number of different antennas and pattern looks interesting. The AIM-120 has a targeting device as well..but we don't see it as prominently on renders or views of that weapon. Were these visible in the article you saw?

Yes, I drew them in microsoft paint along with what I thought the shape looked like.

 

[Shusui]

The nosecone as I said was similar to the AMRAAM so I don't think that there are two seeker types being used.. it's probably just an AESA radar if I was to guess and I have absolutely no clue what the hexagonal shapes were for but here is a simple paint drawing showing the arrangement: (The front ones, left, go all the way around it seemed and the shorter ones were spaced out more and offset as shown).
View attachment 702955
I cannot remember exactly how many there are, or the exact spacing and all that obviously.

This is what I drew back in '23

 

[sferrin]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/lockheed-martin-aim-260-joint-advanced-tactical-missile-jatm.31927/page-8#post-605832

Yep. I thought for sure, considering all the hub-bub around it, that was way too pedestrian for AIM-260.