posted on Jan, 27 2016 @ 11:21 AM
Raytheon just won a
contract (over
Lockheed it appears) to work on the Small Advanced Capability Missile and Miniature Self-Defense Munition from the US Air Force Research Lab. The
contract itself is pretty small $14M. However, I am curious about the missiles themselves.
The SACM is being touted as a complement to the AMRAAM. That would imply, to me, this is meant to be be a replacement for the AIM-9 series. Given
the USAF history with the brand, it might be the SACM gets renamed as such if it makes it to deployment. From what I gather the SACM is meant to be
smaller and still be effective allowing for more missiles to be carried by the 5th gen fighters.
Also interesting is the MSDM. I'm unsure whether this is an attempt to do an anti missile missile or something very short range and agile that can
be fired against fighters in a furball. I'd guess it really wouldn't matter if a fighter can outmaneuver you if a missile you carry can fire way
off bore sight and even potentially backwards. How you'd test that would be...difficult. Not many QF's can do the crazy flight stuff you'd need
to accurately test the munition.
Thoughts?