Rogue1,
>>
The LOSAT doesn't carry a warhead and doesn't need a fuze to arm itself
Also what difference would a top attack make anyway if it has the
ability to destroy a tank from any angle ?
>>
I'm well aware of what kill mechanism the LOSAT uses.
>>
What the hell is a smart dive fuze anyway ? IS this a real piece of hardware or an item you've just coined ?
>>
The concept of the smartfuze is simply that which acknowledges a weapon moving at upwards of a mile per second does not need to 'maneuver' or
'track' a given threat. because the likelihood of countermeasure deployment or evasion is so very small given the relative target motion
disparity.
What you need is something of a cross between a Forster Sonde/Vebal Syndrom type mass read (magnetometer or MMW) and a LOCAAS 3D 'bump map' so that
when _the missile_ sees the change in surface composition or contour, it can independently dive down into the upper surfaces.
Why?
1. The more weigh you put on the tank, for 'all sector' armor protection, the less viable it becomes as a weapons system. Don't give an enemy a
chance to protect his forward slope with advanced passive, reactive or active protection systems. Because he WILL prove your 'defeats any known
armor' statement wrong. Rather, make the weapon able to kill from ranges at which the choice of /where/ to hit the target (turret, engine deck, high
angle front slope) must be the missiles.
2. If you have a target, firing platform, surveillance asset geometry something like this-
............................................................................................................SOTAS
.............Target.............................................................LOSAT Vehicle............
The graze angle for the standoff platform may be very shallow such that, while azimuth read is okay, exact slant is not as certain. Even as the
(lightweight = early/forced entry optimized) firing vehicle /never wants/ to be inside the same horizon as it's victim. Only an idiot faces his
enemy 'as an equal' when he is riding in a 5-20 ton wheeled vehicle (mobility and armor limited) and his opponent is tooling about in a 40 ton MBT
for which 'any building will do' as both protective top cover and alternate breakout maneuver path.
3. Mission Flex. Especially now that we face increasing numbers of MOUT style ops wherein our own, occupational, force routes are completely
predictable, even as our LOS weapons are increasingly blocked, there is NO DAMN EXCUSE for wanting to play Gunfight At The OK Corral. Yet the Army,
ever one to put things in neat little cubby holes (lest they find even more of their outdated warfighter doctrine rendered completely obsolete and
lose even more 'force structure' money) doesn't want to see the inherent utility of a hypervelocity weapon moving OVER a local horizon. Whether
that be a building or a treeline or a true curve-of-earth LOS delineator.
Which is strange since CKEM is itself, while only weighing roughly half what MGM-166 did, is listed as a _5-8km_ effective ranged device. i.e. Beyond
the range of what even a British trooper expected his 120mm rifled bore Challenger to score in the 'longest kill ever' during DS. How many times do
you expect an open-desert fighting condition. If you are on a Hummer or RSTV or Stryker type chassis, how many times do you WANT that?
CONCLUSION:
You have to realize, the term 'conservative' has nothing to do with quality of what is known in the Armed Forces. Rather it is synomously
interchangeable with /corrupt/ as a function of preserving roles and missions turf for the _personalities_ of it's top staff. Such is always the
case when a peacetime military generates a top heavy officer class solely interested in their own careers rather than butchery on the battlefield
which is nominally what they are 'good at'.
KPl.