Well, we need to keep in mind that ARMs are not cruise missiles. they dont have the advantage of terrain masking. instead they rely on their low RCS and speed to narrow down the window of engagement.You see, that’s where my confusion begins.
When a radar is active, it sends electromagnetic waves and anti-radiation missiles hunt on those waves, right. So, a harm missile should track it and kill the radar.
Since it actively emits EM waves and anti radiation missile locks on it, it leaves a very, very narrow window to hit the oncoming missile, is that it?
And for that reason when it comes to Akbaba, it has critical speed advantage compared to HARM because of its unique Ramjet propulsion technology. As the terminal speed for HARM is considerably low as its motor burn out long before terminal phase and it basically glides its way toward target.
So, now lets say, even with an ARM with terminal speed of Mach 2.5/3 the window of engagement for a modern air defense system equipped with latest gen AESA sensor will be around 30/40 second.
WHY? because even with its very low RCS, against a big GaN based AESA like Ground Fire or Kronos Grand or EL/M 2084 it will be detected and tracked around 30/35 km.
Which is a pretty fat window of engagement for a system that can respond just in 5/6 second and simultaneously engage 16/24 targets.
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