Network member Ned Conger sent this one along today that caught me by surprise.
Turns out the Pentagon has been tweaking the software a bit on the AIM-9X Sidewinder to hit ground targets. Strategy Page reported it but our boy Steve Trimble had it as well — and the StratPage entry calls it the AIM-7x — oops… From Flight Global:
The modification allows the same AIM-9X to strike both air and ground targets. Jeff White, Raytheon’s business development manager for AIM-9X, declines to describe the modification in detail, but says it involves only software changes. The AIM-9X infrared seeker, proximity fuse and blast/fragmentation warhead remain unchanged.
During a 23 September Gulf of Mexico test, a US Air Force F-15C fired the air-to-surface AIM-9X and hit a speeding “cigar boat”, a type commonly used by drug smugglers. “The missile went right through the boat,” says White.
The F-15C test follows a previous shot by an F-16 at a similar target, which also scored a hit on the boat, he adds.
Anyway, seems as if Raytheon has done some rejiggering to allow the F-15C (and F-22) a ground attack role with its compliment of side-shooting Sidewinders. The combination of the helment-mounted cuing systems and highly advanced heat seakers allow the air-to-air missile to plink hot targets on the ground as well.
Sounds like a darn good idea. I’d be interested to learn what the damage yield is with one of those puppies. A 20 pound blast frag warhead doesn’t seem like much to me, but it sounds like it could be effective against vehicles. And after all, the AGM-114 Hellfire has a nearly 30 pound warhead and has no problem taking out HVTs.
– Christian
{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
So now F15s and F16s on CAP can take out speedboats of opportunity? You mean like Iran has heaps of?
There would be a difference between shaped-charge vs. just a regular warhead (Sidewinder). That would be a nice addition for the A-10 in particular. That would give them two extra warheads to use not to mention Cobras should the situation allow. Probably only for very light-skinned targets though.
How difficult would it be to replace the Sidewinder's warhead with a shaped charge? Or at least a dual purpose warhead?
why would you need a shaped charge to disable and sink a little speedboat?
Can it be programmed with GPS coordinates? It would be effective as an anti-personal weapon or against a non-reinforced structure if nothing else was available.
The Navy needs to look at their missiles to see if the same kind of software changes can expand the roles of their existing missiles.
AIM9 is a Navy missile. Developed at the Naval Weapons Center in Ridgecrest CA and has always been a winner… If I had to guess I would have to say it is a tweaking of the particular IR band that the seeker is discriminating for….like a hot boat motor against a sea background…. Probably needs a steep shoot angle as it doesnt know much about ground avoidance to solve its pursuit problem…… Anyway cool…. Sidewinder….and Sidearm…..and Boatwinder….. I wonder if you get a kill for a speedboat…little red raghead speedboat stencils….
I am betting this is making folks over at the DEA and DHS licking their chops. Think about this: A drug runner is speeding across the Florida Straits and the only aircraft nearby to intercept is an F-16 flying around the area watching our airspace. One missile and they will be left with stems and seeds. (Yes I know it would probably be a powdery cloud but stems and seeds is funnier as a joke.)
I could also see this being useful off of Somalia and certainly Afghanistan. This means one more asset that can be used to take out pirates in Somalia's case, or Insurgent vehicles in A-stan.
You guys don't know nothin, it's for taking out ragheads smoking hukkas. …or liberals.
No single use items in the kitchen! – Alton Brown
Unlikely that the F-22 was involved in any air to ground AIM-9X work. It is not certified for it–no helmet cueing either. The F-22 uses the older AIM-9M.
F-15s and F-16s ARE AIM-9X qualified. The JHMCS helmet and AIM-9X are part of a package.
Wonder how sidewinder can track ground targets with only "software" changes. I suppose it's a matter of reprogramming the warhead to recognize target silhouettes a la Javelin? Or..?
This is nothing new, the Navy employed a version back in the late 60's early 70's called the "Sidearm". I can't remember the designation, but I worked with them at China Lake in the late 70's.
Retired Navy AO
Sidearm (Anti-Raditation-Missile). It was to go after the ZSU-23? With the mini radars while being out of range of the 23mm rounds. There were certainly other radars and emitters that it could have been used on. The Sidearm was primarily for Helos becuase aircraft could use the AGM-45 Shrike or the HARM-88 when that came out for anti-radiation missions. That was just changing the seeker. It was to what somebody mentioned earlier, use rocket motors that were still basically usable on the shelf.
Correction: Does 9X target ground targets using helmet cueing? Seems the easiest way to do it, however it has caveats.
Maybe some of the boys at the Pentagon are fans of the Ace Combat series of flight sims. If you have played the game you will know what I'm talking about….
Good Afternoon Folks,
This story might have been news a year ago, but he have talked about this a coupl of time in the past few months here on DT. In fact the AIM-9 is perhaps one of the United States oldest still operational missile system. If I recall in was developed at China Lake in the early 1950′s from a concept the Japanese though about during WW II.
The “Sidwinder” has been deployed on the Reaper now for at least a year and has been credited for some kills. I have read that the AIM-9X is rather good at chasing speeding SUV’s on open desert roars, can’t your imagine being the driver and seeing an increasingly bigger and brighter dot in the rear view mirror and knowing your dead? It one of those old systems that manages to find a new way to serve, like the WWII era Zuni/Hydra 2.75″ (70mm) Rocket, now a guided laser guided missile that has a range of 8 Kms. and an accuracy of less the a meter and can be fired from an AOH-58 platform.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Duel purpose would not make it as effective against aircraft – and shaped charge would require the missile to actually hit the target as that sharge would only go one way. Basically, light-skinned targets only – and I guess only targets with a heat signature. I suppose not really your first choice for a ground target.
It sounds to me like they are just trying to make it usable for ground targets, but not as a first choice. Like if you run out of your "normal" air to ground munitions you at least have another option if you need it. The primary role would still me for air to air.
Adapt warhead to home in on engine exhaust or engine heat alone.
Nice.
Then add armor piercing warhead for any "added defense".
For ALL units.
Esp Army copters.
Bye Bye T92 tanks.
T-92 ???
Sounds like they’re able to make use of smaller temperature differentials.
I’d really have to see a photo of that unless you witnessed it yourself. Not sure ofthe software update would include salted fusing for ground targets (and then would different targets have different delays – how much complexity would there be really, unlikely) as well as software changes to ensure a top-down attack? Again I would have trouble swallowing all that.
And again – I think I would need to be presented with more than just anecdotal evidence (and again, that’s assuming that you did nit witness that yourself – it does not sound like it from the story – apologies if you have firsthand).
Wasn't it an AIM-9 that blasted the stew out of that Turkish ship accidentally fired by the US a while back? I knew it was an anti-air missile but can't remember which one but it still goes to show you that throw something fast enough against another object and the receiving object can still go boom.
that was a sea sparrow
Many thanks.
Good Evening Folks,
What’s the problem. The last I saw neither the Taliban or al Qaeda had any heavy Armor Regiments roaming the back roads of Afghanistan. Most of the vehicle targets that I’ve seen images of that have been destroyed were light Toyota/Nissan (‘type’, I’m making a generalization here to support a point of argument, nothing more) pick up trucks, SUV’s and the odd Land Rover. I would say they can be considered “thin skinned” vehicles.
The Sidewinder is cheap compared to the Hellfire, and does the job. It is also a fire and forget weapon, so the UAV doesn’t have to keep a laser on target till it is hit and can engage an second target at the same time.
Lighten up not everything has to be the newest and the most powerful with the most bang.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
I don’t think anyone has a problem with the concept – just hashing out what it likely can and cannot do. I’ve been unable to find the post that stated this was a bad idea.
"Sidewinder is cheap compared to the Hellfire"
Do you know what the unit price for each is?
That is like the rationale behind the new guided 2.75" rockets….much cheaper to use than Hellfire.
Sidewinder uses an annular blast warhead which might do alright by light armor, so no biggie. Moderately concerned that IR-based systems will be spoofable.
While we're on the topic, if Sidewinder can home in on vehicles it should be able to home in on people as well…
I've never seen flare launchers listed in any pickup/ SUV options package… so, guess that would be an after-market sorta thing, huh?
Perhaps, but we have to remember about filtering and levels of heat that would be appropriate. I wonder if the more things you add to the acceptable levels of heat – the more non-target things may spoof the missile. Didn't hit the person because it got spoofed by a cow – that sort of thing.
"Light-skinned targets only"?
Here's a bit of a war story.
During my last tour in Germany a sidewinder missile accidentally fell off a fighter in flight. After a couple weeks of searching a German farmer noticed an odd shaped hole in the roof of his barn. Seems the missile had fallen through the roof, the hay bales stacked all the way to the roof, the 18" thick reinforced concrete floor of the barn, the six foot thick gravel sub-course the floor was poured over and finally come to rest with only 6" of the nine foot long missile stucking above the ground. All that was just from free fall without any rocket assist.
I guess my point here is that you guys might be slightly underestimating a sidewinder's penetration capabilities.
Not a big surprise. Have a friend whose mother worked as an engineer on the AMRAMMs, and she always talked about how all of our weapons were/are capable of doing a lot more than originally conceived.
Seems to me with budget's tightening industry will "discover" a lot of these breakthroughs. Much easier to get additional funding for an existing system as opposed to new R&D. Not to mention in this case, the things will actually be useful for the types of engagements we are likely to be involved in.
Hello all:
Former USAF Ammotroop here.
AIM-9X is pushing over $225k
AIM-9L/M around $70k
Hellfire AGM-114 around $50 to 100k depending on model.
The differences are that a Sidewinder is almost twice the weight of a Hellfire at close to 200 pounds. The Sidewinder is a Mach 2.5 class missile while the Hellfire hits about Mach 1 in a dive and most likely does not reach that. The Sidewinder is designed for high G turns and maneuvers, the Hellfire is not. The difference in the reprogramming is similar to what they did for the difference between the AGM-65 D and G Maverick models. If you are dogfighting, most likely you will have a hot target on sky.
If you are hitting a ground target, you will have a hot target possibly on hot ground. However, just as the imaging IR guidance control unit (GCU) on the Maverick has an imager that can detect changes in temperature into the decimals of a degree, so can the Sidewinder. This target on the ground issue is called “backscatter” and it’s a engineering issue with radar as well. Once you can get the missile to tell the difference between a vehicle and a tree, we are in play. The issue here is that when you configure an aircraft for fighter cover of Combat Air Patrol (CAP), you do NOT load it with bombs. If it’s a dedicated interceptor frag you will have chaff, flare, 20mm, external fuel tanks and air to air missiles. Again, no ground ammo. This configuration, as long as you keep the annular blast warhead give a dual purpose to the interceptor and the ground attack frag. If its unlikely that that the strike bomber will not encounter an attacking fighter, then it could use the Sidewinder on light ground target while keeping the heavier ammo for heavier targets.
The sidewinder has found as yet another niche it can fulfill. It already has been used as part of the Rolling Aurfram Missile. The engine portion is that of the sidewinder. The seeker is that of the Stinger missile. The sidewinder already can be used on the Marine Cobras. It can also be fitted to the A-10. Perhaps that is the intended purpose. Using this on light skinned vehicles while using the minimum of explosive power to hit it. A hellfire is a larger explosive and therefore more collatoral damage. This could be playing into the counterinsurgency strategy for A-stan. The hellfire is a nice broadsword, but perhaps we need to use a dagger instead on certain targets.
Didn't the Navy use some 'winders on trucks in Vietnam? ISTR that earlier models had been known to accidentally lock onto ground vehicles if the seeker could sense them.
If the seeker mod can be adapted to older missiles, it would be a way to both get use out of paid-for weapons and economically dispose of them.
Maybe they could dust off the old MIM-72 Chaparral's. They were a forward air defense system that married the AIM-9 to the M-113 chassis. I personally don't see the benefits to this arrangement for an GTG missile system, but the Pentagon procurement and R&D people always seem to come up arcane equipment configurations.
And there are over six million children in America without health insurance.
Gee, I wonder why.
It was going so well. How about this instead of paying for a wealfare health insurance plan how about you get them to lift all those dip sh%t limitations on thew insurance companies? There are after all thousand of insurance companies in the US. Just cant use them everywhere.
Try limiting how much people can sue when they have been told there was a chance something could go wrong or they just want a easy way to get rich.
Try figuring out many of the far cheaper far easier options ( you know trillions of dollars in debt right?) that exist before going with the worst most costly one.
Oh wait you said children in that case. All children in the USA get free health insurance. Well problem solved.
Btw im one of those poor uninsured people. Im just not stupid or blind to reality.
Study Sidewinder history. This isn’t a new concept. The unclassified Sidewinder information pages discuss how old model Sidewinders were modified for ground attack during Vietnam. Beyond the way out of the box thinking behind the project one of the things that made the concept interesting was that it used obsolete Sidewinders that would otherwise be destroyed.
These are slow-moving ground targets – if the missile can achieve a direct hit at Mach 2 (approximately 2200 feet/second) and weighs 200 lbs (50+ with all fuel expended?)… unless it's a heavy tank, it won't matter whether the warhead was shaped-charge, fragmentation, or playdoh – it's going to make a heck of a mess.
For anti-vehicle work, remember that the missile would attack from the top, which is rarely armored up that well. It might do alright against vehicles more heavily armored than a technical. Be worth looking into…
Hmm could you change out the warhead for a core of sold DU it could smash light tanks at that speed if needed with no change to the general missile design itself probably.
Just a idea.
So you don't care for anecdotes. How does physics work for you?
Using the old E=MC squared formula:
A .50 caliber M8 API round can probably be considered the minimum standard round for killing light vehicles. It has a 114.3 gram projectile fired at 887 meters per second. It produces 89,928 (0.1143*887*887) Newton.
I think you could reasonably call a 120mm sabot round the gold standard of armor penetration. The 8 Kg penetrator of the British RO has a muzzel velocity of 1,534 MPS. That's roughly a mile per second. It generates 18,825,248 N, or a bit more than 200 times that of the .50 cal round.
A 91 Kg sidewinder traveling a 2.5 Mach is moving at roughly 850 MPS at sea level. It generates 65,747,500 N. In other words more than three times the energy of the cannon round.
Good morning, all
There seems to be a little mix-up with the physics here:
The formula for computing kintetic energy is
Ekin = 0.5 * m * [v squared]
that is one half times the mass times the velocity squared.
Bullet mass for an M8 API is 622,5 grains (according to TM43-0001-27), equal to 40.3 grams or 0.0403 kg.
Muzzle velocity is 2910 fps (again according to the TM43), or 887 meters pr. second, for an Ekin of 15.9 kJ.
For the 120mm sabot round (8 kg at 1534 m/s), you end up with 9413 kJ.
For the Sidewinder (some of the fuel will have been expended, but lets say 75 kg at mach 2.5, or something like 800 m/s) you get 24000 kJ, or something like 2.5 times the kinetic energy of the penetrator round.
This isn’t the entire story, though. The missile is no where near as dense as the APFSDS round, so penetration against a hard target will be less. The damage potential against a relatively soft target should be significantly higher though (think AP bullet vs. Glaser Safety Slug).
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Added note: I just checked: For the .50 cal. M8 API, 114.3 grams is the mass of the complete round.
Regards, etc.
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Thanks for the correction. It's been a long time since school for me.
Which is why i thought why not put a Depleted uranium slug in where the normal warhead would be. That would solve the penetration problem.
Sorry. In this case it should be the E=MV squared formula. :-/
Total agreement about DU. However a DU warhead isn't much of a dual purpose device.
If you fire a sidewinder into the roof of a old tank (say a T-72), what happens? I'm sure someone is going to test it….
I think this could prove to be a cheaper alternative to Hellfire missile for not so heavily armed targets. Taliban insurgents comes to mind. A predator drone can probably carry more of then too.
If newer air to air missile is already in service it makes sense to adapt their existing stockpile of sidewinders to ground attack role especially as it only requires a software change