SM-3s
 

Can SM-3s be used to shoot at Aircraft and Cruise Missiles? Or are they solely for intercepting Ballistic Missiles?

can SM's 3 be used to shoot at aircraft and cruise missiles
 

I should think that if the SM-3 is advance enough to shoot down a Satellite, it should be able to shoot down aircrafts, cruise missile, and ballistic missiles, all you will need in their cases will be their coordinates.

No. The SM-3 is not suitable, but if you fire enough you might get lucky in the boost (unguided) phase.

The SM-3's 4th stage, is the Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile which is completely non-aerodynamic and cannot be deployed within the atmosphere without without being immediately destroyed. Only the 4th stage has sensors and they likewise were designed for operation in space, cannot be deployed in atmosphere, and are inappropriate for directing an intercept there. It is a kinetic kill device, i.e. direct impact only, non-explosive, device. :duel

CVBG's are like onions.....Layers lots and lots of weapons and lots and lots of layers.

Yes, I understand that.

I was just thinking that if somehow an SM-3 is able to shoot AC and cruise missiles as well, then it might be more cost effective to arm every Tico and Burke with SM-3s instead of a combo.

ICMBs and Satellites don't manuever though right? AC and Cruise Missiles are supposed to.

Sm-3's are pretty expensive, so even if they were multi capable, you would still carry a load of something cheaper. SM-3 is designed to hit high, fast moving, but not agile targets. balistic missiles, sats etc.

Sm-2/SM-6 is much more useful for aircraft. Most ships will carry many more missiles than they need. There may only be less than half a dozen SM-3 on any US ship at a time. Most ships aren't expecting to intercept Soviet swarms of ICBM's.

Since the SM-3 uses an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle that only works when it is above most of the air in the atmosphere, it cannot effectively be used to kill air targets.

The SM-3 should be fairly effective against the Chinese anti-ship IRBM. Maybe that is why the US Navy is not particularly worried. :p:

Is the price difference between SM-3 and SM-2/SM-6 that huge?

I can't help but think about "Red Storm Rising" with the 1st wave of Russian Bombers launching decoys instead of missiles for the F-14s to fire at, and so the CBG was left with a not-enough number of missiles to shoot at the real threat. There was also only 1 Tico-class Cruiser in that CBG, IIRC. :)

yes, around $400,000 for SM-2ER and $9,000,000 for SM-3 so, 22 SM-2 for the price of 1 SM-3

All of these things are very expensive including the targets they are meant to destroy. The greatest costs are however are in the platforms, the personal, and in the forward deployments. Compared to those costs, the cost of the rounds themselves, are much less important but not unimportant.

The reason these issues are always brought up and generate so much confusion, debate, and speculation is that as a practical matter, these weapons are so seldom ever used. Thousands of surface to air missiles have been purchased by the US Navy for its ships over the last fifty years and but how many of them have ever been used to engage against real hostel targets, maybe twenty at most? True the land attack missiles have been getting a good workout lately but not the defensive variants.

Building things that you might someday use but in fact seldom if ever get to use, screws up peoples thinking about the way costs and effectiveness are evaluated in so many ways. Let’s be realistic, these weapon are designed mainly for a long anticipated general war between major powers that so far has never been fought and hoplefully will never be fought. There is a critical lack of reality which is only gets occasionally tested at the margins in small scrimmages. And in conditions which probably do not reflect the reality of what a sustained conflict would be like.

A bigger issue is in the number of rounds you have available for use at the point of contact. What use are the computers, the radars, the satellite sensors, the communication nets, and the like, if the opposition only has to saturate you defenses with relatively cheap missiles ( be they air breathing or ballistic) and attack aircraft before you can get far enough out there range so you can rearm your weapons? And rearming these ships with new rounds is not a fast, simple process or without risk in forward deployed areas (they can’t be done a sea) even if the rounds are even forward deployed which generally they are not.

That was written before they fielded the ESSM quad packs. Depending on the mix those would let you get 2x to 3x the AAA load. You would be trading long range missiles 1 for 4 for mid-range ones.

I wonder if they have any plans to upgrade the ESSM with AIM-120 active seeker?

Not sure what you meant by trading long-range with mid-ranged ones? Are you implying those long-ranged soviet missiles wouldn't have been that accurate and the ESSM would have a very good chance of intercepting those which get passed the F-14 salvos?

WHOA! And I thought Tomahawks were expensive!

I wonder what those ground-based missiles costs? Could be easily twice or thrice that?

in every VLS cell you can either have 4 ESSM (Short Range Missile) or 1 SM2/SM6 (long Range Missile)

so if you have 10 cell VLS with 8 of those cells being ESSM and 2 being SM6 you get 34 missiles, if you have a 10 cell VLS with all ESSM you get 40 missiles.

As for the "ground-based missiles" im guessing you mean Patriot, Pac 3 is actualy less... ~2/3 the cost of an SM-3.

I was referring to ground-based mid-course defense missiles -- the ones in silos.

For got about those ESSM's in the VLS. I thought a Tico or Burke will typically have SM-2/3s and Tomahawks in VLS and the ESSM will be on those launchers mounted on the sides of the ship (which pivots and stuff -- don't know what they call those type of launchers).