Dear all Fellows,
Had you ever seen the movie “Behind the Enemy Line” One scene shown that the F/E-18E was shot down by missile (Air - to - Ground) I would like to know that is it real? Like a shotgun shell and how the missile know when it has to blow? I think the real missile must to hit the afterburner and blow out. (Or depend on each missile?) Thanks in advance for all information
The scene from “Behind enemy lines” is pure Hollywool Hollywood. Real SAM’s do not follow aircraft like that.
SAM’s have two types of explosive warheads. Impact and proximity. Impact, the missile has to strike the target before the warhead will detonate. Proximity fuses, the missile has a radio transmitter and receiver built into it. The missile will send a radio wave from the missile to the target and back to the missile. When the radio wave has a short return time (meaning missile is in close proximity to the target), it will detonate.
Some missiles today like the Sidewinder and a few ship-based SAM’s are shotgun-like. They are called spinning-rod warheads. When the missile blows up, it sends a lot of rapidly spinning rods into the air, which will “tear a MiG to pieces”. Other missiles send metal fragments into their targets, and the AIR-2 Genie just nukes the @#*! out of whatever it hits.
Ah…I got it. Thanks for your kind information to both of you. Thank you.
And for the real purpose. It just destroy the Aircraft not Pilot, right?
Sorry, usually the pilots doesn’t have time to eject and they too go up in a fireball with the plane. That is the reality of modern air combat. If he is lucky, he may have time to punch out and eject, not usually though.
Thank a lot for your kind information
berny13;
not to rain on your parade but proxy fuses are basicly magnetic switches that use magnetism to trigger an explosion, most A to A missiles are proxy fused as with most SAM’s because at altitude you don’t need to get a direct hit all you need is to damage the plane at speed and physic’s will take over in destroying the plane and in Behind Enemy Lines the SAM’s are more likely to chase you down then back in the Vietnam era because of microchip technology and upgrades in aeronautical designs, for example I saw the last 30 seconds of an A-10 getting hit in Iraq last year by a shoulder launched heat seeking SAM like the Stinger but French made version used by the Iraqi Armed Forces and it chased the Warthawg all over the sky and took out it’s #2 engine (right side) and in the movie it took about 5 minutes to run the chase but in real life it really only takes a few seconds because of the pilots adrenaline is flowing and time slows down for that individual and Hollywood was trying to get the viewers that same feeling the pilots have when in that position, because the A-10 pilot whose plane was hit stated that it was just like watching that same movie but he was the pilot instead of the actors
The bad thing ( or good thing if you are on the receiving end), missiles don’t always function as designed.
In Thailand, 1968, my aircraft, F-4D, 66-8711, took off as lead of a four ship MIG CAP mission. They were flying CAP for a strike force of F-105’s to RP6. They set up a CAP and the first flight of 105’s hit the target with no problem. As the second flight was begining its bombing run, six MIG-17’s entered the area. My jet got on the tail of a MIG-17 and the pilot launched a Sidewinder. The AIM-9 hit the MIG on the side of the rear fuselage. The missile just ricocheted off of the MIG and started breaking up from the impact. Now being beyond AIM-9 range the pilot got a good radar lock and good missile tune. He launched an AIM-7. The MIG pulled a hard left and the Sparrow lost lock and flew straight. The pilot launched another AIM-7, but his wing man said the rocket motor did not light off. He launched another AIM-7 which started tracking perfect. The MIG rolled inverted and started a dive for heavy cloud cover. The MIG entered the clouds with the missile one second behind. My pilot and his wingman reported a bright flash just inside the cloud cover, but no one saw the inpact.
Total US missiles fired that day. Eight.
Total number of enemy aircraft clamed as destroyed. None.
Total US loses. One. A F-105 was destroyed by AAA.
Total US aircraft Damaged. Four, three F-105’s and one F-4D. The F-105’s by AAA, the F-4D by MIG cannon fire.
After my aircraft returned and seeing the droptanks gone, four missiles gone, I was sure I would paint at least one star on my jet. Such is combat. No star that day. It would be about a month from then before I would be able to paint the first of three stars on the jet.
72cuda
It was my understanding, and I could be wrong, that magnetic proximity fuses went out with the vacuum tube. With modern state of the art chips, they now use a small radar receiver and transmitter to detonate the warhead. Also with proper shielding and use of composite materials, modern aircraft do not put out the magnetic signal as older type aircraft. I do know the older AIM-9 and AIM-7 used magnetic proximity fuses, but, I have been told the newer versions of the AIM-7, AIM-9 and AIM-120 use radar fuses. Also US SAM missiles use the radar fuses as they are more reliable.
If I am wrong, my apology for my mistake.
All very interesting, especialy the exploits in RP6. And the info on SAM’s is useful, as I have often scoffed at that sequence in the movie, thinking it a bit over the top. There is a pretty good view of the SAM launcher, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what it was and discern if the warhead was realistic, as well as the guidance. The thing is, the older SAMs couldn’t manuever that well, and also how long till motor burn out on these types? They couldn’t chase you too long after their rocket motor went out due to sheer physics. Anyway, I could definitely be wrong, but these were always my consideration.
There was an article in an older issue of Air & Space concerning the SA-7 and heatseeker guidance heads. If it shows up I will post more.
berny13;
well all metal vehicles have magnetism it doesn’t matter if it’s aluminum or steel, the proxy fuses sense the differances in magnetism weather it’s the older style or one thats sensed by micro chips, you may have the radar thing confused, someone may wrongfully phrased it, but the newer fuses are still magnetic but have a micro chip (someone may have phrased is as a kind of radar like system) to read the differances instead of the older bi-metal ones, I asked one of my co-workers who is a weapons specialist on missiles about the proxy fuses and that was his explaination, all intercept missiles today the AIM-7, AIM-9, and the AIM-120 have proxy fuses though the AIM-9 & 120’s are radar guided they too have proxy fuses, it’s for the final event in their flight the radar or IR head tracks the target and gets the missile close to the target then the proxy fuse does the rest, most of the time they work and sometimes they don’t, but the tracker head wont tell the warhead to detonate because sometimes it gets damaged when impacting the target and can’t send the message to the warhead, so the great minds came up with the proxy fuses to give the missile the Coup De Graus (I can’t write French) but most of the charges are very small maybe the size of a Claymore Mine or such but when you have schrapnel about the area and airspeed it’s going to damage something, as for the smaller shoulder launched SAM’s they are basically in the same boat as with A-A missiles, the bigger missiles like the AIM-64 and full size SAM’s then they do have the radar system to figure when to detonate and the proxy for the back up, but all intercept missiles have proxy fuses these days maybe as the main or a back-up and they all sense the magnetic differances if they are the older or newer they are basically the same
Oh, Those missiles!!
[:D][:I][:-^]
Missile
72cuda
Thanks for setting me straight. I learned something today. Who said you can’t teach an old dog (or an old retired crew chief) new tricks?
No one old for learning, Nice knowledge thanks you all
No, thanks for sparking up my curiosity for this subject, I’d never known anything on this unless I asked someone who works this stuff, and now I have more respect for those weapons weenies