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Old 29th Mar 2023, 04:28
  #15827 (permalink)  
West Coast
 
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Originally Posted by pattern_is_full
Look up "fire and forget" technology for air-to-surface missiles (a.k.a "smart weapons"). Missiles that can steer themselves with fins, and track in on specific targets (e.g. a single tank or building - and on occasion, a specific balcony!) by various means including sensors/cameras in the nose (radar and IR emissions from the targets themselves, but also video images kept in the missile's cross hairs, or even, these days, GPS guidance).

See: AGM-130A, Hellfire (AGM-114), HARM (AGM-88, etc.) missiles.

Thanks to massive developments in computing speed and size, and GPS technology, over the past decades. And a desire to avoid blowing up entire villages/cities to get one terrorist leader (see death of Al-Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri (Kabul, July 2022)).


That isn’t that PIF. Dunno what size the Ukrainians use, but that they’re rough equivalent of our 2.75 inch rockets as best I can tell. Hellfires are something completely different.
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