PLA Air Force news, pics and videos
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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Could be a drone.
PSed?
the elevator of the "plane" is too thin, less than 10cm thick, the diameter of the jet nozzles is about 50cm (which jets engines?) and the total height of the aircraft is less than 5 meters.
With the crane as a guage, it does give the impression that is may be a drone or a smaller scale test vehicle.
A production GEV that can carry any useful load, woud need to be relative large to take advantage of the groud effect.
Something not quite as large as the A90, or the Darpa Liberty Lifter, but definitely not small:
There are obvious advantages with using drones to test the GEV concept in the unpredictable SCS where waves can reach 15m+.
I don't believe there are any AAMs or SAMs that can target & destroy a vessel 3-15m above the waterline. It's not what they're designed for and they'd probably need to be modified in some way before the system would even let you attempt it. That "altitude" is very much the domain of AShMs or other surface strike options. For reference, from waterline to the top of the ship is about 10m on a Ticonderoga-class cruiser and about 70m on a Ford-class carrier. You would not generally deploy an AAM or SAM against a vessel like the Ticonderoga or Ford.
Sea skimming cruise missile also fly at less than 9 metres altitude. Yet they are expected to be shot down by SAMs.
Oh yes they certainly can.
Here's a RIM-7 CIWS doing so.
Here's a SM-2 SAM doing the same against a supersonic target missile.
A GEV the size of Lun ekranoplan or bigger are only going to be much bigger, and thus, easier to detect, track and target.
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Thank you both, very interesting. I guess I was thinking of ground based SAM systems which can't target below a certain altitude, I didn't realise naval SAMs could go so low.
It's not that ground-based SAMs can't target below 10metres.
But houses and other ground structures are 10m tall.
Low-flying cruise missiles have to deal with the same issue if they fly at 10m
lcloo
Major
8 years ago, a video on HQ-9 hitting a supersonic sea skimming missile. There are a few similar old videos, mostly 5 to 10 years old showing Air defense missiles diving from a height onto a target near the sea surface.
For an air to air missile to hit a surface or near surface object, the target must emit high heat signature vs its surrounding, in the case the sea surface. Thus the probability of scoring a hit may not ba as satifactory as against an aerial target. Also the warhead on an AAM is relatively small against SAM ang SSM.
Thus AAM can hit a sea surface target provided the target emits high enough heat signature or the radar seeker head of the missile can track radar reflects off the target and differentiate it against the sea clusters. Whether the AAM can achieve a kill is thus depending on a variable of factors from seeker head sensitivity, targeting software, ambient temperatura at sea level etc.
Any way AAM are not ideal weapon against surface or near surface target, it is doable but not guarantee that it will score a hit. IMO HQ-9 which is a SAM, is an exception.
For an air to air missile to hit a surface or near surface object, the target must emit high heat signature vs its surrounding, in the case the sea surface. Thus the probability of scoring a hit may not ba as satifactory as against an aerial target. Also the warhead on an AAM is relatively small against SAM ang SSM.
Thus AAM can hit a sea surface target provided the target emits high enough heat signature or the radar seeker head of the missile can track radar reflects off the target and differentiate it against the sea clusters. Whether the AAM can achieve a kill is thus depending on a variable of factors from seeker head sensitivity, targeting software, ambient temperatura at sea level etc.
Any way AAM are not ideal weapon against surface or near surface target, it is doable but not guarantee that it will score a hit. IMO HQ-9 which is a SAM, is an exception.
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