Does the West have an answer to the Sunburn?

Originally posted by mad scientist



The Tomahawks are lumbering beheamoths easilt destroyed by a modern navies air defences.
For the record ASM versions of the Tomahawk only have a range of 450km only the nuclear tipped variant can travel 2500km.

It's true that only nuclear can go 2500 km, but the ship launched Tomahawk version BLOCK IV has a range of 1600 km with conventional 454 kg warhead so it has still much better range.


[edit on 27-8-2004 by longbow]

The newer SM-2-ER's are designed for and are more than capable of taking out the Sunburns esp when combined with the dual coverage and guidance capability that a modern Aegis equipped fleet has. The Sunburn is a threat only if fired from a range where the fleet radar coverage doesnt have time to aquire it properly ( a smiliar threat was posed by the surface launched silkworm missiles in the gulf). At that point you fall back and the CIWS or MetalStorm PDS systems and hope that the fragments dont hit anything to irreparable.

In short the sunburn is a really fantastic proof that the USA is not the be all to end all of death dealing technology, but its not foolproof and certainly current anti-missile systems (the farsical patroit excluded) posses more than enough capability to defeat it IF given sufficient warning of its launch.