Nice to see them being used against the proper kind of target and not a silly drone like in the middle east.
That’s some sick acceleration!
Yeah, and I also thought, they’d go more like straight for the target like Stingers
That was an unexpected route
I thought the same. I wonder why.
Maybe using a less direct route makes it harder to detect their true target and have countermeasures deployed in time?
So stingers and similar heat seeking missiles have very rudimentary tracking systems and operate at short range so they just go straight to the target (with lead generally programmed in). Long range missiles with advance guidance like this go up to thinner atmosphere first because it’s all about kinetically defeating the enemy craft that’s trying to evade. It takes less propellent to go faster in thinner higher atmosphere so missiles will try and get high.
Here’s my armchair guess
I’m not sure how much of a direct hit vs shrapnel hit to destroy these are… but if it’s flying upwards and misses the shrapnel will have upward momentum while the target has downward momentum, making a miss be a complete miss.
If they come back down on their final hit trajectory, they can gain a bit more speed on the downward, while also keeping the shrapnel from the explosion heading downwards, making a potential hit more likely.
