Last ditch air-defence: the ultimate umbrella: originally intended to safeguard forward troops from direct attacks by low-flying aircraft, very-short-range air-defence (V-Shorad) guided missiles are being developed into high-lethality systems to protect ground and naval units, against not only aircraft, but also cruise missiles, reconnaissance and attack drones and air-launched tactical weapons, including precision-guided bombs.

Summary

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Air-defence systems

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Last ditch air-defence: the ultimate umbrella: originally intended to safeguard forward troops from direct attacks by low-flying aircraft, very-short-range air-defence (V-Shorad) guided missiles are being developed into high-lethality systems to protect ground and naval units, against not only aircraft, but also cruise missiles, reconnaissance and attack drones and air-launched tactical weapons, including precision-guided bombs.

The final decades of the 20th century brought advances in military technology that exacerbated demands on V-Shorad systems, the last line of defence. The threat spectrum has expanded dramatically to include targets that are very small and fly fast and low, providing little warning of their approach.

The original V-Shorad development objective was a man-portable air-defence system (Manpads), ideally light enough to be shoulder-launched. The key to V-Shorad missile weight-reduction was to minimise miss distance, allowing use of a lightweight warhead.

From the 1950s air-to-air missiles have achieved miss distances of around one metre with infrared (IR) homing, basically requiring only an uncooled lead sulphide (PbS) seeker.

The principal guidance alternative is beam-riding, w...

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