wildcolonialboy
Posts: 19
Joined: 10/18/2017 Status: offline
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Thanks, much appreciated! :) I know I'm just a bit too passionate about this because I am from England, but I'm certain CAMM would be more effective than the Sea Wolf and Rapier missiles it replaced. I wondered whether you had awarded a lower sea-level speed to CAMM because the ASRAAM was a Mach 3+ missile, and the assumption was, "CAMM is basically an ASRAAM so we will modify those values as if an ASRAAM was being launched at sea-level, and the additional drag at that low-altitude". I would add a couple of points to this. First, the ASRAAM has a declared range of 50 kilometers (26nm), CAMM has a declared range of 25 kilometers (13.4nm). If you drill into the literature, you can also find that it is often reported that ASRAAM actually has a peak speed of Mach 3.5 (has been called the fastest dogfighting missile in the world by the Indians and by MBDA). Furthermore, CAMM saves some energy by the fact it is soft-launched, and it doesn't have to expend main motor energy positioning itself towards its target; the CAMM has an added 'turn-over pack' that has lateral thrusters to position it facing the correct direction before the main motor starts up. These things being in mind, if the difference in speed between ASRAAM Mach 3.5 and CAMM Mach 3 is the CAMM making up the speed differential between flying at 300 knots in the air, and being at 0 knots on the ground, that has a certain logic to it. I'm not sure how long the ASRAAM/CAMM motor burns, but it is supposed to burn much longer than the 4 - 5 seconds of the AIM-9 missiles it originally competed against. It has a "dual-burn, high impulse" rocket motor designed to maintain thrust for as long as possible (and it is a very low-drag design). If the CAMM only has to make it half as far as the ASRAAM, that allows you to focus on applying all of that thrust to those circa 15nm. Jane's also reported that the missile was a Mach 3 class weapon and a significant improvement over Rapier (I can't attach an image, but it's in a Jane's article called 'UK orders next generation air defence missile from MBDA' and it is available in the Wayback Machine). Overall, I think we can trust based on the available literature that it is indeed a Mach 3 class weapon. Anyway, I will hold on and let you look into and investigate it.
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