Aivlis -> RE: Could the THAAD be reengineered as a SAM? (11/11/2016 2:17:04 PM)
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I'm not an expert on this particular system, but my experience says it's easier to just make a new missile. The lack of lifting surfaces would make it inefficient to trade altitude for range, as sleek bodies have poor lifting performance in exchange for low drag, especially at high speeds. Furthermore, terminal-phase reentry vehicles and aircraft are very different targets, and I'm inclined to believe that a it would be hard to intercept an evading jet with a missile so optimized to hit very fast but relatively non-maneuvering RVs. The lack of a warhead is another problem; I think THAAD lacks a continuous-rod payload for engineering reasons as much as due to target detonation concerns: a conventional continuous-rod payload would only add a slew of problems versus a reentry vehicle, like fuzing, detonation time and shrapnel dispersion patterns when the relative speed between missile and target is of the same order as that of the payload's explosion.
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