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Alert 5 » U.S. Army’s new launcher fired AIM-9X and Longbow Hellfire at UAV targets – Military Aviation News

The Longbow Hellfire was fired at White Sands missile range on Mar. 25 and four days later, the AIM-9X was fired from the same platform. The U.S. Army says it has recently found success in turning the Longbow Hellfire air-to-ground anti-tank missile into a surface-to-air interceptor for destroying unmanned aerial vehicle targets. Both tests were…

The Longbow Hellfire was fired at White Sands missile range on Mar. 25 and four days later, the AIM-9X was fired from the same platform. The U.S. Army says it has recently found success in turning the Longbow Hellfire air-to-ground anti-tank missile into a surface-to-air interceptor for destroying unmanned aerial vehicle targets.

Both tests were conducted as part of the Engineering Demonstration of the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept (IFPC Inc 2-I).

via alert5.com

There's video at the link.

Basically, the Army has come to realize that almost every common missile system can fit within a relatively small container, even those missile not designed for containerized launch. That has the benefit of keeping the missiles free from dust and moisture.

And for the most part, fire and forget missiles just need an azimuth and elevation to launch, and will guide themselves after that.

For those missiles that need offboard guidance, that's probably a little harder, but still should be quite doable. That's more a networking problem than a launcher issue.

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Responses to “Alert 5 » U.S. Army’s new launcher fired AIM-9X and Longbow Hellfire at UAV targets – Military Aviation News”

  1. Hmmm

    “Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept (IFPC Inc 2-I)” — whoever came up with that dreadful name ought to be shot.
    Anyway, the AIM-9X is easy to understand. However, Hellfire is targeted by laser designation. To hit a UAV, someone had to be holding the laser designator on the UAV. How would that work in non-demo mode? And if they can get it to work, the obvious counter is a laser warning receiver on the UAV, and when it detects laser light, that’s the signal to “start dodging”.

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  2. Xbradtc

    The Hellfire launched was a Longbow, which relies instead on Millimeter Wave Radar guidance. That’s a little easier to keep on a UAV than a laser. Yes, the enemy might have RWR, but we’re talking about small, low performance drones here, that don’t have the lift capacity for a full suite of ESM and ECM.

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