Missile Speed (Ballistic Flight):

1,602 knots (1,850 mph / 2,967 kph).

Sounds about right, if based around the MLRS rocket.

 

Maximum Effective Range:

120 nautical miles (138.6 miles / 222.3 km)

Originally (few years back), we found data and sources suggesting 200km, but I won't knock an extra 20 or so.

 

Weight:	1,652 lbs. (750 kg).
Missile Length:	13 ft. 4 in (4 m).
Missile Diameter:	10 in (25 cm).

OK, now here's where it gets me.

Here's Boeing's pdf on the Harpoon Block III.

 

weight: 1523 pounds (just under 691kg, surface launch) .

length: ~183 inches (15&1/4 feet, almost 2 feet longer than POLAR).

diameter: 13.5 inches ( ~343mm).

 

Very confusing when you look at it, because:

 

-I was certain that the MLRS-derived POLAR was the same 227mm (a hair under 9 inches) as M26 and M30 rockets.

But did they actually go and build a version around Raytheon's ESSM's 10-inch diameter motor section?

More power to them if they did, as it should then have a tad more capability growth potential than a body an inch less in diameter.

 

-Harpoon is obviously physically bigger: 50% greater diameter, and up to about a foot and a half longer (surface-launched version),

carries a much greater warhead,  2&1/2 times as much if you trust the Designation-Systems.Net entry  ,

has an actual seeker system (radar) and control computer which allows so many more options than any principally ballistic rocket, so it isn't just solely relying on INS and GPS,

but it actually weighs less than a POLAR?

 

Is solid propellant that much heavier than a liquid fuel tank and Harpoon's turbine, even to the point the all-up POLAR weight surpasses the larger Harpoon in weight as much as it does?

Does the POLAR then use some kind of metal augmented charge using lead or something?

 

Something just doesn't seem right.

 

But yes, for a weight of 750kg each, quadpacking POLARs tops out at, missiles alone, 3000kg.

Which means Mk41 VLS can't accomodate it.

 

Missile Cost:

$60,000 (Cluster warhead) /$ 87,000 (Top Attack munitions) / 115,000 (Earth Penetrator Unitary D/P).

Won't argue the costs, but US government federal logistics (FEDLOG) sources indicate that the going rate of an Excalibur artillery shell is more than this suggestion for a unitary-equipped POLAR.

Over in the artillery forums (Excalibur clips), Smoke_WP says that FOIA-disclosed sources are suggesting $150K for an Excalibur.

How much exactly is the production-ready LRLAP again?

 

AGM-88E AARGM is where the counter-force is at anyway.

 

But back to the topic... Burke, Burke, Burke, Burke.. baby.

 

Install the new engines, install the new radar suites and electronics.  Please don't dupe the American taxpayer into thinking they new hull at twice the cost or whatever, in order to have the next gen electronic and propulsion upgrades!

 

Call it a Burke block II :)  

 

Build an extra 5 for extra deployment coverage.

 

It's how you arm your ship, and outfit the radar/sonar suites, etc, that matters.  Not how you can redesign the wheel for the greatest cost!!  Please!

 

Big thing though, is to build the next Burkes around the weapon systems you need.   Skyguard Lasers, RIM-161, SM-6, 155mm, RIM-116 HAS.  Include those, plus the latest torpedo system, and you're good to go.

 

Peace.

No? 

Information I have is from LockMart, who appear to have just paper studied thing the thing to this point.

Do you have a PDF you can share about POLAR?  Information about it is very hard to come by on the Web.

No. Industry source data.

Another problem I have with those statistics is length.  The other information I've seen indicated POLAR was an MLRS rocket with a 30% extension.  That would make it closer to 15-17 feet.  The regular M26 rocket is already 3.96m, so the 4m length quoted in your statistics doesn't jibe with these other references.

Fatter case shorter length.

Did they propose totally junking the MLRS rocket airframe and building a 10" diameter weapon with the same length?

At 25 centimeters the exact diameter would be approximately 9.8 inches

The original proposal was for a longer barrel: but that was junked when they couldn't get it to fit MLRS to work the way they wanted. The sleeve they wanted to use was the original MLRS, but they needed a fatter rocket to make it work to the range  the customer desired, so ces't la vie. The MLRS had to work as a carrier vehicle to sell it to the Army as well as the Navy.

30% is by volume. By those numbers the rocket should be about 400 kilograms total if the rocket maintains constant density. The problem is that as the rocket gets bigger you need to improve the burn and this means you add to the fuel ratio such as using powdered aluminum. THAT is mass. Ammonium perchlorate oxidizer + powdered aluminum + HTPB  binder you can easily double the mass of the propellant by weight, until you get a 1500 pound rocket with the same warhead as you get with the GMLS.

Maybe it should be 857 pounds, but that  depends on the density of the fuel grain........

And I've said this about three times already.

This one has always perked my curiosity:

All this talk about littoral this and OTH that,

but the only application we see the US having anti-radar systems is from aircraft, namely HARM and its newer AARGM derivative.

Haven't seen anything at all in at least the past decade or so about Standard ARM (phased out post- Viet Nam?).

 

Why are there no surfaced-launched, even sub-launched, antiradar missiles intended to wipe out an adversary's coastal ADA systems on the edge of a naval assault?

Is it solely because aircraft can carry the sensors and are more likely to trigger an adversary into even turning on his ADA radars?

Why can't decoys equipped with ELINT gear be used, running jackrabbit into the enemy's airspace and tricking him to light up his radars, only to be met in kind by whatever naval vessels are nearby enough to launch ARMs?

 

Used to see mention of the SideARM, an AIM-9 derivative,

and thoughts of a radar homing head for a Hellfire variant,

but nothing recently.

Have these all fallen by the wayside?

Are HARM and AARGM our only current hardkill anti-radar systems?

Is Tacit Rainbow still around?

Seems to me that the NetFire's LAM's loitering ability (70km range or 30 minutes' loiter time) would've been the perfect "predatory decoy" (if that's an applicable-enough term) that could flood an enemy's airspace, just waiting for even one radar to activate.

If it would be possible to network these missiles all together while in flight (even linking them to C4I centers to provide realtime EW data over an entire battlespace),

then their ELINT coverage area would be massive, and either human controllers or threat analysis software could cue up the nearest missile to strike the offending radar.

 

Saw or read a scifi story with a similar idea: these drones were scattered all over the skies by the hundreds, and if anything of an apparently threatening nature was detected within their range, a drone was assigned to engage the threat, either with a small directed energy weapon or as a kamikaze.

Unfortunately for us though, the drones were powered by extremely long duration power systems (mini fusion reactors or some other exotic source, coupled to anti-grav generation to stay afloat)

that allowed them to patrol in their scattered cloud formations for weeks, even months on end.

Networked together, they collectively could defend or patrol an area thousands of square miles.

30% is by volume. By those numbers the rocket should be about 400 kilograms total if the rocket maintains constant density. The problem is that as the rocket gets bigger you need to improve the burn and this means you add to the fuel ratio such as using powdered aluminum. THAT is mass. Ammonium perchlorate oxidizer + powdered aluminum + HTPB  binder you can easily double the mass of the propellant by weight, until you get a 1500 pound rocket with the same warhead as you get with the GMLS.

Maybe it should be 857 pounds, but that  depends on the density of the fuel grain........

B.Smitty posted up SM-2 specs (single stage MR, I suspect).

Solid propellant, giving considerably more range than the earlier propellant type used in SM-1s.

Physically bigger than POLAR (13.5" vs 9" or 9.8" or 10" or whatever).

Probably doesn't have a lot of dead empty space, either.

Yet still lighter than a POLAR?