I'd prefer to call it debate, rather than retaliation, doggtag.  I'm genuinely intrigued by what Herald says - primarily because I'm one of the people who will be relying on this missile!

What makes a perfect missile size?  I'd imagine it's a trade-off between growth potential, flight performance and magazine capacity.  On the logic that ESSM might be preferable to Aster because it has 10" against 7" (SM2 is 13.5") where does that leave Sea Dart at 17"?  I'd think that general opinion is that 17" makes for a lot of room and surprisingly good flight performance but fills magazine space uncomfortably quickly.  7" is supposed to give exceptional flight performance.  I'd agree that there's less room for growth in terms of range and payload.  However, why would you need payload if you're achieving the required proximity through performance?  That's a debate that could go on forever depending upon what performance you achieve and what payload that requires but if one is good enough to negate the other then surely there's no issue?  As for range, well Aster will certainly be more difficult to develop into a theatre ballistic missile defence than something larger.  That may be unfortunate, but it was a trade-off accepted when the design was formulated.
 As to not being maneuverable enough (Aster or EESM or VL MICA or Standard or whichever): seriously, how many cruise missiles targetting ships, or even ballistic missiles, are designed to not only detect they're being tracked and engaged by countermissiles, but also to jink and evade said defensives to the extent a human-piloted aircraft would maneuver to evade?

 

As someone who might be in the line of fire I'd obviously appreciate the very best equipment to defend myself with.  However, as a member of society I also appreciate that procurement decisions are also driven by financial and political factors and that sometimes risks will be taken on combat percentages that may or may not occur in order to give a few extra citizens a job or improve a few hospitals and schools.  I get upset when I think my service is short-changed, but I think it's quite a narrow perspective to rage against the dying of the light in the military when that decision is probably benefiting someone else.

Sorry, I can't be more specific.

Herald.

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Explanation

The diagram is obviously not to scale.  The biggest problem with ASTER is the seeker. Its myopic. Now  the actual niumbers I used are the MER for AMRAAM which has a much betterm seeker than the one in ASTER. ASTER's seeker is an active miniature radar. The actual antenna size is important as it determines  signal detection threshhold  for the missile.  The MICA derived seeker antenna is only  about 15.5 centimeters in diameter.

Now  if it  could actually look as far as AMRAAM into sea-clutter to pick out a club it would have about 10,000 meters reach  into its drop basket  for the merge. That dropbbasket is a continuous conic that precedes the missile as it flies out. Because of the way the ASTER antenna is designed you have a F0V problem. Notice how little of the hemisphere is covered by a crossing target? The slice will usually work out to about 3000-5000 meters along the vampire's vector. ASTER is usually falling around 1000 mps so it is about 10 seconds out IF it acquires. The KLUB is chugging along at 250 mps before it boosts supersonic in its lastg15000 meters run in. That means if you work the math you think you have 10 seconds to make the merge at your R1 point.. That's wrong. You actually have seconds with the two crossing vectors. You work it out and you are allowed 2.5 seconds early or late or you don't see it at all.. If that missile coming at you is 400 mps or faster? Cut your time down to 1.5 seconds or less early or late at R1. Now if you can update only once every fifteen to thirty seconds guaranteed to predict lead toi merge at R1 into the dropbasket off the horizon limited EMPAR or Herakles because 80% of the telemetry you transmit the ASTER never "hears"? You miss. its that simple. OTH shots?  Forget it.  Not with ASTER 30. Its very much why MBDA told the RN that giving the ASTER a reange extending booster was a waste of time . They knew the physics and what the missile could do.

Don't think you wouldn't have this merge problem with AMRAAM or METEOR if you didn't plan for it. You would. Those two missiles have better seekers although the Germans and British started with the crap MICA EP-4 family seeker when they started to work on METEOR's active radar. The new METEOR seeker sees much farther into the drop basket and is a far better design. So you have a miss window around 3+ seconds early or late at 400 mps crossing target aspect.

This is what I can show you.

I wish that I could tell you that BAE  was able to solve the timematching conflict with SMARTL and SAMPSON to ASTER.[British technology is not French]  I can't, because to this date, I frankly don't know. I suspect that they might have. I just don't know.  

Herald
Herald