this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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Nah, that missile was visual tracking. Not radar guided. Also, way too small to intercept anything going high and fast which is generally what the patriot is for. Intercepting an aircraft requires a really powerful motor to give it enough speed and altitude to catch a plane.
This radar could maybe be used with a semi active radar guided missile, where the ground radar lights up the target and the missile just has a detector that homes in on that, which is what early patriots used. But it’s only got a 20km range which isn’t really enough for an anti aircraft system, unless all you’re worried about is something slow and low to the ground like a helicopter or cesna. Need enough time for the radar to detect, identify and lock the target, fire the missile, and have it track to the target, and something moving fast and high will be in and out of the range of the radar before all that can be done. Especially if the target is high up at 10km, which would half the effective range.
I though SARH missiles work by having an off missile system provide target location information and the missile just knows where it is via gps or IMU data. (and thus brings the missile from where it is to where it isint. This is a half joke)
It depends on the system, often times they’ll have additional guidance assistance, such as an infrared seeker or some inertial posturing system. SARH just means the main guidance is provided by a seeker picking up radar from a external emitter painting the target. As supposed to ARH (active radar homing) where the missile has its own emitter and detector. Most systems aren’t just one thing these days, for the sake of redundancy and error correction.