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The IR guidance in the Standard Block IIIB is for the endgame and was developed to counter new ECM techniques in expected targets. The Block IIIB still uses semi-active guidance requiring the appropriate radars (none of which are sub mounted) to get its initial guidance. I don't believe the Block IIIB entered the fleet operationally until 1997, and most of its testing would have taken place on the West Coast.

Unfortunately, your concerns about credibility don't seem to cover anything coming from Barf. Maybe you can tell us about the Navy's 30 knot on the surface capable submarines.

Let's pretend that you were the commander of a sub below an aircraft breaking up. Would you idle your prop and watch the action or try to get out of there in the most expeditious manner. One thing which happens when the thrust line drops relative to mass centroid is that the nose should pick up while the stern drops. As the stern drops more of the prop would be exposed to the water. Maybe a balls out condition gives a higher speed than simple cruise. I don't know sub specs but can imagine that the physics change. Force vectors act similarly in all systems. When my employer was testing ramjet powered target drones, they used a booster which fell away when the main engine took over. Major problem developed when the flight control transients switched and we had many drones dig holes in the desert. I suggested that the booster motor be installed inline with the cruise ramjet so that the flight control would have very little change after boost. Marquardt went with this suggestion and created the Low Volume Ramjet and had a new market niche. As far as I can recall, I never received credit for this suggestion. I also came up with a new chaff type of corner reflector which could jam receiving radar stations but it did not go into production. I feel that much of my own experience supports my TWA800 pitch. With thanks to Elmer Fudd for replaying my earliest thoughts on the crash. My education over the past few years has changed my theory a great deal.

Rokke wrote:
To: acehai
The IR guidance in the Standard Block IIIB is for the endgame and was developed to counter new ECM techniques in expected targets. The Block IIIB still uses semi-active guidance requiring the appropriate radars (none of which are sub mounted) to get its initial guidance. I don't believe the Block IIIB entered the fleet operationally until 1997, and most of its testing would have taken place on the West Coast.

Rokke, this is inconsistent with the sailors story. The purpose of the IR head is to give lowly 'forward-shooters who can't illuminate, like destroyers and frigates, the capability to use Standards. The story goes something like this:

"Only some genius at NSWC pointed out that the limiting factor now was still illuminators, so if we had a seaskimmer and the AEGIS is too far away or off-axis it's down in the multipath and the AEGIS can't designate the target. Since the Really Big Threat these days is high-speed seaskimming missiles lobbed off mobile launchers or from FACs, that sucks.

"So, they figured, why not give the weapon autonomous terminal homing? Gee, we've got this really nice Hughes I2R module that's getting stuffed into missiles all over the place (it's going in AIM-9X, the Brits use it in ASRAAM, think the Krauts put it in IRIS-T) and is a non-development item and just needs a new nose section, and hey presto you've got the biggest heatseeker in the world. Multipath? Stealth? Radar jamming? Who cares? It's hot, go kill it. Sic'em, boy!

"Now _everyone's_ happy because this expands everyone's options. Isn't just us Sprucans who can use it, of course, this is getting bandied about as a Stealth-killer for anyone with a Mark 41 (Stealth planes might be hard to track on radar, but they're hot compared to the sky, the Brits keep bragging how they 'killed' a B-2 with the IR tracker on a Rapier 2000 at Farnborough '94). But the big deal is, it offloads the AEGIS illuminators, shortens engagement times, and ups the Pk against puckermakers like Sunburn to something acceptable."

I might add the CEC testing was moved to the east coast from remote Hawaii in the winter of '95-'96. Where it stayed. Don't blame this one on the west coast. :-) They said it wasn't ready for the move, BTW. Like political/management types give a sh.. what engineers say. For some reason I suspect Standards are now on lowly forward-shooter destroyers and frigates - which still can't illuminate. Commander Acehai? Figures. :-)