Are you trying to be a smart aleck? OOE served as a combat engineer and he knows what proximity fuses are all about up the yin and yang.
You missed the point what he was referring to. Obviously you ain't gotten a clue what he was trying to tell you. Proximity fuses do not work in one setting for all types of missiles. Different types of missiles work at different speeds and heights and trajectories. Moreover, you need to hit the right part of the missile. If you hit the wrong part of the missile, the warhead will just separate and hit a different target.
Yup, I am not a serving officer and I agree I don't know everything about proximity fuses.But, let me tell you this PAC-2 does not chase the tail.
I can tell you that for sure. If the enemy missile is coming at MACH 5 and if the patriot missile makes a miscalculation of 1/100 th of a second then it will miss it's target by more than 30 meters.Now, if it keeps its focus on hunting down the tail, I am afraid before it locks on to that part and makes it a priority to hit that part, it will miss it.For a patriot to identify the tail section it has to be relatively close to the target and it will be having very less time to make the adjustments in trajectory.
How on earth is the patriot going to see the tail of an incoming scud missile in its radar, when its going for head on collision..please enlighten me.PAC-3 does have a inbuilt radar and processor and is designed to take down the warhead though.Its like a bullet versus a bullet.
Both the incoming target missile and the outbound Patriot missile are traveling up to five times faster than a typical bullet and are closing in on one another at up to Mach 10, or two miles per second. At that speed there is no room for error -- if the missile miscalculates by even 1/100th of a second, it will be off by more than 100 feet (30.5 meters).
I know there are different types of proximity fuses. I would appreciate if you can provide a link which talks about targeting a specific section of a missile.So far I have found none.But, PAC 3 it seems tries to hit the warhead.
Let me tell you something more, the Aster 30 in a near miss scenario jumps laterally towards the target.comparable missiles can seldom do this due to the thin air at altitude and therefore making plane guidance impractical.
I am providing you a link to know how the aster works.This is a very advanced missile to defend against missiles.No where does it mention targeting specific section of enemy missile.The concept is the same for all existing missiles, in the sense in the terminal phase proximity fuse reaches a certain threshold and the warhead explodes.The approaching angle may result in total or partial destruction.So, there is absolutely no way to guide a missile to hit only the tail.
http://www.suomensotilas.fi/pdf/SAMPT_en-uk_web.pdf
PAC 3 it seems does not even have a proximity fuse. It's designed for hit to kill. It does actually collide with the incoming missile. i.e. body to body impact.It's a terminal air defense missile. Tries to take down enemy missile in the terminal phase.It has a radar and a KA band seeker.Shortly before arrival at the intercept point, the PAC-3 Missile's on board Ka band seeker acquires the target, selects the optimal aim point and terminal guidance is initiated.It destroys its targets by the kinetic energy released in a head-on collision.
