Thomas Schoene skrev i meddelandet
<01be355b$7c708ec0$5e754e0c@default>...

  Almost every Russian SSM systems seem to have
  missile radar-video data links such as
  Front Door/SS-N-12 in Kiev, Slava classes,
  Light Bulb/SS-N-22 in Sovremennyy class, and
  Fish Bowl/SS-N-9 in Nanuchka class.

  Is it possible for the Light Bulb system to receive
  SS-N-22's missile radar-video well over the horizon?
  or limited to radar horizon? and how about others?

  In a scenario of a Sovremennyy firing all 8 Sunburns,
  Could it make them to attack simultaneously from
  different directions?

  Does any Western SSM system (Harpoon, Exocet, RBS-15)
  have similar missile radar-video receiver/data link?

For example some ships carry a Helo that can relay the link
and one variant of the Tu-95/142 ( possibly the F variant)
can also relay.

One of the operation mode is to fire several missiles at once.
One of the missiles gradually rises so as to remain line of site with
the launch platform. It can receive guidance updates from the launch
platform and send updates to its siblings. As it is not sea smilling
it is very vunerable to  defensive systems.

I don't have any information on how far the different elements
can be and this all still work.

The RBS-15 can receive updates from the launch platform but I have
never heard of it sending radar information back. This also applies to
the Otomat. The US developed a Anti-ship missile called the Condor
that could data link IR imagery back to the launch platform but never
deployed it. However it is reported that the data was given to Isreal
and it was further developed into the popeye missile. This is a large
Air - to - ground system that the US deploys on its B52. It can be
used anti-ship but is meant to be general purpose.

Combat with the USA would have involved action against USN Carrier
groups. It order to attack them with any chance of sucess you need to
attack at maximum range.

However max range has the problem of flight time - the ships will have
moved some distance in say a 20 min flight. So you need to update the
target position during flight. This explains the USSR interest in data
links to their missiles. The European Otomat has considerable range
which explains its data link being present for the same reason.

The USSR however had a reason for a data link from missile to launch
platform and that is if you get a couple of missiles through the USN
defenses you want to make sure that hit the carrier and don't pick on
a frigate. The USSR's on missile processing is not up to the problem
of sorting this out without help from the Launch Platform hence the
return datalink. The Europeans do not have  similar stratagy with
shorter range missiles and more air assets. Hence no return datalink.

The US hit this problem when they started fielding the Anti Ship
version of the Tomahawk missile. It had a range of about 450 Miles but
the US did not have a way of reliably getting real time target
information from the Launch platform to allow reliable targeting at
that range. Hence the system has been retired pending that trageting
system becoming available.

--
-Mike Chapman.
"Once a king, always a king. Once a night is enough."

I am very sick of this coming up again and again
everybody in this newsgroup must be in their entrenched positions by
now - everybody has their opinion fixed lets drop the whole subject
its just filling this newsgroup up with noise.

Regards,
Beck