How does this work? Does the missile drag a wire?
This Site Might Help You. RE: Wire guided missile? How does this work? Does the missile drag a wire?
Exocet is not wire guided. even the wiki link of Leaky clearly states it is inertial guidance with terminal active radar homing. no one has produced the 70 kilometers of wire to command such a missile. yes it works this way. the typical ones are TOW and the Maljutka the missile itself has a roll of the wire and proceeds to the target. the operator either keeps the aim at the target and the missile is guided through a computer /semi automatic/ or the operator gives the commands manually through a joystick. Commands are passed through the wire to the controls of the missile which corrects the flight path relating to the commands. advantage is that this is impossible to jamm, disadvadvantage is the limited/restricted maneuver of the firing vehicle. General problm of these so called SACLOS missiles /semiautomatic, line of sight/ is that you have to see the target all the time the missile flies towards it. I.e. that the target may fire suppresive fire at your post.
The Ruhrstahl X-4 was the first wire guided air-to-air missile and was designed by Germany during World War II. The missile was stabilized by spinning it slowly in flight, at about 60 rpm. This meant that any asymmetrical thrust from the engine, or inaccuracies in the control surfaces, would be evened out as the missile spun. Signals were sent to the missile over two wires that were wound onto spools on the missile body, and corrected the direction of flight by operating control surfaces on the tail. A gyroscope kept track of up so that the control inputs from the pilot's joystick in the launch aircraft would be translated into yaw and pitch even as the missile rolled. Flares attached to two of the mid-section wings were used to keep the missile visible through the smoke of its engine. The missile had a range of 4Km
In a wire guided missile system, the missile drags out a wire, or one is spooled out from within the missile, this wire is connected to a targeting system, which is being controlled by an operator from the launch point of the missile. For most systems, as long as the operator maintains a line of sight on the target throughout the flight of the missile, then it will hit wherever the crosshairs are from the targeting system.
