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« on: February 10, 2023, 08:18:03 am »
Striking militarily useful targets at the frontline is significantly harder. Spraying those missiles at troop concentrations could very easily have zero effect. They're striking what they can hit, not what they want to hit.
Most of the missiles Russia is using run on pure internal guidance. What this means is that there is a computer in the missile that knows where it was launched from (derived from the launch aircraft, that may be using GPS or a similar system), knows the fixed point it wants to go to, and keeps a log of current location as it goes. These can be very accurate, using sensors to track winds and such that might affect the flight, but a certain amount of error is inevitable. For big immobile targets, this isn't a huge drawback, but tactical strikes generally need very high precision - even an immobile bunker is a very small, very hard target.
Some of the missiles Russia is using have terminal radar homing - it turns on a radar when it nears the programmed target, picks a return based on preprogrammed criteria, and goes straight for it. This is absolutely incredible for attacking ships, and gives a nice final "oh, here it is" when attacking buildings in clear terrain. Against tactical ground targets however, it is a lot more limited - most are small enough radar targets that it is really hard to pick them out from things like rocks and trees.
To hit tactical targets, you need something specialized for the role. Laser guidance, where you "paint" the target with a laser beam that the missile homes in on, is popular - the American HELLFIRE missile uses this system. Optical guidance in various forms is also popular - the TOW missile goes wherever the operator points his camera, while the Maverick (or, more relevant to this conflict, the Javelin) have a picture that their operator tells them to destroy and they go straight for it.
Russia has such systems, but they have the great flaw of being local systems - you have to be in visual range of the target, not yeeting them from half a country away. To use that kind of long range missile tactically, you need it to have some way to see visual or infrared signatures, then decide for itself which of those to attack - Russia doesn't have such a system. Neither do most countries - the British Brimstone system has a very rudimentary attempt at such a system, and I'm not aware of any others.
Ukraine's been "cheating" with a mixture of GPS-guided weapons and direct observation. A GPS guided weapon differs from an internal navigation because it is constantly asking the satellites "WHERE AM I", and the satellites are giving an extremely precise answer. Thus, where a INS system has a pretty good idea of where it is, when using GPS the missile knows where it is at all times. This eliminates all accumulated error from the flight path. If you also obtain the exact location of the target via direct observation (and more GPS systems to determine the exact position of the observer), scoring a direct hit is trivial. Russia does not have this capability. Building their weapons to require the cooperation of their main rival power (who can easily just shut off or encrypt the signals in a conflict zone) would be a bad idea, and their attempt to build their own system (GLONASS) has been far less successful due to budget cuts. So they never built their systems to rely on GLONASS as much as NATO is willing to rely on GPS.
