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Think of the C-RAM system as a really big gun that can shoot a lot of big bullets at an extremely high rate of fire. Now, attach a computer, a radar, and an infrared camera to the big gun and point it towards an area where you’re expecting indirect fire munitions to be coming from.
Once the computer detects an object within its radar’s proximity, it asks itself three questions:
1. Is it coming towards me or going away from me? If it’s going away from me, it’s probably not my business. If it’s coming towards me, go to step 2.
2. Is the object’s trajectory going to hit me or near me? If not, leave it alone. If it’s going to hit me or hit close to me, go to step 3.
3. Is the object going above a certain minimum speed and/or below a certain maximum speed? If it’s too slow, it’s probably not a rocket, artillery, or mortar round, and so I won’t fire. If it’s too fast, it’s beyond my capabilities to actually track it, and so I won’t fire. But if it’s fast enough to be indirect fire munition and slow enough for me to track, then I will begin firing at the object.
Once the object is now longer moving within the radar’s range, the C-RAM will go to the next target.
For clarity, C-RAMs are land-based big guns that are copies of the big guns they put on warships, which are called CIWS (Close-In Weapons Systems). C-RAMS fire big solid bullets made of tungsten to hopefully penetrate the incoming projectile and cause it detonate before reaching its target. The CIWS big guns that are installed on ships shoot high-explosive bullets that explode in midair right before reaching their target to attempt the damage or destroy the incoming projectiles with shrapnel before they reach their target.
Some defense contractors are also fielding laser-based C-RAMS that track incoming projectiles and focus a high-energy laser beam on them to detonate/destroy them in midair, as opposed to shooting bullets at the incoming projectile.
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