In regards to missiles and torpedoes, what exactly do they mean when they are working on a firing solution. Especially when most modern missiles and torpedoes seem to have automatic homing / target funding technology?
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For air-to-air missiles, especially BVR (Beyond Visual Range) combat, factors like the target’s aspect (which direction your target is facing, since that can affect a RADAR return or IR tracking), your own velocity, and altitude have to be factored in to whether a missile launch is (or will be) “good”.
For example, at high altitude (= air is thinner, less aerodynamic drag, missile expends less fuel/energy) and high airspeed of the launching platform (= missile has more initial speed when launched), you might get as much as 40 miles (or whatever, I’m wholeass making up this number) of max range out of an AMRAAM; but at lower altitude (= air is more dense, missile has to expend more fuel/energy) and low airspeed (= missile has less initial speed when launched), that max range can drop to 20 miles or less. And those’re just factors that the launching aircraft has some control over (e.g. absent external factors they could choose to go higher and faster before the launch) – we’re not accounting for the target yet (if the target is maneuvering defensively, that will force the missile to have to maneuver and expend fuel/energy; if the target is maneuvering offensively then the launching aircraft may not even get a chance to move to a more favorable scenario because they’re having to defend, etc.).
Missiles may have good homing software, but it’s not good enough to account for every single scenario in combat, and missiles still have to obey the laws of physics – just because you have a target lock at 40 miles doesn’t necessarily mean the missile can reach out that far.
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