What makes a weapon anti-air or anti-tank? Would anti-air be effective against tanks? Could we create one weapon that covers both, or even all possible targets?
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A1: anti-air usually requires that the weapon have some kind of guidance system that can track an aircraft. Typically this is either radar or infrared. While anti-tank missiles can have guidance systems as well, usually laser, gps, wire, or infrared/image guidance, this is not a hard requirement since tanks are often stationary or slow moving targets, and can be hit with unguided weapons.
Additionally, the warhead used is very different. Tanks are very heavily armored and difficult to actually destroy. Which means you either need a lot of explosives (HE) or an explosive charge specifically designed to penetrate tank armor (HEAT). Aircraft on the other hand are very fragile, and it doesn’t take much to bring them down so a smaller, less powerful warhead can be used, and the weight savings can go towards having longer range, and/or better manuverability.
A2: sort of. It depends on the specific missile and the specific tank. Some anti-air missiles do have warheads large enough to damage or possibly destroy some tanks, however this is not their intended use, and you probably would not be able to acquire a solid guidance lock either. You would also be wasting it by using it against a tank instead of an aircraft. Always better to use the right tool when you have the option.
A3: yes, it is possible but in most cases, not very practical. A general purpose missile would need to have a large enough warhead to destroy tanks, while still having flight characteristics that are favorable for intetcepting aircraft, and have adequate range & guidance to service both roles. Ultimately, such a missile would be large, heavy, and very expensive compared to it’s more specialized counterparts.
Such missiles do (kind of) exist though. The US navy’s SM-2 (RIM-66) is one example. While it is classified as an anti-aircraft missile, it does have inertial guidance in addition to radar. So, theoretically, it could be used as an anti-tank weapon, but this would not be efficient since US navy ships carry other missiles & ordinance that would be better suited for that task.
Another example is the russian S300. Also considered an anti-aircraft missile, but russia has a variant that has limited surface guidance and can be used as a ballistic missile, which in turn could be used in an anti-tank capacity. It’s currently being used to terrorize ukranians though.
On a side note, pretty much any kind of large surface striking missiles, such as cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, IRBMS, ICBMS, etc. Can all be easily used as anti-tank weapons, however these weapons are not typically described as being anti-tank weapons, and are quite frankly, massively overkill for taking out a *single* tank.
Another side note is that the US air force is working on a “modular missile system” which is a kind of reconfigurable missile that will allow you to swap out payloads & guidance systems to suit the situation.
Edit: removed kamikazi drones in the side note, as it did not fit what i was describing.
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