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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we do. the american ADATS stands for Air Defense Anti Tank System. it’s basically an anti tank missile with proxy fuze. the russian is also the same with the vikhr missile. though iirc, on the vikhr missile, you need to select what mode do you want to use prior to launching. so if it’s in aa mode, it wont work well for at role and vice versa
going back a bit, we had dual puprose guns. like the one on many warships. they are designed to be used against aircraft and surface targets
the also, everyone converted aa guns into anti tank role in ww2. german 88, soviet 85, american 90, etc
mostly, anti tank or anti air are defined by the ammunition that it fires. if it fires armor piercing, then it’s anti tank, if it fires air burst, with time fuze, it’s usually anti air.
making a missile that can do both is certainly doable. but it’s really complicated. because to kill aircraft, you want something fast and turns well. and to kill tank, you want to pack as much explosive as you can. these points contradicts each other. so we have separate missile for aa and at
In general, air craft are hard to hit, but if you hit them with anything they are screwed.
While tanks are relatively easy to hit, but you really need to hit them hard to do damage.
So as a result, the warheads of anti-aircraft weapons tend to spread a little bit of damage all over the place.
While anti-tank weapons concentrate all the force in a tiny space.
So for example the famous WW2 German 88mm was originally designed to shoot at aircraft, it would send a flak shell really fast so it could explode high up near where aircraft were flying.
But then they needed to kill tanks, so they would load a different kind of shell, one that was really hard and would only explode a while after hitting something.
If they tried to shoot a flak shell at a tank, the shell would explode every where and not really bother the tank.
If they tried to shoot a anti-tank shell at a plane, unless they got really really lucky, the shell would miss the plane and do nothing.
Modern missiles are variations of that, you can make a missile go really really fast and accurate, but an anti air missile will still have a relatively small explody bit, which spreads damage all over the place. While an anti-tank missile will have less stuff to get the missile going, but a bigger explody bit that concentrates all the explosion in a small place.
Because the two ideas are very different they can’t really be done at the same time.
In general, air craft are hard to hit, but if you hit them with anything they are screwed.
While tanks are relatively easy to hit, but you really need to hit them hard to do damage.
So as a result, the warheads of anti-aircraft weapons tend to spread a little bit of damage all over the place.
While anti-tank weapons concentrate all the force in a tiny space.
So for example the famous WW2 German 88mm was originally designed to shoot at aircraft, it would send a flak shell really fast so it could explode high up near where aircraft were flying.
But then they needed to kill tanks, so they would load a different kind of shell, one that was really hard and would only explode a while after hitting something.
If they tried to shoot a flak shell at a tank, the shell would explode every where and not really bother the tank.
If they tried to shoot a anti-tank shell at a plane, unless they got really really lucky, the shell would miss the plane and do nothing.
Modern missiles are variations of that, you can make a missile go really really fast and accurate, but an anti air missile will still have a relatively small explody bit, which spreads damage all over the place. While an anti-tank missile will have less stuff to get the missile going, but a bigger explody bit that concentrates all the explosion in a small place.
Because the two ideas are very different they can’t really be done at the same time.
Flying stuff is light and easy to punch holes in, you just need a lot of spread to hit it. Tanks however are easy to hit, but are heavily armored, usually with reactive armor that will detect projectiles and create outward explosions itself to pre-emptively detonate incoming missiles, but this armor is mostly on the side so anti-tank missiles typically lock on to the tank, then fly up and hit it from the top.
In general, air craft are hard to hit, but if you hit them with anything they are screwed.
While tanks are relatively easy to hit, but you really need to hit them hard to do damage.
So as a result, the warheads of anti-aircraft weapons tend to spread a little bit of damage all over the place.
While anti-tank weapons concentrate all the force in a tiny space.
So for example the famous WW2 German 88mm was originally designed to shoot at aircraft, it would send a flak shell really fast so it could explode high up near where aircraft were flying.
But then they needed to kill tanks, so they would load a different kind of shell, one that was really hard and would only explode a while after hitting something.
If they tried to shoot a flak shell at a tank, the shell would explode every where and not really bother the tank.
If they tried to shoot a anti-tank shell at a plane, unless they got really really lucky, the shell would miss the plane and do nothing.
Modern missiles are variations of that, you can make a missile go really really fast and accurate, but an anti air missile will still have a relatively small explody bit, which spreads damage all over the place. While an anti-tank missile will have less stuff to get the missile going, but a bigger explody bit that concentrates all the explosion in a small place.
Because the two ideas are very different they can’t really be done at the same time.
For what it’s worth, in the Ukraine war we’ve seen weapons used beyond their intended purpose, like Javelin anti tank missiles used on low flying helicopters or S300 air defense missiles used to attack ground targets, but it’s not really what they’re best at
Flying stuff is light and easy to punch holes in, you just need a lot of spread to hit it. Tanks however are easy to hit, but are heavily armored, usually with reactive armor that will detect projectiles and create outward explosions itself to pre-emptively detonate incoming missiles, but this armor is mostly on the side so anti-tank missiles typically lock on to the tank, then fly up and hit it from the top.
Flying stuff is light and easy to punch holes in, you just need a lot of spread to hit it. Tanks however are easy to hit, but are heavily armored, usually with reactive armor that will detect projectiles and create outward explosions itself to pre-emptively detonate incoming missiles, but this armor is mostly on the side so anti-tank missiles typically lock on to the tank, then fly up and hit it from the top.
For what it’s worth, in the Ukraine war we’ve seen weapons used beyond their intended purpose, like Javelin anti tank missiles used on low flying helicopters or S300 air defense missiles used to attack ground targets, but it’s not really what they’re best at
You see some overlap in the realm of anti-armor and anti-helicopter weapons.
Something designed to take out tanks from a long range often can be made to work against helicopters. There have been several videos of Ukraine shooting down helicopters using Javelins anti-tank weapons.
It’s less easy, but still possible, to design a light anti-air missile that can also be used against ground targets. The warheads you see on small SAM missiles isn’t going to be enough to take out a tank, but things like the UK Starstreak are designed with the idea of engaging ‘light’ armored vehicles like infantry fighting vehicles.
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