Recently, the U.S. Central Command showed footage of an AH-64D helicopter destroying a drone during an exercise in Saudi Arabia, but the weapon used was an AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missile.
Although the U.S. military boasted about the ability of the "Hellfire" to hit drones, it also highlighted the dilemma of the U.S. military's lack of air-to-air missiles of this level. In contrast, China's military industry started ahead of schedule 30 years ago to prepare for such tactical needs.
According to the United States theater website, a new video released by the United States Central Command shows that during the "Red Sand" joint exercise in Saudi Arabia, a United States Army AH-64D "Longbow Apache" successfully destroyed an AGM-114 "Hellfire" missile, successfully destroying a drone in flight. It is said that Saudi Arabia has often faced powerful and cheap drone threats in recent years, and the US military has made this move to show that it has "new anti-drone capabilities".
According to analysis, the missile model launched by the "Longbow Apache" should be AGM-114L, which uses a millimeter-wave radar seeker in this "Hellfire" modification, and can be guided in the early stage by the AN/APG-78 "Longbow" mast radar system. Theoretically, the Longbow radar is capable of detecting and tracking some air targets, such as low-flying helicopters, and therefore has the potential to detect and strike UAVs.
Through this performance, the United States Army declared that Apache helicopters would "play an important role" in anti-drone operations, and even boasted that the Longbow radar and data link could bring new distributed sensors, thereby enabling "networked operations" and greatly improving the situational awareness range of each node. Although the US military has used some bells and whistles, we still have serious questions -- why can't the US military come up with an air-to-air missile for the "Apache" helicopter gunship?
In fact, the "Apache" helicopter has always used the Stinger as an air-to-air missile. However, the air-to-air version of the "Stinger" was developed from a portable missile, which not only had a short maximum range (4 km), but also had poor maneuverability, with a maximum overload of only 9-10 G, which was far inferior to ordinary air-to-air missiles (up to 30-40G), and was almost impossible to make large-angle turns. On the whole, the performance of the Stinger is not suitable for use as an air-to-air missile for air combat.
As for other types of air-to-air missiles in United States, hanging on top of the "Apache" helicopter looks too big again. For comparison, the Stinger missile weighs only 10 kilograms, while the AIM-9X missile weighs 86 kilograms, and the AIM-120C weighs 150 kilograms. The space for hanging one "Rattlesnake" is enough to hang 8 "Stingers", but the target is one, and the cost-effectiveness ratio is too poor.
It can be seen that the United States Army's use of the "Hellfire" anti-tank missile as an air-to-air missile is also a helpless move. In terms of weight, the AGM-114L is 49 kg, which is a little smaller than the AIM-9X "Sidewinder", and the cost is relatively cheaper. It is said that the AIM-9X cost more than $1.6 million, and it is a loss to fight cheap drones, while the AGM-114L also costs as much as $215,000, but the United States Army feels "more cost-effective".
In addition, the AGM-114L uses millimeter-wave radar guidance, which is basically able to deal with low-altitude UAVs with slower speed and poor maneuverability, which is more efficient than the laser-guided version of the "Hellfire" missile. More importantly, the AGM-114L has a range of up to 8 kilometers and a much stronger strike range than the Stinger.
However, the advantages of the "Hellfire" to hit drones are only this. After all, the "Hellfire" is still an anti-tank missile, the speed is only slightly more than Mach 1, and the maneuverability is much inferior to the "Stinger". In fact, the Israel Defense Forces have also used the "Apache" to launch "Hellfire" missiles in recent years to intercept suicide drones of Houthis and other groups, so this use is not new, it is "chasing ducks to the shelf", there is no way.
In the final analysis, it is because the United States does not have a suitable air-to-air missile for helicopters (the US military even considers using airborne rockets to hit drones), simply put, missiles with weight and performance between "Stinger" and "Sidewinder".
Speaking of China's side, I have to say that the mainland was quite prescient in those years, and as early as the 90s of the last century, it developed the "Tianyan-90" (TY-90) missile, the world's only air-to-air missile dedicated to helicopters. In terms of performance, the "Petrel-90" weighs 20 kg and has a maximum range of 6 km, which is exactly between the "Stinger" and the "Sidewinder". In addition, the "Tianyan-90" using infrared omnidirectional guidance, with a speed of more than Mach 2 and a maneuvering overload of more than 20G, is also just in the middle state, and almost all indicators can just fill the most urgent and lacking link of United States armed helicopters.
At that time, the author did not understand the development of the "Tianyan-90" missile by Chinese military enterprises, because this missile was originally only aimed at the function of "helicopters fighting helicopters", and there were no similar weapons in the world. Moreover, like the United States "Apache" can also use "Stinger" missiles, it seems that there is no need to develop a special air-to-air missile, not only the scope of application is narrow, but also the market is very small.
But now it seems that with the rise of UAVs on the battlefield, the "Tianyan-90" small air-to-air missile has unexpectedly met the needs of this emerging battlefield, thus greatly expanding the scope of application. To deal with low-altitude and low-speed UAVs, the air-launched version of the "Stinger" is not enough, and the traditional air-to-air missiles are too large, and the power is not only excessive, but also too expensive. In this way, the "Tianyan-90" developed 30 years ago has almost become the most suitable airborne anti-drone missile in the world. China is also inadvertently 30 years ahead, and may not even have predicted it in the original design unit.
In fact, the "Tianyan-90" can not only be equipped with armed helicopters such as Wuzhi-9, Wuzhi-19, and Wuzhi-10, but can also be installed on Pterodactyl, Rainbow and other integrated UAVs for anti-drone combat. With a weight of only 20 kilograms, both helicopters and drones can carry a considerable number of Petrel-90 missiles, and this missile is "left alone after launch" and is capable of shooting down several enemy drones at the same time.
However, there is still room for improvement and development of the "Tianyan-90". For example, the maximum range of 6 km may not fully meet the actual combat needs of anti-UAVs, it is necessary to further increase the range, and increase the special seeker suitable for anti-UAVs, such as radar guidance or optoelectronic guidance. In addition, this small air-to-air missile needs to be combined with more advanced on-board radar and infrared/photoelectric sensors to enhance battlefield perception and integrate into a networked combat system.
In other words, the set of combat methods envisioned by the United States Army, if we implement it, may be able to do a better job. (Author: Tao Mujian)