A2G Munition RCS vs SAM Detection & Engagement

Recently I've been playing around with the air to ground side of the Hornet and noticed a few things:

- The JSOW - a VLO/LO weapon - never seems to be engaged by larger/theatre level SAM systems like the S300

- The AGM154 is regularly engaged and shot down by the point defence SA15

- No GBAD systems seem to react to JDAM/GBU/dumb bombs at all

This strikes me as perculiar, since the JSOW should have a smaller radar signature than a regular free fall bomb and therefore be detected and engaged later. Moreover, I would have expected theatre level SAM systems (with their much more powerful radars) to have the best chance of picking up and engaging a low RCS target like JSOW - better than a smaller point defence system like the Tor.

Is this consistent with other people's experience or am I off base here? Happy to be corrected if so.

Thats consistent with what I observe, the TOR radar is very modern, there is a documentary on it on youtube that shows it detecting tiny stuff (as well as engaging free falling bombs)

Thats consistent with what I observe, the TOR radar is very modern, there is a documentary on it on youtube that shows it detecting tiny stuff (as well as engaging free falling bombs)

Right. I mean based on the RCS of the munitions and the power of the radar systems in question I would have expected:

1) S300 to detect & engage regular free fall bombs at the greatest range, then;

2) Tor to detect and engage regular free fall bombs next, then;

3) S300 to detect and engage JSOW, then;

4) Tor to detect and engage JSOW at the shortest range (if at all)

...in that order.

(I guess you could argue for swapping numbers 2 & 3 depending on RCS values vs radar output but I don't want to overcomplicate things TOO much :smilewink:).