Raytheon's Pike

.

Raytheon unveiled its mini-missile "Pike", which s even smaller than the "Spike" that garnered much attention a couple years ago.

Raytheon's Pike (c) Raytheon

Spike had 2.4 kg and 53 mm calibre, Pike has 0.8 kg and 40 mm calibre. This is less weight than even a M72 LAW or an even lighter SARPAC round. Pike's warhead appears to be about as powerful as a 40x46 mm HE round.

Pike's range of 2 km is roughly half of Spike's. Pike needs no dedicated launcher; it can use 40 mm grenade launchers if they accept its length.

At first glance it's a "game changer", and you can find such comments on the internet already.

There's still the comment I made in regard to Spike years ago, though:

It looks like a (weak) silver bullet, but the most pressing problem against competent and well-equipped opposition isn't so much the killing - it's the detection and identification. It's been possible to take out identified opposition at long ranges before - the key problem is that the battlefield seems to be empty as everyone who's really competent is either camouflaged, behind concealment, behind cover or impossible to identify in an ocean of contacts (civilians or decoys).

An opponent learns from experience - and an opponent who faced a great quantity of Pike missiles will quickly learn to avoid their effect by denying this enemy the spotting and identification required for launching a scarce and expensive round.

This is similar to long-range sniping; it mostly suppressed the enemy's visibility - the attrition effect is not that great even on terrains with long lines of sight.

What's the utility of the suppression of the enemy's visibility at longer ranges than possible with rifles? You end up knowing less about the enemy, after all.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

.