BVR - Is It Useful?

Phoenix missiles, AMRAAM, Harpoon, Standard SM-x.  As examples, what do these various weapons have in common?  They’re all long range missiles capable of Beyond Visual Range (BVR) engagements.  What else do they have in common?  Few have ever been used in BVR engagements except in rigorously controlled situations.  Why?  Because the US military is so reluctant to risk friendly, neutral, or civilian casualties that Rules of Engagement and actual practice generally dictate visual identification (VID) of targets or a level of BVR target certainty that is almost impossible to achieve and which, therefore, defaults back to VID.  Ironic, isn’t it, that for all our long range radar, IFF, passive sensing, ESM, and so on, we ultimately depend on VID for weapons release?

Before we go any further, let’s set aside the question of the wisdom or value of the ROEs and VID requirements.  There are good arguments for and against these requirements and they go beyond mere military aspects to include public relations, ethics, politics, etc.  The requirements are what they are so we’ll simply accept them for the sake of this discussion.



AIM-54 Phoenix - Unusable?



The VID requirement is why Phoenix has never achieved a kill and, to the best of my knowledge, only been launched in anger on one occasion.  It’s why Iraqi planes were largely able to make a successful mass exodus during Desert Storm.  And so on … 

Failure to follow VID has led to a few infamous incidents, notably the Vincennes and the recent firing on an apparent fishing boat by a Navy replenishment ship.

Given that VID is a near-requirement, one can’t help but wonder about the value of BVR weapons.  If you can’t use them as intended, what’s the point of having them?  Now, I’m not suggesting that we stop development of BVR weapons.  Of course, we need them for the all out war situations where BVR will(?) be allowed.  The VID requirements do, however, greatly diminish the value of BVR and, in practice during peacetime or limited conflicts, almost totally negate the use of BVR.

For example, if we had our own version of an intermediate range anti-ship ballistic missile (the Chinese “carrier-killer”) would we even use it knowing that there would be a risk, however small, of inadvertently targeting civilian or neutral shipping?

What is my point?  Well, to an extent, I don’t have one.  I simply note the difficulty in applying BVR combat and the resulting diminishment of overall combat capability when VID is required.  Beyond that, I’d suggest that future enhancement of combat capability would benefit more from BVR target identification capabilities than continued development of ever longer range weapons that we won’t allow ourselves to use.  Just something to think about as we read and assess future weapon systems.