I’ve just finished reading a fun early-1990’s technothriller (Ambush at Osirak by Herbert Crowder) which had as a plot point a new extremely effective Soviet air-defence system based on stolen US technology, namely a repurposed F14 radar and missile based on the Sprint system (and tipped with a Soviet designed very low-yield tactical nuclear warhead!):
The author made a good point that the insanely fast acceleration would give the target very little time to react and although I can’t see how it could be maneuverable enough to be usable against low-flying targets as depicted in the novel it would be pretty effective against higher-flying aircraft.
Just wondering why the technology behind it didn’t catch on for any other purposes, thanks!
It did- the W66 warhead used on the Sprint was the first enhanced radiation warhead deployed.
So any subsequent “neutron bombs” were derivatives of that warhead, which was NOT a Soviet designed warhead. Apparently the French first developed the concept and detonated the first one in 1967.
(not quite the technology use you were thinking of, huh?)
I wasn’t really clear in the OP, I meant more why the impressive acceleration capabilities weren’t used for other purposes, a conventional warhead or even a non-explosive direct hit would be devastating at those sorts of speeds and would give the defending aircraft very little time to react and evade.
I should have left the whole nuclear warhead part of the OP out
But to clarify, in the book while the missile and radar were based on stolen Western technology that exists in the real world, the nuclear warhead was entirely fictional (its described as having a yield of about ten tons of TNT) and the Soviets are surprised at the entire world going batshit insane after its use by proxy to almost entirely wipe out a second Israeli strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor.
I suspect that a lot of Sprint know-how went into the Patriot missile, especially considering that both were developed at the Redstone Arsenal and were operationally deployed within 6 years of each other.
Beyond that, I think that the problem with the Sprint missile vs. aircraft is that they’re kind of like a really big bullet; yes, they’re going to cover the maximum range in 15 seconds from launch, but that’s a long time at 40 km- the pilot could move a hair out of his way, and the missile would just shoot past at mach 10. Something a bit slower could actually maneuver a little bit and still hit the target, while the Sprint missile was likely relying on the target having a ballistic trajectory and using a ER warhead.
