Zephyr wrote:
If there were any ramjet powered missiles used in the Gulf War I would say they were Sparrow derivatives. The standard AIM-120 was barely entering service at that time, I find it hard to believe that a parallel ramjet design was fieldable. Also the descrepency regarding these "mystery kills" was initiated by Raytheon briefings that claimed missiles had been fired. In 1991, Raytheon was involved in AMRAAM as a follow-on producer after Hughes. I find it hard to believe Raytheon would be building ramjet powered derivatives while Hughes is just starting to get the standard model into service. A ramjet variant of the Raytheon's mature Sparrow seems much more plausible.
Zephyr
Very true and good point but they could have been using technology from the AAAM and the various other cancelled AAMs from the Cold War to secretly produce a ramjet AIM-120 alongside the standard version. Its only rumors that were never substantiated of course but it'd be cool...There are the same rumors that say Saddam had UFO technology that was shot down during ODS but hell if all that were true I'd be pretty intrigued...however, I doubt it.
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