In message .com,
writes
Paul J. Adam wrote:
Stealth aircraft aren't generally trying to play Kamikaze into warships
at sea.

True, but I have been thinking more in terms of getting no closer than
is required to identify the target and illuminate it with a laser.

That's still "close range" compared to expected radar performance.

For
a ship near to the shore, you could that with a very small UAV, I
think: not easy to knock down, even if you're able to detect it.

Not *that* small - the designator (with enough power to work at a decent
standoff), the optics to know where it's pointed, the transmitter with
enough bandwidth to allow effective search, identification and
engagemenrt, the stabilisation system for all this to make it usable and
the power supply to keep it all running add up to a pretty sizeable
package.

A current system gets you about 11kg for a portable laser designator,
with a range of 5km quoted. That's pretty close quarters...

http://www.dsd.es.northropgrumman.co...laser/LLDR.pdf


Another handy site is www.flir.com - they make some good kit and their
brochures demonstrate how going from simple optical/TI to adding
designation capability, range unspecified, ramps your payload weight
from 13 to 51 kilograms (compare their Microstar II to the BRITE Star)


Perfectly feasible to pack all these systems into a UAV and have them
work very well (see Predator) but it does impose a size penalty, and
also increases the effort needed if as well as working and flying you
have to add "and very low RCS across all the frequencies of interest".

Not that much smaller than some more conventional antiship threats, in
fact

--
Paul J. Adam