Can the rear turrets on Russian bombers engage air-to-air missiles?

[Avimimus]

I'm curious about this. Is there any evidence of rear guns being used as a sort-of CIWS? The radar controlled gun on the Tu-22M looks plausible for this (however, I doubt it would be widely advertised).

[Nerd1000]

Pretty sure the radar on those systems would have difficulty detecting an A2A missile, let alone prompting the gunner to fire on it in time.

 

Ship-based CWIS with larger radar is only expected to engage anti-ship missiles, and those things are much bigger than an A2A weapon.

[Avimimus]

That is what I thought. However, it is worth noting that the terminal phase of most Air-to-Air missiles is often much slower than that of an anti-ship missile. Furthermore, the bomber could be retreating at extremely high speeds (>1500 kmh) which would further lower the relative speed.

 

So, it would be quite common for the approaching missile to have a relative speed below mach 1 and be closer in challenge to intercepting a subsonic anti-ship missile.

[maturin]

I would like to see a Phalanx or Kashtan CIWS hit a target while the ship was engaged defensive at supersonic speeds...

[cichlidfan]

I would like to see a Phalanx or Kashtan CIWS hit a target while the ship was engaged defensive at supersonic speeds...

 

Might be possible if the fire control computer and the piloting computer (not human) were working in concert. :)

[vicx]

I don't think this is a completely ridiculous idea. A radar directed system could be smaller by concentrating a narrow beam in the rear aspect. There could have also been an optical component which was common for the ship based CIWS systems.

 

So lets talk about the Tu-22 of the 60's and early 70's; tasked with firing the big missiles at the boats and then exiting at supersonic speed. Why were they fielded with radar directed rear gun systems?

 

That fact is that the naval anti-air missiles of that time were not uniformly useful for engaging the Backfire threat and in the air there was only the Aim-7 Sparrow. If a Backfire put those old missiles on it's tail and extended at maximum speed then the closing speed of that missile (also losing energy) would put it in a state to be engaged by a radar directed gun. It becomes something to consider.

 

I'm sure the Americans considered that the Backfire could pull this off. Which is why they spent a lot of money to counter it. AIM-54 was a significant part of their response and I'm sure the Naval missile systems all received attention too.

 

This is all speculative on my part but it is not a ridiculous premise.