Air-launched antiship missiles question

[PoorOldSpike]

Is the Harpoon the most powerful air-launched antiship missile NATO has got in the game and in the real world?

Likewise, what are the most powerful Russian and Chinese ones ingame and inworld?

I want to run some tests but the Encyclopaedia only lists 7 missiles that are labelled "antiship" and also lists a lot more that are labelled "air to ground" but which I know from experience also have antiship capabilities, so I'm confused which ones to test against ships.

I want to test the most powerful ones.

Any suggestions? 

[Holbeach]

I did some stuff a while ago, on anti ship missiles in this thread, which might give you some ideas.

 

Pages 6 and 7.

 

 

..

Edited February 21, 2021 by Holbeach

[Seaeagle]

23 hours ago, PoorOldSpike said:

Is the Harpoon the most powerful air-launched antiship missile NATO has got in the game and in the real world?

Its the most common one anyway - there is also the French Exocet.

23 hours ago, PoorOldSpike said:

Likewise, what are the most powerful Russian and Chinese ones ingame and inworld?

I don't know anything about Chinese ASMs, but the most powerful air-launched Russian antiship missile would probably be the Kh-22 - a very large missile deployed by bombers such as the Tu-22M "Backfire" and the Tu-95 "Bear".

 

But Kh-35 and Kh-31A are more common given their much smaller size and, like the above mentioned NATO missiles, can be deployed by just about any type of aircraft - the subsonic Kh-35 in particular, which is so similar to the Harpoon that it gained the unofficial NATO nickname of "Harpoonski" .

 

23 hours ago, PoorOldSpike said:

I want to run some tests but the Encyclopaedia only lists 7 missiles that are labelled "antiship" and also lists a lot more that are labelled "air to ground" but which I know from experience also have antiship capabilities, so I'm confused which ones to test against ships.

The ones labelled "antiship" are the ones designed specifically for this purpose and mostly employ guidance similar to modern air-to-air missiles - i.e. inertial navigation followed by active radar homing in order to engage a moving target at long range.

 

Like you said, there are other "air-to-ground" weapons which can be used against ships as well, but they often have a rather short range, which makes them less suitable against properly defended warships - i.e. the carrier aircraft needs to enter their SAM coverage zone in order to deploy them.

23 hours ago, PoorOldSpike said:

I want to test the most powerful ones.

Any suggestions? 

I suggest to test with the most common ones, for which the AGM-84A/D Harpoon, Kh-35 and Kh-31A would fit the bill. The Kh-31A is also interesting because it(unlike the other two) is a supersonic weapon and therefore presents a different challenge to the ships' airdefences.