I have a question here if some one can perhaps answer. Can an AWACS guide a SAM towards its target or at least provide mid course correction? since AWACS have better situational awareness as compared to a ground based radar.
In theory, a missile of any type can be guided, or its guidance be correlated, by an external source such as AWACS. There are several issues. The main one is the quality of that source. The secondary issue is the degradation tolerance level of said source, meaning that
IF the quality of that external guidance/correlative source degrades in comparison to another source, such as the missile's own sensor, what is the degradation threshold where that external source is discarded? Third issue is
IF said external guidance/correlative source regain its previous level of confidence, should it be used again?
The analogy here is the proverbial 'back seat driver' that all of us must suffer occasionally throughout our lives. Is that person knowledgeable? Does he give reasonably accurate information? Does he have a clear voice? And so on...Now compare him with a GPS unit. See the differences? Now we must consider the entire situation of a missile chasing a target at several hundreds km/h and in the case of a maneuvering target, the problem compounds exponentially.
External guidance/correlation is simple in idea but fickle in application, especially if said external source can be unreliable, such as the AWACS being chased by a hostile. Now the quality-of-service (QoS) really really degrades. The missile designer must assume that said external source will not always be available to him and that they are a luxury, not a need. That is why it is always preferable, even for US, to have the best possible sensor for the missile despite our advances in AWACS and data links technology.