gambit
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Sure...If its a anti-ship missile, it really cannot miss too much, can't it. Especially its a smaller ship. Even for a anti-ship missile, so CEP do not apply to anti-ship missile.
As for missile that require GPS, its the error of GPS signal that determine the accuracy.
But we are talking about ballistic missile here. Can India achieve CEP of zero for K4?@gambit, can you explain what he is talking about ?
The proper definition for the circular error probable (CEP) is: A circle around a pair of 'x,y' coordinates and that the circle has a %50 probability of containing the target.
Translation:
1- The 'x,y' coordinates DOES NOT represent the target.
2- The target is supposed to be inside that circle.
3- The target can be anywhere inside that circle.
I would add that this is from the weapon's perspective. Purists would curl their toes and flinch at that but I found a long time ago that for my trainees, explaining things from a weapon's perspective tends to clear up a lot of misconceptions.
There are many reasons for the size of that circle ranging from technical to intelligence.
The technical reasons are from technology sophistication such as sensor, avionics, or propulsion that affects the missile's flight from launch and target detection at the destination.
The intelligence reasons are from knowing or not knowing the precise locations of targets. Obviously, the Soviets did not allow American agents to measure Soviet ICBM silos, so we had to resort to other means such as satellite photo recon, then we superimpose a map with boundaries upon those photos and calculate the 'x,y' coordinates of the silos.
The greater the sophistication and precision of both technology and intelligence, the smaller the circle. The imprecision of the intelligence of Soviet ICBM silos resulted in varying CEP figures and necessitate the use of nuclear warheads to increase the odds of their destruction.
This statement: '...CEP do not apply to anti-ship missile.'
Should be expressed as: 'The CEP is not ALLOWED for an anti-ship missile.'
Theoretically speaking, if the target is stationary in the air or on sea surface, a CEP figure can be calculated.
But practically speaking...The no allowance is based on the fact that the target is moving and the non-nuclear warhead that require the missile to literally impact the ship in order to remove the ship from the calculus of war. Simply put, an anti-ship cruise missile is just like an anti-ballistic warhead interceptor -- must not miss. So calculating a CEP figure is useless. It can be done, even against a moving target, just that there is no utility for it.
If we make that allowance, we must have a customer/user for that figure and that customer/user would be a nuclear warhead.
In designing a non-nuclear warhead anti-ship cruise missile, if the CEP is calculated via electronics engineering, without this section the avionics would be a little bit smaller and lighter, if the CEP is calculated via software, the codes would be a little bit less complex.
GPS navigation is not for target detection and impact when the target is mobile. It is good only to get the missile to the general area and hopefully its sensor will pick up something. If a missile have a CEP figure of 1 meter and it got deviated somewhere in its flight, that precise capability does not disappear when the missile found no target in the area because it is in the wrong location.