AIM-152 Advanced Air-to-Air Missile (AAAM)
Outer Air Battle Missile
It is most advantageous to attack enemy bombers prior to the launch of their cruise missiles, and in the mid-1980s it was projected that in the late 199O's, the maximum launch range for Soviet Naval Aviation [SNA] cruise missiles may be up to 300 nm from their intended targets. This led to developments to provide the ability to conduct both offensive and defensive air operations at long distances from the Carrier Battle Group. In the case of defensive operations this meant extending the engagement envelope beyond the existing Area Defense perimeter in to the Outer Air Battle zone. The strategy of shooting down the aircraft before they could launch their ASCMs was viewed as preferable because the aircraft were larger and less numerous than the ASCMs. This strategy of “shooting the archer rather than its arrows” formed part of a long-range air-to-air combat effort that was referred to as the Outer Air Battle.
Modern anti-ship missiles can be launched several hundred miles away in coordinated attacks, combining air, surface and subsurface launches, so that the missiles arrive on target almost simultaneously. The Navy defends against this threat with a number of different systems. In a carrier battle group, fighter aircraft provide the outer layer of defense; Aegis coordinates and protects the inner layer. In the late 1960s, the Navy developed an Advanced Surface Missile System (ASMS). ASMS was renamed Aegis (after the mythological shield of Zeus) in December 1969. The Navy's Aegis system provides area defense for the battle group as well as a clear air picture for more effective deployment of air assets. Aegis enables fighter aircraft to concentrate more on the outer air battle while cruisers and destroyers assume a greater responsibility for battle group area defense.
In the dense air traffic environment of Desert Storm in 1991, the rules of engagement were designed to require dual phenomenological identification of air contacts before engaging. Air Force fighters designed for the similarly restrictive environment of Central Europe had the necessary equipment; Navy fighters designed and equipped for the less crowded outer air battle in defense of the fleet did not and could not be used in some critical Combat Air Patrol (CAP) stations.
The forward Battle Group operations envisaged by the Maritime Strategy of the 1980s prompted aggressive efforts to provide strategic as well as tactical warning to the Battle Group of an impending SNA attack. This prompted some of the earliest and most successful tactical exploitations of national capabilities (TENCAP), including a program which used missile early warning systems to detect and track the exhaust plumes of Soviet naval aviation aircraft in flight. Linked together by real time data links, these assets collectively extended the outer air battle hundreds of miles from the Battle Group, reestablishing a robust barrier that SNA needed to penetrate before it could launch its missiles.
During the 1980s the Navy invested in developing the Phoenix into a robust, long-range, high-energy weapon system, and in the late 1980s embarked on a program to develope an improved follow-on capability in the Advanced Air-to-Air Missile (AAAM). Advanced Common Intercept Missile Demonstration (ACIMD) tests demonstrated the technology and hardware for a highly advanced Sparrow-sized, integral rocket-ramjet propelled, multimode-guided air-to-air missile for the long-range outer-air battle. The Navy planned to maintain and support an adequate Phoenix missile capability until the AAAM is fielded in sufficient numbers. A missile retrofit program incorporating an already developed and demonstrated block upgrade to the AIM-54C was a cost-effective interim solution. As of 1990 it was estimated that it would require at least 10 years to introduce the follow-on Advanced Air-to-Air Missile.
With the end of the Cold War there was a general recognition that the outer air battle -- the battle against Soviet naval aviation bombers -- was significantly reduced in importance. While AAAM was seen as the best defense against the Soviet naval air arm, the future threat would consist of Third World fighter-bomber or diesel-electric submarine. Some also argued that the F-14's the outer air battle long-range air defense mission would be less important in the post-Cold War era, when naval aircraft were expected to be used at shorter ranges in littoral (off-shore) operations in Third-World scenarios. The main problem with the littoral AAW threat is that this depth is largely absent, both because the US Navy seeks to close with its adversaries, and because those adversaries are generally constrained anyway to operations within the littoral battlespace. All of these factors conspire to radically compress an AAW engagement in space and time, reducing the role of the outer air battle, and reducing the number of shots available during the inner air battle. The essence of new threat was supersonic, sea skimming ASCM attacks in the littoral launched from truck-mounted launchers ashore.
This changing security environment doomed this Phoenix missile successor [as well as the associated F-14D Super Tomcat upgrades], and the Advanced Air-to-Air Missile program was cancelled in 1992.
