May 112012
A bit of artwork from Lockheed Horizons magazine depicting the “Homing Overlay Experiment”. This was the first hit-to-kill ballistic missile interceptor… rather than relying on putting a warhead near the incoming missile and blasting it to flinders with shrapnel or radiation, the HOE was designed to actually smack directly into the target. To aid in the obviously difficult chore of hitting a bullet with a bullet, the HOE unfurled a series of “blades” to increase the frontal area and the chances of impact. This feature has not been carried forward to present systems.
The HOE demonstrated a successful hit-to-kill in 1984.
