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Originally Posted by tsotha
Maybe. AA missiles typically have pretty small warheads, though, and SM-6 doesn't deviate from the norm - only 140 pounds. I guess they'd be depending on the kinetic energy for most of the damage. LRASM makes a lot more sense to me if it's stealthy enough.
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Quite true as well although you can read a little into the new acquisition of the NSM to equip the LCS / Frigate / whatever they're calling the Freedom & Independence class these days. While still twice the weight of the SM-6s warhead, NSM's is little over half the weight of what the Harpoon carries (although I think for the newer Harpoon that didn't get picked up they were planning on going lighter with the warhead as well). Interested to see if the NSM becomes the deck-mounted replacement for Harpoon and how that effects LRASM.
People have also raised the point that despite how weak it would seem, with the way things would work today vs. modern air-defense systems you're never going to shoot just one so you may as well not count on just one missile being able to take a combatant out of the fight. No doubt too, despite weight they have probably made some interesting advancements in blast/frag and penetration warheads over the past 40 or so years since Harpoon was developed. Still, for all that I just don't see anything SM-6 based being able to scale up to the extended range + heavier warhead requirements you would think a AShM would demand.