You're welcome, it's a difficult concept to describe. When weapons became both reliable, AND all-aspect, it changed the game forever.
I flew in the era of the AIM-7M, never fired an AIM-120. In fact, very few pilots ever fire more than 1 or 2 missiles in peace time. They are too expensive.
I fired an AIM-9L at a BQM Firebee drone. They put the drone into a 6 G turn, put you inside the turn circle, and clear you to fire. Since you are inside the circle, you need to do some BFM. For practice shots, they remove the warhead and replace it with a telemetry rig, and they then gather data on missile performance. This way, they give aircrews experience, and they also gather information on how the missiles perform.
Despite no warhead, they lose a lot of expensive drones because the missile spears the target. If the missile passes within about 10 meters (give or take) it is considered a hit, because the proximity fuse would detect the target and detonate the warhead. This blows pyrophoric debris and cuts through airframes like a knife through jello. Sets nasty fires.
If the drone survives, they deploy a parachute and attempt to recover the drone from the ocean:
If the drone is damaged and cannot be recovered, the range officers (flying nearby) are cleared in to kill the drone with a war-shot, a missile with a warhead. Or they are given clearance to gun it with HEI. This is more appropriate for full-sized drones like the QF-4. Of course, they love this job!
At the bottom of the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico and other places are possibly thousands of missiles and drones. I've often wondered if the SOviets attempted to dredge them up.
Having the live AIM-9L ($50,000 to $100,000) on my rail was like having a fine sports car hung there. I was almost tempted to say "Keep the missile, give me the $$, we'll all be happy."
Of course that wasn't going to happen.