AAW Capacity of modern warships

i think the russian navy thread is not the best place to discuss the aaw-capacities of modern warships, but the subject is to interesting to loose it between all the “russian supersonic all over the world bomber fleet” 😉

so i collected some posts about the aaw-capacity of modern warships from the russian navy thread. hopefully i didn’ miss a important one. unfortunately quoted text is not added to another quote.

Jonesy, what’s bad with TVM/SACG guidance that you remarks it?

Obviously, PAAMS, AEGIS are on a different (higher) category than Fort/Fort-M, but, why the criticisms towards TVM?, in land scenarios, doesn’t sounds a bad alternative in no ways (Patriot/S-300 and they way it would not told you you’re under CW lock-on according to the complexity of your EP system)

IMHO, main disadvantage of Fort is the limited FoV, is not anti-saturation system, Volna/Flap Lip FCR onboard russian ships have only +/-60° azimuth FoV, so if you have 2 FCR that’s only +/- 120° of azimuth coverage…but against concentrated attacks along similar (not so wide attack axis) attack axis, it doesn’t sounds that bad…5V55RUD and 48N6 warhead should do a good job on Harpies and similars, even if they are “triggered” to explode maximum 20 meters ASL…

There is something I also don’t like on Aster-30, with 120 Km (better range, better aspect of the engagement, better signature target profile, bla bla bla), that doesn’t allow you to give AAW area defense against newer longer range AShM, granted, JSF’s CAW could extent that, but neither F-35 is your best air defense asset anyway…

In a litoral environment when you use your AAW ships as air space blocks (don’t know the correct english word for this), you again can’t not deny air space as good as per example…SM-2 Block IIIB that have much longer range (or SM-6 in CEC environment)

I don’t know, i’m not a believer of Aster-30, so if you think I’m wrong, try to convence me otherwise 😀

P.S: Interesting russians consider MGK-540 Skat-3, a similar system to BSY-1…well at least it looks pretty advanced and have BIGS flank array 😉

No general problem with TVM, it does have advantages, just not at sea. Are you familiar with the concept of virtual attrition?.

If not this is an assessment of the amount of force/firepower required to achieve an objective. For example – I know how many fire channels a Burke class destroyer has, can calculate to within a couple of miles what its radar horizon from the SPG directors is and can start to develop its virtual attrition potential from there.

Once I have an approximate number of SM-2 shots, ESSM salvoes, Phalanx engagements, and softkill expend salvoes that the vessel can reasonably be expected to generate in an attack phase I can start to programme an attack with sufficient numbers/types of weapons to defeat that attrition potential – if I have the right force mix of delivery platforms and weapons to do the job. If not I can assess the likelihood of acquiring those systems, look for an unconventional attack method, or go back to my command authority and tell them to forget attacking a Burke.

This is the same exercise that was undertaken with the Kirov’s and Slava’s. TOP DOME is assessed as being able to engage x no. of targets, SHORADS another ‘y’ no. of targets. EW is estimated to be z% effective and can be expected to distract/seduce n no. of weapons. For the sake of illustration lets say that Kirov’s virtual attrition potential is 28 Harpoon class weapons. The USN know they need to programme in 28 Harpoons and THEN add in sufficient extra weapons to cause mission-kill damage potential on the hull. Perhaps another 8. So the force package is then starting to develop in order to make the strike…we need 9 A-6’s each configured with 4 AGM-84’s, plus support assets, strike coordination, tanking etc.

The fact that I know that an S-300F shooter is limited to perhaps 6 simultaneous intercepts across a limited axis or even a pair of threat axes gives me an ability to programme that attack and a weakness that I can exploit in defeating the system. That is what I dont like about TVM/SARH/SACG. It goes as much against the SPG/SM-2 series as the S300F as well.

Aster 30, as with any active seeker missile, has a saturation point that is so high it makes any attempt at a virtual attrition calculation a very difficult proposal. PAAMS(S) with SAMPSON is allegedly capable of updating 12-16 missiles in the air simultaneously into seeker capture. Note that is different to TVM fire-channels as well as a TVM fire-channel cannot be released until the system registers a kill. PAAMS(S) is ‘pinging’ inbounds and assigning and updating missiles as long as the system has missiles to launch over a full 360 degrees coverage.

Simply put if I want to defeat a Type 45 I need to rethink saturation into something closer to attrition. Even having 8 tactical fighters launch 32 missiles simultaneously at T45 may not achieve the job as the first 12 shot Aster 30 salvo will take the skimmers at radar horizon and Asters ripple fire at second intervals. The time interval for missiles to cross the terminal phase 30km run in, even for a supersonic inbound, is enough for multiple salvoes to be fired.

When you consider that even developed nations entire air-launched standoff antiship missile stocks may only be a hundred weapons and they may only have a dozen strike fighters equipped to launch them suddenly being faced with a need to expend half of that inventory to defeat a single ship is a considerable problem to be solved if trying to programme a reliable attack strategy.

Hope the above has managed to do that to some extent.

Which ‘busy-1’ is it similar to though?!. :). BSY-1’s been around for a while!.

You’re assuming you’re going to have a perfect success rate against supersonic missiles of various types. The kill chance compared to even a subsonic weapon will be a magnitude lower, which makes a world of difference against heavy AShMs.

How do you get to that conclusion?. I said it doesnt matter for the PAAMS system if there is a miss as the SAMPSON will simply just assign another missile to the contact. The miss is not preventing the engagement of other targets whilst the reattack determination is made…..as with conventional fire-channel based systems.

The pK against a supersonic missile will not be all that lower. All the supersonic characteristics do is minimise the engagement time for the defensive systems – a faster responding defensive system robs the supersonic of much of its advantage.

Also, by relative size, the supersonics are generally larger weapons than subsonics so fewer can be carried by a strike aircraft. With the 8 strike aircraft mentioned before that may mean only 16 supersonics as opposed to 32 subsonics being faced by the naval SAM or rather 16 strike aircraft now being needed to mount the attack. Thats the price of your big supersonic missiles Echo.

It also ignores the unique capabilities of the subsonics. These medium sized subsonic weapons are termed, in the trade, ‘dancers’ and for very good reason. The terminal evasive manoevers that some of these weapons can perform can go a long way to mucking up a fire control solution on a CIWS gun or beam rider missile. Despite the longer period of exposure a dancer has to defensive fire it can often, therefore, be a harder target than a supersonic….especially a ‘straight-in’ supersonic like a Kh-31 type weapon.

Like to talk with RN fellows, let’s see how can I manage my english here…

Me familiar with many concepts (yank concepts), so if you know that concept on NWP “language” please go ahead 😉

Now if we’re talking “civilian mode on”, that reminds me of the old “air defense equation” where D = A+B+C where D was the total fire engagements cycles in air defense that could be made, along A being the number of fire channels, B the number of cycles of AAW shots you can get taking into account the range of the weapon, the speed of the weapon (and the Vc created between the incoming target and your own, you can’t fire on RMin targets, don’t you?) and C the pK estimated for that kind of weapon…

So let’s per example made a typical “equation”, where we’re talking about an ASPIDE-1A armed ship with just one FCR (RTN-10X, lets say), ASPIDE-1A have a max “good range” of maybe…14 Km, min range of 1,5 Km, and a Vmax of 730 m/s (could be off, but this is my example), let’s give it a pK against “incoming target” of 0,6, and let’s say the max number of fire cycles is just 2…

So D= 1 x 2 x 0,6 = 1,2…

So that mades possible number of target shot downs with single missile fire of 1,2…

But now we can start stretching the thingie and changing RoF (not Shot-look-shoot but shoot-shoot-kill and increase the pK) or taking into account per example, factors along the way the incoming attack is made (simultaneous incoming missiles against succesive incoming missiles), the way we calculate “B” taking into account the residual time between the SAM Vmax and the incoming target Vmax (Vc) so that before the incoming targets reach the RMin zone of my AAW asset, how much “shoots” at different targets can I made…

What the hell, I learn that on a Harpoon 3 manual, but at some way, it’s sound…

And then you enter into the equation the CIWS factor (same equation, taking more values) and your EW probability of jamming…and so…

Is that what you mean?

I’m not sure that we can apply this formula with this kind of example (AEGIS/SPY-1/SPG-62/SM-2), I have heard from people in the know (Spanish Navy or related to), that inside HRE, SPY-1D MCGU could bring the SM-2 missile so close to the target that there’s no need of CWI on the final leg (precission of MCGU is enough for blast damage of the big warhead)…that sounds stretched to me, but it could be a possibility…also we have to take into account, we don’t know how many MCGU the SPY-1D can sustain (have such a value ever be disclosed?), neither real times for SPG-62 CWI at the final leg of the interception path according to different range settins (same time for painting the target at let’s say, 30 Km than, let’s say…120 km?, let’s remind that CWI is dependent in its time, of the error of the MCGU according to real target position)…I don’t know how to apply this formula to this weapon systems, but for others, seems to be straight forward.

Ok, that sounds a lot like that “ol Harpoon 3 manual equation”

But that’s a so much simple approach (not per se it means it’s bad), it doesn’t take into accounts other soft kill measures, neither they way as per example chaff are deployed (seduction, confussion), or “rubben ducks” decoys…you launch a dozen of decoys along starboard, those big nice + 20.000 m2 RCS decoys, then launch chaff one Km astern and use your helo for seduction measures…how can you plan that into the assesment?…

Ok, I get your point, I’m just twisting the thing a little :diablo:, but naval warfare is a much creative issue to leave all to some nice formulas…of course I need them, I just want to know according to the surface duct height and my antennas height at what range can I intercept the TOP SAIL signals according to my ESM equipment :diablo:…nice maths…

Accord to our ol’ friend N. Friedman, 120° azimut for Volna, thing I don’t know is that if you can mecanically move the Volna for chosing that attack axis (have you ever seen a pic of a Volna looking to starboard per example?)

It’s also a matter of statistical compromise, you will have to halve your attack force into the different attack axis in such a way to offer a full 360° degree WEZ for the ship so it can’t handle it, but at what expense?…I don’t think SPG-62/SM-2 is so much affected as this because illumination times are short.

But being an Active seaker missile is more ECM-prone that being a SARH homer guided by a multi-kW FCR, don’t you think?

And under the same formula we seems to understand, why not?, it’s a first grade bachellor physical problem (collision of two moving objects), missile speed is mostly constant, Aster-30 speed not, but you can get an average, let’s say we’re talking about HRE limited scenario (sea skimmig), so let’s try to predict at what range from your ship would Aster-30 and first SSM collide (impact), and also time, if the incoming missiles are simultaneous (attacking from different azimuth), take into account different times from VLS launch (let’s say ROF is 2 seconds between cell fire plus one second for Aster-30 missile to get into corret target interception course, so ROF is 3 seconds interval between missile launchs) and let’s get the thing repeated…my conclusions?, if missiles are subsonic, chances for the defending ship are higher because it have more time between engagements cycles, Vc is slower and you can repeat the total fire cycles many times…remind 12-16 targets max MCGU limit of SAMPSON for Aster-30/15, if we use shoot-shoot-look (launch two missiles for target for maximum pK) you will have to decide per example the engagement cycle (should I use six seconds of cell fire cicle latency against a single target, or just fire one against target A, then another against target B, then another against target A, and then B, and then C, and so…), and see at the end of the day…16 x 2 = 32 missiles x 3 seconds is 96 seconds of fire cycles for maximum pK, in those 96 seconds a 330 m/sec “incoming AShM attack” using multiple azimuth could travel = 330 m/sec x 96 sex = 31.680 meters…that’s a lot and pretty much maximum range on any SAM against HRE limited targets…

Are those subsonic missile so hard to catch to use two SAM against each?, should I be tempted to use just one, and trust MBDA and the marketing ;)?, or would I see if my FOST years were any good and express my gratitude to the High Command for don’t give me EA systems and risk my luck to soft kill issues (chaff, maneuvering, rubber ducks, helo seduction and the lot) for making more pK of missiles down?

What happen if those simultaneous missiles are not 330 m/sec targets, but 700 m/sec targets flying at 10 meters?

Off course, this is academic, I’m falling asleep, and don’t know the RoF of the Sylver cells, neither a good time the missile takes since expulsion from the cell to start interception trajectory (let’s call it “latency time”) and the such…

Go ahead buddy, destroy my arguments, bored week, would like to learn something this weekend 😉

Pit

Your English is excellent. My apologies if I am being unclear in my description I generally try and keep things simple until I know the level at which I can discuss a topic with someone. You, obviously, have studied the topic here so I will attempt to get deeper into the concepts but without complicating the language.

Partly yes that is a good example of where virtual attrition (VA) starts to be determined. The simplest way I can describe the concept is that the VA is that amount of attacking combat power that the defending systems can defeat. That is, obviously, not just the number of inbound missiles that a ship (in this case) can shoot down. Instead it is the amount of capability required to find the defending system, the difficulty level of establishing and holding a track on it and several other characteristics in addition. In the context of this discussion, about TVM vs ARH naval SAMs, it didn’t seem necessary to go too far with detailing the whole engagement chain!.:)

At a generalised level again yes….that sort of calculation covers the basics of what you would try and achieve to start to develop an attack strategy. In your example the Aspide-shooter has an anticipated capability calculated to defeat 1 inbound missile with a 20% chance of catching a second with its SAM system alone.

The level of detail to get this as precise as possible is a fair degree more complex, as your next paragraph details very nicely, and its obviously just a statistical representation of something that is tricky to assign a value to. In reality many variables can be introduced to throw the results out completely, but, if you weight your VA calculation to the objective ‘perfect engagement sequence’ you should arrive at a force potential sufficient to do the job!.

Yes, I wasnt going to expand on it to that depth, but thats exactly the type of details that would need to be worked into the formula above. What you are doing there is defining the value of ‘B’ in your model with as much refinement as possible. The incredibly useful factor of such a model is that it allows for the engagement sequence to be adjusted to test for optimal results. Is shoot-look-shoot more useful than shoot-shoot-look or if I modify my ships and place the FC directors 20ft higher does that make a significant difference etc, etc.

It is very valid!. I dont know if the USN still use the basic principles of the Harpoon engine in their wargaming system, but, they certainly used to. I’ve read that modified versions, ie ‘real’ platform information, of the Harpoon 3 game are actually used in some services for wargaming purposes. Not really something I was ever able to get into for lack of time, but, I know there are some very dedicated individuals involved in the Harpoon project.

Hmmm yeah I’ve heard that too from an Aussie and an American source. Like you I’m sceptical as that, to me, sounds like a lot of work for a PPAR panel thats needing to be doing a lot more than updating a single missile every few tenths of a second!. For a big non-manoevering target maybe it is feasible, but, I just cant see it against an evading AshM – the illuminators are CW for a reason!.

Yes I believe the value was released for the number of missiles SPY-1D could control at any one time. I’ll have to look for that though to be honest.

The values for engagement sequences at 120km or 30km are just additional factors to be figured in to the firing-cycle value (B) you showed in your earlier formula. Realistically there are few targets that would be above the radar horizon of a ship, they were attacking, at 120km downrange. Ironically though the larger supersonic weapons like Oniks/Brahmos are such targets in that they use the high profile to achieve standoff range at supersonic dash speed. So in reality, unless you were planning to use a Brahmos-style weapon in your attack, you dont need to worry about those kinds of calculations.

Softkill is difficult to quantify to an extent, but, you know your own softkill and you know what potential competitor systems and those employed by friends have in terms of capability. The values you derive from that knowledge and research will give you numbers and percentages to plug in to your model. A degree of operational conservatism will add a bit more capability over the top to allow for ‘suprises’ also!. Remember through all of this you are not coming out with a definite X no. of missiles will sink a ship. What you are generating is an approximate force level to give you a good chance at defeating the target.

I have seen images of a TOP DOME array trained off centreline. I’ll try and remember where and when to see if I can still access them.

Agreed. SPG/SM2 is far better equipped to handle multiple attack axes. Poor old Slava is in deep trouble if the attacking force comes in on both beams simultaneously so, although the strike package is halved per axis the defensive system is actually saturated more fully as it cant handle two separate threat bearings.

Theoretically you could do the same to a Burke with coordinated fore-and-aft attack axes. With 3 directors one bearing is always going to get poorly served unless the skipper goes beam-on to bear 3 directors on one group of inbounds and then, hopefully, a rapid switch to the second bearing when the first is dealt with!?.

Yep. The achilles heel of the active seeker missile, but, in my view its far overstated. The duration of the missiles target engagement is a minute at most and power sources capable of providing significant output, for brief periods, are not all that revolutionary. Plus exploiting that ‘handicap’ relies on a powerful escort jamming source supporting the antiship missile group. Its hard to imagine that a really powerful escort jammer will follow the missile group in to target too closely!. Its possible to fit a large AShM with ECM, as the P500/700 series weapons allegedly have, but, just as the active seeker missile is power-limited the antiship missile itself is subject to the same issue. The French have, allegedly, tested Aster in what they call a heavy EW environment and the weapon proved successful – make of that what you will!.

The issue is first point of detection, taking all outside factors out of the equation (i,e ESM would get the launch platform radar pre-firing or S1850 gets a hit on it a couple of hundred kms off) T45 has an air draught of 39m. The SAMPSON array is centred say 38m above the waterline then. SAMPSON is an S-band radar and this frequency was chosen partially for its superior horizon-edge performance over the higher-res X-band used in APAR etc. Radar horizon for T45 PAAMS(S) is likely, under nominal atmospheric conditions, to be 40km+ against a 10m inbound.

Lets say an engagement depth of 40km figuring in Rmin as about 2.5km (i.e 2.5km – 42.5km). A 330m/s inbound will need 120 seconds to traverse that and a 700m/s (sea-level M2) one will need nearly a minute (57 seconds). Even if we take off reaction time for the system to track-form and assign missiles the supersonics are going to start being intercepted at 22.5km by the initial volley of Asters – this based on a joint closing velocity of approx 2200m/s. The second ‘volley’ would start hitting about 10 seconds after that i.e 7000m closer for the inbounds – around 15km. Third volley would catch them at about 10km. The numbers of missiles in each volley will be dependent on the intercept parameters. Im using shoot-look-shoot as a basis as I believe that would be optimal for this system and a major advance over the TVM that really needs to have two missiles assigned in order to ensure the kill and free the fire-channel at the first time of asking!.

Exactly. this IS all academic, but, its also valuable in demonstrating what level of impact even ‘small’ things like SAM guidance system limitations have on the the whole concept of force structures. I’ve enjoyed this, sore fingers notwithstanding, my very sincere thanks Pit!.

to find the bottleneck of a aaw defence i started scripting a small calculator to visualize the interceptions. so far the scenario is very simple: how many sams can engage targets on a single inbound path?

currently the following issues are included:
– sam and target speed
– min. and max. range of sam (or radar horizont)
– number of mid course guidance channels and terminal phase channels
– length of terminal phase (in sec)
– launch rate

not included right now (or not clear to me):
– sam flight path performance (acceleration, path, vl-to-head-on-target delay, height, …)
– multiple targets at different time and course
– system delays (pointing mechanical directed fc-systems to the target, kill confirmation time, …)
– different shooting pattern (shoot-shoot-look, …)
– p_kill to sum the successful interceptions
– … (a lot of things i have not thought about right now)

some of the not included issues will be impossible to include because there is no unclassified information about it. even the points which are included are based on numbers which are not validated. so maybe we can start collecting some information about the different systems first.

but so far the calculation shows that the bottleneck on the euorpean ships is the launching rate of the vls.

here are my first graphs (type 45, apar and arleigh burke vs brahmos)