Russian attack capabilities

Thread is too long. Closing now- please start another one, thanks.

He was saying that in some aspects Eurofighter was better than F-22 and then i left the argument.

hehehehe… only in price.

after this huge discussion which is the best Anti-ship missile NSM or any other missile. I did not understand one thing why is NSM so great.

It is small, light, and passive.

that guy did not even understand that Russian invented HMS.

I don’t think they invented the idea, but they were probably the first to have it in wide scale operational service with a missile that actually benefitted from its use.

SO I HAVE A BIG QUESTION
after this huge discussion which is the best Anti-ship missile NSM or any other missile. I did not understand one thing why is NSM so great. There are several other AShms with similar capabilities already developed or under development. I have one big problem with european weapons and especially those supporting them. They make too much of them and speak tons about them, like the Harrier or the eurofighter. The other day i was speaking to a guy and we were arguing about Eurofighter and Su-30 and he says Eurofighter HMS and ASRAAM. that guy did not even understand that Russian invented HMS. He was saying that in some aspects Eurofighter was better than F-22 and then i left the argument.

Well, a BLACKJACK would carry 4 times the load quite a bit farther than the Tu-22M3, so fewer platforms would be needed to go hunting for ships.

Except that if the Soviets or Russians ever actually went out hunting ships like that we know whose ships they’d be hunting… and in such a scenario all the Blackjacks and most of the Backfires will be doing something else…

How much did they say one cost in 2004, anyway? I wonder who they’d ever think about exporting them to.

No prices are listed… if the offer was for enough money I’d say India only… I really don’t think they would sell to China due to the rivalry… but that is just my opinion. Whoever decided to buy would pretty much have to pay for the manufacturing line to start up again… woudn’t be cheap. Nice Bomber though… (I doubt India would have any need for such an aircraft… except perhaps to make Carlos Kopp sh!t himself and start foaming at the mouth about F-22s or interceptor versions of the F-111… 🙂

Well, a BLACKJACK would carry 4 times the load quite a bit farther than the Tu-22M3, so fewer platforms would be needed to go hunting for ships.

How much did they say one cost in 2004, anyway? I wonder who they’d ever think about exporting them to.

24 Kh-15s is possible, and the Kh-15 is the reason for the split weapon bay doors on the Tu-160. However, different places give different information, from “the Kh-15 isn’t used operationally” to “the Kh-15 was never fully integrated”. There’s also a third missile associated with BLACKJACK, the Kh-80 Meteorit/AS-X-19 KOALA. That one proved too large though (and didn’t work anyway) and would have needed a bigger BLACKJACK with larger weapon bays.

Now that I look more carefully at the Russian Arms 2004 entry for the Blackjack it mentions only Kh-55 missiles and “conventional” free fall bombs for export… (want to go halves in one???). I have seen Kh-15s mounted in the bomb bay of the Tu-22M3 and I know they are operational there so the option for anti ship use remains… always thought hunting ships with Blackjacks seemed a little strange anyway…

24 Kh-15s is possible, and the Kh-15 is the reason for the split weapon bay doors on the Tu-160. However, different places give different information, from “the Kh-15 isn’t used operationally” to “the Kh-15 was never fully integrated”. There’s also a third missile associated with BLACKJACK, the Kh-80 Meteorit/AS-X-19 KOALA. That one proved too large though (and didn’t work anyway) and would have needed a bigger BLACKJACK with larger weapon bays.

Remember, people still list the AGM-86B and AGM-129 as part of the B-1B’s armament as well, but those were never integrated on operational jets either.

Here’s something I’ve thought about. Why not a nuclear warhead? Could you do enough damage if you detonated one outside range of any close-in systems like Phalanx?

At mach 5 the simple mathematics based on the effective range of the 20mm rounds phalanx fires and its rate of fire suggests a nuke warhead would not be needed.

If you were going to fit one anyway then I would probably just get the missile to keep climbing out of the atmosphere and detonate its warhead there… the EMP would seriously effect the EM capability of the whole carrier group (and an area almost the size of a large American state). Of course their electronics will be hardened against damage but the ionisation of the atmosphere would make radio communications and radars useless for about 30 minutes… TV or IR guided missiles anyone?

BLACKJACKs don’t carry the Kh-15 currently. The only weapons used in service are variants of the Kh-55. Kh-15 capability might be there, but whether the unit has missiles on hand or the required launchers is another story.

Then why do they keep mentioning the two missiles in regard to the Blackjack? (ie Kh-55 and Kh-15) …the first information I heard of its weapons were that both were used by the Tu-160 and I have never heard otherwise. (of course it would be the nuclear armed Kh-15 ASM version… perhaps they would use it the way those B-52s used a bomb and a mountain range to destroy trailing fighters in that aweful movie..)

Even that post/thread recently listing conventional bomb loads for the blackjack include 24 Kh-15s as a load.

The anti ship variant presumably uses a conventional HE warhead too.

Here’s something I’ve thought about. Why not a nuclear warhead? Could you do enough damage if you detonated one outside range of any close-in systems like Phalanx?

The Tu-160 Blackjack can carry 6 on each of its 4 rotary launchers for a total of 24 missiles though a normal load is generally 12 AS-16 Kickbacks (Kh-15) and 6 AS-15 Kents (Kh-55).

BLACKJACKs don’t carry the Kh-15 currently. The only weapons used in service are variants of the Kh-55. Kh-15 capability might be there, but whether the unit has missiles on hand or the required launchers is another story.

Thanks for posting that SOC… notice the label below it? Admiral Kuznetsov… This is a launch of the very large missiles under the front of the flight deck of the Russian Carrier Kuznetsov….

Yup, that’s Kuznetsov. Who said he needed to embark strike aircraft? :diablo:

video footage of it would have been nicer… never satisfied…

Always the same with some people… 😀

Actually the Air Launched Club is at some 1600kg, the surface launched ones are some 2200kg I believe, and the 300km subsonic one and the land attack versions weigh I think something like 1780kg. Not sure about the ASW versions.

As for Kh-15, the KH-15P is the ARM, the Kh-15 is the tactical ASM and hte Kh-15S is the AshM. They all weigh 1200kg and have a range of 150kms.

You’d be suprised mate. MMW frequencies have a crossover with the so called ‘far IR’ frequencies. Have a look at a frequency spectrum and you’ll see the correlation. MMW radar is attenuated by adverse weather conditions in a similar fashion to IR. Also the FoV possible with MMW radar is very restricted. This means its perfectly capable of employment in anti-armour weapons etc where the target is easily designated prior to launch, but, for any real search capability, like NSM’s wide angle IIR seeker offers, MMW is of little use. The Kh-58 looks to offer the most practical capability the Russians have for antiship in a non-permissive environment though. What platforms have been cleared to operate the MMV variant of the weapon?.

Just thumbing through the Airlife book on Tupolevs bombers and it describes the Kh-15 missile added to the Tu-22M3 for the anti ship role as being MMW radar guided in the anti ship version. For those that are not familiar with the Kh-15 it is a short range anti radiation or anti grid square missile… ie it either homes in on radar signals or destroys something large on the ground using either a conventional HE warhead or a 350kt nuclear warhead. The anti ship variant presumably uses a conventional HE warhead too. It weighs about the same as a Club at about 1,200kg and upon launch it climbs to 40,000m (yes metres) whereupon it dives down on the target at mach 5. It has a range of 150-200km. The Tu-22M3 carries 6 internally in a bomb bay on a rotary launcher. The Tu-160 Blackjack can carry 6 on each of its 4 rotary launchers for a total of 24 missiles though a normal load is generally 12 AS-16 Kickbacks (Kh-15) and 6 AS-15 Kents (Kh-55).

Did somebody say P-700?

Thanks for posting that SOC… notice the label below it? Admiral Kuznetsov… This is a launch of the very large missiles under the front of the flight deck of the Russian Carrier Kuznetsov…. video footage of it would have been nicer… never satisfied…

Ask Roel whether this is true or not!.

If you *******s going to keep dragging us, poor merchants into this, I’m going to stand in front of your door and kick your ass!!!
Did it ever occur to you that if I wanted to sink a destroyer, all I have to do is sail towards it?
Jonesy, nice picture, strange that it flies with its air intake on top… I expected that to be on the lower side… Yet for Yakhont-M, it’s the same as Brahmos, it’s easy to see the tests of Brahmos as tests for Yakhont, since Machiniostroyeni probably will use the Brahmos data on its own missile, not having the need to test it all over. (it’s probably even trying to rip Brahmos’ electronics for their own missile). You know as well as we do that pictures of Russian systems are quite rare compared to pictures of Western weapons, have you ever seen a Granit test picture or even the missile itself before 2001? I haven’t…
We have also seen Nakat with the 12 spaces for Yakhont and two of them laden on that ship, I don’t think they did that just to see how good a Nanuchka would look with Yakhont.

Anyway,
Merry Christmas to Steve (and the others) And I hope you swear for your newyear intentions not to pull in ANY merchant ship in ANY discussion. (unless you want to end up in a hospital :diablo: )

That does rely on the fact that the opponent KNOWS that a SAM trap has been set up covering the Hawkeye though?. The alternatve is that he sends out a full strike package against any Hawkeye station he detects. With CEC in the USN fleet and soon to be joining several others that could be costly for the opposition in strike aircraft.

I would expect jamming aircraft and ARM carrying aircraft would be part of a package to engage a carrier group as a matter of course whether it was actively engaging is a SAM trap tactic or not… an AEGIS class cruiser is expected to be part of the group and any land based target with strong SAM defences would be “softened” with SEAD aircraft as a matter of course too… fighter escorts of course included because it is a carrier group, and of course aircraft with missiles to sink ships as well.

Seeings as the relevant point here was about missile seekers now though its hard to see where Arbalet actually applies to the discussion isnt it?.

Arbalet has a moving antenna… an antenna in a missile the size of an AS-11 could have a moving antenna too.

What a suprise – one more Russian paper weapon!.

They are the cheapest. :p
The potential technology for a MMW radar guided missile has already been developed in the Krisanthema MMW radar guided anti tank missile… there are not obvious problems preventing it being fitted to the high speed rocket powered 120km range AS-11.

IF that is Russian philosophy why are they developing their single role tactical aircraft into multirole types now?

Because obviously not every problem can be treated the same way and having the right tool for the job makes the job much easier.

The shift from single-role to multirole systems is established and universal in every major service I can think of.

Yet often the requirement for a specialist tool remains for many with special needs…

You’re guessing its been updated based on what? Your belief that it just has to have been? Thats just a little on the thin side given the depth of evidence I’ve had to put forward in defence of my position!.

It has not entered service to my knowledge. If it were to enter service then it would no doubt make more sense to build it with current technologies than the technologies and materials of the 1980s… not belief… just common sense… Of course with Yakhont doing basically the same thing for less weight the likelyhood of the MOSKIT entering service is a little small.

Is your position really that weak that you have to continually dream up new and wonderful systems that might come about?. Can’t you just stick to real systems for a bit?.

Is your position so weak that my indicating one potential growth direction or future potential upgrade path leads you to panic and restrict our discussion to tested inservice weapons entering service next year?

It seems that the trend in Russian CIWS is for optical and MMW radar and CMW radar detection systems that if they are on at the time will detect even teh NSM at max range and kill them. I think a completely radar (in every wavelength) and IR invisible subsonic missile would be just as hard to create as a very high speed low flying missile. Development of hypersonic low flying missiles for anti tank use (the speed of the missile is used for terminal kinetic performance on armour) suggests very high speed rocket fuels are being worked upon… targets of 2,500m per second are being aimed for for weapons launched at low altitude at targets on the ground…

I mentioned Brahmos to illustrate the double standards that were being used.

By whom?

Brahmos, seemingly because its a Russian-inspired supersonic and ‘sexy’ system, is accepted as being a near-service weapon.

By Whom?

NSM for some reason, despite being at a similar phase in its testing schedule, is not accorded the same status.

You brought up operational status, not me. Unless there is an urgent need in the next 5 years it doesn’t really matter much anyway as far as I am concerned.

The fact that you would attempt to equate chasing a Korean airliner halfway across your airspace to shoot it down with the accidental engagement of an Airbus flying directly at a ship already at a high alert state proves your point with remarkable clarity I suppose!.

The fact that you ignore the fact that the Soviets were at home with their airspace being violated, while the Americans were sailing into Iranian waters and shot down an airliner on an approved civil route… and with the most capable air defence system in the world… at the time claimed able to identify a target by counting the turbine blades… couldn’t tell a climbing airbus from a descending F-14…

Put simply the quality of input information processed by the passive accoustic and magnetic sensors is far higher than the raw data return from an active radar seeker. That superior level of input data gives the mine a higher probability of resolving an accurate targetting solution.

I have seen high frequency radar imagry that rivals optical imagry…
through smoke and cloud.

The whole EU for a start, China, India, Russia, the Gulf states.

The whole of the EU agreeing on something? Kuwaite will agree to anything the Americans do, and Israel would love the US to do something about Iran no matter what the situation. China, India, and Russia have less influence on the US than I do.

Essentially nations that could raise the political cost of an operation past the level the administration is willing to pay, i.e the UK, Japan, Australia etc and nations who could make the actual deployment of US forces a practical nightmare i.e Kuwait, Saudi, Oman.

At what stage of the operation though? Bush jnr might just decide to send in some bombers to take out all the places the CIA just thinks might have nuclear weapons making potential. Hardly an invasion… it could be prepared for in secret and initiated overnight and be finished in the morning before breakfast.

You know that there were good reasons to go into Iraq and that they were nothing to do with any 45 minute readiness.

No I don’t if you will remember correctly. The number of Iraqis killed since the attack is probably far worse than when Saddam was in control and everyone did as they were told. Now I see the Kurds want an independant state via a referendum… it is only just getting started.

Is it becuase of the 10 years UNSCOM and UNMOVIC were in there hunting for them or is it because of the 10 months the ISG were in there with full and free access nationwide post invasion?.

The fact that no one credible has come forth and said I have worked with them is a bit of a clue. The fact that he didn’t use any was another.

Now you see how two fighters can overfly a carrier without it suggesting that the vessel is wide open to all comers. The two aircraft, according to the USN, were plotted and tracked. The fleet intel brief would’ve set the low threat context and ESM would’ve indicated the aircraft coming in nose cold or, at least, not in a targetting mode. With fighters at Alert30 and no chance of getting an intercept in the best they could do was clear the cat by shooting off the Prowler and start the Alert launch evolution

Yeah, of course… getting caught with your pants down and you make it sound like they should get medals… hahahaha.

I guess low flying North Korean aircraft with cold noses because their radars didn’t work could have flown to 10km range and fired half a dozen TV guided ASMs and then buggered off then the air defences of the carrier group would only have to light up their radars find and target the weapons, get a lock and then launch their missiles and hope they hit before it is too late and then turn and try to engage the receeding fighterbombers. The other option could be i the Kamikazi tradition with fully bombed up fighterbombers crashing into the flight deck…

I’m not sure if the lads who developed Harpoon into SLAM would have been quite happy with test firing a Harpoon and using it as proof that SLAM would work!.

So using a proven design is no good then I wonder why they didn’t just develop it from scratch and get a better more optimised weapon?
First standardisation is the only way and now it is risky?

They had a system of passive EORSATs and active RORSATs. From that to degenerate down to a single EORSAT with a bolt on active radar system I’d call an atrophy of the capability.

Then you need to look up the word in a dictionary because you are wrong. They had a system in place to perform a role. That role has largely disappeared as you stated the role for the US carriers has changed… rather than scrapping the system they are maintaining it and adapting it for other purposes.

Well that much we’d agree on then. Dont quite see how this relates to the topic we were discussing anymore than when you were having your diatribe against the US though?.

It relates to the fact that you are misusing the word atrophied. While short of funding the British Navy is still quite capable and certainly exceeds the defence needs of Britain at the moment or for their forseable future.

Who’s ordered Yakhont-M, whats its testing schedule, when could it be readied for service entry?. See the difference?.

The land attack capability is probably for use on Tu-22M3 aircraft and existing Yakhont armed vessels with upgraded surface attack and conventional roles. As the only thing tested will be the seeker then it should not take long to test at all as most of the previous testing would still be valid. Testing is unlikely to be completed overnight but then it is not exactly needed overnight either.

The only indicators to a weapons value, I can think of, are the systems an opponent is forced to develop to counter it, the number of customers who choose it to address their requirements and its longevity.

If it is never used then its percieved performance in the eyes of your enemies can be enough. This can of course backfire for example the Mig-25 forced the development of the F-15 and later the F-16, which in turn meant the Su-27 and Mig-29 had to be built. Equally constantly flying jet bombers over military parades and rolling empty missile containers created the percieved bomber and missile gaps respectively… that cost was enormous to both sides for the cost of a little aviation fuel and some diesel.

Certainly true, but, how much would their SSN program have benefitted from the funding that went into P-5 through P-700, the Legenda and Uspekh systems that supported it and the vessels developed to deploy the weapons?. Failing that how much would the carrier program they had have benefitted from the same resources?.

So now they would have had more SSNs with old reactors to deal with or more carriers to sell off.

Strong winds or precipitation would degrade the smokescreen. The screen would also cover just a single axis and NSM posses a re-attack capability and a waypoint course ability to make oblique axis attacks. The other big problem is that the vessel would have to come to a crash stop to remain screened by the smoke rockets, or, it would have to turn stern-on to the missiles course to keep the screen between the missile and the ship and, thusly, mask its forward antiair/missile weapons. Not very smart if the missile just flew straight through the cloud and reaquired!

That is assuming only one screen can be fired at a time… equally turning stern on and engaging with vertical launch SAMs would offer both minimum target and decent chance of a shootdown.

They withdrew both systems. They standardised on GWS60 – our version of Harpoon. As for Sea Skua there hasnt really been a weapon capable of embarkation on a mid-weight chopper, such as Lynx, that could serve as effectively as a primary ships SSM. There is now simple as that.

So what you are saying is that the RN had three subsonic anti ship missiles of similar size and weight offering similar launch platforms and ranges/warloads and they decided to scrap two of them to save money. Well it doesn’t take a genius to work out that that makes sense, but how can you use that to suggest that a Club and an Kh-31 are similar? Which helo can carry a Club? Each of teh anti ship missiles I suggested are different and offer advantages and disadvantages in different situations and platforms. Kh-31s aren’t surface or subsurface launched and need a fighterbomber to launch them. Their shorter range is compensated by their high speed which creates a list of sensible targets and non sensible targets for them. The list for the Club is different as is its performance and intended targets etc etc.

The Russian systems are like a pistol, a rifle, a sniper rifle, and a light machine gun and a machinegun. The RN system seems to be a pistol and three rifles. They got rid of two rifles and have standardised on one… and good for them.

Shkval-M, from what I’ve read, can automatically track a target that the optronic sensor has been locked to by the pilot. Its a long way from automatic target recognition.

Nope, during a mission the Shkval-M system is turned on at about 12-15km range from the target area. The system detects and puts boxes around targets it identifies. The pilot merely identifies the target as being the target he was sent to engage and confirms or switches to the next target detected till the required target is found to engage.

Hey guys, since we’re on this thread, I recommend reading this book I managed to get my hands on – “Seapower and Space”, by Norman Friedman. Its a treasure trove of info for what is being discussed here, basically the evolution of the systems fielded for OTH-T by both sides. Shows some of the assumptions held by both sides (which really had some funny consequences too) Relevant chapters in the book to this thread are :

1. Passing the Word: Reliable Communications
2. Finding Targets: Reconnaissance
3. A New Kind of Naval Warfare
4. Dealing with the Emerging Soviet Threat
5. Enter Tomahawk: OTH Targeting
6. Defending the Fleet: The Outer Air Battle
7. The Global Positioning System

With the Kh-35s I’d doubt very much he would unless he knows that the 130km between him and the target is totally empty of neutrals and friendlies. If he is certain that he’s not going to hit anything embarrasing he may try a bearing-only attack on a sighting or ESM intercept, but, its an imprecise science as it relies completely on the discrimination of the active seeker to pick out the right targets.

With NSM’s target recognition capability preventing attacks on invalid targets the max range bearing-only attack is a much more reliable, much more employable, solution. The likelihood then is that the NSM commander could be in a position to launch his weapons at longer range and with a much greater confidence of hitting the right targets.

So, then how will the missile boat commander track a destroyer at 130kms to fire his Kh-35? Or even 160kms to fire his NSM?

No Srbin there are not a lot of ways, open to the commander of a medium sized missile boat, to target a large destroyer at 220km!. The data gethering capabilities of such a vessel is limited in the extreme. They can be fitted with a datalink and can take a tactical plot from a surveillance asset, but, what happens if that surveillance asset cant descriminate between warships and civvy vessels at standoff range, what happens if the surveillance platform is intercepted and brought down?.

What happens is that those missiles stay in their launch cannisters on the missile boat until the commander can get a reliable firing solution for them. There’s your range advantage evaporating!.

The advantage NSM offers, in this scenario, we covered a few pages back.

Remember that targetting issue though!. Missile boats dont carry big missiles and helicopters its one or the other!. Without organic aviation for OTH targetting the missile boat has little guarantee of being able to detect a target 250-300km away!.

Targeting? The same way anyone plans to use weapons like the Yakhont or Klub. How do the Indians plan to target something 220 kms away with their Kilo? So how will a Skjold with 8 NSMs target targets 160kms away? There are a lot of ways of targeting a large destroyer and such from 300kms away.

Srbin,

The missile in the picture is a mockup of Yakhont. The speed value (M3.5?) seems to get more and more impressive every time you hear of the weapon though!.

However, if there is something like a medium sized Missile Boat, I would rather have it armed with like 4 220 km Klubs than 8 160km NSMs or 8 130km Urans or 8 125km Harpoons or whatever. I will have obviously less armament, but I could easily stay at a much greater distance and the Klub will probably have a much greater chance of hitting any sort of larger ship than anything smaller would. The closer I get, the bigger chance there is that something will destroy me.

Remember that targetting issue though!. Missile boats dont carry big missiles and helicopters its one or the other!. Without organic aviation for OTH targetting the missile boat has little guarantee of being able to detect a target 250-300km away!.

Garry,

Yes, and no adversary would expect a navy with Hawkeyes to use such tactics?
.

You asked the question of how a battlegroup could use active sensors for surveillance and still keep the bulk of the surface fleet under emission control and undetected. Airborne radar offsetting is how its done and is the reason I dislike chopper AEW so much, obviously, choppers cannot offset very far or get to station very quickly. Would an enemy expect such tactics…yes they would because its been used for decades. That fact does not diminish the effectiveness of the tactic though.

A Jammer aircraft and some SEAD equipped aircraft along with a few fighter escorts couldn’t possibly have a chance because in the battle between ships and aircraft the ships always win

That does rely on the fact that the opponent KNOWS that a SAM trap has been set up covering the Hawkeye though?. The alternatve is that he sends out a full strike package against any Hawkeye station he detects. With CEC in the USN fleet and soon to be joining several others that could be costly for the opposition in strike aircraft.

The moving antenna in the Arbalet and the Kristanthema both give 360 degree views. The Arbalet also operates in a CM wave for weather issues.

Arbalet having a concurrent centimetric capability off the same antenna as a MMW system is a good trick. Got any links for that system?. I know its used on Ka-52 in similar fashion to Longbow on AH64 and, if it does have dual cm/mmw capability as you state, has real possibilities for leverage of the technology over to a seeker role. Seeings as the relevant point here was about missile seekers now though its hard to see where Arbalet actually applies to the discussion isnt it?.

The MMW version is not known to be operational.Likely platforms would be pretty diverse as the Kh-58 was intended for most fighter bombers, including the Su-25TM, right up to dedicated SEAD aircraft like the Mig-31BM.

What a suprise – one more Russian paper weapon!.

No. Most are operational rounds that don’t require maintainence over their shelf life.

You dont honestly believe all that ‘wooden round’ bullmess do you?. All missiles require periodic maintenance, all electronics are vulnerable to component failiure especially when they spend a lot of time in the high vibration, rough handling environment found on a warship or combat aircraft. Those servicings cost money, the spares holdings cost money, training and retaining skilled personnel to work on the weapons cost money etc, etc.

But then having the right tool for the job is actually a good thing. There is an old Russian proverb that states “If the only tool you have is a hammer then treat every problem like a nail”. Not every problem is a nail.

IF that is Russian philosophy why are they developing their single role tactical aircraft into multirole types now? Why are they not keeping the Flanker, Fulcrum and Foxhound designs as pure air-air types and developing new aircraft to replace MiG-27, Su-22 and Su-24 strikers?. The shift from single-role to multirole systems is established and universal in every major service I can think of.

The SS-N-22 sunburn which it is based upon entered service in 1980. Do you think it might have evolved since then?

You’re guessing its been updated based on what? Your belief that it just has to have been? Thats just a little on the thin side given the depth of evidence I’ve had to put forward in defence of my position!.

Imagine a scramjet powered Moskit flying at mach 5 at 7m?

I’m trying to imagine the missile body that could cope with the kinetic heating of Mach5 speed at that altitude!. Also, I’d have to check, I dont think a scramjet would function at that altitude. Plus, yet again, youre making stuff up to support your argument. Is your position really that weak that you have to continually dream up new and wonderful systems that might come about?. Can’t you just stick to real systems for a bit?.

When did I mention Brahmos?

I mentioned Brahmos to illustrate the double standards that were being used. Brahmos, seemingly because its a Russian-inspired supersonic and ‘sexy’ system, is accepted as being a near-service weapon. NSM for some reason, despite being at a similar phase in its testing schedule, is not accorded the same status.

… much the same as what happens when the Soviets shoot down a korean airliner and the US shoots down an iranian airbus.

The fact that you would attempt to equate chasing a Korean airliner halfway across your airspace to shoot it down with the accidental engagement of an Airbus flying directly at a ship already at a high alert state proves your point with remarkable clarity I suppose!.

So they are basically the same except different data is being processed? How can that make them a galaxy apart?

Put simply the quality of input information processed by the passive accoustic and magnetic sensors is far higher than the raw data return from an active radar seeker. That superior level of input data gives the mine a higher probability of resolving an accurate targetting solution.

Which powerful friends would you suggest? The Russians were friends with the serbs… didn’t stop NATO intervention… the only “friends” they could have in the region with any influence over the US is ISRAEL… Hahahaha.

The whole EU for a start, China, India, Russia, the Gulf states. Essentially nations that could raise the political cost of an operation past the level the administration is willing to pay, i.e the UK, Japan, Australia etc and nations who could make the actual deployment of US forces a practical nightmare i.e Kuwait, Saudi, Oman.

Of course you don’t… GW would never act unilaterally… and his b!tches like australia and Britain would never follow them into invading a country in the middle east based on 45 minute warnings and WMDs.

You know that there were good reasons to go into Iraq and that they were nothing to do with any 45 minute readiness. I’d ask you as well how you know that you can be sarcastic about the lack of WMD?. Is it becuase of the 10 years UNSCOM and UNMOVIC were in there hunting for them or is it because of the 10 months the ISG were in there with full and free access nationwide post invasion?.

But then an attack doesn’t require a flyover or other cooperation.

Precisely my dear Watson!. Now you see how two fighters can overfly a carrier without it suggesting that the vessel is wide open to all comers. The two aircraft, according to the USN, were plotted and tracked. The fleet intel brief would’ve set the low threat context and ESM would’ve indicated the aircraft coming in nose cold or, at least, not in a targetting mode. With fighters at Alert30 and no chance of getting an intercept in the best they could do was clear the cat by shooting off the Prowler and start the Alert launch evolution.

The UNREP that was being performed would’ve been interrupted on safety grounds anyway (with two fastjets careening 200ft overhead fuelling would be rapidly discontinued for obvious reasons). The lines were cleared and the carrier accelerated to get wind over the deck for the launch series. Perfectly normal stuff!.

The Yakhont is a mature system… the Yakhont-M features a new sensor head.Very much like a SLAM upgrade for Harpoon.

I’m not sure if the lads who developed Harpoon into SLAM would have been quite happy with test firing a Harpoon and using it as proof that SLAM would work!.

When did they have hundreds of ocean recon satellites? They are hardly going to monitor the entire world. Atrophied suggests neglected and unused and unmaintained. Components of the system are maintained and operational.

They had a system of passive EORSATs and active RORSATs. From that to degenerate down to a single EORSAT with a bolt on active radar system I’d call an atrophy of the capability.

The nationalities are irrelevant… if the US example upsets you then the Royal navy is the most atrophied navy in the world… from flat decks pre 80s to withdrawn harriers now.

Well that much we’d agree on then. Dont quite see how this relates to the topic we were discussing anymore than when you were having your diatribe against the US though?.

What is the rush? Best antiship missile capability includes future development too surely?

Yes, but, within some bounds of common sense surely?. 3M-54E Klub is reasonable – despite no-one having seen evidence of its real performance – because the weapon has actually been ordered. Likewise Brahmos and NSM are reasonable as they’ve both been demonstrated as being near operational service. Who’s ordered Yakhont-M, whats its testing schedule, when could it be readied for service entry?. See the difference?.

Only a westerner would think of return on investment. If return on investment was important then lets build all our systems for the very low income market… hey lets just make Ak-47s…

Whats your objective standard of weapons system’s merit then?. Failing proven battle credentials which, despite a few AEGIS cruisers lobbing TLAMs, neither weapons system has how do you quantify value?. The only indicators to a weapons value, I can think of, are the systems an opponent is forced to develop to counter it, the number of customers who choose it to address their requirements and its longevity. AEGIS forced the Russians into fielding Moskit, has sold to Spain, Norway, Japan and South Korea and is currently lead candidate, some two decades after its service entry in the USN, in the Australian AAW escort programme.

The cost of the Granits is rather less than the cost of 13 carrier groups with all the resources and money that would require… that would certainly have been retired now.

Certainly true, but, how much would their SSN program have benefitted from the funding that went into P-5 through P-700, the Legenda and Uspekh systems that supported it and the vessels developed to deploy the weapons?. Failing that how much would the carrier program they had have benefitted from the same resources?.

4-6 smoke rockets fired toward the incoming missile could generate a smoke screen that would easily cover even the largest vessel. The rocket used have a max range of 6km and burst 100m in the air or higher and the burning smoke generating material falls down still burning creating a curtain or smoke… unless there is a typhoon it would set up very quickly… and CADS can use MMW radar and CM wave radar to see through it and still engage the incoming missiles.

Strong winds or precipitation would degrade the smokescreen. The screen would also cover just a single axis and NSM posses a re-attack capability and a waypoint course ability to make oblique axis attacks. The other big problem is that the vessel would have to come to a crash stop to remain screened by the smoke rockets, or, it would have to turn stern-on to the missiles course to keep the screen between the missile and the ship and, thusly, mask its forward antiair/missile weapons. Not very smart if the missile just flew straight through the cloud and reaquired!

So did they withdraw the more expensive missile or the home made one?
Equally the Sea Eagle and Exocet are almost the AKM M16 of missiles… 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. If they decided to get rid of Sea Skua as well then you might have a case.

They withdrew both systems. They standardised on GWS60 – our version of Harpoon. As for Sea Skua there hasnt really been a weapon capable of embarkation on a mid-weight chopper, such as Lynx, that could serve as effectively as a primary ships SSM. There is now simple as that.

I do doubt an Uran can do what a Kh-31 can do and vice versa. Both use standard pylons and are treated as rounds… ie no ongoing maintainence.

The maintenance thing I’ve covered, if memory serves, Kh-31 is a kerosene-fuelled ramjet weapon. If so it will definitely require periodic defuelling and overhaul of the propulsion system in addition to its electronics servicing. I see your point about Kh-31 and Uran being two different approaches to achieving the same goals. I disagree that that actually means very much though. This is because, despite the different profiles, to a defending ship both are counterable in much the same way. As ARH weapons both are susceptable to jamming and decoys and neither uses an approach thats novel in any way to present problems to defensive hardkill systems.

The Shkval-M fitted to the Su-25TM which first flew in 1988 has such a system. The same system is used in the Ka-50 Hokum… how else could a single pilot use Vikhr laser beam riding missiles…

Exactly the same way that A-10 pilots were able to employ optically guided AGM-65 Mavericks. Scene Locking an optical sensor is nothing new and slaving a laser designator to that optical sensor is basic stuff. Shkval-M, from what I’ve read, can automatically track a target that the optronic sensor has been locked to by the pilot. Its a long way from automatic target recognition.

What missile is that? Its either the Moskit or Yakhont, and to me it looks neither like the two,