Supersonic AShM vs Subsonic AshM

So lets say Taiwan is the target and they have bought 1,000 NSMs. The Chinese are in open hostilities with Taiwan and decide they want to turn international opinion against Taiwan to make their current action against them politically easier. They launch a Ka-31 and they wait for a passing Russian Sovremmeny class vessel and transmit a blast of energy from their Ka-31 from the vicinity of the Russian Sovremmeny. The Taiwanese detect the Ka-31 and launch a salvo of NSMs on the appropriate bearing. Lets say one or two get through and the Russian Sovremmeny is sunk in international waters… We know the NSM can distinguish between different types of vessels but can it read flags and determine nationality. In the gulf where a vessel type might be in use in three different navies simply firing on a bearing a missile that can recognise a class of ship is simply not good enough.

of course this may happen but as we have figured out there is no other way because in war you can not get close enough to identify the flag of a ship. but if a war gets hot nobody else than friend or foe will enter this area because everybody knows the risk to get shot in such an area. it’s like war on land. no professional soldier will shot at civilians if he knows that but a lot of civilian get shot because of mistakes. this is bad of course but it happens. so it may also happen to civil ships but the captains will know the risk.
of course most of this depends on situation like which country is fighting in the war and how hot this war is. if a high tech navy foughts a third class navy the high tech navy will gather more information on the target than the third class navy. if you are hopeless outgunned you will shot at anything as long as it is possible to hit an enemy too.

Every launch was probably aimed at the Hermes… if it had been aimed at Hermes it probably would have fared much better than the AC did.

if an carrier has been hit early in the war, maybe gb would have lost it. (maybe not)

You need a pattern of flares of different intensities to create a shape that might represent an aircraft from a certain angle. It is the same with these ship decoys. A trainable mount might be good for firing distraction rockets away from the ship, but to hide it fixed launchers make more sense.

the number of decoy rounds needed depends on the size of the decoys. whereas the small pk16 rounds are carrying less than 2kg payload other bigger rounds carrying more than 10kg. imho screening the ship is only the last way out because it does not only hide the ship but also the attacker. the ship will have big trouble to track the attacker through this screen. i do not know if the western ships with srboc have the ability to completely hide the ship, i have never seen it.

The Launcher is remotely controlled from the control console. Elevation angles are fixed from 0 to 60 degrees in 10 degree intervals. Traverse angles are also fixed from 10 degrees to 60 degrees.

Seems to me they cover every possible angle and would be fired depending upon incoming missile info.

maybe they are refering to different possible assambly options on the ships. it seems that the launcher itself consists of 16 parallel launching tubes all at the same angle ( http://www.milparade.com/catalog/pdf/548.pdf ).

Field date would be in the 2011-2014 timeframe (though God knows why it should take EIGHT YEARS to figure out how to put an AIM-120 seeker on it)

simple answer: money! if the navy would push the program with more money it should be done in maybe 2 years but it is a less important programm and so nobody really needs it in two years (or at least nobody is willing to pay so much money in such a short period of time for it to get it asap).

So… if that is true, it means USN’s sole very long range SAM are 100 + sm-2 block IV?

Correct. They’ve had them in the past in SM-2ER but the ships using those were withdrawn from service years ago.

Production ended and it doesn’t seem like it will be restarted…

Yes and no (see below). SM-2 Block IV production was ended.

Plus they are not able to engage targets via illuminators other than ship based ones, is all that correct?

Yep

So what is the next true very long range SAM, is it sm-6? any specifications on that one? will they be able to be cued from a hawkeye and other awacs? Any info on when they might get fielded?

SM-6 will be the next long range USN SAM. (And to think they could have had one in Typhon with a range of 200 miles over 30 years ago).

All I’ve heard on SM-6 is that it’s basically an SM-2 Block IV with an AIM-120’s active radar seeker in place of the normal semiactive seeker. If I had to guess on range, where SM-2 Block IV is given as ~130 nautical miles and is limited by the radar horizon I’d guess SM-6 would be somewhere between 150 and 200 nautical miles. Likely it will be able to be cued by a lot of different things. Field date would be in the 2011-2014 timeframe (though God knows why it should take EIGHT YEARS to figure out how to put an AIM-120 seeker on it)

So… if that is true, it means USN’s sole very long range SAM are 100 + sm-2 block IV? Production ended and it doesn’t seem like it will be restarted… Plus they are not able to engage targets via illuminators other than ship based ones, is all that correct? So what is the next true very long range SAM, is it sm-6? any specifications on that one? will they be able to be cued from a hawkeye and other awacs? Any info on when they might get fielded?

To continue the discussion from raptor vs s400 thread since this seems more suitable: just what prevents sm-3 from engaging targets other than ballistic missiles? I guess maybe it’s a bit less manouvering, with the third stage of the missile basically being a finless bullet, which is good against not so manouvering ballistic missiles but not so good against dancing anti ship missiles. Still, why couldn’t one at least try to hit a plane or low flying missile? I would think any issues preventing that would be ‘just’ software related.

The KV isn’t remotely suitable for use in the atmosphere as it isn’t the least bit aerodynamic and can’t see anything until the radome has been released.

To continue the discussion from raptor vs s400 thread since this seems more suitable: just what prevents sm-3 from engaging targets other than ballistic missiles? I guess maybe it’s a bit less manouvering, with the third stage of the missile basically being a finless bullet, which is good against not so manouvering ballistic missiles but not so good against dancing anti ship missiles. Still, why couldn’t one at least try to hit a plane or low flying missile? I would think any issues preventing that would be ‘just’ software related.

Possible, SM-3 just cant operate at low altitude, ESPECEALLY at low ranges when first stage booster still burning. Its engines and aerodinamic just did not designed for that. Imagine 3-stage missile where only last stage is capable of combat manouvering…

To continue the discussion from raptor vs s400 thread since this seems more suitable: just what prevents sm-3 from engaging targets other than ballistic missiles? I guess maybe it’s a bit less manouvering, with the third stage of the missile basically being a finless bullet, which is good against not so manouvering ballistic missiles but not so good against dancing anti ship missiles. Still, why couldn’t one at least try to hit a plane or low flying missile? I would think any issues preventing that would be ‘just’ software related.

On a related note, I start a class on Remote Sensing Satellites next month. Knowing that satellites can serve as over the horizon targeting systems, what should I go in trying to specifically get out of the course? Any ideas?

It would be interesting to know how many “hands” the info has to pass through in order to avoid multiple assets attacking the same target yet making sure the info gets there in a timely manner. Could an Aegis, AWACS, or F-22 communicate directly with the satellite or is the satellite simply a vacuum that gathers data and sends it off to some 3rd party for processing and distribution? You wouldn’t want the satellite to just broadcast blindly but it would be interesting if a firing unit be it an Aegis, F-22, or whatever, could be “logged into” satellites in view in order to save the time of going through a middle man.

i think you will agree, that identifying a target with your eyes is not an option if you want to survive.

I both agree and disagree. During peacetime or even times of heightened tension you will always want to confirm ID with a set of eyes, whether they are looking through a periscope or are on board an MPA. As long as potential targets are in international waters you will still want to ID the general traffic, but not want to give away all your radar frequencies etc etc.
In a state of war I agree you obviously want to reach out and touch from as far away as you can.

using the radar is necessary to find a target particular if the target does not emit any radar signals.

Again, no arguement here.

but sooner or later a ship will use it’s radar and you will get a direction by esm.

Or an aircraft from the naval group might use its radar… ESM will give me the location of their AEW aircraft…

the type of emission will help identifying the ship or at least it will help to classify the contact as friend, foe or civilian. so it may be possible to use an ashm without using a radar before.

So lets say Taiwan is the target and they have bought 1,000 NSMs. The Chinese are in open hostilities with Taiwan and decide they want to turn international opinion against Taiwan to make their current action against them politically easier. They launch a Ka-31 and they wait for a passing Russian Sovremmeny class vessel and transmit a blast of energy from their Ka-31 from the vicinity of the Russian Sovremmeny. The Taiwanese detect the Ka-31 and launch a salvo of NSMs on the appropriate bearing. Lets say one or two get through and the Russian Sovremmeny is sunk in international waters… We know the NSM can distinguish between different types of vessels but can it read flags and determine nationality. In the gulf where a vessel type might be in use in three different navies simply firing on a bearing a missile that can recognise a class of ship is simply not good enough.

if the ship uses decoys very close to the ship (which is on popular method) you can not predict if the ashm hunts the ship or the decoy, so you should fire at the ashm if possible.

I know. I am suggesting that the CIWS of a ship will prioritise targets and any missile obviously decoyed and turning away from the ship will suddenly become less of a priority. If only one missile is fired then that missile will likely be engaged whether it is decoyed or not, but whenmultiple missiles are fired the ship will defend itself first and engage any other missiles when it has a free channel.

as i sayed, this is the risk if civilian ships are used in combat areas. but this does not reduce the success of the decoys.

It reduces the effectiveness of decoys. You could argue that a modern ship will have armour and much better emergency drills and would more likely survive a hit than some civilian ships. Of course a large ship carrying closed cell foam rubber would be very hard to sink just by holing her… fire would be a serious threat but the bouyancy of her cargo might actually make her unsinkable.

and there are stil rumors that this attack was aimed at the aircraftcarrier hermes. so maybe the hit on the atlanic conveyor was finally a “cheaper” hit.

Every launch was probably aimed at the Hermes… if it had been aimed at Hermes it probably would have fared much better than the AC did.

afaik even sea wolf was not that successful in shooting down very low flighing targets in the falkland war. i think they improved it after this leasons were learned, but at this time soft kill systems were the best defence against the exocet.

Software problems rather than any fault of the missile is what I heard.

the russian ships uses several different systems dedicated to different ways of deloying and using the decoys. i know three different russian systems (pk-2, pk-10 and pk-16) from which only pk-2 is trainable.

The PK-2 is the trainable turret I was referring to. Of course a smoke screen big enough to cover a small ship, or even a large ship means a lot of rockets fired to roughly the same place to make a large enough screen. Equally to make an IR target big enough you also have the same requirement for IR and the same for Chaff or radar emitting rockets. An AAM might home in on one hot spot assuming it is the engine exhaust but an antiship missile is not looking for a point IR or radar target. Equally a TV or IIR guided missile is not looking for a small singular point target they are looking for a large area object with various surfaces and angles. No single rocket can recreate such a false target. It is a bit like L and M model Sidewinders or R-73s. A single flare will be rejected as a false target. You need a pattern of flares of different intensities to create a shape that might represent an aircraft from a certain angle. It is the same with these ship decoys. A trainable mount might be good for firing distraction rockets away from the ship, but to hide it fixed launchers make more sense.

BTW under the entry for “Jamming Spin rockets for the PK-16”, Russia’s Arms 2001-2002 says:

The Launcher is remotely controlled from the control console. Elevation angles are fixed from 0 to 60 degrees in 10 degree intervals. Traverse angles are also fixed from 10 degrees to 60 degrees.

Seems to me they cover every possible angle and would be fired depending upon incoming missile info.

On a related note, I start a class on Remote Sensing Satellites next month. Knowing that satellites can serve as over the horizon targeting systems, what should I go in trying to specifically get out of the course? Any ideas?

To simply fire on a bearing you need to know enemy ships are present and friendly or neutral ships are not present. Hydrophones or radar or satellite might be used to detect a target and give the missile an approximate position so it knows where to start looking, but if you have the weapon mounted on an aircraft and need to check the target is a valid target you basically need to either overfly the target and check with your eyes… which is dangerous and also potentially unreliable under certain circumstances… or you can flash your radar over the target, which according to Jonesy will warn them to power up their defences and get their decoy and jamming systems ready.

i think you will agree, that identifying a target with your eyes is not an option if you want to survive. using the radar is necessary to find a target particular if the target does not emit any radar signals. but sooner or later a ship will use it’s radar and you will get a direction by esm. if you can manage to triangle the emission source you will also get a range. the type of emission will help identifying the ship or at least it will help to classify the contact as friend, foe or civilian. so it may be possible to use an ashm without using a radar before.

It is much easier to hit a target heading towards you than it is flying past or parallel to you. The closer the target the easier it is to hit. Obviously a missile chasing a decoy is a safer target to engage but in a real combat situation do you want your phalanx firing at missiles chasing decoys or do you want it scanning for more missiles that are going to hit your ship still…

decoying a ashm isn’t a exact science. if the ship uses decoys very close to the ship (which is on popular method) you can not predict if the ashm hunts the ship or the decoy, so you should fire at the ashm if possible. most ciws (phalanx as well afaik) can engage a target and stil search for other threads. they will rate all the threads by themself and engage the highest priority target first.

Quite true. One of the “defeated” AShMs managed to hit the transport ship carrying almost all of the British helicopters. As a result operations on the ground were very seriously effected. Instead of helo transport from A to B you got the priviledge to walk from A to B with all of your gear.
Most fleets rather rely on supply to keep operational.. had the war dragged on longer losing supply ships could have been fatal to the operation.

as i sayed, this is the risk if civilian ships are used in combat areas. but this does not reduce the success of the decoys. if you use undefended ships carrying important goods which are needed for mission success you better spend them an escort which is capable of shooting down ashm (or pray).
and there are stil rumors that this attack was aimed at the aircraftcarrier hermes. so maybe the hit on the atlanic conveyor was finally a “cheaper” hit.

If there was just one missile and it crossed the path of an armed vessel that vessel could certainly engage that missile. If SeaWolf had been operating properly it probably could have easily brought down the missile. (Though off the top of my head can’t remember if a seawolf armed vessel was with the ship with the helos when it was attacked).
Remember aircraft can fly at 10m above the water or lower… if a ship couldn’t engage such a target then they would be sitting ducks.

afaik even sea wolf was not that successful in shooting down very low flighing targets in the falkland war. i think they improved it after this leasons were learned, but at this time soft kill systems were the best defence against the exocet.

Not all those launchers fire decoys. Some deploy smoke screens, or IR screens in the same way smoke launchers on tanks are fixed.
Not familiar with foreign systems but Russian decoy launchers use little turrets which allow aiming.

yes and no. first of all most of the modern conventional decoy rounds are dualmode with both rf and ir decoy material. and afaik the ir parts also includes the smoke screen. of course not all of the decoys work this way and there are stil other decoys which are not included here like torpdo decoy or offboard active decoys.
so all of this launchers fire decoys in some way. but there are a lot of different ways to deploy decoys like seduction or confusion. whereas most western ships only uses one system for this (mostly srboc), the russian ships uses several different systems dedicated to different ways of deloying and using the decoys. i know three different russian systems (pk-2, pk-10 and pk-16) from which only pk-2 is trainable.

i do not understand this. afaik nearly every ashm can be used in an bearing only mode. you should be sure that target is in range before firing of your ashm but you do not necessary need the accurate range to the target. no telepathy is needed

To simply fire on a bearing you need to know enemy ships are present and friendly or neutral ships are not present. Hydrophones or radar or satellite might be used to detect a target and give the missile an approximate position so it knows where to start looking, but if you have the weapon mounted on an aircraft and need to check the target is a valid target you basically need to either overfly the target and check with your eyes… which is dangerous and also potentially unreliable under certain circumstances… or you can flash your radar over the target, which according to Jonesy will warn them to power up their defences and get their decoy and jamming systems ready.

if it’s that simple nobody would use subsonic ashm any more.

If reason and common sense were the main drives behind defence procurement all of NATO would be currently armed with G36 rifles and probably Sig Sauer pistols.

of course ciws would shot down some ashm but it’s better to shot down a ashm which had already locked on a decoy than shoting down a ashm which had locked on your warship because if you miss it you will lose your warship in the second case.

It is much easier to hit a target heading towards you than it is flying past or parallel to you. The closer the target the easier it is to hit. Obviously a missile chasing a decoy is a safer target to engage but in a real combat situation do you want your phalanx firing at missiles chasing decoys or do you want it scanning for more missiles that are going to hit your ship still…

using decoys is a lot easier because consequences on missfired decoys are a lot smaller than on sams.
and nobody says that decoys do not work on supersonic ashm.

You are also forgetting that decoys are just as effective against an attempt to overwhelm the defences with numbers of missiles, whereas hard kill systems have a limit as to how many individual targets they can engage per minute.

if you use civilian ships for military operations it’s your risk because they are sitting ducks. but in fact this example shows that decoys are effective.

In the case of the Falklands war very little consideration was given to electronic or decoy defence of civilian transports that were used. The time available before the fleet left Britain to sail south would have made proper integration of such systems tricky anyway… most were already being modified for their new roles or troop transport etc etc.

they didn’t shot down the ashm but the ashm did also not hit the ship.

Quite true. One of the “defeated” AShMs managed to hit the transport ship carrying almost all of the British helicopters. As a result operations on the ground were very seriously effected. Instead of helo transport from A to B you got the priviledge to walk from A to B with all of your gear.
Most fleets rather rely on supply to keep operational.. had the war dragged on longer losing supply ships could have been fatal to the operation.

if the ashm had locked on right to the civilian there would be also no chance to shot it down because of no ciws.

If there was just one missile and it crossed the path of an armed vessel that vessel could certainly engage that missile. If SeaWolf had been operating properly it probably could have easily brought down the missile. (Though off the top of my head can’t remember if a seawolf armed vessel was with the ship with the helos when it was attacked).
Remember aircraft can fly at 10m above the water or lower… if a ship couldn’t engage such a target then they would be sitting ducks.

i can not understand why so many ships are stil using fixed barrel decoy launchers. of course they have different azimuth and elevation but a trainable launcher would give more flexibility for deploying the decoys.

Not all those launchers fire decoys. Some deploy smoke screens, or IR screens in the same way smoke launchers on tanks are fixed.
Not familiar with foreign systems but Russian decoy launchers use little turrets which allow aiming.

overall im sure that more ashm have been decoyed successful without hitting another warship than ashm have been shot down. this shows that decoys are one major point for defending a ship.

Am in complete agreement here. However the lack of operational experience with CIWS against AShMs is largely due to the one sidedness of most engagements in most operations where AShMs might be used. (except for Falklands).

No idea I am afraid. Shkval is a relatively short range anti ship torpedo, a 533mm long range wakehoming torpedo might do a good job, but most torpedoes could probably fit the bill. The real problem is avoiding any Sea Wolfs or LA class SSN subs that might be with the cruiser.

Here are some shots of a Spruance DDG (same as a Tico as far as a torpedo is concerned) getting hit by a Mk48. Not a pretty sight.

Every missile gets target and range info fed into it before launch. It seems however according to Jonesy that when a Moskit gets target data it reveals to the target an attack is in progress, but the NSM can simply be fired on a bearing and left to its own devices. I guess Telepathy is a prerequisite to using NSM.

i do not understand this. afaik nearly every ashm can be used in an bearing only mode. you should be sure that target is in range before firing of your ashm but you do not necessary need the accurate range to the target. no telepathy is needed 😉

But the real point is that for decoys and jammers to work the first time they have to have warning of the attack… if they have warning of the attack then it is rather more likely that a subsonic missile will be shot down either by missile or CIWS gun… they are designed to hit subsonic low flying targets… a subsonic AShM is their meat and potatoes.

if it’s that simple nobody would use subsonic ashm any more. of course ciws would shot down some ashm but it’s better to shot down a ashm which had already locked on a decoy than shoting down a ashm which had locked on your warship because if you miss it you will lose your warship in the second case. success of ciws even on subsonic ashm is limited and a lot smaller than 100% success rate. i know all the peacetime tests but in war hit rate will drop a lot. and there are a lot of other points why decoys are a good completion to ciws like stream attacks, masked ciws (a lot of ships have no 360° coverage of their ciws), readiness of the ciws, reaction time and unclear situation. especially the last point is important because you do not need exact target data to start decoys. you can start them if the esm gets a unidentified radar seeker emission and if its a false alarm nearly nothing is lost. but for using ciws and pdms you have to get exact target data first and there is a real risk to shot down a target which is something else than a ashm. last point is mainly not a fault of a ciws but a human error. well trained operators should not do such a misstake but nobody is perfect. this shows a big advantage of decoys, because all the hard kill weapons must be first enabled and released. this takes time and in littoral areas it may be not that easy. using decoys is a lot easier because consequences on missfired decoys are a lot smaller than on sams.
and nobody says that decoys do not work on supersonic ashm. 😉

The fact that if a subsonic missile is jammed or decoyed that it might come around and attack something else suggests that there are multiple targets there and none have operational anti aircraft defences operating. In the Falklands there were cases where warships successfully decoyed exocets, but of course the exocet didn’t relock onto those military vessels because if they decoyed them once they could decoy them again. The result was civilian transport ships were hit instead. In fact this can be even more devastating to an operation depending upon what the cargo of the ship hit was.

if you use civilian ships for military operations it’s your risk because they are sitting ducks. but in fact this example shows that decoys are effective. they didn’t shot down the ashm but the ashm did also not hit the ship. if the ashm had locked on right to the civilian there would be also no chance to shot it down because of no ciws. so this is not a main point for me. of course if the ashm attacks a decoy it may attack another ship later but first of all the chance to avoid a hit is increased much. and the ship which deployed the decoys may also use there aaw systems to shot at the ashm.
i think ew and especially decoys/launchers should be more integrated to the cms and they should be more flexible. i can not understand why so many ships are stil using fixed barrel decoy launchers. of course they have different azimuth and elevation but a trainable launcher would give more flexibility for deploying the decoys. if the launching is automated by the cms, it would be also possible that the cms makes a thread analyse using a lot of different data like attacking system, own position, course, speed, wind, weather, friendly units, own aaw systems, …. before launching the decoys. so the effect of the decoys may be maximized and the risk that the ship hits a friendly unit would be reduced. the cms should also suggest a new course for the own (and maybe via ncw for friendly) ships. some of these points are already established but imho there is a lot of room for improvements.

overall im sure that more ashm have been decoyed successful without hitting another warship than ashm have been shot down. this shows that decoys are one major point for defending a ship.

I do consider NSM to be the very best anti ship missile currently out there. Sure it could be even a little better with some sort of rangefinder but it is actually not that big of a deal. One would have the range info fed into the missile before launch.

Every missile gets target and range info fed into it before launch. It seems however according to Jonesy that when a Moskit gets target data it reveals to the target an attack is in progress, but the NSM can simply be fired on a bearing and left to its own devices. I guess Telepathy is a prerequisite to using NSM.

of course most of the seeker stuff may also be fitted to a supersonic ashm but imho it is a lot more tricky to get this up and running.

But the real point is that for decoys and jammers to work the first time they have to have warning of the attack… if they have warning of the attack then it is rather more likely that a subsonic missile will be shot down either by missile or CIWS gun… they are designed to hit subsonic low flying targets… a subsonic AShM is their meat and potatoes.
The fact that if a subsonic missile is jammed or decoyed that it might come around and attack something else suggests that there are multiple targets there and none have operational anti aircraft defences operating. In the Falklands there were cases where warships successfully decoyed exocets, but of course the exocet didn’t relock onto those military vessels because if they decoyed them once they could decoy them again. The result was civilian transport ships were hit instead. In fact this can be even more devastating to an operation depending upon what the cargo of the ship hit was.

Garry > What can if possible. hit a AEGIS class destroyer with a hit probability of 80%.
shkval?

No idea I am afraid. Shkval is a relatively short range anti ship torpedo, a 533mm long range wakehoming torpedo might do a good job, but most torpedoes could probably fit the bill. The real problem is avoiding any Sea Wolfs or LA class SSN subs that might be with the cruiser.

I do consider NSM to be the very best anti ship missile currently out there. Sure it could be even a little better with some sort of rangefinder but it is actually not that big of a deal. One would have the range info fed into the missile before launch. Then in flies to the target area which for example has multiple ships, sees the heat sources, zoomes in on each of them and comparing them with the range/location data from before launch and the image/size database in its memory not only picks out a ship but picks out the part of the ship it will hit.

It would be very hard to use decoys against an imaging seeker, aside of real, physical decoys that’d have to be pretty large. In case the missile does have a simple narrow beam range finding radar or even just a laser rangefinder, chance of the decoy working would drop close to zero.

I do not believe it would take a long tome to cycle through targets and identify one, certainly within the ample time given provided after it pops over the horizon, some over 100 seconds for some 27 km. Actually, i do not see that a problem for a supersonic either. 30 seconds would be enough too. Also, IIR seekers in a supersonic would pose little problem, just look at tiny ones in current AAMs – and these would be bigger, more sensitive with missile flying at the same speed if not half a mach slower.

Only problem is relative lack of detection range for a IIR seeker in bad weather conditions, which may require supersonics for certain ranges in order to get the missile within seeker acquisition range before target runs away.

personally i think one of the major points has not been discussed yet.
everybody speculated on how easy or difficult it is to shot down a subsonic or supersonic ashm. but destroying a ashm by a sam is not the only way to avoid a hit.

imho soft kill systems like decoys and jammers are also very effective. so another point is if a ashm is able to reattack a target if it missed the ship on the first try. it is also important that the seeker works well. i would prefer dual mode (radar/ir) guided subsonic ashm to a supersonic one with an radar seeker only. best way would be a very good radar seeker, a ir seeker with iir abilitiy and additional esm systems for home on the target jammer or even the target radar (but also using the other sensores to avoid hitting the radar mast only ). if the computer can fusion these seekers to one single contact it would be nearly impossible to decoy it.

imho subsonic ashm have a advantage on this because they have more time for discriminating the target and if they miss they can do a smaller curve for reattacking. of course the same time can be used by the target for shoting at the ashm.

imho all the supersonic divers are not able to do a reattack because they can not identify the decoys early enough to avoid hitting the sea.

i think all the soft kill systems are underrated but of course decoying an ashm is even more gambling than shoting at it with a ciws because you can only fire of the decoys and pray. if the ashm missed the ship it is because of a fault in the ashm control algorithms, if the ciws missed the ashm it is a fault of the ciws. so all the soft kill systems are a sort of fault games. you can only win if the opponent makes a misstake. but in the real world the opponent will make misstakes, so soft kill may be very effective.

another issue is target selecting without ew. in the near future there is not so much room for bearing only attacks over 300 or 500km because most states want not hit a civil ship or maybe a friendly one. with ew it becomes even more complicated.

imho nsm is an interesting ashm. if the iir-seeker could match target pictures with a database it may actually select a special type of ship out of a group because of the image (and not because of the radar echo). if nsm gets an additional radar seeker or if other subsonic ashm like harpoon or rbs-15 gets iir besides there radar seeker, this would be my first choice.

of course most of the seeker stuff may also be fitted to a supersonic ashm but imho it is a lot more tricky to get this up and running.

Garry > What can if possible. hit a AEGIS class destroyer with a hit probability of 80%.
shkval?

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with what you were saying, just pointing out that if my specific goal was to have an anti-ship platform to deal with an AEGIS-class vessel, given the characteristics of the operating environment I’d be working with down there and the capabilities of the projected targets, I’d rather go for the Kilos.

Defense Minister: “We need to be able to sink an AEGIS cruiser.”

General: “Let’s buy airplanes!”

That just doesn’t sit well with me. Will a FLANKER/Yakhont combination be able to sink an AEGIS cruiser? It’s possible. But if that was my end goal, I’d rather go for the solution with a much higher chance of success.

Also, you have to consider the fact that having a modern SSK force will give you other benefits as well. You’ll be able to force your potential aggressor farther offshore into deeper waters, giving you more warning time for any potential attack, for one. Kilos are like S-300Vs or S-400s. They’re area denial systems, as in you really, really are not going to want to go anywhere near where those systems are operating unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

I see these points and understand Jonesy was making very similar points too, and agree with them as being valid. I just think that getting to grips with the art of undersurface warfare and all the costs and complications involved also has a price and if you look at the costs compared to benefits a fighter aircraft with a rather long range and flexible payload is probably more useful to most countries. It can perform CAP, recon, light strike, SEAD, antiship, and limited maratime patrol type missions. During war not much can beat the threat of a sub… it is like the threat of a land mine… you don’t usually see it till it is too late and that is when it gets you. But while it would be good for tracking smugglers or illegal fishermen you couldnt really replace all your frigates or corvettes with it… it isn’t fast enough. In the anti ship role it is very good but there is no anti ship role during peace time so it is really just a weapon of war. If you expect war then buy one (you’ll probably want Flankers too anyway).
For a country like NZ I would reccomend neither. We don’t need either and we don’t need Yakhont. Any carriers or AEGIS class cruisers coming to NZ with bad intentions will not be defeated at sea. For somewere like Iran Kilos are useful but Flankers would also be a useful addition. In fact if they could modify their F-14s to take AL-31s and refit them with R-77s and R-73s they’d be pretty interesting beasts. Perhaps even a modified R-33 with an enlarged R-77 seeker as a simple export equivelent to R-37. Have read that the original R-33 had a range of 120km and that the R-33S (or whatever that upgraded model was to recover from Donalds espionage) has a range of 160km. This R-33M (my name for it) would be quite potent…
…anyway that is a bit of a tangent isn’t it…

That’s pretty funny right there 😀

God forbid I come to Garry’s defense but I think he was being sarcastic there. The US has tons of ramjet experience. Not a whole hell of a lot of it is recent but they do have it. 🙂

Bomarc
Talos
Typhon
ASALM
D-21
X-7
Coyote
numerous ramjet test vehicles.

But a while a SSK like Kilo might have a better chance against an enemy vessel than a Yakhont the cost of creating a submarine fleet and maintaining it would cost tens of billions of dollars over the life of the subs.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with what you were saying, just pointing out that if my specific goal was to have an anti-ship platform to deal with an AEGIS-class vessel, given the characteristics of the operating environment I’d be working with down there and the capabilities of the projected targets, I’d rather go for the Kilos.

Defense Minister: “We need to be able to sink an AEGIS cruiser.”

General: “Let’s buy airplanes!”

That just doesn’t sit well with me. Will a FLANKER/Yakhont combination be able to sink an AEGIS cruiser? It’s possible. But if that was my end goal, I’d rather go for the solution with a much higher chance of success.

Also, you have to consider the fact that having a modern SSK force will give you other benefits as well. You’ll be able to force your potential aggressor farther offshore into deeper waters, giving you more warning time for any potential attack, for one. Kilos are like S-300Vs or S-400s. They’re area denial systems, as in you really, really are not going to want to go anywhere near where those systems are operating unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

And lets face it having the ability to defeat an AEGIS class cruiser would be nice but it would make much more sense to avoid confrontation in the first place.

And it’d be far cheaper in the long run to just avoid the confrontation, expecially when you factor in the costs of the aftermath of such a confrontation.

the British Government was wrong to conclude the British navy was safe from Soviet antiship missiles because it thought they didn’t have sea skimmers

That I can agree with unequivocally.

That was sarcasm…

Hence why it was funny!