JonesyMost of the Aegis BMD tests used ground launched missiles (used to be converted Terrier’s but I think those are all used up) on a ballistic profile.
This release from the MDA…
http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/pdf/09news0015.pdf
Suggests the missile was also ground launched.
They’ve used a few different types from memory – old Terriers, old Lances (presumably poached from the Army stocks) and even some old converted SM-2ER’s.
The Terrier Missile Targets I think are still going in a few different guises, but, the interception altitude on this one, circa 160km, sounds too high for them. Apogee for the Terrier targets was about 150km and you’d be expecting to catch the inbound somewhere prior to re-entry, but, on the way back down not bang on apogee I’d imagine!.
Also I’ve seen SRALT, and the medium range version, shots described as being launched ‘out of Kauai’ despite the fact that they were air-launched inside the range. Its strange that MDA dont list any of the other representative targets for SRBM’s as well!?.
Hopefully some nice shots will appear soon that will answer the question definitively. In any regard the tests, answering SOC’s question, were at the TBM end of the velocity spectrum not the other end!.
JonesyAny sub being tracked at 300KM isn’t trying to hide.
…or is a big, relatively noisy, old, twin-screw SSGN design. As stated it was under simulated battle conditions on exercise – not even at routine peacetime steaming condition under circumstance you could understand noise discipline being relaxed a bit.
Surface-duct on a Victor? Please elaborate, I’m not sure what you mean here.
OK. Russian tactics for SSN’s, once they got towed arrays in the fleet, was to wolfpack a squadron under guidance from a lead boat with a tail. Do some research on the detection levels deliverable from a mid-late 80’s 671RTMK w/tail without a surface duct and then with a surface duct present. The results will be instructive on your claim that “That the Victor III effectively practiced tracking US forces”. I’m sure you can google ‘underwater accoustic propagation’, ‘surface duct’ and ‘deep sound channel’ if you wish to understand what one does.
Even simplistically put, those publicly reported nuances are sufficient to prove that US carrier forces were hardly as invincible as some people think of them.
When did I say invincible?. If you are going to put words in my mouth at least make them credible!. I said that the Russians, and everyone else, dont have the systems to find a well-handled US CSG reliably…..and they dont!. Pure dumb luck and human error can always contribute though….any professional would have to admit that…..they are just not reliable factors to program into a defence solution.
JonesyTargets are reported as simulating SRBM’s. Going by what the MDA releases that means it should be one of the Orbital SRALT’s that was used. SRALT is a single stage system (essentially the 2nd stage off an old Minuteman) converted for air-drop launch out the back of a C-17.
Think I saw a figure of about 3600mph quoted for re-entry velocity somewhere, so, on the TBM side not full-fat ICBM velocities. Hopefully someone can confirm that.
JonesyFarewell, but, not Goodbye!.
Another one of the few remaining bona fide legends in the game gone. I heard an interview, a few years back now, where he commented that he never wanted the day to come where he’d spend his saturday afternoons in a supermarket….looking at the prices of baked beans!.
He’s gone before his time but he’s also gone before he outlived the contribution he could make to the game he loved and the wider community. It’s saddening but in a way, from reading his autobiography, I think he’d have been quietly satisfied with that.
RIP Sir Bobby.
JonesyFarewell, but, not Goodbye!.
Another one of the few remaining bona fide legends in the game gone. I heard an interview, a few years back now, where he commented that he never wanted the day to come where he’d spend his saturday afternoons in a supermarket….looking at the prices of baked beans!.
He’s gone before his time but he’s also gone before he outlived the contribution he could make to the game he loved and the wider community. It’s saddening but in a way, from reading his autobiography, I think he’d have been quietly satisfied with that.
RIP Sir Bobby.
JonesyYou are leaving out:
1) That the “oh my god twin-screw” Oscar II is actually an excellent boat that has tracked plenty of US CBGs – much more than we know I’d bet.
2) That the Victor III effectively practiced tracking US forces.
Both of which speak volumes of how capable the Soviet/Russia equipment is in dealing with the Americans on any realistic level.
You mean the Oscar that is publically acknowledged as being tracked at 300km by SURTASS under exercise conditions and the 671’s who’s performance absolutely depended on the presence of a surface-duct?.
See earlier point!
JonesyIt has certainly been more evidence than you have provided over the last your of your pro-CBG rambling Jonesy! 😉
It has some evidence…just no real understanding of what its describing.
It uses a lot of words to state that the USN in 2005 was still heavily weighted towards blue-water combat and needed to shift towards dealing with littoral threats. Something so facile its barely worth the comment and a swift flick through a Janes book would tell you the same thing!.
Most of the rest is just the odd apocryphal tale of how effective SSK’s are under exercise conditions. Thats not really evidence of anything other than the fact that the conditions of the exercise were set to allow the SSK’s their shot at the heavies!.
Same thing we see all the time on here really….people with links to great websites and little clue of what they are reading on them!.:cool:
JonesyDid any of you read the link I posted, it de-bunks any theory about “Russian Naval weakness, and U.S. naval superiority”
Yes I did and no it doesnt.
Its a contrived collection of scattered pieces of information presented en masse to try and persuade the reader that a general picture of vulnerability exists. I’m not about to pick the whole thing apart here and now but it unravels pretty quick when you start.
Edit: Also just did some verification on the source of the article before it was posted on that site. Seems to have come from an article published by someone with a degree from an unaccredited Danish online university on that university’s website and has, seemingly, since been removed. Quel Suprise!!!
JonesyBut . . . she’s not for sale, unless Japan changes its export policies.
As built, equipped with 16 VLS cells for ESSM, IIRC. You could slot in at least 16, & possibly 24, Sylver A35 in that space. Indeed, you could fit A43. Are DCNS ever going to pull their fingers out and quad-pack Mica VL, as they have done with the shorter-range VT1 missile?
Good point on the quadpack for MICA it would be the glaringly obvious step….even a dual pack would be a step forward!.
For the purposes of this exercise aren’t we suspending awkward little truths like the Japanese won’t sell?. In reality no of course its a complete non-starter, but, in reality no-ones going to give me £18bn to build a navy with either!.
As to the Hyuga VLS it, as I understood it is generally configured with 16 ESSM and 12 VL ASROC. I’ve always liked the quick reaction capability of ASROC to, if nothing else, really put the fear of the almighty into anything creeping in close. I’d keep the existing Mk41 just for VLA and add in two banks of 4 A35 modules fore and aft on opposing beams for VL MICA.
Phil
thy hyuga is mainly what threw me off what would be your ammerments and senor fit on her? what is the Dokdo capable of?
As answered the Dokdo is a different class of vessel….the 23knts indicated is answering the flank bell too. Sustainable full speed will be likely on the order of 20knts and she cruises at 18. that actually marks her as somewhat better than the BPE’s in performance terms.
Armament and sensors on Hyuga. Other than the removal of the ESSM in favour of VL MICA as above. I’d be tempted to leave her as per JMSDF standard. Certainly the FCS-3 AESA suite would seem to offer good capabilities acting in concert with an active missile. Its an additional system to have to support and a second AESA over and above the SAMPSON arrays I have on my T45’s, but, I am willing to gamble that the cost of modifying Hyuga to fit a SAMPSON would be more, over the 6 hulls, than the outlay on just supporting the small number of diverse arrays. Also as said there is, sometimes, value in having a limited number of diverse systems.
JonesyI assume your gonna give all theses ships somewhat of a common electronics and weapons fit? if not it seems to me you will have alot of diffrent systems
Look at the builders: the carrier, 6 oilers, 16 corvettes Fincantieri. 6 DDG’s and 12 FFG’s BVT. Thats carrier, the whole unrep fleep, the whole minor war fleet and most of the escort force from two vendors. Makes for good systems commonality and ease of training….not to mention usually quite a keen pricing structure. The Hyuga’s are odd ones out for the most part but diverse systems can sometimes be valuable for comparitive and single-vendor insulation purposes!. Also there aren’t many 30knt helicopter carrier designs to choose from at the moment and I cant afford to have something fully bespoke designed for me!.
Weapons and sensors can be fairly easily specced, but, I thought were out of scope for this tomfoolery!. ARTISAN can go across the corvette, FFG and amphib fleets. S1850 can cover DDG’s and the carrier. Aster is fitted to the carrier and the DDG’s. I’d modify Hyuga for VL MICA in line with the FFG’s and perhaps the corvettes. NSM would be standardised across the escort fleet and for fastjet and rotary air ordnance magazines.
JonesyAhahaha.. Here comes the Jonesyrussophobia at its best again. Typical for a Brit, don’t worry.Yes, coastal surveillance is exactly how Russia or China are going to find those carriers, due to limited areas of conflict.
Limited areas of conflict?. You mean like the Sea of Okhotsk or the South China Sea or the Barents Sea you mean?. Yep well that does narrow things down a bit I suppose…it does sort of cede everywhere else to the USN for strategic movement though. Nice of you to acknowledge that…finally!.
Russia could also use satellites – Liana/Lotos-S ELINT birds.
Has the first Liana actually been launched yet?. Also ELINT does have the odd little drawback doesnt it….seeings that the target must cooperate and emit on something recognisable that is powerful enough to be detected.
I start talking of SAMs stopping MOST, not all TLAMs. Don’t pretend like you don’t fantasize of the US fleet stopping every missile that gets shot at it either.
You would accept though that fixed sites ashore are more easily targetted than mobile ones offshore?. I dont fantasize about any of this – having a slightly different perspective on guided missiles than most who haven’t had to try and get them working.
The moment a carrier takes any MEANINGFUL action against Russia or China, it WILL be exposed. Very very quickly. An airbase lost for a whole fleet potentially lost is not a great proposition for the US Navy!
Exposed to what though. If we accept that the USN is putting down sufficient firepower ashore to make theatre entry possible it stands to reason that the first targets engaged are those intended to counter-detect. The whole point of theatre-entry is to be able to get your force into a position where it can make an ingress to a desired operational area inshore. If the threat is not reduced sufficiently to go inshore then the fleet doesnt!. That is the whole point of the strategic mobility that carriers provide!!!.
Hell, an E-2 on patrol can give away the position of the carrier.
….just as it can give away the position of a SAM trap set for the responder aircraft who come out to collect it.
You know nothing of what the Soviets did or did NOT know. Don’t pretend to be some all knowing messiah of naval warfare here. It’s a very interesting fantasy of yours, when you really think you know what the USSR was tracking, or not tracking, over the period of the Cold War. 😀
I know they got a big shock when certain RN vessels, that will remain nameless, nipped off with some of their sonobuoys after they conducted an ASW exercise ‘up north’. I know that the USN had all sorts of fun with the Far East mob out of Vladivostok….Cdr Pico has a marvelllous story online somewhere of the Soviets getting the shock of their days seeing a Midway tagged E-2 (his) flying with an F-14 escort. I’ll let you work out why that was instructive of the Soviets level of marpat ability in that theatre of operations. I know how poor the Soviets were at this. You care to try and prove that they were on top of their game and were tracking us everywhere we went?.
JonesyThere is always the risk that a sub get a sniff of the CBG, which can then either launch ASuM or call for airstrike, IMO the CBG is too valuable to leave without radar coverage.
A risk of a sub getting a sniff?!. Yes passive sonar is probably the best tool for OTH ship detection and classification, but a submarine sonar…even a towed array…is limited in range and resolution. A sub would, except for uncommon and unreliable accoustic conditions, have to get uncomfortably close to get a hit. Not to mention be lucky to be in the right place at the right time to get the group within passive detection radius. Its not exactly reliable as a detection tool to base your anti-carrier capability on.
If your opinion is that a CBG would not sail without an operating, militarily identifiable, active radar emitting somewhere then I’m afraid you are in for a very big shock. Why do so many people find it so hard to believe that it’s quite commonplace for naval vessels to steam with only commercial radar sets operating?. The reason for this is precisely to deny targetting information to an opponent and to appear as one of the sheep, to anyone with an ESM set, as opposed to one of the wolves!.
Yes, and i said general idea where to search.
So you knew you were meaning within a radius of about 500nm then?. With the possibility of it being a deliberate decoy to draw off or even trap opfor recon forces?.
Yep, a general area to search, there will likely be a couple of failed attempts with resulting loss of a few UAV until at least one of them turn on the search radar at the right location, then have the strike group loitering ready to launch a volley.
I fully understand the concept of using sacrificial UAV’s here. Its the same concept I described. The problem is that you have a ‘strike group’ loitering ready to fire missiles!. How do you know where to site your strike group?. How do you know when you are likely to get a detect off your UAV screen?. What happens if you get the detect just as the orbiting strike group is 80% fuel depleted and waiting on relief….or tanking?.
You can’t have an airborne strike group permanently on station like that. No-one has the airframes to do it anymore….not with a strike force weighted enough to saturate a carrier groups missile defences at any rate!.
JonesyA)It’s a given that a CBG will have at least 1 Hawkeye active if weather allow it, and if it’s too windy, at least 1 ship will be radar active. -Therefore, the general area can be spotted easily passively.
Point 1 – nope. USN E-2’s fly and train passive every bit as much as active. The onus is on the hunter to go active to find the carrier group not the other way around.
Point 2 – If you do get a passive sniff on a Hawkeye’s set who’s to say its orbiting its carrier?. E-2’s practice offsetting as the most basic information denial procedure.
Point 3 – passive intercept of a moving air vehicle does not give you a fixed set of coordinates for that vehicle – it gives you a ‘target box’ based on the angular resolution of your esm equipment and range between emitter and receiver.
As stated Obligatory they have been at this a very long time and they are the absolute masters of the craft.
JonesyJudging by the requirements on this one there is no need to figure in non-organic naval aviation here?. Some naval services maintain marpat fleets but, with a limited budget, surely you’d want that backed off to the airforce?. Mostly though its an island state so MarPat is going to be one of their most important taskings anyway!.
Addressing all these capabilities on the revised budget is difficult, but, obviously we are using ‘representative’ figures based on recorded contract prices etc. in reality deals and offsets would shift the achieveable left and right by quite a margin. The way I viewed it though is in addressing capabilities. To cover what has been tasked we need the following with the group I concocted earlier in the thread:
1, Fast Carrier Strike Group. Deploying combat power in the form of troops, as stated, means expeditionary warfare. If you are putting troops on the ground you are taking slow ships (amphibs) into hostile littorals. You have to threat-reduce the environment before you do that. The CSG here is going to be deploying 2 sqdns of 8-9 aircraft per. Thats not enough for CAP and a strike program. So we are hit-and-fade until the opposition ability to theatre-deny is attrited (this is a major reason why we dont want a slow amphib to centre our group on).
Single carrier here is not the immediate drawback at first apparent as, moving to the amphib phase, the BPE can assume reserve-deck responsibility operating the F-35’s and allow the carrier to pull back to a Fleet service area or, within reason, retire home for refit/repair. BPE’s ‘transport’ choppers can operate with, in my structure, the LSD/LSL’s and recover to the Hyuga’s attached for servicing/repair. Minor pain transferring the air maintainers between the departing CVL and the station LHD, but, much less than trying to afford a second CVL on the budget!.
2, Amphib Group. Enforcer type ships are ridiculously cheap and embark a battalion of troops. Too good value to miss and they take the load off the BPE’s to do aviation better and transport the vital add on units with bulky kit – Artillery, AD, Commo, Medical units etc. Primary MCMW comes in here also. Steams with the Amphib group so as not to slow down the CSG. For me this resides on MOSAIC corvettes with HUGIN/REMUS AUV’s fitted in place of the aviation capability. The MOSAIC’s also capable of providing a measure of force protection to the group on arrival.
3, Fleet Ready Group. While I’m engaged on my adventures overseas I still have security requirements and other commitments. Piracy in the northern IO sits directly astride vital shipping lanes to my country. I am obliged to take them seriously.
With my already outlined fleet structure I get three groups:
1, CSG
Cavour (16 F35B, 5 ISTAR UAV, 3 NH90)
2 T45 – (1 NH90 x2)
2 Hyuga (4 NH90, 3 ISTAR UAV x 2)
3 T23B2 (1 NH90 x3)
2, ARG
BPE LHD
2 Galacia LSL
1 T45 (1 NH90 x1)
1 Hyuga (4 NH90, 3 ISTAR UAV x1)
2 T23B2 (1 NH90 x2)
3 MOSAIC MCMW Config
3, FRG (mission-dependant attachments from)
1 T45
1 Hyuga
3 T23B2
3 MOSAIC
SURTASS and UNREP support with the 5 T-AGOS boats and 6 smaller ETNA class would be available to all three groups and to support coastal force of corvettes and the SSK fleet.
Figures are, as stated, on the vague side but using open source numbers available on the net for a guideline:
Cavour – £1bn
T45 – £600mn
Hyuga – £600mn (listed as US$1bn)
T23B2 – £250mn (inc design costs for Batch2 variant over 12 hulls)
T-AGOS19 – £115mn
Etna – £110mn
MOSAIC – £80mn (lists as projected 90mn Eur)
etc
JonesyI would have thought ASMP, my hypothetical meteor (Mach 4) or a custom mach 4/5 missile in salvo would still be fairly tricky to take out.
Tricky to take out if you dont have the right countering systems. If you have twenty batteries of the latest Russian S-300 variant and look-down radar coverage over the target though its going to be a tall order to get much through. Such a defence can be defeated, of course, but thats usually accomplished by large scale saturation efforts againt one point in the network – something that we wont be able to do with nuclear ordnance!.
What about cheaper subs carrying only 4 tridents in the sail (i read this mooted somewhere at some stage) or a land based installation (cue one hell of a bun fight over where to site them) as the ultimate back-up, with the airlauched systems for more ‘tactical’ or ‘back-up’ uses?
The number of missiles isnt really what costs a lot about submarines. Its the size of the missiles and the need for the submarine to be very advanced in accoustic ‘stealth’ terms. An SSBN is useless if its easily located and tracked by the opposition, it therefore must be at the very forefront of technology to defeat any opponent (or friends!) ability to find it. If you have spent the money on building big enough to fit SLBM’s in and getting the required technology in the hull limiting it to just a few missiles is nuts. Especially when there are targets that have ABM defences that may require more than 4 missiles worth of RV’s to breach.
There may be mileage in a new ‘small SLBM’ or perhaps an aeroballistic weapon like the US RATTLRS if the range can be pushed up a bit. Such a weapon could be fitted to a modified SSN saving a whole sum of money on SSBN development. In concert with sufficient land-based weapons to saturate a defended target that would be a likely practical solution. Problem is that developing the ‘small-ICBM’ would cost as would the land-based missiles. Then we have the issue, as you observe, of where to site land-based strategic-ICBM’s. Given the SNP’s horror at the bombers sat at Faslane you can imagine the reaction if we started drilling big holes in the Highlands!!.
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