1. The military is not about sending lone warriors with golden swords against hordes of dragons. Duels sound great, but I don’t think there is much of that idea. It is a game of coordination, tactics, teamplay, and quite often numbers and brute force. When one wants to get a submarine away from a base undetected, he could create quite a lot of acoustic chaos and support the submarine in the ways I already explained . And he would always have more resources than the few SSN’s in front of the base.

You are talking about de-lousing. The creation of an accoustic barrage to throw off a hunting SSN before it can latch on to the sortieing SSBN. Problem with that is that modern passive sonar can filter out frequencies on specific bearings and ‘eliminate’ clutter from the plot. They may stand a chance of squelching out legitimate frequencies from the SSBN, but, then that comes back to the point of the discretion of the SSBN. If you have a dual-reactor, twin-screw boat with modest flow dynamics at best its going to show up a lot more readily than a more advanced design.

2. There are active sonars beside passive ones, and submarine warfare (and every warfare) is not about keeping all your units quiet and silent like in a movie. There’s no shame in sending 971s with active sonar to search the area or Delta’s that you know will be detected. The US subs will know that there is a 971 out there, but it doesn’t matter as long as the strategic asset on patrol (SSBN) remains hidden. Note that the range of the active sonar is much greater than that of the passive, and the US/UK subs do not have the option of using them.

Active is longer-ranged than passive only under a very limited and specific set of conditions. The waters around ports offer a difficult sonar environment in terms of water salinity more than any great thermal gradients owing to the restricted depths involved. There also tends to be greater ambient flow-noise from floor topography and wrecks etc. Problem is those same factors of floor features will cack up the active plot every bit as much as the passive one. Relying on active in the shallows, as you contend, is extraordinarily dangerous as it creates accoustic ‘dead zones’ which a canny opponent can use to good advantage.

3. From most wars there is the general conclusion that a 10-20-30% advantage of an enemy in some technical aspects is of no significant strategic advantage if the opponent could keep the initiative and have the better tactics.

Nonsense. All sorts of tactics were employed by Soviet SSBN’s to try and run SOSUS. They didnt work – Delta’s/Navaga’s were commonly tracked entering the Atlantic underneath Sov merchies etc before their SLBM’s got the range to obviate the need.

4. Which brings us to the next point – no matter how advanced your sonar is, in the proper combination of water currents you could be practically blind while on passive sonar.

It creates difficult sonar conditions but hardly renders the water opaque!. Again we come back to the fact that the less-discrete the design the greater the radiated signature and the less effective the environmental conditions will be in masking that signature. You also have to remember that the conditions work both ways so counter-detection on a very discrete SSN stalking the SSBN is going to be difficult.

In a best case scenario, this is what would happened.

That IS the way they operate in the face of a significant threat. To suggest otherwise would be like suggesting that the Army would still practise ‘forming square’ or that a primary tactic for modern air-air combat was still gaining a position up-sun!.

Sea skimming anti-ship missiles in a ‘pop-up’ mode or anti-ship missiles that fly a high altitude profile and dive almost straight down upon its target, armored flight decks along with a deck or two between the flight deck and the hangar deck are just one of a few measures to keep the interior of the ship safe.

Are you suggesting there that US CVN’s have armoured decks?. Do you think that a thin layer of armour would have any significant value in protecting the carrier from a heavy diving antiship missile?. Do you think that, even if the ship where to sport a foot thick of plate the full length and breadth of its flight deck that, following a couple of heavy missile hits, it would still be performing flight ops?.

The answer is no and that, as has been mentioned before, utterly ignores the fact that the diving antiship missiles you speak of had a strong potential, had it ever come to blows, to be nuclear-tipped.

Flight deck armour is a non-starter today.

Boomer dude:D

Improbable yes but not impossible, its certainly happened before.

What worries me is the press reporting in a vacuum, until we know the full facts I don’t like what they are writing.

Considering most journos knowledge of Submarines and Sonar is from whatever movie they happen to of seen then it doesn’t bode well for good reporting. Most press types have pointed out that neither saw each other on sonar…well considering that when you ask the general public about sonar they think of something pinging away this isn’t a good start.

If both subs were operating close to the surface at slow speed with lots of noise clutter its entirely possible that neither noticed each other, remember a modern boomer can be less noisy then the background noise of the sea. For passive sonar that is quite a difficult scenario.

There is a good chance that neither crew was at fault and they have both fallen prey to awful bad luck.

Only the Yanks call them ‘boomers’ Fed. They are ‘bombers’ to us.

The thing is the damage patterns. Laying aside any other ‘fact’ that comes from the vast repository of gash that is the general media the dents never lie!. The Frenchman has allegedly got sonar dome damage and the Vanguard was, at some point, taken under tow. The geometry of that one is fairly straightforward. IF the reporting is accurate that Vanguard had to take a tow!.

Either way, yes, it could be an absolute random accident and the picture you paint is a possible one. The odds against though are significant!.

LOL!! After so much of talking and news reports this test is still ‘another’ test of Brahmos Block-I ??!!! Really strange!!! Why cant you just accept that the test on Jan 20th was an upgraded version of current missile i.e. Block-II!! Above all Block-I version is already in service with the IA. Do you think they have accepted Brahmos without verifications??!! Also DRDO promised to solve the problem with in a month or two with further test, so how it is a major glitch???

Rajan you do not know what Block 2 is. The report initially posted suggests that no major change is made from the Blk1 to Blk 2 round. In my experience mounting a different seeker to a missile represents a very significant change.

IF that article is wrong and Blk2 is a new land-attack only variant, with a different seeker with terminal MMW or IIR guidance, for the Army thats fine and is indeed an entirely different issue. My questions all the way through have been regarding this mythical land-attack capable active-radar seeker on the Blk1. Defexpo has covered that ground to my satisfaction though.

If you do not want to accept the word of Brahmos/DRDO/Indian official, so what can I do?? If the tech was from British or Americans, we could easily digest it….

If even the Indian Army do not accept the word of DRDO/Indian officials and feel they need to see proof of the ‘successful’ outcome of their trial firings I think a healthy degree of scepticism is more than warranted. You want to wear the blinkers you go right ahead!.

It is all about context, really. The Indian Army operators, were repeatedly stressing speed of reaction. Now you tie this in with the fact that the Indian Army would love a “wooden” missile which they can punch out ASAP, it makes sense for them compared to earlier liquid fuelled “Prithvi” missile used by Indians for land attack.

In that case they are going to a lot of trouble to reinvent a wheel. Why try and turn Brahmos into Iskander when the requirement is clearly for Iskander in the first place. Save the money on development and buy the appropriate weapons system.

Its not like the money poured into the development of this ‘multispectral seeker’, that has been in the offing for so many years, is going to lead to export sales either as no-one who wants a 300km short engagement cycle land-attack weapon would come to Brahmos over Iskander either. So, apart from supporting DRDO, its hard to see where the advantages come from this investment?.

My view is also more long term. In my view, Brahmos represents a very interesting shift in power of weapons development dynamic which serves very good bargaining chip for Indians. Now MBDA has released statement offering more intensive JV than Brahmos for Short range SAM. From own conversations, there are several European OEMs also interested to leverage availability of R&D fund in Indian program to refresh own product lines and compromise is to give India access.

Disagree massively. Had Brahmos become something more than what Indian technology did for the old P-20’s then perhaps. It isnt though. Its a bought-in Russian airframe with an indigenous, but otherwise unremarkable, seeker. Nothing new for India in any real sense – IIRC didnt the Russians buy back the Indian Styx seeker – so they already had those bragging rights.

For what you are talking about – the leverage effect of being involved in the JV – I’d say that its been a step backwards or, at very least, a stagnation in the technology area and a very distinct own goal. Yakhont/Brahmos as an antiship missile, against modern naval air defence, is emminently defeatable. As a land-attack weapon its trumped by Iskander and is competing, in naval land-attack, with the Klub LACM variants that the IN can already operate. In short it offers nothing very special for its price tag.

This is in my view most interesting aspect of this Brahmos business. That Indians are not just saying or taking missile from NPO MASH but making more variant with “Indian” (?) seeker and new software, hardware.

Again though I cant see how that is in any way moving Indian industry forward?. The advance over their earlier work with P-20 is what?.

The point was: If Block 1 – without software- has to take out a target then a proximity fuse will help. 200-300 kg of explosive should be enough, despite the KE factor and what not.It is crude but effective.

The key to the destructive potential of the weapon is the impact kinetic energy of the M2+ air vehicle slamming into the target. A prox fuse would immediately throw that KE potential away. I would find it extraordinarily suprising to learn of a prox fuse on Brahmos. Its a good excuse to cover a miss though!. 😎

The answer to this has already been given. Why the continued dismay that systems that were maintenance-intensive and operationally marginal were eventually pulled?.

As SOC says the F-14/AIM-54 combination was the very dogs dangly-bits for anti-bomber work in the Barents on SIOP-tasking. Seeings as the USN isnt in the SIOP business now the Cold War has ended what is the point in keeping the capability to defend against regiments of Backfires that a carrier will never see?.

Likewise with the S-3. By the time they were removed the Hoovers offered a modest capability at best owing to the relatively small numbers embarked. With many tens of relatively noisy Soviet-era Fleet and Patrol boats as a target set it made sense that a platform to prosecute targets at a good few hundred kms be embarked. Thing is though that the dozens of Victors, Charlies, Echo’s, Tango’s and Foxtrots are now gone. The target set, if you include Russian boats at all, is now just a very modest number of increasingly discrete SSN’s and, for the remainder, a sprinkling of commercial export SSK designs. The S-3’s arent a good fit to counter either sufficient to justify their inclusion in the airgroup.

It really is that simple.

Defexpo

Who made the prior claims apart from you? You would clearly take the first prize in some Don Quixote contest. First identify a windmill, charge at it, and then accuse everyone else of saying there was a knight there!

Are you serious?. Read the thread. This is an RF seeker (on Blk1) that is capable of precision identfying a large building target amidst clutter according to some interpretation of DRDO releases. Those claims are even on this thread!.

I reiterate by now it, should be able to clearly determine that the Brahmos Block 1 is meant for high RF contrast targets and retains the original seeker.

Thankyou. That was all the information I wanted.

Now when you say that the Block 1 has GPS! Never did I say Block 1 has GPS! My goodness this is getting more and more amusing.

Yet you wrote “that the Indians first acquired a substantial tranche of Block 1 missiles, intended for strikes on known targets (predetermined coordinates) and with substantial RF presence (airfield structures etc.), whereas the second tranche, the bulk order will be of much more precise and flexible systems.”?.

Now either Brahmos Blk1 incorporates GPS for the ‘strikes on known targets with predetermined coordinates’ for a true precision land attack capability or, if you suggest that it doesnt, its down to the accuracy of the onboard INS and whatever the ARH seeker can achieve in terminal phase?. That would actually be a lesser capability than offered by the newer block French and US missiles?.

I have my notes with me, which I jotted down from assorted media et al reports then validated by talking to the NPO/ Indian Chappies. Now I wonder, is it even worth sharing them with someone who is deliberately going in circles on this topic and then pointing fingers at me?

Absolutely no need to Defexpo. As stated you have provided the information that I was looking for.

Austin,

“On 18 December we had successfully launched BrahMos from a vertical launch system onboard Naval warship in BayofBengal meeting all mission objectives. The missile has sea-land attack capability.”

No question that it has a land-attack capability. For the same reason that I have no question that the MM40 blkIII or the newer Harpoons have land-attack capability from their GPS guidance packages. No-one is making a claim for the French and US weapons to have precision seekers though.

What is the basis of your assumption that a Brahmos seeker cant provide such resolution and that cannot be further refined using DSP and Software ?

See earlier description of the necessity for an ARH to have an RF contrast for target aspect definition. That is not something that is open for discussion it is simply the way the technology works. Given this limitation, which is the same for all of these kind of seekers, all that the DSP’s and clever programming can do is attempt to interpret varying levels of signal return. You can attempt a pattern match to define your target, but, it will be dependent on a great many factors as to whether the seeker ever gets that pattern. I would imagine something like this has caused the miss – if the Blk2 missile does retain the original seeker.

Should I to assume that a standard antiship ARH are all the same ?

In basic functional elements…..yes that is a fairly safe assumption.

Are you privy to information or facts about Brahmos seeker and then you seek to generalise with standard anti-ship ARH seeker ?

No but then I’m not the one making wild and unsupported claims about its capability. No-one has been able to explain how a seeker, functionally identical to everyone elses seekers, can accomplish so much more. Apart that is from vague and poorly informed references to signal processing in hardware and software – references which, in fact, do more to underscore the ignorance of their sources on the technology than anything else.

Should I also then generalise and say that there are things which a Granit is capable of which is untrue , because a standard anti-ship missile cant ofcourse

Yes you may generalise. Granit has an active/passive seeker much the same in operation to that fitted to the US TASM from the mid-80’s.

The following points should be clear from reports so far:

Developer claims software glitch and that new missile had new software to distinguish between various targets. They also claim that the software fix is underway and will be shown in next test.

GPS break is a very possible occurrence especially for high speed maneuvering missile.

To keep seeker confusion out, above applies irrespective of whether it is original seeker with upgraded software & GPS receiver or SCAN Multispectral seeker + upgraded software & GPS receiver.

Finally, it is also confirmed that Indian Army is ordering 240 missiles with SCAN and 66 missiles with RF seeker.

All rest is noise.

What is interesting is that there are indian media reports of a possible nuke role for Brahmos, hitherto conventionally armed. This is interesting, to say least!

Its a nice try at glossing over the issues Defexpo, but, you are now contradicting your earlier post. You acknowledged that Blk1 was, for land-attack, GPS guidance with RF seeker for hi contrast targets. Now is that still your understanding or not?.

Is there an algorythm that can make a seeker return more than its transmit signal reflecting off a target?. No. Is there an algorythm that can make a seeker roughly in J-band return more resolution than what that freq range gives other peoples seekers?. No.

I’m perfectly happy to accept that India has a new seeker package under development – after all they have been working on one, as apparently so have the Russians, for a good few years now. What I have an issue with is antiship seekers that are suddenly precision land attack capable just because some chappie at DRDO has allegedly claimed it. Now we see that some of that organisations ‘claims’ are dubious at best it surely opens the door to question some other ‘interesting’ claims!.