Very opportune for the Abkhazians this whole Ossetia thing taken at face value. Might be interesting to find out which warships the Russians have deployed to lay off Poti and precisely when they sortied!.

Something I’m a bit confused about here is if this is about South Ossetia why are the Russians putting warships off Poti and hitting targets in Abkhazia (sp.).

Are these two, seemingly disparate, issues related or are the Russians taking one opportunity to deal with both issues at the same time?.

The concept of placing the VLS install down one side of the hangar on C2 was mine so thanks to Frosty, again, for his spirited defence of another mans follies! 🙂

The Sylver A35 module if, CAMM does end up as an approximately 3m long round, should be big enough to take the new missile. Cutting in to the hangar on one side will obviously steal space inside from the aviation department and would be likely to limit a 4k ton hull like this to FLynx and UAV’s. For me this is no loss to be honest. I think the chances of seeing Merlin, given the modest numbers we actually have, assigned as C2 ships flights are extremely remote. C2’s mission is actually just as well served by FLynx/Firescout/A160 anyway.

The 120m design you’ve generated is obviously superior, but, its interesting to see what could be achieved on the planned 100m layout Vospers are putting forward for C3. The below renderings are based on a chap called Wakazashi’s quite superb drawing of the VT C3 proposal. I have taken his name off solely to distance him from my tinkerings.

The changes to C3 are obviously the extension of a hangar back between the funnels to the mainmast and, naturally, the replacement of the OTO Super for’d mount with a Mk8 mod 1. Neither change being something outrageously difficult to accomodate IMO. The C2 concept obviously moves the hanger farther astern to createa weapons deck aft of the mainmast and modifies the raised forward superstructure, shown in the original VT plans, to accomodate, notionally, 6 A35 modules for 24 cells.

Echo

Why is this a problem – a first strike for the Chinese? Are the Americans suddenly going to sneak attack on China? Come on now.

Do you lads get taught this routine all in the same place before you are allowed onto the net Echo?. You exhaust the options you have for countering my argument technically so then you resort to vacantly blurting out that it would never happen anyway so its all irrelevent?. You all follow exactly the same tactics?.

And RAF failures don’t apply here. I also doubt sea lanes are going to be in question for hiding, as this would probably just make the search easier.

Anyone on this site will tell you my opinions of the RAF and that they are not all that high. They have though nearly 70 years of experience in maritime patrol and, more specifically, oceanic patrol missions. They still make glaring mistakes in long-range ship recognition despite first-rate technology and all that operational experience. How do you justify the PLANAF doing any better with poorer kit and a fraction of the experience?!.

The Nimitz would be slightly shorter, and perhaps larger in beam by a bit than a VLCC/Malaccamax type vessel.

Look up the words RESOLUTION and ASPECT. There is a picture of a Chinese radar display scope on this thread – its an old-style PPI. You are not getting the resolution on that scope to tell which contact is a ‘bit wider in the beam’. You need a SAR capable radar and about 10m resolution to tell detail at the level you are talking about. You’d also need to be about 100km from the target…which might be just a bit risky!. Also you need the target to be at the correct aspect to your radar platform to get the correct profile. From stern port quarter a Nimitz is going to have a near identical radar profile to a VLCC even at 10m SAR res.!!!. 2/10 Echo – must do better.

So at the same rate, you can overwhelm a CVGB’s defenses too.

Of course you can. The problem, which no-one has solved yet, is finding the carrier and fixing its position for long enough to coordinate a strike of sufficient weight to saturate its defences.

So there’s no such thing as HAVCAP or FORCAP? Come on now

What have Combat Air Patrols got to do with the kind of ocean reconnaissance that the PLANAF is capable of mounting at extreme standoff. The CAP is programmed to form a barrier between a set HVU and a pre-determined threat axis – hence the other acronym BARCAP. You are suggesting that the PRC has enough recon assets to BARCAP the whole South China Sea?.

Right, Jonesy vs the whole USSR military, good luck with that one.

LOL. What makes you think I’m the only one who knows the way this works in the real, non-internet fantasy, world!. A USN Lt Cdr painted the pic clearly enough above. I’ll let you into a little secret, lots of Warfare Officers, in Navies all over the world know what the limits of OTH targetting are!. Why do you think so few OTH missile shots have ever actually been attempted!:rolleyes:

plawolf,

First I have to acknowledge what you wrote above. Respect from ones adversary being the greatest accolade etc. Sincerest of appreciations, sir.

Even assuming a 150-200km detection range, thats still plenty of time to vector in the huge numbers of J7s and eariler J8IIs to intercept a sizeable proportion of those slow subsonic missiles out at sea while still leaving all of China’s newest and most capable fighters free to perform other missions.

I knew someone would pick me up on that. For me its difficult to calculate the effect fighters would have on a TLAM strike. Many hundreds of TLAM’s and dozens of CALCM’s have been fired operationally and, whilst a number have been brought down by ground defences, I’m not aware of any that have been shot down air-air. TLAM is still a small radar-target thats flying very low against background clutter (how good is a J-8’s radar against multipath reflection?).

Then there is the issue of Alert status and how many aircraft the PLAAF could actually generate in the few minutes from detection to the TLAM’s entering the targets SAM engagement zone?. Obviously there would be a CAP up and alert-status fighters spotted at various airfields, but, only certain airfields alert fighters would be in position to be able to vector on the inbounds. Theoretically the number of interceptors able to engage the TLAMs may not be all that high!.

I am also highly dubious of the idea of a carrier battlegroup operating completely emission (electronic before some smartass starts) free, as that would leave the entire battlegroup extraordinarily vulnerable.

Information Warfare ‘wolf. If there is one thing that sets the USN apart from everyone else its their ability to exploit passive and offboard sensors to develop the plot whilst remaining silent. They realised this after Midway and they have spent decades refining fleet manoever to an operational art. I’m critical of the USN in some areas, I think they ridiculously over-man their ships and they have strange ideas on engineering officers being suitable for operational commands (and I say that with my engineering background!), but their fleet ops are light years ahead of EVERYONE else.

If a carrier battlegroup does run slient, then that is taking a gamble with incredible stakes when the odds are probably unclear even to the people making that choice. If the Admiral in command looses his nerve and goes to full battlestations, then its a totally different ball game.

Everyone can make mistakes. The USN isnt infallible and they have been caught napping under exercise conditions. My point would be though that you cant rely on the other side making a mistake for your nations defence!. Either the capability is there to find and track a carrier group before it could initiate land-attack operations or its not. For the PRC at the moment, going purely from open source, its not.

Enrique,

First please accept my thanks for the information you provided about the radar installations on the island. I was going to ask you about the effects of our gunfire as I’d been told that the radars had been observed to drop offline following several shellings. I was never sure if this was just the systems being resited or whether they were damaged and needed bringing back into service. Thanks for clearing that one up!.

Three torpedos fired , two hit belgrano – The third one ? aimed at an escort or missed -?

The third Mk8 was fired in salvo ahead of Belgrano’s position from a firing point about 1500yds off the vessels port beam. As I understand it the two escorts were positioned on the Belgrano’s starboard beam (ARA Piedro Buena) and line ahead on the bows (ARA Hipolito Bouchard) just off to starboard. The whole salvo was aimed at the Belgrano.

What seems likely is that the third Mk8 missed forward of the Belgrano and kept on its merry way towards the Bouchard. I’ve never heard anyhting definite about whether a third explosion was recorded on Conks’ sonar – the possibility is that the noise put in the water by the Belgrano’s break up could’ve masked the third detonation even if it happened.

I’ve read a piece, allegedly from the Bouchards skipper – Capt Barcena, that suggested he believed his ship had suffered damage from an explosion close aboard, but, that his ship wasn’t directly struck by a torpedo. I find that a little hard to believe to be honest – the odds against a weapon that missed one ship ending up on a bearing to a second and detonating just close enough to the hull to avoid sinking it….but enough to put a few 5″ wide cracks in is just a little too much for me to easily believe I’m afraid. I think that the torpedo ‘damage’ on the hull was probably something a bit more mundane, like exposure to very heavy seas would do to an old hull anyway, and the third torpedo was a straight miss.

Escorts did they ever had the oportunity to detect the HMS Conqueror , or was it an imposible

Belgrano had no working sonar apparently and Wreford-Brown had been very careful to make his approach on a bearing that had him masked from Piedro Buena by the Belgrano itself and was in the Bouchards stern arc. It was a very professional approach – even if the two escorts had been equipped with decent sonar (which according to Barcena they weren’t) neither would have had much of a hope of tagging Conks even at 1400yds owing to how the escorts were situated.

After achiving the mission , HMS Conqueror remains in site or departs to other areas ?

I’ll have to check but I think that she went west after the Belgrano engagement and performed intel/raid warning duties off the Argentine coast.

Unless you have some sources to bring to light, I’m sticking with “opinion.”

Entirely up to you. The evidence supporting what I’m saying is manifest and the sources actually on this thread, but, if you lack the intellectual honesty to accept them it really is not my problem. As stated you are far from alone in your views.

Right, so that TLAMs are just going to vaporize everything China has right? Have you even considered their SAM defenses? Clearly for your own convenience, you have not. Who says the US gets the first strike? What if the Chinese to a sneak attack on the carrier with various assets instead? :rolleyes:

What assets and how though?. The whole problem for the Chinese is targetting the carrier group before the carrier group can fire. If the Chinese could actually get their shots off at 500km offshore then the CSG is going to have a difficult life. The point is though that, barring luck, the PRC forces cannot relaibly do that with the assets they have as they cannot put out a sufficient, surviveable, reconnaisance screen that deep to find and identify the carrier group. Remember there are lots of ships in the Sth China seas that dwarf even a Nimitz and evading a handful of MPA’s is not something that is all that difficult. The RAF never got a solid track on the Argentine carrier in the Falklands despite repeated false-target tracks and the Nimrod MR2’s they used then were no worse that the MPA’s in use by the PRC..

Hmmm I’m a former SAM technician and I never thought about whether SAMs could counter a TLAM strike eh?. The word ‘saturation’ means, in this context, to fire more weapons than the opponent can defeat. It is a dramatically successful tactic. The SAMs arrayed by the PRC are amongst the best in the world, they, like all SAMs though, have x number of ready-to-fire rounds on the launchers. If you fire x+5 TLAMs at that site then, barring freak incident, you destroy the site.

If you mix in a few Super Hornets worth of 300km ranged ITALDs with the x-5 TLAM strike you guarantee saturation. It would require a lot of TLAM’s, several hundred in fact to just open up SAM defences and knock out a few airfields, but the USN has no shortage of Mk41 cells and hitting MPA airfields, OTH sites, etc would be worth the expense.

Who even brought up armed vs unarmed?

Me!. Shooter = armed as opposed to Recon = unarmed. You do not use armed strike aircraft on long overwater patrol missions. You use a high endurance recon asset to cue in the shooters

Fact is, the various assets work together, not separately. Be it China or Russia, unless you think only countries of NATO are the smart ones and can stomp over any other Armed Forces, while the other countries have no sense of cooperation.

Dont recall making any grandiose statements like NATO only being the ones who are smart so knock the prejudice off right now. I’ve said that the kind of anticarrier tactics you are proposing are useless and based on the old Soviet model which experience shows was little better.

Frosty

I have a few questions Aster would require a expensive multi function radar sensor fit?

In a word yes. Aster uses an active seeker, but, its relatively short-ranged and, obviously, battery powered. To get the most out of the seeker then the missile is steered to a position that puts the inbound nearby, with deflection, and inside the Aster seeker cone. To do this with a high speed inbound, like an antiship missile, means that the guiding radar must be capable of painting the target, deriving its position and predicted course, then updating the Aster with the intercept vector. At the moment that means a passive or active phased array set capable of beamshifting to ‘ping’ targets for the update.

CAMM wil have a range of around 7-10km?

I’ve seen it associated with the FLAADS (Future Local Area Air Defence) requirement which is meant to provide a weapon capable out to 20km ish with an active radar seeker – similar in parameters to VL MICA but less French as far as I can make out!!!.

CAMM will be able to take out other missiles? CAMM will be able to be mounted in a VLS and a phalanx/SeaRAM style?

As I understand it MBDA have already undertaken trials deploying an ASRAAM derivative test round 3m long x 166mm diam. from a VLS launcher and had successful tipovers etc. One would presume then that existing Sylver launchers like the A35 and A50 would be compatible with CAAM and, if the diameter at least, stays the same quad-packing would have to look a distinct possibility.

what would naval scalp require to be fired apart from the Sylver A70 launcher?

A 21″ torpedo tube is the only other alternative I’m aware of!.

To operate 2 Merlin Helicopters would you need deck space for 2 or just hanger space?

At bare minimum just the hangar space and a bit of wiggle room on the pad. You would want a lot more though. Ideally an aft pad with a minimum of a Merlin spot and a concurrent UAV spot or something similar.

Jonesy i guess like me you think a helicopter is one of the most valuable assets on a ship?

As a general rule yes!. Within sensible limits of course – there’s no way that an AAW design should be incorporating an aviation dept able to support more than a Lynx or a couple of rotary UAV’s wheras an ASW ship would have to count the chopper as a primary weapons system and make appropriate accomodations.