JonesyGarry
An amphibious landing by a foreign power on Russian soil is as unlikely as Russia needing a navy right now that can take on US carrier groups.
I agree wholeheartedly, the analogy is the old joke of a flea crawling up an elephants back leg with the intent to rape, I’m merely trying to hypothesize a possible target set that could justify the retention of missiles which have no other saving grace than the ability to make a bloody great big bang!.
I would envisiage a Sovrememny class destroyer using a helicopter with helo launched Kh-35s .In the very unlikely even the target is a large vessel like a container ship or oil tanker then the threat of SUNBURN would be a real threat. The result will be it is very unlikely the big missiles will actually be used for anything but exercises, but what is new with that? Have they been used operationally before against carriers and no one told me?
A Moskit, whilst more destructive than any Harpoon or AM39 type subsonic, is not going to achieve much against a 30,000DWT bulk carrier….you use a 21″ torpedo for that and if the Russian SSN force isnt up to the task of chasing down a merchie and sinking it then it really is time to tie the boats alongside and throw away the keys!.
Moskit has had its day as the anti-AEGIS missile and, whilst it taught the Yanks that the Soviets could still play the game, that was 25-30 years ago. It does very little for them today. As you correctly identify the money has been spent on the weapon so they might as well be carried…they have value against escorts of a lower-capability level than SPY-1 or APAR ships. In the Far east theatre some of the older Korean or Japanese escorts could find themselves exposed to a fast salvo of 8 Moskits….arguably though these are the same vessels that would find themselves exposed to a salvo of C-803’s, Harpoons, Sea Eagles etc, etc!.
Agree, but then why spend money replacing missiles with new big missiles without the legenda system operational? A Ka-27 could carry 2-4 Kh-35s easily and operate as an anti ship platform able to see long range targets and engage them. The large Anti Ship missiles could be seen as preventing enemy ships from getting too close to the Helo carrier platform.
Dont spend money replacing the missiles immediately then!. As you’ve noted, echoing my own sentiments, Russia is enjoying a threat-gap at the moment. There is no SIOP tasked US carrier force ready to rake the North Cape with nuclear ordnance any more and its unlikely that the Germans are going to hoik the jackboots back on and go for Barbarossa part zwei any time in the conceivable future. The russians have more deployable and cheaper to operate weapons, Kh-35 etc, capable of addressing any likely target set off their coasts that their existing assets can employ satisfactorily as you describe clearly.
Sensibly then they should be using this gap for R&D….and, superficially at least, it does appear that that is what is happening. If they, as a result of this period, manage to come up with big hypersonic missiles, equipped with Keldysh-type plasma stealth, directed by a fully netted area surveillance and targetting system to an ‘uncloaked’ passive seeker terminal phase 20 seconds or so from target then, I promise you, I’ll change my tack so fast your eyes will bump in their sockets!. This is because THAT system would be viable and be presenting the defender with a set of parameters outside of what his onboard systems could reasonably be expected to cope with. The difference between that and what Kh-22/P-500/P-700 represent today is manifest.
There is no reason why versions of the large missiles couldn’t be developed in the mean time with passive IIR or passive Radar seekers or even land attack sensors being developed for the Yakhont/Brahmos in the interval while Legenda is not operational.
Again I find myself in total agreement, giving the weapons a primary land-attack focus brings back the Oscar-II and Kirov as useful platforms that, Kirov’s S-300 installation aside, can justify the resources spent on putting them to sea. IMO if they haven’t done such a thing with those weapons then theyre idiots of the highest calibre!. Interesting as this is though it does return us to the initial point raised in the thread as to whether these weapons were viable in an antishipping context against advanced AAW escorts.
Well on paper I thought it was pretty impressive. I would have added a phalanx type weapon at each end of every warship but the missiles seemed to be excellent, sensors good, and airsuperiority seemed to be a clear cut case when looking at air to air kills performance. BTW the SS-N-22 predated the Falklands war as did quite a few other sea skimmers (SS-N-7 and SS-N-9 in particular from memory).
Pretty impressive is one description….’vaunted’ indicates something else entirely!. As I’ve covered in my reply to Schorsch RN air defence in the 70’s and early 80’s was directly tailored to one specific range of threat systems. That left us with a few blind spots that a clever opponent, with access to our technology, was able to exploit with measurable success. P-270 Moskit was new on NATO ‘radar’ in 82 and, as sferrin accurately notes, had still to deploy in Soviet service. SeaWolf was to be the answer to that system as well as the later version of Malachit. Starbright/Siren both having a low altitude attack profile but, from memory, it was not a ‘sea skimmer’ in the same vein as AM39 or Moskit.
You keep forgetting the role of the Russian navy at the moment. Very few pirates or illegal fishermen have the assets of a US carrier group. 3/4s of the worlds navies don’t have such assets in fact.
Not so, in fact its one of the cornerstones of my general dismay at the continued upkeep of these weapons in Russian service. Find a pirate or smuggler that demands the use of a bloody great Oscar-II with 24 P-700’s to counter?. How many, useful, Krivak-III’s could be kept on deployment for the upkeep costs of the Oscar fleet and what are the SSGN’s doing to justify their existence?. Scaring carriers off that everyone knows arent coming anyway!!!. Deadly missles the P-700 – certainly very damaging to the Russian fleet anyway!!!.
Which is perfectly possible and those vessels with the huge missiles will be replaced by very different looking vessels with lots of small vertical launched missiles instead of large external launchers. If necessary older vessels like the Slava class could have their 16 large launchers replaced with hundreds of ship based Kh-101s and Clubs for example (the Kh-101 being the conventionally armed land attack cruise missile with a range of 5,000km).
Or, with a bit more foresight, they build smaller, more economical, vessels to carry a more modest, but perfectly sufficient, 40-60 Clubs and have the ability to deploy several vessels simultaneously instead of tying the whole missile inventory down in a single, expensive to deploy, legacy hull that suffers a mechanical casualty and takes a huge swath of combat power back to base with it!.
An IIR sensor can view wide swaths of territory and rapidly identify areas that need closer attention. Several radar sensors can be deployed and lets face it… the next gen Legenda satellites will have at least PESA electronically scanned radar (AESA might generate too much heat in the near future).
PESA’s energy requirements should be a bit of a problem for a conventional sloar-cell powered satellite. AESA sounds a much more plausible proposition on balance….I cant see the Russians wanting to get into the nuclear-powered RORSAT nightmare ever again!.
There was a belief in the Royal Navy in the early 80s that the Russians didn’t deploy any sea skimming missiles.
They didnt in the terms of sea-skimming as applied to AM39. IIRC Moskit didnt get to sea on the Sovremenny until 85?.
JonesyWhen we’ve already paid for the development of an AESA through SAMSON why are we going to suddenly buy an alternate system which we’ll then have to support. The official development and deployment of the oft-rumoured single-face SAMSON, the somewhat nebulous ‘SPECTAR’ array, would have to be the correct way forward if we find a need to deploy such a system on a C2 type vessel.
Personally I’d say it would make more sense just to increase the production run of SAMSON to cover T45 and C1 and go with ARTISAN3D for the C2/C3. No matter what C2 turns out to be, in hull terms, you cannot envisage it being fitted with an expensive system like PAAMS rather a more limited system like the proposed CAMM would seem to be appropiate. The need for anything more than a standard mechanical azimuth/electronic elevation scanning set would seem to be elusive. If we remember that C2, to justify its existence, HAS to be significantly cheaper to deploy than a T23 of today then its self-evident that capability-creep is going to be something that has to be monitored very closely as the concept evolves..
JonesyInteresting read! Can you elaborate above statement a bit? Why is a rather small and simple missile like the Exocet outside the defense envelope, when the more sophisticated weapons were within?
Certainly Schorsch. The principal is essentially the simple one of attack profile as I described earlier.
Essentially RN AAW doctrine from the late 50’s right up to the 80’s called for the defence of RN task groups in the Atlantic/North Sea theatre against, originally, level bombing from Tu-16’s and Tu-95’s and, latterly, modest-number heavy antiship missile strikes from popup submarine threats. This evolved with the addition of Kh-22/KSR-5 to the air threat, but, the engagement profile always seemed similar….large target/high altitude. Against such a target early detection was always going to be something that could be relied on either from the AEW Gannets, initially, or the pretty fair 1022 shipboard set latterly.
In engagement terms, early on, the RN had the Sea Slug ‘area SAM’. A powerful and accurate weapon, for its generation, and was quite capable against high altitude level bombers and, allegedly, drones simulating early Soviet AShMs like KSR-2. This, it being noted, being in the days before ‘saturation attack’ entered the vernacular. Sea Cat was viewed as superior to the standard single manually-laid Bofors L/70 for short-range air defence and, in fact, could be quite effective against a zero bearing-rate target given a competent operator.
Sea Dart obviously superceded Sea Slug as the target environment became more advanced. The target regime didnt actually change, it was still high altitude/high profile, but there was now improved range and a greater ability to engage high-speed missiles like the P-5/Kh-22/KSR-5. Sea Cat, despite continual but half-heartedly deployed upgrades, was obsolescent by any standards, but, SeaWolf despite being less-than-advertised initially when it entered the fleet was seen as the answer to the smaller and increasingly sophisticated Soviet ‘universal’ missiles like the P-120 Malachit and was seen as a viable inner-layer defense against P-500 and the heavy air launched jobs.
Nowhere on the horizon was it considered that we would be facing a ‘light’ (by Soviet reference) subsonic very-low-altitude skimmer like AM39. As the famous comment was at the time ‘the Russians dont have Exocet’. On the face of it there were hopes that Sea dart may be able to engage a strike aircraft prior to Exocet release if we pushed an AAW picket line out from the main body of the task group. Which would’ve worked, probably, if the opposition didnt have Sea Dart systems of their own to practice against!.
So we are faced, in tactical terms, with a weapon that two of our four naval SAM systems – Sea Slug, Sea Dart dont have the envelope and our principle shorads SAM Sea Cat hasnt, really, the performance to engage. Going against a threat system when your only effective hard-kill option is a new-ish system mounted on only two of the frigates in your group is a poor way to kick off any action.
The irony is, of course, that if the Argentines had been equipped with a squadron of Badgers with KSR-2/5 we could’ve coped much more adequately than we did with 5 Etendards with AM39!.
JonesyI agree, but if you followed the discussion in context you would have noticed that John Jams claimed the Legenda system never would have worked because it didn’t offer continuous coverage. I stated the Legenda system was never intended to offer continuous coverage and if it did the missiles wouldn’t need radars…
In that case you have my sincerest apologies as I wasnt following what other posters were writing very closely.
Besides the Granit doesn’t need a satellite fix to find a target, as you state it is the submarine that prepares the data, not the satellites… as far as the system is concerned it doesn’t matter what source the data is derived from.
Correct with the proviso that the targetting platform must be a component of the Legenda or Uspekh nets.
The fact that one of the missiles pops up and looks at the target group itself and determines which targets are present and based on how many missiles are in the group which missile will target which ship… obviously all two dozen missiles hitting one ship would be a waste. For currentl use where US carrier groups are not the target far fewer missiles will be fired and likely from far shorter range but it would still be a very potent weapon vs any ship.
Which sounds, and technically, is very clever until you realise that the only target that it makes sense to deploy missiles like P-700 against are either aircraft carriers or amphibs that would, in any Russian context, be screened by carriers. You simply are NOT going to try and pot an UNREP ship from 75km with a Granit…you would utilise another system suitable for engaging a low threat target.
P-700’s ‘sacrificial offering’ mode is foolhardiness of the highest kind. First it climbs to a point within the sensor envelope of its target and alerts everyone that either the Russians have fired just a single…wee…solitary missile attack or its a Granit and theres at least a dozen or so more of them just below the horizon. Either way an ARH strike is inbound and codeword is flashed to the fleet to close to action stations and initiate defensive procedures. Anything covered by E-2 probably doesnt need that alert either as, from 30k ft, it’s getting a hit on a formation of M1.8 air vehicles 30m off the deck 400km plus downrange…or, roughly, 10 minutes out!.
Either way the fleet targetted is well aware of what is barrelling in on them and is lighting off defensive systems.
No idea. Both aircraft are supposed to have upgrades… currently really don’t know if they have had them or not, and even if they had whether such an upgrade has been made. Of course there were Tu-22M3s present as well and they do have the capability to carry and use long range missiles against ships.
Useful information to disseminate to the Dionis’s etc aboard here. Its unknown as to whether A-50 can act as an Uspekh component and so the inclusion of it in your fanciful Russian ISTAR orbat is questionable at best?!.
Why? As anti ship weapons they are no worse than a Harpoon. The much vaunted British air defences during the Falklands didn’t seem able to stop exocets fired individually… how would modern navies of today deal with 4 or 8 supersonic antiship missiles coming at them?
When did I say Harpoon was a good weapon…I think its been reasonably well proven to be quite the opposite just the same as Exocet!. What ‘vaunted British air defence’ in the Falklands?. British air defence was set to shoot down Kh-22’s and KSR-5’s….Exocet presented a threat that was outside the engagement envelope of our naval SAM’s apart from, initially, the two Broadswords with the, then, brand-new SeaWolf. This is what I’m saying….shoot your weapons through the opposition engagement envelope and dont be suprised if your weapons are intercepted….shoot them outside the defensive fire zone and you are much more likely to kill your targets!.
How would modern navies deal with up to 8 supersonics shot at them?. Early detect of a high alt profile supersonic inbound via (as representative) MW08 3D radar at 250km downrange or 4-5mins out for M2.0 air vehicle. Tracks would be established and, on terminal phase dropdown, would be maintained if CEC was available, for engagement by area SAMs at maximum range.
If we are giving the supersonic shooters all the advantages and CEC isnt available then the AAW Control Ship (AAWCS) is flashing out a message indicating threat type and direction and is initiating the pre-planned fleet softkill response with floating decoys, ECM and pyrotechnics. Weapons operators know they’ll get about 30 seconds firing window, at best, and are training directors on the projected point of horizon cross to begin hard-kill countermeasures.
For 8 inbounds, not depleted from area SAMs, with confidence you’d probably want a minimum of 4 channels of fire and 32 competent point-defence missiles over two hulls. In reality you would anticipate soft-kill seduction to reduce the number of inbounds that you would have to engage with hard-kill so weapons expenditure could be considerably lower than 32 weapons.
It cost three times more the disband an army unit than to just keep it ticking over with enough funds to keep it going.
Thats an army unit….it costs very little to stick a pointless antiship missile in a warehouse and leave it there….it makes even more financial sense to strip out the warhead and terminal phase sensor package and fly the thing as a target drone in support of the export industries that ARE bringing in resources…like the S-300 programme!.
Scrapping otherwise perfectly good missiles makes no sense if the cost of scrapping plus the cost of replacement with much more expensive new missiles if the new missiles are much less capable than the missiles they are replacing.
So the old missile can’t reach the target but is costing millions in upkeep inventory wide and thats better than sailing a vessel without the missiles and getting use out of secondary weapons systems?. If the old missiles cant do the job….and the new missiles cant do the job….could be that the job isnt best done with missiles?!. Other services have come to that conclusion!.
Just using a ships radar can detect targets out to about 300km.
Only through anaprop/ducting and that is hardly uniform or reliable and works both ways!!!.
As a solid example why spend money throwing away SS-N-22s from Sovremmeny class destroyers when you have maybe hundreds available in stores and replace it with Kh-35s? The SS-N-22s are no longer in production but until their stocks are used up they are not costing any more money. During exercises they will likely be used up as they expire or near expiry date but until they do why bother spending money replacing the weapon system when in 5-10 years they are going to probably start building stealthy destroyers to replace the Sovremmeny anyway with a wide range of all new weapons and sensors to go with it.
That makes sense with just the one caveat…what do you expect the Sovremenny to achieve with its Moskits if it comes to the point of shooting them?. Same as a Type23 commander expects for his Harpoons maybe?. The ability to overwhelm a light frigate with limited defensive systems or to pot a couple of FAC(M)’s perhaps. Sovremenny is a principle ASuW platform – does it make any odds if its ASuW systems are uncompetetive as it still has a chopper and powerful gun and SAM armament?. Open ended question that one?!.
The reality is that that is what they have got.
I accept that, naturally, but, again, that doesnt make them sufficient to their task does it.
Which means targetting the fleet will be easy because their airsearch systems will be emitting.
…unless the air search set sits atop an E-2 or an ASaC7 and is offset from the actual ships themselves…standard practice!.
By retaining the old missiles they are retaining space for new missiles of similar size and weight to be shoehorned into the old vessels.
So now these vaunted and, allegedly lethal, weapons are placeholders or bookmarks for more formidable weapons once they get off the drawing board….IF the Russians choose the same route for anticarrier in the future and dont just go down the sub route (for example!).
With a slant range of 1,000km this suggests that the satellite in question can cover double that (ie it can see at least 1,000km in either direction during a pass). Covering a 2000km wide strip of sea with each pass having a pass every 1.5 hours means a huge amount of sea would be covered by each satellite.
Orientation will surely limit that slant range to one side OR the other not both simultaneously?. Then we have the same old resolution and downlink bandwidth issues. It really doesnt take all that much to resolve a clear image of a 12kft high mountain from 600 miles. As proven the resolution needed to get an identifiable image of a CVN from orbit is considerably higher and not conducive to a 1000km strip depth!!!.
JonesyOnce again Coolie99 no-one is contesting the point that a SAR satellite can spot-image an aircraft carrier…or even escort vessel with sufficient resolution to classify it.
What remains studiously unanswered is what system exists that can undertake wide-area surveillance and cue in the imaging asset in realtime. Not such a difficult task with a mountain as they dont tend to move very far from initial point of contact, but, carrier groups tend to be a bit more mobile.
JonesyTrust the Navy News lads to try the 6″ gun angle!. Sorry lads its a howitzer not a true 6″ gun so we’re going to have to have tongue firmly planted in cheek to claim that one!.
There is certainly merit in giving the new BAE gun to C1 and C2 classes as the T45’s UKPAAMS is going to be too precious to risk on gunline. Personally I like the idea of giving the same mount to C3 and using it to give a secondary NGFS capability after the MCMW…that way, if we are facing an advanced SSK threat, we can let the C1’s get on with the ASW and not tie them to gunline duty.
Putting a 155 on a C3 is going to be a bit extreme in cost terms though and the Mk8mod1 with the current base-bleed ammo should be up to the job near-term, cheap, and is something that can be retrofittable with the 155, perhaps, when we look to phase the 4.5″ mount out completely.
JonesyNow you are having problems reading… I’ll repeat the important bit… that you included in the above reply BTW.
Dont know if the problem was with reading…. more with comprehension…you seemed to be describing the operation of the system pretty much as was just with the modification of continuous feeds – something that wouldnt have been possible without multiple time-spaced satellites on the same orbital path. That being something that would’ve necessitated dozens of satellites across several consecutive orbital paths. Given the type and lifespan of the space vehicle I dont think Legenda was ever intended to be that large in scale!.
During the 70s and 80s the A-50 was used by the PVO for interception of incoming enemy threats like cruise missiles and low flying bombers. Why do you think it was a navy asset? It is being used in this scenario to support ASuW operations because the intended system… Legenda… is not operational to a level to allow it to be used.
A-50 here has been placed in the context of an enabling system to permit the use of various weapons. IIRC the system used by the Tu-142’s analagous to Legenda was called Uspekh now is there confirmation that the A-50 was fitted with Uspekh and could pass targetting data direct to the SSM shooters/missiles?.
They have a choice… Spend lots of money getting Legenda operational and keeping it operational, or on the few occasions they need radar coverage for their forces sending an A-50 to support the naval group. Rather clear which is cheaper and which makes sense at the moment. In 15-20 years time however when more carriers are operational and they want a regular update on where the US carrier groups are then upgrading and spending the necessary money on Legenda might be worth while.
Which is emminently sensible…..and a further nail in the coffin of the P-500/700 etc, etc.
The Kh-22 is being replaced by the Kh-32 which is externally similar, but faster and longer ranged and it flys higher. One would expect similar upgrades for the other systems you mentioned will keep them competitive. Besides as some of these weapons carry decoys and jamming systems and of course potentially nuclear warheads there was never any guarantee that SM-2 would have actually been successful.
One would expect Legenda to be kept operational if these long-range missiles were to be kept on at any kind of operational capability status. Failing that one would expect a sensible organisation to scrap weapons it couldnt use against a target set that had diminished to the point of non-existance to save money to prop the rest of its rusting fleet up!. Thats what one would bloody expect!. Instead what one see’s is the retention of missiles who’s only value seems to be the arousal and excitement of adolescents on internet fora who believe that size and speed actually mean something in 21st Century naval warfare!.
Kh-32 is still aeroballistic, still offers no chance whatsoever of the defending target missing the inbounds on any of their air search systems and is still flying through SM-2’s engagement envelope. Kh-32 is what the Russians had to do once CEC got out….with greater situational awareness and joint targetting the window of exposure to air-defences ramped up to the point where Kh-22 was worse than useless. Kh-32’s higher speed is simply a mesure to try and reduce that vulnerability period back down to where it was pre-CEC. Its not news!.
Yeah, they will spend billions on Legenda II but continue to use the same missile design…
But Garry you said:“Keeping the big missiles in service means that when carriers become a potential threat then the missiles are in place and the satellites can be launched as needed”. Are you contradicting yourself now?.
Which carrier carries SM-2s?
Which USN carrier doesnt have a minimal consort of 2 SPY-1/SM-2 ships?.
The missiles designed to hit AEGIS class cruisers armed with SM-2 had missiles designed to defeat SM-2. Once they are out of the way what defences does a carrier have to a large number of diving supersonic antiship missiles?
Here you are talking about Moskit presumably?. What platform did the Soviets have which was going to survive long enough to get into Moskit range of an AEGIS ship and launch?. Especially seeings that the AEGIS ship would have had E-2/L11 coverage and SURCAP from the CV?.
And the simple fact that upgrades dont change missile flight profiles is a joke. Do you think autopilots are set in stone?
One of the ways the MOSKIT increased in range was a change of flight profile.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda!. Kh-22 isnt a sea-skimmer like Moskit…neither is P-500, P-700 or P-1000.
Funny how such useless missiles can force the might of NATO to fly only above 20,000ft over Kosovo. Were their MANPADS really that good? I have an answer, and you probably have one too, but it seems that NATO certainly thought they were good enough to not even try and defeat.
Russian MANPADS weren’t useless and had proven very employable, we’d seen that from a couple of NATO shootdowns (1 Sea Harrier FRS1 included). Thats the point about the supersonic antiship missiles I’ve been making all along. The easier something is to deploy and use the more fearsome it is. You think Granit would’ve kept the uSN 500nm off the Soviet coast if it’d come to shooting?.
Jonesythe Russians claimed they have jammers powerful enough to make the BMDs stationed in Poland and Czech Rep inoperative. They are probably airborne jammers.
Which is starting to get into the realms of absurdity. The Midcourse X-band radar is clearly optimised for high-precision target analysis and tracking in support of the European deployed GBI’s in Poland. It is horizon limited just as with any other ground radar so why a) are they concerned with the surveillance potential of a fire-control/tracker set in the first place and b) if they can, somehow, jam a high-power narrow beamwidth emission that is being steered at midphase warhead/bus stages at relatively high-angles of elevation then what are they so bothered about?.
JonesyRussians / Soviets have always upgraded their anti-ship missiles to beat the defenses that the US offers. I guess that’s a forgotten idea now. I mean, who’d ever think of it, right? :rolleyes:
The SM-2 isn’t even properly combat proven, especially against a combination of both fast missiles, ECM, chaff, and all sorts of other crap to throw the system off.
Who’d ever think of it?. Who’d ever prove it more like!. :rolleyes:
Simple fact is that the flight profile of the missiles is unchanged no matter what ‘upgrades’ may (or may not) have gone in on the missiles. That flight profile, aeroballistic high-alt diving, is smack bang through the engagement envelope of SM-2. P-700 may have a low-altitude profile but its 100m altitude rather than 10 – also within SM-2 capability!. While that is the case I’d say that beating US defences is a forgotten idea more than anything else!.
JonesyAs such a BMDS in Europe effects Russias’ deterrent… with 60 interceptors in the US and 10 in poland, will the Russians have enough of a missile arsenal to be a viable threat to NATO. By 2012 when the Moscow Treaty deadline arrives the Russians are allowed about 1,700 warheads. 1/3rd will be SLBMs and 1/3rd will likely be air launched cruise missiles, which leaves about 580 odd for the ICBMs. With the bulk of those warheads in SS-18s with 10 warheads per missile we are talking about less than 100 ICBMs with the replacement for the SS-18, the RS-32 having 10 warheads also that number is not likely to increase. 60 interceptors in the US, 10 in Poland… what if the US decides to put another 10 interceptors in Poland, and maybe put a BMDS in Japan to protect it from North Korean missiles… say 20 interceptors there… that is already 100 interceptor missiles. If they are positioned correctly they could intercept those 500+ ICBM warheads while they are still in their bus’s and be a real threat to Russias’ nuclear deterrence. The obvious solution for Russia is simply build more missiles and target US BMDS.
Answer me one question Garry. Do you, for one single second, expect any of us to be so stupefyingly stupid as to believe any of that?.
The Russians are against Polish BMDS sites because they’ll, maybe, lose 10 land-based missiles if they needed to shoot them at Britain or France?. What counterforce targets exist in the UK or France do you think Garry?. Plateau d’Albion is long gone and there is no British Cheyenne Mountain complex underneath Ben Nevis!. The Russians will utilise their poor, meagre arsenal of really accurate land based missiles shooting for US silo’s and hardened C3 sites. SLBM’s will be quite sufficient to target Faslane, Northwood, Marseille etc, etc and would do utterly regardless of 10 bloody interceptors in Poland….or 20!!!
Russia knows EXACTLY what a limited-scope BMDS looks like because they’ve had one fielded for the last god-knows how many decades around good old Moskva. That system failed to tip the strategic balance and neither will the US system. The Russians KNOW that but are trying to play schoolyard politics and making themselves look ridiculous in the attempt. No more no less.
JonesyThe Granit had a data link between missiles to share data and to send its radar picture back to the launch sub. It sounds like sending update information from the launch sub wouldn’t be that much trouble for more up to date info from the satellites.
Not really Garry there is a world of difference between a processed sequence of commands/targetting parameters and a raw radar feed. The satellite downlinked to a Legenda component and that platform processed and relayed targetting data appropriate to the missile. For the system to work as you suggest the satellite would have to be doing the processing….which it didnt. Could an updated satellite be developed to accomplish this, yes – why not, but a) its just one more piece of Russian woulda-shoulda-coulda equipment and b) it just supports the position of the inherent weakness of these fanboy-vaunted heavy supersonic missiles.
Which is no surprise really because it is supposed to be watching for incoming aircraft, not shipping. The OTH-B radars were run by the PVO which I doubt had much interest in shipping activity. However the main weapon of a carrier group is its aircraft and if they can’t do their job then the carrier group is mission killed anyway.
So after stating that the A-50 platform was ‘gap-filling’ between the Soviets OTH-radar you now accept that you knew the OTH sets werent really that involved in the ASuW fight anyway?. Spinny spin spin eh Garry? 😉
They currently don’t need to fight off US carriers. In a decade however they might need a counter to US carrier groups and so having the weapons available means they currently have potent AShMs that cannot take advantage of their max range ATM. Currently Carriers are not the target so for less than carrier group targets the reduced range is no handicap. Keeping the big missiles in service means that when carriers become a potential threat then the missiles are in place and the satellites can be launched as needed. In 10 years time the satellites sent up might be far more capable… AESA perhaps with IIR optics… an operational carrier with a steam catapault makes a nice IR target.
So despite Kh-22, KSR-5, P-500, P-700 all having performance envelopes smack bang within the capabilities of SM-2 to engage twenty years ago you would propose it being wise for those systems being nursed along into a timeframe when the advanced, and far more capable, SPY-3 and SM-6 will be deploying in USN service?. Instead of having the 90’s situation of powerful missiles and no sighting system they could have a 2020’s situation of excellent sighting system (if they can develop and deploy a suitable satellite) and vulnerable missiles???.
Does the phrase ‘flogging a dead horse’ have any meaning to you at all?.:confused:
JonesyExactly right Frosty,
2000tons and 80-something metres is just not sufficient to the task. The Clyde is 1850tons, she’s got good range, is allegedly very comfy and is doubtless nice and cheap to run and…..there the superlatives run out. She cannot permanently embark a chopper without a hangar so anti-drug ops are out unless we want to try chasing druggies in go-fast boats with the RIB’s….yeah right!. Lack of organic chopper capability cripples the vessel for disaster assistance also….unless the ‘disaster’ has conveniently left a hard-standing port facility available to put the crew ashore over!.
So we scrub the APT(N) tasking for C3 because it cant do the job. The RN know we need more firepower for anything going into the Persian Gulf so pretty much scrub that tasking and the IO. The NATO Med Standing Force taskings are out too because most of our partners assign frigates of some flavour to the group so a 20knt vessel is hardly going to be able to keep up.
Thats going to leave Falklands – which is obviously already undertaken by a ‘C3’ but may have to be something more capable in the not-too-distant-future if the ‘mineral wealth’ starts flowing – and UK home waters taskings which are currently undertaken by vessels even cheaper than C3!!!.
To get some kind of capability out of a 2000ton hull the only option I can conceive of would be something like VT’s 100m Cerberus corvette stripped down to the kind of ‘austere weapons and sensor’ fit we’ve been discussing for the notional 4k ton C3. Even that vessel pays for its performance and aviation capability with, frankly, inadequate range for an OPV and, personally, if I have to ride out Sea State 8 seas in the Bay of Biscay I’d rather do it in a 4000ton monohull than a 2000ton trimaran any day!. From personal experience I can tell you that riding out big seas in little boats is absolutely no fun and can render a vessel mission-ineffective as quickly as any enemy action!. Lastly there’s no guarantee that the trimaran would be either cheap or risk-free….which obviously eliminates the only reason to ‘stay small’ which is affordability!.
JonesyI think the Russians are dead serious now, there is a writting on the wall.
They are getting heated up and ready to fire up if the situation arises.
Now is the time to say to the U.S enough is enough, you put up or shut up,
the sheriff is in town.
They are just waiting to see if America would have the guts to place those missile defense shields in Poland and Czech, and I think they will. There the sheriff would point the pistol right on your forehead from Cuba-
Welcome again to the Cold War or real fight no time to waste.
Egberto,
While I appreciate your desire to rattle the sabre and wag your finger mightily at the US I would suggest you find something more intelligent than the BMDS installations you mention to do it with.
Look at the trajectory Russian missiles will take to get to the US. See if any of them go through Poland or the Czech Republic. The Russians know this and the Americans know the Russians know this. The Eastern Europe BMDS installations issue is one where the Russians are appearing petty and belligerent for absolutely no reason. You seriously think that is laudable behaviour?.
Jonesy(How did I know :rolleyes: ) They weren’t trying to hide. All you had to do was look on the net to get a general idea where they were exercising. Besides, when they were spotted over 500 miles away do you honestly believe they’d have a chance in a shooting war?
Exactly right. The carrier has positive control of the situation at all times here according to the information released.
They hold the Russian aircraft at 500nm downrange. Presumably the Bears have caught on to an E-2 set or a LR air search set from one of the battlegroup vessels and made the turn to investigate – at which point the air controller has ramped up the air alert state and initiated the intercept of several contacts of interest. At that point the Bears are alive only at the sufference of the USN and, them gone, the carrier is ‘invisible’ once again….until the next ducks appear on the shooting range!.
Sounds like good procedures executed well to me.
Ken,
There is no automatic denial of overflight right over any countries naval vessels on the high seas as, as you correctly identify, sailing in international waters is just that!. For exercise areas NOTAM’s can be issued for a given set of geographical coordinates with instructions for aircraft to stay away or expect to be challenged. Obviously, if a naval vessels CO percieves a threat to his command he can act under his own standing RoE’s as they apply to the defence of his command. For a CSG commander that includes actions against overflying aircraft IF he can display grounds for hostile intent by the intruding aircraft.
JonesyWhen properly funded and put into orbit there is no reason to think the Legenda system wouldn’t have performed as advertised. The suggested continuous coverage system with hundreds of satellites is just western BS. With continuous coverage the Granits would not need their own radars and could fly based on satellite data to impact passively.
With RORSATs the number of orbiting platforms is hauled down measurably closer to the dozens for near-continuous coverage. RORSAT resolution wasnt sufficient for total passive targetting and, AFAIK, no Soviet missile could take a direct update from the satellite. The system was that a 3rd party, Legenda equipped, platform would take the update and retransmit the correction to the missile.
Not a stop gap, a gap filler. It filled the gaps that they OTH-B radars surrounding the Soviet Union and later Russian had.
OTH-B is not without its vulnerabilities and is far from a universal panacea to the tracking of ships at extended range. At any kind of resolution the range is in the hundreds of miles not thousands that some seem to believe!
You keep saying Garry that the Russians have no need now to rebuild Legenda, yet, they still have and deploy the missiles that absolutely depend on Legenda….or some analagous system….for their employment?. Are you anywhere nearer, after all these years, accepting that the kinds of missile that were queried in the initial posts of this thread are, today, rendered somewhere near valueless as a) as you say USN carriers (the only vessel that would warrant a Granit to engage) are no longer any great threat to the rodina and (b) they could not be deployed at the operational range they were intended to anyway?.
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