Enough is enough

Pinko/Wolf

To be honest with you lads I think your two posts above exhaust any possibility of further debate on this.

Pinko is talking about a ‘software fix’ to an OTH radar that gives it a range resolution of 3km which demonstrates a thorough lack of understanding regarding the physics of tropbounce and Wolf, you, are talking about ASAT’s having to transit the thermal atmosphere interface thoroughly in ignorance of a little thing called a shroud which protects the RV/EKV through the outbound interface.

Then we come to the point that both of you are deliberately being ignorant of the fact that firing radar through a 100kms of usually quite soggy atmosphere is a slightly tougher proposition than radar transmission through the vacuum of space. This is just one factor to the fervent desire to make some tenuous connection between an ASAT test and the as-yet science-fiction of getting a strategic RV to hit a moving target!.

Despite such lack of comprehension of the basic technologies and practicalities we see repeated statements crediting Chinese technological wizadry, possibly, with the ability to do it ‘cos its never wise to underestimate them’ said sagely?!. Utter twaddle!. There is not one shred of evidence that an AshBM exists or is even in testing. There is a picture of something that looks like a Pershing II RV stage on a Chinese missile…and the fact that the US system had guidance is enough to lend credence to these fantasies. That is despite the fact, as I pointed out, RADAG is completely unsuitable for anything other than precision land attack.

Next thing you are inventing monopulse seeker heads and cobbled-together RORSATs that must just simply be there otherwise ‘whats the point developing the missile’. Its the cart before the horse as we see so often with Chinese systems. There is no proof that the missile is developed yet it must be because….because….er…because we really, really want something to make sure we can snot those damned yankee carriers a treat!.

Anyway I do slightly start to feel guilty when I rain on others parades like this and I can see you both have a need to believe so I’ll leave it there!.

I am genuinely confused mate. How exactly am I shifting the goal posts? Also, I would like to know how and when you got the impression that we were ever talking about anything other then a local weapons system.

As YF so accurately notes one would derive the idea that we are not talking about a tactical-range weapon entirely because we are not talking about a tactical range weapon!!!. The DF-21 is knocking on the door of what would be classed an IRBM!. If we are talking, as was mentioned somewhere, about a DF-31 based system then that is a circa 7000km ranged weapon….whatever else is true about the PRC’s AShBM project it is not a local-defence system!!!.

This kind of system should never be fielded that way, if it were to exist, anyhow!. There is little point engaging a US CVSG when it has already been allowed theatre entry and is poised to exploit various technologies and tactics to break in to positions where their striking power can be brought to bear. The value in such a system, as the one you are granting the PRC, is engagement of the carrier group prior to theatre-entry – anything else is ridiculous.

I mean, not only does the PLA not need anything with longer range, it will be far more expensive to implement (both sensor and missile), have a very high probability of prompting the US into a ‘retalitory’ arms race, not to meantion the very real risk of a AShBM launch being mistaken for a nuclear strike etc. It simply makes little sense for the PLA to try for a globally effective AShBM, never mind attempt it before they even have a regional system up and running first.

As stated wolf you arent talking about popping off Scuds here matey. You are firing full up strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. You’d better get used to the idea that doing that IS going to increase the risks of an unthinkable response if the PRC stays the course. That is just a simple inescapable fact.

A carrier has a very distinctive look that even a computer can easily distinguish. In this day and age, surely such a concept is not too hard to grasp?

The carrier is a distinctive vessel on SAR at, perhaps, 3m resolution. As stated earlier, and for the umpteenth time, at that high a resolution the covered swath from a SAR satellite is not a deep one. Remember a CVBG can dig through the waves at 30knts…if your SAR strip is only 10km deep (@3m res) and your orbital interval is 90 minutes the carrier will be long gone on the second pass…sooooo….no tracking today thankyou!!!. That is IF you’ve been able to ident the carrier on the initial pass in the first place!!!.

You are just making a big deal out of a small issue.

Unfortunately not…I am telling you where your wonderfully crafted fantasy comes apart. Where we are unable to determine the existence of a weapons system, for the usual OPSEC reasons, it is normal intel procedure to look for the kinds of supporting systems that would be necessary enablers for the successful employment of such a system. I’m sure Sean will back me up on that.

Here we have your postulated AShBM but no sighting system to be able to leverage the weapons attributes. The Soviets at least had a fist at developing the means to target their long-range weapons with Legenda, it may not have worked particularly well, but they at least recognised that they needed all the components of the weapons system. That the PRC have decided against that model is unlikely….therefore there has to be a question over whether your analysis is realistic.

Accoustics is a different beast to image processing, especially when you are hunting for subs designed to be ultra quiet and to mimic natural background noise. If we were talking about trying to find next gen stealthying warships, then that would be more in the accoustics ball park. Using advanced software, it would be possible to automatically filter out huge chunks of data with fairly basic scans and allow the processor to focus on the ‘interesting bits’. Although I admit I was going too far with that desktop suggestion, but that is beside the point since the PRC would easily have the hardware needed for such a task.

Never have I seen a paragraph that is further from reality. Digitised accoustic data can be sampled down to about 8kbps with the right protocols…try stuffing an image stream down the same bandwidth and see how long it takes and which stream completes processing faster!. Accoustic data can be filtered even pre-processing at the transceiver arrays but image analysis would have to be in the raw in case of aspect issues to the emitter….i.e you could not just filter out anything shorter than 900ft because the ship targets may not have been in beam aspect to the emitter and may be evaluated as less than 900ft in length.

If the PLA used the same set up for an ASBM, then they would need to get a targeting system up in orbit. But as I have already pointed out before, such a feat is well within the capabilities of the PRC.

You’ve said its within their capabilities but not how – without resorting to SAR imagery which wont work. If you like check out the yanks SBR project for an idea on whats required for radar targetting from space. Spot the difference between that and what the PRC have lofted.

We do not know if such a system is already up in orbit, but it seems likely since the PLA has at the very least already started tests on a terminally guided ASBM. But even if they do not already have such a system in place, it would not take long for them to get one up there if they so wished. Certainly not the kind of timeframe you were suggesting.

We know there are no Chinese RORSATs in orbit. All orbital launches are registered, even mil ones, and many optical systems the world over follow new satellites into orbit. There are rumblings that PRC has shown interest in aquiring Russian satellite ocean-recon technology but no-one knows if that is the technology from the current US-PM passive birds or the original US-A RORSATs. Given they are still in the technology aquisition phase of their satellite ocean recon program I think it safe to say you are underestimating the difficulty of the problem quite badly. They are years away from this!.

If the missile uses onboard guidence, then it would be an even easier and quicker transition.

Onboard guidance???. So you are going to just fire the missile in the general direction of Taiwan and let the terminal seeker find the carrier group for you eh???. NOT very feasible wolf.

I disagree. Both would have to deal with the heating problems from atmospheric transition, both need very good agility and controlability, especially an ASAT weapon, to hit their targets, and both need to effectively deal with the extreme speeds the weapons would be traveling at, just to list a few things OTTOMH.

Do you not understand that the solutions are completely different for the two types of weapon though wolf?. The technologies do not crossover. The solution for high energy controllability for an ASAT EKV is as far removed from a guided RV as it could be. Why would the ASAT EKV need to deal with atmospheric heating…it’s not going to undergo re-entry to catch a satellite is it?. Also the speed issue is a fallacy…yes the ASAT is travelling fast but so is its target so the relative speeds are not that high when the intercept paths are correlated.

No, what you are doing is again setting the bar deliberately higher then reasonable. We are talking about carriers here! Such targets get special attention. What you are suggesting is akin to arguing that the USA military would take the same length of time to react to the discovery of Bin Ladden’s hiding hole as it would to spotting an IED factory.

Irrespective of what the target is there will still be a C3 backend to transit. Will PLA Artillery just blast away one of their precious DF-21’s on a rough sighting from a PLANAF search asset. As an analogy the RAF were livid, with the RN in 1982, for not mounting an immediate full SHAR surface attack when one of their Nimrods ‘identified’ the Argentine carrier for us to the North West of the islands. Couldnt understand why we didn’t just go tearing off after it. Later we dispatched a singleton SHAR and POSID’d the vessel as a merchantman merrily pootling along ignorant of how close to destrction it might have been. This is what I mean by ‘C3 backend’ and ‘detect-to-shoot cycle’. Its not as easy as seeing a blip on the scope and pushing a button ‘wolf….not in the real world!.

What more, that carrier is unlikely to know it has been targeted, and even if it did know, there isn’t a hell of a lot it can do anyways.

Look at YF’s post about decoys and jammers and recall my comments on what the USN actually DID to the Soviets a couple of decades ago…then ask yourself if there really isnt a hell of a lot the carrier can do!.

Firstly, there is absolutely no need for the PRC to try and keep track of every USN carrier in the entire pacific. Realistically, all they need to do is to monitor the area from which a carrier might be able to launch offensive operations or a little further out. That is a much smaller area. If we are working from the premise that the US is forced to respond to a PRC suprise attack, then the primary tracking target would be the Kitty Hawk and its successor, since it would be the only US asset that can respond within a few weeks or even months.

Hang on Wolf you are shifting the goalposts here. We are talking about the feasibility of a PRC AShBM based on YOUR observations of a particular weapons launch. You are now trying to shift this to suggest that the whole system, as it stands, has been solely designed to kill the 7th Fleet and, as such, needs only local-targetting assets???. You are getting very specific detail just from a single photo here!.

Also, there are very few (relatively) super carrier sized ships out there, and even fewer that travel in tight formations with many other destroyer sized ships outside of standard shipping lanes. With a few fairly simple programmes, even a decent desktop could probably handle the calculations needed to narrow the number of hits to a manageble level.

Absolute garbage…of all the vessels in the circa 100,000k ton range in the waters between Malacca and San Diego maybe 1% would be US CVN’s but I, seriously, doubt it would be that high.

US CVBG’s dont necessarily travel in tight, predictable, recognisable formations either and all you need do is talk to any merchie sailor, who’s familiar with those waters, to get the picture that a lot of vessels there sail in relatively close proximity to one another in and around the sealanes anyway….might be a bit difficult to distinguish a deliberate formation from a more circumstantial one….especially to a piece of image interpretation software!.

To put this in context SOSUS needed multiple networked Cray supercomputers to analyse the returns from seabed accoustic sensors and they provided a much less complex datastream for processing. Do you honestly think a high-end desktop could undertake a tougher challenge like image interpretation, and tracking, over many tens of thousands of square miles of surface area?.

What more, as soon as a carrier has been spotted, the search area shrinks exponentially, and it would not be that hard to keep a general idea of where it is. Then, assets could be focused on to it if and when it comes within strike range to provide the kind of real-time targeting info that would be needed.

Based on what?. The orbital interval of a RORSAT was about 90 minutes…its orbital pathway gave it total surface coverage every 111 revolutions i.e it would return to its present position after 111 passes around the earth. Do the maths will you. Its radar covered a swath of surface about 250nm deep at a resolution sufficient to pick out a CVN in moderate environmental conditions. If the computer couldnt definitely identify the target as a CVN, sufficient to justify moving the satellite’s orbit, the RORSAT would be a long while coming back to check it again. By which time the carrier group is long gone!. This was a game the US Navy played in the late 70’s and early 80’s and won a LOT of the time and that is not theory or extrapolation….it is cast-iron fact!.

The PRCs immediate goal is not to take control of the pacific from the USN, just have a credible capacity to take out USN carriers that might come to the aid of Taiwan.

Again what has Taiwan got to do with this. Are you suggesting that the PRC is going to the lengths of developing this AShBM just for the Taiwan issue???.

You are setting the bar far too high. With the kind of setup you are suggesting, the PLA would be able to strike at any USN carrier in he entire pacific and have a decent kill ratio to boot. That is a capacity that is going to cost a pile of money and also give the USN the kick up the butt it needs to charge headlong into a new cold war-esq arms race, and that is something China desperately want to avoid.

No I am talking about the development of an antiship ballistic missile and what it would take to achieve it. You seem to be intent on talking about Taiwan. So if I get this straight in your mind this weapon is being developed to target anything with about 500nm’s radius of Taiwan and thats it right?. Nothing to make the US nervous enough about to trigger an arms-race….yet its sole use would be to….hit….US CVN’s. OK. Think I understand where you are going with this!?.

RORSATs are nice, but not a necessity, especially for what the PLA needs right now.

OK you cannot target off a SAR imaging satellite ok…trust me on this. At anywhere near a decent resolution a SAR bird has a strip depth of about 25 miles!. For a resolution of 3m or so – to get a halfway fair shot at an identification – it’d be a LOT less than 25nm too but I’ll let that go for ease of calculation!. The nuclear-powered Soviet US-A series RORSAT could manage 250nm’s depth with the resolution, perhaps, of picking out a 10k ton escort if the conditions were good enough. Rough sea state and forget getting a hit on a CVN – CIA’s estimate not mine!. Say your SAR bird has an equivalent orbital interval of 90 minutes then covering the equivalent path of a single RORSAT path is going to take 900 minutes (15hrs!). At 20knts a US CVBG is 300nm away from its initial datum point in 15hrs!

If you want to theatre target you want a RORSAT!.

Come on mate, use your imagination a little. Is it easier or harder to maneuver in space or atomasphere? In space, there is no air and you are relying entirely on thrusters, whereas an RV can also make use of fins, which would give you far more control.

Yes but what is the point you are making?. The two technologies are only tenuously related at best. An ASAT test has no bearing, technologically speaking, on an antiship ballistic RV whatsoever!.

The technology needed to develop an ASAT warhead is not that different from what you need to make MRVs.

Again what are you basing that statement on?. The only thing they have in common is that both sit on top of a booster stage!.

So what are you trying to say here? That it is hard to find a ship on earth or are you disputing whether a weapon will have the accuracy to hit a ship?

Both!.

As I have already pointed out above, it is perfectly possible to find, track and target a carrier sized ship with current assets and technology. It will not be easy or comprehensive, but it would be enough to co-ordinate strikes with. Especially ballistic missile strikes that will only take a matter of minutes form launch to hit.

No. Based on a less than adequate knowledge of space-based sensors you have had a guess at a method of tracking and targetting a carrier sized ship. Your ballistic missile strike may only take a few minutes in the launch to impact cycle, but, that is not the key time value here. The important factor is the detect-to-shoot cycle time. That is the time taken from the initial detect and identification of the target for it to get back to the shooting authority controlling the notional AShBM. As I understand it that would be a PLANAF/PLAAF search asset getting data back through to a PLA Heavy Artillery command net. Very much not as simple as ‘see a blip – push a button’. The detect-to-shoot cycle time or the time taken by the system ‘backend’ is crucial as, once detected, the target ship will be doing everything possible to get out of the crosshairs.

One really would have hoped that people who are intellegent like you would have learned that the PLA is a completely different beast compared to all other militaries, thus one needs to apply a different set of rules when dealing with them. Sure, you are likely yo make more mistakes when trying to predict the current and future developments of the PLA. But if you play it safe, you are gaurenteed to be many years behind the curve. Your choice.

A-ha so we really should be worried about the phaser guns and photon torpedoes that the PRC have’nt been admitting to having either eh wolf!!!

Aeroweb,

I was aware of that system and the many years it took to get the targetting system on the warhead bus to try and accomplish the stated aims Makheev had. In fact in my initial post on this topic I believe my words were:

If you are conviced about anticarrier ballistic missiles then do what the soviets did….go nuclear!. A spread of fullbore nuke RV’s from a dozen launchers over a 20km square box that the CVBG is roughly centred on will remove one carrier group from the board!. No kidding

The R27K was not a conventional system that would ‘hit’ an aircraft carrier though….what it was was a method of reorienting a warhead bus stage, in the orbital phase, in order to release an ordinary nuclear MIRV (note not MARV) in the vague direction of a detected high RF target. So what you had with the system was the ability to place a strategic-yield nuke within effects radius of a target that may, or may not, turn out to be a carrier group.

I repeat my earlier words – ‘The problem is that its science-fiction now as, quite simply, no-one yet has managed to hit a moving target with a strategic size RV from a ballistic launcher’

Plus again, as I said, no-one today has a surveillance system that can reliably and regularly search and track targets, in realtime, out in blue water. Therefore even if someone did have a terminaly guided RV, sharp enough in seeker resolution to be able to hit a moving target, no-one has a sighting system for it anyway!.

Wolf,

I have already provided you with a link on Chinese SAR sats that have been confirmed to be operational in orbit. These things are far more capable and sophisticated then previous RORSATs

…and I have pointed out as many times that an imaging satellite, be it radar or optical, is NOT a search/track asset.

What you are suggesting wolf is that PRC’s imaging satellites scan every square foot of open blue water from, what, Camh Ranh Bay to San Diego continually, without break, so that image interpretation software can, possibly, identify something that is aircraft carrier sized, amidst all the other aircraft carrier sized vessels out there, and follow it as it goes on its merry way.

Do you realise what you are suggesting there?. Do you realise just how many satellites would be required to provide seamless cover over that amount of sea-space at a resolution necessary to provide identification?. Do you realise how much processing power would be required to go through that amount of imagery, on a continual basis, to try and keep a fix on every vessel that could possibly be an aircraft carrier in realtime?.

Like I said the search and track function is that assigned to a RORSAT – essentially a spaced based surface search radar. You use the SAR bird for spot/strip coverage to identify what your RORSAT detects. As I said, again, right now, today, no-one has a recognised RORSAT orbitted and usually people can spot them because the big radar bolted on the side is a dead giveaway!.

You are also fudging the issue by first dismissing the ASAT test as irrelevant and then bring in the issue of being able to hit a moving target with a RV, which basically boils down to the issue of weapon accuracy.

Hang on you are bringing an ASAT test into a debate about hitting a moving target with an RV and I am the one fudging the issue?. Why are you even discussing RV’s in terms of ASAT tests???. RV stands for Re-entry Vehicle. Hitting a satellite target in orbit hardly demands the use of a re-entry vehicle!!!.

The ASAT tests gives a tangible and measurable indication of the kind of accuracy Chinese strategic weapons now have. Obviously it might not be directly transferable onto land based targeting for various reasons, but it gives a good ‘in the ball park’ idea of the likely accuracy of such a weapon used on surface targets.

Oh does it?. How exactly is an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle of the type employed in an ASAT weapon in any way analagous to a manoevering re-entry vehicle???. Hopefully not just because it sits atop a booster stage and can manoever in its terminal phase?!!!. By that token the yanks must have a veritable panoply of antiship ballistic weapons after Brilliant Pebbles, EKV etc!!!.

Thus, you have the issues of volume search and missile accuracy resolved

In space yes. Bit easier to search large sections of sky for a target moving on a known, predicatable, orbital path than it is to search the ocean, from space, when you dont have a wide-area search system up there!. Again just because an ASAT EKV is able to hit a satellite target has no relevence of any kind on whether or not a MARV can hit a ship target close aboard enough to not require a nuke payload.

We also have the hard evidence of a PLA SRBM with what looks like a MRV being fired. Which is a good indication of how far the project has progressed. And may also be circumstantial evidence that the PLA has resolved the targeting issue. But with all things PLA related, no one can be absolutely sure.

Which is a very eloquent way of saying you dont really know anything…something I wholeheartedly concur with you on. Despite this fact that you dont know anything definitive and cannot explain the absence of a wide-area search system to enable the use of the weapon system you advocate you still are quite willing to believe in its existence. Remarkable.

To dismiss the possibility of a functional Chinese AShBM out of hand as you have is to court disaster, and if the USN wants to do that, then frankly, its fine by me.

I am truly happy you feel like that. Personally I’ll stick with my own analysis happy in the knowledge its the same conclusion Norman Friedman came up with. That a guided antiship RV would take advantage of a gap in current naval area-SAM systems…but that no such weapon exists or, at present, could be practically employed. Also that such threats are now visible to most advanced navies and that technology to counter the threat is under development and, in certain cases, nearly fielded!.

The RN will of course be sending them off on there own just as they did the T42’s which have at least had an anti-ship kick with the Sea Dart. There are too many jobs and not enough hulls to go round thanks to the UK Gov not spending as they should for the security of the people. You only win through from strength not weakness so giving these ships a good alround weapon fit would be a step in thr right direction. Hulls 7 & 8 will come once the fleet gets its flat tops wait and see.:rolleyes:

Not a chance will we see a T45 on solo patrol unless hulls 7 and 8 do get built and its unlikely even then – any tasking other than HVU consort would be a NATO combined ops one or, perhaps, a joint deployment with a French or Yank CVSG (or a sales trip to the Gulf!!!). The T42’s are indeed being sent out on solo patrols now but thats because using their remaining fatigue lives is infinitely preferable to piling it on the 23’s when the Dukes have to be kept around longer!.

Also the last 42 sent on APT, the Southampton I think it was, even deployed without her 1022 radar fully operational. Why? – because it wasnt absolutely necessary for the tasking, she has her 996 running, a functional Mk8 forward, working light guns, a couple of RHIBs and an embarked chopper and, for the tasking, thats all thats deemed as required. No way we are going to see a T45 used in such a fashion!.

The gapping of stated taskings is criminal, no argument there, but it wont be addressed by sending state of the art AAW escorts out for three laps of the Falklands followed by a run ashore in Rio and then on to rebuild a couple of heads blocks in some orphanage in Sierra Leone before heading back to Pompey!.

Phelgan,

Perhaps, but the Argentinian Navy felt confident enough that a SSN wasn’t there to launch the invasion.

Dead right. In the handful of other rumblings the Argentines had made towards militarily intervening in the Falklands stretching back to the late seventies the RN had, in every event, been publically ordered to dispatch an SSN to the southern ocean to ‘monitor the Argentine Naval build up’. That was always sufficient to see the Argentines scurry back to port.

After wonderboy Nott chopped the legs out from under the RN in ’81, for no easily explicable reason, the Argentine military moves towards the Falklands were not met with the usual news of the dispatch of an SSN. The conspiracy theorists often use this as clear cut evidence that Maggie Thatcher actually wanted a conflict in the South Atlantic in order to do the wrap-in-the-flag bit and get herself re-elected and allowed the Argentines to make the first move!. A latter-day ‘I see no ships’ re-run somewhat ironically!.

but a submarine doesn’t stand off your “enemies” coast being menancing by being there, where a surface ship can;

Common misconception. Ask anyone in the Argentine Navy if they felt menaced by the presence of RN SSN’s off their coast in 82!. Now that an SSN can precisley place a 1000lb warhead anywhere across hundreds of miles of territory with scant warning the SSN, to anyone without an evolved ASW capability, is a very considerable menace.

For the side deploying the submarine its even better because the vessel doesnt even actually need to be off the target coast to make the threat. It just needs not to be seen anywhere else for a week or so!.

For weight-of-fire reasons and, as one of the few secondary-missions that does not absolutely demand the vessel leaves consort station on its primary charges, the inclusion of stand-off land-attack on the Darings does make some kind of sense. That it can be a low priority inclusion is unquestionable though.

Unsuprisingly I’d be just as happy if the RN bought NSM as FASGW for the Merlin force, eventually replacing GWS60 with it fleet wide relying on that for tactical land-attack backed with near-strategic land attack from the SSN’s TLAM’s.

After all an SSN with TLAM may have an edge in the ‘menacing’ department, but, the ability for any RN escort, or any RN vessel capable of supporting Merlin ops, to put down precision land-attack fire 100km inland from a position over the horizon from shore facilities has to be seen as a huge capability augment!

The original DDH-X project had a requirement for shipboard armament of VLA and SM/ESSM, justifying the ‘destroyer’ designation in the same vein as the GWS30 system made the Invincibles ‘cruisers’, and the concept called for a 32-64 cell Mk41 installation.

Now I come to look properly at the new design it does appear that, despite the somewhat capable FCS-3 radar suite fitted, the installed VLS fit has, as you say, been shrunk down to a mere 16 cells!. Strange. Looking at the siting of the VLS you could only assume that margin is left for an increase when required!.