JonesySmart buy…cheap way of getting additional chopper assets deployed in the gulf. Engines will need a thorough overhaul and the hulls could probably stand a good looking over, but they are very good seaboats and have an excellent endurance for their size.
If they want to spend a little more on them a modern lightweight 3D radar plus LINK11 fit installed could see value for the hulls as a FAC group command ship distributing OTH sensor data from the chopper. Something like a new Bofors 57 mount might be an idea with a LIROD-type director if such a role was to be undertaken.
Even if they dont want to spend the cash the vessels as is will be extremely useful in those waters for routine peacetime ops. Nice to know they will be going on to provide further service in their later years.
JonesyJoey,
Jonesey so a Uboat equipped with Black Shark torpedo is just not possible to beat?
means whatever and howveer we r building our surface fleets a couple U boats will drain everything ?
Pakistan is in talks of acquiring 3 U boats 3 Merlins and the agostas…
what are the effective countermeasures available for it?
The Type 214 is going to be an acoustically discrete target, with high submerged endurance thanks to its fuel cells and a competent sensor suite. It is going to be a very nasty opponent indeed. That does not say it is impossible to defeat.
No matter how good it is its still an SSK and SSK’s only patrol and attempt to gain position in line-of-advance of their targets. They cant chase anything….ever!. Good, well established, tactics like random speed and course changes deviating about a general base course can also stuff up an SSK’s ambush…certainly give its skipper kittens trying to keep the cutoff!.
I’ve commented at length on this site about where I think IN ASW should be going and a quick dig through the archive should dredge it up. In short though the IN needs SURTASS, it also needs to get a FLASH-type dipping sonar variant of the ALH and then get as many deployed in the fleet as possible.
In their shoes I’d be developing the apparently competent Delhi hull into a DDH version, adding a 2087 towed LFAS, knocking off the Shtils/RBU’s in favour of a Klub VLS for the ASW rounds (or LACM to secondary role as a strike destroyer), a sizable Barak VLS fit, stetched flight deck/hangar for three ALH’s and local netcentric master capability to allow use as ASW Command Ship for an FFG/Corvette hunter group.
I’d also want a towed-array capable SSK and a very significant ramp up of the LRMPA fleet to give an enhanced quick-draw ASW capability to make efficient use of the enhanced sensor coverage.
In short a lot of money…and were not talking about SSN’s yet either…but the above would give an opposing submarine force a great range of capabilities to try and circumvent before they could consider offensive operations in IN patrolled waters.
Unicorn
I would not be quite so quick on that choice for best ocean-going SSK Jonesy.
The Collins class actually cost more than the Oyashio’s when you factor in the new combat data suite.
In addition the Collins get rather more practical exercise at inshore recon and observation than most navies, plus they practice ASW against a wider variety of targets than the Japanese boats, which exercise against the USN and track Chinese and North Korean boats (with the occaisional Russian thrown in).
The Collins get to practice against Singaporean, Korean, US, UK, and Japanese boats, and spar against NK, Russian and PRC boats.
In addition they have at times had run ins with Indonesian, Indian and Pakistani boats as well. If nothing else the Collins boats get around.
Wouldnt necessarily argue with anything you say there. The Collins, now, are good boats and its no criticism of the Aussies saying that they have benefitted from the debugging operation following delivery. Dont know if its quite fair adding in the ‘make and mends’ costs of getting the combat system running right onto the cost of the boat for comparison but your point is still well made – the money was spent getting the Collins boats a good capability level and they are delivering!.
My preference for the Japanese boats largely stems from a conversation I had with a P-3 senso in Maine a few years back who said a LOT of nice things about their boats capabilities and training. Guess when you’ve been staring down the entire Soviet Far East sub fleet for four decades or so you get good and stay that way!.
Turbinia
All of which is a long winded way of saying that to make a snap judgement over which is the best SSK in the world is a very dificult question to answer, and one for which there may be no true answer anyway, ultimately no navy in the world would relish going up against a well operated U212, Collins, Gotland, Oyashio, Scorpene or whatever.
Definitely true. A well operated 209 with a clever skipper could easily get the drop on a poorly handled Oyashio. In SSK to SSK terms the maintenance of the vessel and the skill of the crew make up almost as large a percentage of the capability of the boat as its systems. That said though a maintenance-friendly design, good low-discretion and high submerged-endurance figures can level off a mediocre crew with a superior crew in a less advanced boat!.
Pred
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 47
There still seems to be some confusion surrounding the Type 212/214.The Type 214 is the latest incarnation of the Type 209, incorporating AIP, as well as a range of new systems introduced with the Type 212.
The Type 212A (and Israeli Dolphin class), particularly the second batch of either should be the most advanced boats to come out of HDW. Type 212A differs from Type 214 by virtue of different material/type of steel (non-magnetic) used for hull and cruciform type rudder layout better suited to operating in littoral waters.
Reply With Quote
You sure on that information Pred?. What I’ve read suggests that the Type800 (Dolphin) is a hybrid evolution from the 209 incorporating 212 technology less AIP. 214 is a hull stretch on the 212 design?.
JonesyIts a difficult issue YF. I would say, after consideration, though it would probably be the PLAN…theyre absolutely deadly up to 100km off their coastline.
Dont believe you actually went and did this, am still howling laughing while typing this, cap is well and truly doffed to you YF!!
JonesyThere are two types of SSK’s joey…coastal and oceanic boats. There are different criteria for ‘best’ for both different types and while they need the same basic characteristics theyre optimised quite differently.
For a ‘coastal’ boat the 214 looks hard to beat and the people who’re buying them are those with serious SSK knowledge…which has to say something. For oceanic missions the Collins are good but I’d take an Oyashio over it any day…spend $500 million on an SSK and you get a good SSK!!!
JonesyGWS30 Sea Dart magazine isnt exactly the bin/drum layout like the russian 303 VLS. The ramjet missile needs a little more attention below decks before its hoisted up into the launcher.
They, BAE, did come up with a sealed box launcher eventually for the type and I have a very distant memory about a cell-based VLS for the system when it started to become fashionable.
The T42, T82 and CVS installations did not lend themselves to easy conversion to rotary VLS’s as in the SA-N-6 model.
JonesyBut unless the missiles are enormous and horrendously expensive they won’t have targetting infrastructure problems. Plenty of subsonic missiles have ranges similar to Yakhont when both fly a low low low flight profile. Flying at low level all the way to the target a Yakhont probably has a range of 150-180km… what extra targetting infrastructure does that require?
Again Garry if you’re resigned to bringing the 300km Yakhont in to 150km from target why are you bothering with a 300km missile?. Why not get a cheaper, more flexible, 150km ranged missile in the first place??.
If you think about the interception problem… you don’t try to fly your missile to where the target is, because when you missile gets there the target will have moved on. The faster the target is the further ahead of the target you missile must be to intercept it. Needless to say that a missile flying at 900m/s, if it takes your missile 3 seconds to get to the interception point then we are talking 2.7km of lead… a turn of 10 degrees shifts that 3D point in space by rather a large distance… the correction can be calculated almost instantly but can the missile you have launched fly the extra distance
required… can it turn that hard and if it does what happens when the incoming target turns back to its original trajectory and turns 10 degrees the other way…
Or in otherwords the missile jinks in the terminal phase….probably more like a corkscrew action….not news. PDMS’s have had a solution to that kind of modest evasion technique for a very long time. Its called a salvo fire option.
Considering the multitude of different potential target types, and different scenarios why would you want a single antiship missile type? The few dollars saved will cost you when you actually have to use them and find that you have to use two or three or even four times more missiles than you would normally because someone wants to save money. There is such a thing as a false economy. (Unfortunately British politicians seem to be experts)
Who actually faces a multitude of of different target types?. Most services have strictly local naval taskings and are unlikely ever to have a requirement to shoot a missile at something bigger than frigate size. Malaysia was desperately trying to rationalise its SSM inventory down to a single type a few years back, the RN standardised on Harpoon a couple of years back in fact there are a lot of services that operate a single SSM/AShM type across their sea and air platforms. Supporting multiple missile types to do the same job costs money and its money that, anecdotally, many services aren’t willing to pay.
Unless you really are planning to try and face down a major Navy there is absolutely no need to have more than one medium weight missile type in the inventory. If you want to sink destroyers, cruisers or aircraft carriers 21″ torpedoes are more effective than any missile yet deployed!.
Would you fire a single Harpoon at an AEGIS class cruiser?
No…you’d fire a bloody heavyweight torpedo at one…whats your point????. Your still not going to fire a Yakhont at a missile boat are you?!
Because some targets just get angry when you fire Urans at them…
Name one?. The Iowa’s have been withdrawn as have the Sverdlov’s and there is no current warship afloat that has so many fire channels that it can’t be overwhelmed. Some ships raise the cost-to-sink equation pretty high, but, those ships are equally capable of defending against supersonics as subsonics so your point is an elusive one!.
They would be better off with a couple of squadrons of Su-30xxxs and Yakhonts than Exocets and their current fighters. What is the point of having a powerful anti ship missile if you don’t have a decent airforce too? So you can sink a few ships… what happens when they bring a carrier and start bombing your capital city… will harpoons from small lightweight fighters stop them?
What????. They should all buy Flankers???!. This is what I’ve been saying all along Garry. Cost of ownership. Yakhont is impractical for most – face it!. When they bring a carrier your Yakhonts arent going to do anything because the fighters carrying them in to 150km to get a low alt shot will be intercepted by the CAP no different than if they were carrying C803 or Harpoon!.
To do all at once, yes… too expensive, but having long range eyes is actually a good thing and something they should be trying to aquire anyway. Yakhonts don’t need to be mounted on fighters… MPAs could be used if necessary. The Tu-22M3 is supposed to be able to carry Yakhonts… an Orion, or Atlantic or whatever they might choose to use could be modified to
perform the same role.
Agreed on the first point. I’m certain every naval service in the world would love realtime coverage of most of their EEZ. Many states though dont necessarily have full realtime coverage of their territorial waters let alone the EEZ!. That level of surveillance…coupled with the infrastructure to use the data when collected is very expensive and far beyond most. This leads us to point two if Orions are already cleared for Harpoon and Atlantics already cleared for AM39 and those weapons, in numbers, can achieve the same results as Yakhont….why bother going to the expense of adapting the aircraft for Yakhont?.
You continually claim the Yakhont is expensive, yet you have not given any evidence that it is more expensive than Harpoon.
Continuity needed here Garry…you’ve already accepted that it takes Flankers or equivalent sized units, currently, to deploy a Yakhont. Look at the reality of the situation. Will S.Africa’s Gripens be able to carry it?. No. Will Japans F2’s or Norway’s Falcons?. No. Will Malaysia’s MiG-29’s or Peru’s Su-22’s. No. Even if you could make me believe that the standard Yakhont round was to be no more expensive than a Harpoon, which knowing a little about missiles, you will not be able to do the cost to deploy the weapon is dramatically higher!.
Second, when I say all of Venezualas armed forces could use it, I mean they could use it as their primary anti Ship missile. The US uses the Harpoon as their primary AntiShip missile but that doesn’t mean they dont use weapons from Hellfires, through Mavericks, right up to Tomahawks for the role too. Venezuala could use Yakhonts as their primary land, sea and air Antiship missile with Urans and those little 40km range light missiles based on Urans plus converted anti tank guided missiles for the anit ship roles. They could even use Kh-31s and Kh-25s and Kh-29s depending upon which weapons they use for ARM missions and air to ground use.
Are you actually imagining a coherent armament inventory for an armed forces of Venezuela’s capabilities or is this just some wet-dream about Venezuela buying a load of Russian weapons of every type? You’ve already had it pointed out that any Flankers they buy are better doing the job they are best at….air defence. What is going to carry the air launched Yakhont?. What vessels do they have that can mount a naval Yakhont or do they get to go out and purchase a couple of Soveremenny’s to do that!. Stuff it…how remiss of the Venezuelans not to have noticed they could order a couple of Kirovs and got a load of P-700’s….that’d really show the Yanks something wouldn’t it Garry!.
Got nothing to do with me. There is one superpower in town and he likes to gunfight. You want to rely on his good will or just hope he doesn’t notice you then that is fine for you but some in this town like something a bit more reliable.
Ah so ‘some in this town’ are kidding themselves that they could take on the USN and win so others should take the leap with them…educated foriegn policy that one!.
If the cost of getting on his good side is going to Afghanistan and Iraq and pretty soon possibly Iran and NK then the cost of a few Yakhonts and a few Flankers or Il-38 Mays pales in comparison.
Damn it if I were in France right now I’d be quaking…after all they actually opposed (shock, horror) US hegemony…wonder when the Atlantic fleet is going to park off St Malo and Alpha Strike their arses off!. Please Garry turn the rhetoric down a bit will you!.
A sniper rifle is a one trick pony… guess having the right tools for the job means nothing to you. It is an anti ship missile. Who cares if it can’t make the coffee and tidy up in the morning?
Ah a change in tactic a one-trick pony is now the right thing to have!. My point was that Yakhont is a limited system and that an SSK is a much more flexible weapons system to achieve the same effect…the deterence and engagement of heavy ship targets as far offshore as possible. Thing is though an SSK, whilst retaining the antiship potential, can be performing many other functions. A couple of squadrons of Flankers, carrying Yakhonts, are not doing much else other than antiship!.
Surprised the bean counters didn’t have the guy with his finger on the chaff launcher button court marshalled for such waste…
I’m not. It was the lack of reaction by the warfare team on Sheffield that cost us that ship.
An actual launch of land attack missiles is not going to happen out of the blue. In heightened periods of tension what are those Flankers going to be doing? Equally what is the rest of the Venezualans and their allies going to be doing?
I asked how the couple of squadrons of Flankers that are doing antiship with heavy missiles are doing CAP duty as well? You’ve answered that with a vague question and a comment about Venezuela’s allies which are who exactly? Cuba?
Take your Royal navy hat off for a second and take a few breaths. What do you think would happen to that SSK if it actually sank an enemy vessel… 70-80 lives lost, not to mention a billion dollars in costs. It wouldn’t be in Venezualas interests to actually sink a US ship. (Or are we talking about a different navy with 800nm land attack cruise missiles).
The Venezuela analogy was started as a point to illustrate that a smaller airforce could use a Yakhont class missile. I think we’ve poured a little cold water on that. You say later that some nations might want to try and take-down the rogue ‘gunfighter’ that is the US Navy. Now you say an effective deterrent platform is no good because it might actually succeed in its mission?. Are you suggesting that the Yakhonts would be good because they would be ineffective and not offend the Yanks too much???.
I don’t like Soccer. Different points have different boundries based on the different points. With a US ship, if you sink it you escalate the problem… except if you are Israel an you can say the attack was an accident. If the ship is from a less powerful navy then sinking it might be the message you want to send. Different situations different “goalposts”.
So in other words….yes…you are shifting the goalposts!
Which is why the Mi-28N attack helo entering service at the moment has both MMW and CMW radar capability… the latter is used in heavy rain and only has slightly less discrimination power than the MMW radar. Perhaps such a solution is also possible for AShMs… perhaps such a solution has already been applied. Or perhaps not.
Whats the source on the Mi-28 sensor group….a CM band radar with ‘near MMW discrimination’ is a good trick!. Otherwise its nice to see you have have your usual range of whats, if’s and maybe’s to fall back on as debating points!.
Assumes the threat is properly understood and correctly modelled. The Moskit was not correctly modelled till after the cold war had ended.
…and you know that how?!.
Interesting. From your tone your suggestion about exporting drones says you think such a thing would be stupid and self defeating, yet you identify a customer and then put words in my mouth and suggest the Indians would be devious. So which are they… devious or stupid?
I didn’t suggest that they make a target drone out of their new missile system!. You suggested they could do that and I suggested a potential customer who would be interested – though certain people possibly may be upset by such a development and may not wish to join in joint development deals again!!!.
JonesyGarry
By suggesting the Subsonics were better you are infering that the supersonics are less effective as a system.
Now your putting words in my mouth then telling me they’re wrong. Thats not cricket!. I said that supersonics were unecessary….not ineffective as systems. Yes they are effective….but not so revolutionarily more effective than subsonics to justify the expenditure to aquire and, support (in targetting infrastructure terms) and deploy.
I disagree. A low flying supersonic target will always be more of a threat than a low flying subsonic threat. .
Single missile to single missile a supersonic might have a greater chance – I dont actually subscribe to that view as I still think a big supersonic missile barrelling more or less straight in is an easier target (at least to a good PDMS like Sea Wolf) than a medium dancer hopping all about the place on its terminal phase. Thats a personal opinion though so I’m willing to leave that moot.
What is for certain is that no-one is going to standardise their services antiship missile as the Yakhont!. Would you seriously shoot a Yakhont at a 500ton corvette?. So the service in question would still need a low-end missile to deal with FAC’s/Corvettes and light frigates. Why go to the expense of the Yakhont if you’re going to have to have a Harpoon/C803/NSM type weapon in the inventory anyway?!.
NSM or stealthy Anti Ship missiles are hardly likely to be available to most navies of the world… Yakhonts and Brahmos’s on the other hand might be much more accessible to those countries that the west doesn’t like this week
This is where you are dead, dead wrong though. Could Argentina, Portugal, South Africa or Denmark (as examples) just go out and make an off the shelf purchase of Yakhont to standardise missiles across their services?. The answer is no – they would also have to go and buy a couple of squadrons of Su-30xxx’s to deploy them. They’d probably have to significantly redesign theyre fleet units to physically mount the missile and, to use the range (i.e the reason why they didnt buy Kh-31 instead!), they’d have to develop one hell of an ISTAR system. Absolutely impractical given those nations budgets!.
Rubbish. A missile that can only be fired from an aircraft and is only used by the airforce of a country is a limiting factor, not an advantage. The navy and the ground forces have coastal defence roles… using a unified missile type would actually save money and also improve defence.
Hmmm sounds a familiar argument that one doesnt it?. Oh yes thats right….it was my argument for the NSM. Problem is, as explained above, Yakhont will never be the single missile used-by-all-services as its too big and expensive to use against the smaller kinds of maritime targets most naval services face. Not everyone is fervently arming up to showdown with the USN Garry…no matter how much you’d like to see it!!!.
[quote]Why is Yakhont a one trick pony? They are developing a land attack version as we chat, the test was supposed to be this year of a variant with new sensors that can detect land based targets. Besides can Harpoon type weapons also destroy subs, or enemy aircraft? What is its’ extra trick that prevents it being a one trick pony too? If you suggest attacking enemy harbours then I would ask how useful that would be to Venezuala…[.quote]
DevelopING Garry…as opposed to developED i.e not developed land attack version!. Its irrelevent as to whether Harpoon is an equally one trick pony (it is though!) as I wasnt comparing Yakhont to Harpoon was I?.
Which no doubt wasn’t known to me, but would be known to those preparing an attack. False seeker activation signals could be generated for the next three days… every hour on the hour to tire the crew. It would be simple to do and would not have the world wide repercussions of actually firing on a vessel in international waters. If the ship launches any land attack missiles or an attack is initiated by the targets navy then one or several of the fake attacks could be supplanted with a real attack from a different bearing from aircraft flying too low to be spotted.
would have been amazed if you did know shipboard alert procedures!. You are right though…the BIG disadvantage of all this high powered surveillance is the greater ability to be spoofed. I’ve always talked about the spoofing that a surface ship can do to hide or misdirect an opponent into checking fire or firing in the wrong direction. Equally a smart attacker can ‘tickle’ a target and get it to fire off its expendables or disrupt its patrol pattern etc. Happened loads in 1982 by accident…if memory serves the chairman of the UK company that made the chaff rockets we used was actually knighted for his efforts in keeping the fleet stocked!.
A standoff distance of 800nm gives the incoming subsonic missile lots of ground to cover and an ideal area for the Flankers to shoot down the incoming missiles with air to air missiles.
Ahh these are the ‘handful of flankers’ you were talking about that were tasked for antiship with the Yakhonts?. They are now doing CAPS as well are they?. Think you’ve got a goalpost shifting exercise underway here Garry!.
The ships are the delivery system, the threat is the missiles. Hitting a delivery system would be nice but hitting the incoming missiles makes rather more sense.
Incorrect in every major respect. You have to hold at threat the firing platform and, as I said, in venezuala’s case that would be achieved with good SSK’s not, as you said, with Yakhonts from the Flankers that you correctly identify would be vital for air-defence.
After going to all the effort I doubt they would just fire one weapon. Argentina had plenty of problems the other navies of the world today wont have to contend with.
As I recall Garry you said something like Venezuala might not want to actually sink a USN ship but damaging one enough to send it home might be good for sending a message. My point was that that was a ridiculous statement….looks like you have the goalposts mobile again.
Easier, but not totally all weather…
In heavy fog thats right the IIR is at a significant disadvantage….fog of that kind tends to be difficult to figure in to attack planning though!. MMW seekers suffer attenuation in heavy precipitation just like IIR does.
If there had been an incident before the Falklands campaign where a central or south american country was let down by the US in favour of one of its western allies perhaps argentina might have looked to the Soviet Union for support rather than relying on the US. Do you think the Soviets would have hesitated sending down a few squadrons of Mig-23s, or the US might have offered Phantoms to keep them in its sphere of influence? The British Government might have taken heed and kept Buccaneers and Phantoms in service on the Ark Royal for another few years to be replaced by another CTOL fighter and strike aircraft… perhaps a lighter version of Tornado might have been developed as a carrier strike/fighter plane to eventually replace them and even now a carrier version of Typhoon might be getting ready to set sail on a British CVN carrier.
…sorry got to the bit about carrier-capable lightweight Tornadoes and decided you’d proved my point more than enough!
Threat reduction and threat elimination are two very different things.
Not so…threat reduction leads to threat elimination. The easier the threat reduction exercise the easier, correspondingly, the threat elimination exercise.
Ramjets are throttleable and would make excellent target drones to mimic themselves, or for use as land attack weapons. As a high altitude recon device the SR-71 was useful at a mere mach 3.2 or so. Yakhont could operate at such speeds and altitudes too. There are a range of future areas such information could be useful.
Theres an idea eh!. Export the antiship drones that mimic the capabilities of the really expensive missile system your services have just inducted!. Think the USN might love to buy a few of those. Or will you suggest that those devious Indians sell the USN a watered down Monkey-Americanskaya version?!!!
JonesyNick,
This is going to be a long enough post so I’ll leave your previous post unanswered, directly, as I think I answer most of it carrying through below to your later post and to Garry anyway. I’m happy to leave the BR issue as settled by the line that – I have my own perceptions of some sections of an excellent site and you have issues with some of my perceptions!. Fair enough?
Also to state that I wasn’t labelling you as one of the flag-wrapped, myopically-nationalistic Indian posters that seem to float around so much of the internet and apologise if I gave you the impression I was. You will have seen that stereotype though surely!.
I typed out a long post to Jonesy and lost it in a crash – aw shucks!
Done that kind of thing too many times!. Always drag posts into notepad and reply to them offline now just in case!
Not just the KA-31 Jonesy, its but a part of a network of sensors..thats what we were getting at..
Have no problem with that Nick…but its a bit of a goalpost shift. The point I was reacting to was that the Ka-31 is some wonderful, all-encompassing, system that will be a key enabler for long-range BrahMos shots as some seem to believe. Simply put its not.
There are several things to consider here: one, the scenario most likely to be useful vs the PAF/PN etc is the usual strike Karachi one; in that case, its not just going to be the INs Ka-31s but the IAFs phalcons which have to be factored in…since with the acquisition of the Erieye, the emphasis will be on taking this capability out. As a point of interest, the services recently set up a joint unit to integrate their ISR assets and have them talk to each other. There are credible reports, that once the 3 Phalcons arrive, the IAF may order 2 more, plus there are the 3 local AEW and C platforms in development. Now if the Navy can find a platform able to carry the avionics, it will have a system ready for it . Having said that, I dont think the E-2 race is over, there were reports regarding renegotiation etc.
Again thats now talking about other systems than the Ka-31. The point still stands that Ka-31 is going to provide a bare minimum low alt radar coverage and cueing for targetting assets local to IN task groups and very little else. It will be a useful platform in IN service no doubt….but it is certainly not the one-stop solution to OTH targetting that some try to make out here!.
My views on the sensibility of relying on other services to provide critical targetting and support are on record on this site. I remember all to well the stories of the ‘assistance’ provided by the RAF Nimrod force to the RN in the Falkands and it left something to be desired!. I am biased here and will openly admit it but I would be a very suprised man if (for example) an air defence emergency blew up over India and the IAF maintained a Phalcon tasking in support of the IN. More likely they’ll recall their AEW platform to support their own ops and leave the IN right in it….I’ve seen it more times than I can count and not just from my own country’s forces!.
Its one more asset available for OTH targeting if need be. The range of options available to the TF commander include it- of course, there are the other sensors. Besides, not every engagement will take place at 300 odd km, the IN may well choose a shorter, faster profile.
Again though the Ka-31 is being talked up much more than just as ‘another asset’ if you listen to some posters. The point I’m making is that it is a sorely limited platform – just like every other chopper AEW platform!.
Note above re:joint ops. Secondly, it may surprise you- but mate, thats what the service pilots have trained for. AWACs has been a luxury for the rich. A typical IAF pilot relied on his training to get through hostile defences, and of course highly detailed mission planning. As an anecdote, in the Alaskan exercise, IAF jaguars were tasked to strike into the “enemy” area. But AWACs support was unavailable, and so the entire mission was “scrubbed”, including the Jags escort, nevertheless, they went ahead and struck the targets, leading to them being appointed as mission commanders. IOW, when you dont have something, you work around it as best you can.
Believe me I know all about having to find creative solutions to problems where a little expenditure would alleviate the situations. Why do you think I am the way I am about service inefficiency!.
I appreciate your point about good personnel and good training being able to offset some of the deficiencies caused by poor/delayed acquisition plans. That approach though ultimately costs you people and all it takes is for something to goof up ‘the plan’ and you have a disaster on your hands. in the scenario where India is spending defence rupees on spurious weapons systems to engage threats that simply wont exist for 10 years I’d be sorely p1ssed if i was a Fulcrum pilot taking all sorts of chances flying dodgy ingress profiles trying to avoid counter detection because providing me with proper cover wasn’t deemed important enough to action!.
There is a contradiction here which is the whole point I am driving at really Nick. On the one hand you’re happy to dismiss my concerns about the resources applied to BrahMos with the statement that India has deep pockets and can afford the missiles and all the associated infrastructure that supports it even if it is not absolutely necessary to have the system!. Then you turn round and lament the fact that AWACs is the preserve of the rich!. In one view you seem to state that India can be lavish with its expenditure and on the other its too poor to acquire systems that are critical in modern warfare?!.
Garry
You mean like the Super Hornet and the F-35? Oh, I think they are and do.
To echo sferrin – huh?!. BrahMos – big pointless missile and SH/JSF are tactical strikers that are ‘targetted’ with the perfectly adequate USN ISTAR system.
So supersonic missiles are overkill, yet less effective than subsonic antiship missiles? Should they be using sharpened grass instead?
Where did I say ‘less effective’ exactly?. I said that they were unnecessary and wasteful not ineffective!.
Not agitated in the slightest… disappointed that you seem to disregard Supersonic antiship missiles as a viable anti ship option simply because the aquisition of one type will not allow a little south american country defeat a country that spends $400 billion a year on “defence”.
The point is Garry what option exists where supersonics ARE the ONLY viable option to getting the job done?. Soviet anticarrier tactics in the 80’s perhaps….but doubtful even then. Guess what mate that scenario doesnt exist anymore and today there are better ways of doing the same job!.
Whether the anti ship weapon they want is Yakhont or Club or whatever there are plenty of land and sea based versions of these weapons to prevent these systems being tied to vulnerable airfields.
…but we were talking about the cost to deploy equation and YOU said that lots of countries are buying a few dozen Flankers etc – which I agreed with. I just pointed out that as a deployment option a few squadrons of tactical aircraft which may be vulnerable to counter-air ops would not be a smart starting point for a major component of your antiship potential. If you now want to go back on what you said about cost-to-deploy and want to factor in the costs of these alternate firing methods thats fine. That supports my initial point just fine!.
Can understand not bothering if you had to develop from scratch, but if you can buy off the shelf, then why not?
Because there are other, more flexible, ways of doing the same job and, if the budget is tight, a one-trick pony like Yakhont seems a poor option.
How do you come to that conclusion? A ship sailing along gets detected at 300km by a high frequency radar, which is determined to be a Flanker. You can power up all your weapons and plan a defence screen that contains chaff and flare elements but actually launching such a screen is a bit of a waste if nothing arrives because the Flanker that spotted you probably wasn’t carrying anything but a large belly mounted recon pod and a couple of AAMs.
You’d have to know something about ship alert states to understand this. Remember Sheffield was caught because she wasnt steaming at Air Raid Inbound status. She was in defence watches but didnt know an actual attack was coming in. Her systems wouldnt have been down if the correct alert state was set and the witless PWO(A) wouldnt have been in the bloody galley!.
Similarly your Flanker is detected by ESM and LINK analysis allows triangulation to range off at 300km. PWO(A) reports the contact to the OOW and a track is initiated. If necessary the main air search set will be fired up depending on fleet EMCON regs. Air Raid White will be set to indicate a contact of interest detected and all surviellance, ESM/ECM and weapons directors will be manned and cued to the threat bearing. At Air Raid White the ship is now closed up to fight the air action and is actively monitoring for any further hostile action i.e a missile seeker activation in order to jump to Air Raid Red – attack in progress – where weapons are trained, electronics warmed up and decoy patterns plotted and deployed as necessary. If the seeker activation never comes then the ship just stays at White status until the target naffs off!.
The reality is that the difference a few Flankers and Yakhonts or Clubs will make is that such a strike would likely come from subs rather than surface vessels, and the surface assets in the region will be much more conservatively used. That alone will be worth the cost of a few hundred Yakhonts or Clubs.
Why is it worth so much?. TLAM/CALCM-ing airfields and other ‘first-day’ targets is not a new concept?. TLAM’s range is nigh-on 1000nm. Who can put up solid surveillance around their coast to even half that depth!. How is a few Flankers and some 200nm range missiles going to keep surface ships from firing all the TLAM’s they have in the mags?!!!
The Malaysians described aircraft ordinance as being 2/3rds cheaper than western stuff of similar performance. Malaysians are not Socialists.
weren’t you on here a while ago saying that the Malaysians had got cheap, older generation aircraft that were’nt comparable to modern kit?. In otherwords they bought cheap bargain basement junk?. Anyone can sell old stuff off on the cheap Garry – its the new kit that seems to be a bit more pricey!. Good capitalists that they are now of course!!!.
So fire one missile and the problem might go away… sounds like excellent value for money. BTW why didn’t the British fleet turn tail and leave the Falklands after the first Exocet attack? Sounds nice in theory, but when you have a reasonably good reason for what you are doing then one attack is unlikely to deter you… or is the British Navy different from the rest of the world?
Not quite what I meant. Fire one missile and they may just take action to make sure you can’t fire a second!. That being the price of the ‘symbolic’ missile attack you seemed to be proposing!.
You are ignoring my point. Why is it that in your opinion a flanker painting a ship from 300km will make the target ready to defend from a Yakhont, yet a fighter at 80km painting the target with SAR is ignored?
BTW regarding ARMs there was supposed to be a MMW radar guided version of the KH-58 (AS-11 anti radiation missile) for use against shipping. It was always an interesting system to me because I think the AS-11 looks a lot like the Kormoran. MMW radar is very hard to jam or spoof because of its high frequency (which is why Long Bow Apaches use it for guidance). It gives a near photo like image performance that can be used to accurately ID targets. (ie in the Apache it can determine wheeled from tracked vehicles and determine if a target has a gun in a turret or not. Such resolution should make Ship IDs easy.)
I’m not ignoring your point Garry I just dont think I quite get it. Of course a radar will be detected at 80km every bit as much as at 300km?. Both will alert the target equally and thus both antiship missiles will face active defences. The point was that, with the advent of deployed defensive systems capable of engaging supersonics, then the ONLY surefire method of getting a weapon through on target is to saturate defences and a supersonic is just not necessary to do that!.
I’ve said before that the MMW version of Kh-58 sounds interesting. It may be a bit smarter to forget that project and adapt the MMW seeker for Kh-31 (could be used on ARM and AShM variant) as there is a greater established customer base for that weapon. MMW radar is terminal phase guidance only though Garry – it doesnt have the range for wide sector search but it would address the target ID issue. same as NSM you could program a profile-reject into an MMW weapon to alleviate RoE issues!. You’d probably have to team it up with a wide sector conventional ARH head though for the initial steer in. IIR is by far the easier solution.
Perhaps if they had a bit more respect for Exocets and were a bit more realistic about the performance of sea dart and sea wolf they might have been detered. Tactical aircraft like Sky Hawks and Mirages with no BVR capability are hardly state of the art. If they had a few Mig-23s or Phantoms then the RN might have had second thoughts.
Well by that token…if they had nuclear weapons then we might not have gone at all!. Honestly Garry you might try, just once, trying to keep a debate point in the realms of practicality!!!!
Of course we knew all about Exocet….we had it in the fleet as GWS50. Sea Dart was effective as very few argentine aircraft dared come within its envelope. Unfortunately they knew that envelope very well as they had Sea Dart in their fleet!. Sea Wolf was still a new system and it had bugs…not the first and wont be the last system described like that!.
Excuse me, but in what context is this exercise shockingly easy? After spending trillions on a carrier fleet I am sure Venezuala would be an easy beat at sea, but on land what if the Venezualans put up a bit of a fight like the Vietnamese did, or the Somalis did?
In the context that the threat reduction exercise against the Yakhont is shockingly easy for the USN to do….just what I said. I didnt say anything about the Venezualans, Vietnamese, Somalis or anything to do with land combat?.
The Shkval has a length of 8.2m, the 3M-54E is 8.22m, the TE-2 wire guided torpedo is 8.2m with wire coil. (The 650mm TT-5 is 11.3m long so even if the Club didn’t fit in the 553mm tubes it could be fired in 650mm tubes with a 533mm liner.), the TEST-71ME-NK is 7.93m long. The SIRENA-UME self propelled underwater skin diver transport of 532mm diameter that can be launched from the torpedo tubes of the Projects 877EKM and 636 and the Piranha types subs is 11.3 metres long.
The PMK-2 Russian equivelent of Captor from a 533mm tube is 7.9m long.
Good information thanks. Knew the Russian 650mm was big enough but also knew that the Kilo’s dont have 650mm tubes so the chances seemed slim that 3M-54E was deployable. I stand corrected!.
You Brits seemed a bit miffed over the JSF deal… seems getting to use US technology is not the same as a full technology transfer. The Indians are getting technology transfer so they actually fully own the Brahmos. This isn’t like a rental setup like the UK seems to have with the F-35.
Wont argue that the BrahMos might be a better deal than the UK’s JSF deal. Like the JSF though, and the point I was making, was that BrahMos isnt cheap.
So because you can’t identify another area where a mature ramjet motor technology might be useful you think the Indians have wasted their time? Interesting that you think the problems involved in making a 2 ton object fly at two times the speed of sound near the wave tops has just electronics and propulsion to offer. If it were that simple you’d think they would have just bought Kh-35.
Off into the realms of fantasy again Garry!. What other application is there for technologies to make a 2 ton object skim a twice the speed of sound at wavetop height???. What is the use of mature ramjet propulsion if there is no other programme knocking about that can use it?. Is the Indian agriculture ministry going to borrow it to develop new tractor technology perhaps?. The electronics are the value-add bit here and theyre indigenous anyway….like I said India’s electronics industry was pretty sharp regardless of BrahMos. Dont see what the weapon brings in economic terms apart from local production as Nick mentions!.
JonesyOk. Good post Nick. If I can say that without accusation of further condescension?
Your claims on BR are as I have politely pointed out, a tad uncharitable-
Perhaps so, but, as I said from the start there was no malice or ill will intended. Also I made my point about BR, potential inaccuracies inadvertent or otherwise, solely as it was used as source evidence in a adversarial post. I sought to point out that as a prime source it may, in some cases, not display enough objective depth of information. I have done so and, as you rightly pointed out, the nationalistic tendencies I perceive in some aspects of the site are nothing more than my own opinion. They do remain my perception however.
The Brahmos for the IN debate has little to do with you cant criticize anything Indian because you are not Indian (nice try there, mate!)- but it has a lot to do with your opposition to the choice of Brahmos for the IN because you see it as a threat to US/UK naval interests in the Indian Ocean.
Nick I’ve seen a great many Indian posters use the line that I can have no considered opinion on IN issues because I’m not in the IN – unless of course my opinion is in line with theirs, in which case my opinion is spot on and I am to be commended for it!. Whoops…sorry got near the nationalism thing again didnt I?. Remiss of me!.
Let me settle one thing right now – I am not concerned about the BrahMos threat to US/UK interests in the IO at all. This is because until the IN stops p1ssing around with white elephants like Gorshkov and BrahMos and starts to address the real threats it has in theatre its not that much of a threat – certainly not in blue water. Harsh statement perhaps?. Not a bit. Ask any Argentinian naval officer what its like facing competent SSN’s when your ASW aint quite all there!. How far off are the Akula’s/ATV’s?. Is there an Indian SURTASS programme – recently read something about Chinese strides in passive sonar ranging that might as well have had a picture of a Chinese SURTASS-type boat on it!. They get it – the IN doesnt seem quite there yet!.
Frankly, I think the US-India relationship is only going to grow stronger and it wont ever get into shooting war, so have a cold one, mate- its nothing to ‘fuss about. Plus given India’s economic growth, the Brahmos is only going to be the tip of the iceberg, given the correlation between economics & defence expenditure.
I agree on both points. That makes BrahMos even the more unfeasible as a weapons system requested by the IN as the optimum antiship platforms for the IO are SSNs and naval aviation. I cant perceive of the IN wanting resources, that could be used in those areas, going on a missile system like BrahMos!.
Now with reference to the IN setting up the ISR to support Brahmos for its needs- the sources bear out that the network is being set up and will support much more than just an AShM, and its well underway. Whether a dancer or a streaker or whatever, a long ranged AShM of any kind will be benefited by this network and it is being addressed.
Which, give or take, is exactly what I said. Further down the road than any other regional superpower….but not there yet were my words I think?.
Lastly, Garry has a fair point regarding the technology in the Brahmos. Your claim that the Indians just jumped onto the program as they were offered the Yakhont is also incorrect & such tech transfers are part & parcel of the usual is also incorrect
It wasn’t a ‘claim’….I think I said ‘it seems like’ i.e the events transpire that, at face value, give the appearance of a certain set of circumstances. Not about to argue semantics with you but to say I ‘claimed’ that the Indians jumped on the Yakhont bandwagon is exaggerating my words a bit dont you think!. Joint developments are part and parcel of most of the bigger arms deals these days though – Meko100’s to S.Africa using SA electronics, PAAMs to the RN using Brit radars etc, etc. Its not uncommon.
All in all, a fair amount of thought has gone into the Brahmos from the Indian side- hence to claim that its merely an illthought out venture, without considering all the ramifications & that you know better, is your POV, but it will of course be challenged on an open internet bulletin board.
Great!. Thats what I participate on the board for but I expect better opposition than ‘you’re not Indian shut up!’!. India didnt need the BrahMos joint venture to develop its electronics industry, it hasnt leveraged the propulsion technology from BrahMos into anything else I’ve heard of yet and I am actually at a loss to think of another weapon system that might benefit from such a propulsion system, the Indian miltary has no absolutely critical reason to go down the heavy antiship missile route because it has carrier and submarine programmes that can do antiship far more effectively. It is my OPINION that India has very little, in reality, to gain from BrahMos other than bragging rights for packing a big missile in its inventory……be still my wildly beating heart!.
Stick to the technical points mate & be dispassionate about it. Frankly, if it only comes down to “cost effectiveness” etc – then if India can afford the program, and given its economic growth, sustain it- its a moot point. And by all indications, it very well can.
Thank you for telling me what I’m allowed to post here Nick – do I have to salute when I see one of your posts in future?. Am a bit out of practice but I’m sure I’ll pick it up again!!!! 😉
My background is in engineering and support. I’ve seen the impact of wasteful logistics and ludicrous numbers of different systems, performing near-enough the same function, on operations budgets and its something of a pet hate. Wherever I see examples of such inefficiency it triggers a reaction and will be something I comment on. Oh well, next time you see a Kashin or Viraat come back to port early because of insufficient or inadequate maintenance at least you can console yourself with the knowledge you have BrahMos missiles!.
Harry,
Why are we getting into this dumb comparison of a Ka-31 and E-2 again? A Ka-31 does not offer true intercept flexibility, range or endurance but can an E-2 take off from a Talwar? How many E-2s can be stationed on a mid-sized carrier? A Ka-31 can also be hosed up and refueled while hovering.
Err dont remember comparing Ka-31 to E-2 on this thread!?. It was said that Ka-31 is the answer to long-range targetting of BrahMos – I said, again, it wasnt and it isnt!.
From what the IN says, the Ka-31 offers excellent range and the E-2 is over-rated. Although NG strongly denies any such thing, their promo videos showed IN operators testing the E-2.
Think the decades of operational service of the type in service with half a dozen operators probably puts the IN’s views in context there Harry!.
There is no such thing as a “mere” radar-picket. For the OTH surveillance capabilities it affords, the Ka-31 is a huge leap and boon for any ship. Even if it is far from a true AWACS, it is still a big deal.
What value is there in putting a Ka-31 on an escort?. Extending the low alt surveillance envelope isnt something you just do for a couple of hours then forget about it!. Even with this hovering refuel technique a single Ka-31 on an escort is going to do no more than a few hours on station until maintenance and crew rest become an issue….then what?. Get another escort to launch its Ka-31? Cool – now where are the ASW choppers?
Hi Harry, from this I gather its a nav unit which the ship probably needs to know its position wrt the Ka-31 and hence have the proper frame of reference for its data.
Exactly right – the picture compilation back aboard the ship depends on knowing precisely where the emitter is all through the data transfer phase of the flight. Otherwise contacts will be offset from true by the distance of the emitter from the ship.
This is an useful OTH targeting tool and radar picket for MiG-29K’s and SHars thats about it. Its not a proper AEW & C intended for fighting off hundreds of massed enemies in an “outer air battle”.
Hows a chopper, flying racetracks over its own force, OTH targetting 300km missiles?. Sure Oko will get surface contacts at those kinds of distances but its not going to be any better at identifying them (i.e targetting!!!) than a Racal Searchwater or any other similar system!. Like I said its ok for picking up low flyers at a hundred – hundred fifty kms or so, and that is important, but thats about it!.
Well of course, if India had gone for a system of that nature we’d have comments like: “careful there, Harry- you didnt need that kind of system to deal with your regional adversaries, and by doing so you have provoked/ threatened the USN “.
Erm….of course you needed E-2’s for regional issues….the IN’s touting Gorshkov as a strike carrier isnt it?. Feel sorry for the first poor bloody IN Fulcrum pilot who takes his ordnance laden fighter into a hostile ADGE with no more situational awareness than that afforded by his RWR!.
JonesySorry old bean, your arguements dont make much sense. You may argue about the relative cost benefit of dancers vs streakers, but thats about it. The rest of the entire bit about what Indias strategy is or is not, is best left to the Indians. If the USN etc are indeed inducting whatevers required to defeat a Brahmos, what has you so worried about the “strategic shift” then?
Nick I started this politely. If your really going to get that sensitive and defensive over an open conversation on an internet bulletin board so be it. I’m afraid I’ve heard ‘you cant criticise anything Indian cos youre not Indian’ routine before and I’ve no time for it again.
I’ve made all my points about BrahMos and similar supersonics anyway….to return a compliment if Garry posts something following up from my earlier post I’ll happily argue with it!. Otherwise, unless someone civil can dig up that 3M-54E pic, I’ll leave this here!.
JonesyAustin,
First off of course other naval services regionally and internationally take close note of what capabilities the IN develops and deploys. Its not an issue of ‘complaining’ its an issue of countering wherever competetive national interests may see conflict. This is normal practice, for everyone I assume, I know the RN maintain close tabs on certain other naval sevices capabilities and I find the practice emminently sensible.
But the bottom line is , You Have To Do , What You have To Do.
Agreed. The point here though is why do what you DONT have to do?
Indeed Chopper Based AEW is a less than Ideal solution , But as you have stated , Its better than having nothing at all.
Speaking to people who fly this chopper , and the participation of these in many IN exercise , The IN is quite happy with its asset and the way it has performed , It provides a good outer ring to filter Low Flying Targets. If nothing else the numbers of Ka-31 will grow in the IN in coming Months & Years.
That being the point though Austin. The only thing that rotary AEW is better than IS nothing!. Its ideal in the role you mention, that which we developed rotary AEW for in the first place, it pushes the radar horizon back over a task force a bit. Its not a battlespace management platform, its not a surface search patroller and its not a wide ranging targetting asset. Thats what is required – not a system thats just the tallest masthead mount in the fleet!!!!.
Pit,
You sure about the fact that 3M-54E fits in Russian 21″ tubes?. That missile is over 24ft long without any kind of flotation/launch cannister!. Comparably a Mk48 heavyweight torpedo is barely 19ft – are Russian tubes really so much longer? Do you have a source for this?
JonesyNick,
No intent to slam anyone here. I actually thought I was being fairly polite!.
Information on that site is in direct contradiction with a reliable, objective, source I am aware of. The contradictory information has been public domain for years yet the BR version holds that the 54E variant has been inducted regardless of any other concern with no mention of the E1 variant reported as delivered through Russian sources. I find this selective approach…accentuating the presence of the more capable system with no apparent confirmation….suspicious in the extreme.
In other words, there is no indication that the Navy’s plans for a proper sensor chain for the Brahmos hasnt been deployed.
So the IN now has its Ka-31’s, MPA’s, UAV’s escorts and tactical fighters tied into a common JTIDS-like net with extra-theatre links back to an establised command net have they?. Last time I checked on this it was certainly not the case. The IN has indeed come a long way in a year!
How is the concept of a technology push facile?. Its one of the most common facets in the international arms development game?. You state that the IN planners knew what they were doing yet what they’ve actually done is to deploy a missile that is in no way needed to engage any surface fleet that the PLAN can deploy for the next ten years, nor any surface fleet that the PakN could deploy in twenty years – and that came from an officer in the PakN!!!!.
As stated a missile that has raised the issue of the IN as a potential agressive threat in a very economically sensitive region to the USN whilst not actually being capable of threatening the primary instruments of USN combat power – the CVSG!
Lastly its a missile that has caused the Australians, Chinese and thusly Japanese, So. Koreans, Singaporeans etc to enhance their naval technologies to counter precisely the threat that BrahMos like weapons pose. Thereby dramatically reducing the value of the system in the first place!.
This isnt like upgrading to a more modern fighter variant or enhancing national surveillance capabilities with AWACS…this is introducing a weapon designed to hold-at-risk targets that are not specifically regional in nature. That is a big strategic shift, and not a smart one, did those planners you spoke to mention that?
JonesyNick/Garry,
Apologies for the delay in responding haven’t a lot of spare time for this these days!.
Jonesy, even the Brahmos has seven waypoint changes, surely the Klub et al will have similar stuff. As regards mature, when does a thing become “mature” but in a shooting war?
Waypoints are one thing Nick but dont confuse a navigational course changes with the kind of evasive manoevers a dancer performs to shake up a hostile targetting solution. Mature in my description is a successfully completed OpEval programme and a few years in the Fleet to get the maintenance troops and logistic backend in place. I’ve still not heard of a single operational test of 3M-54E.
Acceptance trials conducted by the Indian Navy for its modernised Sindhugosh Class submarines, resulted in six successful 3M-54E test launches which demonstrated both minimum (20km) and maximum (220km) range capability against surface targets. During a test launch, in an Indian Ocean test range, a 3M-54E missile launched from INS Sindhushastra failed to hit its target. Upon further investigation it was revealed that the fault was with the target on the test range and not with the ARGS-54 seeker. An anchored target with a corner radar reflector simulating a frigate-class surface ship was displaced and the reflector began to radiate signals in a direction perpendicular to a flight trajectory of the missile’s third supersonic stage. As a result, the ARGS-54 seeker failed to acquire the target. During qualification tests conducted for the Talwar Class frigates, a 3M-54E missile completed a successful live-fire test in the Barents Sea, demonstrating its maximum operational range of 220 km. The missile performed flawlessly and accurately hit the target. No reliable info exists on whether the Indian Navy intends to acquire the 91RE1 or 91RE2 anti-submarine torpedoes.
No disrespect intended toward BR but sometimes I think that a certain nationalistic quality in the staff of that site gets in the way of some of the facts there. According to Russian sources reporting into SIPRI the naval Club variant sold to the IN was the 3M-54E1. This is the subsonic AShM variant NOT the three stage weapon!. As I understood it, the 3M-54E variant is too long to fit standard 21″ tubes and the E1 is the submarine antiship weapon. This makes the above quote, that Sindushastra fired a 3M-54E, somewhat bizarre. Plus, as I understood it, the range of 3M-54E1 was 220km and the supersonic version sacrificed some of this to get the kill dart stage. I will happily stand corrected on this if someone can show me a pic of a 3M-54E being hoisted aboard a Talwar!?
Of course its midway down the road. But then again, bar the US who can go ahead & implement a spanking new system fleetwide overnight?
What the IN is doing is what it can afford, it is linking its capital ships and best platforms together, and upgrading its MPAs plus acquiring UAVs, this is surely enough in the regional context.
Even the USN can’t do it overnight!. The point is that the USN are not trumpeting a new weapons system that they’ve not quite sorted the targetting out for yet!. What you say is fair comment, but, the fact still remains that they do not have the targetting system properly deployed to support a missile that is being deployed. Personally I think thats not the best practise solution. Interesting that you mention the regional context issue – in that context would you, objectively, evaluate a BrahMos missile as an essential weapons system?.
Sorry, but thats hindsight talking. India got a wonderful chance to work on the Brahmos and set it up & work on its NEWCS (Naval enterprise wide comm system) in parallel. Sure, the latter is taking more money than they planned for and they have decided to do a deeper job, but at the end of the day its still going to come online. And against Pak or China, whats wrong with some healthy old fashioned overkill?
To be honest with you Nick I think hindsight would say much more than I have on this!. You induct weapons systems to meet threats. In this case its almost as if Russia came along one day and offered India the chance to develop their Yakhont system for IN purposes and, without looking at their strategic environment, the Indian authorities just leapt on it. This is, as the saying goes, no way to run a railroad!.
What India has done here is to technology push every other developed naval force in the region into the acquisition, or at least planned acquisition, of systems that can intercept a supersonic AShM. It may ultimately have the effect of reinforcing the PLAN’s carrier strategies through the need to form the kind of outer air engagement zone that the USN evolvd to keep the Backfires at arms length in the Cold War. If this happens its a massive own goal for India as concentrating on their existant SSN programme would arguably have provided a much more powerful antiship weapons system without spurring on potentialy hostile systems which will have the capability to force entry into the IO theatre. Thats the price of overkill I’m afraid.
You miss the point. Those few choppers are useful in the role that they are meant for, even if not perfect and provide a reasonable interim capability while the Navy searches for a more robust long term platform for its fleet AEW&C role.
I am unfortunately very aware of the point. I have heard PRECISELY that argument from the Royal Navy and we are now, some 20 years after the inception of the system, carrying that ‘interim capability’ through to 60,000ton CVA’s it seems. Chopper AEW is a better-than-nothing solution – it should not be designed-in solution that a serious Navy relies on for anything more than local defensive coverage. Its simply not capable of much more whether it be a Ka-31, an ASaC Mk7 or an EH101!.
Garry,
So supersonic anti ship missiles are useless because the enormous might of Venezuala is no match for the USN? Please Jonesy! I guess if they had gone for Gripens and NSMs (despite all the american components that mean there is no way that is even an option) the USN would be defeated in its own ports…
Take it you were a little agitated when you made this post then eh mate?!!!. The point I was making, quite simply, was that given the recorded state of Venezuela’s IADS resting a large portion of that nations antiship potential on tactical aircraft, aircraft that may not be too safe on their airfields, might not be a smart position. Also that, as an alternative, putting the investment in a more surviveable antiship platform might be smarter!.
So it is not the propulsion that is the issue with you, it is the seeker technology used. You are arguing the wrong topic. This is a topic about supersonic anti ship missiles vs subsonic ones. That would include the TV guided supersonic Kh-29ET. 30km range and 317kg HE warhead.
Nope. I very clearly made the differential between the two issues. My basic premise here is that both streakers and dancers (with active seekers) alert their targets early enough to allow that target vessel to commence hard and soft kill countermeasures.
At that point its almost academic as to which weapon you are firing as in both cases you have to fire sufficient weapons to overwhelm the targets defences. A ship sporting a manual RIM-7, a CIWS gun and some jamming/softkill capability might succumb to fewer streakers than dancers – perhaps 4-6 C803’s launched compared to 2-3 BrahMos launched (guesstimate only) but the cost to deploy the BrahMos weapons will be significantly higher. So why bother with it?.
If the answer is standoff range – as the weapon was designed to provide – then you have to accept that on the long-range profile its going to alert the target that much earlier and have consequently longer to develop its defensive response.
The Indians were getting Yakhont technology… you don’t expect the Russians to just hand that over for free do you? And they are hardly going to sell anything cheaply to china… in two years time they will be appearing with “Made in China” printed on them and you can bet no royalty payment from its sale will go to Russia.
Fact remains, despite the technology transfer which is fairly commonplace now, that these systems were not cheap. Neither were the UAE’s short-range SAMs, neither was a light frigate order I saw from a N.African customer a while back and these latter two were just straight purchases. The old stereotype that Russia’s arms are available for fraternal socialist prices went away with the ‘fraternal socialist’ Russia I’m afraid and no amount of viewing through the rose-tinted optics will change that!!!.
It really depends upon the situation. If the defender was Venezuala then it is actually counter productive to actually sink a USN vessel. Such a tactic would be akin to shouting go away without actually twisting the knife for a kill and getting a response from some more capable vessels.
I think its fairly safe to say that if any nation is firing antiship missiles at another its doing a little more than making a symbolic gesture – whether it sinks the target vessel or just damages it is largely unimportant – that target ship’s service will pursue a course of action that means none of its other ships will find themselves in such a position!.
Sounds perfect for a low low strike with a Yakhont. Correct me if I am wrong but how does a fighter flying at 80km from a target painting that target with SAR not set off alarm bells but a fighter 300km away painting the target with a little radar energy and all hell breaks loose…
What the hell is the point of toting a Yakhont into 80kms from target?. At 80kms from target, if you must use a supersonic, use a mix of ARM and AShM Kh-31’s – no warship is going to priority target an ARM while AShM profile weapons are flying in and no warship is going to stay in a threat zone without its radars!. In the scenario were a tactical aircraft is getting that close to target there really are better ways to attack ships than to use a big, expensive, supersonic skimmer!
The knowledge that the enemy has Yakhonts or Brahmos’s might actually deter the USN or any other navy for that matter from even entering your litteral waters in the first place.
Like the knowledge that Argentina possessed 200+ tactical combat aircraft deterred the Royal Navy from retaking the Falklands?!. Nope, doesnt work like that Garry!. You do the threat reduction exercise and find the gaps in the enemies weapon systems!. For Yakhont and BrahMos, at the moment, that excercise is shockingly easy for the USN!
JonesySean,
Nice one on the course. If you can dig up anything UNCLAS about this new rapid deployable SOSUS thing your guys are playing with would appreciate hearing about it!.
As to the SHIPWRECK….nah dont think so. Big, fast, sexy as hell. However it low-cruises only just over the mach and its idea of sea-skimming is 100m up. I saw Sea Dart take down harder targets than that in 1992 and its equally comfortable in the SM-2 envelope!
Amazingly over-rated system!
Garry
As far as I know the Kh-31A is a sea skimmer or has the option of skimming the sea. The Kh-31P anti radiation missile climbs on launch and dives on the radar target and is not fitted with a radio altimeter. The Kh-31A has a radio altimeter. It can be fired in two modes… lock on before launch with data about the target provided by the launch aircraft, or lock on after launch. In the latter mode “the homing head locks onto a target for automatic tracking duringflight after launch at a range of 7km to 20km from the target.” suggests to me a low flight profile if it can only see targets at 7-20km. In fact sounds like it must be a sea skimmer or low flyer if it can only detect targets from that range (presumably radar horizon range).
I did see a Russian diagram of the profiles employed by Kh-31 and there was a low-alt profile but it, most definitely, wasn’t sea-skimming and it placed a huge range limitation on the weapon. The Yanks had the same issue with the MA-31 variant and found they had to drop the weapon from 30k ft and let it ‘glide’ down to low altitude to keep the firing aircraft within the range safety rules from the SAM shooters!.
Venezuala seemed to want a big aircraft in the first place… much like Mexico. Long range from a large aircraft is useful for sea patrol or larger countries.
True Venezuela and a few other states may well acquire a few dozen Flankers. As I understand it though these will not be the multirole strike fighters the Indians possess with their MKI. In Venezuela’s case it may be advisable for them to ramp up their SSK flotilla before depending too heavily on a modest wee Flanker force that stands a better than evens chance of being obliterated on the ground if the Americans ever were to act.
And I certainly agree that a kill is much more likely if the target is caught unawares, and that passive homing enhances the chance the target is caught unawares, but with a modern Thermal sight or sophisticated radar system I really think that either a missile will get the jump on a ship at sea or it wont, and I doubt very much whether the speed of the missile will influence that very much.
I am strenuously trying to keep the passive/active debate out of this one and keep it strictly to dancer/streaker. Not least for any other reason than I cant imagine anyone ever wanting to hear me bang on about the NSM again!!
If the discussion is about how alert the target may or may not be to a specific weapon then I agree that the speed has little relevence per se. The point remains though that no publically admitted streaker exists that has a passive imaging seeker so, strictly being pedantic, the dancers do have the edge but I’ll admit thats an incredibly tenous point!.
A subsonic missile might be a smaller target but it takes much much longer to get to the target giving potentially plenty of warning time.
Doesnt necessarily work that way as, if were talking about Yakhont or similar, they stay at altitude on their loft profile to get range. If theyre still at altitude 150-200km out even a modest naval air search set will catch it half a minute farther out than a skimmer that becomes visible (to a masthead sensor) at 30km out on the horizon.
We talk about SAMs and Phalanx but decoys and jammers would also play a major role as well. Much the same as ATGMs haven’t made the Tank obsolete I doubt supersonic missiles or stealthy subsonic AShMs will make surface navies obsolete either. I think a combination of various weapon types is more useful than one generic weapon, no matter how good that weapon might be.
Dead right Garry soft-kill is far, far more capable of defending a ship against an active seeker than any hard-kill weapon. Of course, to the uninitiated, hard-kill looks so much sexier so unless your ship is sprouting gatlings from every quarter you’ll, obviously, be blasted from the sea!!!!?.
Yet the impact of losing a ship would make it worth it. Compared to the cost of a ship one hundred Yakhonts would be worth it. Indeed a few subsonic stealthy AShMs to disable the targets followed by supersonics to sink them could be a very interesting attack method. The reverse tactic could also be interesting as well. A few streakers from one direction to tie up the defences with a few dancers coming in from the opposite and unexpected bearing… all timed to arrive together…
As an academic investigation yes…if you could also throw in a few heavyweight torpedoes you might stand a better chance of getting some ships to sink!!!. In reality though very few services have the resources to maintain weapons of multiple types just because they might be useful in rare circumstances. In your example the simple tactic of firing more missiles than the ships defence systems can counter at one time will be as effective with no need for disparate missile types.
Also Moskit is a 4 ton missile and costs $600,000 per shot. A Dancer like Harpoon actually costs more than that. I have not seen a price for Yakhont but I doubt it will cost more than 1.2 million. If you are really lucky you might get two dancers for the price of a streaker. The reality is that the price of Russian weapons means that it is more likely that you will get two Streakers for the price of a western dancer.
When was that figure for the Moskit quoted from?!. It isnt recent thats for damn certain….the myth of ‘cheap Russian weapons’ disappeared with the Berlin Wall!. Ask the Indians how much ‘their’ BrahMos cost them or the Chinese how much their Sovremenny’s are costing!!. In both cases the figures are comparable with what the French charge for weapons!!!.
The problem the supersonics were designed for was an invading force will hardly be napping… well a US force with a large carrier group anyway.
Read Adm Woodwards book ‘100 Days’ for a great story on how to catch an American CVBG napping!.
(Sheffield was talking to london over satellite and had its radars shut down to prevent interference from memory…
Not quite the full story….and if I were Sam Salt (Sheff’s CO) I’d have hunted one particularly slack officer down and reintroduced keel-hauling for him!.
Another option of course is firing dozens of subsonic AShMs at a target to wear it out an use up its ammo followed by supersonics to try to breach the weakened defences (hopefully they will have expended their decoys etc). A single missile every hour to keep them awake for a day will only cost 24 missiles… then send in a few supersonics. You might get lucky and a subsonic might get through, or more likely the ship will leave or call in reinforcements.
Why bother with all that though?. A ships defences have a certain number of fire channels that can be brought to bear on specific arcs of fire at a finite reload/re-engagement rate. You calculate that figure, factor in losses to soft-kill and rogue missiles…add a couple for luck…then work out your force package to deploy that number of weapons. In most cases, IF you can find, identify and hold contact with your target that would be all thats required. Of course, using the same descriptive technique, climbing Everest is just a matter of clinging on to the rocks in ascending order!.
So if they used subsonic missiles they don’t need any recon infrastructure at all? How credible would their defence be without such assets anyway?
Nowhere near what the longer range jobbies need. You said yourself tactical aircraft sensors are getting much more competent. At circa 80km it wouldnt suprise me that SAR modes in fighter radars can get a rough target ID or EO sensors will be able to get ID’s in clear conditions.
A Yakhont and two Clubs, or three Clubs. (BTW a Flanker is probably not that much more expensive to buy than a Gripen… and with no American parts there are no strings attached. If needed the Flanker can carry up to 6 Kh-31s or Kh-35s.)
A straight out of the box MKI can carry a single Yakhont this was all I was using as my benchmark. I am not criticising Flanker in any way…imagine how many NSM’s could be hung under it!? 8, 12?. Crikey a fourship, with a valid bearing to target and a rough range approximation could decimate virtually any taskforce in the world!. As for expense I think you may be guilty of wishful thinking there Garry!
JonesyGarry
Most countries can and are affording Flanker sized aircraft. Even a Mig-29 sized aircraft can carry Kh-31 anti ship missiles. The new lengthened models of which are supposedly boasting ranges of up to 200km. When the US Navy was talking about what ended up a bit of a farce (the supersonic target competition) one of the reasons behind it was they wanted moskit, which cost $600,000 US each… compared at the time with $1.2 million a pop for Harpoon. Now a 4 ton Moskit is not as easy to deploy as a Harpoon, I agree. But technology has moved on. Supersonic missiles are getting lighter and faster and longer ranged.
Yeah Garry but the Kh-31 isnt a skimmer is it?. In fact there aren’t any light/med weight supersonics that follow a skimming profile unless you count the Chinese 803 which tops out just above the Mach IIRC?.
But they are their own solution… to carry a Yakhont you need a Flanker sized plane. Most export flankers (ie MKI etc) have radars that can detect large ship like targets at 300km. Initial detection would require a recon platform but then that would be normal wouldn’t it? It would be rather a waste to just fire off a Harpoon on a bearing every few hours in the hope it will come across something worth hitting.
OK but then you are obliged to have a big aircraft to carry the big missile…which massively ramps up the cost to deploy equation – plus, IIRC, the Indians are having to modify their Flankers to carry their BrahMos weapons which means even greater expense. I agree that Flanker is a damn good aircraft and that its radar is indeed capable of picking up a ship target at 300kms – detection is not the same as identification/targetting though is it?!.It also means its at altitude and emitting to get that detection which, as I’ve said to you before, means the target is alerted and its defenses are active. It then comes down to saturation fire to swamp those defences no matter whether you are firing streakers or dancers and saturation fire with streakers is going to be a hideously costly business!!!.
Firing a Yakhont at a 300km range target would be relatively rare. On a Low Low Low profile its range would probably be about 150km anyway… so the assets used to find targets for the 120km Uran could also be used for Yakhont.
Here we are in complete agreement. I just dont see the need for the Yakhont when the cheaper missile, in larger numbers, can do the job as effectively.
If the enemy is prepared to surprise attack there is no navy that would be safe. On paper the Sheffield should have been easily able to deal with a single Exocet.
Agree with you wholeheartedly again and again I’d say that this calls into question why the Yakhont would be necessary?!. A few AM-39’s, Sea Eagles, Urans or any number of other systems would do the job as effectively. If you could catch the target ship napping.
It is cheaper for Venezuala to buy some Flankers and some clubs or Yakhonts than it would be for Brazil to buy Aster/PAAMS and ESSM. (don’t read anything into the choice of countries I just picked them off the top of my head)
Not really when you consider that, to use the Club/Yakhont, they’d have to invest in the ISTAR infrastructure is target them – proper MPA aircraft, HALE/MALE UAV’s, SATCOM capability etc, etc which costs a formidable amount….ask any Indian as to how much they are spending to support BrahMOs!!!. Compared to that the Saudi’s and Singaporeans got a class of PAAMS kitted frigates that will be able to cope with supersonic skimmers quite adequately at a reasonable cost when compared to other FFG purchases!.
And a flight of three aircraft could carry three Yakhonts or 9 Clubs… it really depends upon the target. Some targets don’t justify a supersonic missile, most modern vessels do.
Look at the picture SteveO posted about the JAS39 variant carrying 4 NSM’s. The formation of three Flankers you describe above would be no more effective against even an advanced AAW escort than a pair of JAS39’s kitted out as pictured. Against a lower threat surface force that pair of JAS39’s is going to be able to engage 4 targets with a pair of weapons each. The best the Flankers could do, despite the huge extra cost, carrying a single yakhont each, would be to fire on three targets and hope for a 1.0pk rate!!!!
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