Iowa by virtue of her superior fire-control. Yamato’s guns, despite being larger, offered a mere 2000yds range advantage over the US 16 inchers. The American fire control radar would have more than made up for an extra mile here or there at maximum stretch.

The Mk13 fire control radar of the WW2 Iowa was very capable and allowed for the battleship to undertake evasive maneuvers while maintaining a solution. The Yamato would never have gotten close to matching that kind of weight-of-shell actually on target.

Clever tactics with the P3’s or Atlantics is the answer to that one.

A geriatric Argentine P-2 Neptune caught the RN Type42 screen on its ESM with enough resolution to direct in the Etendard strike in 1982. It managed to do this without receiving Sea Harrier atention because it, cleverly, chose a patrol pattern that looked like it was hunting for survivors from the Belgrano and our AAWCS ignored it as a low priority threat.

Goalpost still shifting then I see! 🙂

If you feel you need IAF Flanker top cover your going to need better AEW than a couple of Ka-31’s to direct them. So your going to need a Phalcon hanging around, plus the Midas tanker, a couple of pairs of fighters on rotation i.e a squadron. What do you need the carrier for again if you’ve got cast-iron guarantees that the IAF will always provide this kind of support to the deployed IN fleet!?.

In the scenario were talking about the IAF Su-30 CAP will make a difference, obviously, as the numbers of aircraft up, and their endurance, are that much further reinforced.

Its hardly in keeping with the original title of the thread ‘Harrier vs MirageIII’ is it though! 😀

Indian,

That radar horizon chart isnt really applicable. Look at the height of the radar emitter on the left. Its shown as 50m (150ft). None of the directors on the SA-N-17 ships in the IN fleet are mounted anywhere near that height. The radar horizon from a director 70ft above the waterline is 40km against a 100ft ASL target.

The gaming wont turn out much different using 16 MiG-29K or 16 SHAR FRS.51’s. The limiting factor, for the IN, isnt the aircraft type – its the modest airgroup size and the limited-range AEW. If one of the picket FFG’s embarks a Ka-31 in place of its ASW chopper then you get some range advantage back, as has been mentioned, but you end up with gappy coverage (1 Ka-31 and 1 flight crew can only be airborne so long). You also end up with a very twitchy FFG crew facing a sub threat without their most powerful ASW asset.

Essentially facing MiG-29’s or Harriers the goal, from the Pak AF standpoint, is still the same. Draw the CAP pair out beyond IN radar coverage and try to ambush them and thus attrite the airwing. I’d try a feint F-7 fighter sweep on a northern vector to pull the Migs up. Have that squadron disengage and run once the MiGs close – then try and catch the pair when they head back south, hopefully low on fuel, with a second squadron.

If they can get this kind of trap to work a couple of times it leaves the Gorshkov airgroup commander carefully considering how to best use his assets and very circumspect about ‘tempting’ long-range contacts. At this stage a well-escorted medium-alt P-3/Harpoon strike coupled with a divergent threat-axis very low altitude Mirage/AM-39 strike on a single screen vessel could well pay off. Lots of effort to bag a single 4000 ton FFG, but, there arent that many escorts in the screen and, sooner or later, the attrition will mount up to the point that either the carrier becomes vulnerable or, more likely, has to disengage.

Harry,

Theres no doubt that the AM39 in whatever block puts the firing platform very much too close to the target vessels for comfort. However:

The low AM-39 range also puts the Mirage within SA-N-17 intercept range.

SA-N-17 is a SARH missile and there is no director aboard any IN ship that can illuminate a low altitude target through the radar horizon. An SA-N-17 ship isnt going to be able to target a Mirage, any other aircraft or missile, at 50km distance at low altitude. To do that you need an active seeker missile like Aster30.

Crobato

If you think No. 37 is LO, you are quite mistaken. See that big bulb there? That gleams radar off like a beacon. The first thing that is a no no in an LO design is 90 degree surfaces. The second thing is round and curved surfaces. No. 37 has the bulb, the spherical turret, and the cylindrical AshM launchers. If you cannot understand the disvalue spherical and curved surfaces are to RCS, don’t bother talking about “carefully contoured”.

Curved surfaces can produce varying effects on RCS dependent on the design – they may not reduce RCS but they can de-emphasize particular zones on a ship and magnify others to confuse, for example, a missile seeker as to ship aspect. The comment you made is overly simplistic.

Within the gross parameters of that simplistic statement, that curved surfaces and radomes dont necessarily equal low-observability, was the reason why I said ‘presumably’ in my comment as I couldnt see any special value in it myself. That the artist then went on include, in the design, these very intricately detailed rails added further incomprehension to an incomprehensible design.

Haley,

Again I dont know what you are trying to suggest with that last post but the way it reads, if you said that to my face, I’d put you on the deck for it. I’ll take it that you dont quite understand what you said and ask you to remove your post.

I think the point was that the tower hatches were open at the same time watertight electrics compartments were open down below. There is a reason why compartments inside the boat are made watertight. That is of course that it is accepted that sometimes you may ship water.

In this case it looks, from this very preliminary commentry, like an unfortunate combination of circumstances.

By PAUL KORING
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail

The fateful combination of HMCS Chicoutimi rolling heavily in a near gale with both conning tower hatches open while sailors probed for an electrical fault below may have allowed sea water to pour onto high-voltage lines, experienced submariners and officials close to an inquiry said yesterday.

Several veteran submariners questioned the decision by Chicoutimi’s skipper, Commodore Luc Pelletier, to allow the vessel to run “opened up” — naval jargon for having the upper and lower hatches open at the same time while on the surface.

An electrical explosion and fire sent toxic black smoke roiling through Chicoutimi on Oct. 5, killing one officer, injuring eight others and leaving Canada’s newest submarine dead in the water.

At the time, winds between 25 and 30 knots were buffeting Chicoutimi and waves ranged from six to 12 metres — “near gale” conditions off Ireland’s coast as the Canada-bound submarine rolled in the foam-flecked swells.

“In those kind of seas you want to be shut down,” said Peter Kavanaugh, a retired Canadian submarine captain who was in charge of training crews for Chicoutimi and three other refurbished submarines Canada bought from Britain. Other veteran submariners on both sides of the Atlantic echoed his assessment.

However, running opened up was “not that unusual for Canadian submarines,” said Rear Admiral Dan McNeil, commander of Canada’s Atlantic fleet. As a non-submariner, he said he had “asked the same question” about leaving both hatches open in rough seas.

After he welcomed many of Chicoutimi’s crew members home in Halifax last night, Rear Adm. McNeil also denounced reports suggesting that Cmdre. Pelletier wrongly rejected an offer on the day of the fire to attempt a helicopter evacuation of crewmen with smoke inhalation.

In a telephone interview, Rear Adm. McNeil called the reports “irresponsible speculation” based on an incomplete log of radio communication by people who weren’t aware of the weather conditions or the risks.

“It’s hurtful to the widow,” he said, referring to the wife of Lieutenant Chris Saunders, who died more than 24 hours after the fire when weather conditions had improved sufficiently to permit the risky helicopter evacuation.

A Canadian inquiry into the tragedy has not yet determined the cause of the fire.

“Running shut down” on the surface means one of the two conning tower hatches is always closed so waves don’t pour into the submarine.

“It’s always a captain’s call and there always can be extenuating circumstances,” Mr. Kavanaugh said, adding he once left both hatches open in bad weather for the removal of a badly injured crewman.

But nothing has emerged to explain why HMCS Chicoutimi had both hatches open, especially if tricky electrical work was going on.

During routine watches, the senior watch officer decides whether to run “shut down” or “opened up” on the surface, but the captain could override that decision.

In Chicoutimi’s case, factors beyond the risk of taking some unanticipated water on board in rough weather were at play.

Crew members say technicians were tracking down an electrical fault as the submarine butted its way westward, its teardrop-shaped hull, designed for submerged performance, rolling more than a surface warship.

The senior watch officer — so far the official board of inquiry has declined to identify him — should also have known about any maintenance that involved opening the sealed and watertight electrical boxes, especially those near the conning tower.

A Canadian naval officer confirmed yesterday that Chicoutimi had “experienced a water event,” meaning sea water had gushed down the conning tower through both opened hatches, the day before the Oct. 5 fire.

And senior Canadian naval officers say the investigation has confirmed “an ingress of an unspecified amount of water was followed by an electrical incident and then a fire” on Oct. 5.

The submarine’s vital electrical systems, especially the crucial switch and junction boxes, are sealed in watertight cases. But crew members have told the board of inquiry that electricians on board were probing to find an electrical fault plaguing the submarine.

“Electrics and water don’t mix,” said Ken Collins, a 22-year veteran of Royal Navy submarines and chairman of The Submariners Association. Mr. Collins, who oversaw the refurbishment of HMCS Victoria and HMCS Windsor, two of Chicoutimi’s sister submarines, said he feared Chicoutimi’s sailors had opened the watertight electrical boxes.

“They shouldn’t have been open and live,” he said, meaning opened with electrical current still flowing.

In that scenario a wave — perhaps higher than the eight- to 10-metre average reported at the time of the accident by Britain’s Meteorological Office — rolled over the conning tower. Water cascaded down through the open hatches and then surged across the main deck as the submarine rolled back.

“It’s reasonable to suspect that water from the conning tower” shorted electrical lines exposed by the opened watertight junction box, Mr. Collins said.

Several of them noted that the captain’s cabin and the electrical panel beneath it were only slightly forward and to the left port side of the vertically aligned conning tower hatches.

Although the Canadian navy ordered Chicoutimi’s three sisters tied up in port as a safety precaution in case there was fault common to all of them, a senior officer said yesterday that the navy is keen to have them back at sea.

“If it turns out that operational error rather than something intrinsically wrong with the submarines is at fault, then we can get them back sooner,” he said.