JonesyThe tail is not just for passive work: Using the tail and the bow sonar in a multistatic setup can also be used screening or waterspace sanitization at the expense of using active sonar.
Indeed. Multistatic operation still relies on good passive detection qualities of course. Passive itself will still be a key operational technique for a unit dragging a tail, even an active-capable tail fitout, as well. Working in close to a big unit isnt the best way to get clear water for detection and there’s a reason why CODLAG suddenly became fashionable for frigates towing passive arrays.
No contention that theres anything wrong with this hull having the sensor fit it does…US Burkes are similarly comprehensive of course…thing is though that there are a lot of Burkes to go around and there arent set to be all that many Kolkata’s. You wonder how the discussion is going to go in the combat centre when the ASW PWO wants to open the range from its HVU to prosecute contacts and the AAW PWO points out his need to keep close station up threat!. If you have three or four Kolkata’s in the screen no problem….if not….hard to see the screen commander not sending a frigate out to ASW picket!.
JonesyWell…entire Caspian flotilla has 32 silos, that is one-third of capacity of single Arleigh Burke… 🙂
Grigorovich also has only one 8-cell UKSK, so it’s not going to be a major strike asset. Of course, on the other hand, the BSF ships currently located at Syrian coast have no strike capability at all. Well I guess in theory a P-500 could be directed to land target.
Any way, I think this is going to be one-off event. It’s not cost-effective to blow up some shacks with expensive cruise missiles. Or at best they do it once or twice more on smaller scale, once they have reloaded some silos. Russia can’t have large stock of these missiles.
However, I do expect that at some point there will be submarine-launched cruise missile strike. Are 971’s Kalibr-capable?
Absolutely right. This is a very pertinent point thats come out of the Russian strike. There are several services tinkering around with escort hulls sporting a tiny number of strike length cells for a ‘token’ LACM capability. I bought into the concept as well….I liked the idea from a ‘punitive’ or ‘coercive’ angle. The Russians have now demonstrated the utter futility of the concept though. Not to detract from a light combatant being able to hit a land target at extreme range….thats obviously a new and novel dimension to small unit combat operations…..but…..in terms of strategic effect what have those strikes achieved to justify the dispatch of the flotilla and its subsequent theatre exit as it goes back to reload its tubes.
I think we have to take away the valuable lesson here, and cap doffed to the Russians for providing it, that, if you want to significantly impact a land campaign with naval-LACM fire you have to dedicate a lot more more hull volume than that provided for 8 or 16 ‘silver bullet’ shots.
JonesyYou are free to disagree but I believe, and have been told, that the point has been accurately stated.
The point has been accurately stated….but the context is notably absent….I’ll make no further comment on journalistic practice.
Why don’t we not do that … and get to the meat of the story – a new, rather impressive class of destroyers – don’t you think?
Indeed there is much to like here. I would very much have liked to have sat on the early design meetings though…I have no idea how you get to the mix of capabilities shown in these hulls on such a modest build run!.
The overarching requirement the service has for ships mounting this radar/missile combination would appear to be HVU consort. There is no other real area AAW capability in the fleet I am aware of….that extends to the specialist warfare teams as much as the hardware as well of course. Principle HVU consort defines the key operational limits of the ship. You will find one or two within a given radius of the duty carrier defined by the extent and effectiveness of the missile engagement zone and thats that.
From there what use is the tail….if you’re dragging a tail your ship handling is degraded and your manoeuvrability is compromised for interposing on a surprise threat axis against a pop-up threat. On top of that, in close to a heavy thats thrashing away in the water (and with a COGAG plant of your own thumping away belowdecks), passive tail ops are degraded anyway.
Then there’s the inclusion of the heavy antiship missile at the apparent expense of the antiair battery. A standoff missile does make sense aboard a ship that will stay close to the group core of course…as it offsets that tactical restriction. Its the only ship class in the fleet thats area AAW capable though where there are a couple of frigate classes packing long-range antiship batteries in service. The selection of Brahmos over a deeper Barak fit is a curious one.
There is a lot I’d like to know more about:
All that said what has resulted is a seemingly very well balanced and capable hull.
The size is good. The hull looks beamy enough to cope with the foremast. The aviation department looks good. I like the armament mix….the OTO now is a very capable mount especially with its gate-fused antiair rounds (if the IN deploy this?). The RBU’s I’d want on any hull I designed and as an inner-layer to HWT’s its a very comprehensively fitted out opponent…especially for an SSK to approach with limited egress mobility.
If the requirement was for a ‘Global Destroyer’ something intended to solo deploy a long way off and be capable of multi-threat/multi-axis engagement I’d want to end up with something a lot like a Kolkata. I’m just not sure I understand why India decided its requirement was for that kind of hull?.
JonesyThe point is this – the Brahmos missile can strike moving ship targets at a range of 300 kilometres without any airborne assistance.
The problem with that Vishnu is that it propagates the myth doesnt it?. Yes, technically, that missile is capable of achieving what you describe. Its like me suggesting that I could reproduce with Scarlett Johansson though…..technically I am capable of doing so…..in reality its never going to happen!.
The same principle exists with this kind of glorious optimism over very long antiship shots. The reality is that your peer-opponent knows what your capabilities are in the broad sense. Any professional service will threat-reduce before entering theatre. The target you describe as presenting itself is as nebulous as the young Miss Johansson and it serves this Clancy-esque fantasy where target clutter, PosID RoE’s and war crimes tribunals dont exist when in fact they very much do. You are in fact using a liberal sprinkling of bona fide systems and platforms to paint a wholly unrealistic scenario.
I understand that you are pitching to an audience and that audience is enamoured of the idea of huge missiles leaping forth from the decks of Indian warships, atop pillars of fire, to smite their foes half a world away….because smiting ones foes half a world away is undeniably cool!. As with the case of handling the inevitable rejection from hollywood sex-symbols though….maybe reflecting reality a bit more closely wouldnt be a bad idea?.
JonesyNot sure if this has been noted elsewhere but just to keep this thread updated:
http://www.janes.com/article/54269/uk-mod-confirms-gun-for-type-26-dsei15-d1
No real surprise I dont think. Not sure the RN have, even today, quite shaken off the impression of Oto Melara derived from the issues experienced with the early Compatto mount hydraulics and its unlikely the MoD would’ve sprung for fancy Vulcano ammo in any quantity anyway. Ability to cross deck ammo with the yanks could be quite handy as well seeing they usually have the biggest stores in a given theatre!.
JonesyOkay, this surprised me: at least 4th and 5th unit were quite advanced already, and I was certain that they would have had the machinery installed already, after all they are big pieces of equipment and a layman would think they’re easier to install before the hull is complete, but apparently this is not so.
The layman would be right Yama!. Its absolutely possible to build with a view to large items being installed at a later date in the schedule…but it gets complicated very quickly and requires a lot of close coordination from the project team.
Cutting holes in the side and/or deck(s) above the site for the heavy machinery is simple enough and easy enough to make good afterwards. Reconnecting cables, fibres, HVAC runs, etc is fiddly though so you need to get the fitout crews to leave a ‘gap’ to allow for the soft patches to be readily accessible so that you can get the machinery in and sited. That in turn means that pipes/cables/fibres have to be measured accurately so they can be terminated at the correct interface point and jointed appropriately for later completion. Not exactly the labours of Hercules…but they do introduce ample extra opportunities for things to go wrong on you!.
JonesyBut I still have a hard time imagining a crew disembarking in time of crisis from one carrier just to be sent right away on the second one. Crisis are now preceded by lengthy diplomatic struggles where muscles flexing play a part second to none. You won’t do that with half your crew resting at home. You’ll need them right on first day, during lengthy negotiation, when time for the first strike comes and after. IMOHO 1.5 in total (without any foreign components) stands as unrealistic.
Its not an image of two carriers tying up alongside in some distant port and one crew trudging down one gangway and up the opposite one to the other ship Tomcat. We have done that kind of ‘replacement crew’ thing with deployed patrol boats and local SSBN’s of course but its not going to be practical for a ships company on this scale. Crew rotation by elements is quite commonplace now for extended deployment warships. A ship will come in to a friendly port and a percentage of the ships company will disembark and come home and be replaced by crew waiting for the ship at port.
In the context you describe the carrier may well be on station for a prolonged period ‘rattling the sabre’ so to speak but she would not be closed up at action stations all through the deployment and she will stand-down for RAS periodically. If a port visit, itself an opportunity for defence diplomacy, is unavailable or unwise personnel transfers during the RAS periods would be the routine. RN have done a lot of work towards maintenance of deployed vessels on station by necessity….as we dont have the ships to cycle through the old ‘one out, one in and one sailing’ for each station these days.
PS: “Exhaustion” refers to the last two major involvement of Fr aircraft carrier (Armatan and gulf). Time on station were extended beyond crew safe op limit. The CVN was hence backed out and an extra burden was weighted on FrAF and allied infra (tanker, reco, sigint…). It is important to have coherence in that type of op… And probably with the repetition of time… Less costly*.
I wasnt actually meaning where geographically…sorry for poor clarity there!. I was meaning where in the personnel chain was the exhaustion being felt in the deployment?. Ships company, airgroup or UNREP support/logistics?. That was leaning towards my point that in ‘partially’ seperating airgroup and carrier as we have done with F-35B we are alleviating some of the ‘traditional’ limits with the airgroup. Quite willing to stand corrected on this as well but French UNREP capability I always understood was quite modest?. One of the real achilles heels of any deployed force naturally being logistics its easy to overlook that the RAS hulls need crewing and have fatigue/efficiency curves as well!.
Al,
Blazing a trail for UAV ops might allow us to do something more than be a USMC-expeditionary-group-light
I think if we achieved “USMC-expeditionary-group-light” on the budget allocated to Carrier Strike that would be an achievement of immense proportion their exped groups are fantastically well weighted and powerful formations!. While I agree with you that leveraging more out of the ship assets is something that is in our interest to do we have to remember that the project title here is not Fleet Carrier it is Carrier Strike. We need to judge the programme against that yardstick alone. If we can make more of the resources, as UAVs definintely offer the promise of, thats just a bonus!.
JonesyAt least, her phraseology reflects a deep understanding of the context (let’s say SA). You guys are gifted…
regarding the 2 = 1 or 1.5, it’s not possible. Fr Navy run at such ratio with a single carrier and OP has proved that real operations have to be discontinued because of manpower shortage (and exhaustion).
So, as a RN reservist, if she is quoted as saying that 2=2, she probably meant what she said.
That the last 0.5 comes from the US marines or in the form of an increased automation (out of more exposed danger let’s hope), that it’s the only thing we don’t know.
my two francs only, obviously.
Exhaustion where Tomcat?. Remember our carrier is designed for a different operational methodology than the French or American ships.
We’re only really talking about the ships crew here, not the airgroup, in the 1.5 metric and the carriers are designed with a good deal of automation in order the reduce operational task loading for that crew. Our aircrew, thanks to STOVL, can cycle to the carrier deck from RAF squadron strength and can go combat ready with minimum deck qualification overheads. That, plus the naval squadrons, will give us a much deeper available pool to sustain air ops from compared to, say, just a couple of frontline naval squadrons and an OCU.
JonesyIt’s not just Think Defence. The consensus seems to be that Breaking Defense read too much into what Mordaunt said.
But as you say, good news anyway.
Personally I’d agree with the view that Breaking Defence are misinterpreting the text. I’ve only ever seen the operational model for Carrier Strike given as a Duty and Readiness carrier. We may see both carriers sailing at the same time in that operational configuration, but, one will be heading out and one back to port and will cross-deck personnel and equipment as they go. There will not be full manning for both carriers….more like 1.5 manning for both.
JonesyAre you certain of that totoro?. I’ve seen the reports from NASA of what’s in orbit….couple of 3 bird ELINT constellations and a smattering of strip-scan recce birds. We’ve seen a few different strategic-sized UAV designs but no indication of squadron strength deployment and no apparent rush to ramp up SATCOM bandwidth in theatre to support big UAV ops. Manned marpat types are being bought, but, again I’ve not seen big numbers talked about on order….and there’s still no publicly recognised Chinese SURTASS equivalent.
6yrs down the track from Pinkos debate above there doesn’t really seem to have been a huge advance in PLAN/PLANAF basin search/track capability?. At face value of course!
JonesyFantastic!. One of the 368 threads where I patiently….nearly….explained the very long range kill-chain problem. Is it your contention that a declaration of the missiles existence means that the components missing 6 years ago are now present…but being kept mysteriously under wraps?
JonesyI completely understand , Im only interested in the late 80s era anyway
Thanks ! Can you comment on the soviet tactics of anti-ship strikes against NATO SAG ? I was reading a book on it by Milan Vego and he said that soviets planned to strike a SAG from multiple directions
SSGN
Crusie missile carrying bombers
Large rocket ships
and lastly by SSN or SS depending on whats availableMy humble opnion is that against a USN CV group this will most likely fail given its AEGIS system and long range interceptors F-15/18 can counter saturation tactics
However against other NATO /Allied navy SAG like Japan , FDR, France, turkey etc it might work given in the 80s none of them had the AEGIS system and would be vulnerable esp to the SSN-7/9 launched from submerged SSGN ( like from Charlie class ) and the supersonic AS-4 from AVMF bombers.The sheer numbers probably compensating for accuracy ( even given a hit probability of 10 %) a single hit from a larger soviet missile would likely disable a destroyer/frigate sized ship. Is this a reasonable assumption ?appreciate your input
DId the soviet short range missiles like Styx , Siren etc have the IR versions ? I wonder if that’s what the indian navy used against pak navy ships at Karachi in 1971
Apologies Nastle not got a lot of time for this site these days!
Last question first….the P-20 Termit did have an IR seeker variant, but, the harbour attacks in Karachi I believe were executed with the ARH version. This was a fairly simple weapon that was set, manually before launch, with a height and a seeker activation time. It was then fired on bearing to target. As I understand it some of the first targets hit in the harbour were some large POL storage tanks….which would fit as being the biggest RF contrast target in FoV on seeker-activation.
Tom Clancy’s vampires in Red Storm Rising have set an assumed pattern for how ‘SeaAir84’ would’ve played out. That wasnt the fight the RN was expecting to find in the Atlantic basin and on transit though. Principle striking arm was always the subs SSGN’s, SSN’s and SS’s in large numbers…small numbers (surface-launched) of large, fast ‘hi-diving’ missiles were the primary concern. The variables are impossible to calculate as they vary with the starting criteria…from which its possible to stack the deck in either direction. My view is that SOSUS and the GIUK choke gave NATO a ‘home field’ advantage that wouldve been hard to beat without some very creative tactics. There were clearly creative thinkers in the Soviet Navy though. This glosses over the key point also though that its also impossible to look at solely the naval arena as if it were divorced from the AirLand campaign. For example Soviet Long Range Aviation would have had to be tasked with interdicting Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Leuchars in support of Atlantic operations.
So, yes, you are correct that Soviet tactics were to coordinate fires from different platforms to split defensive fire and give their missiles/torpedoes the best chances, but, saturation fires with hundreds of inbounds plotted, out in oceanic waters, was largely literary fiction.
JonesyHow effective were the early model of the Harpoon in the 80s in identifying ships when they are in port , or from other features of the landscape close to shore/cliff/islands/fiords ?
Also I’m sure attacking a Harpoon armed ship from multiple directions will make this problem worse for them
e.g In a standoff between 2 Rastrub armed ships and 2 harpoon armed frigates , if the Rastrub armed ships have friendly nuclear powered submarines available in the vicinity that would certainly help.The submarines can close in on the ships firing torpedoes providing a distraction while it gives time for the rastrub ships to close the range with the Harpoon ships and can engage at roughly equal terms ?
Sure I couldn’t comment on the actual GWS60 system we deploy still. Official Secrets Act etc. Don’t think it’s revealing much to say that most of the early missiles active seekers required a high RF contrast target though….Harpoon itself was intended to hit surfaced submarines so a standout profile against a flat background. AM39 Exocet similarly had modest seeker resolution leading to the fact that I’ve still never heard of an Exocet that hit a target that was actively countering it!.
Some IR missiles may have had some capability attacking harbour shipping and someone once told me about a capability Sea Eagle had that may have enabled that weapon to be effective in that environment. I would not imagine any of the standard early ARH weapons would have been of huge value in that role though.
As to the tactics I’d imagine that if you had friendly ssn support your asw ships would be opening the range from the Harpoon shooter. You wouldn’t necessarily want your surface and subsurface patrol boxes merged for obvious reasons!
Jonesy^ Awesome pic
How will a SSN-14 Rastrub armed ship fare against a Harpoon armed ship though?
As the Harpoon armed ship has the advantage of a longer range, what can the Rastrub armed ship do to survive.
Simple answer is break the kill-chain from the Harpoon-shooter. If the other guy cant find you, localise you or identify you at a range that favours his missile….singularly or in any combination of those factors….he cant shoot at you at all!. Be that for reasons of RoE or a simply a desire to avoid wasting the limited number of available shots!.
If you can complete your kill-chain before he does his you will get your missiles off first every time. Failing that you make sure that you get in amongst a lot of other similar sized surface contacts when the inbound missile kicks into terminal phase seeker switch-on. Active Radar missiles like Harpoon arent that picky on which target they hit!.
Jonesythat guy died so young.. must:ve been 18?
for those who don:t know..
the kid died trying to put out a ship fire only a few years ago. he was the only casualty.
Reminds me of the story of Sergei Preminin…a lad who died a particularly scary and lonely death saving his shipmates. I know he was suitably honoured for his clear heroics and I also know the old ‘dead sailors class’ is considered bad luck to some, but, it seems fitting for a ship to carry his name as well I would have thought?.
Certainly seems that the Russian Fleet has a steady vein of lads who have the fortitude to do the right thing when called upon regardless of the price….something which must command the highest respect.
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