JonesyWell, most heavier anti ship missiles will cut frigates and destroyers in half if the warhead detonates. Western anti ship missiles tend to be optimized for mission kills. Eastern anti ship missiles normally carry the punch for a true kill.
A couple of thousand tons of frigate hit by a Basalt or Yakhont sure. A Tico hit by a Termit or Moskit though?. Holes and fires…not ripped in half!.
Then you roll back to the first point…you’re not, as a Basalt shooter, trying to pick off a light frigate or two. Your job is different. Your weapons system is designed for a different task. The analogy is using a B-1 for CAS tasking. It’s fine at the job, but, would you end up with a bleeding edge supersonic bomber if you set out to design a CAS bird.
JonesyMost Russian anti ship missiles have nuclear tipped option
The ones that had a nuclear option were optimised for a strategic target set in the main. A carrier battle GROUP. You understand the difference between a strategic and tactical tasking?. Initially the thread here suggested a single AAW ship as a target. Not really a strategic mission knocking out a single CG/DDG?.
UGM-89 Perseus , GT-1 , Fairchild AUM-N-2/AQM-41 Petrel
i think something like JASSM with Mark 46 torpedo will be very lethal
and the torpedo only weight about 508 lb
Please note difference in size, performance, warhead weight and attack profile between an ASW LWT such as a Mk46 and something intended to kill surface ships…virtually any 21″ heavyweight you care to select.
Heavyweight torpedoes sink ships and are carried by submarines or another surface ship for a reason. Missiles are all very nice and flashy. They can make holes and set fires. They don’t generally sink ships of any real scale though.
JonesyThis was at least the third year this same barracks ship was used as a target for ASCM launches. The attached photo shows how it looked after the September 2013 exercise. I think the third time was not so lucky for the ship.
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Perhaps ‘saveable’ wasn’t quite the right description!. The ship appeared to be left with enough watertight integrity to remain afloat.
Interesting to observe where the impacts of the earlier tests were in the hull. Certainly more conventional hits.
Odd test serial here then…salvo fire saturation attack with disparate weapon types, with disparate control suites, and different attack profiles against a minimum aspect target.
JonesyYep…takes some watching and the camera angle doesn’t help but the first hit does appear to be skimming while the second comes in on a shallow diving profile. The giveaway is the downward slant on the debris cloud immediately after the second impact. That does support the contention that both missiles shown launched Bazalt/Vulkan and Moskit are those in this test serial.
As to weapon effect you would expect an inert weapon rather than a warshot. Certainly the impact doesn’t show a very clear warhead detonation.
How badly the ship is hurt though is difficult to quantify. Much depends on what condition the target hull was set during the test. Was it closed up with full watertight integrity conditions set?. Was it stripped of combustible materials. Obviously no DC action was attempted poststrike which can be the difference between a dead ship and one that makes port.
Looking at it on this test I’d guess the ship was saveable…how that would have changed if either missile had a warhead to detonate must be the big question though.
Someone mentioned footage showing the Moskit entering terminal evasion. What is the time index of that?.
JonesyActually looks like it was hit by 2 missiles almost simultaneously?
Yep two missiles on converging tracks. Odd engagement aspect to come in along the targets long axis….not easy for the seeker to range profile bow or stern on. Wonder if this was some kind of man-in-the-loop salvo fire test.
JonesyNo shortcuts learning the operational lessons of combat tempo operational deployment Rii. No matter what level of ubermenchen you ascribe to the Chinese or how much ‘missile gap’ you want to confidently predict. The fact is they have to work up their own operational routines and those routines advise and incorporate into the next design.
The best China can aim for for is, in the next 15yrs, to expand its STOBAR fleet with another couple of hulls. That and having a CVN at or near maingate and ready to move into production. Any more than that is rushing the fences with no clear requirement to do so.
Given a need for a whole new support type to be developed to equip a CVNs decks plus a need to bring SSN tech up to NATO 3rd gen standard, to give an aggressive postured Chinese carrier group all-aspect coverage, a more tempered approach is realistic.
JonesyI can not understand why there are two towers. Every nation is building aircraft carriers with one tower only and they get smaller and smaller (Ford class).
Many nations carrier designs have either long islands or forward positioned islands….in fact it’s only the US that does the small/aft configuration.
Having the conning position with a view over the bows is a good idea for obvious reasons. Separating ship and air control functions is also sensible for basic resilience and operational efficiency factors. The USN sacrifices ship handling for the clearer deck and optimal aircraft handling. The twin island approach is the compromise between best possible ship and air ops.
JonesyI don’t debate with someone who actually believes what he sees on the news.
Nic
Better to go with what you’re own imagination conjures up to fit your personal bias Nic?. You are right though that’s not a debate….it’s one more meaningless rant!.
JonesyAnother warship accident hits the Navy
A grounding causing screw damage only (no mention of damage to stern seals, shafts or skegs) coming alongside in bad weather?. That’s what this condemnation rests on?. Fantastic piece of insight.
JonesyThis Iraq thing is stressing China out greatly as they see trying to play the super power game on the cheap just doesn’t work. And since China imports a significant amount of oil from Iraq an interruption of Iraqi oil will be greatly felt. The inability of the PLAN to project power troubles China.
In this instance though, as with most others in China’s sphere, power projection scarcely needs aircraft carriers. Whats to stop the PLA rolling two armoured divisions on to commercial hulls, steaming straight on in to Umm Qasr and offloading right into the road march north?. As stated they HAVE the soft-power to not require kick-in-the-door forced entry anywhere they realistically have interests.
The carrier is necessary when there is no friendly local basing or where the strategic situation is such that multiple strike axis are significantly important. In most cases the Chinese will have local basing and there will need to be a significant opfor, not to mention a lot of workup time for Chinese forces, before they are ready for coordinated multi-axis sea & land based strike.
JonesyThe link suggests a single Kuztnetzov-type indigenous carrier (hull number #17) before shifting to the supercarrier design….I’m not sure how this affects the proposed supercarrier program, which would certainly not bear fruit before 2025.
This is the key point though Rii…the single indigenous carrier hasnt been built yet. The operational experience from running a carrier, and a complex flying program, under operationally representative conditions hasnt filtered through yet to advise a follow on design…because they are still a few years away from having distilled that data out of their workups on the current hull. What ‘works for them’ is still being learned and defined. I think your 2025 date might be accurate…but…as the project maingate point when they’ve learned enough to commit to the CVN imaged.
Right now its unclear if they even have a powerplant in the works to go with the ship…and the French experience shows us clearly that having a submarine plant doesnt necessarily mean you have something capable of driving a major surface unit efficiently. Then there is the attendant issues of carrier-sized nuclear berthing…one doesnt tie ones nuclear carrier alongside and just swing a dockside crane over to hook out the reactor core!.
It is certainly a change from China’s conservative/incremental progress to date, but it could be that such a leap is called for at this juncture.
Thats the other side of this I have a problem with. I dont see how a new CVN hull, worth anything as an operational unit, could be in the water before 2030. A fleet competitive in scale with the USN’s is 20yrs down the line after that and would represent a colossal investment. So, even if embarked on now, Chinese naval strength is only going to be on parity by the second half of this century. Even then they’ll still be a century behind the US in experience and, consequently, innovation. Where’s the advantage for China in doing that?.
They are exporting their influence in Africa, Europe, South America and various remote Asiatic corners well-enough through soft-power. They never really seemed to get on board with the whole Comintern thing and dont seem in any rush to export ideology and their trade routes are guaranteed by their main superpower rival at great cost to him. The current carrier design supports their apparent anti-access defensive doctrine and they have nuclear deterrence to hold at risk any nation who would come back to China with imperial ambition. Whats the CVN for that demands a ‘finalised design’ in the shape of the model imaged?.
I’d accept that this might be a possible PLAN evaluation of what a CVN could bring to the fleet…and the model a representative design of a hull that could fit the evaluation. Navies frequently conduct such ‘what if’ studies to proof out their existing plans and direction…especially as the threat background changes. I think its a bit much to infer that this is a ‘finalised design’ though in the sense that this model represents a potential near-mid term build project.
Jonesy[ATTACH=CONFIG]229836[/ATTACH]
Liaoning with a fresh lick of paint, via SDF.
It’s an ambitious step (supercarrier class, nuclear propulsion, EMALS) but probably for the best in the long-term, even if it means fewer carriers entering service over the next decade than Chinese nationalists and interested observers might like. China should be aiming for true parity with the US Navy by mid-2030s and this is the sort of design that will help get them there, whereas a brace of Kuznetzov-type carriers would not, and potentially drain resources that could better be invested elsewhere, e.g. submarine and anti-submarine warfare. On the other hand there is a reasonable argument that China should operate two classes of carrier: smaller conventional carriers first to contend the congested regional environment and nuclear-powered supercarriers later to project power globally in the manner of the American supercarriers.
Ambitious is quite the understatement!. They’ve not built a medium conventional carrier hull from scratch yet and the theory is to go straight to a nimitz?.
Don’t want to appear the killjoy for those wishing to see US naval dominance take a dent, but, they’ve got a good decade before they’ve built up their understanding of basic multisquadron air deployment at combat tempo’s. Strategic fleet maneuver, deception ops, unrep and support will all need to be developed in the same window. This all on the simpler stobar hull. Add in catapults and you plug in additional complexity for everything from crewing, logistics and maintenance to air ops and strike planning.
Given that the PLAN has, so far, appeared to show an appreciation of the need to resist foolhardy shortcuts and to properly learn the business of naval aviation this model looks very speculative. Possibly more the work of an enthusiastic amateur as opposed to a realistic design.
JonesyIndeed, sonars is one segment where local production has almost all bases covered. These boats are supposed to be equipped with NPOL’s compact hull mounted Sonar Abhay meant for shallow water operations and not imports as the article suggests.
The only recent Indian Navy sonar import has been Atlas Elektronik’s towed ULF sonar, local production licenses of which have been acquired, which is also expected to be mounted on these boats.
Didnt the Dhruv’s indigenous dipping sonar also recently get quietly pushed into the long grass?. Last I read suggested a purchase of HELRAS was on the cards?.
JonesyThe deck crew is lacking safety equipment. Namely head protection, gloves, and floatation vests. It would seem that their association with the US Navy would give them a head’s up on that issue. Time will tell
Time has told Rooivalk. These aren’t inexperienced newcomers like the Chinese…they have more than 40yrs experience of their own in carrier operations and have access to best practice from every navy with established fixed wing naval air. You rather suspect a lack of PPE for the flight deck crews would hardly be through 4 decades of not noticing their merits.
JonesyMmm, doubt that. More likely a shifting emphasis (from antiship to ASW) as the overall fleet cability increase. Or, a more GP-ship which can perform both tasks well enough.
Agreed. The glaring deficiency remaining in the IN fleet is ASW….ironically its biggest actual threat. Roving small unit ASW hunter groups would be one approach to redressing this and one that would demand the kinds of hull numbers indicated.
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