radarthe spg can not handle icwi, it’s only able to provide cwi, so a illuminator is needed all the time during the terminal phase for a single target.
with cea-mount it should be possible to provide icwi for multiple targets at once if they are all in the field of view of the mount (~90°?).
radarSLL: mate I can see the validity of your case for the 57mm gun, but seriously, it is well known that the caliber of the gun is a direct trade off for the angle of engagement, so the equation goes a little something like this:
20mm gun can shoot right into 15m off the deck of the ship:
57mm gun would be able to shoot right into 1500m off the deck of the ship.This still leaves a very big area for a flood of missiles to penetrate and score hits- especially if the saturation technique is used. the only answer then is that you have a dual layer of CIWS guns with the Phalanx being a back up for the inner defence.
the minimum range is not only depending on the gun system, the caliber and the gun mount but also the setup position. imho the position on the ddx allows a min range of 300m or less for the 57mm. i don’t know how effective a 57mm would be at this distance but i think in general it would be possible to use it at such a small distance.
relating to the ddx i won’t call the 57mm a ciws. the late a.burkes have shown that a ciws is not that important for the us-navy (at least they think so). the 57mm on the other hand ist the best all round system they could get for most modern threads like asym. threads, uavs, fac, helicopters, … besides ashm. and it is the best way to complement the ags with only a single system.
so i would call the 57mm a secondary gun armament to complement the 155mm ags which is not that useful for defending the ship against the threads mentioned about. shooting down ashm is only a small and minor part of this role (if they think they could rely on essm).
radarBecause I suspect any resolution about whether the SLQ-32 ‘failed’ will require classified information. An important pioint here: How do you define ‘fail’? IMO, if the equipment was designed/specified to detect the missile under the specific circumstances which the incident took place, but didn’t, that would be a failure.
and because of it’s not possible to get any classified data, slq-32 could not have failed? who about the other way round: why is there no such notice in the report if it was a human fault? they listed a lot of human faults so why not this one? a sentence like “the ew operator was not able to read out the missile information listed on the slq-32 screen” would be free of any classified information but they didn’t mentioned something like that.
An apparent contradiction, that may be resolved if we consider the possibility that there are two types of alarms, specific to each situation. With the dense signal environment, the detection may then have been displayed, but missed by the operator.
do we have any indications that there are two types of alarms?
and furthermore how likely is it that a trained ew operator, which is highly alerted by a “high pitch sound” indicating a lock on from an emitter is not able to find any information on a screen if we assume that the data was on this screen?
of course non of us can clarify this situation but imho it is much more probable that there was no data about the exocet on this screen.
This just struck me – remember the CAS had to be unmasked to engage the Mirage? The order was then to use the STIR to illuminate the Mirage? With the Exocet coming down the same bearing, that would probably be the reason why the CAS could not detect the Exocet – it might have been blocked. The STIR then was also not yet upgraded with the capability for horizon search. That left the SPS-49, but with the SPS-49’s low scan rate, the missile might have progressed to its minimum range before the SPS-49 had a chance to detect the Exocet (after all, the MPU upgade wasn’t implemented yet).
sorry but the other way round is true. they thought that stir is masked, so they used the cas-tracker to lock on to the mirage. so the cas search radar was not masked!
if my calculation is right, sps-49 should have made 12-13 revolutions between missile start and impact. the minimum range is claimed to be less than 1nm (global security: 0.5nm), so this is not that important because nobody could react in these last three seconds. it would not speak for a good performance of the sps-49 if it was not able to detect the exocet within 12 revolutions.
do you have some more information on the stir “horizon search”. thales speaks about sector search but no information on scan angels or areas. however because stir was masked, it could not had helped in this situation (which shows again the weakness of the ohp design).
so maybe now you agree to my first statement that numbers like range and performance in a high gloss advertising brochure may vary from real world combat situations?
radarIndeed. Yet has the book brought up enough evidence upon which one can conclude the failure of any specific equipment? That would require classified information.
it highlighted some good questions and provide some background information. i do not understand why it is so important if it is classified or not?
To have an audible alert, a detection must have occurred. On that point you and I are in agreement. You also believe that the lock-on signal that was intercepted originated from the Exocet’s radar. While I am not 100% sure on that point, I think there is a very good chance you are right, so for the purpose of this discussion, we can take that as a settled upon point. What’s left is why the people failed to react to the alarm.
On that, you propose that the SLQ-32 failed because it did not indicate the bearing/parameters of the alert. I think that highly unlikely. The lock on lasted at least 10 seconds, as the report indicated. The SLQ-32 would have had more than ample time to characterise the signal. The system tries to classify emitters as hostile based on the identified characteristics, and issues an audible alert when a signal is classified as such. Norman Friedman stated that in this particular incident, too many false classifications were indicated, resulting in the operator switching off this alarm.
there are a number of questions about this:
– was it a alarm on the loudspeaker or only a simple scanner function? the report says that the ew operator was listing to a cyrano radar when he heard a “constant high pitched sound” of a lock on and after 10 sec he heard the cyrano radar again. of course i’m not an expert on the slq-32 but for me this sounds like a simple scanner which routes the most powerful signal to the speaker.
– you refered to friedman that the alarm system may have been switched off but you are also asking why people failed to react to the alarm. i think these two points exclude each other. imho even if the alarm system was offline there should be a situation awareness about all emitters around the ship. turning off an alarm function should not turn off all functionality. if so it would be waste human resources by assigning a crew member to the slq-32 if it can detect nothing.
– if the slq-32 shows information on a look on by an exocet radar and if the operator failed to do anything like warning the crew in the cic or something else why was there no note in the report about this? the 50cal gunner which was lying down is mentioned multiple times (ignoring the fact that it would have been a miracle if the exocet would have been shot down by a 50cal) but the operator on the slq-32 which was not able to provide the cic with information about incoming missiles is not mentioned?
– 6 min before the lock on the ew operator used the slq-32 to correlate incoming emissions as a cyrano iv radar allocated to the incoming mirage. but 6 min later he was not able to use the same system to get information on the lock on? imho this is highly unlikely.
my conclusion to this:
– the slq-32 was operational (regardless if a so called alarm function was turned on or off). it was able to provide enough information to identify an emitter as a cyrano iv radar.
– the ew operator was able to use the system to inform the cic about both, the radar and the lock on.
=> so imho if the operator was not affected by a total blackout or changed the mode of operation from the slq-32 in 6 min, he did not get information about the source of the lock on from the slq. whereas the first two points rated as human faults would have been mentioned in the report, there is a good chance that a shortcoming on the slq-32 is either not mentioned or not part of the unclassified report.
1. The OHP had the inherent capability to detect the Exocet and shoot it down. (para 18 of pg 33)
2. There were multiple unused modes which could have prevented the incident at its different stages, be it before the Mirage fired, or even after it fired the Exocets. (also para 18 of pg 33)
i fully agree to the second point but the first one is a little bit tricky. the first one can be interpretated in different ways:
– when the lock on was heard on the loud speaker they could set up the phalanx, and using the srbocs if they had maneuvered the ship before. from this point of view they may had a chance to detect and shoot down the exocet.
– but the other way round is that the stark was not able to detect and track the exocet with either the sps-49 nor the mk-92 search radar. imho both systems failed at this point. that a lock on to the mirage with stir or the cas-tracker may had increased the chance to detect the exocet is a big “if”. as mentioned before, the book claimed that the german and dutch navy had showed that the mk-92 may fail in this situation.
radarI have not read the book, but are you suggesting the book has information which is still classified?
the book has information and shows up points which are not shown in the public and censored investigation report which is available in the internet. i don’t think that every word written or spoken about this incident which is not in this report must necessarily be classified.
They asked, and the report already shows what the board of investigation concluded – that the systems were not to blame.
did the report answered the questions why no radar was able to detect the exocet (sps-49, mk-92 search radar, mk-92 tracker, awacs(!?), ..) or why there was no warning or correct identification from the slq-32 about the lock on?
Strange also that, despite earlier insistance that the Exocet radars were detected, now you are backtracking.
backtracking to what? do you think that getting a “high-pitched sound” from some sort of emitter (which imho was the lock on from the exocet seekers) on your loud speaker without any information about bearing and type of emitter is a detection? it is enough to make you alarmed but how would you defend your ship without detailed information?
.. you are now also casting doubt on the credibility of the report?
i do not doubt the credibility of this report but i say that there are questions which are not answered by this report.
Until you can provide evidence that the investigation shifted responsibility from the equipment to the personnel, anybody will have to take your words here to be conjectural.
there was no responsibility shifted because the crew had made too many mistakes before the exocet were fired. the report is right if it says that the equipment of the stark was able to defend the ship against “hostile intent”.
they were able to track the aircraft 1 hour before missile impact, the could have warned the pilot a lot earlier, pointing their stir to the plane to show their flag and finally they could have shot down the plane with an sm-1. but all this does not answer any of the questions mentioned about.
i can only repeat myself by recommending you this book. it shows a lot of informations and all parts of this incident (roe, the attack, the damage control and also the investigation). and all this is build up on 15 pages of notes and mainly references. 😉
radarWhile the situation could have been better prevented with improvements to the SLQ-32, as evidenced by RAIDS and the Sidekick addition, there is no evidence upon which we can conclude that the SLQ-32 failed. Certainly the report showed that the USN didn’t think so.
i would recommend you to read the book “missile inbound”. it shows interesting questions which were not asked or answered during the investigation and which of course are not part of the public part of the report.
e.g.:
captain brindel asked in a written statement to the rear admiral:
“Why no missile launch was detected on the air search [and] fire control radars or the slq-32.”
the xo gajan asked similar questions.
so imho the us-navy must knew about this issues but because of all the human errors there was no need to raise any questions about the performance or failures from the radars or the slq-32. any doubt about this performance would have had a political aftermath.
radarIf that’s the case, then despite the SLQ-32’s deficiencies in MMI, the SLQ-32 still did manage to detect both the Cyrano radar of the Mirage and the Exocet’s radar, did it not? If so, the SLQ-32 worked as expected.
it depends on how you define “worked as expected”. if it means putting the lock on radar emission to the loudspeaker, yes this worked. but this can be done with a simple scanner for 100$.
i would assume, that it had worked as expected if it had provided any information about typ of emission (exocet seeker), bearing, and so one to the operator.
of course there are some possible explanation for this:
– slq-32 shows information about the lock on but classified it as cyrano
– slq-32 didn’t show any information about the lock on
– slq-32 shows all the information right but the operator was blinded or shocked or something else and was not able to take a look on his screen.
i know you will like the last one but imho the operator was highly alerted by the sound of the lock on and imho there is no good reason why hi was not able to find the information about the source of this emission on his screen if it was on this screen. so imho slq-32 did not worked as espected.
radarActually, paragraph 60, page 13 of the report clearly stated that EW2 Kummrow was listening to the Cyrano IV radar’s signal when he heard a radar lock on, with this new signal continuing for 10 secs before the search mode signal of the Cyrano IV was heard again. This occurred around 2108, with 1st missile impact around 2109. It is unclear whether this radar lock on came from the Exocet or the Cyrano IV, but para 71 showed that LCDR Gajan made a transmission around 2109 that the Stark was locked-on twice, before the transmission ceased. But there wasn’t any explicit statement indicating that the lock-on originated from the Exocet and not the Cyrano.
the first missile was started before the lock on was detected by the stark (2107), maybe also the second one (2108). why should the pilot switch his radar to another mode if he already had launched his missiles? why should the pilot lock on twice? on the other hand two lock ons fits perfect to the two exocets (also in timeline).
The SLQ-32 is designed to give an alarm when a detected emitter is classified as hostile under semi-auto mode. According to Norman Friedman, the Stark’s SLQ-32 was under this mode, but due to the dense pulse environment, too many false alarms were given by the system, leading the operator to switch off the alarm. This could have led to the Exocet not getting detected.
of course it’s possible that the operator had switched off the acoustic warning but this should not effect the detection at all. if the operator might be inattentive this may prevent a detection but when the emission changed to the lock on, the operator increased the volume of the speaker that high, that everybody in the cic turned around and looked at his place. so he was alerted by the sound of the locked on and did not managed to take a look on his screen to check the reason for this radar emission? imho this is highly unlikely.
radarthe book is “missile inbound” and there is no further info on this.
The Mirage was also required to lock on to the OHP before firing, so circumstances would not have differed in that aspect from what happened. Had appropriate action been taken from the point where the SLQ-32 provided warning, the OHP would likely still have been able to defend itself in your scenario.
that is another interesting point where the systems onboard the uss stark might have been failed. the stark did not detect any lock on from the mirage. there are two possible explanations for this:
1. the slq-32 failed to detect the lock on.
2. the mirage did not lock on to the stark which might be possible because it’s radar (cyrano iv) is a track while scan radar.
the report shows, that the two lock on’s which were detected by the stark came from the two exocet seekers after they have been started from the plane. so why the slq-32 did not identified this emissions as an exocet seeker? of course the questions and answers relating to slq-32 are not part of the unclassified report because it’s a strongly classified system.
imho the slq-32 did not work as expected.
radarThe CAS actually did detect it, but only seconds before impact.
any source for this? according to the public part of the investigation report and the book “missile inbound” only the forward lookout (seamen williams) spotted the incoming exocet and called the bridge. so afaik there were only 3 person onboard the stark which knew about the exocet before it hits the ship. it was sm williams, ltjg hansen on the bridge and an phonetalker in the cic.
the book claims furthermore that after the first missile hits the stark, the xo in the cic first thought a gun had been fired inadvertently. this shows, that the cic had no knowledge about the incoming missiles.
Note that in the report following the incident, the Stark was judged technically capable of defending itself from the missiles in that specific situation, had proper procedures been followed.
yes of course, and there is no reason not to do so. but the true is somewhere in between. the crew onboard the stark had made to much mistakes to give the self defence systems even a chance to work proper. in this special incident it’s no question for me, that the ohp could have successfully defend itself if the crew had made different decisions. the mirage was tracked via awacs and data link continuously a complete hour before missile impact. they also did know that the track is an iraqi aircraft.
but what if the stark had been on it’s own? of course they would have tracked it with their own radar not an hour before impact but maybe 20min before impact. (the mirage was not flighing very low i think) but they would not start firing on an unknown track without any reason, so the first sign of an attack would have been detecting the incoming missiles. what if the attacker is flying that low that you cannot track the plane before it fires it’s missiles?
but in this point cas failed onboard stark. so everythink would have been depend on the ciws own search and track radar. but what if the missile is incoming in the death zone of your ciws?
there is an interesting small part in the book about the performance of mk-92:
[…] the mk-92 was reportedly tested before this incident by dutch and german crews who knew that an exocet was to be fired at a particular point during the test, and it failed to detect and engage the missile
afaik the us-navy send aegis ships to the gulf as a result of this incident.
so my conclusion is, that in this incident the stark would have been a real chance defending itself in several ways if the right decisions were made early enough but the incident also highlighted the limitations of the ohp’s aaw-equipment.
radarAs for the modification of the FFG by swapping around the weaponry, one of the proposals saw the Mk13 launcher replaced by a 127mm gun, the 76mm mount replaced by a Tactical length Mk41 VLS launcher with 24 cells and the insertion of the 8 cell self defence length ahead of the 127mm gun in the bow. It required a reworking of some of the internals but was do-able.
do you have some more information on all these proposals? for me this sounds like a big topweight problem. the (loaded) mk-75 gun mount weights about 8,5 t whereas 24 mk-41 cells loaded with sm-2 weights round about 80 t. did they have planned to cut down the superstructure in this area or was it planned to set the mk-41 as high as the mk-75 is set up?
it would interessting to know the rough costs of this upgrade compared to the upgrade which the RAN had selected. maybe it was to expensive?
it would be also interessting to compare the modernized adelaides with the (planned) upgrade for the anzacs, both in term of costs and capabilities. the armament of the anzac was a little bit like a joke when they entered into service but afaik they are closing all the gaps now.
and as sayed earlier, it’s not only the armament which makes a warship a good workhorse, it’s also the crew size, the endurance, the seakeeping and so on.
radari’m wondering about how the ohp aaw abilities are praised here.
my 2 cents:
– the ohp’s were designed as asw ships with only limited aaw abilities. neither it’s area defence missile system nor it’s ciws has a 360° firing angle. the main fc system (stir) is not usable for sam-shots ahead of the ship because it’s masked by the main mast. so if you want to have a real chance to shot down a ashm you have to maneuver the ship early to get all your systems into action (2 fc channels, sm-1, phalanx and maybe the 76mm oto). how long does it take to maneuver a ohp into a 90° turn? 15sec? maybe 20?
even in a subsonic sea skimmer scenario this is a lot of time, not to talk about supersonic sea skimmers.
the reloading time for the mk13 is 7,5sec which limits the number of engagements.
– facts on paper and performance in real world scenarios may vary a lot. if the early cas had a range of 25nm why the stark was not able to detect the exocet’s? not at 10nm, not at 5nm, not at all, they were only able to detect and track the mirage. the incident abord the uss stark were mainly caused by human errors but it also shows all the limits relating to the ohp-aaw equipment. of course they had improved the systems afterwards but there are things you can not change (like the points mentioned above)
– if the iadt had improved the abilities of the ohp’s that much, why did the us-navy mothballed all the mk-13’s with sm-1 and stir? maybe the sm-1 was not worth the money to keep it in service? the australien navy upgrades 4 ohp’s for 250mio$ per ship to keep them in service (with essm and maybe sm-2). i think they are not doing this because sm-1 performs well in modern scenarios.
sensor fusion like iadt is a must have in modern aaw (where ashm have a low rcs, flying low and fast) but there are a lot of other issues like modern radar systems with high update rates, mounted as high as possible, a modern cms with an automated alert and engagement-system and a layered defence with a short reaction time, a high firing rate, 360° capability and a high kill ratio again maneuvering sea skimmers. all these points makes a number of different systems a well performing and efficient aaw-system.
radari think this is smut from a diesel exhaust and no battle damage. such smut can be found on many photos from the saar 5.
radarI forgot to say that the Sea Sparrow replaced by ESSM at the same way as Klinok with VLS sthil. This happened because Phalanx and primarly RAM does the same job as the Sea Sparrow. Look at the CVN 76 Ronnald Reagan: There is not any Mk-29 launchers with Sea Sparrow. Only RAMs.
that’s wrong, the cvn-76 still has two sea sparrow launchers (and two ram launchers) but in future they might use them for the essm as well.
the problem with the kashtan is, that most ships do not cover 360° with it. the klinok on the other hand as a vls can provid 360° coverage.
radari would guess that this picture shows decoy launchers from israel most likely 115 mm launchers from rafael. the srboc launchers look different.
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