Wilk, you’ve fixed nothing. Your entire point is predicated on the fact that a ship (carrier) can’t detect the inbound torpedo so would not turn and would not outrun the inbound.

Wrong. My entire point is that there is no reason to believe that it can reliably detect a torpedo at sufficient distance to still have time to turn and outrun it.

The OPERATIONAL experience from the Falklands is that naval forces can take a sensitive stance to torpedo detects and turn on contact even before that contact is fully appraised, this was what was happening, by definition that means that even if the contact is a torpedo that evasion is already in progress.

Absolutely false. Neither fleet in the Falklands detected every torpedo attack. In fact, there’s no credible evidence to believe that *any* torpedo attack was detected:

May 1 – San Luis attack on HMS Brilliant and HMS Yarmouth (+ Sea Kings): Disputed. The captain of the Brilliant later claimed that the attack had been detected, but strangely no counterattack was attempted against the San Luis.

May 2 – Conqueror attacks Belgrano: Confirmed undetected.

May 10 – San Luis attacks HMS Arrow and HMS Alacrity: Confirmed undetected. Possibly a torpedo hit the Arrow’s towed decoy but failed to explode, which would explain the damage to the decoy.

So why you continue to make your completely false Falklands torpedo detection claim is beyond me.

You point about late detection is rendered moot by the tactics employed in the fleet under attack.

Silly statement which contradicts itself. If there is a late detection then the fleet is not aware that it is “under attack” and cannot be certain of the direction of a possible attack.

You cannot bring Cheonan or Belgrano in to this as examples of undetected torpedo attacks because we are talking about maximum range launches.

You do realize that a max range shot can decrease probability of detection, right? (lower probability of target to detect the launch) And can you please explain to us how you know the range of the Cheonan attack? Did you just pull it out of thin air like most of your other “facts?”

My point was that, even for a 650mm weapon, ensuring that the target is in the torpedoes NEZ (if you prefer that to the word ‘guarantee’) means that you are not firing at the 50k yards value listed for the weapons range at the 50knts performance setting. That is not my opinion, IF that value is accurate for torpedo performance, that is a simple mathematical fact.

Agreed and I’ve never claimed that a long range shot is high PK or within the NEZ.

The rest of what you write really is semantics

So a discussion about the effects of sinking pickets is semantics? Or a historical comparison to other underestimated threats to capital ships is also semantics? And so on… Really, Jonesy, if you have no response to those, then don’t write one. Otherwise, attempting to cherry pick a few of my responses whilst screaming “semantics” just looks silly.

– as stated I’m not going to spend hours arguing whether, for example, a He-115 is more or less legitimately termed a ‘low-performance’ type just so you can try and cover up the fact you forgot about that type!.

Or you are trying to cover up the fact that you don’t know the difference between biplanes and monoplanes. I was specifically talking about biplanes after all.

Or dispute whether 25000yds is close range or not just because the mathematics is clear on that.

In a discussion about “long-ranged shots” it’s quite important to define what long range and close range are, is it not?!

You brought up the Falklands though. We saw there that an alert force could be ready to undertake evasion drills at the first sign of a potential inbound torpedo. If we were evading things that weren’t even torpedoes a legitimate inbound would have needed to be fired from within a range that escape would be impossible to guarantee a strike on target wouldn’t it.

+

Myself I’d make the point that the submarine will try for the most guaranteed shot first time out as, after that, everyone is aware of his presence.

And yet despite supposedly detecting and evading the San Luis’ torpedoes, the British frigates and Sea Kings failed to attack or even locate the San Luis… So either one of your assertions is false, or they both are.

Also, I’m not claiming that a torpedo strike has to be “guaranteed” to take a shot. In fact I loathe using the word in regards to any missile weapon.

Agreed to an extent. Carriers dont steam alone so the ASW picket presents the tripwire that the submarine must evade before being able to fire. Sink the picket and the carrier turns regardless.

Agreed, but if you’ve lost your picket then your carrier is in a far more vulnerable state and might as well continue turning and go home… resulting in a mission-kill.

You have compressed air in a closed system you get heat and vibration

Heat and vibration in a closed system… AKA problems that submarine silencing technology has been dealing with rather effectively for the past half-century…

…and they also built north of a hundred He-115 floatplane torpedo bombers….not exactly a high performance type!

Much higher performance than Fairy or Fieseler Biplanes however!

The idea that the Kriegsmarine somehow dismissed the notion of Swordfish torpedo bombers being a threat to their ships at sea is absurd in the extreme. They may have held the view that, given their lone wolf tactics, the ships would be hard targets to locate and pin down long enough for airstrikes to be flown off, but, to suggest that they would ignore RN Swordfish on the basis that they were antique biplanes is ludicrous.

You are attempting to counter a point which I have not made. I have not claimed that torpedo bombers, even biplanes, were not considered a “threat” to capital ships, but that it was believed that maneuvering at sea in combination with heavy AA fire was sufficient to both avoid attacks and shoot down the attackers. Much in the same way that you appear to believe that early detection will always occur and that there will always be sufficient time to perform evasive maneuvers. Again, I’ll repeat, the notion that capital ships at sea could not be sunk by torpedo aircraft was so strong that even after the Bismarck-Swordfish events the British still elected to send battleships without air support against much stronger air forces, with devastating consequences. But I suppose that you neglected to comment on that because it provides very strong support for my case.

…and is related to the topic that discussed evasion drills, operational factors and technical vagueries how?.

Because you can’t just say “we perform evasion drills” as if that guarantees successful evasion. It obviously didn’t in the past, and there’s no reason to believe that it will in the present day.

I’ve said that torpedoes can be outrun and, in response to Wanshans question, that Russian 650mm weapons are not likely to be fired at 50-100km ranges against 30knt warships as the chances of them simply turning and outpacing the fish is too great.

Saying that they “are not likely to be fired” is far different than saying that your sanity would be questioned if you fired them. Much different. Otherwise, I agree that firing at long ranges is a waste if it is possible to get closer and therefore increase PK. However, as you get closer probability of counter-detection increases… ultimately what this means is that a competent commander will balance survival vs. kill probability and in some cases a low-pk long ranged shot may be favorable to a medium or short range attempt.

You can trust to luck that the target doesnt detect the “silent” torpedo all the way through its run and steams blithely into it if you like…if you are lucky and the target is stupid then the long ranged shot will work.

And I’ve stated that this may just happen and historically has happened, so it should not be ruled out as a possible tactic.

To GUARANTEE the hit, if the target detects the launch transient and begins immediate evasion then the submarine is firing from 25,000yds or so not 50,000!

Agreed, although I would prefer to call it “very high pk” as opposed to “guaranteed.” I’d also like to note that my original point was in response to “you need to get very close” since I don’t consider even 25,000 yards as “very close.”

Jonesy,

Since I’ve no desire to get into another “X detected Y or X can detect Y” argument, I’ll just comment on a few things I disagree with you on…

Not so. In 82 a lot of RN warships detected ‘torpedoes’ and began evasion procedures – its possible some of those contacts were even torpedoes!. Reliable detection is not a precise science admittedly but using Cheonan (who’s circumstances we dont know yet – not hard to torpedo a ship with no sonar watch set is it?!) or Belgrano who’s ASW equipment was, IIRC, inoperable anyway, and had to deal with torpedoes fired from a couple of thousand yards off, isnt really a true indicator of how a competent and alert US Carrier group would cope with a torpedo attack from an SSN deploying Russian 650mm weapons.

If you’re running away and dropping torpedoes on every new contact/transient because some of them might turn out to be a torpedo then your fleet will go nowhere fast and may run out of torpedoes before you even meet the enemy. IIRC we’ve already had this discussion before so I’ll leave it at that. As for the Falklands – obviously it does not directly apply to USN CSG vs Russian SSN (or whatever scenario this is) but it is the closest actual conflict we can use for this discussion. Additionally, Falklands and other wars are important because they show us that very often advertised capabilities, weapons, defensive systems and tactics do not work as well as the propaganda ministries and weapons manufacturers would like us to believe.

650mm torpedoes, IIRC, dont use swim out discharge do they?. Russian torpedoes use the same kind of water impulse discharge that ours and the American boats do. So there will be a launch transient…even if the torpedo is a ‘discrete’ one underway.

– No torpedo launch systems are the same, even if they are based on the same or similar launching principle.
– Launch transient noise is often greatly exaggerated. Modern water-ram systems are designed to launch as silently as possible, and are good enough now that no one bothers with larger diameter swim-out systems anymore.
– In our scenario we are talking about launching from dozens of km’s away. Combine long range + low-noise or silent launch and you have minimal probability of launch detection.

What I am saying, simply, is that against a representative CSG, facing an advanced submarine threat, launching 650mm torpedoes at 50km etc is wasting the torpedoes. I’d doubt you’d find many operators who would disagree with that statement.

Imagine that it is 1939. You get together a group of many “operators” and ask them: Two years from now I will send 15 outdated biplanes against one of the most advanced and powerful battleships ever built, will I be wasting them? You would likely get a response of “that will be a waste and loss of aircraft and pilots’ lives…” Of course, history would prove them absolutely wrong. So, I believe that the sensible response would be “We can’t be sure that it would be a waste. Maybe if there was a war going on and we politely asked the captain of a 971 to take a few long-ranged shots at a CSG, then we could give you a better answer.”

You need BAMS-equivalent to do the job. Nowhere did I say scrap all existing assets and just use BAMS?. Not sure how you have misread a very simple premise?.

Well, you said “you need BAMS to do that job.” followed by “That being extra and over conventional assets.” Extra normally implies supplementary, not essential. But whatever… I think we’ve recycled the BAMS argument to death now and I’m not interested in pursuing it further.

Are you saying that the fleet boats of the Kriegsmarine didnt have superior transit range than modern SSK’s and didn’t predominantly travel on the surface just because I didnt quote the numbers?.

Let’s rewind this. You said that WW2 subs could “cover far more ocean than today’s boats.” That does not just involve transit time. It also involves the ability to detect targets over a wide area. A MiG-21 can have a much faster transit time than an A-50, but no one would say that a MiG-21 can “cover” anywhere near as much airspace as an A-50. So whether a WW2 U-boat can transit faster than a modern SSK is not the primary indicator that a WW2 U-boat can “cover” as wide an area of ocean. I’ll also note again that the WW2 U-boat is far more vulnerable to aerial and surface detection (via radar or visual) during transit, which means that in wartime it may be forced to spend a great deal of that transit time submerged at a much lesser speed than a modern SSK. That may significantly increase its transit time.

To summarize, whilst a modern SSK may not have the transit speed of a WW2 boat, its capability to detect non-stealth platforms in an area of ocean is many times greater due to improved sensors. So for example, just a few U-212s could potentially do the job of dozens of VIIC’s in terms of monitoring an area of ocean for the presence of aircraft carriers.

The same modern sub can now be detected at a vastly longer range than in WW2 as well.

First of all, even if that statement was true, it would not change the fact that the SSK can detect a carrier at vastly longer ranges and proceed to report its presence.

Now, taking U-212 as an example again, you are going to have an *extremely* difficult time convincing most people that a U-212 at low speeds on battery power is going to be detected at “vastly” longer ranges than a WW2 u-boat. Of course, you can use active sonar – that has improved considerably – but by doing so you present yourself as an obvious target thereby greatly increasing the chance that the SSK will get the first shot… and unlike most WW2 SS a modern SSK actually poses a formidable threat to an escort. He doesn’t have to close in to <1000 meters and fire a spread of straight-running torpedoes whilst praying for a lucky hit. Additionally, you have no idea how effective even Sonar 2087 (in active mode) is going to be against your opponent’s latest anechoic coatings. It’s like asking how an S-400 will perform against an F-22… good luck.

Escorts have gotten significantly stealthier by the way and counter detection/signal intercept systems have increased at the same pace as search sensors.

They have? By how much? Have they increased in acoustic stealth proportionally to submarines, or even a fraction of that? Just taking an example of a common (albeit dated) ASW escort today – the FFG-7: It’s got (comparatively noisier) gas turbines driving a variable pitch propeller (that’s always moving… even at “zero” knots). It has limited sound isolation, no active noise cancellation and no anechoic coating and that’s naming just a few potential acoustic reduction measures. So with that in mind, how does it compare acoustically to a common (but dated) SSK like a Kilo? Let’s not even mention RF stealth…

As for counter detection/signal intercept – what does that have to do with this? The SSK will not be emitting.

Airborne sensors in WW2 were in their infancy. Detection chances against a surfaced U-boat were proportionately lesser than they would be today plus the boats back then had snorts just as todays do.

A modern SSK will not be surfaced unless there is a problem, so surfaced detection range is meaningless. The vast majority of boats in WW2 did *not* have snorkels. Neither the USN nor the RN nor the Soviets ever equipped them, and the Japanese only did small numbers near the end of the war. Only the Kriegsmarine had a significant number – and even then it was about 200 iirc late in the war… still only a small fraction of the total U-boat force.

Then we come back to the simple range equation that the WW2 boat is out on station longer and covers more territory.

See points above.

A modern SSK can monitor a larger area than a WW2 boat could do submerged – even now though an SSK’s footprint is pretty much limited to direct path on the bow, flank and intercept arrays.

Some SSKs have a towed array. Even if they don’t, I hope you aren’t implying that an SSK is incapable of maneuvering on occasion to cover blind spots… an aircraft carrier or escort is unlikely to sneak up behind an SSK.

German U-boats had ESM which sufficed to the threat level posed by the ASV radar of the day

Errr.. for a critical portion of the war the Germans did *not* have esm capable of detecting allied radar. It was one of the most important reasons for the U-boat’s defeat. The Kriegsmarine did not start equipping U-boats with radar detectors until late 1942, and radar detectors capable of intercepting centimetric radars were not available until a year later iirc. That’s a huge amount of time that U-boats had none or limited esm gear – and especially bad when you’re on the surface at night!

As stated above – the advantage in submarine sensors is easily offset by surface vessel sensors and escorts with organic aviation today.

Again, you’re going to have a very hard time convincing people of that… especially when you’re talking about modern 3-4 generation SSKs like Kilos or U212. Escort sensors have improved greatly, but contrary to your claims they have not gotten particularly stealthier (at least nowhere near the extent that SSKs/SSNs have). This means that in most situations the SSK is going to be the one to get the first detection, and likely the first shot, which can often mean the first kill. That is unless you happen to get lucky and catch it while it is snorkeling. To be fair, this is a 1 vs 1 scenario, and since surface ships have a much easier time working together, things will be more “even” if it’s “lone ssk” vs convoy or battle group. But in this context with the SSKs merely acting as sentries that’s not particularly relevant.

Pedantry. The ASBM is a wasted investment if it is ONLY applicable to a situation which isnt even close to being likely in the first place!.

Oh come on. I’ve asked you this countless time now: If Taiwan or Korea is unlikely to happen, then what is?

I actually agree with you that Taiwan is unlikely to turn into a military confrontation… but out of all the possible scenarios, I (and many others) still believe that it’s by far the most probable to occur.

You think you are reading actual real-world performance specifications in the glossy brochures?. OK. You think that the Germans, Greeks, Italians, Koreans and all the rest dont have the experience to factor in a modifier based on their own operational environments?. You think a sub sailing in the Baltic gives identical performance to one operating in the Eastern Med?. More fool you if that is what you think!.

I really don’t care about small performance differences. I do care when someone’s performance figures are off by – quite literally – orders of a magnitude – which yours were (hours vs weeks).

I never said single hours – you just assumed that – I said hours because that is the time unit that battery charge on the boats is usually calculated in and they dont go up as far as weeks with it!.

You said “hours”. I replied with “try weeks.” Instead of clarifying that that’s what you had meant (i.e. Dozens or hundreds of hours), you again replied with “hours.” So there is no need to “assume” what you said. Now, you are simply trying to find an excuse.

Nope. Is one bomber capable of destroying the oppositions capacity to fight?. No it isnt. Is the bomber, individually, a strategic weapon. Nope. Its range allows it to be used to deploy weapons strategically and, if you have WMD in your arsenal, it can be used to deliver strategic weapons. The aircraft itself though is not a strategic weapon.

Vehicle types are often named based on their primary mission. A strategic bomber is a strategic bomber because it is primarily intended to perform the mission of strategic bombing (chiefly destruction of enemy infrastructure), in the same way an interceptor is primarily destined to intercept, tank destroyer to destroy tanks, etc…

Anyway, I really don’t care what your definition is anymore… to me it makes no difference as to the feasibility or infeasibility of an ASBM.

Bottom line though Wilk if this is going to just come down to more pedantry and a thorough investigation of semantics I cant be bothered with it. You also argue with the same style as someone I thought was an utter moron when I argued with him under his original posting name and I have no time for muppets who keep coming back to forums, where theyve been banned, under different posting names.

For the record, I have never posted in this forum under any other name – and I’m being very sincere about that.

What has Taiwan got to do with this?. You are simply trying to obfuscate the fact that, in both cases Chinese and Soviet, the challenge they faced was to prevent USN theatre entry with their carrier groups. As a technical problem the situation is identical. Throwing up all this nonsense about nuclear or conventional attacks is not going to work.

I just asked you: If it’s not Taiwan, then what is it? In the Soviet case, national survival was at stake. In the Chinese case, it’s additional US air support for Taiwan. Colossal difference.

I said, from the kick off, that squadrons of patrol aircraft and UAV’s i.e BAMS-like components were necessary. You howled and said that wasnt the case. WW2 showed this apparently. When it was pointed out the assets that were used in WW2 were precisely squadrons of aircraft you now try taking the point down to the fact that we were talking solely about carriers and not the general problem of finding ships at sea in WW2.

Fighters and bombers, surface warships and submarines are not “squadrons of MPA aircraft and UAVs.” Even if we pretend that fighters and bombers are, that still doesn’t account for a large portion of carriers/capital ships detected/sunk that they were not responsible for… and even some of those that were sunk by air power were in fact initially detected and tracked by submarine or other sources (e.g. the Yamato). Clearly the fact is that these assets were capable of doing the job you claim couldn’t be done, and they did it with far lesser capabilities than their successors possess today (not to mention the variety of new systems which can also do the task eg. Long range passive sonar).

You are the one trying to make a comparison between WW2 sea denial and that of today so you can forget comments of sensor and weapon efficacy!. The simple fact is that WW2 subs were surface raiders running on diesels predominantly. They could cover far more ocean than todays boats, designed for discrete submerged performance, could achieve. Your attempt to draft them in to support your argument about BAMS is exactly ‘bizarre’.

Sensor efficiency is extremely important. Claiming otherwise indicates that you have no real understanding of this topic. Even the “covers far more ocean” claim is far from the truth. The typical fleet boat, for example, had a cruise speed of 9-10 knots. Exceeding this speed for any significant amount of time would dramatically increase the risk of running out of fuel, so patrols were generally conducted at this speed or less. Moreover, due to the constant occurrence or threat of air attack, submarines often spend the better part of the day submerged at a speed of ~2 knots. The modern SSK patrols at about 4-5 knots (although transit is often undertaken at speeds of up to ~8 knots), but has two major advantages:

1) Far lesser susceptibility to air attack, so in contrast to a WW2 SS, it is capable of maintaining speed throughout the day thereby increasing area covered.
2) Dramatically improved sensor area. A modern SSK can monitor a vastly larger area than its WW2 predecessor thanks to huge improvements in sonar and esm.

As a result, a modern SSK will be far more effective in detecting enemy movements than the WW2 boats before it.

Irrelevent is what it is. Unless you are going to say that the weapon system is purely intended for the Taiwan scenario…when its blatantly obvious that Taiwan is not going to be a militarily resolved issue…so the missile is a collossal waste of time and money by your reckoning is it?!.

So now your argument has come down to “the war is not going to happen so this is a waste of money!” Why are you even on this board then? The great majority of weapons and platforms discussed here will likely never be used for anything more than peacetime patrols and blowing up huts! So really they’re all “a colossal waste of time and money!”

Usually because you cant predict the theatre of operations with 100% certainty.

In this case, why would you need to predict it? If Taiwan declares independence, then the road-mobile launchers are moved into that theater. Korean war erupts, and the launchers are moved there. This is not difficult to understand.

Try the obfuscation all you like but the fact is that ARH missiles dont get launched and left to do the discrimination all by themselves!. That is a great way of wasting missiles.

An AIM-120C has been pitbulled. In it’s fov it sees several clouds of chaff and a MiG. It ignores the chaff and proceeds to hit the MiG. What did it do? Well, whatever it did, it must be impossible since Jonesy said so!

So its not required…..unless you want an increased probability of a hit?.

Fixed for you.

As to SSK’s they have very little threatre mobility if they wish to stay discrete – even AIP only gives them a certain number of hours at low power levels before it is depleted and needs refueling.
Hours. All AIP does is charge the battery remember – the more you use the battery the quicker you drain the AIP tanks. Bottom line you get to stay discrete but you dont cover much territory.

This is completely false:
1) Even non-AIP diesel-electric SSKs have days (usually about 4-6) at ~4-5 knots on batteries.
2) On AIP, it is weeks (~2-3 weeks depending on the system/submarine) at ~4-5 knots.

I actually gave you the opportunity to correct yourself when I said weeks. Of course, you decided not to take that opportunity. How someone who repeatedly and arrogantly touts “warfighting 101” does not know such simple facts is beyond me.

You cannot hinge your national defence on weapons that may or may not be effective!. The difference is that attack strategy’s can, and do, balance varying degrees of risk against varying degrees of reward.

So instead, you’re going to risk elements of your national defense on an attack strategy that relies totally on luck! Brilliant!

Perhaps you should realize that any weapon system may turn out to be ineffective, regardless of it being offensive or defensive. That’s why redundant systems exist!

Warfighting 101.

Did you flunk it?

Its been explained to you in very simple terms. If you have a comprehension problem I’d suggest a spell in remedial education.

In other words, you have no way to counter my five points which proved your plan was entirely dependent on luck. That’s why you didn’t even quote them.

The attacker is forced to commit resources, of course, but those resources are committed in support of the strategic aim which is the general idea anyway.

Yes, let’s wave our hands around and say “it’s all part of the plan” and therefore there can’t be anything wrong with it!

Its a standard definition. I said any weapon can be strategic in context not just that any weapon can be strategic!. Convenient misinterpretation on your part?. IF the weapons system is powerful enough to alter the strategic planning of an opponent then, by definition, it is a strategic weapon. If it is not powerful enough then it is not.

The classic “standard” definition of Strategic Weapons is weapons that strike at the source of an opponent’s power – his cities and economy. Hence, strategic bombers. These days the definition is generally applied to WMDs – see the SALT treaties for example. Again, defining the term as “weapons that alter the strategic planning of an opponent” is silly since it can apply to anything in that case.

You really dont understand this do you?. The ‘fighters’ you talk about were the effectors in a strategic system which was the British integrated air defence system. The fighters were tactical but the system they were part of was strategic.

Hilarious! You’ve just changed your own definition of strategic weapons. First, it was “weapons that alter the strategic planning of an opponent”, now it’s become “weapons that are part of a strategic system.” But please, keep going! Maybe at some point you’ll finally stumble upon the correct definition. Not that it will help you, since it still won’t have any effect on the actual capabilities of an ASBM.

No. To develop a weapons system like the ASBM and use it to try and take potshots at carriers steaming around Taiwan is preposterous. That is why the system would not be used for that. The Chinese understand that just as the Americans do.

So according to Jonesy, the Chinese are going to dismantle their (real or not) ASBMs if a carrier is not deterred from trying to enter the Taiwan theatre.

Then by that logic we are perfectly safe from nuclear weapons, since if they fail to provide deterrent everyone will just dismantle them because they failed to deter! Pure lunacy!

This is why it is talked about as an anti-access weapon.

Interesting that you say that considering China’s rapidly growing SSK force is talked about as an anti-access weapon… but those aren’t BAMS so you’ll just pretend that they don’t exist.

Damn, I thought you could make the logical conclusion without a pop-up book. For the mentally challenged then. The SSNs won’t let the SSKs sit there all day taking pot shots at Aegis ships and the Aegis ships can certainly deal with the few they manage to get off before the SSKs destroyed. Clear enough for you?

An SSK will not “sit there all day taking pot shots.” Do you actually think it takes an hour or something to launch a single missile or torpedo?!

“For the mentally challenged”: An ssk will launch a salvo of missiles and/or torpedoes then maneuver away – either to withdrawal or reload for another attack.

What kind of Clancy-esque statement is that?. USSR needed to stop SIOP-tasked carriers closing in on its coastline and lobbing B61’s in. In both cases, Chinese and Russian, theatre-entry denial was/is the mission goal.

USN carriers are going to be lobbing nuclear weapons into mainland China in a Taiwan scenario?! Obviously that’s extremely unlikely, and hence any comparisons to the USSR’s situation are totally invalid.

You are looking solely at the Midway action and wilfully ignoring the thousands of sorties by Condors, Catalina’s, Sunderlands, Liberators, Kawanishi H8’s etc.

Solely at Midway? Do you know any history whatsoever? Why don’t you try listing the sunk carriers tracked by the supposedly critical aircraft you listed. Then, compare that to the list of aircraft detected and tracked by subs and fighters. Good luck with that. Actually, considering submarines alone accounted for about 40% of fleet carriers detected and sunk, you’re going to need a miracle.

Even your point about the carrier aircraft is tenuous as it could be easily pointed out that those aircraft, whether technically MPA’s or not, were undertaking maritime patrol taskings.

You’ve been trying to convince everyone that BAMS and “squadrons of dedicated MPA” are critical to tracking a carrier, but now you’ve just admitted that even a fighter on patrol can do that… what happened?

They were exactly the resources you try to deny being critical.

A resource is critical only if there is nothing else which can be used in its place. You claimed BAMS is critical to tracking a carrier, yet it did not exist in WW2. Carriers were tracked and sunk anyway. Clearly then, BAMS alone is not critical to tracking and sinking a carrier. Arguing otherwise defies basic logic.

IF you have the missiles. IF they are ready to fire.

What kind of argument is that? One would assume that if you’ve developed an ASBM, you’ve actually built a few of them and that they can, indeed, be fired. :confused:

OK so, on a 750kg throw weight weapon, you are going to give a full third of the RV over to a fancy radar seeker. This is in the hopes that it can sweep a 900km2 surface area, detect, identify and reject incorrect targets in that area, locate and identify the correct target and make sufficient cross range ‘glide’ (RV’s glide do they???) to make the intersect. All in a minute. I think that tells me all I need to know on that score to be honest!.

In its search mode, the Moskit seeker has a detection range of 75 km for a large destroyer or cruiser and over 100 km for an aircraft carrier. It scans an area of over 2000 square km, rejects incorrect targets, locates and identifies the correct target and maneuvers to perform a sea-skimming attack that will culminate in terminal evasive maneuvers. The radar is activated and all search and ID functions are performed in a short time frame at the end of the “hi” mode. Total flight time of the missile is about ~1-2 minutes max. This is what a small seeker on an ASM developed 15-20 years ago can do.

But hey, Jonesy “knows the score!”

No. Not nonsense. Strategy and tactics – the operational art. Deceptive manoever, strategic and tactical misdirection. All those things that dont show up in your Janes or Milparades that dont have pretty pictures and performance figures alongside them!.

You said that the defender’s SSKs are just as valuable to the attacker. THAT is clearly nonsense. Unless you convince them to defect, no amount of strategy and tactics can do that.

I dont know where you would get the idea I said that a launch would happen off the SSK screen?

Your own post where you claimed it would trigger a response:

A heavy and concerted attack by SSN’s on an identified barrier line could be made to look like an attempt to penetrate a specific sector was underway – coupled to decoy ops nearby triggering a response

I said that an SSK barrier line, something fleet SSN’s and ASW assets would be actively hunting from a long way in advance of a carrier group attempting theatre entry, could be used in conjunction with OTH decoying to simulate the appearance of a penetration in a specific sector. The reasons for doing so are basic and manifest.

Good luck finding SSKs lying in wait, and then correctly identifying the “barrier line”. What do you expect to defend those “ASW assets” with if they’re “a long way in advance of a carrier group”? You also didn’t answer the second (and far more important) part of the question: If the defender is using SSKs to confirm or deny the presence of a carrier, why would he launch when those SSKs don’t report one?

Again ludicrous. Why go to the lengths of developing an ASBM to do something they can already do with conventional antiship weapons?

Why develop SSBNs when you’ve already got silos with ICBMs? Why build tanks when you’ve already got men with guns and cannons?

You think that an ASBM is just a big tactical antiship missile. You need to understand that the power of the weapon is not in sinking carriers, but, in keeping them so far offshore that the carriers are rendered impotent.

The power of any weapon is both in its ability to threaten and in its ability to destroy. No weapon becomes worthless just because the other guy decided that it’s not a threat. You need to understand that.

If they cant do that they offer nothing more than the conventional missiles you confuse them with.

There’s an ASM that can destroy a target 1500+ km away in about 10 minutes from launch? Can you let us know which ASM can do this?

China has a couple of OTH sites, it has a sprinkling of disparate Y-8 platforms converted for overwater ELINT/MPA taskings. It is working on MALE/HALE UAV prototypes. It has, allegedly, dallied with the Russian RORSAT concept. Not enough is solid and delivered its all gossip, hearsay or, frankly, agenda led rot.

Your statement contradicts itself. You admit China has these systems in your first sentence, then turn around and proclaim that it’s all “gossip” and “hearsay.”

You can pretend these things don’t exist, but I doubt anyone will take you seriously for such conspiracy theories.

The US has in excess of 150 P-3C’s and it will be replacing them with, IIRC, 108 P-8’s. Its has an order in for several dozen RQ-4N’s. It has OTH radar, aerostats, a wing of E-3’s and innumerable other assets. THAT is a capability set that enables full seaspace coverage. Not what the Chinese are capable of deploying.

No one here claimed that China is capable of deploying the level of assets the US is. Guess why? Because it really doesn’t have anything to do with this discussion. Saying that China can’t threaten a carrier because it doesn’t have “innumerable other assets like that other guy” is disingenuous.

When you see a dozen PLANAF MPA squadrons, when you see reports of Chinese HALE UAV’s flying to the Persian Gulf and back and squadrons of them in operational service then you have evidence that not only the search and targetting assets exist, but, the backend C3 systems exist to channel the dataflow.

Why would they need a dozen MPA squadrons? Why would Chinese UAV’s be flying to the Persian Gulf? The Chinese have no intention of targeting carriers anywhere besides their own back yard. They are not the USSR.

At the moment there is nothing, whatsover, to suggest that any of these critical assets, in operational numbers, exist in China.

Those assets are beneficial, but *NOT* critical, no matter how much you keep pretending that they are. UAVs, satellites, etc did not exist in WW2 but carriers were tracked and sunk regardless.

Most sources do not indicate that so you are on a faulty premise from the start.

Completely false. Even a 30 second Google search proves otherwise.

1. Wind your neck in.

Rather hypocritical that you would say that, seeing as how you were the one calling this discussion “utterly irrelevant” whilst providing no supporting evidence whatsoever.

A skywave radar is not a targetting asset and never will be – technically it is not possible with the resolution provided by the operating frequencies of that type of radar.

Finally we are getting somewhere. The problem with your premise is that you appear to assume that OTH-B is guiding the ASBM all the way to impact. This is simply not true and not required. OTH-B only needs to provide the ASBM with initial targeting information to get it to a point where the missile’s own sensor(s) stands a good chance of detecting the carrier.

Consequently, even a low resolution target of ~20-50 km accuracy is sufficient when the ASBM itself could have a detection range of over 300+ km for a large surface target.

3. Advanced signal processing. Much has been written about newer and cleverer ways people have modelled tropobounce to refine the received signal. Doesnt change the fact that the most refined resolution cell for OTH is something like 400km squared.

400km2 sounds huge until you realize that it is only an area 20 km x 20 km. Point any modern fighter radar at that… suddenly finding a carrier in the area is not difficult, in fact, it’s trivial.

Now, take that radar and integrate it into your ASBM. Target that ASBM at that 20 x 20 km box…

IF you have keyed in on the right target in the first place that is. Poor resolution systems are always vulnerable to decoying as they cannot discriminate between legitimate target and decoy.

This is true, however, a few things to note:

1) Since the ASBM is itself capable of target discrimination, decoying OTH-B is only effective if the decoy causes the ASBM to be targeted into an area where it’s on-board sensor cannot find the carrier. But:
2) A carrier will be more easily identifiable due to the presence of aircraft, narrowing down the list of possible targets. This greatly increases the probability that an ASBM will be fired into an area with a carrier, as opposed to one without.
3) Furthermore, other platforms, such as SSKs (which the Chinese have no small number of) can be vectored at unidentified OTH-B contacts to confirm, or at least deny the presence of a carrier.
4) Inter-missile datalinks (in the style of P-500/P-700, etc…) can help ensure that the highest priority targets are each engaged.
5) (If the necessary satellite/communications infrastructure is there) The ASBM may have a two-way datalink, thereby dramatically increasing the probability of the correct target being engaged in follow-up strikes.

Broad Area Maritime surveillance as a concept is needed to reliably target a carrier that is trying not to be found.

Moments ago you were talking about Legenda as required. Now it’s BAMS. What will it be in your next post? What does “reliable” even mean? 24/7 1-meter-resolution realtime tracking anywhere around the world? Obviously, the Chinese do not need anything like that in order to threaten a carrier around Taiwan.

There is always luck, after all a carrier could always steam blithely over a hostile SSK or an opponent could attempt entry denial by mining chokes/shallows for example.

Keep in mind that a carrier could always steam carefully over a hostile SSK too. Maybe the SSK won’t notice then? Or maybe he’ll even have the courtesy to let the carrier know that there are mines in that choke-point a few thousand miles away? 😀

FYI: You are not doing yourself any favors by making up one-sided scenarios that are not even applicable to the topic. In which “chokes/shallows” do you expect the Chinese to place mines in order to threaten a CVN? Why would they even waste mines trying to hit a CVN when they are far more likely to get hits by mining the waters around Taiwan?

Those kinds of approaches are conventional and anticipated in the most elementary threat-reduction exercise on deployment though. Bit tough to hinge your defense strategy on good fortune.

Assuming that the defender will just sit still and rely on luck is simply stupid. Woe to the admiral expecting to forever avoid “steaming blithely” over SSKs just because he was on a threat-reduction exercise. :rolleyes:

What is being talked about with ASBM is very-short cycle time theatre-access denial. Willful ability to engage and destroy a naval task group before if can close to effects range of its own weapons.

From the Chinese perspective, the group does not have to be destroyed or even engaged before it’s in range of its weapons. The sooner, the better, of course. But the Chinese certainly have enough resources to play a game of attrition.