All photos from Air Power Australia. Yeah I know. But they have the best info on the web when it comes to threat weaponry. I disagree with their conclusions but can't doubt the work and research done to compile this info. Go here for more.
I did an earlier post on how vulnerable our carriers are to high speed anti-ship missiles. You have to go to Air Power Australia for a detailed overview but rest assured.
OUR CARRIERS ARE VULNERABLE.
Our close in weapon systems are for lack of a better word...a joke and a morale booster. Even if a Rolling Air Frame Missile gets a hit on one then the damage done from the wreckage and the fuel will cripple ships systems and possibly cause injuries or deaths.
Our defenses are not up to the task of defeating some of the missiles coming online.
UPDATE:
Paralus made a comment that I just have to push up here....
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| Click on the pic to expand it but what should capture your attention are the supersonic anti-ship missiles. The Sunburn is impressive but so is the Indian/Russian Brahmos. The spread of these missiles should cause as much alarm as nuclear weapons. Imagine if terrorist were able to acquire one or two of these missiles and launch them at our carriers while they're going through the Suez canal? |
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| Notice the load out of SSN-N-27's. I excluded Bear type aircraft from my 'carrier' sinking post but if I included them in the scenario then the numbers get much worse for the defending side. |
OUR CARRIERS ARE VULNERABLE.
Our close in weapon systems are for lack of a better word...a joke and a morale booster. Even if a Rolling Air Frame Missile gets a hit on one then the damage done from the wreckage and the fuel will cripple ships systems and possibly cause injuries or deaths.
Our defenses are not up to the task of defeating some of the missiles coming online.
UPDATE:
Paralus made a comment that I just have to push up here....
Even with directed energy weapons, a weapon systems would have to be able to quickly detect, track, target and destroy in a very short period of time (seconds) to keep from being overwhelmed by missile swarm attacks.Everyone and everything I've read has the J-20 as being a large fighter or an interceptor aimed at taking out AWACs. What if its sole purpose in life is to have enough range and enough stealth to get close as is safely possible using that stealth to launch supersonic anti-ship missiles at our carriers? A stealth airplane that has one primary mission. Maritime strike against our carriers. Calling Chief of Naval Operations...its time to wake up!
What if the Chinese J20 is supposed to be a Chinese version of a SU-34 Fullback? A couple hundred of J20s each launching one or two ASCMs would be scary.
India is not threat for the moment, rather I think they could turn out to be allies in a conflict with China. They have several territorial disputes with china, and China has stopped their warships in the south china sea. And we have to remember that before the ASCMs are even launched, the carrier's CAP will take down a pretty good chunk of the missile carriers before they get into range. But your right our current CIWS are a joke. That's why the Navy was/is working on an energy based CIWS, though it will be a few years before it even begins testing with the fleet.
ReplyDeleteEven with directed energy weapons, a weapon systems would have to be able to quickly detect, track, target and destroy in a very short period of time (seconds) to keep from being overwhelmed by missile swarm attacks.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the Chinese J20 is supposed to be a Chinese version of a SU-34 Fullback? A couple hundred of J20s each launching one or two ASCMs would be scary.
Paralus. very good point. aviation week is thinking AWACS killer because they're airforce centric in their thinking...but what if its a strike airplane designed to get as close to our carriers as safely possible to launch supersonic anti-ship missiles?
ReplyDeleteIf the J-20 were a strike bomber that would fit with it's design. Those canards are only useful in the subsonic-trans sonic range, and they really don't help the RCS. Heck, the DEW Line wrote about that possibility back in February 2011:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/02/j-20-chinas-ultimate-aircraft.html
If I were a betting man (which I'm not), I'd bet we'll see the C-802 being carried by the J-20.
i agree about the J20 being a strike fighter, a stealth version of our F-111, competent in an air-to-air role but most likely low and fast with low observability, long legs, and good weapons load that can get past our fighter pickets and radars quickly to reduce our warning and response time.
ReplyDeleteIf the J-20 ends up with a weapons bay of roughly 6.5m length than yes it can carry an C-802. The F-22's bay is about 4m and the F-35A/C can carry 14 foot long weapons so the bays are about 4.5m. I'm pretty sure the J-20 doesn't have a 21 foot long weapons bay.
ReplyDeleteChina doesn't operate the TU-95 Bear. They do have about 120 H-6's which can carry a variety of missiles. The best Chinese anti ship missile is probably the YJ-12 and at 6m it's not fitting in the J-20 either. It is however carried by Chinese versions of the SU-27/30/33.
Personally the J-20 seems a compromise design and not a true 5th gen aircraft but more of a step in that direction. I'm personally more concerned with what comes after the J-20. China is also some years away from being able to build high performance engines as reliable as Russian engines which while good enough are not reliable.
The SS-N-27 is only terminally supersonic. The real killer is the SS-N-22 Sunburn which is supersonic throughout and the SS-N-26 which is the basis of the BhahMos. Which ironically in this discussion is most likely to be used against China and Pakistan.
Is anyone's CIWS any good? Not trying anything, but a honest question.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
Ferran
A number of systems have a proven capability to bring down individual subsonic sea skimmers. Capability against a saturation attack from multiple directions is a whole different matter and for some systems, such as gun based systems, command guided missiles or even directional launch fire and forget missiles, it's very easy to see them being overwhelmed.
DeleteSupersonic, maneuvering anti-ship missiles are a whole different issue. Supposedly a few of the new GQM-163 Coyote drones have been knocked down, one recently by the French with an Aster missile, but there are big question marks about what percentage of them were actually shot down and how much maneuvering they were doing at the time.
In either case it is important to remember that realistic tests are extremely difficult because the closer the drone is actually aimed to the ship, the more danger it will actually get through and impact. Even when a target drone is 'killed', flaming wreckage could still hit the ship ballistically, a risk that is unacceptable in peacetime. Thus there aren't really warshot simulations but rather crossing targets being engaged.
Then there's human error. The last ship to be hit by an antiship missile, the Israeli Hanit, had two separate anti-missile systems plus an EW system, all of which were turned off because they didn't think there was an antiship missile threat in the area. Hanit only survived because the missile detonated when it hit a crane outside the main structure of the ship.
This is not news. Since the 80's the USN has been faced with regiments of Backfires sporting AS-4s and AS-15s in conjunction with Oscars fitted with P-700 Shipwrecks. THAT is scarey. The USN should have kept the F-14D and went with the GD/Westinghouse Phoenix replacement.
ReplyDelete@sferrin, what did capability did the F-14D have that the new Super Hornets don't??
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm being naive but I assumed a lot of missiles weren't carried because of software incompatibility not hardware. If that's true, what's holding back our fleet from upgrading to better missile-intercepting-missles?
I'm not military but just from geeking it up online I know that the F-18 can't match the range of the F-14 (which allows missile carrying planes to get closer) and the F-18 can't fire the F-14's Phoenix missile (which also lets bad guy planes get closer).
DeleteThe F-14 was designed to carry the Phoenix, that's why there is such a big gap between the engines when viewed from the bottom of the plane.
Any military guys please feel free to correct me if that is wrong.
Thanks
The AWACS killer role is just as important, if not more so, at sea. AWACS is key for the USN using its limited number of shipborne fighters effectively and the effectiveness of antiship missiles increases enormously if there is no warning of them before they come over the radar horizon.
ReplyDeleteThe SS-N-27 (i.e. the 3M-54E variant of the SS-N-27 family) is a case in point: the subsonic portion of the flight is "over the horizon" from an individual ship. To a ship being attacked, the missile appears to be supersonic and maneuvering through its entire flight. To an AWACS overhead however, the missile's flight includes a long, subsonic, 'straight and level' phase where it is much more vulnerable and during which a targeted ship could prepare and even do some limited maneuvering before the supersonic attack phase.
Entirely agree and well worth pointing out the central importance of AEW for the carrier task force. It's public information that in 2009 an E-2D provided targeting in a test for an over the horizon cruise missile target that was engaged by an SM-6.
DeleteThat means our 200+ km range SM-6's can begin engagement of those big long range supersonic missiles very far from the task force. Getting strike aircraft in range for shorter range anti ship missiles might become rather problematic between fighter coverage and SM-6's.
As for the F-14 remember that those Soviet Cold War era anti ship missiles were literally 40 feet long. The long range of the Phoenix together with the F-14's long range was designed to either get to the bombers far enough out before they launched or nail the huge missiles. In reality the Phoenix was far less useful against smaller targets.
In a perfect world we'd have advanced models of the F-14 and A-6 instead of the F/A-18E/F. The USN retired both of these in favor of a far cheaper to operate aircraft. Within a finite budget one could argue they made the right choice post Cold War. That said the loss of long range carrier aircraft really has hurt and this is being corrected with the F-35C and X-47B follow on. Longer term the real F-14 replacement will be the F/A-XX (NGAD).
Other than the range advantage many naval aviators are on record stating the F/A-18E/F with AMRAAM is at least as effective as the F-14 with Phoenix. Whether that's accurate in terms of where an updated F-14D would be one could debate but eventually the 1960's designed F-14 was going to be retired.