Reply With QuoteThe concept of forward defense sounds to my ears very close to pre-emptive strike.
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This is a discussion on The US Navy of 2030. One Projection within the World Armed Forces forums, part of the World Strategic Defence Area category; Originally Posted by Defense Media Network The U.S. Navy of 2030 Looking ahead is always daunting; crystal balls are not ...
Senior Member
This is a very interesting and good article. I do not agree with all of it, but it does provide good food for thought.Originally Posted by Defense Media Network
The U.S. Navy of 2030
Looking ahead is always daunting; crystal balls are not what they once were. If you were looking 20-odd years ahead in, say, 1975, when the Soviets seemed to be doing rather well in the Cold War, would you have imagined that the Soviet Union itself was not long for the world? On the other hand, you probably would have understood the potential for technology.
The two big developments were better command and control through more powerful computers, and stealth. The most important U.S. Navy systems of the early 1990s were already embryonic in 1975. You might even have noticed that a lot of the technology around you seemed to be improving more and more slowly. In some way, once the easy quick steps had been taken, it took longer and longer for a great deal of technological effort to make a visible difference.
We have a Navy for three reasons. One is that we want to deal with threats as far from the United States as possible. Only a navy can stay in place near foreign shores, on a sustained basis, without local permission. Our crystal ball is unlikely to tell us what problems we will face in 2030, but we certainly expect to remain a world power, and world powers always face foreign problems. This first reason is sometimes called presence (for deterrence), and sometimes power projection (when deterrence does not work). Ballistic-missile submarines exemplify presence. The most recent form of power projection has been the war in Afghanistan. In case that does not seem very naval, remember that without the fleet in the Arabian Sea, we would not have been able to fight in Afghanistan in the first place when we got there in 2003.
The second reason is that we badly want to maintain world prosperity, because the less prosperous people are, the more likely they are to fight – and as the richest country in the world, we are target No. 1. The central fact of sea power has always been that it is much easier to move anything heavy from one place to another by sea rather than on land. The classic accounts of sea power are really about the fight to control world trade by sea. Even when there was not so much world trade, the basic fact of sea power is why it was possible to mount seaborne invasions during World War II, or for that matter, why a major air base can move across the sea at 30 knots. In the past, along with the value of trade was the immense value of world fisheries, which keep many people from starving. For some decades, we have been taking more and more of our resources from the sea, too. Those resources, such as undersea oil and gas, have to be guarded.
A third reason is the direct defense of the United States. More than a century ago, the United States chose forward defense over local defense, the coast defense mission declining sharply. If for some reason forward defense became impossible, coast defense would revive. As it is, in an age of terrorism, we are more and more concerned with the possibility that our enemies will use large merchant ships to attack us, just as they used airliners on 9/11. Right now that it mostly a Coast Guard problem, but it involves the Navy’s efforts at ocean surveillance (to pick out suspicious merchant ships long before they get to the United States).
Coast or local defense does have one growing naval component. Right now the most successful component of U.S. ballistic-missile defense seems to be the Aegis system on board destroyers and cruisers. That is partly due to the sophistication of the system, but also due to the ability to place systems where they are most effective, out to sea in the direction of a threat. It seems that more and more Third World countries are working on long-range ballistic missiles. To these countries, missiles are, among other things, a way to turn off unwanted U.S. power projection. Many of the governments involved see the United States as a fundamentally hostile force in the world (the Iranians put this idea most forcefully, but they are not alone).
It seems unlikely that the world of 2030 will be enormously more peaceful than the world of 2012. In that case, sea-based ballistic-missile defense may be a lot more important. The need for such defense will change the balance among U.S. naval missions – and resources...
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Last edited by bd popeye; 06-30-2012 at 10:11 AM. Reason: fix title
Junior Member
The concept of forward defense sounds to my ears very close to pre-emptive strike.
Senior Member
No...actually, it just means establishing your first line of defense much farther away from your own backyard if you are able.
The US, with its bases, possessions and alliances can do so in certain areas.
Those forces do not need to be posted out there like that to conduct premptive strikes. With the carriers and their airwing being mobile as they are, and with the reach of systems like the B-2 and newer global strike systems, premptive strikes do not have to be dependant on actual forces based in theater.
Last edited by Jeff Head; 07-01-2012 at 06:47 AM. Reason: Fixed a couple of typos
Junior Member
OK, thanks.
I don't understand the railgun and the battlefield lasers. An object has increasing friction due to its speed, making any high speed projectile without continuing energy supply rapidly decelerating. The useable range at which a projectile is at high speed is thus compareably short, making the weapon rather an improved point defense at extraordinary costs and weight. Point defense munitions don't constitute a major safety risk to ships as far as I know.
An alternative would be top use the rails simply as accelerrators for a giant projectile to a high speed, it can maintain with internal energy release at an increasede efficiency. Jet engines, rockets and scramjets (by extension base-bleed) do need high speeds for efficiency and do always profit from a fast acceleration to required speed. The differences between ELMAG, railgun and maglev train would diminish.
Lasers are radiation sources that like any radiation lose brilliance of power concentration with the square of the distance, making them another point defense item. This approach of localized heating has traditionally been countered for centuries by reflectors, heat resistant materials, cooling liquids, movement out of focus, switching location and rotating surfaces. Energy density for lasers per weight of the storage device is rather low in comparison to fuels or explosives normally consumed by a warship, nor seem solar powered lasers an option.
Stupid me now asks, why not create "slow speed" railguns/ELMAG for large scramjet projectiles, like EW-pots (AN/ALQ-184 ECM Pod) , that are capable of emitting required confusing and destructive waves (creating the electronics/hull structure destroying waves as far away as possibe from the sensible parts of the ship and as close to the enemy as possible) and can be recovered like torpedoes?
Senior Member
Actually, the rail guns being developed are beng designed to have a range between 150-200 nautilcal miles. These are hyper velocity projectile, which are very aerodynamically designed. The rest is just math.
The initial lasers are intedned to be point defense and will probably reside on the new carriers.
The rail gun will be ahuge game changer in Naval technology in terms of reach and even precision because seeker warheads can be designed in.
Ultimately particle beam weaponry will be developed. But the rail guns and lasers are being tested now in live fire exercises. Probably another 6-8 years at least before either has a working model ready for full up tests and initial production and deployment...though the laser has been tested at sea already. Just needs a higher power version which is being developed to work with the massive energy available from the new US reactors on the Ford Class carriers.
Junior Member
Doing the math is the problem, the stokes radius would be extremely small, this whole thing has enormous friction and you start with the energy of a train to transport the energy of an infantry rifle bullet to these large distances. Decades ago the US already convinced Germany about the "soon achieveable outstanding" railgun technology that turned out a failure of German expectations.
If it had at least base bleed or created a vacuum around the projectile, like "aerial-supercavitation", but using the enormous friction to create plasma and reduce the overall friction. The vacuum concept is at the root of particle beams that create a hole in the air via laser and then can send high speed particles through it to hit on a non-air object.
New Member
i believe that's quite a rosy view, it's one thing to build expensive prototypes (see fusion reactors), it's another to fully utilise them in a industrial manner. considering the energy and material science at present, i (personally) would put energy weapons on the same time line - if not later - as development of fusion energy.
Senior Member
Rail gun is a potential game changer because the kinetic projectiles will be pretty much impervious to ray based defense weapon, while reducing the interception chance of conventional CIWS. Also, it has great cost saving potential when you consider that it has comparable range and energy content of a cruise missile in a single shell.
For long range targets, you're going to be shooting your gun at an angle, which means that the air resistance path that the projectile will travel will potentially be a lot less than the total journey distance since a portion of it will be in outer space. It can then use gravity to re-accelerate on it's downward path. Conventional missiles will be constrained to spent it's entire flight path inside the earth's atmosphere, unless we're talking about ballistic missiles, and we know how large they have to be.
If you can somehow put in a guidance system on it that will survive the launching process, you could be looking at a reasonably cheat ASAT or even ABM capability. What if it could replace standard missiles? What if you can have a smaller boost assisted SAM?
The potential is there, just need to make it work, that's how technology and game changer technology advance right?
Senior Member
Time will tell, Kurt, but the design parameters are taking all of that into consideration, I can promise you. And the result will be specially designed projectiles that allow for bleed and less overall friction over the entire path of the projectile, and very high initial velocities that will achieve the design goals.
I did not say that the particle beam technology would be available tomorrow or even in the next 6-8 years. You are looking more at mid to late 20s for that, if everything pans out.
The initial self defense lasers and intial rail guns may get out into initial deployment in the 2020-2024 time frame.
Time will tell...but on thoss latter two, good progess is being made as w speak.
Junior Member
So it is about having another Project HARP, but with a less visible gunshot. Why bother about the distance if this is perfect to hunt satellites? Turning this into a long distance weapon would require some nice maneuvers in space, using something like a gravitational slingshot for changing direction of flight path.
Super Moderator
Particle beam is a bad idea (thus far). The beam is not only vulnerable to atmospheric blooming but may expand due to repulsion of like charges. Free electron lasers are the way to go, at least for in-atmosphere/naval applications.
Last edited by bd popeye; 07-02-2012 at 08:41 AM.
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Senior Member
FEL is being aggressively worked on now. Particle beam is not a good terminology, charged particles would be more apt. My bad there.
But the FEL capabilities and accomplishments are moving along fairly rapidly.
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