Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

BLUEJACKET

Banned Idiot
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Bluejacket, has a Tomahawk ever been intercpeted by aircraft or ADA? China doesn thave all that many interceptors with advance lookdown/shoot down. Also given the size of China's budget she would not be albe to build all that many arsenal planes. You don thave to tak out every runway, just the runways being used for the arsenal planes.
Even if it never was, there is a
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for everything! The U-2 was shot down despite the altitude it was flying at, and the PLAAF has AWACS with lookdown capability, plus the PLA has AAA (the Iraqis probably shot down some crise missiles in the '91 GW) & AD missile units. Existing IL-76s can be modified for ALASM/CM
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rough airstrips -it was their design requirement, and there is no way of knowing which ones they'll be using.
To date, cruise missiles have not been a decisive weapon. Military commanders attack most targets by other means. Until the 2003 war in Iraq, cruise missiles were used sparingly because they are expensive. The Tomahawk, for example, costs well over $1 million per missile.
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SOSUS isn't going to atrophy with the end of the CW, so even if there isn't a mobile version yet, there will be!
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

SOSUS isn't going to atrophy with the end of the CW, so even if there isn't a mobile version yet, there will be!

What is this suspose to mean? Did I miss something? I know what SOSUS is ..What is CW? Did you mean GW as in Gulf War? Please explain!

Thanks.
 

zraver

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

I think he meant the Cold War.

Bluejacket, your not going to hide a fleet of commerical airline sized plane in PLAF colora from satalites and other elint sources. or risk a multi-tens of million dollar aircraft to F.O.D.

Even if the PLA and PLAAF can intercept 10% of the strikes that is still a huge number gettign through. BTW ther eis no evidecne for a Tomahawk ever being shot down over land. With high subsonic speeds and nap of the earth flying you simply cant see them from the ground. Chinese awacs and the most advanced fighters of the PLAAF will be engaged in fighting thier own battle. Please give the US some credit for being able to conduct a multi-phase multi-dimension battle and knowing what the key linchpin units in the Chinese military are. Those will be the targets and thats where the battle will be centered.
 

adeptitus

Captain
VIP Professional
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

How about this.
How do you sink a carrier: French vs Russian Navy

Assuming this takes place in the confined area of Mediterranean, the Russian navy's strategy would prolly be to use its Su-33 to defend its surface group against French aircraft, and move its ships within range to deploy P-700/SS-N-19 SSM's against French ships. I think the P-700 has 550 km range? That's about the distance from Sardinia to France on the map, or Cyprus to Crete (I'm eyeballing it on a map).
 
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IDonT

Senior Member
VIP Professional
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Assuming this takes place in the confined area of Mediterranean, the Russian navy's strategy would prolly be to use its Su-33 to defend its surface group against French aircraft, and move its ships within range to deploy P-700/SS-N-19 SSM's against French ships. I think the P-700 has 550 km range? That's about the distance from Sardinia to France on the map, or Cyprus to Crete (I'm eyeballing it on a map).

I was thinking more in the North Sea off Norway.

The French has an advantage in AEW due to the hawkeye. It can see better and farther than the Helix AEW helo's on the Kuznetsov. The key for the French forces here is for the Russian's to to get a definate fix on their location because those Shipwrecks will be coming. The first phase will be to use a BarCap 100-200miles towards the threat axis. Once the Russia group is found, an anti-ship strike using a squadron of super entendard with Rafael escorts will strike.

Can the SU-33 provide targeting data for the P-700? It would be a much survivable platform than the helicopter.
 

adeptitus

Captain
VIP Professional
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Can the SU-33 provide targeting data for the P-700? It would be a much survivable platform than the helicopter.

To the best of my knowledge, no. Russians use helicopters to provide additional targetting data.

Considering how heavily populated Europe is, I think it'd be very difficult to conceal a surface battle group with all those boats and planes flying everywhere. Plus both sides prolly have satellites looking downward too.

If the conflict occured in middle of Atlantic, then it'd be a different story.
 

Kongo

Junior Member
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

No, the unit cost is dependent on total number produced, because you have to average out the R&D expense. So if you make a cruise missile that's useful to multiple branches, it'd increase the order potential, and therefore reduce per unit cost.

Production cost exists, you know.

On missile guidance, since this scenario calls for anti-shipping, we prolly cannot use TERCOM. It'd prolly use a mix of inertial and satellite navigation to reach the target area, then go into hunter-killer mode with its seeker head. I envision something like an IR + electro-optical imaging technology that can guide the missile to specific target area on a ship.

What I meant was mid-corse guidance. You have wonderful ideas of 1000+ km ranged cruide missiles going after the CVN.... ever wondered how to update the guidance of the cruide missile mid-course? The CVN isn't sitting prettily at one spot waiting for the missiles, you know. You could do it the Russian way and try to shorten the time of flight by making the missiles supersonic, but that would in turn make them large and heavy, which would in turn limit the number of missiles carried. Stop thinking just about the missile firing platform, think end to end of the whole chain of events needed to engage a CVN. At least, look up how the Russians tried to do it - it would give you a far more realistic perspective of the difficulties involved in trying to take on an American CBG.

Rather than say "F-117 level" or "F-22 level", I think it's more realistic to say "gradual RCS reduction" through research advances and implementation. Or, if you want to be under-handed about it, theft and espionage.

Development can be categorized into 2 areas, hardware (physical) and software (human resource). The PRC has made some advancement in the hardware sector (manufacturing), but is lacking in software (skilled/expereinced people). They have computers that are much faster than the supercomputers of 1970s, but not the experienced research staff at Skunk Works to make the F-117. Human resource takes time to cultivate, there's no shortcuts around it.

How they get LO capabilities is irrelevant to this discussion. What matters is whether they can achieve LO at the levels of the F-117. This matters, because if such levels are not met, then the UAVs would remain vulnerable to destruction by the CBG's fighters. Sure, nobody got killed, but your UAV network is steadily being eroded, and your chances of killing the carrier plummets. UAVs of the types and varieties you suggest also are not cheap, especially when you put the kind of sensors needed to search for the CVN on them. Guess how much the Global Hawk costs, even in its baseline version?
 

Finn McCool

Captain
Registered Member
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

IDon't-I think that I'll add in my thoughts about a hypothetical battle of that nature later, but I just want to add now that that scenario was envisioned by NATO and Soviet planners in the Cold War because the Soviet Navy wanted to break out of the Baltic and seize the Danish-held islands blocking the exit routes for Soviet subs to the North Atlantic, in addition to breaking through the GIUK gap, but covering that was a USN task.
 

adeptitus

Captain
VIP Professional
Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

What I meant was mid-corse guidance. You have wonderful ideas of 1000+ km ranged cruide missiles going after the CVN.... ever wondered how to update the guidance of the cruide missile mid-course? The CVN isn't sitting prettily at one spot waiting for the missiles, you know. You could do it the Russian way and try to shorten the time of flight by making the missiles supersonic, but that would in turn make them large and heavy, which would in turn limit the number of missiles carried. Stop thinking just about the missile firing platform, think end to end of the whole chain of events needed to engage a CVN. At least, look up how the Russians tried to do it - it would give you a far more realistic perspective of the difficulties involved in trying to take on an American CBG.

It's possible that the PLA is looking at the Russian "heavy missile" solution. The PLA imported at least 6 x Kh-55's in 2000-2001 from Ukraine. This missile can reach from China to Guam. This year, we see this from Janes:
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The Russians recently tested an updated, land-attack version:
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I recall the Russians built Kh-55 derived anti-ship missiles (Kh-65/SD/101?), not too sure.


On mid-course correction, I think since wer'e talking about ships at sea and not stationary target, we can't use TERCOM. So we'd have to rely on a combination of aircraft, ship/sub, UAV, satellite, and various manned intelligence methods.

Of these, the cheapest and most risky would be human agents. If someone makes a call via satellite phone, you can get a fix on their position, but planting the agent, smuggling in the communication device, and actually getting away with it would be quite difficult.

The least risky (and possibly very expensive) would be battlefield recon satellites. Satellites are expensive, so the PLA needs something cost-effective. The H-6 NGSLV launch platform that CASC is working on, is a step in the right direction:
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<snip>
plummets. UAVs of the types and varieties you suggest also are not cheap, especially when you put the kind of sensors needed to search for the CVN on them. Guess how much the Global Hawk costs, even in its baseline version?

Total program cost over ~9 years of the Global Hawk, as of Nov 2006, is estimated at $9.5 billion:
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In comparison, the F/A-22's total program cost is $71+ billion. But the (total) unit cost of the Global Hawk and the F/A-22 are similiar, because so few of the UAV's are ordered:

The new official cost estimate projects that the Air Force will buy 54 Global Hawks eventually. So far, the Air Force has 14 and the Navy has bought two for experimental purposes.

The actual construction cost per unit is estimated at $35 million. But the R&D cost is making the Pentagon choke.


p.s. as I mentioned previously, I believe UAV is the future and the PLA should allocate $ toward UAV R&D, even at the expense of traditional manned aircraft. I think all existing AF with man-pilot culture is going to hate this. If it costs $1+ billion/year for next 10 years in R&D, so be it.
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