Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

I have two comments to add. Only those who never sailed with a carrier strike group would maintain that carriers are somehow now naked to the world, detected with ease by all manner of sensors. If necessary, a carrier strike group can disappear from view. The USN practices tactical deception in a variety of ways. The Soviets had a constellation of fairly good intel satellites and fleets or maritime patrol Mays and Bears, yet we could make CSG's disappear if necessary.
Second, missile systems or this Prompt Global Strike concept do not give you persistent power. They won't in a million years give you maritime dominance in a region, denying the seas to your enemy. They can deal harsh strikes on short notice, yes, but they do not give you the ability to control a sea and deny access to this sea by an enemy. For that you need ships, and having a carrier with high end tactical aircraft will always give you an advantage over an enemy that has no organic air power with them.
By the way, aircraft can shoot down missiles. I hope you realize that.

A brilliant or dumb idea? Using aircraft to try and shoot down Exocets!

Ambivalent said:

I have two comments to add. Only those who never sailed with a carrier strike group would maintain that carriers are somehow now naked to the world, detected with ease by all manner of sensors. If necessary, a carrier strike group can disappear from view. The USN practices tactical deception in a variety of ways. The Soviets had a constellation of fairly good intel satellites and fleets or maritime patrol Mays and Bears, yet we could make CSG's disappear if necessary.
Second, missile systems or this Prompt Global Strike concept do not give you persistent power. They won't in a million years give you maritime dominance in a region, denying the seas to your enemy. They can deal harsh strikes on short notice, yes, but they do not give you the ability to control a sea and deny access to this sea by an enemy. For that you need ships, and having a carrier with high end tactical aircraft will always give you an advantage over an enemy that has no organic air power with them.
By the way, aircraft can shoot down missiles. I hope you realize that.

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Are you referring to the infrared smoke-grenades to obscure detection in the visible and infrared spectrums?

Theoretically, an aircraft can fly behind a high-flying sub-sonic cruise missile and shoot it down. However, until your claim, I did not realize that an aircraft can shoot down incoming sea-skimming anti-ship missiles (with a potentially supersonic terminal warhead) or ballistic missiles. Don't stop there. Keep on making more fantastic claims without quoting reputable publications or a news source to back it up!

With a single bold sentence (e.g. "aircraft can shoot down missiles"), you have eliminated the threat of the "Chinese Exocet." How foolish of the British, all they had to do was use their Harrier aircraft to shoot down the French Exocets during the Falklands War. Instead, the British allowed the HMS Sheffield and other ships to become crippled and sunk by French Exocets. They forgot to use their aircraft to shoot down the French Exocets!



"Due to the Yingji-82 missile's small radar reflectivity, low attack flight path (only five to seven meters above the sea surface) and strong anti-jamming capability of its guidance equipment, target ships have a very small chance of intercepting the missile. The single shot hit probability of the Yingji-82 is estimated to be as high as 98%.[1] The Yingji-82 can be launched from airplanes, surface ships, submarines and land-based vehicles. Its export name is the C-802."

[video=youtube;TCeTYbMty1U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCeTYbMty1U[/video]

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Only those who never sailed with a carrier strike group would maintain that carriers are somehow now naked to the world, detected with ease by all manner of sensors. If necessary, a carrier strike group can disappear from view.

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You non-seagoing types would be amazed. "nuff said.

How foolish of the British, all they had to do was use their Harrier aircraft to shoot down the French Exocets during the Falklands War.

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Gee who won the war?

By the way as we all know the British were handicapped by not having more tactical aircraft available to the FTO(Falklands Theater of Operations.)

By the way I'm not denying Argentine victories during the war.

Due to the Yingji-82 missile's small radar reflectivity, low attack flight path (only five to seven meters above the sea surface) and strong anti-jamming capability of its guidance equipment, target ships have a very small chance of intercepting the missile. The single shot hit probability of the Yingji-82 is estimated to be as high as 98%.[

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Does anyone know if the Chinese have tested the missile against any targets emitting US type ECM? I'd like to see how it acts then.

Do not dismiss Ambivalent's statements as conjecture. As a former sea going USN officer he knows of what he speaks.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

The eternal battle of arms vs. armor. No US carrier group will enter into battle without a credible defense and the new pin point terminal flight adjustment ballistic missile is no exception. The new missile is impressive and represents the future of ballistic missile development that all nations will have to account for.


[video=youtube;6w-ql8msl0U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w-ql8msl0U&feature=fvw[/video]

[video=youtube;baEux7jd-ZE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baEux7jd-ZE[/video]

[video=youtube;gN2NqDqN9t0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN2NqDqN9t0[/video]

The last video is a bit too MTV for my taste but it was the best that showed most aspects of this system. Please disregard the showmanship and language.

Re: A brilliant or dumb idea? Using aircraft to try and shoot down Exocets!

Martian said:

Are you referring to the infrared smoke-grenades to obscure detection in the visible and infrared spectrums?

Theoretically, an aircraft can fly behind a high-flying sub-sonic cruise missile and shoot it down. However, until your claim, I did not realize that an aircraft can shoot down incoming sea-skimming anti-ship missiles (with a potentially supersonic terminal warhead) or ballistic missiles. Don't stop there. Keep on making more fantastic claims without quoting reputable publications or a news source to back it up!

With a single bold sentence (e.g. "aircraft can shoot down missiles"), you have eliminated the threat of the "Chinese Exocet." How foolish of the British, all they had to do was use their Harrier aircraft to shoot down the French Exocets during the Falklands War. Instead, the British allowed the HMS Sheffield and other ships to become crippled and sunk by French Exocets. They forgot to use their aircraft to shoot down the French Exocets!

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"Due to the Yingji-82 missile's small radar reflectivity, low attack flight path (only five to seven meters above the sea surface) and strong anti-jamming capability of its guidance equipment, target ships have a very small chance of intercepting the missile. The single shot hit probability of the Yingji-82 is estimated to be as high as 98%.[1] The Yingji-82 can be launched from airplanes, surface ships, submarines and land-based vehicles. Its export name is the C-802."

[video=youtube;TCeTYbMty1U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCeTYbMty1U[/video]

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The F-14 and Phoenix most certainly were designed to shoot down Soviet anti-ship missiles. That was a primary mission. If the missile shooter couldn't be downed, then you went after the missiles themselves. The F/A-18E and F carry on that same mission with AIM-120D. The mission is trained for intensely. It is their most important mission. The E-2 is going to see all of the missile shooters long before they are within range of the CSG. The CSG will also be data linking the E-3 and Rivet Joint who are helping to classify and prioritize the threats.
Carriers disappear by a combination of EMCON, use of weather, the use of outboard sensors like satellites the E-3 and Rivet Joint and passive use of battle group sensors to maintain situational awareness. Air operations are conducted entirely by hand and light signals. Ships communicate with flashing lights, signal flags and semaphore. Deception vans that transmit a spectrum that matches that of a CSG are mounted to auxillary ships and sent off in a different direction. These vans transmit all the frequencies of the various radars and other equipment typical of a CSG, right down to recorded radio traffic. They create a datum that has the electronic signature of the CSG, and can buy the carrier time to run on EMCON and go somewhere else. Crappy weather buys the carrier a lot of options for deception. Airborn and space sensors don't see through weather. Something as simple as firing the CIWS was enough to clutter up the radar screens of a Bear, and is one of the tactics used in the Cold War.
Read up sometime about the tactical deception used by the USS Nimitz to keep the Soviets from guessing what we were up to and where we were and tipping off the Iranians prior to the attempted Iran hostage rescue. Also read up on how Admiral Ace Lyons snuck the Eisenhower battlegroup into the Barents Sea right up to the Kola Peninsula without the Soviets detecting them until our fighters deliberately zoomed a Bear being re-fueled at something like Mach 2. Carrier strike groups are not necessarily naked to the world. A good skipper can make one very hard to find.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

The reasons for the loss of the Sheffield are not so simple. Number one, the ship's older SATCOM interfered with the radar warning receiver,so the RWR was shut down during SATCOM sessions. That is the reason the Sheffield missed the incoming Exocet. Had RWR been on, their ECM was actually very effective in seducing missiles away from their target. The Brits compounded the problem with truly ineffective damage control, worsened by design flaws in the Type 42 class. Read the Board of Inquiry sometime, it is on line in redacted form. The fire main was severed and there was no way to isolate the damage to the fire main to allow the undamaged portions to be pressurized and used to fight fires. Their gas turbine powered portable pumps all failed. They also lost internal communication (US and Japanese warships still use ancient sound powered phones and a mulitplicity of circuits so the ship would have to be cut in half to loose communications). Even still, the ship did not sink until being towed home because the Brits didn't go inside and plug the hole in the hull or pump the water out of her. USS Stark took two hits by the identical Exocet one of which detonated (the Exocet that hit Sheffield didn't explode and one of the two that hit Stark didn't explode either), suffered a lot of damage and similar loss of life, but sailed to the US on her own power. That is our experience from WWII, the Forrestal and Enterprise talking.
Second, the Brits had no E-2 or similar aircraft to provide early warning of the incoming Super Entendards. That is a huge shortcoming the US Navy does not have. Their Harriers could have easily engaged the Super Entendards. Keep in mind also that the Brits never had more than 20 Harriers in theater at any time and those were plenty busy.
You are also missing the cruise missile surrogates that are shot down in large numbers each year in training exercises. Things like BQM-74's appear and behave just like several sea skimming cruise missiles. AQM-37's replicate fast high fliers. Fighter aircraft and ships both train against these. You could go into the US Navy's budget exhibits, which are public information on the Navy Comptroller website and read the procurement exhibits to see how many of these we burn through each year from the numbers we have to buy. Then look at the similar USAF documents to see how many BQM-167's they burn through each year. The USAF plans to use fighters to shoot down cruise missiles too, and exercises this tactic with vigor.
The Brits and other NATO nations exercise against the Mirach 100/4 and similar cruise missile surrogates, training their pilots and ship crews how to engage and defeat incoming cruise missiles. Taiwan and South Korea likewise train against modern US made cruise missile surrogates.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Ambivalent said:

If necessary, a carrier strike group can disappear from view.

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Not in the littorals. Especially places like the South China Sea which is filled with thousands of fishing boats, merchant vessels, naval vessels, etc. You never know which fishing boat will make a call to say that they say a warship.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Spartan95 said:

Not in the littorals. Especially places like the South China Sea which is filled with thousands of fishing boats, merchant vessels, naval vessels, etc. You never know which fishing boat will make a call to say that they say a warship.

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That cuts both ways. Lots of civilian traffic will make it harder to pick out the military targets.

As for the example of the Falklands War that's being discussed, I'd like to point out that both sides were using technology that was outdated even at the time. Argentinian aircraft dropping dumb bombs were going up against British ships firing at them with WWII-style AA guns. So sometimes I think people extrapolate too much from that conflict. But it is fair to say that it showed how decisive shipborne air power can be because the Harriers effectively defeated the Argentine bombing campaign against the fleet.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Finn McCool said:

That cuts both ways. Lots of civilian traffic will make it harder to pick out the military targets.

As for the example of the Falklands War that's being discussed, I'd like to point out that both sides were using technology that was outdated even at the time. Argentinian aircraft dropping dumb bombs were going up against British ships firing at them with WWII-style AA guns. So sometimes I think people extrapolate too much from that conflict. But it is fair to say that it showed how decisive shipborne air power can be because the Harriers effectively defeated the Argentine bombing campaign against the fleet.

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Not really At the beginning of the conflct Argentina just receive super Entendard and only have 6 Exocet missiles. Had Agentina had more missile the outcome could be different. The conflict show once for all the destructive power of modern Missile in future conflict

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Finn McCool said:

That cuts both ways. Lots of civilian traffic will make it harder to pick out the military targets.

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Exactly.

022s can hide amongst fishing vessels. Can a carrier do that? Is the carrier going to be putting up aircraft in the air (which gives away its position due to the need for air traffic control) or risk being surprised by strike fighters?