Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

Hendrik_2000 said:

Not really someone actually do the modelling and calculation of revisit rate vs radar tracking capability

According to an analysis by Eric Hagt and Matthew Durnin published in
these pages in 2009, assuming a then-accurate total of twenty-two satellites with
an off-nadir (i.e., side-to-side) field of view of sixty degrees, China could ensure
that each area was revisited by a satellite every forty-five minutes, on average.35
This would be sufficient to monitor stationary concentrations of aircraft and
ships at regional bases. Also, the space-based ISR architecture may already be
able to locate and track moving carrier groups, especially when combined with
other ISR assets.Hagt and Durnin deemed the forty-five-minute revisit rate insufficient
for tracking carriers continuously with space-based assets.36 However,
extrapolating fromtheir study, having thirty satellites in orbit would reduce that
interval to thirty or thirty-five minutes. Furthermore, the Hagt-Durnin model
somewhat plays down the importance of other facets of China’s ISR assets and
their ability to overlay and complement each other. Significantly, a carrier group,
once its general location has been detected by a certain ISR asset, does not need
to be tracked by the same asset. General coordinates from the OTH radar or a
satellite could be passed to a nearby submarine or to aircraft that would close in
on the carrier to engage it or continue tracking it.
In addition to ocean-bottom sonar beds, China operates fifty-five submarines,
all of which could assist with carrier detection and tracking. The boats of
the relatively old and noisy Romeo andMing classes would likely lie in wait with
their engines stopped, serving as listening posts. Newer, quieter submarines
would likely be able to track U.S. surface assets while shadowing them undetected.
Many observers have pointed out the likelihood that China would fit a
number of inconspicuous civilian vessels, such as fishing boats,with equipment
to detect U.S. carrier groups and relay their locations. Finally, China would call
on its surface combatants and maritime reconnaissance aircraft to assist in locating
and tracking U.S. surface assets. In fact, China’s Gaoxin Project is developing
seven specialized variants of the indigenous Y-8 cargo aircraft, with
versions specializing in electronic and signal intelligence collection, communication
and data relay, and electronic warfare, all useful against American air and
naval assets in the theater.37
China is also proficient in remote-communication technologies, which
would be essential for coordinating assets in a high-intensity campaign. It
18 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW
operates four dedicated military communications satellites: three FengHuo vehicles
and the DongFangHong-4, launched in 2010.38 Also, it has access to a
number of commercial communication satellites, like Sinosat. China has also
bolstered its AWACS* capability and is continuing to push for greater airborne
C2 capability. The PLAAF has added four Y-8 early-warning planes and at least
four A-50 Mainstay AWACS aircraft to its force in the recent years.39 It is working
on the KJ-200 and KJ-2000 projects, based on the Y-8 and A-50 platforms,
respectively.40
Even more strikingly, China appears

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"Track" have different meaning for different content.

Nobody is saying the satellite cannot be used to "track" a carrier group. However, you cannot have the precise location in a timely fashion, accurate enough for a missile.

A low flying spy satellite cannot communicate with the ground center until it orbits back over the control center. Let's say that takes 5 minutes. Add 5 minutes to prep the missile, then 10 minutes for the missile to reach the target area after launch. That's 20 minutes, enough time for the ship to be 10 miles away.

And submarine? They can shadow, but when underwater, they are not going to be able to communicate the location back to the ground.... and again, if it can shadow the carrier, why not attack?

You are crazy to send AWAC within 250 miles of a carrier. That's as close to suicide as you can get.

Civilian vessles? Are you kidding me? If you have to day dream, why not put an actual spy on the carrier itself and have him do the work?

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

no_name said:

I would not underestimate the importance of the ASBM.

Because different from say a C-803, the ASBM is an area denial weapon. There is no telling of it's terminal maneuverable range. The mere threat of having one in the vicinity takes a toll on mission planning of the commander of the task force. They could possibly be used to steer the carrier group to designated kill zones.

edit: If you can deny a whole big area it would have the same implication as a tactical nuclear weapon. Is there any wonder then that US warned that use of such weapon should be considered in the same severity range as an actual nuke missile.

In other words a steerable non-nuclear ASBM has the same advantage as a normal nuclear BM, when it comes to destroying or deny access to individual high value carrier, without being actually labelled as a nuclear strike. So it's threatening radius can be just as big or even bigger than the distruction radius of a nuke warhead. One should not think of the ASBM as falling on a single pin point on the map but a big fuzzy grey area with near equal capability.

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It sounds good on concept, but knowing it simply cannot be possibly done, nobody would think it as a threat.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

no_name said:

I would not underestimate the importance of the ASBM.

Because different from say a C-803, the ASBM is an area denial weapon. There is no telling of it's terminal maneuverable range. The mere threat of having one in the vicinity takes a toll on mission planning of the commander of the task force. They could possibly be used to steer the carrier group to designated kill zones.

edit: If you can deny a whole big area it would have the same implication as a tactical nuclear weapon. Is there any wonder then that US warned that use of such weapon should be considered in the same severity range as an actual nuke missile.

In other words a steerable non-nuclear ASBM has the same advantage as a normal nuclear BM, when it comes to destroying or deny access to individual high value carrier, without being actually labelled as a nuclear strike. So it's threatening radius can be just as big or even bigger than the distruction radius of a nuke warhead. One should not think of the ASBM as falling on a single pin point on the map but a big fuzzy grey area with near equal capability.

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Loiter capabilities and active radar for surface to surface missiles is not new and that is not the issue.

The issue regarding the US considering it as a WMD is that a US carrier, with 5000+ personnel on board is considered strategic and vital and anyone who was to successfully sink one of them would be considered conducting "Mass Destruction" against the US and should consider that the US will retaliate and conduct "mass destruction" back...not because of the "Area denial" portion of it.

Finally, there is no shred of evidence that the PLAN or PRC has solved the multiple 4C issues assiciated with such a weapon, and there has been no verifiable operational test of any sort of the weapon.

Make no mistake, the claim to shoot a ballistic missile from a long distance and target a moving US carrier group (with a non-nuclear payload) is a very, very difficult endeavor. The US vessel has to be found and targeted, that info has to be reliably sent back to the launching area, the missile itself will have to reaquire a target that will have moved potentially a number of miles in the mean time...and then manuever at terminal velocities in a very heavy ECM environment and a very heavy defense environment against AEGIS defenses that have already demonstrated the capabilitiyt of engaging and downing ballistic missiles...even exo-atmosphere before they deploy their decoys.

As I say, the talk is fine...research is fine...but until one is actually tested far out into the China Sea and beyond and shown to actually hit a high speed manuevering target in that kind of environment, I will still consider the whole thing more along the lines of a Sung Tsu deception and redirection exercise myself.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

IronsightSniper said:

The problem with making high-speed missiles stealthy is heat. If you can't eliminate the friction from the missile it's still going to be like a second sun to the IR sensors of the CBG. Another query would be, why would a CBG be 200 km away from a Chinese missile launch site? Finally, a faster missile either has to be bigger, get more efficient engines and or fuel and or aerodynamic design, or else it's just gonna get, well, bigger.

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Too much stuff in this thread to comment on it all, but this seems to be a recurring theme and worth commenting on...

Remember that a ballistic missile spends most of its time in space with very little atmosphere. By the time it hits atmosphere (say 120km up) it's basically on top of you and will impact within about 40 seconds. That's why ballistic missiles are exceptionally hard to defend against.

ABM systems have only recently begun to be effective, but that's against fairly primitive missiles. And missile designers haven't had the need to think much about terminal phase evasive maneuvers, flares, ECM, or any other techniques that aircraft have used against missiles for ages. As ABM systems improve, missile designers have a huge toolkit of proven technologies to draw upon to counter them.

I don't think ABM systems can ultimately be successful against comparably modern missiles. Their job is just too hard.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

Anton Gregori said:

Too much stuff in this thread to comment on it all, but this seems to be a recurring theme and worth commenting on...

Remember that a ballistic missile spends most of its time in space with very little atmosphere. By the time it hits atmosphere (say 120km up) it's basically on top of you and will impact within about 40 seconds. That's why ballistic missiles are exceptionally hard to defend against.

ABM systems have only recently begun to be effective, but that's against fairly primitive missiles. And missile designers haven't had the need to think much about terminal phase evasive maneuvers, flares, ECM, or any other techniques that aircraft have used against missiles for ages. As ABM systems improve, missile designers have a huge toolkit of proven technologies to draw upon to counter them.

I don't think ABM systems can ultimately be successful against comparably modern missiles. Their job is just too hard.

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Yeah, but he's trying to make it Stealthy, and don't forget that Cheyenne mountain has a piece of paper that logs ever 2 inch object that's in space, so that only means that the DF-21D will be easier to detect, and thus, dealt with.

And yes, I can tell you that even though all these missile counter measures are possible, they are also possible to counter.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

Asymptote said:

Yeh, I get what you saying, that's why I made the assumption that QWIP detecting the J-20 from 200 km away. And you are absolutely right, a hypersonic missile would be impossible to mask its heat signature due to air friction on the nose. But I have assumed that once the hypersonic missile is launched from J-20, it is already detectable by radar. I have made that assumption. What I am trying to get across is that, the absolute speed of the missile at reaching its target, is crucial. If the missile is fast enough, the defending AAW frigate would not be able to react to the threat, as it has to detect, discern, calculate the intercepting trajectories, launch the SM-3 missile to the optimal intercepting altitude. So if J-20 is stealthy enough to get very close, and fire an AShM before Aegis can launch its SM-3 to intercepting altitude, the CBG AAW screen would be broken. The question would now be...what is the minimum engagement altitude for SM-3?

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Here's a query, are you expecting the DF-21D to be Air-launchable? That's a very far off conjecture. The reason why the DF-21D cannot be stealth is because it's a ballistic missile. Your hypothesis of it becoming air-launchable has no proof nor backing, but yes, air-launching a Ballistic missile will only improve it's capabilities. But for now, the DF-21D is what it is, a ballistic missile. And any country with OTH radars, including the U.S., Russia, and the like, will be able to detect a ballistic missile launch from China. If not the radars, then the satellites. In general, a ballistic missile is flawed for it's lack of Stealth, however, a DF-21D in concert with high speed sea-skimmers, that's different.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

johnqh said:

Maybe you missed the point of radar.....

For a ballistic missile, radar is fine for final stage if the target is not moving or moving on a set path with set speed.

However, a ship moves in whatever way you want. Between the time you have the initial position for launching the missile to when the missile re-enters and able the use the radar, the ship is miles away (30nm/hour, that's 5 miles within 10 minutes).

First, the radar does not cover enough area to make a lock.
Second, even if the radar has a lock, at 10 Mach speed, the missile's ability to turn before hitting the sea level is very limited. It takes only 6 seconds for the missile to travel through the 17km atmosphere. Yes, 6 seconds is enough time for it to make fine adjustment of a couple of hundred meters for a fixed ground target, but there is no way it can turn enough to catch a target 10km away.

It is simple math and physics. I don't care if you have 6 warheads. You can have 100 warheads and you still cannot beat law of physics.

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It take the missile only 35 minute from detection to hit Read this excerpt from Bottle rocket to lightning bolt


According to a 2010 analysis in this quarterly,
it would take approximately thirty-five minutes from the detection of the target
for the PLA to communicate its location to a relevant C2 center, issue an engagement
order (with no delay assumed) to the launcher, and fire the ASBM, and for
the missile to travel its full range. During these thirty-five minutes the carrier
group could travel thirty-one kilometers, making a circle with a radius of
thirty-one kilometers the missile’s area of uncertainty and therefore the required
seeker footprint for a single missile to find the target.76 Although no authoritative
data on the DF-21C’s seeker footprint exist in the open literature,
Chinese sources suggest twenty-, forty-, and hundred-kilometer footprints.77
Given the missiles’ high cost, it is unlikely that China would opt for an overly
narrow footprint, making a hundred, or perhaps forty, kilometers more credible
than twenty. Hence, chances are that each individual ASBM would be able to
find its target and, once it does, achieve a virtually assured hit.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

IronsightSniper said:

Yeah, but he's trying to make it Stealthy, and don't forget that Cheyenne mountain has a piece of paper that logs ever 2 inch object that's in space, so that only means that the DF-21D will be easier to detect, and thus, dealt with.

And yes, I can tell you that even though all these missile counter measures are possible, they are also possible to counter.

Click to expand...

Detecting it early helps a little - you can try to launch your ABM a bit early so it's already in the air before you can actively track the ballistic missile. But even if you know exactly where the ballistic missile is (in other words, the ballistic missile's countermeasures are completely ineffective - not something you want to count on), the ballistic missile is moving at mach 10 while your ABM is moving at max mach 4. The ABM needs to predict the ballistic missile's path almost perfectly, but there's no rule saying the ballistic missile can't change direction.

I need to think about the math a little, but I think if ballistic missile can pull the same Gs as the ABM then the ABM has zero chance. What chance the ABM has comes from it being able to pull more Gs. I'll try to sit down with a pencil and paper later and work out the details.

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

Anton Gregori said:

Detecting it early helps a little - you can try to launch your ABM a bit early so it's already in the air before you can actively track the ballistic missile. But even if you know exactly where the ballistic missile is (in other words, the ballistic missile's countermeasures are completely ineffective - not something you want to count on), the ballistic missile is moving at mach 10 while your ABM is moving at max mach 4. The ABM needs to predict the ballistic missile's path almost perfectly, but there's no rule saying the ballistic missile can't change direction.

I need to think about the math a little, but I think if ballistic missile can pull the same Gs as the ABM then the ABM has zero chance. What chance the ABM has comes from it being able to pull more Gs. I'll try to sit down with a pencil and paper later and work out the details.

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I didn't know that the DF-21D had Iskander-like defense capabilities?

Re: J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

Jeff Head said:

Loiter capabilities and active radar for surface to surface missiles is not new and that is not the issue.

The issue regarding the US considering it as a WMD is that a US carrier, with 5000+ personnel on board is considered strategic and vital and anyone who was to successfully sink one of them would be considered conducting "Mass Destruction" against the US and should consider that the US will retaliate and conduct "mass destruction" back...not because of the "Area denial" portion of it.

Finally, there is no shred of evidence that the PLAN or PRC has solved the multiple 4C issues assiciated with such a weapon, and there has been no verifiable operational test of any sort of the weapon.

Make no mistake, the claim to shoot a ballistic missile from a long distance and target a moving US carrier group (with a non-nuclear payload) is a very, very difficult endeavor. The US vessel has to be found and targeted, that info has to be reliably sent back to the launching area, the missile itself will have to reaquire a target that will have moved potentially a number of miles in the mean time...and then manuever at terminal velocities in a very heavy ECM environment and a very heavy defense environment against AEGIS defenses that have already demonstrated the capabilitiyt of engaging and downing ballistic missiles...even exo-atmosphere before they deploy their decoys.

As I say, the talk is fine...research is fine...but until one is actually tested far out into the China Sea and beyond and shown to actually hit a high speed manuevering target in that kind of environment, I will still consider the whole thing more along the lines of a Sung Tsu deception and redirection exercise myself.

Click to expand...

johnqh said:

Maybe you missed the point of radar.....

For a ballistic missile, radar is fine for final stage if the target is not moving or moving on a set path with set speed.

However, a ship moves in whatever way you want. Between the time you have the initial position for launching the missile to when the missile re-enters and able the use the radar, the ship is miles away (30nm/hour, that's 5 miles within 10 minutes).

First, the radar does not cover enough area to make a lock.
Second, even if the radar has a lock, at 10 Mach speed, the missile's ability to turn before hitting the sea level is very limited. It takes only 6 seconds for the missile to travel through the 17km atmosphere. Yes, 6 seconds is enough time for it to make fine adjustment of a couple of hundred meters for a fixed ground target, but there is no way it can turn enough to catch a target 10km away.

It is simple math and physics. I don't care if you have 6 warheads. You can have 100 warheads and you still cannot beat law of physics.

Click to expand...

What you describe, reminds me of something...
The problem of acquiring a moving target after the missile is launched, I thought the "mechanism" is very similar to the AIM-120D AMRAAM - The aircraft passes data to the missile just before launch, giving it information about the location of the target aircraft from the launch point and its direction and speed. The missile uses this information to fly on an interception course to the target using its built in inertial navigation system (INS). This information is generally obtained using the launching aircraft's radar, although it could come from an infrared search and tracking system (IRST), from a data link from another fighter aircraft, or from an AWACS aircraft.

If the firing aircraft or surrogate continues to track the target, periodic updates are sent to the missile telling it of any changes in the target's direction and speed, allowing it to adjust its course so that it is able to close to self-homing distance while keeping the target aircraft in the basket (the radar seeker's field of view) in which it will be able to find it.


Note that AIM-120D flies UP climbing altitudes before it "glides" towards its target, while its flying up, none of its seeker is engage to the target, since the seeker is pointed away from the target, so the missile is essentially flying blind like the DF-21D ASBM - with similar flight profile (flying up before coming down) so it totally relies on the inertial guidance system to the approximate proximity of the target, while the aircraft feeds updated location of the target to the missile. But if missile is in heavy ECM /jamming environment, it face exactly the same dilemma as the DF-21D - its flying blind, and the target would be hundreds of miles away by the time the missile reach the initial targeted location.

So, basically if an active radar on the ballistic missile is possible, the problem is ofcourse, the area in which it can scan and discern the target. a CBG is a very large target - its not just the aircraft carrier (which itself is enormous compare to an aircraft), its also the escorting cruisers (CG) and destroyers (DDG), destroyer squadrons (DESRON), the oilers and supply ships (AOE/AOR), etc, stretching for many nautical miles - which makes it a very very large target - like a metal city moving very slowly in the sea. Now, the question would be, how "hard" is it to detect such a large formation of metal city moving slowly in the sea by using radar??

EDIT: It looks like Hendrik answered my question :

Hendrik_2000 said:

It take the missile only 35 minute from detection to hit Read this excerpt from Bottle rocket to lightning bolt

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According to a 2010 analysis in this quarterly,
it would take approximately thirty-five minutes from the detection of the target
for the PLA to communicate its location to a relevant C2 center, issue an engagement
order (with no delay assumed) to the launcher, and fire the ASBM, and for
the missile to travel its full range. During these thirty-five minutes the carrier
group could travel thirty-one kilometers, making a circle with a radius of
thirty-one kilometers the missile’s area of uncertainty and therefore the required
seeker footprint for a single missile to find the target.

Click to expand...

So, basically, a search radius of 31 km from initial point of target area.





Also, for a ballistic missile like DF-21D, its missile cone is enormous compare to AIM-120D. So theoretically it can fit a gigantic radar / seeker (not IR, maybe some other type... I know IR won't work on re-entry ofcourse) on its cone that's 10-100 times bigger than AIM-120D, and that should aid in searching the CBG in wide area wouldn't it?

Compare to a flying jet aircraft, a CBG is practically stationary. So if a AIM-120D is able to track and shoot down a flying and maneuvering jet aircraft from more than 200 km away, I don't see why DF-21D can't do what AIM-120D can do. I know it sounds pretty dumb to make such comparison, but would someone enlighten me why this comparison would be wrong??