Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

At such speed, I believe would impede flight operations of the carrier. Then what are the useful (combat or bombing) range of carrier fighters ?

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Never served on a carrier have you? I have. USN CVNs regularly move at 30 knots. Not all the time but regularly. Particularly on a day when there is little wind. 30 knots of air speed is need across the bow in order to launch aircraft..

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

bd popeye said:

Rotate? That's nice. Kinda like spinning a plate.

In my opinion unless that slab can move at 30+ knots in any direction it so desires the the missile test is null and void. All the USN admirals & Naval "experts" manage to leave that fact out when they discuss the DF-21. They know how to play the game.

DF-21.
Dangerous?..Yes
A threat?... Yes
Fully operational against a moving target at sea?? Prove it.

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Such a requirement smacks of denial more than anything IMHO. 30knots is what, 55kph? As someone has already pointed out, it can take as little as 30m from detection to impact. In that half hour, your carrier has gone 30km from where it was. That's well within the seeker range of even your average AShM, and an ASBM will have a far larger diameter nose for much more powerful sensors.

Once you get to terminal phase, 55kpm for a carrier size target against a Mach 10 missile makes not meaningful difference. Depending on the motor used, that spinning plate could easily be moving a lot faster than a carrier could possible turn.

Even if they wanted to fully test out the capabilities of the missile system against a moving target, they could create a pretty damn relastic test with something as simple as an arrowed dice.

Someone throws the dice, and gives the preliminary coordinates of the 'carrier' as 55km (being conservative and assuming the carrier had an hour of full steam from first detection to missile launch) in the direction the dice showed away from the rotating target. They can then feed the missile
new coordinates in flight to simulate more up to date tracking data and see if the missile could reposition itself to hit the new target area. Then guide the missile to within seeker range of the rotating target and see if it can find and hit the thing itself.

That tests exactly the same capabilities as a sea based test against a tanker under pretty realistic conditions without having to show to all the world they have such a capability.

So as this simple example demonstrates, they can achieve the same results as a sea test inland with only a $1 speciality dice and a little imagination. A worth while investment to keep potential foes guessing me thinks.

I cannot say that this is what they actually did any more than anyone else can insist it isn't. But it is certainly possible and not at all hard to set up. Thus it is completely unreasonable to categorically insist a land test is 'null and void'.

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

Such a requirement smacks of denial more than anything IMHO

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I hope you are not trying to insult me. Really. I'd never insult you. Don't read into my post. I'm not denying anything. If I did I'd post that.

All the theories are nice but as a layman I want to see some practical application. Now the bottom line is I want to see is the missile in action against a moving target at sea against some sort of semblance of ECM. That's all.

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

bd popeye said:

All the theories are nice but as a layman I want to see some practical application. Now the bottom line is I want to see is the missile in action against a moving target at sea against some sort of semblance of ECM. That's all.

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s002wjh said:

if there is a remote chance that ASBM is working, then both you and I don't know enough to include ASBM into this topic anyway, since that info is hidden from public. The topic is current air defence/anti-access etc, with KNOWN chinese weapon system to date.

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By this logic, we don't know who well B-2 and F-22 stealth capabilities would protect them from Chinese anti-air defence. We also don't know how well US CBGs can defend against Chinese subs.

Of course we don't know the actual performance of military hardware, and as another poster has pointed out, there are many more unknown factors that decide the outcome of a battle. All we can really do is discuss each side's capabilities, and the implication of those capabilities.

Whether or not the Chinese AShBM is operational (yet) or not, if US military strategists aren't dismissing it, then why should we?

In fact, it seems to me that some posters want the AShBM to be dismissed because they have no good answers to this capability.

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

solarz said:

By this logic, we don't know who well B-2 and F-22 stealth capabilities would protect them from Chinese anti-air defence. We also don't know how well US CBGs can defend against Chinese subs.

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Actually...not. By Popeye's logic we would simply see some form of operational test to gauge capability on.

For example, the US regularly does open, operational testing of its new systems. From lasers to kinetic kill vehicles to stealth aircraft etc. Clearly, there are probably some systems that are not so open...and one should ask themselves, if the US is willing to show you laser weaons tests, kinetic kill vehicle tests, all sorts of stealth technology tests, etc, what are they not showing? Probably very exotic, IMHO.

But the logic for the tests the US does show is that if potential agressors see how advanced the capability is, they will be less inclined to miscalculate and start a war trying to harm US interests.

Fact is, there has not been an operational test of the new Chinese missile. It's hard to hide an operational test of a ballistic missile trying to hit a moving vessel at sea. There has been a lot of talk...and probably a decent amount of research.

When we here of a missile launch by the Chinese out into the China Sea against a moving vessel...then we will know they have come at least that far forward in their development.

As to defenses against it...come on, really? You think the US really feels there is no defense against it? Or that some of these posters think that? You are whislting Dixie my friend. The antire AEGIS system and BMD system are designed to precisely counter this threat...and, BTW, have had many successful tests, in the open, against ballistic missiles.

The new missile is charging into the very teeth of the US strongest defense, IMHO, and that's another reason I personally believe, that among other things, a lot of this is also misdirection.

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

Jeff Head said:

Fact is, there has not been an operational test of the new Chinese missile. It's hard to hide an operational test of a ballistic missile trying to hit a moving vessel at sea. There has been a lot of talk...and probably a decent amount of research.

When we here of a missile launch by the Chinese out into the China Sea against a moving vessel...then we will know they have come at least that far forward in their development.

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Except that you DON'T actually need to shoot a target on the sea. There's no reason why you can't conduct the test on land, and that would be indistinguishable from any "normal" ballistic missile test.

BTW, have had many successful tests, in the open, against ballistic missiles.

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Then why do USN sites say they currently *don't* have defenses against it?

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

s002wjh said:

ie

this is not about how to test the weapon, but about china hasn't test ASBM yet. like i said there are weapon system you can test secretly and there are those once you test it, other coutries will notice the test, anti-sat for example. simply put there aren't any data that shows china did a live test with its ASBM, on land or sea. also a small moving land target is much tougher to hit compare to a carrier. there are many issues need to be solved in order for ASBM to work. for example, the terminal speed of ASBM can easliy blind any guidence system locate in missile nose section.

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What I listed were some of the reasons why China wouldn't want to do a full range test.

as for "terminal speed of ASBM can easliy blind any guidence system locate in missile nose section"

again, you don't need a full range shot to do that test.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

At the terminal stage of targeting, it's not so much the speed of the carrier in a fixed forward direction that's of concern. Rather, what's more of a concern is the speed at which the carrier is able to change direction during a turn while trying to evade from a missile.

It follows in this sense that the end portion of the spinning platform could be used to simulate the turning of a carrier. And looking at the platform, the end portion of the platform probably would have no problem turning as fast as a carrier could.

So, in my opinion, if they were to further simulate the radar reflectivity, this is quite close to the real thing.

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

solarz said:

Except that you DON'T actually need to shoot a target on the sea. There's no reason why you can't conduct the test on land, and that would be indistinguishable from any "normal" ballistic missile test.

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To some degree...to a certain point...tests could be performed on land. But the US would see those tests and would be able to distiguish, due to multiple sensorary and performance statitisics, be able to tell what type of missile was in use.

Ultimately, however, because atmospheric conditions differ, and because the movement of a vessel on the open sea itself is different that a truck or other vehicle moving on land...a live test at sea will be necessary if you really want to know how your weapon performs.

solarz said:

Then why do USN sites say they currently *don't* have defenses against it?

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I do not know of an official US Navy site that indicates there is no BMD capability with AEGIS or the US MIlitary. AEGIS BMD is deployed. BMD Defense on the west coast of the US is deployed in Alaska and California. No US Military site denies this that I am aware of.

Re: Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

Jeff Head said:

When we here of a missile launch by the Chinese out into the China Sea against a moving vessel...then we will know they have come at least that far forward in their development.
.

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one can similarly argue that US BMD effort are not really far forward and "operational either", as none of the test conducted were with a zero-warning/ cold-start interception against a real operational ballistic missile with a live war head and serious penetration aid.