Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Besides, last time I checked, Prowlers and Growlers were optimized against ground targets or low flying airborne targets. I cannot imagine their jamming pods would work terribly well trying to jam something through the wings and fuselage of the plane itself. They can always fly upside down I suppose.

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You can be a smart ass all you want but I can tell you without reservation by your comment you have no clue what a Prowler or Growler can really do. You don't. You really don't. 'Cause if you did you'd not post what you did.

You fellows just keep posting with all your ideas about how to sink a carrier and the DF-21 missile.

You fellows have only a minuscule idea of the tactics, capabilities, logistics, war planning and training that has taken place of the US forces in such a conflict.

Don't you know that right now the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) CSG and before that the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) have been operating in the South China sea with virtual impunity?

Has the the PLAN come out to challenge them? Just like the Soviets did during the Cold War? I've seen no reports..

I'm out... before I get myself in trouble and have to apologize.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Jeff Head said:

Sorry...this is simply not necessarily so.

The carrier will move a significant distance from the time it is 1st located and the missile is fired from inland, and when that missile reaches the target area.

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Which is why I qualified by original comment by stressing that the carrier will not have moved enough from the time the missile's own seeker has acquired it for it to make any meaningful difference compared to if the missile was engaging a stationary target.

The fact that the carrier, if traveling at max speed, could move 55km for every hour it takes from detection is a somewhat different problem and tests something other than the missiles own seeker. This can be simulated by deliberately giving the missile the 'wrong' co-ordinates when it is first launched, and then test if it can adjust its course in flight as more up to date location data is received. I pointed this out every post before when I first suggested that it was not necessary to have a full sea test to really give the system a good enough test to prove operational capacity inland.

Whether the seeker on the missile will be able to reacquire the vessel is part of the question. Depending on the ECM state in the area (which is likely to be very high), how far the vessel has moved, the detection and intercept capabilities of the BMD, the range of the missile's seeker, the manueverability of the terminal missile, etc., etc. the attacking missile will have a difficult task.

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Well as I pointed out before, even if all the missile does is make a carrier go active, it has already done its job as it would have quite effectively neutralized the strike group's primary defensive tactic of stealth.

Assuming an active ECM environment also poses interesting chicken and egg questions, as how would the USN carriers and escorts know when to go active in the first place? Obviously NASA and NORAD can detect launches globally and plot expected trajectories, but that takes time, so what does the carrier and escorts do in the meantime? Stay silent and risk having their reaction time cut to a handful of minutes? Or go active as soon as a launch is confirmed?

All of this has to be played out and accounted for and testing it at sea in as close to these conditions as possible will be the best way to do so. Needing to do that is not "funny" or "strange". It will most likely prove the difference between a potentially effective system and one that is not so.

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As I said, in an ideal world, the PLA would wish to test it out at sea with an old carrier to see if it can hit a moving ship and what damage it can do to a ship. But that will not be something they can hope to go unnoticed.

All testing is simulated to some degree, so I do not see any factor you have listed that cannot be simulated for an inland test to make me think something fundamental key component of such a system will be left in enough doubt for it to make the effectiveness of the entire weapon questionable.

As I said, this particular attack system is playing into one of the strengths of the US defenses...air defense, and patricularly, anti-missile air defense.

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But this comes at a cost, in terms of resources and opportunity cost of taking BDM missiles compared to SAMs, and anti-missile defense is far from developed or proven enough to be counted as a 'strength' just yet. Which is precisely why the PLA would not wish to remove all doubt about whether they have an operational AShM, or even if such a programme exists.

As soon as AShBM becomes a proven fact, opponents to spending on BDM disappears and funding skyrockets, making it far more likely that BDM will become a real strength, and far sooner than if the US is still conflicted about whether an AShBM exists at all. You yourself have suggested some in the USN might be milking a potential AShBM to get more funding iirc, so you must understand how this dance works.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

bd popeye said:

You can be a smart ass all you want but I can tell you without reservation by your comment you have no clue what a Prowler or Growler can really do. You don't. You really don't. 'Cause if you did you'd not post what you did.

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Why so serious? I had hoped all those smilies would have given a clue those comments were made rather tongue in cheek. But you are right, I do not believe the Prowler and Growlers are the new all powerful magic bullets some would claim they are. Maybe I have become too jaded from past disappointments and missed the real thing.

But even if they are all they are claimed to be and more, the USN would need to keep them in the air 24/7 after entering DF21 range in order to be confident they will be available to do their magic at all. And as soon as they start broadcasting, they give away the location of the carrier. Bit of an own goal if the PLA just fired some regular DF21s or DF15s to see what would happen.

Don't you know that right now the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) CSG and before that the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) have been operating in the South China sea with virtual impunity?

Has the the PLAN come out to challenge them? Just like the Soviets did during the Cold War? I've seen no reports..

I'm out... before I get myself in trouble and have to apologize.

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Well unlike the Soviets, the Chinese try very hard not to have face-offs and antagonize the US without good cause. The Chinese also prefer to hide their capabilities instead of trying to inflate them as the Soviets did. Thus you cannot say if those ships are operating with 'impunity' because the Chinese cannot do anything about it or if they simply choose not to.

You yourself often stress the importance of freedom of passage and navigation on the high seas. On what grounds would the PLA have to come and 'challenge' USN carriers out in international waters?

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

How about lasers as part of the defence line up?



I couldnt view the boat engines lighting up but the one with the UAV going down looked pretty good

A high-energy laser (HEL) fired from a US warship off the California coast has ignited a nearby boat. Video courtesy of the US Office of Naval Research.
Continue reading the main story
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* Laser cannon set to blind pirates
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The US Navy has fired a laser gun from one of its ships for the first time.

Researchers used the high-energy laser (HEL) to disable a boat by setting fire to its engines off the coast of California.

Similar systems had previously been tested on land, however moist sea air presented an extra challenge as it reduces a beam's power.

The navy said that ship-borne lasers could eventually be used to protect vessels from small attack boats.

The US military has been experimenting with laser weapons since the 1970s.

Early systems used large, chemical-based lasers which tended to produce dangerous waste gases.

More recently, scientists have developed solid state lasers that combine large numbers of compact beam generators, similar to LEDs.
HELs fire
Laser on board US navy ship The US Navy system uses a Joint High Power Solid State Laser mounted on deck

Until now, much of the development of HELs has focused on shooting down missiles or hitting land-based targets.

The latest round of tests showed its wider possibilities, according to Peter Morrison from the Office of Naval Research.

"This test provides an important data point as we move toward putting directed energy on warships.

"There is still much work to do to make sure it's done safely and efficiently," he said.

While a weaponised system would likely be restricted to military vessels, merchant shipping has also expressed an interest in laser technogy,

A gun which uses visible laser light to temporarily blind pirates was announced by BAE Systems in 2010.

The technology is still being tested, ahead of a commercial launch.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Can a DF-21d be mistaken for a nuclear launch?

If so how has China decided to mitigate the chances of such a mistake occuring?

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Anyways;

bladerunner said:

How about lasers as part of the defence line up?

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Lasers are really an off-tech for ship board defense. Due to their obvious high-power usage, you'd need something nuclear to power all those "phase cannons" at once. Most likely they will be most effective if you were to replace the 20 mm Vulcans on the Phalanxes with them. The 80s and 90s High-speed sea-skimmers like those in the PLAN and RMF aren't much of a match for AEGIS nowadays anyways, so using a HEL instead of a gun would only increase it's effectiveness, moreso if you use it in tandem with SAMs like ESSM.

Against Ballistic missiles however, that's a different story.

plawolf said:

The PLA could easily play some bluff games.

Randomly shoot some conventional DF21s or DF15s and see if it flushes the USN out.

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This is very funny.

*PLA fires Ballistic missiles randomly into the Ocean*
*PLA doesn't except a response from America*

I mean, why don't we just fit our Minutemen III ICBMs with MRE warheads and launch them into Tibet for humanitarian operations!

If it doesn't, fire a few conventional missiles at the CVBG when they do find it and see if they go active. If they do, they just wasted a lot of SMs trying to shoot down missiles that cannot possibly hit them. If they ignored the conventional missiles thinking they were more pot shots, fire some real AShBMs and you won't have to worry about BMD or ECM.

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Ha, funny. There is not Anti-ship weapon in the PLA's arsenal with a range comparable to that of a DF-21D. Simply said, in order for China to be even in range to launch any missiles, they'd either have to send missile boats out (which have a null chance of survival) or launch them from shore, both of which, the USN has the range advantage at.

And you again, underestimate the capabilities of AEGIS. We can work off using our Mk.1 eyeballs or passive sensors like IR. To assume we need radars is to assume the DF-21D has a radar.

BRLG said:

At least I don't pretend to be an expert by merely quoting an article.

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That isn't even relevant at all, come on now.

B-2s can remain stealthy toward the lower bands, is because the radar wavelengths are short as compared with the physical features of B-2s, such that geometrical optics can still be applied to deflect or minimize reflected radar signals. But being stealthy doesn't mean undetectable and the RCS varies with direction, for which a distributed network of bi-static radars (multi-static) with specific algorithms, can significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio and hence, the detection range by data fusion of radar signals from multiple directions. This is the primary reason that the RCS of B-2s is classified, because it is still detectable, only less than other aircrafts.

The same cannot be said about JASSMs, where the physical features are small as compared with lower-band wavelengths and therefore, detectable with lower-band radars alone, even without going through the trouble of a distributed network. So the JASSMs, which is subsonic, canbe tracked by lower-band radars and hunted down with J-7s and J-8s. And their flight paths would also provide leads to the firing B-2s, which canbe tracked by a distributed network of bi-static radars and pursuit with J-7s and J-8s.

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At least you got that part right. The problem are that:

1. You don't know they're coming, so unless you have J-7s and J-8s everywhere they're essentially flops
2. To assume that J-7/8s would even be in the air and not shot down is audacious at best
3. Bi-static radars have to be operating in order to detect them, monkey food for HARMs

As if the superbugs wouldn't be fired at. The best you may hope for is a better kill ratio. But J-10s and J-11s would still be chasing them down, as it is the superbugs that would desperately be trying to seek refuge. And you have already back-peddled from 1,500-km to 1,000-km worth of fuel. Based on your tendency of pulling numbers out of thin air, the superbugs would indeed be doomed.

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As if the superbugs could be fired at? We don't operate Air Dominance ops without prior spamming the local with ECW, to which our Prowlers/Growlers will eat up the Chinese IADS. No land radars, no Battle of Britain, forced to rely on air assets such as AWACs (to which China does not have a lot of) or their own assets (to which China has inferior radars) means that it's quite safe to assume that the J-10/11s, are in fact, the doomed ones.

And like I said, military airfields are not the only things you can land on. The superbugs are carrier-borne craft, they can land on a large strip of grass if they felt like it (not saying it can).

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

anon said:

Can a DF-21d be mistaken for a nuclear launch?

If so how has China decided to mitigate the chances of such a mistake occuring?

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There is nil chance unless NASA or NORAD has massively lowered their entry requirements.

Any half competent space agency would be able to quickly work out if a missile is SRBM, IRBM or ICBM based on their flight trajectory, and will have an ever improving estimation for the likely target the longer they track it.

No sane leader would even get close to ordering a nuclear 'counter' launch until there isn't a shadow of a doubt that someone else has launched nukes at his country first.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

IronsightSniper said:

At least you got that part right. The problem are that:

1. You don't know they're coming, so unless you have J-7s and J-8s everywhere they're essentially flops
2. To assume that J-7/8s would even be in the air and not shot down is audacious at best
3. Bi-static radars have to be operating in order to detect them, monkey food for HARMs.

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Unfortunately, you still haven't got it right. The real problem is, you don't seem to realize that whatever you have brought up so far, have known counter measures again and again.
　
Regarding # 1. For example, OTH radars operating at even lower bands, i.e. with even longer wavelengths, can actually detect B-2s for early warning. This is similar to detecting JASSMs with lower-band radars, but using HF instead of VHF. A 0.5-degree beamwidth, can generate a 22-km search grid from about 2,500 km away. And for that matter, it can also serve as a preliminary search grid for AShBMs targeting CVNs. Or upon entering the borders, B-2s can also be tracked by distributed networks of bi-static radars (multi-static) as mentioned in my earlier message. Furthermore, data fusion of radar signals from multiple directions, can continuously be refined as radar signatures of B-2s have been recorded. Over time, these radars would only be increasingly well-tuned to their designated targets.
　
Regarding # 2. Not so long ago, you acted as if stealth were the magic bullet, but after I showed you that B-2s and JASSMs, let alone Tomahawks, can all be tracked by well-selected radar networks, you are now finally worried about J-7s and J-8s hunting them down. Please let me remind you that (a) you were complacent enough in your earlier message, to send B-2s into China without US fighter escorts, so you are now handicapped to deal with J-7s and J-8s; (b) we have been discussing along the scenario that most of the US airbases in Asia-Pacific, have been destroyed by MRBMs and the superbugs have crashed or mission-killed, after the flight decks of US CVNs off the coast, have been taken out by cluster-demolition from AShBMs. So either way, the B-2s, the subsonic JASSMs, and let alone the non-stealth-and-subsonic Tomahawks, would be pursuit and most of them hunted down by J-7s and J-8s.
　
Regarding # 3. A multi-static radar can also be assembled with a distributed network of passive receivers, taking advantage of background communication signals from surrounding civilian sources. HARMs would be out of luck against hundreds of cell, radio, and TV transmitters in the neighborhood. And in every occasion that B-2s fire missiles, they are also asking to be found.
　

IronsightSniper said:

As if the superbugs could (not) be fired at? We don't operate Air Dominance ops without prior spamming the local with ECW, to which our Prowlers/Growlers will eat up the Chinese IADS. No land radars, no Battle of Britain, forced to rely on air assets such as AWACs (to which China does not have a lot of) or their own assets (to which China has inferior radars) means that it's quite safe to assume that the J-10/11s, are in fact, the doomed ones.

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The more to be done, the sooner the superbugs would be depleted of enough fuel, to seek refuge in the civilian airstrips at Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and have to land on hostile territories or crash into the sea. Time is on the side of J-10s and J-11s. And evidently, you don't even bother to mention your phantom l,000-km worth of fuel anymore. By the way, J-10B and J-11B are also equipped with AESA radars. This opportunity window is steadily closing as more and more B-variants will be deployed. And AWACs too.
　

IronsightSniper said:

And like I said, military airfields are not the only things you can land on. The superbugs are carrier-borne craft, they can land on a large strip of grass if they felt like it (not saying it can).

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The small fraction of superbugs that survived as such, would remain mission-killed, without support from destroyed US airbases in Asia-Pacific.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

plawolf said:

It has been pointed out already that testing could be done inland.

This is not a SAM trying to shoot down a small fast moving fighter. A carrier is a huge ship, and even at top speed, it cannot be accused of being 'agile' or able to take evasive action to dodge a missile in terminal stage, and the missile will be traveling so fast the carrier won't move anywhere far enough after the missile seeker has it for it to be significantly different from a perfectly stationary large target.

If a missile can hit a stationary target the size of a carrier using its own seeker, it can hit a moving carrier.

Would the PLA prefer to have a full test out at sea? Yes, of course. But that is not a viable option if they want to keep the existence of such a missile under wraps. But I think they can easily live with commissioning such a weapon if they conducted a few inland tests under realistic simulated conditions and were happy with the results.

Unless someone can point out a critical factor that cannot be simulated inland, all this insistence of a sea test just seems strange and unnecessary.

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obviously you don't don't know how BM tracking/targeting work. read jeff response.
as for test, i still didn't see any datas/parameters. sometime people need to stop been a fanboy and think about this more.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

BRLG said:

Unfortunately, you still haven't got it right. The real problem is, you don't seem to realize that whatever you have brought up so far, have known counter measures again and again.
　
Regarding # 1. For example, OTH radars operating at even lower bands, i.e. with even longer wavelengths, can actually detect B-2s for early warning. This is similar to detecting JASSMs with lower-band radars, but using HF instead of VHF. A 0.5-degree beamwidth, can generate a 22-km search grid from about 2,500 km away. And for that matter, it can also serve as a preliminary search grid for AShBMs targeting CVNs. Or upon entering the borders, B-2s can also be tracked by distributed networks of bi-static radars (multi-static) as mentioned in my earlier message. Furthermore, data fusion of radar signals from multiple directions, can continuously be refined as radar signatures of B-2s have been recorded. Over time, these radars would only be increasingly well-tuned to their designated targets.
　
Regarding # 2. Not so long ago, you acted as if stealth were the magic bullet, but after I showed you that B-2s and JASSMs, let alone Tomahawks, can all be tracked by well-selected radar networks, you are now finally worried about J-7s and J-8s hunting them down. Please let me remind you that (a) you were complacent enough in your earlier message, to send B-2s into China without US fighter escorts, so you are now handicapped to deal with J-7s and J-8s; (b) we have been discussing along the scenario that most of the US airbases in Asia-Pacific, have been destroyed by MRBMs and the superbugs have crashed or mission-killed, after the flight decks of US CVNs off the coast, have been taken out by cluster-demolition from AShBMs. So either way, the B-2s, the subsonic JASSMs, and let alone the non-stealth-and-subsonic Tomahawks, would be pursuit and most of them hunted down by J-7s and J-8s.
　
Regarding # 3. A multi-static radar can also be assembled with a distributed network of passive receivers, taking advantage of background communication signals from surrounding civilian sources. HARMs would be out of luck against hundreds of cell, radio, and TV transmitters in the neighborhood. And in every occasion that B-2s fire missiles, they are also asking to be found.
　


The more to be done, the sooner the superbugs would be depleted of enough fuel, to seek refuge in the civilian airstrips at Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and have to land on hostile territories or crash into the sea. Time is on the side of J-10s and J-11s. And evidently, you don't even bother to mention your phantom l,000-km worth of fuel anymore. By the way, J-10B and J-11B are also equipped with AESA radars. This opportunity window is steadily closing as more and more B-variants will be deployed. And AWACs too.
　


The small fraction of superbugs that survived as such, would remain mission-killed, without support from destroyed US airbases in Asia-Pacific.

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you sound like mulitiple carrier group + bases surround china are easily defeat as Iraq airforce without thinking about how US will attack chinese targets and defend its own A barrage of MRBM could only damage parts of multiple US base that surround china(there will be ABM to eliminate some of those MRBM), without follow through attack, the runway will be fixed within 24hr. meanwhile hundreds/perhap thousands cruise missiles will be lunch against chinese station target near coast(low band radar, other crucial target), once the air defense is soften enough, it will attack again by stealth bomber, and more cruise missile. also chinese sub will be hunted by multiple type of platform. these platform is supplement by enormous amount of data gathered over the years. meanwhile the CVG stay in a relative safe zone for the next phase of attack.

china lack the logistic/capability to cripple multiple CVG and US bases surrounding china for several follow through attack. It can cause some casualties but not enough to stop US force.

oh and plz don't include ASBM stuff, as it lack any sufficent data to support its operation status. This thread is about current weapon system that has sufficent data to support it, not some future fanboy secret weapon system.