It should be noted that the Phalanx CIWS has another extremely valuable anti missile use that is not well known but was discovered quite by accident in the early 1980s. The cloud of projectiles put up by the CIWS makes a huge radar return. Large enough I've heard when several are fired simultaneously to mask the radar return off of an aircraft carrier. In other words, start firing the Phalanx's and instead of your carrier being a big dot on the radar screen it suddenly becomes a big dot among a bunch of other big dots. Indistinguishable.
Actually, the main technique for carriers is to turn bow-stern at the target to reduce the RADAR cross-section, and to have every defensive ship race to place itself between it and the inbound threat. That way not only does it have to penetrate the RAM and CIWS of the carrier (or other defended asset), but that of al the destroyers and cruisers in front of them.
Trying such a tactic when there are chaff missiles and jammers doesn't make much sense. Especially because it would probably interfere with the RAM launchers also providing point defense.
My understanding was the technique was to be used to prevent the launching vehicle or the vehicle providing targeting from getting a fix on the carrier in the first place.
Nope. Most equipment that launches such missiles do it at the maximum distance possible, at the edge of visual horizon if possible. That way they can get away and return if needed. At that distance the "fix" is hazy at best, once it get's closer the missile tracking system goes "live" (generally RADAR) and gets an exact location.
Yeah... Kinda like the F-4 B And the F-4 S You have to give President Reagan and the Republicans in Congress credit for upgrading "Smokey" (F-4 Phantom's) giving F-4 fighter jocks an edge if the Cold War were to go HOT and they found themselves in a dog fight knowing that the first FA-18's were just exiting the pipeline to replace all F-4's. Hey !!! That F-4S above is a VMFA 232 Red Devils squadron. One of the top rated fighter squadrons in the U.S. military today. My nephew flies a FA-18 C with the Red Devil's today. Two combat tours over the Middle East where he was denied to engage and destroy 80% of the enemy targets by Susan Rice at 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. "Very frustrating" trying to fight a war in the name of political correctness. President Trump inherited Obama's military and VMFA 232 is on it's second WESTPAC tour of duty in the Western Pacific right now and only 10 of VMFA 232 18 FA-18's were able to fly and deploy to keep the Chi-Coms in check. Thank's Obama.
The Oscar only had 24 P-700 missiles. Launching all (or almost all of them) at a single target is stupid. At that point it has nothing left for it to use as it tries to make it's way out of the kill zone. Because once it launches, the skipper is going to know the "wrath of God" is going to come down on them, and will want to have something that can be fired at any inbound destroyers trying to locate and kill them. Just like sub skippers in WWII rarely ever fired off all of their torpedoes.
Heck, most of the equipment the military uses today dates to the Reagan Administration and earlier. Most of our ships still date to his "600 ship Navy" era. It was a real joke when I was working with PATRIOT. I was the only crew member in my Battalion that was older than the launcher he served on. My launcher was a "newer one", having been made in 1985. Most dated to 1981-1984. Only 1 in 5 would date to say 1988.
Here are the links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit Also, the on-board computer has data to counter an enemy's electronic warfare and tactics of evasion fired in air defense. http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-398.html Ракета оснащена системой защиты, разработанной начиная с 1965 г. в лаборатории отдела №25 ЦНИИ "Гранит" под руководством Р.Т.Ткачева и Ю.А.Романова. Основным компонентом системы является станция постановки активных помех 3Б47 "Кварц" разработанная в Таганрогском НИИ связи. Ракета может совершать противозенитные маневры. The missile is equipped with a defense system developed since 1965 in the laboratory of the department of the 25th CRIIT "Granit" under the leadership of RT Tkachev and YA Romanov. The main component of the system is the station for generating active jamming 3B47 "Quartz" developed at the Taganrog Research Institute of Communications. The missile can perform evasive maneuver. Do check out the warhead photo... I heard about this missile like 15 years ago, the entire family of missiles include surprises on the terminal run, some double their speed, this one goes evasive, if you have any other data – please share But the question remains. Mushroom, why majority of AA missiles have the maximum speed target limit that they can intercept? Why its not the envelope that limits its capability? Can you take out an Intercontinental nuke warhead with a Patriot if it is falling on your head directly, and is within your envelope? ?
Unlikely I think, you need a 1 to 8cm radar to see the incoming 2cm round. And back in 1970 a 1cm portable radar was a very complicated solution. If you have a 1m wavelength radar or more, I think you will simply not see the 2cm target. I heard something about deploying chaff with a gun, but I am not sure it has sense in case of a 20mm round…
Missiles are launched from 10-20m depth only. What are the chances the boat will rise to such depth in the following pursuit? More likely it will use torpedoes for self defense, from good dept. But all depends. Germans fired them all according to memuars. There are around 0 chances to hit a destroyer, when she is aware of your presence. Only evade and pray…
I could have been wrong about using bursts of Phalanx CIWS to obscure missile radars. Rereading it from a book about some U.S./NATO fleet maneuvers in the early 1980s it is apparently meant that the CIWS fire was used to obscure the radar returns to Soviet RORSATs. RORSATs were satellites sent up by the Soviets with powerful radars to track ship movements. During a fleet operation in 1981, the U.S./British/Canadian/Norwegian fleets sent a force of 83 ships )led by the U.S.S. Eisenhower) sailing from the U.S. to just off the Norwegian coast. Despite warnings by Soviet agents in the U.S., two RORSATs launched to monitor the fleet, and a whole bunch of reconnaissance aircraft flights, the Soviets never managed to track the fleet. The fleet sailed to within striking distance of Soviet Northern fleet bases, and then F-14s from the Eisenhower "ambushed" Soviet reconnaissance aircraft sent to try to find the fleet achieving radar locks on them without being detected. IIRC, Admiral James "Ace" Lyons was responsible for the operation.
Because you have to combine speed with range, as well as the seeking and targeting capabilities of the seeker head and the RADAR it uses to acquire targets. PATRIOT can not take out an ICBM simply because they are to fast. With an incoming trajectory of MACH 6-8+, by the time it gets to within range of the RADAR and missile, it is already to late to shoot at it. That is why we have THAAD, with a more powerful missile and RADAR system. Remember, PATRIOT was never designed to take out ballistic missiles. It was designed to take out aircraft, and has been modified over the decades to be able to target cruise missiles (essentially suicide drones) and SRBMs and at the upper range MRBMs. LRBMs, IRBMs, and ICBMs are moving far to fast for it to target. You are missing the point that even if they are at their maximum depth, Destroyers and ASW aircraft can detect them. They do not have to go back to shallow depth to be targeted. As far as torpedoes, today navies use wire guided torpedoes. These literally can be "aimed" at the target, in either a passive or active mode. And the biggest problem is not actually the destroyers themselves, as much as the ASW helicopters they carry (as well as other aircraft like the P-2 Orion). These are the most likely things to target the sub, and there is not a damned thing the sub can do about it. But they will save some missiles, in the hopes they can hit something else and create a distraction or gap to slip through.
Some of them were guided. The Germans deployed acoustic torpedoes during WW2. Also pattern running torpedoes were popular.
IIRC there have been some experiments with periscope mast mounted SAMs for a submarine to fire at ASW helicopters and aircraft. Though admittedly they have never gotten past the problem that a sub in that situation has to be in an incredibly vulnerable position to launch.
Yeah, the concept is pretty much pointless for that reason. Encountering an ASW helicopter or plane, a sub should dive deep, not go to periscope depth.
The Russians have gone to using wake following torpedoes. According to "Janes" most navies will likely follow the Russians except for the USN. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTRussian_post-WWII.php Lets not forget the Russian 200 MPH 533 mm (21") VA-111 "Shkval" (Squall) Rocket-propelled torpedo. USN torpedoes -> http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_PostWWII.php Source-> http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/index_weapons.php
^Can wake homing torpedoes get past a Nixie torpedo decoy? IIRC U.S. carriers can deploy two Nixies at once while cruisers, destroyers and other ships can normally stream one at a time. By the way, that torpedo chart is outstanding!! Do you have any other similar charts available?
I'm no way an expert on torpedoes, my expertise are NSFS and CAS. To the best of my knowledge using "Janes" and being a member of the U.S. Naval Institute since 1978, the Nixie was developed to deal with homing torpedoes, not wire guided or wake following torpedoes. The wake following torpedo is not an acoustic homing torpedo but follows the disturbance of the water behind a ship caused by the wake created by the ships screws. The U.S. Navy was suppose to have an anti torpedo torpedo entering the fleet back in 2015 but it didn't happen, some issues and problems came up. These anti torpedo torpedoes were suppose to deal with Russian wake following torpedoes. Yeah...they can be found on this website by searching and following the links and links to the sources used. Probably the best source on the internet when it comes to naval weapons platforms used on ships and subs. -> http://www.navweaps.com/ That's where I found the chart that I posted above from one of the links on the website.
They played with it, about 40 years ago. It was realized that the sub would have to be on the surface to fire, and that it was safer to just remain submerged. And the aircraft had to be so close that they were already in range to destroy the sub before the sub could fire at it. Submarines do carry MANPADs, but this is more a last chance defense in the event they are unable to dive at all. Torpedoes on automatic tracking mode are fairly limited in how they can maneuver. The idea of tossing out a decoy is to then make a change in course, and the weapon follows the decoy. By the time it realized it is chasing a ghost, it is to late and you are out of it's range. And the easiest way for a torpedo to get past a NIXIE is to simply use active SONAR tracking. The NIXIE is only effective against passive SONAR tracking (they have a limited ability against active SONAR).
In regards to a carrier maneuvering during a cruise missile attack, I had heard it suggested that in some situations that a carrier (or other surface ship) could make a very hard turn toward the incoming missile, thus temporarily raising the water level on the side of the ship where the missile is approaching, raising the chance that a low flying cruise missile would hit the water and either break up or skip over the ship.
The first aircraft carrier I was ever aboard was also the USS Hornet (CVS-12) an Essex class carrier that was modernized during the late 1950's by adding an angle deck. I must have been 12 years old at the time (1962) and every weekend at the Long Beach Naval Base they had an open house on one of the over 100 ships that were home ported in Long Beach. The second aircraft carrier I was aboard was the USS Bennington (CVS-20) maybe 1964. We had a family friend serving on board and went on a one day family cruise. As a Marine assigned to a Battalion Landing Team (BLT) I found myself on the USS Princeton and USS Valley Forge both Essex class carriers used as LPH's and the USS Iwo Jima the first ship built from the keel up to be a LPH. (PF member Mushroom also found himself on the USS Iwo Jima during the 1980's.) The last carrier I was aboard was as a civilian guest on the USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz class carrier around 2008 at the North Island NAS, San Diego. It was a really strange experience. No Marine Detachment on the carrier and there were female sailors all over the ship.
