Iowa class BB, they don't build them like that today

I think they are still in the pipe line Alpha. They have been tested, the Navy say they can hit a moving ship but haven't entered the fleet yet but are suppose to very soon. But they are still sub sonic.

 

Yes...I know they are Sub-sonic.

The joint Russian/Indian Mach 2.8.... 2 stage Brahmos Sea Skimmer has a range of 270 Km's and supposedly cannot be detected until within 27 km's of a ship.

However we can detect it's launch.

Plus it's range is an issue for those launching it.

AboveAlpha

 

It was always rumored what the Soviets/Russian surface war tactics were. My source was actually the Russians. But over the past few months watching how the Russian Navy was using there land attack cruise missiles off shore of Syria, it's confirmed, they launch their missiles in large salvos. Where as the U.S. Navy launches it's Tomahawk and Harpoons one at a time.

 

One thing most people forget about unless they are Navy is the very powerful U.S. Sub force which is something that every Sailor is told....WE DON'T TALK ABOUT SUBS!!!

But our Sub's track everything.

AboveAlpha

 

Scuttlebutt from many of the worlds navies just this past year the U.S. Navy being one of them along with our allies and of course the Russians is changing the surface war tactics. Range no longer being important of launching anti ship missiles from being out of range of carrier based aircraft but getting up close where you launch your attack from any where from 150 Km to even 50 km's from your target. The reason, the less time the incoming missile is in the air the less time the targeted ship has to react.

Could you see trying to deal with a Mach 2.5 anti ship missile that was launched from 50 km or even 100 km's away ? You aren't dealing with having minutes to react but seconds.

The U.S. Navy has neglected surface warfare for over forty years now while the Soviets/Russians and even the chi-coms haven't. We have a lot of catching up to do.

Warships will again be engaging each other where guns will likely come into play.

There's a closed blog (no public access) that many surface warfare navy officers active and retired participate on and one thing most agree on, the Arleigh Burke's only have one 5" pop gun and if that pop gun is knocked out, then what ? Our warships today need more than one or two main gun batteries and need a second gun armament.

During the 1980's the U.S. Navy's surface warfare tactics called for carrier base aircraft and ships anti ship missiles to attack the enemy fleet from a distance and then the Iowa's BB's would move in closer and mop up with their 16" guns.

 

Most people forget about the submarine equation, maybe because it use to be called the "silent service."

Submarine warfare and torpedoes aren't my expertise. I have to rely on "Janes" and from what they publish. But what "Janes" has pointed out and are asking, most of the world navies including our allies have gone to wake following torpedoes while the U.S. Navy is still in the wire guided or homing torpedo mode. Why ?

But the U.S. Navy has started working on developing an anti-torpedo torpedo as a CIWS. Why they didn't start the R&D fifty years ago ???

Scuttlebutt is the Russians might already have one, but it's just scuttlebutt.

 

Almost 2 decades actually.

The anti-ship variant was a repurposed ground attack nuclear missiles, removed from service because of the IRNF treaty. Rather then just throw them away, they were repurposed for the remainder of their lifespan. And yes, missiles do have a specific lifespan, and that of thos emissiles expired a decade ago. And none have been made since.

There is talk of a new Tomahawk variant. But this is primarily wishful thinking form Raytheon. They want to build a competitor to the Lockeeh Martin Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, but nobody is really taking it seriously. It suffers from all of the problems of a missile not designed to attack ships being forced into that role.

And what all this sidebar has to do with Battleships, I have absolutely no idea. Other then wanting to praise new technology, not even seeing that it does not not eliminate the defense of thicker armor. As to this date, there are still no missiles in the inventory of any nation that can defeat the armor of the BB class ships. Yet, cheap missiles made 4 decades ago can still defeat the hulls of our most advanced ships.

 

Thing is Russian Surface ships could not get withing 2000 miles of a U.S. Carrier Strike Group without us knowing about it.

And we certainly would not allow them to close within 200 miles!!!

AboveAlpha

 

General Dynamics is working on...and it may even have already been tested.....a Shaped Charge Coned Mach 2 small diameter and length 1600 km range ship to ship missile which when impacting armor the copper shaped charge cone liquefies the copper and it will burn through just about any armor thickness and then some.

It's robotic and designed to analyze the ship it will impact and direct itself to impact a point will cause the most damage for any particular ship.

It uses GPS, Radar and an Optical Identification system.

AboveAlpha

 

Anytime any ship activates a radar or sends an aircraft aloft they are giving away their position.

Below is exactly what each side would be doing.

 

That's why we have Satellites.....Ocean Bottom Sensors, Magnetometers, Atmospheric and Water Displacement Sensors, Satellite IR-Detection...etc.

We don't need active radar or sonar to locate enemy ships or subs.

AboveAlpha

 

Satellites can only cover and extremely small area when looking for something like the size of a ship.

Go to Google Earth and play around. When those images were taken there were thousands and thousands of large ships at sea. Try to locate some out in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic.

Better yet, position yourself over the Red Sea, one of the most crowded shipping lanes in the world. Over 13,000 ships transit the Red Sea every year.

 

All U.S. Carrier Strike Groups have continuous satellite coverage by multiple satellites where ever they go.

AboveAlpha

 

You'll have to provide a source on that one.

What happens at night, cloud cover, when it's raining or fog that is pretty normal while at sea ?

But a real high intinsity war against a real military, satellites would be the first platforms to neutralize or taken out.

But as the U.S. military just discovered when Russia joined the fight in Syria the U.S. military said they learned more in three weeks about Russia's military capabilities than in the past ten years. And it sent up a red flag that the U.S. Navy sent out an ADMIN to all Navy ships captains, break out the sextants and start brushing up on celestial navigation skills. The U.S. Naval Academy has reinstated their celestial navigation courses and they are now mandatory for all plebes starting this semester.

Russia in Syria are able to blind E-3 AWACS aircraft flying hundreds of miles away and blind satellites including disrupting communications and even cell phones don't work.

That scuttlebutt that Russian EW aircraft defeated the Aegis combat system on the USS Donald Cook might not be scuttlebutt but fact.

How Syria is becoming a test bed for high-tech weapons of electronic warfare
http://theconversation.com/how-syri...high-tech-weapons-of-electronic-warfare-48779


Naval Academy reinstates celestial navigation
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/...emy-reinstates-celestial-navigation/74998554/

 

I agree we need to update many systems.

But we have the advantage as far as knowing where enemy ships and subs are.

AboveAlpha

 

Have you heard of the phrase "black hole" being used by NATO and U.S. Navy brass ?
It's in reference to Russia's newest stealth submarine.

 

Russia tends to only build one or two of such expensive Subs.

We build fleets.

AboveAlpha

 

Actually they plan on building ten of these stealthy subs. I'm surprised how fast the Russians were able to get this one particular sub in the fleet.

As for todays Obama's PC Navy, 1/2 of the U.S. Navy's fleet isn't able to put to sea and be mission capable.

Russia's new naval strategy is to build three new fleets with new classes of warships and auxiliaries that are specifically designed with a specific mission to operate specifically in one of the three fleets. Each fleet having a specific mission. But these new ships will be able to operate ten thousands miles from Russian shores but are more likely to be regional in nature. (A2/AD) Anti-Access/Area Denial.

Remember when the chi-coms were rattling their sabers and G.W. Bush was able to put 8 Carrier Battle Groups (CBG) to sea, four of them off of Taiwan while two CBG's were in the Persian Gulf conducting combat missions. These were Carrier Battle Groups (CBG) not small Carrier Strike Groups (CSD) that we see today.

Today the Obama administration has problems just keeping two CSG's at sea.

 

I am not Navy but I know a little as far as the plan.

The USAF is tasked with protecting USN. Carrier Groups.

We have bases all over the world in striking distance and the Pacific is OUR POND!!

Our Satellite based Magnetometers and Deep Ground and Ocean Penetrating Radars can locate anything...anywhere.

I really am not worried about USN. Carrier Group survivability.

AboveAlpha.

 

LOL satellite based magnetometers to detect submarines? You are making stuff up, there is no such thing. Satellite based magnetometers are used for attitude determination of the satellite and to measure the earths magnetic field, they are nowhere near sensitive enough or directional to be able to detect a submarine. But I do like your originality, you should write a book, something like a Clancy thriller (and that's not an insult).

 

Magnetometers are NOT either used or near accurate enough to determine orbital distance!!!

They can locate large ships and subs and deep earth and ocean penetrating radar can do the same.

How do you think we located Iran's secret underground nuclear facilities??

AboveAlpha

 

Not with a satellite based magnetometer. The magnetic signature of an aircraft carrier is so far in the noise to a space based magnetometer that it will not register, forget about a submarine (and a sub is designed to minimize its magnetic signature as much as possible to prevent detection from low flying aircraft and submerged magnetometers).

 

AA has some good knowledge of what our equipment can do. But then sadly he often dives right into science fiction with his fully autonomous drones and satellites that can find ships at sea.

Satellites are not "real time" coverage. The Pacific Ocean is over 63 million square miles, and a bird in space has about as much of a chance of detecting a ship at sea as I do of finding a golf ball in Central Park with binoculars from a nearby skyscraper. Ships move, and the ocean is big.

And the part about knowing any enemy within 2,000 miles is pure fantasy. The RADAR from a ship is only good for a few dozen miles at best. This has nothing to do with the RADAR itself, simply the fact that they have only limited ability at best to detect something over the horizon. Aircraft can be seen to a great distance, because they are significantly higher then the horizon. Ships, much less so. And their detection range is easily found with just some basic math.

http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm

Detection is normally accomplished at distance from monitoring electronic emissions, like their radio or RADAR signals. But even this only gives you an estimation, basically little more then "they are off in THAT direction somewhere".

If detecting ships by satellite magnetic equipment was as easy as he believes, then why has it taken so long to find some of our larger WWII era ships?

Hell, the IJN Shinano has yet to be discovered, over 71 years after she was sunk. And at almost 66 thousand tons, she is much more massive then our 16 thousand ton SSBNs (or the 14 thousand ton Russian SSBNs). If we could find an SSBN from space, we would have found the Shinano years ago by accident if nothing else.

 

I freely admit that my Military knowledge is much more specific to SOCOM and Special Teams and CIA Teams Operations.

I am not Navy but they do give us rides.

U.S. Space Command and Satellite Recon exists as many...MANY types of Satellites some of which are in Geosynchronous Orbit and some in Low Earth Orbits.

Along with this Surface Ship and Sub Tracking we also have a various number of various U.S. Military service branch recon craft such as AWAC's as well as Classified Sub Orbital Recon. Aircraft.

Add to this our Navy's and Sub force ability to keep tabs on the movements and deployments of other nations Naval Craft....and add to this we have placed Ocean Floor Monitoring and Listening devices all along the oceans of the world.....and add to that new Water and Atmospheric Displacement detection.....we keep track of EVERYTHING.

We have also deployed Deep Ocean and Deep Earth Penetrating Radars.

But the newest system which is yet to be fully deployed is a form of ELF adaptation for Sub and Surface Ship Detection.

As for Robotic Stealth Self Autonomous Aircraft.....check out the Lockheed SR-72.

It replaces the SR-71 and it has the ability with a Scramjet of obtaining Mach 6 or about 4,000 mph.

It has no pilot. and will be capable of dropping precision guided munitions from altitudes over 80,000 feet.

This particular aircraft will not be in service till the late 2020's.....but we have already deployed less capable versions of it and they are currently in service.

Oh....and Magnetometers as well as new Gravitic Sensor Satellites do NOT detect Electromagnetic emissions from Naval electronics.

The Magnetometers which exist deployed on various satellites and recon. aircraft detect mild variations in the Earth's Magnetic Field that with the aid of networked supercomputers can determine exactly what kind of ship or sub is being detected.

The Gravitic Sensors were deployed recently and they work as tandem satellites....and we have used them before by NASA to prove several of Einstein's theories that Gravity is NOT a Force but rather Space-Time curvature or warping.

Last thing.....some of this very advanced tech. and it's recon ability is highly classified and is not currently even being shared with the Navy.

AboveAlpha

 

And this is a perfect example.

At this time, the SR-72 is simply a concept. Even the people who are trying to design it admit that parts of the aircraft are not even possible yet, and at the soonest it will be at least 2030 until it enters service.

I do not count a paper concept over a decade and a half away as anything other then a dream.

And trust me, nobody is taking real time data from any satellites and dumping them into supercomputers. Not only is that not possible, the information does not work that way. Supercomputers either take extremely slow datasets and then speeds them up (like plate tectonics or weather), or takes extremely fast datasets and slows them down to a speed we can analyze them (like nuclear reactions and explosions). These take huge amounts of time to program in, and are then analyzed once the massive amounts of computations has been accomplished. In fact, the very idea of supercomputers is now largely anachronistic. Cluster computing has largely taken over this kind of task.