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Have you seen Mr. Jerry Hendrix’s writing
I think autonomous was the wrong word. They don’t have independent decision authority, they just fly to their designated targets without the need for further external input. What I meant was the number of missiles in the air at once is not limited by the ground station’s capacity to control them in flight.
Why do you want America to be weak?
Oh, I misunderstood–thanks for the correction. My worry was that you could not change their targets. I guess you have some way of killing the missile in flight?
No, in general such a feature is intentionally excluded from missile design. The rationale is that you only launch a missile when you’re sure you want to destroy whatever you’re targeting, and a self-destruct or disarming feature only provides an opportunity for the enemy to disable your attacks. In that way it’s a lot like a bullet.
The only situations where a self-destruct system is included are for test missiles, for safety. It’s also called a Flight Termination System or FTS, and you are not allowed to launch the test missile unless the FTS has a very strong signal for its command uplink. That’s not a reasonable requirement for a combat situation.
Just watch some Phineas & Ferb. Dr. Doofenshmirtz always includes a self-destruct button on his -inators,
Who needs to be reasonable when politics are involved?
Yes, but a bullet that takes an hour to hit. I also imagine this is a really expensive bullet. I think these things limit its use, especially in battle. A lot of this war tech stuff seems to be designed to stay as far away from war as possible. That makes sense, but I’m not sure it will win a really ugly war.
By the by, thanks for taking the time to school me on all these details. I appreciate it.
I think if you look at the history you will find that all naval engagements were fought within 250 miles of a coast. One just doesn’t fight in the middle of the ocean. So the Chinese D21 range is rather moot; one would not expect a carrier to maintain a straight line for a prolonged time – enough to be hit by a ballistic missile.
Someone else may know, but what I’ve seen of BM’s, they are all fine-tuned in their targeting, but not steerable. So if you are trying to hit a silo, you can make small adjustments to hit it square. But the silo doesn’t travel at 30+ kts.
Far more dangerous – to carriers and all surface ships – are subs. Subs are sneaky bastards. But the most dangerous thing to a sub is another sub – a hunter/killer sub. We have those, but we could use more.
The American military is rather unbelievably capable. But its leadership gets its fingers caught in the wringer from time to time. The F-35 is a great example. Our biggest hope is that the Russians and Chinese decide to copy it. From an operational POV, the Marine Corps trashed any ability of this thing to actually do ACM because they insisted in the vertical capability. One would have thought the Harrier would have taught them to move on, but Marines are stubborn.
Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that myself. Ballistic missiles don’t make much sense against mobile targets. That’s why dive bombers were used in the Pacific war during WWII. You have to be extremely close when you let an unguided munition go.
As for the future of the carrier, of course there is one. It just may not be exactly what it once was. But if you get into a “serious war” at some point you will probably want to land on a hostile shore, and you will need a Navy to bring the Marines, and the whole shooting match will need air cover. That’s what a carrier does. You can’t do that from a sub, or a cruiser, or a DD.
Until we have air drop capability, with associated air cover, to drop battalion after battalion of Marines on hostile ground, you will need carriers.
You will just have to come up with better plans on how to protect them.
This is not a close-combat weapon. It is a rapid surgical strike weapon. You need to keep “an hour to hit” in perspective — when we use an aircraft carrier, it takes days or weeks to get the ship in position to launch a strike. An hour from CONUS to target destruction is the blink of an eye.
That hour includes time to pass the target location to the missile crew, generate a targeting solution, run flight simulations to validate the planned trajectory, execute the launch countdown (power up systems, load mission parameters, align navigation platforms, remove safing pins, arm ordnance, perform all-systems-go checkout), and then fly halfway around the world.
Question your assumptions about anti-ship ballistic missiles. Note what the RAND consultant says at the end of the article about requiring a “system of systems” to make it work. That’s equally true, if not moreso, of an aircraft carrier battle group.
Fair enough. I still think you should double check your assumptions and Google a little harder on this one. If you search for “carrier killer” you find several descriptions of systems.
Here’s a more official source, the DoD’s Annual Report to Congress on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2014:
Mark. You may have access to classified info; I no longer do, as I retired a number of years ago.
Still, I am aware of maneuverable warheads. I am also aware of the speed and turning capabilities of a carrier at full boogey. It is an awesome thing.
So consider the ability of a whole carrier group to fire upon such a missile while it is attempting to maneuver, then add the carrier also maneuveriing. All this against a weapon that HAS to have a direct hit to work. And I don’t even speak of the ECM action one might deploy against its targeting system.
So I expect we will have to agree to disagree for the time being.
Tell me, how worried are you that tech like the df21d ASBM could sink a carrier? Do you think if it came to a battle, the Chinese could throw a dozen or more ASBMs at a carrier? A hundred? It seems like it’s both politically & militarily great bang for the buck.
Perhaps the better question is in case of war, ?would one expect to find the carriers close enough to be so damaged by missiles. Preparing a battlefield takes degradation attacks to make things OK for further follow up attack.
So close meaning more than 1,000 miles? That’s about the distance from Shanghai to Japan…
We could always revisit Project Habakkuk.
I had never heard of that. Every part of it is strange, but especially Mountbatten shooting at ice… You take the cake, Sal.
That’s exactly the strategy in deploying such a system: area denial. The system only has to be good enough that the US is not willing to accept the risk, and keeps our carriers outside the first island chain.
Acquiring ballistic missiles in flight is not complicated nor does it require new technology. Often, all you need to do is modify radar software in existing radar systems. Launching ballistic missiles exposes the launch platform to detection and destruction, also.
Well, mobile launchers are a solution to that problem.
Not really. When you can ID the launch point inside of a minute, you can get them. There are tactics and abilities in place. What we are working on is the silver bullet.
You ID the launch point–then how long does it take to hit it? Less than an hour?
Depends on where you have your sensors and your shooters…airborne CAP? special ops? other? that is part of daily tactical planning. Nothing is perfect so we still need the silver bullet.
I think we need a better answer. Getting rid of mobile launchers would not make a big difference & it’s not clear what resources could or should be dedicated to this. Anti-ballistic missile defense seems to be the minimum condition for the operation of carriers anywhere near China. Destroying launch platforms is somewhat useful, but not decisive. Do you think there is any silver bullet coming for that–missile defense of some kind? I’m advised, AEGIS is useless against ASBMs…
I’ll trade 1000 MRBM launch sites for 1 US carrier battlegroup any day of the week.
I would trade one fixed land base for one mobile carrier any day of the week.
The offensive/defensive race always evolves. We are left more vulnerable because of fewer carriers, not because of having more of them.