What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

[tnemelckram]

Hi Bgile!

You are right. It has been a common practice to have CBG's in the Gulf for war support and to show the flag. In the last couple of years the Iranian Sunburn missiles (and maybe a claimed high speed torpedo) have emerged as a threat. So lately the thinking has been "do we really have to have them in there to accomplish these missions?" and the answer is "no, you can still do it effectively from the Arabian Sea and be much safer from the missiles (and alleged torpedo)". Nothing keeps the peace better than showing the foe that you can neutralize his latest, greatest threat and still operate effectively. SO lately there's been a trend toward keeping a little sea distance and let the Fifth Fleet show the flag in the Gulf.

[als_pug]

if you want to sink a naval task force that has good sub sea defences . and i would say that a pair of los angeles etc is good . i would say look to the heavens.
use IRBM's with terminal guidance . the kenetic energy of an impact is going to be huge and when the burster explodes 50 ft under the ship it just passed through it will snap it in two. a salvo of 50 or so should run the escorts out of their best abm missiles and get a few hits.

[als_pug]

legend wrote "we were the ones who taught the British the skill of armoring a carrier's deck!" .

this is a patently false statement . during WW2 the American carriers had unarmoured flight decks .
the invincible's carried less aircraft but their hangars were an armoured box. t
he Royal Navy was armouring flight decks long before the first USN carrier got an armoured deck.
i belive the armour scheme on USN carriers was on the hangar deck to protect the vitals .
the brits figured the hangar was the vitals.

copied from a source i have never trustred lol . "In the late 1930s the RN also developed the concept of the armoured flight deck, enclosing the hanger in an armoured box. The lead ship of this new type, HMS Illustrious, commissioned in 1940." good old wikipedia. the illustrious and her sisters were hit by several kamikaze's . due to their armoured deck they stayed in action after hits that would have crippled USN carriers. They were unfortunately badly designed as the hits on the armoured box damaged them structually i think .

[Legend]

I don't think the Russians or terrorists are going to get their hands on a couple of Los Angeleses. And tactical nuclear missiles? That can kill anything, but I don't think they are really an option unless they're really rich, got a big missile ship, and have said fifty nuclear warheads. Plus most Task Forces have CIWS, meaning a good portion of the missiles would be blown up close to the ships, if not already taken down by Sparrows and Standards.

[als_pug]

what i meant was their is not much possibility of getting through a pair of ssn to attck underwater . ie subs are not the best way .
as far as nuc's i never mentioned nukes . an IRBM or a SRBM can have high explosive warheads . they will come in on their target at over mach 6 from directly above . rendering phlanix useless . also the sea sparrow does not have ABM capabilities . yes some blocks of the standard have ABM capabilities however the procedure against such an important target would be shoot , shoot , shoot , look . so their goes 150 missiles. and i am pretty sure that a cvbg does not carry 150 abm missiles.

[RF]

The attacker would still have the problem of getting these weapons into range undetected, otherwise the attacker is still open to countermeasures.

[Bgile]

Who has IRBMs with terminal guidance good enough to hit a ship?

[als_pug]

Think of the range of a irbm or srbm then look at the china taiwan region then look at iran and the persian gulf. terminal guidance for a irbm warhead is not going to be hard . accuracy would suffer ie poor results but 1 hit on a cv . i would recomend looking at the pershing missile and it's target discrimination method . easy to do with a cv .

[Bgile]

I don't think it's at all easy to do, and I don't think anyone has been able to hit a moving ship with an IRBM yet. That would be a really big deal, and I'm pretty sure the Pershing, which is quite old, would not have been able to do so. If you could do that, I don't think people would bother with cruise missiles.

Do you have a reference to an IRBM being tested against a moving ship?

[als_pug]

ok i refered to the pershing beacause it had a radar that was used to fine tune the target location . ie control the flight of the terminal warhead. now it would not be hard to launch an irbm or srbm with a gps or glossnas guidance system and get it into a target basket . network the missiles and have all head for the first target . . i am not a missile engineer but if an icbm can hit a 2 m target and a tomahawk can fly through a building window on the correct floor . i do not see how it could be beyond the current capabilities. heck launch a target identification missile ie big radar lol . and have it send fine targeting data to the other missiles. i read somewhere that the ssn19 had this capability. anyway back on topic how to kill a cvbg. well without 800 plus a/c to swam it with and without a good size force of ss you have no hope . also you need to get everything in place in total emcon and no loose lips . so the answer is their is practically no method that will work . however i think the srbm and irbm has a better chance then most people think .

Scenario.

PRC has started making noises about taiwan . they are seen on sat moving large numbers of IRBM and SRBM into range of taipei . The American President does what all the others have done divert a CVBG to the area or maybe even 2 . the Taiwanese quitely get some PAC-3 batteries. The chinese start awacs flights to keep track of the american carrier . They never go close enough to radar paint the cv but track the racetrack pattern of the e-2d . once they are in range of the SRBM and or IRBM sites a salvo is launched the Chinese AWACS is spalshed by the F-18E formation closest to them . Norad tracks the plumes and tracking radar on Taiwan etermined the target . 80 IRBM are heading for the USN taskforce. not knowing if hukes are involved the formation disperses and the escorts light up the incoming missiles with radar while they are still above the atmosphere . the Total sm2-VI inventory of the fleet is 30 split between 2 arliegh burke's . the Ticonderoga is carrying the earlier mods as her ability to target balliatic missiles is poor. using cooperative engagement procedure's they task force launches all their ABM's and achieve %80 hits . this leaves 54 incoming . the remainder of the sm-2 on board the task force are launched . these achieve a remarkable %40 hit rate . this being remarkable because they are not designed for these targets. only a few IRBM remain and only one hits a target . this being one of the Arliegh Burke's . being set to home in on her radar . Then a second wave is launched . with no missiles to intercept them . what could happen . lol . this is only one scenario. another would be the mass launch of cruise missiles. but cruise missiles are a much easier target for the Warships.

[RF]

And then what? The scenario here is the begining of all out war, not just the sinking of a CVBG. and the US has the firepower to finish it.

I can't see the PRC starting this confrontation.

[lwd]

ok i refered to the pershing beacause it had a radar that was used to fine tune the target location . ie control the flight of the terminal warhead. now it would not be hard to launch an irbm or srbm with a gps or glossnas guidance system and get it into a target basket . network the missiles and have all head for the first target . . i am not a missile engineer but if an icbm can hit a 2 m target and a tomahawk can fly through a building window on the correct floor . i do not see how it could be beyond the current capabilities.....

The problem here is one of dynamics a ballistic missile is coming in at a considerable velocity. That means it takes a fair amount of energy to change it's course and that it must be done very quickly. It also means that any radical course changes may cause structural failure in the missile. Missiles like the Pershing are very good at hitting a fixed spot a moving target is much more difficult. The missile approach might work quite well if you could catch the task force at anchor if they are moving at sea it is problematic. One approach that might work would be if you say had an intell sat that was capable of monitoring the movement of the task force and feeding continuous targetting data directily to the missile. I'm not sure any one has that capability now at least with the data rates and speads required by a balistic missile.

[Bgile]

A good discussion of ABM use by China:

http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/8357

[als_pug]

WOW and here i was thinking i was being original . lol . well it just shows it is not such a bad idea.

[RF]

This article by Michael Richardson is a press report and takes an angle that I find unrealistic, thet these ABM's would be as effectiveas the Chinese intend. The PRC isn't yet strong enough to face down the US - yet. And the US will be aware of such future threats, and has time to deal with them.