Russian FFG intercepting 2 Burke DDG's in the med

[ikalugin]

Meanwhile, Russian Corvettes are getting escorted through the channel.

[Kapitan]

Oscar's have many roles many are being retrofitted as Project 949AM which has land attack rather than anti ship missiles, this makes the Syrian conflict a very good proving ground for them.

You also have to note ultimately the Oscar II is a rather large attack submarine at heart and does carry an impressive array of torpedoes and non silo'd missiles.

The lack of intelligence from Turkey (NATO member) would suggest no Black sea Kilo's have transited the Bosporus, Kilos do not have the speed and Endurance to follow a Burke lets be truthful the Burke only has to kick off at 30 knots for a few hours and your well out of the way of a kilo.

The submarines in transit must do so on the surface as per the 1921 treaty, it is also pretty much suicidal to transit submerged !
Having navigated ships my self through these waters the straights are extremely confined and shallow the Kilo would run a extremely high risk of grounding or being run over by a faster surface ship.

So would an Oscar II fit the bill in the med? absolutely its been their hunting ground since the first one was launched in the 80's, infact just prior to the loss of K141 Kursk she had deployed to the med merely months before.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Meanwhile, Russian Corvettes are getting escorted through the channel.

Indeed by HMS Sutherland type 23 FFG

[ikalugin]

Oscar's have many roles many are being retrofitted as Project 949AM which has land attack rather than anti ship missiles, this makes the Syrian conflict a very good proving ground for them.

You can still use Oniks/Yahont out of them, with Zircon getting their soon, so they retain the AShM capability.

And that capability is significant, for example compare a force made out of 2 Oscar-IIIs and 1 Yasen class (total of 2*72+32 silos) against say a RN carrier battlegroup.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

You can still use Oniks/Yahont out of them, with Zircon getting their soon, so they retain the AShM capability.

And that capability is significant, for example compare a force made out of 2 Oscar-IIIs and 1 Yasen class against say a RN carrier battlegroup.

Indeed i am aware of their AShM capability even post refit to AM model, it still makes them a very powerful weapon, it also keeps them in front line service for another 15 to 20 years, which is what i was getting at when i said non silo'd missiles (not the ones on the side where the P700's were)

Don't discount a CVBG from the UK in the advent of war its extremely likely we would be supported by Dutch and German vessels working along side the French in a European Theatre, the new dutch systems along with the British sampson systems are extremely good as good as the latest AEGIS if not slightly better, we also have that system available to us from Spain and Norway.

In fact its well know all ballistic missile tests carried out in the north from Russia are monitored by a Nansen class Frigate's in Norway's own waters its a very powerful system.

[ikalugin]

Just play a numbers game, RN would not have enough area defense weapons (3*48+4*4=160) in it's carrier battle group (3 T45s + 4 JSFs on patrol on that specific attack vector) to intecept a 176 strong salvo by those 3 subs. Even if you add allied ships, point defenses and the like they would still strugle, as Pk in real combat conditions is not 1 per defensive round fired.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Just play a numbers game, RN would not have enough area defense weapons in it's carrier battle group to intecept a 176 strong salvo by those 3 subs. Even if you add allied ships they would strugle, as Pk in real combat conditions is not 1 per defensive round fired.

Assuming a 1v1 stance backed up by other foreign assets to bolster the ranks you could do it for sure.

As for numbers if you were to say a half DDG fleet with a quarter FFG fleet so thats 3 type 45's and 3 type 23's escorting the carrier negating foreign assets you could in theory intercept and take down all the missiles.

Type 45's carry a 48 cell VLS launcher for Viper missiles which is area defence
Type 23's carry a 32 cell VLS Seawolf launcher

So when you do those numbers you top out at 255 missiles in total while agreed 96 of those would be point defence and not area defence these would be the mop up job which is what worked in the falklands

by marrying off a type 45 and 23 you can pair their systems one provides area defence the other point defence so it is still doable in a stand alone theatre.

[ikalugin]

As you can see in my (edited) post above, there is a total of 144 area defense SAMs on T45s (in reality 96 b/c they typically carry a compliment of Aster-15s).

Considering the engagement times, especially after Zircon comes online, you can negate point defense launcher ammo capacity, as there would be insufficient time to deplete those stores. T23 has one such launcher.

You can also count only point defense launchers either on or very close to the defended platform, because due to the attacking missile's speed the real protected area of the launcher is minimal and is significantly less than the advertised max range (ie 40-60km for CAMM and it's variants).

Unless all 3 T23s are running point defense duties for the carrier and not say ASW duties contribution of point defenses would be fairly meager. And if T23s are busy with point defense instead of ASW, let us be honest, we would just go in with torpedoes.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

As you can see in my (edited) post above, there is a total of 144 area defense SAMs on T45s (in reality 96 b/c they typically carry a compliment of Aster-15s).

Considering the engagement times, especially after Zircon comes online, you can negate point defense launcher ammo capacity, as there would be insufficient time to deplete those stores. T23 has one such launcher.

You can also count only point defense launchers either on or very close to the defended platform, because due to the attacking missile's speed the real protected area of the launcher is minimal and is significantly less than the advertised max range (ie 40-60km for CAMM and it's variants).

Unless all 3 T23s are running point defense duties for the carrier and not say ASW duties contribution of point defenses would be fairly meager. And if T23s are busy with point defense instead of ASW, let us be honest, we would just go in with torpedoes.

Going off the Falklands the predecessors to the type 23 the type 22 were pretty much always in Point defence mode even when escorting the carriers, this is due in part to the air wing being able to field ASW helicopters something the QE class would also do and the fact that both type 45's and type 23's carry ASW capable helicopters would mean they have an off set asset thus meaning the type 23 could in fact conduct point defence all the time.

It is also worth while to note the type 23 like the type 22 can carry out both roles at the same time its not restricted in any way shape or form.

[ikalugin]

Falkland's experience is not applicable, as Argentinian submarines were a negligible threat thus allowing deployement of ASW ships in point defense role.

ASW helicopters are nice, but you would still deploy ASW pickets with their towed and such.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Falkland's experience is not applicable, as Argentinian submarines were a negligible threat thus allowing deployement of ASW ships in point defense role.

ASW helicopters are nice, but you would still deploy ASW pickets with their towed and such.

They still posed a big threat and were actively hunted down indeed HMS Plymouth received damage from a failed torpedo detonation launched by an Argentine submarine.

That at the moment would be the only close comparison you could have to any conflict had the submarine been armed with an Exocet the situation could have been more favourable to the Argentinians.

Helicopters can out run submarines and the worst thing for any submarine is firing a missile and it being seen the helicopter can be in the area very fast which would mean a torpedo is about to land on your head.

Getting in close is a solution but in confined waters escape would not be easy areas like the Baltic and North sea for example

Factor in also if close to home land based aircraft will also be looking in and around the area.

[ikalugin]

I think Gulf War is a better example, with T42 intercepting an AShM, but then I know nothing

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

I think Gulf War is a better example, with T42 intercepting an AShM, but then I know nothing

Only thing a type 42 intercepted really was the exocet with sea dart which is no longer used viper has replaced it.

the RN lacks numbers to confront the Russians head on alone which is why we always work in coalition these days we are dependant on the USA and NATO allies for support

Right now if Argentina kicks off in the falklands we would require USA help to regain the islands we could not do it alone.

[Delgard]

I always thought U.S. and Allied warships were under-defended. Most likely from budget constraints.

[ikalugin]

Did you know that Borei class has hard kill counter torps?