I took something different away from that article. The crane was the one thing on that ship that wasn't stealthy. And that's what the missile hit.

Suggesting the 'stealth ship' design actually does work. Personally I had been somewhat discounting the possibility of making anything more than minor reductions in ship RCS.

Yes, hence why I said that I hope the Harpoon Block III will have dual terminal sensor capability. I'm wondering why Imamar thought a backup sensor would defend against miracles occurring. One would think that if God wants to prevent a radar seeker from homing, He'd foil the infrared seeker as well. :rotfl:

IR is really easy to spoof, with IR blocking smoke. Stealth ships aren't going to be overcome by IR guidance. Directed energy also works, but more expensive. The smoke is pretty basic stuff though afaik.

I can't think of any current or projected first world ship deploying with IR-defeating smoke. We don't even have chaff on my ship, let alone smoke dischargers. Do you know of any? And, FWIW, I never had any trouble tracking Saar V's with either low freq (L-band) or high freq (X-band) radar. They might have been small video for their physical size, but it wasn't readily apparent.

Well, there are and have been IR Smoke and Chaff dispensers onboard for some time now at least in the German Navy....

Here's a question?

How many and which navies could actually defeat a Subsonic missle swarm? Aegis equipped navies could... but anyone else?

Aegis, plus the Russian S-300 cruisers, the Slavas and Kirovs. Maybe the SA-N-9 equipped ships, too, Neustrashimy and Udaloy classes. From what I've heard, the Gauntlet is a scary little missile at short ranges, and combined with the Kashtan rotary-30mm/SA-N-11 system I'd rate it as a pretty good point-defense weapon.

Aside from that, I'm not sure. The PAAMS missile, Aster 15 and 30, seem to be the European counterparts, but as far as I know they're not yet in active service.

So apart from Aegis, the Russian S-300/SA-N-6 (and maybe the SA-N-9, but its short range precludes defense against big swarms), and the future PAAMS, I don't know of any real anti-swarm weapons. ESSM has the range and the ability to do it, but it requires a powerful radar system, like the Aegis, to engage swarms effectively. Other systems, like Crotale, Sea Sparrow (RIM-7, not RIM-161), or Sea Wolf, are point-defense weapons that probably can't handle SSM swarms very well.