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MBot · 09-25-08, 01:57 AM

Interesting points. Especially that there wouldn't have been enough SSN to hunt down the soviet surface groups.

Regarding the alpha strike against a surface group. I wonder how effective such a attack would have been. The USN thinking of aircraft vs. ship has been influenced very much by WWII, where ships were extremely vulnerable against air attack. It is hard to tell how true that remains today with a lot of technology passed by and few actual examples to draw conclusions from. The Falklands war presents some interesting lessions, at least for the western navies (at that point most soviet warships were already equiped with various short range SAM systems and multiple CIWS). Still the conclusion from the Falklands can go both ways. To ships sunk with single ASM each vs. over half of the ASM were decoyed, air-defense destroyer sunk by bomb run vs. air raid shattered by Seawolve equiped frigate.

Of course a USN strike would be hitting a lot harder than the Argentines ever could. On the other hand the soviet ships were equiped to exactly fend of such a strike. The S-300 SAM system employed on the Slava and Kirov cruisers for example is considered by the USAF as no-fly zone (in its land based version). I think the critical point would be wether the SEAD component of such a strike would be successful. It is an interesting question, considering in the Yugoslavian campaign several hundert HARMs were spend against a relative small number of second line SAM system (mostly Kub/SA-6 I think). One could also wonder how effective the HARM would be against a radar system that is moving at 30 knots.

It is also interesting that no one commented yet on the ASuW capabilities of the USN ships themselfe. Would you agree that those ships were never meant to engage vessels of simmilar size themselfe? I always thought USN ships are extremly underarmed in that regard, a Virginia CGN or Tico CG have basically the same ASuW capabilities as the old Pegasus PHM. The only ships that realy stood out in that regard were the modernised Iowa BBs (16 Harpoon, 32 Thomahawks and the guns).

09-25-08, 01:57 AM	#5
MBot Loader Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Switzerland Posts: 90 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	Interesting points. Especially that there wouldn't have been enough SSN to hunt down the soviet surface groups. Regarding the alpha strike against a surface group. I wonder how effective such a attack would have been. The USN thinking of aircraft vs. ship has been influenced very much by WWII, where ships were extremely vulnerable against air attack. It is hard to tell how true that remains today with a lot of technology passed by and few actual examples to draw conclusions from. The Falklands war presents some interesting lessions, at least for the western navies (at that point most soviet warships were already equiped with various short range SAM systems and multiple CIWS). Still the conclusion from the Falklands can go both ways. To ships sunk with single ASM each vs. over half of the ASM were decoyed, air-defense destroyer sunk by bomb run vs. air raid shattered by Seawolve equiped frigate. Of course a USN strike would be hitting a lot harder than the Argentines ever could. On the other hand the soviet ships were equiped to exactly fend of such a strike. The S-300 SAM system employed on the Slava and Kirov cruisers for example is considered by the USAF as no-fly zone (in its land based version). I think the critical point would be wether the SEAD component of such a strike would be successful. It is an interesting question, considering in the Yugoslavian campaign several hundert HARMs were spend against a relative small number of second line SAM system (mostly Kub/SA-6 I think). One could also wonder how effective the HARM would be against a radar system that is moving at 30 knots. It is also interesting that no one commented yet on the ASuW capabilities of the USN ships themselfe. Would you agree that those ships were never meant to engage vessels of simmilar size themselfe? I always thought USN ships are extremly underarmed in that regard, a Virginia CGN or Tico CG have basically the same ASuW capabilities as the old Pegasus PHM. The only ships that realy stood out in that regard were the modernised Iowa BBs (16 Harpoon, 32 Thomahawks and the guns).