Does the US not have a supersonic SSM?

[Molon Labe]

That's alright, I've already done a lot of that math on paper and saw the results when helping LW tweak the AEGIS doctrines so I know what you mean. It definitely helps waste defensive missiles in a saturation warfare situation.

[Pillar]

What is LW? The effect I originally had in mind was just engagement time. For the system on board, all that matters are how many missiles are inbound and how much time it has to engage them. 20 missiles in 3 seconds is too much for the system, just to pick a figure, but 20 missiles over 3 minutes might barely strain it. The effect of fast missiles purely on the volley-tactic side is to reduce the time factor and stress the overall performance of the missiles. Fire two missiles ten seconds apart and they arrive ten seconds apart no matter their speed, but the stress on the system is not the same. The effect is the same as increasing the volley size. It's always going to be time/#inbounds and making the time smaller is the same as making the #inbounds bigger. The AEGIS system probably has some enormous capacity in terms of "max reliable kill rate per second", but somewhere it does top out, and a supersonic volley will exceed that capacity before the same number of subsonic inbounds. Is this not correct?

So overall there are at least four kinds of effects - evasiveness: how hard is it to hit the missile with defensive weapons, window: how long each missile is available to target with defensive weapons overall, surprise: how close can you get the shot to target before it can detect it? allocation: can you watch the "fall of the shots" before you decide what to do next, or do you need to just fire some # of shots at each missile and rely on a healthy safe average pk?

Basically, missile speed is going to affect all those things. I'm not sure whether surprise is something that can be had easily. Would the NAVY have search radars on any time these threats were possible?

[To be]

LW = Luftwolf, who comprises the LW of the LWAMI mod.

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Saar 5 vs. C-802).

Religious mumbojumbo. Miracles, after miracles. That would have been a great article, without all that manipulative bs.
They were lucky, yes. Miracles, no.

[To be]

Well if you look at what it was written for, I think the religious emphasis over the historical can be explained.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Imamar

Religious mumbojumbo. Miracles, after miracles. That would have been a great article, without all that manipulative bs.
They were lucky, yes. Miracles, no.

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.

[To be]

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.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by To be

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:

[Pillar]

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.

[Apocal]

Originally Posted by Pillar

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.

[OneShot]

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

[LoBlo]

Here's a question?

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

[SandyCaesar]

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.