USN ASuW Doctrin

[MBot]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

I guess at this point I don't understand the relevance of this side-debate. The two-person "consensus" that we have is that the mission is given to aircraft, which take out the targets long before they're in Harpoon range of the surface fleet. Maybe each ship in a SAG/CVBG doesn't have enough missiles to take out an equal sized ship--I dont agree with this, but I'll admit it's possible. But so what? How does that change the doctrine?

Well I don't try to change the doctrin, it was how it was. Actualy I try to get a better picture of the USN ASuW doctrin and how effective it possibly was. Since I don't have first hand experience on the subject, I take my limited knowledge and draw my own conlcusions, then discuss them with others. Whats to point of it? Having some fun talking about a subject I enjoy, nothing more

The reason I came up with the topic was that I read trough one of my books again, and again realised how heavily the USN depends on the Harpoon as the primary anti-ship weapon for both ships and aircraft. I just find it surprising, as the Harpoon which was initialy designed to give martime patrol aircraft a weapon to quickly engage surfaced SSG/SSGN, was the backbone in defeating the soviet fleet. For a navy that always tried to get the best equipment possible, I have the impression they were quicker statisfied regarding ASM. Was it good enough to do the job? Most likely. But for my untrained eye it doesn't look like much overkill.