NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[Gallia-]

Are air defense systems, like the S-400, no matter how good they are at detecting the enemy plane, really that effective in actually shooting them down?

No.

The most effective air defense system in history had a hit rate about 1% greater than is typical for a "well operated" system. Which is to say the Egyptians were firing about 97 missiles per plane versus the 99 or so the North Vietnamese shot. And having weak operators just makes it a mess, like in Desert Storm, where you can shoot 200 rockets and not hit a plane.

[The New California Republic]

Actual S-400 combat data, relative to other SAM systems, that we can pore over is practically non-existent. There are bucketloads of combat data on legacy systems like the S-75, S-125, S-200 etc if you want to look, but I'm assuming that you are wanting to limit the scope to newer systems.

Yes, I'm looking for newer systems. Is there any data on the Patriot system?

Patriot has had some successes in Israel against drones used by Hamas and Syria, and they shot down a Syrian Sukhoi a few years ago.

[Gallia-]

Actual S-400 combat data, relative to other SAM systems, that we can pore over is practically non-existent. There are bucketloads of combat data on legacy systems like the S-75, S-125, S-200 etc if you want to look, but I'm assuming that you are wanting to limit the scope to newer systems.

Yes, I'm looking for newer systems. Is there any data on the Patriot system?

Not enough to be relevant, but there's no particular reason to believe that something like Patriot or Aegis are any more effective than Kub was. The first few days of 1973 was a SAM system operating more or less in its element (ideal target compliance i.e. no effective jamming, lack of terminal evasive maneuvering ("down the throat" attacks were common), and no decoys) against the IAF for about a week or so. It managed to kill a plane or two out of every hundred or so sorties, and damage about twice as many.

This is the best SAM systems have ever gotten and likely will ever get. Patriot, Aegis, and all SAM systems since have never been seriously tested against air threats. They are highly capable at shooting down drones on a target range and that's about all anyone knows about them. The same was true of SA-2, SA-5, SA-6, and probably SA-22, except all evidence we have of those is that they're wholly incapable of doing anything against air raids.

[Langenia]

Thanks to both of you for your input. So the best way to shoot down enemy aircraft, due to the fact SAMs aren't really that effective, is to send fighters with competent pilots in the cockpit?

[Gallia-]

Yes.

SAMs are only effective in a support role. The Soviets felt that they could do "aerial ambushes" or some similar terminology when operating with friendly fighters, acting more or less as a distraction to cause enemy fighters to maneuver (lose energy) prior to being engaged by friendly aircraft. Or you would drive enemy fighters towards friendly SAMs, and the SAMs could force enemy aircraft to expend energy dodging missiles, letting friendly aircraft escape or something.

No one knows how true this is, but it doesn't seem to be a serious requirement for successful air combat. Almost all historical air battles, with few exceptions, resulted in the complete annihilation of one side and near nothing losses of the other side, whether physical or in terms of sortie rates. Either the loser was shot out of the sky, or he was so afraid to engage in combat that his pilots hid in their bunkers while their runways and hangars were bombed.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

It's probs going to be something sedate like a submarine launched Storm Shadow.

Not sure if the Kashtan or the Pantsir-M is capable of intercepting a missile flying at Mach 0.8, although competent ASW would most likely render that moot.

Pantsir was recently (due to events in the Syrian theatre probs) derated from an alleged "stops 95% of threats" to "stops 15% of threats, maybe". And ASW in the Baltic is a nightmare.

[Austrasien]

Are air defense systems, like the S-400, no matter how good they are at detecting the enemy plane, really that effective in actually shooting them down?

no.

How it started.

How it's going.

Last year, the Israeli air force hit more than 200 targets in Syria connected to the Iranian effort to upgrade Hezbollah’s rockets. Some of those attacks have been reported to involve Israeli F-35s. The attacks continue apace this year with Syrian air defense forces having launched more than 1,000 surface-air missiles to try and foil the repeated Israeli attacks. They’ve had little effect so far.

“According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA - Ed.), Syrian air defense systems intercepted several missiles launched by Israel over Palmyra. Currently, most of the weapons in the Syrian army, including air defense missiles, are produced in Russia. The Syrian air defense forces, armed with Russian-made air defense systems, are backward, including such air defense systems as the S-300 and Pantsir-S1 - they had no real success. Others, including the S-125, Wasp and Igra air defense missiles, are even more backward. But due to the fact that the Syrian air defense system uses radars made in China, there are results. Syria has previously received a number of Chinese-made radars, including at least the JY-27 long-range radar., - reports with reference to sources in the Syrian army edition "Sina".

Fighters are much more effective, yes. They have a lot more options for engaging targets when unexpected things happen.

[Gallia-]

Yes it would be trivial to drive a Gotland close to SPB and shoot some cruise missiles at it.

The problem is that Sweden wouldn't be able to do anything when Russia nukes every Swedish city with a population greater than 15,000 or so.

[The New California Republic]

Thanks to both of you for your input. So the best way to shoot down enemy aircraft, due to the fact SAMs aren't really that effective, is to send fighters with competent pilots in the cockpit?

Yes, but they'd likely send aircraft with TFR and drogue bombs to crater the runways if that was considered a serious enough threat by the enemy.

[Langenia]

Are air defense systems, like the S-400, no matter how good they are at detecting the enemy plane, really that effective in actually shooting them down?

no.

How it started.

How it's going.

Last year, the Israeli air force hit more than 200 targets in Syria connected to the Iranian effort to upgrade Hezbollah’s rockets. Some of those attacks have been reported to involve Israeli F-35s. The attacks continue apace this year with Syrian air defense forces having launched more than 1,000 surface-air missiles to try and foil the repeated Israeli attacks. They’ve had little effect so far.

“According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA - Ed.), Syrian air defense systems intercepted several missiles launched by Israel over Palmyra. Currently, most of the weapons in the Syrian army, including air defense missiles, are produced in Russia. The Syrian air defense forces, armed with Russian-made air defense systems, are backward, including such air defense systems as the S-300 and Pantsir-S1 - they had no real success. Others, including the S-125, Wasp and Igra air defense missiles, are even more backward. But due to the fact that the Syrian air defense system uses radars made in China, there are results. Syria has previously received a number of Chinese-made radars, including at least the JY-27 long-range radar., - reports with reference to sources in the Syrian army edition "Sina".

Fighters are much more effective, yes. They have a lot more options for engaging targets when unexpected things happen.

Oh. After seeing how the Russians deployed their S-400 to Syria but it seemingly failed to stop Israeli F-35s that makes me think the best air defense is the one centered around competent pilots and fighter planes.

[Gallia-]

Thanks to both of you for your input. So the best way to shoot down enemy aircraft, due to the fact SAMs aren't really that effective, is to send fighters with competent pilots in the cockpit?

Yes, but they'd likely send aircraft with TFR and drogue bombs to crater the runways if that was considered a serious enough threat by the enemy.

Why are the planes flying at low altitude and not simply flying at 30,000 feet with SDBs?

Cratering a runway doesn't do any damage to the operational capacity of the airbase. Like, none at all, honestly. Probably the only reason hitting airbases is effective is because planes are usually stored there, so you're really hitting airplanes on the ground, as opposed to in the air. The airbase is tangential to this, obviously. Simply bombing empty hangars or hitting an unused runway will do basically nothing to the airbase, because it can be made operational again after a lunch break, if that, and have planes landing or taking off again a few hours later.

This changes somewhat if you use a nuclear bomb and turn the airbase into an a couple atomic craters I suppose, but that might be a tad excessive for all but the most demanding of OCA.

no.

How it started.

How it's going.





Fighters are much more effective, yes. They have a lot more options for engaging targets when unexpected things happen.

Oh. After seeing how the Russians deployed their S-400 to Syria but it seemingly failed to stop Israeli F-35s that makes me think the best air defense is the one centered around competent pilots and fighter planes.

Yes. You also need good airplanes.

It probably goes something like this:

Airplanes = Pilots = AWACS > Ground based radars > MANPADS > SAMs in terms of general importance and contributions to air defense.

[The New California Republic]

Oh. After seeing how the Russians deployed their S-400 to Syria but it seemingly failed to stop Israeli F-35s that makes me think the best air defense is the one centered around competent pilots and fighter planes.

Yes they are still useful as a force multiplier however, even if they just ultimately act as a distraction.

[The New California Republic]

Yes, but they'd likely send aircraft with TFR and drogue bombs to crater the runways if that was considered a serious enough threat by the enemy.

Cratering a runway doesn't do any damage to the operational capacity of the airbase. Like, none at all

Allegedly in that attack the runway wasn't cratered.

[Gallia-]

Cratering a runway doesn't do any damage to the operational capacity of the airbase. Like, none at all

Allegedly in that attack the runway wasn't cratered.

Yes, as is mentioned in the literal article. Since everything except the runway was hit, i.e. ostensibly all the things the airbase needs to work, and the airbase was operational again by dawn, it just proves the point I was making.

Oh. After seeing how the Russians deployed their S-400 to Syria but it seemingly failed to stop Israeli F-35s that makes me think the best air defense is the one centered around competent pilots and fighter planes.

Yes they are still useful as a force multiplier however, even if they just ultimately act as a distraction.

You could easily purchase a fighter squadron, pilots, and ground crews, for the cost a SAM battery and ammunition. NATO didn't need friendly SAMs to keep Yugoslav fighters from spanking their F-15Es out of the skies in 1998, not sure why anyone else would need friendly SAMs to help them out. It seems to be a dead end argument to further advance the subsidy of missile factories more than anything.

Perhaps the money would be better spent increasing wages of the pilots to retain them and not suffer manpower squeezes from airlines who are competing with the military for trained aviators.

[The New California Republic]

Allegedly in that attack the runway wasn't cratered.

Yes, as is mentioned in the literal article. Since everything except the runway was hit, i.e. ostensibly all the things the airbase needs to work, and the airbase was operational again by dawn, it just proves the point I was making.

You said that cratering a runway doesn't do any damage to the operational capacity of the airbase, then used an example where the runway wasn't cratered?

[Gallia-]

Yes, as is mentioned in the literal article. Since everything except the runway was hit, i.e. ostensibly all the things the airbase needs to work, and the airbase was operational again by dawn, it just proves the point I was making.

You said that cratering a runway doesn't do any damage to the operational capacity of the airbase, then used an example where the runway wasn't cratered?

Yes.

Do you have trouble reading between the lines? It's a known fact that bombing runways is generally not very effective. The runway can be put back into operation with a bit of backfilling of the spoil and some metal mats. The Soviets had tons of them, as did the Syrians, and the Irakis, and they all had bulldozers and people who knew how to drive them. As Shayrat proves, neither is bombing literally everything else in the airbase effective at stopping sorties from generated from it.

As I said in the post, literally, which you apparently didn't read:

(...) Probably the only reason hitting airbases is effective is because planes are usually stored there, so you're really hitting airplanes on the ground, as opposed to in the air. The airbase is tangential to this (...)

The Yugoslavs had it partially right in that hardening the storage of aircraft is more effective than protecting semi-hard airbases with walls of missiles. You could argue that something absolutely absurd like Deep Rock could be used for very important aircraft: store them in a deep bunker, excavate them out with tunnel bores, and then proceed to lay a rough airstrip and nuke the enemy. Alternatively you can disperse aircraft widely across a vast area, with multiple redundant airbases for each little base, and make targeting a problem for anything except a massive nuclear missile attack. The Swedes ultimately went that way before they consolidated after the Cold War.

[The New California Republic]

It's a known fact that bombing runways is generally not very effective. The runway can be put back into operation with a bit of backfilling of the spoil and some metal mats. The Soviets had tons of them, as did the Syrians, and the Irakis, and they all had bulldozers and people who knew how to drive them. As Shayrat proves, neither is bombing literally everything else in the airbase effective at stopping sorties from generated from it.

I meant it as merely a delaying tactic to run concurrently with the start of the rest of the operation, rather as a long-term fix.

[Gallia-]

This has never been seriously needed in any post-WW2 war, and it isn't clear why it would need to be required even today, or at the height of the Cold War, honestly. Attaining aerial supremacy would be the first thing done by either air force.

As has been said before, air forces tend to react on contact and destroy one or the other after a single aerial kantai kessen. Both don't explode against each other, really. Neither do they really bounce off each other's attacks and exchange blows until their dying gasps. The Japanese and Germans on the Ostfront were never able to seriously contest aerial control of the skies from either the U.S. Navy or the Red Air Force, despite mustering a handful of meaningless suicide sorties until the end of the war for both countries. You could hardly argue that the Red Air Force or U.S. Navy were somehow not controlling the air for their respective theaters because a dozen Me-109s or Zeroes ran into a bridge/a destroyer at Berlin/Okinawa, because that would be a bit silly.

If you have to "delay" an air force while doing a major operation, you haven't focused enough on destroying the enemy air force. Could it happen? I guess you could argue it happened during the Battle of Britain, but the Luftwaffe was notoriously poor at doing the real job of an air force: destroying other air forces, and Germany suffered the consequences of this fairly quickly.

Could this happen again? No, unless we somehow return to WW2 levels of technology, demography, and industry that allow us to have tens of thousands of airplanes in the skies at once again.

Yugoslavia and both Iraqs are more informative: weaker air forces are destroyed on the ground, or in the skies, within the first few days of combat, while stronger air forces dominate the air quickly. The weaker air force either operates as a "fleet in being", not really sortiing, but not really ceasing to be a threat, which demands escort and periodic fighter sweeps by the stronger air force, but never really affects combat operations; or the weaker air force is outright destroyed on the ground and in the air, and any survivors cease to be a threat because they've been impounded by a neutral country or something. The remainder of the air war is plinking enemy bunkers, tanks, and railroads for a couple days followed by capitulation of the enemy.

Anything that lasts longer than that, or involves two opponents of relatively equivalent economic capacity, would probably end before any decisive actions on part of the air forces could take place. Imagine if the Battle of Britain ended with a negotiated status quo ante and Nazi Germany withdrew from France, the Low Countries, Denmark, and Poland, instead of what actually happened, I guess. Or the Eritrean War.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Mfw you kill so many Soviets in the air you end up having pilots with 200+ aerial victories... and still get assdestroyed.

[Gallia-]

Yes the Red Air Force was stronger. Similar things happened to Japan and Finland FWIW. The USAAC, US Navy, and Red Air Force were all mediocre individually but supreme collectively.

[The New California Republic]

Should have clarified a bit more: I meant it as delaying the response as part of that general strategy of establishing air supremacy, such as when the USAF cratered the Iraqi runways using Durandal in Desert Storm.

It's what I get for posting between work.

[Republic of Penguinian Astronautia]

So I take it that these would be a fairly small portion of an overall force?

Yes, you make airborne units smaller and disperse them over a large area with a huge amount of remote controlled weapons and airborne sensors. Anything that moves and can be seen by the sensors gets killed by whatever weapons they have, whether it's fiber optic guided missiles, persistent loitering missiles, cruise missiles, drones with tiny bombs, or whatever.

Obviously this requires some caveats: It won't work if you face an enemy with effective air forces, because they will simply shoot down your drones (or shoot down the transport planes carrying your paratroopers and missile pods) with fighters, and it would require a rather large and sophisticated air force to begin with. It's also not very effective at fighting in cities, and it's wholly questionable whether such a formation would even be capable of attacking to begin with, but it's probably quite effective at mulching much larger mechanized formations with inadequate air cover.

It's sort of the ultimate organization for a war like the Yom Kippur War, but you'd obviously want more traditional mechanized formations for fighting in cities like in 2003 Iraq or whatever.

What kind of drones are you envisioning here? Are these forces going to replace airborne forces in the classic "door kicker" role? Also, what would an enemy army do to break through a force like this?

[Gallia-]

Yes, you make airborne units smaller and disperse them over a large area with a huge amount of remote controlled weapons and airborne sensors. Anything that moves and can be seen by the sensors gets killed by whatever weapons they have, whether it's fiber optic guided missiles, persistent loitering missiles, cruise missiles, drones with tiny bombs, or whatever.

Obviously this requires some caveats: It won't work if you face an enemy with effective air forces, because they will simply shoot down your drones (or shoot down the transport planes carrying your paratroopers and missile pods) with fighters, and it would require a rather large and sophisticated air force to begin with. It's also not very effective at fighting in cities, and it's wholly questionable whether such a formation would even be capable of attacking to begin with, but it's probably quite effective at mulching much larger mechanized formations with inadequate air cover.

It's sort of the ultimate organization for a war like the Yom Kippur War, but you'd obviously want more traditional mechanized formations for fighting in cities like in 2003 Iraq or whatever.

What kind of drones are you envisioning here? Are these forces going to replace airborne forces in the classic "door kicker" role? Also, what would an enemy army do to break through a force like this?

A Predator drone is fine, it can carry a good size MTI. Yes, basically. They can also make a significant obstacle for any mechanized troops trying to encroach on a particular terrain. Shooting down the drones and going around it would help. It's an airborne force of light infantry so it isn't exactly doing too well if it's surrounded by the enemy and can't receive supplies or something. Attacking it head on is kinda silly, even if it doesn't have the drones it still has lots of missiles.

[Manokan Republic]

Well what I'm saying is, it changes the gas pressure of the weapon which can alter how the weapon cycles. The FAMAS is a finnicky gun, for example, it has trouble using standard brass 5.56mm ammunition. If you add a suppressor to it, the bolt travel will be different and this could make the cylic rate too high, or make it so it just doesn't work. That being said it's possible to overcome this issue, just something I thought I'd mention. A modernized version of the FAMAS could just be designed around new parameters.

Its finicky because the last FAMAS was built in 1992. Every new, better yet, every "new" model of FAMAS since has been a refit on an existing receiver, built between 1979 to 1992. A Pig gunner in 1969 had nothing but good things to say about his M60, while someone who got that same M60 in 1989 had nothing but bad things to say about it. Same for the M249, a Marine who got his M249 in 1991 loved it to death, but when that same M249 was issued in 2019, that Marine hated it. Guns wear down with use, what a shock. Complaints about the FAMAS are linked to old rifles and old magazines.

Shitty magazines are a reoccurring theme in the US Armed Forces as well, with old magazines making up something like 1/3rd of the M16/M4's malfunctions in some trials. This is fixed by issuing new PMAGs.

Also all guns tend to have issues with suppressors in some kind of way unless it has some weird built in suppressor or uses super low-power ammo.

Also ripping brass? Really? The French Army uses steel cased ammo because when the barrel of a FAMAS is plugged with water, brass cased ammo ruptures. They use steel instead because it doesn't. The Air Force issues brass case ammo still.

All blowback designs are more finnicky when it comes to cartridges with different energy levels. The FAMAS is ammunition dependent, it's not just that it's bad or old, it's the design of the blowback.

[Manokan Republic]

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university? Evidently not a science subject, social or physical.

There is basically no evidence to support the idea that conscription causes soldiers to be less motivated than a volunteer force. It is a common saying, but just because people say it doesn't make it true.

Note that WW1 and WW2 were fought by conscription on all sides. It is hard to argue any of the sides suffered moral problems because they were using conscription.

What's the advantages of having a volunteer army in contrast to a conscript army?

The main advantages are political and economic. Conscription generally saves money on low end soldiers, since they are forced to be there you don't have to pay them competitively to the open job market. However you also have to have the political will to enforce conscription, which can be hard in the face of unpopular wars or engagements. The nation's that still maintain conscription generally have the political will because they face existential threats, see South Korea and Israel.

Further consideration is that while conscription will fill out lower ranks there can be a struggle to get quality personnel to stick around and become NCOs. But that is a struggle a volunteer force can face as well.

A final consideration is how many people are being conscripted and how you are choosing them, all adults when they hit a certain age, only men, only a percentage of, etc.

Conscripts did far worse in combat than volunteers in WWII in general, and when professional units went up against conscripts it was generally a massacre, such as in the eastern front with the germans vs. the Soviet union. Most of the U.S. frontline infantry were volunteers in WWII and not, conscripts as well, as they generally didn't expect front-line troops to be successful if they were overly filled with conscripts. However, it's fair to say WWII is an exception to the rule, as when your own homeland is about to be destroyed people will generally be more motivated to fight, vs. a random small-scale war people don't find to be immediately engaging. Essentially conscripts tend to be worse at their jobs and have worse morale than volunteers in general, due to less training and organization, as well as less motivation to join the military in the first place, but that doesn't mean they will be automatically bad.