Basic Primer to Naval Warfare

[Jeuna]

A question about ASBMs: assuming you had a big enough ship, could you make an ASBM that could be launched from a ship?

Khan was designed specifically to counter SDs, but I think it could only be fired from other SDs.

[Taffy 3]

I personally think this should be stickied because it definately helped me out quite a bit.

A question about ASBMs: assuming you had a big enough ship, could you make an ASBM that could be launched from a ship?

Sure, I've built a battle-cruiser that does just that. In all honesty a ship the size of the RL Kirov Class would be large enough to do it.

[Izistan]

I personally think this should be stickied because it definately helped me out quite a bit.

A question about ASBMs: assuming you had a big enough ship, could you make an ASBM that could be launched from a ship?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_cr ... le_cruiser

[Allanea]

A question about ASBMs: assuming you had a big enough ship, could you make an ASBM that could be launched from a ship?

Khan was designed specifically to counter SDs, but I think it could only be fired from other SDs.

Absolutely not.

The Khan came in launch containers that could set up anywhere you had room for a missile that big. There was even a version with floatation aids added to the containers that made it float upright. In that version, you would chuck the containers overboard, and then use a remote to fire them. Naturally, ground-based Khan launchers also exist.

The current Khan, mind, is a FOBS ASBM.

[Izistan]

Khan II is...different...

[Star Trek America]

I have no senority to speak of and little experience but.

Endorsed for Sticky-ing.

[Of The Arch ilands]

yes also seconding for Stickying!

[Robot spartans]

tagged

[Questers]

A great deal of this is pretty much applicable to air warfare, especially because aero-naval warfare is largely inseperable.

[Star Trek America]

A great deal of this is pretty much applicable to air warfare, especially because aero-naval warfare is largely inseperable.

Wouldn't it be seperable depending on era? You're absolutely correct; just saying. Oh while it's on my mind; please add a section about the dos and don'ts of submarine warfare.

[Questers]

A great deal of this is pretty much applicable to air warfare, especially because aero-naval warfare is largely inseperable.

Wouldn't it be seperable depending on era? You're absolutely correct; just saying. Oh while it's on my mind; please add a section about the dos and don'ts of submarine warfare.

Of course it is, but the majority of people rp MT, not PMT and not PT. I will think about submarines and who I would talk to about it, as I am not a subsurface expert.

[New Hayesalia]

Douchetag.

[Dewhurst-Narculis]

Endorsed

[North Eugenia]

i love it....

endorsed....

[Reformed Britannia]

Another question: is LADAR an effective form of missile guidance when the missile is in its terminal phase?

[Licana]

This seriously deserves to be stickied

[Questers]

Another question: is LADAR an effective form of missile guidance when the missile is in its terminal phase?

Here's a post I wrote on NSD about non-radar forms of terminal guidance. It's about electro-optical sensors, but since LIDAR is a form of optics, it works the same principle.

The EO sensor's problem is that it is superfluous in that it detracts from the overall space you have on the seeker head to fit the other sensors. It's true that when you're within visual range of a vessel with an absolutely clear view, EO would defend you from radar jamming.

Packing in the EO sensor will reduce something, be it fuel, warhead, or seeker head. The advantages it brings, i.e. being invincible to radar jamming (allegedly), weighed against the fact they work only if there is a direct line of sight to the ship (not interfered with by clouds or rain or smoke) makes adding an EO sensor relatively pointless.

With one missile against one ship, it might work. But consider what a ship in the midst of battle looks like. Assuming clear skies, there will be smoke and contrails everywhere. Funnels may be pumping smoke; the ship may be on fire or else smoking.



This is the launch of one missile. Now consider a ship, in that profile, launching 3 or 4 or more missiles. Now consider that there may be three, or four, or ten or twenty such ships, under the same conditions; firing guns, letting off chaff, firing missiles, smoking, so on and so forth. Suppose some vessels have been hit and are smoking. Now you can see that under battle conditions, optical sighting does not bring advantages worth what you are going to lose to install it.

And the more capable you make your EO sensor, the larger its going to be. The more space you are going to lose for other things just to try and solve these elementary issues that are to be assumed under combat conditions.

Now bear in mind that radar jamming, which the EO protects you from, is only one layer of defence. Let's make a little table. On the left hand we have types of defences and on the right hand, whether EO protects a radar system against them.

Theatre Air Defence (Fighters): No
Long Range Air Defence (SM-2, S-300, etc): No
Short Range Air Defence (ESSM, RAM): No
Guns/CIWS (76mm, Phalanx): No
Chaff: Possibly
Radar Jamming: Only under X conditions

Is adding the EO worth it? What can you have for the size of an EO sensor? 50km extra range, 50kg extra warhead weight? A more powerful sensor?

http://www.galorath.com/wp/seer-h-electro-...-validation.php

This lists the price of an EO system, a non military system, at $458,000. The procurement cost of a Harpoon missile is $720,000. Now consider, without a reduction in capacity an EOS brings from greater mass and space, the cost. (1,178,000 / 720,000) x 100 = %163. Each Harpoon missile costs an extra 63%, just for the addition of an EO sensor. Tomahawk is allegedly even cheaper than Harpoon. If you were to buy 100 Harpoons with the addition of a EOS, you could buy 163 without the EOS.

Now presumably this EOS is too large to mount on a missile, such is the reason for its expense. But the point is proven. EOS appears to be expensive. Even at an extra 10% cost, that's a 10% reduction in the amount of missiles you can fire. In an NS environment, when you want to be able to fire say 500, or 1000 missiles, this is a significant reduction in capacity, again, for real no advantage. For what? Being able to evade radar jamming in a totally visually clear environment?

[Dinosians]

I have to wonder if there is a question that Questers can't answer on this subject...

I've read up on missiles now, and I was wondering which is more effective against a Naval Force: sea-skimming or missiles that approach the target, launch vertically upward and then dive back down on top of the enemy (Similar to a Javelin)?

Also If necessary, under the circumstances can a IIR/Radiation AAM be used against a Ship? As they would give off a large amount Heat/Radiation.

[Questers]

I have to wonder if there is a question that Questers can't answer on this subject...

I've read up on missiles now, and I was wondering which is more effective against a Naval Force: sea-skimming or missiles that approach the target, launch vertically upward and then dive back down on top of the enemy (Similar to a Javelin)?

Also If necessary, under the circumstances can a IIR/Radiation AAM be used against a Ship? As they would give off a large amount Heat/Radiation.

For a missile like that to work it would either have to be ballistic, i.e. gigantic, because to get any usable amount of range on it it would have to go so high up to cover the distance required it would likely go into the atmosphere, so no, not like a javelin. What you are talking about is a hi-lo flight path as opposed to a lo-lo. Let me explain. Radar is limited by the horizon; http://radarproblems.com/calculators/horizon.htm this handy calculator helps you out. Sea skimmers are strong because with a ship with a radar 20m above sea level, a missile approach at 20m above sea level (enter the figures and you'll see) will only appear on radar 31km from the ship, because the curvature of the earth is blocking it. Now let's put that inbound missile at 8,000 metres altitude. It can be seen on radar at 387km (assuming it isn't stealth.) So you can see that sea skimming reduces the reaction time of air defences quite significantly; like, twelve-fold, taking these figures.

On the other hand, sea skimmers can't really go fast. I think they're limited to mach 2.5 or something like that (the fastest sea skimmer I've seen is Yakhont, which is mach 2.5 @ 5 metres.) A high altitude missile like Kh-22 can take advantage of some change in the air or other (it becomes denser or lighter or something... hey, i'm not a scientist) so it goes faster, which is why these gigantic Russian missiles have reported speeds of Mach 4 or above; because they don't sea skim, like Yakhont or Moskit.

On the other hand, AWACs aircraft have look-down capabilities, so they can detect the missiles coming at your fleet even if the ships can't see them. Now this is only useful really so long as you have active-radar surface to air missiles on your ships, otherwise any other guidance system will still have to wait for them to come in range to get a firing solution. Active RADAR SAMs can just be fired at a certain area and use their own radars to illuminate targets... but still, sea-skimming is the best way, IMO. I haven't used large, high-altitude, high-speed missiles in NS for a long time.

RE: different seeker heads on missiles. I'll C&P another post I made on draftroom.

"As I said, if you were to take an EO-seeker head Harpoon and a non-EO Harpoon, it would be different because you are adding something to an airframe but not takinga way from it. So the question is, what are you taking away from the missile's airframe by the addition of an EO suite? I don't see that IR/EO has so much of an advantage over radar as to bother with it. Bear in mind that Penguin and NSM are EO only; it's uncommon for anti-ship missiles to be equipped with anything more than radar and INS. Maybe a two-way datalink, if they're massive, like Kh-22 or P-600. NSM may have a lot of guidance systems there, but that's likely because it doesn't have a radar, which would take up a massive amount of space. The reason that NSM and Penguin likely don't have radars is because of their size. Compare to say, Exocet and Harpoon, they're between 50-60% of the weight of those missiles. So it's likely a size problem and not one of doctrine."

And here's one by Vault 10.

"The potential solution of using multiple seekers is far from perfect or even good, since the frontal area of a missile's nosecone is heavily limited. It becomes a choice between fitting one proper seeker versus two half-baked seekers (IR and visual spectrum sensors are very different), or in the more extreme case, a weak mini-radar and two EO mini-seekers, all with poor range and resolution compared to what a full-sized radar could have.

A further difficulty is extracting useful data from such a fusion rather than having the seekers interfere with one another. For instance, if while the EO seekers lose sight of the target due to flares and clouds, the radar misleads the missile towards a spoofed signal, the result is worse than if it simply followed the extrapolated trajectory with a single IR seeker, or if it had a better radar that was less vulnerable to spoofing.

As such, it is best to select a single sensor; and even if multiple sensors are used, one still should be dominant."

[LINTYLAND]

Hey Questers, how can a person defeat a stealth ship?

[Questers]

Hey Questers, how can a person defeat a stealth ship?

The same way you defeat stealth anything. Stealth is simply measures taken to reduce radar observability. A stealth vehicle, be it ship or aircraft, broadcasting full transmissions is louder than a non-stealth vehicle not broadcasting anything. The answer is proper and thorough ELINT.

[LINTYLAND]

Hey Questers, how can a person defeat a stealth ship?

The same way you defeat stealth anything. Stealth is simply measures taken to reduce radar observability. A stealth vehicle, be it ship or aircraft, broadcasting full transmissions is louder than a non-stealth vehicle not broadcasting anything. The answer is proper and thorough ELINT.

Thanks a bunch

[Questers]

I have to wonder if there is a question that Questers can't answer on this subject...

You know, this is just a hobby of mine, that I've been interested in for six(!) years. It all began when Praetonia said that I was "probably OMP material." Back in the day, the OMP, Organisation of Maritime Powers, was an ad-hoc group of all the greatest naval powers, tacticians and designers. Admittance really did mean something. It all began from there. I don't have a background in science or even the Navy (i've been mulling over an Army career, actually.) If you have the dedication, you too can be like me, or any of the others like me, on this forum. You don't even need to be particularly smart, just to have an analytical mind and a desire to see fairness and realism.

[Axis Nova]

Should be noted that you can put stealth features on missiles, but it's not neccesarily economic to do so depending on tech level and doctrine.

[Dinosians]

I have to wonder if there is a question that Questers can't answer on this subject...

You know, this is just a hobby of mine, that I've been interested in for six(!) years. It all began when Praetonia said that I was "probably OMP material." Back in the day, the OMP, Organisation of Maritime Powers, was an ad-hoc group of all the greatest naval powers, tacticians and designers. Admittance really did mean something. It all began from there. I don't have a background in science or even the Navy (i've been mulling over an Army career, actually.) If you have the dedication, you too can be like me, or any of the others like me, on this forum. You don't even need to be particularly smart, just to have an analytical mind and a desire to see fairness and realism.

I was just pointing out that I doubt that any question asked in this thread, would go unanswered or be left with an inadequate answer. Also god to know that even the all powerful Questers started small at some point.