Contedicavour,
contedicavour said:
Fully agree that MANPADS systems aren't suitable to counter SSM/ASMs for all the good reasons mentioned above. I would only add that those systems weren't intended to be used against missiles to start with. They are anti-helo or anti-slow-moving-aircrafts missiles a bit like infantry would use Stingers against visible targets such as a incoming enemy helos.
cheers
Stinger is itself /notoriously/ ill-suited to hunting helicopters at or below the horizon line and there is not nor will there ever be a fast mover that is slow over the battlefield.
The 'Il-2 Argument' (better to make one, slow, close, EFFECTIVE, weapons pass) is based on a WWII view of direct targeting within a snake or scissors or circle-of-death style regime and particularly makes no allowances for UAV, GFAC or targeting pod/small IAM.
At least some of which existed at the time that MANPADS were first coming to be seriously respected, in Afghanistan. IMO, shoulderfired weapons are a terrorists wet dream and good for little else.
That said, I _do_ admire the smart-fuze system and hypervelocity of the Starstreak, I just don't think it's an appropriate overall airdefense tool against inbound missile threats where your reaction times are near-nothin'. Why we were stuck with RAM which is basically a mixed optical/RF (Stinger and ADSM) seeker stuck on a Sidewinder motor pipe, I will never understand.
IMO, there are some basic problems that need to be solved before we go back to playing white water gunboat diplomacy.
1. There is no replacement for CEC, even in the smallest flotillas and this means more than Ivory Tower Air Support. It has to be organic. And it has to be recoverable to the smallest decks. Whether you are looking back or across to provide fleet AD assurance against sudden onset coastal defenses (fast boat as much as missile). Or looking in to provide deep targeting at least 150nm beyond the surf zone. Putting huge amounts of sensorization on a platform whose 20-30ft mast is /never/ going to be looking at more than a 15nm horizon line is _immeasurably STUPID_.
2. Asset Protection of all forms (ASW, Mine, AD, Surface) has to be balanced 'as a need' against the standoff and shot counts achieved in _offensive_ strike. Right now, unless you go up to what are basically Corvette or DE class vessels in the 200-500 tonne regime or more, you simply cannot afford to trade deck area or even underdeck spaces to pay for the 'once in a blue moon', _very high systems cost_, single role missile system. If you do, you have to trade off something else. Harpoon of your own. An ECM tray. A gun.
Yet you are /forced/ to make these kinds of close-in defensive system acknowedgments (and shift to bigger hulls) by the very fact that your 40-76-114-127mm aren't reaching more than 10-15nm inland (with you 5-10nm seawards). Which is just shy of /completely worthless/ for what it does to support or replace the landwards mission set. Even as it exposes the shooter for what is nominally a 'cheaper' gun platform. I wonder if the families of those Israeli sailors think the lives of their loved ones were worth the cost?
3. Air has one driving value generator. Namely that anything it carries to the fight automatically receives a 'no propulsion required' ballistic improvement. Not to performance. But TO COST. IMO, this is the overwhelming driver that keeps all surface warfare platforms of either land or naval warfare missioning, utterly second class to what has itself become an almost ludicrously expensive fixed wing 'sole option not optional alternative'.
We need, very badly, to reconfigure our hulls to get into and out of the immediate littoral zone _quickly_ (50 knots SWATH ala Jarvis Bay) while FIRING missiles that go a minimum of 150nm inland. And those missiles/drones have to either loiter and attack multiple times themselves (Dominator Concept).
Or be role-split between recce and targeting ala Netfires so that we can afford to achieve both sea and landwards battlespace dominance by NOT being taken into the inshore fight. Once you are able to cover a wider area with less immediate threat to a 500-1,000 ton hull, you can start redressing class problems inherent to number of hulls vs. number of weapons systems.
Indeed, the LCS is nothing more than a cheap attempt to get Congress to buy hulls which the USN _knows_ for a fact will not be weaponized for less than four times their present costs, not least because _NOTHING_ is ready to meet the 'modular mission insert' systems spec. Because they frankly have not defined what those roles are gonna be.
IMO, this is nothing shy of criminal because it encourages the HG&U porcine mentality by which 'any hull is a good hull'. Rather than challenging the design establishmet to (say) give a completely flat or even integrated upper deckhouse to support sophisticated targeting/BMC2 relay UAVs. While making SPECIFIC (Number of cells. Weight of missiles.) weapons system allocations that support the OTH-inland weapons suite.
At a minimum, there is no excuse in waiting for a PCI to come from the lee side of a big commercial hull in a crowded shipping lane. There is no UTILITY for a combat helo that is /hours/ from the potential inland target set it needs to verify fires for. And pretending that going nose to nose with a mongrel threat will always work due to the weight of 'superior technology' is equally ridiculous.
Because it's clear that main force elements are going guerilla. Why should not unconventional/irregular not profit from main forces technology leveraging to put themselves in a position where they can take advantage of exposed, high leverage, targets?
Duuuuh.
At anyrate, once you realize that you HAVE TO go inshore you will switch from hi energy solid propellant and heavy weight gun systems (expensive and pathetic for their performance) and design instead the kinds of MICROTURBINE systems which, even if they are not recoverable, have the ability to WIN WARS against fleeting targets. By virtue of being close to where the time critical opportunity strike is. Or being at/over the local horizon when the lookdown ADSAM platform calls the shore-launch threat clearing the local horizon or trough clutter gate.
The original MALD was supposed to be in the 50-75,000 dollar range. In the ADM-160B, it's now up to about 125,000. Dominator (which will never intercept an inbound AShM) is supposed to be in the low 10-20 grande _when massed produced for a single service_.
If you take the step of developing a joint Affordable Weapon (unitary) look alike and specify that it cannot cost more than 5-10,000 dollars in a GPS only version and 60,000 dollars in a seekered and uplink variant, you can effectively replace airpower which swallows /ungodly/ ammounts of JP-8 at what will likely be 100-120 dollars per barrel if we go to war with Iran over their nukes.
CONCLUSION:
If you want a high energy interceptor pairing (ASTER/MICA looks impressive), by all means, go for it. If you want DEWS but can't afford to put Gen-1 COIL technology on tiny hulls, scale the class and reduced the counts.
BUT REMEMBER WHAT THE MISSION IS.
Getting inland. Finding the time sensitive targets and hitting JUST THEM. With minimum exposure to shooter under COE conditions. All of which emphasizes the advantages of a 'best defense is offense' _ranged power projection_ capability which is already over the beach when the when the vessel that launched it is just crossing the 50nm littoral boundary.
Unfortunately, the USN is so stuck up on their Carrier Fetish that I doubt if we will see such real warfighting RIMA in our service until we lose a Big Boat if not a War trying to be everywhere at once, too close to the action.
But someone else might be able to get there. Provided they didn't brag about it and cause a flustering of the conservative souls that are at the heart of 'naval tradition' (spits and takes a drink to clean his pallate).
KPl.
P.S. The Four Laws Of Firepower:
1. Shoot Shoot Shoot.
For every given SSPK fraction, the more you shoot, the more you kill. For every /potential/ target matrix that you cover, the more targets you will _find_.
2. Mass Fires Not Forces.
Bringing the kill mechanism, not the shooter forward. It's that simple. Though execution may involve things like the AADM/CLAW or GBU-39 as opposed to direct-engagement (and kill vehicle loss).
3. Maneuver to Target not to Engage.
Don't bring high value assets any nearer than they can achieve LOS with the threats they are designed to neutralize. Boats are never cheap enough to risk attack within binocular distance offshore. When they are shooting at a threat 20nm over their horizon.
4. Never Mix Your Fires With Your Targeting.
Isolate encrypted link-LOS between an airborne relay and a subhorizon fires platform. Protect your database recognition/imagery processing at all times. RECOVER your eyeballs. Or at least expend them last. And always have enough of ISR to win your CLASS designed mission-fight through your OPPLAN designed number of campaign days.
It ain't complicated folks. You just have to knife the sky knight aristocracy in their sleep so that we can stop pretending manned airpower is uber alles in fighting the little-mean-boys wars.
