End of the anti ship missile?

[DeathAngel]

Hello, this is my first post. I wanted to ask whether the anti-ship missile is becoming obsolete as an offensive weapon ?

Every modern navy has developed or bought effective anti missile systems for their vessels, which are claimed to have very high probability of intercepting/destroying incoming anti-ship missiles. Most modern frigates and destroyers do not have more than 10 AShMs, while containing 30 or more SAMs. It stands to reason that, at stand-off ranges, two or more similarly armed vessels on opposite sides of a conflict will soon exhaust their load of AShMs, possibly without scoring a single crippling hit against each other.

Even if one ship fires its entire salvo of missiles at one target ship, the commander of the target will most likely unload everything he can against the incoming missiles, resulting in them getting shot down. What will be done in such a situation?Bear in mind that I am not referring to carrier battle groups, where air assets can also be brought into play.

In this scenario, will the AShM remain an effective weapon?

Forgive me if this question has been asked before, and if it has I'd like be given directions

 

[Belesari]

Nah there will just be more missiles.

Now every country uses and plans for air defense differently. Now i do think the next 50 yrs could see a lessening of the almost absolute dominance airpower has played in the late 20th.

 

[Armoredpriapism]

So how secure do commanders really feel about their anti-missile capabilities? From the new Chinese ballistic missiles to "stealth" cruise missiles, would a carrier battlegroup even expect to survive an attack from hundreds of cruise missiles?

 

[koxinga]

Hello, this is my first post. I wanted to ask whether the anti-ship missile is becoming obsolete as an offensive weapon ?

Every modern navy has developed or bought effective anti missile systems for their vessels, which are claimed to have very high probability of intercepting/destroying incoming anti-ship missiles. Most modern frigates and destroyers do not have more than 10 AShMs, while containing 30 or more SAMs. It stands to reason that, at stand-off ranges, two or more similarly armed vessels on opposite sides of a conflict will soon exhaust their load of AShMs, possibly without scoring a single crippling hit against each other.

Even if one ship fires its entire salvo of missiles at one target ship, the commander of the target will most likely unload everything he can against the incoming missiles, resulting in them getting shot down. What will be done in such a situation?Bear in mind that I am not referring to carrier battle groups, where air assets can also be brought into play.

In this scenario, will the AShM remain an effective weapon?

Forgive me if this question has been asked before, and if it has I'd like be given directions

Yes, from a cost effectiveness standpoint. Not all frigates and destroyers would be fitted with extensive enough outer and interlayer defense systems capability of neutralizing ASHMs, while it cost significantly lesser to have a ASHM capability.

Putting aside the hypothetical Chinese ASHBM, even in a simple local maritime conflict between two small countries, it seems unlikely that any one side would be fielding sufficiently advanced missile defence systems to deter the other guy.

 

[Belesari]

Well first a CBG has one HEll of a area it can see. Its reach is long and between the Cruisers and destroyers id say atleast dozens of missiles would be destroyed before they got into CIWS range.

A missile swarm Is something the USN worries about.

So how secure do commanders really feel about their anti-missile capabilities? From the new Chinese ballistic missiles to "stealth" cruise missiles, would a carrier battlegroup even expect to survive an attack from hundreds of cruise missiles?

 

[My2Cents]

Hello, this is my first post. I wanted to ask whether the anti-ship missile is becoming obsolete as an offensive weapon ?

Every modern navy has developed or bought effective anti missile systems for their vessels, which are claimed to have very high probability of intercepting/destroying incoming anti-ship missiles. Most modern frigates and destroyers do not have more than 10 AShMs, while containing 30 or more SAMs. It stands to reason that, at stand-off ranges, two or more similarly armed vessels on opposite sides of a conflict will soon exhaust their load of AShMs, possibly without scoring a single crippling hit against each other.

Even if one ship fires its entire salvo of missiles at one target ship, the commander of the target will most likely unload everything he can against the incoming missiles, resulting in them getting shot down. What will be done in such a situation?Bear in mind that I am not referring to carrier battle groups, where air assets can also be brought into play.

In this scenario, will the AShM remain an effective weapon?

Forgive me if this question has been asked before, and if it has I'd like be given directions

The amount of ammunition you have does not matter. What matters is how much of that ammunition you can use effectively in the time you have.

Unless you have over-the-horizon sensor coverage (AWACS or equivalent) for raid warning the attack will involve an element of surprise, and reaction time becomes the controlling factor. An attack by surface skimming AShMs will probably be detected and identified at a range less than 20 miles, giving the target at most between 2 minutes and 30 seconds to respond, depend on the speed of the AShMs.

If you do not have raid warning, then the big SAM systems have a hard time dealing with surface skimming missiles, mostly because they are too slow to get into action when the attack is detected and have a limited number of control channels (i.e. rate of fire), effectively allowing the incoming AShMs to often ‘get under the guns’. Multi-purpose gun systems are similarly handicapped by the time needed to get them in action, but their flat trajectories can allow them to be used in a point-defense role. The main defensive systems will be the dedicated antimissile point defense systems that are autonomous and self activating under inhibitive control (i.e. You have to turn them ‘off’ to keep them from firing if their targeting criteria are met, they do not ask for permission first!)

The point defense AM systems, so far, can only really deal with one missile at a time per mount. Enough missiles arriving close enough together will overwhelm them. The Phalanx CIWS, for example, is supposed to be able to handle 2 subsonic AShMs, but probably only 1 mach 2+ AShm, arriving at the same time because of its short (2000m) range. Phalanx is being replaced / supplemented with SeaRAM which has a longer (9000m) range and can probably handle 2 to 3 times as many missiles. On the other hand, if there is more than a few seconds between the arrival time for each missile the AMS effectiveness is limited mostly by the available ammunition.

Multiple weapon mounts on a single vessel are necessary to supply full coverage of course and overlapping coverage is highly desirable. But the autonomous nature of the AMS make coordinating the mounts extremely difficult in a high intensity attack, so increasing the number of mounts does not cause an equal increase in the defensive capacity.

But, if you do have an AWACS up that is capable of spotting the missiles and give you extra time to prepare, then your assumptions may be correct.

 

[DeathAngel]

The amount of ammunition you have does not matter. What matters is how much of that ammunition you can use effectively in the time you have.

Unless you have over-the-horizon sensor coverage (AWACS or equivalent) for raid warning the attack will involve an element of surprise, and reaction time becomes the controlling factor. An attack by surface skimming AShMs will probably be detected and identified at a range less than 20 miles, giving the target at most between 2 minutes and 30 seconds to respond, depend on the speed of the AShMs.

If you do not have raid warning, then the big SAM systems have a hard time dealing with surface skimming missiles, mostly because they are too slow to get into action when the attack is detected and have a limited number of control channels (i.e. rate of fire), effectively allowing the incoming AShMs to often ‘get under the guns’. Multi-purpose gun systems are similarly handicapped by the time needed to get them in action, but their flat trajectories can allow them to be used in a point-defense role. The main defensive systems will be the dedicated antimissile point defense systems that are autonomous and self activating under inhibitive control (i.e. You have to turn them ‘off’ to keep them from firing if their targeting criteria are met, they do not ask for permission first!)

The point defense AM systems, so far, can only really deal with one missile at a time per mount. Enough missiles arriving close enough together will overwhelm them. The Phalanx CIWS, for example, is supposed to be able to handle 2 subsonic AShMs, but probably only 1 mach 2+ AShm, arriving at the same time because of its short (2000m) range. Phalanx is being replaced / supplemented with SeaRAM which has a longer (9000m) range and can probably handle 2 to 3 times as many missiles. On the other hand, if there is more than a few seconds between the arrival time for each missile the AMS effectiveness is limited mostly by the available ammunition.

Multiple weapon mounts on a single vessel are necessary to supply full coverage of course and overlapping coverage is highly desirable. But the autonomous nature of the AMS make coordinating the mounts extremely difficult in a high intensity attack, so increasing the number of mounts does not cause an equal increase in the defensive capacity.

But, if you do have an AWACS up that is capable of spotting the missiles and give you extra time to prepare, then your assumptions may be correct.

Thank you for your explanation.

Cheers!

 

[STURM]

Every modern navy has developed or bought effective anti missile systems for their vessels, which are claimed to have very high probability of intercepting/destroying incoming anti-ship missiles.

Yes, and almost every ship that has ASMs also have chaff launchers. But due to costs, not every ship will have a jammer. From what little I know of the subject, different jammers work on different frequencies and may only be effective in dealing with certain ASMs and certain radars. It gets more confusing as there is ''home on jam'' technology, incoporated on the seeker heads of certain missiles. Technology involves, and as surface to air missiles improve, so will ASMs which will incoporate newer technologies to make life harder for those on the receiving end of an ASM.

Unless I'm mistaken, to date only 1 missile has actually downed an ASM in actual combat - a Seadart which downed a subsonic shore launched Silkworm, that was heading towards a USN ship in the 1st Gulf War.

Most modern frigates and destroyers do not have more than 10 AShMs, while containing 30 or more SAMs.

There are minor exceptions - the PLANs Shenzen class has 16 C-801s and the IN's Kora class have 16 Urans. For most navies, the number of ASMs carried is dictated by cost issues, the size of the ship, doctrine, etc.

 

[Armoredpriapism]

I was very surprised that the DoD cancelled the airborne laser system, as I heard the navy hoped to build on that technology. That would be one hell of an anti cruise missile platform. It was surely expensive but I'm sure we'll spend quite a bit on anti-cruise missile systems.
It seems like jamming would be the most effective way to counter these missiles, though, right? That is, unless you want to pack 40 AMRAAMs into a p-3 ^^

 

[gf0012-aust]

I was very surprised that the DoD cancelled the airborne laser system, as I heard the navy hoped to build on that technology. That would be one hell of an anti cruise missile platform. It was surely expensive but I'm sure we'll spend quite a bit on anti-cruise missile systems.

it had benefit as a technology demonstrater - but as a weapons system its basically an opportunity weapon as it has to be in the right place to trigger the weapon in a defined field of view.

look at satellite constellations. to get full 24hr overlap you're basically looking at a minimum of 25 - and preferably 33+ to get proper fov saturation.

there is no way that you can do the same with a plane. the closest that the US ever got to airborne saturation was during the vietnam war and that was only on planes returning to guam - ie they had more aircraft holding pattern than available slots.

aircraft operating in a proscribed weapons system field of view also become vulnerable as they are effectively operating in a box. work out the box and you can tailor your self defence solution.

the advantage then goes to the defender

 

[Armoredpriapism]

it had benefit as a technology demonstrater - but as a weapons system its basically an opportunity weapon as it has to be in the right place to trigger the weapon in a defined field of view.

look at satellite constellations. to get full 24hr overlap you're basically looking at a minimum of 25 - and preferably 33+ to get proper fov saturation.

there is no way that you can do the same with a plane. the closest that the US ever got to airborne saturation was during the vietnam war and that was only on planes returning to guam - ie they had more aircraft holding pattern than available slots.

aircraft operating in a proscribed weapons system field of view also become vulnerable as they are effectively operating in a box. work out the box and you can tailor your self defence solution.

the advantage then goes to the defender

If a prop-driven plane flew 20,000 feet about a carrier would it not have the ability to shoot incoming cruise missiles? It seems like, especially if networked with the radars of the surrounding ships, it would be able to detect and destory them must faster than missiles. I don't understand why you'd need area saturation for that, you'd just need the plane, I think, and it shouldn't need to worry about being shot down as the carrier group would provide pretty good air defense.
It the airborne laser was cut just because it was a demonstrator that demonstrated I expect, especially with anti ship missile proliferation, the US navy to focus on lasers and better detection capabilities. That might then mean the end of the anti-ship missile, or at least drive missile designers to make stealth a top priority.

 

[StevoJH]

If a prop-driven plane flew 20,000 feet about a carrier would it not have the ability to shoot incoming cruise missiles? It seems like, especially if networked with the radars of the surrounding ships, it would be able to detect and destory them must faster than missiles. I don't understand why you'd need area saturation for that, you'd just need the plane, I think, and it shouldn't need to worry about being shot down as the carrier group would provide pretty good air defense.
It the airborne laser was cut just because it was a demonstrator that demonstrated I expect, especially with anti ship missile proliferation, the US navy to focus on lasers and better detection capabilities. That might then mean the end of the anti-ship missile, or at least drive missile designers to make stealth a top priority.

Depending on how the Laser was fueled, don't forget the possible power generation requirements.

 

[My2Cents]

If a prop-driven plane flew 20,000 feet about a carrier would it not have the ability to shoot incoming cruise missiles? It seems like, especially if networked with the radars of the surrounding ships, it would be able to detect and destory them must faster than missiles. I don't understand why you'd need area saturation for that, you'd just need the plane, I think, and it shouldn't need to worry about being shot down as the carrier group would provide pretty good air defense.

Questions:

• Can that plane take off from the aircraft carrier, or does it need a support base somewhere on land? If it needs to operate from land, what would be the % time on station for a single aircraft off China operating from bases in Japan or Australia? (p.s. Don’t forget to allow time for maintenance and crew rest in your calculation.)
• Do you have any proof that lasers are superior to all other weapons technologies, such as conventional guns, rail guns, and missiles, for the anti-AShM role? If not, why focus exclusively on lasers?
• Time of flight is irrelevant. The question is how many missiles can 1 laser aircraft shoot down in say 5 minutes vs. an AEGIS equipped ship with 48 ESSM’s backed by 21 Sea RAM missiles and a Phalanx CIWS?

It the airborne laser was cut just because it was a demonstrator that demonstrated I expect, especially with anti ship missile proliferation, the US navy to focus on lasers and better detection capabilities. That might then mean the end of the anti-ship missile, or at least drive missile designers to make stealth a top priority.

• Navies have always looked for better detection capabilities, at least since 4,000 B.C., and especially against surface skimmers since the 1970’s. That has not stop now (one of the proposed/planned uses for the Fire Scout UAV is to mount a surface surveillance radar capable of spotting sea skimmers), so why the emphasis?
• Stealth is already a very high priority in AShM design, to avoid existing multilayered defensive systems (missiles, ECM, CIWS missiles, chaff, and gun based CIWS). Why should laser weapons change that?

 

[Armoredpriapism]

To address the aircraft take off question: I know that E-2 Hawkeyes are carrier aircraft. They're relatively large and because they're propeller-driven have a nice loiter capability. I expect laser technology to keep on advancing to create smaller and more powerful lasers as time goes on. The range requirements of a defensive laser wouldn't be as great as for the airborne laser that was cancelled a few years ago, and based off Boeing's work on the Avenger Laser, which was a relatively short range laser that was mounted in a humvee, I assume that multiple lasers could in a decade be mounted on a carrier capable aircraft. At that point it would be a matter, in the event of an attack on a CVN using tactics to overwhelm, of how many missiles could be shot down in a short amount of time by one aircraft, and how many aircraft could be gotten to altitude on short alert.

I have no proof that lasers are superior to missiles in that respect. I'm inferring based on my cusory knowledge of defense tech that aquiring a firing solution from a top down perspective with a weapon that works almost at the speed of light must be simpler than the firing solutions and tech required for a missile to missile kill, with the understanding that a laser must paint its target for many seconds to burn through it. I expect missile speeds to increase over time, as well - both sides will have fast missiles so what will matter is detection range, which is why I think navies will focus disproportionately on detection over the next decade relative to what they've done in the past.

I do believe time of flight is important because, as a CVN group has limited ammunition, the group needs to know if its counter measures are working or if it needs to send up another volley at an incoming missile or missiles. If it takes a few minutes from counter-missile launch to answer that question - as opposed to a few seconds with lasers - and the group would be stressed to find its counter-batteries had failed, with an enemy missile now minutes closer to the ships.

Though I agree that the desire for stealth and detection has always been important, because of the spirit of the thread I think it's worth noting that detection and stealth (because weapons systems keep getting better and better) should disproportionately take RnD priority. It's not hard to kill a carrier if you can get to it, so I doubt navies will keep making bigger and bigger bombs; I expect them to focus on getting what they already have to its target reliably. If radar technology advances faster than stealth technology, and laser technology advances faster than laser counter-measures, anti-ship missiles could go the way of battleship shells, though I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

 

[stormrider]

Hello, this is my first post. I wanted to ask whether the anti-ship missile is becoming obsolete as an offensive weapon ?

Every modern navy has developed or bought effective anti missile systems for their vessels, which are claimed to have very high probability of intercepting/destroying incoming anti-ship missiles. Most modern frigates and destroyers do not have more than 10 AShMs, while containing 30 or more SAMs. It stands to reason that, at stand-off ranges, two or more similarly armed vessels on opposite sides of a conflict will soon exhaust their load of AShMs, possibly without scoring a single crippling hit against each other.

Even if one ship fires its entire salvo of missiles at one target ship, the commander of the target will most likely unload everything he can against the incoming missiles, resulting in them getting shot down. What will be done in such a situation?Bear in mind that I am not referring to carrier battle groups, where air assets can also be brought into play.

In this scenario, will the AShM remain an effective weapon?

Forgive me if this question has been asked before, and if it has I'd like be given directions

I dont think so. We're still living the age of missiles until a new technology arrives and tactics change as a result.
And I don't believe the supremacy of the aircraft is declining as mentioned by another reply. The decline of the human pilot is iminent tho and a new concept of small swarms of uavs is taking off (armed with ASMs of course).

Missiles are either getting faster, stealthier or more intelligent; or everything at the same time. AAW is also getting better but is still not a barrier, but a filter. Defense always needs to adapt, therefore it is usually one step back. What naturally makes the difference is not the defence but the offense. New offensive technology is what changes the doctrine and tactics. *

At the same time, the prospect of naval war is to be closer ashore than what was back in the cold war blu water navies. Coastal Combat is the biggest threat to modern AAW mainly because it allows the smaller combatant the oportunity of surprise and 1st attack. "A ship's a fool to fight a fort." (?)

I recommend the book Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat which can give the reader, military or enthusiast a good insight for the future.


* The triple decker fighting sail was beaten by the steam propulsion/steel hull, which was beaten by the longer range big guns, beaten by the even longer range aircraft and associated with the even longer range missiles.

Notice that the steel hull, which made regular short range guns obsolte, only made the guns bigger.

 

[My2Cents]

* The triple decker fighting sail was beaten by the steam propulsion/steel hull, which was beaten by the longer range big guns, beaten by the even longer range aircraft and associated with the even longer range missiles.

Notice that the steel hull, which made regular short range guns obsolte, only made the guns bigger.

Actually it was the explosive shell that did in the triple decker, which they could sink or disable with only a few hits. In order to fire a large enough shell to be effective the guns had to be much larger, so fewer of them could be mounted. For example the HMS Victory, a 104 gun 3 decker using a mix of 32, 24, and 12 pounders at Trafalgar in 1805, had a total weight of shot almost the same as the USS Hartford, a 24 gun ‘sloop of war’ (i.e. single decker) armed with 9” smoothbore shell guns (~100 pounders) during the Civil War. The introduction of rifled guns reduced the bore size of the guns, by using elongated projectiles, and extended the range due to higher velocity and accuracy, but projectile and guns weights were relatively unaffected until the introduction of better explosive fills.

Armored warships were not that new, the Korean ‘Turtle ship’ dated back to at least 1413, and floating protected batteries and mortar rafts were used for naval sieges of land forts going even farther back, but these all had very limited travel ranges. Steam power made the offensive armored warship possible by eliminating the need for sails (which could not be armored) and oarsmen (who did not have much range). And steel armor is only appeared in the 20th century, before that it was mostly iron bars on a heavy wooden backing, and later wrought iron, when available in sufficient quantity.

Steam power also brought an end to the supremacy of the fort over ship in direct fire by allowing movement unrestricted by wind. Union tactics against Confederate harbor batteries by non-ironclads relied on ships in line sailing past the forts and changing ranges between passes. After the first couple of salvoes the forts would be basically firing blind for most the battle. Rifle guns, when available were also much more effective against the masonry construction used in most than shell guns, but offered less advantage against ships. Ironclads usually just anchored and operated as floating protected batteries.

The counter developed to the superior protection of ironclads was the use of plunging fire on to the unarmed decks, first with mortars, and then rifled howitzers as deck armor was added. Both were mounted in pits below ground level or the backsides of hills so as to be virtually immune to direct fire. The introduction of the telegraph permitted the rapid and accurate transmission of firing coordinates from remote observers who would not be obstructed by smoke. Both the mortars and the howitzers outranged direct fire artillery of the day due to superior elevation, but accuracy was poor due to the need to more accurately estimate range vs. guns. Still, it only took a couple of hits to disable or sink a ship.

However, the real long range gunnery did not occur until after the introduction of the stereoscopic rangefinder. As you note, gun size continues to increase for greater range and penetration. But the curious thing is, almost every battleship actually sunk by gun fire in the 20th century was due to long range, i.e. plunging, fire.

 

[Rickyrab]

The amount of ammunition you have does not matter. What matters is how much of that ammunition you can use effectively in the time you have.

Unless you have over-the-horizon sensor coverage (AWACS or equivalent) for raid warning the attack will involve an element of surprise, and reaction time becomes the controlling factor. An attack by surface skimming AShMs will probably be detected and identified at a range less than 20 miles, giving the target at most between 2 minutes and 30 seconds to respond, depend on the speed of the AShMs.

If you do not have raid warning, then the big SAM systems have a hard time dealing with surface skimming missiles, mostly because they are too slow to get into action when the attack is detected and have a limited number of control channels (i.e. rate of fire), effectively allowing the incoming AShMs to often ‘get under the guns’. Multi-purpose gun systems are similarly handicapped by the time needed to get them in action, but their flat trajectories can allow them to be used in a point-defense role. The main defensive systems will be the dedicated antimissile point defense systems that are autonomous and self activating under inhibitive control (i.e. You have to turn them ‘off’ to keep them from firing if their targeting criteria are met, they do not ask for permission first!)

The point defense AM systems, so far, can only really deal with one missile at a time per mount. Enough missiles arriving close enough together will overwhelm them. The Phalanx CIWS, for example, is supposed to be able to handle 2 subsonic AShMs, but probably only 1 mach 2+ AShm, arriving at the same time because of its short (2000m) range. Phalanx is being replaced / supplemented with SeaRAM which has a longer (9000m) range and can probably handle 2 to 3 times as many missiles. On the other hand, if there is more than a few seconds between the arrival time for each missile the AMS effectiveness is limited mostly by the available ammunition.

Multiple weapon mounts on a single vessel are necessary to supply full coverage of course and overlapping coverage is highly desirable. But the autonomous nature of the AMS make coordinating the mounts extremely difficult in a high intensity attack, so increasing the number of mounts does not cause an equal increase in the defensive capacity.

But, if you do have an AWACS up that is capable of spotting the missiles and give you extra time to prepare, then your assumptions may be correct.

Going medieval for a moment, it might help to think of missiles as a kind of intelligently guided arrow, and the AWACS can be thought of as the lookout in your castle tower. (In my depiction, the "horizon" can be thought of as a hill or mound.) In this case, anti-missile defense systems are your shields. You raise them and hope the arrows won't get through. However, a ton of arrows flying at you all at once is distracting, and you'd be hard-pressed deflecting them all with multiple shields at a time. Some of those arrows may very well get through and stab you. Even if you do have an AWACS or lookout, your response time still matters: the enemy has to aim and fire the missiles (or perhaps just fire the missiles and aim en route), and there can still be an element of surprise, depending on how the missile is aimed and fired. After all, baseball pitchers do throw strikes, don't they?