How powerful is a US Destroyer?

[Big-E]

I have to admire your optimism but you have missed my point.

I have a moded copy of the NSWC simulator and have played out this scenerio.

 

[Waylander]

Sorry if this question seems to be dumb but I seem to be left behind in informations about the worlds navys.
I thought the TASSMs have been returned from active service and many of them have been rebuild into TLAMs.

 

[Big-E]

I love these scenarios
How about a tougher scenario ?
Let's say your Burke Flight II DDG is north-east of Taiwan, close to the small islands that Taiwan, Japan, and China all claim, mostly because there's oil below. The Chinese Navy almost always has several ships and subs deployed around the areas for "flag-waving" purposes. Your DDG is facing 2 Sovremenny and 2 of the newer Chinese DDGs, all of them with the extended range Sunburn supersonic SSM, plus 4 improved Kilos SSKs equipped with Yakhont cruise missile. An air patrol of a dozen SU-30s armed with the air-launched version of the Uran is in the sky.
If your DDG were to be ordered to attack, because for example the carrier air group has just been attacked south of Taiwan, and if your DDG were alone...
I guess the DDG would kill most of the Flankers and sink with the TLAMs the enemy destroyers. However your DDG would still have to face at least a dozen Urans and 20 or so supersonic SSMs. The ESSMs and RAMs/Phalanx may shoot down a dozen or so. However some would nonetheless get through...
Even if the enemy DDGs and SU-30 were destroyed before being able to launch, which would be possible since in this scenario your DDG would receive the order to engage before being shot at, you would still be facing up to 16 Yakhont from 4 separate locations. Ouch... Your 2 helos plus the ASROCs might kill a couple, but not more.

Your DDG is most probably the best naval surface escort floating today, but there are limits to what it can do alone.

cheers

Let me run this thru the simulator and get back to you, I will have to mod the new destroyers with a Grumble but it should work out all-right.

 

[Boolag]

To succeed that 24 missile volley would have to be very well planned and executed to have even a remote chance. An Oscar II could potentially achieve some success in an attack like that due to its stealth. But I would say the odds are with the CSF vs the planes or surface combatants if all you've got is 24 missiles to offer.

Bit off topic, but say one of those missiles got thru hit round the waterline And caused flooding ,lets say it wasnt that big a missile-maybe air-launched , whats the damage control+ compartentalisation(big word-did i spell that right?!?) like on an AB? I assume its better that a Ticonderoga..just I remember an ex-RNZN radar tech telling me the ANZAC frigates, in relation to their size... have superior survivablity in regard to flooding than a Tico cruiser due to their excellent compartme..that big word..did the shipbuilders utilise this kind of knowledge when building the AB's or designing the DDX?

 

[Big-E]

Sorry if this question seems to be dumb but I seem to be left behind in informations about the worlds navys.
I thought the TASSMs have been returned from active service and many of them have been rebuild into TLAMs.

Not TLAMs but TMMMs. These multi-mission variants have UHF SATCOM uplinks which mean they can't be fooled like Harpoons or the old TASMs.

 

[Waylander]

Ah, ok.
Thank you.

 

[Big-E]

I love these scenarios
How about a tougher scenario ?
Let's say your Burke Flight II DDG is north-east of Taiwan, close to the small islands that Taiwan, Japan, and China all claim, mostly because there's oil below. The Chinese Navy almost always has several ships and subs deployed around the areas for "flag-waving" purposes. Your DDG is facing 2 Sovremenny and 2 of the newer Chinese DDGs, all of them with the extended range Sunburn supersonic SSM, plus 4 improved Kilos SSKs equipped with Yakhont cruise missile. An air patrol of a dozen SU-30s armed with the air-launched version of the Uran is in the sky.

See here's what happened, I gave myself a Taiwan AWACS BTW. The SU-30s came in 3 waves of four from the North West, I was able to shoot them down before they got within 130km to launch the Kh-35s. That took 13 SM-2(IIIB)s at the same time two Kilos were launching missiles at 30kms out, These came in real fast and close but they were launched in pairs not all at once so Churchill had time to react. Then the Sovs Sunburns opened up from the West at 90nm but this SAG was already engaged with Tomahawks. I moded 2 Luhas with Grumble launchers with a 6 target engagement capability. The Sunburns from the PLAN SAG of 4 destroyers was far enough away to engage in a timely fashion using up about 20 Standards. My 40 Tomahawks (10 per destroyer) had been reduced to 12 by the time they got thru the PLAN AEGIS, the Grumbles aren't that great at sea-skimmers, the Sovremmeny SA-7s didn't do half bad. But still 3 Ts on each ship left for their guns to knock out, the Sovs both knocked out a T-hawk but took 2 hits apiece that sent them to the bottom. The moded Luhas took all 3 hits apiece and went to the bottom. I still had two more Kilos with full weapons loadouts and two more with torpedoes. I was out of target acquisition with all the PLAN surface radars gone and the Kilos were blind as bats. Sent the SH-60s over the last location of the missile launches and sank the two that fired on me. We pulled out the towed sonar array and started sweeping for the other two. I searched for an hour before I called it quits, I moded the Kilos to be REAL quiet. The simualtion had multi directional ASM atacks but they were not fired all at once and in combat they probably wouldn't be directed that well anyway so I think this simulation is somewhat close to reality, and thats if these PLAN AEGIS work!

 

[Grand Danois]

Very cool scenario debrief.

I gave myself a Taiwan AWACS BTW.

I guess that was is the event changer?

The simualtion had multi directional ASM atacks but they were not fired all at once and in combat they probably wouldn't be directed that well anyway so I think this simulation is somewhat close to reality, and thats if these PLAN AEGIS work!

Sounds reasonable.

 

[Boolag]

I think this simulation is somewhat close to reality

Goddamn, thats one nasty beating..I think you need a Tougher Opponent...umm...French navy carrier battle group, just within range of their land based aeronavale strike units, say somewhere in the Med so ya dont have to worry bout their subs hiding under the thermocline layer..unlikley seneario i know but it sounds like yer having fun proving a point..Just imagine the french declared war on the US cos G.W junior did something dumb on a state visit(use your imagination.).

 

[Scottn]

I would like to clarify the question a little.

Background:
In a discussion about the destruction of task force Z, I was
trying to illustrate the enormity of the sinking of a battleship and
battlecruiser. As a result, naval strategy had to change forever due to
the fact this destruction was accomplished by aircraft alone and with
the loss of only three Japanese planes. To illustrate the power of these
two ships, I stated that either the HMS Prince of Wales or the Repulse
would have been able to single-handedly destroy 90% of the world's
navies.
A comment was made that today, a modern U.S. destroyer would be able to
accomplish the same feat. I was skeptical of this statement given the
experience of the British in the Falklands.

Question:
So the question is, in your opinion, if you put a modern U.S. destroyer
(you pick the destroyer) in a generic ocean, by itself, how many of the
world's navies could it destroy on its own? How many could it
destroy if it were off the coast of the country and had to deal with
aircraft

BTW you are the naval experts so, if you could dumb down a little and explain some of the acronyms, it would be helpfull to we laymen.

 

[Boolag]

if you could dumb down a little

I think the point BIG-E is trying to make is that the state-of-the-art Arliegh Burke class Destroyer has superior sensor and weapons capablity in comparison to most other surface combatants in service today- I sorta agree with him, and I think he's also trying to make the point that it is capable of dealing with mutiple waves of on-coming air threats, both aircraft and missiles..this part I'm not so sure about..Back when my country had a combat wing the No.2 sQn skyhawks used to do anti-shipping runs on Aussie fleet vessels(i.e: O.H.Perry and Anzac class frigates)at about 50ft above sea level from several different directions and the first thing the ship would know about it was the sound of a turbojet screaming past..These exercises were extremely realistic and one of the primary reasons the ships were getting "bounced" was due to 'radar clutter'- the air search radar not being able to tell the difference between a skyhawk and the waves.(Any RAN/RNZAF types please feel free to correct me if i got that all wrong?!)

A solution to this is to set the radar to minimise clutter, but if the skyhawk is flying so low that the radar may still think its clutter and ignore it (maybe only briefly..which is more than enough time for a ship kill..) then the ship has a problem.

I dont know how the Arliegh Burke class radar system would react to this senario, but i imagine, given, the level of technology involved-the SPY-1 radar is about as good as it gets at the Mo..., it would probably fare a damn sight better As It dosent need individual directors for its missiles due to its 3D radar system...unlike theO.H.Perry + Anzac which are limited by the number of targets they can engage at once, because the SAM radar directors fore +aft(front and rear..if yer having trouble.) can only guide one missile per director to a target at a time..I think(once again someone please correct me if I'm wrong with any of this.)


And finally, that takes me to Big-E's main point, that the A.B. class would be able to engage the navy/martime air strike force of just about any smallish military nation in the world and come out on top...As long as he has a supply ship handy from which to re-arm so he and his destroyer can continue subjugating the world single-handedly..Heh..heh....Is that dumbed down enough for you??

As for the british experience in the falklands, that was the result of tenacity and skill by the Argie pilots, and Bad luck and thinly spread resources on the part of the british..they did'nt have enough combined seadart/seawolf teams available and only one of the available Seaharrier SQn's(801sQn i think) was sufficiently trained and confident in the use of the aircraft-they were lucky to be there at all, only a couple years before the RAF had claimed It could fly in support of Royal navy operations ANYWHERE in the world..As a result of this claim the RN nearly lost its FAA(fleet air arm)...Read a book by a fella called "sharkey" Ward, he was the 801(?) SQn leader at the time..its a good read...i think the books called Sea harrier...google his name and the 801(or was it 800)Sqn history.

 

[Scottn]

.As long as he has a supply ship handy from which to re-arm so he and his destroyer can continue subjugating the world single-handedly..Heh..heh....Is that dumbed down enough for you??

Almost, we're talking high school students here:mock
Could you define "smallish navy"? (sorry for the simple question, but...(see above)
How many countries are at "smallish navy" or below? (or above, if that is easier)

 

[Boolag]

Could you define "smallish navy"? (sorry for the simple question, but...(see above)
How many countries are at "smallish navy" or below? (or above, if that is easier)

Well if you look at the debriefs from Big-E's simulations earlier, you'll see he wiped out the Brazilian navy and later on visited the Spratley islands and kicked the chinese navy in the bottom quite royally..by smallish navy i meant anything smaller than a U.S. naval battlegroup, which includes most of the worlds navies..By god you yanks love to do things big..like what the hell is up with that dodge ute with the viper engine?!? that things bloody massive!!!.

Oh, I ammended my earlier thread to include some Falklands stuff for ya...!!

 

[contedicavour]

See here's what happened, I gave myself a Taiwan AWACS BTW. The SU-30s came in 3 waves of four from the North West, I was able to shoot them down before they got within 130km to launch the Kh-35s. That took 13 SM-2(IIIB)s at the same time two Kilos were launching missiles at 30kms out, These came in real fast and close but they were launched in pairs not all at once so Churchill had time to react. Then the Sovs Sunburns opened up from the West at 90nm but this SAG was already engaged with Tomahawks. I moded 2 Luhas with Grumble launchers with a 6 target engagement capability. The Sunburns from the PLAN SAG of 4 destroyers was far enough away to engage in a timely fashion using up about 20 Standards. My 40 Tomahawks (10 per destroyer) had been reduced to 12 by the time they got thru the PLAN AEGIS, the Grumbles aren't that great at sea-skimmers, the Sovremmeny SA-7s didn't do half bad. But still 3 Ts on each ship left for their guns to knock out, the Sovs both knocked out a T-hawk but took 2 hits apiece that sent them to the bottom. The moded Luhas took all 3 hits apiece and went to the bottom. I still had two more Kilos with full weapons loadouts and two more with torpedoes. I was out of target acquisition with all the PLAN surface radars gone and the Kilos were blind as bats. Sent the SH-60s over the last location of the missile launches and sank the two that fired on me. We pulled out the towed sonar array and started sweeping for the other two. I searched for an hour before I called it quits, I moded the Kilos to be REAL quiet. The simualtion had multi directional ASM atacks but they were not fired all at once and in combat they probably wouldn't be directed that well anyway so I think this simulation is somewhat close to reality, and thats if these PLAN AEGIS work!

Wow superb ! I honestly thought the Burke Flight II had no chance vs so many objectives. I'm really impressed. So the only chance for the enemy would be to work out a perfectly simultaneous attack by air, surface, and submarine assets. Their ability to coordinate such an attack is however extremely doubtful and here we're talking just one DDG.
This is reassuring all the more as a single US carrier battle group would have at least 3 DDGs or CGs. Enough to wipe out the whole enemy force

cheers

 

[Scorpius]

can't Tomahawks be countered?

 

[Boolag]

Dont forget, as impressive as it was..Its only a simulation..he would have to re-run that senario over a dozen or so times before he'd get an average + I almost gauruntee he'd get hit (and maybe sunk ) at least once..you cant always win.

Yeah the PLAN defense systems shot down a few of his birds..But not enough.

 

[contedicavour]

can't Tomahawks be countered?

Oh yes they can, as any incoming cruise missile. However given their speed, their ability to defeat radars and chaff&flare with their EW suite, and their targeting by satellite (capable to modify their trajectory at any given moment), you need very good radars and extremely accurate targeting for good anti-missile missiles or guns of your own.

In the scenario worked above, the Russians' best system is the Kashtan, a combination of Phalanx-type gun with RAM-type short range missiles. Guided by AEGIS-type radars and specific targeting radars (I'll spare the details here) the system has a reasonably decent chance of hitting the Tomahawk. However the Chinese only have this on the 2 latest Sovremenny Russian-built destroyers, not on the first 2 or on their locally built destroyers (may be the last -52, I have to check that one).

That's most probably why in the scenario above the 2 Sovs managed to shoot 1 TLAM each, while the Chinese didn't.

cheers

 

[contedicavour]

Dont forget, as impressive as it was..Its only a simulation..he would have to re-run that senario over a dozen or so times before he'd get an average + I almost gauruntee he'd get hit (and maybe sunk ) at least once..you cant always win.

Yeah the PLAN defense systems shot down a few of his birds..But not enough.

Yep, still chances are a single Burke would never have to face so many enemy targets by itself. The scenario I proposed is probably the worst a NATO DDG could face today. Unless of course one starts making nightmares of NATO countries targeting each other, but that's about as likely as the scenarios on the TV series Stargate and Atlantis :

cheers

 

[DarthAmerica]

First time I'd have to disagree with you Darth. Submarines do not make good stand alone platforms when faced off against a dispersed surface fleet. They have limited SA depending on passive sonar to detect targets. Once they engage a target with ADCAPS or TASSMs they give away their position and get to kill a couple ships before they are torped by a helo.

It's ok to disagree... But consider the limited SA of any surface combatant acting alone. Below is the fomula for calculating the radar horizon...

(2 * 4/3 6370e3 meters * Tx/Rx or target height/altitude in meters)^.5 = radar horizon in meters

...Use that for both your warship and whatever you are trying to detect and you will see just how limited the SA is for a lone surface ship is! Historically this is best represented by the Falklands conflict...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

...The Argies proved just how vulnerable a surface fleet could be against a threat that can approach below the Horizon if you dont have proper AEW. That conflict also proved how sneaky and effective SSK/SSN could be. SO I would say that the SA gap between a lone sub and lone DDG arent that great. Especially with modern communications being what they are. Take a look at the stealthiness of a US SSN/SSGN and their enourmous armament. Compare that to the DDG. I dont know about you but if this had to be done solo I think the SSN/SSGN is pretty hard to beat. USN DDG's strength lies in their internetted offense/defense/communications. Take that away and you could substitute the height of your DDG/DDX sensors into the formula above and thats the radius of influence. And since the DDG/DDX has to fight all alone, its got to xmit! Any opponent with a decent ESM/ELINT setup will at a minimum get a bearing which could be all its going to take. And those xmissions will travel a bit futher than the DDG/DDX ability to detect returns. A passive acoustic or ESM SSN/SSGN going to have more than enough SA to challenge a surface fleet as well as subsurface threats. And all without revealing its location until IT DETERMINES the best time and place for an attack. Because its nuclear, endurance isnt an issue. It could just wait you out if necessary. Most surface ships dont have that luxury and are infact limited by their replinishers which are easy prey for SSN/SSGN. My bets on the SSGN/SSN being better than a DDG/DDX at lone operations against entire navies. But thats just my opinion. Still disagree now?

 

[Boolag]

Yep, still chances are a single Burke would never have to face so many enemy targets by itself. The scenario I proposed is probably the worst a NATO DDG could face today. Unless of course one starts making nightmares of NATO countries targeting each other, but that's about as likely as the scenarios on the TV series Stargate and Atlantis :

cheers

WHAT?!? Theres no stargate!!!??!!..But someone told me it was a reality tv series.....:?



Just kidding:kar haha..im funny..im tired..im..going to sleep.