John Fedup
The Bunker Group
The latest USN test by USS Portland was with a 150 MW laser (as per post on USN thread). We also know the power generation for the Zumwalt, 78 MW, thus making this class a good place to start with more powerful lasers.
Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter icelord
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Mm, that interesting.
The lasers do not need to exceed the energy limit of the missile's surface, rather the laser just needs to apply more energy to a specific area.
To explain this idea, imagine the skin of the missile is able to withstand very high temperatures (<2000*C, this will vary depending on the missile's speed and every other factor...) and is able to either insulate from that heat or is able to disperse that heat well enough so that the skin stays intact.
Now to actually affect the missile, the laser does not need to have the capability to heat an object to over 2000*C (sticking with the random value), rather it needs to be able to raise the temperature of that surface by another 500*C, to exceed the surface temperature limit, and thus destroying the missile.
Of course many other factors come into play, such as the ionised fields around the missile and potential plasma build-up, but for simplicity, this thought experiment serves it purpose.
There is no way a hypersonic missile will project IR decoys ahead of it, so you go for the leading target. CIWS was always meant to protect the ship on which it was mounted. Protect nearby HVA/HVUs with ESSM.
IR in the background, same as clutter. How do you tell what the leading target is with passive ranging (IR only)?
sooo if your defending a phatship with ESSM how’s your cross range looking? Or uprange for that matter?
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Maybe the question is whether a ASM hard kill option is viable out to the inner 10 km's from the defending ship.
Be that a missile or a cannon?
I'd like to think so, but to the layman observer like myself it's a mystery.
Regards S
Can you back that up with some empirical evidence please, because the USN would be very bloody interested in your findings. That way they wouldn't have to spend shiploads of treasure on lasers and when they can just repurpose CIWS.
RIGHT YOU HAVE BEEN PUSHING THIS HOBBY HORSE TO LONG. WHEN OTHERS HAVE TRIED TO INFORM YOU OF THE PROBLEMS AND FUTILITY OF IT YOU DON'T DEVIATE AT ALL. IF YOU WISH TO PUSH IT YOU WILL EXPERIENCE A HOLIDAY FROM HERE JUST LIKE WOMBAT 000 IS FOR THE NEXT MONTH. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
MODERATORS AND DEFENCE PROFESSIONALS HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS AND OTHER THREADS BEING DERAILED BY FANTASY POSTS. IF PEOPLE WISH TO CONTINUE DOWN THAT PATH, WE WILL REACT QUICKLY AND RUTHLESSLY.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
To my mind one of the biggest challenges associated with defeating supersonic (let alone hypersonic) ASMs is intercepting them far enough away from the target vessel to protect it from harm. If all your effector achieves is to turn the incoming ASM into a shotgun-blast of high velocity fragments that go on to pepper the ship, it leaves a lot to be desired. I do worry that Phalanx may suffer from this problem nowadays.
As for hypersonics, I would have thought there is very little outside of the SM6 Blk IB (perhaps) that has the speed and acceleration to get up to an incoming HGV and stop it at a safe distance. By the time a weapon like that reaches CIWS range I suspect it may already be too late.
As for hypersonics, I would have thought there is very little outside of the SM6 Blk IB (perhaps) that has the speed and acceleration to get up to an incoming HGV and stop it at a safe distance. By the time a weapon like that reaches CIWS range I suspect it may already be too late.
It's becoming a situation where CIWS will sooner or later become useless between the speed of missiles and manoeuvrability of them making any hit both difficult and likely to late to prevent damage to the ship. CWIS which used to be a defence within a few km's around the ship will effectively have to expand out to 10km or more with faster response time and greater accuracy. Won't be right away but seems to be the way it is heading.
Maybe the question is what distance will the incoming debris from from a struct ASM still be harmful to their intended target.
I appreciate some elasticity to the question re range of damage to the missile but feel its pertinent anyway.
For the 2020's whats in or out for close in defence.
Rapid fire cannon relying on a direct hit out to 2 km.
Medium calibre cannon with smart explosive rounds out to 4 km
Large slow RPM 5 inch sized rounds
or
small SAM missiles out to 10 km?
I appreciate some of the above are multi role assets.
Regards S
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
Yes you'd think the range rings for each defensive layer are going to have to grow further out as time goes on. Fortunately available sensor footprints are growing via both onboard (ref AMDR) and offboard sensors (NIFC-CA) alongside the network enabled weapons to take advantage of them.
You'd also have to think that airborne sensors are going to be increasingly important for defeating low/sea skimming threats by overcoming the radar horizon. It will be interesting to see how the RAN approaches this one in future given its lack of organic air.
Don't panic mods, not advocating carriers or anything outlandish, just wondering whether more modest UAS based solutions might come to the fore there.
You'd also have to think that airborne sensors are going to be increasingly important for defeating low/sea skimming threats by overcoming the radar horizon. It will be interesting to see how the RAN approaches this one in future given its lack of organic air.
Don't panic mods, not advocating carriers or anything outlandish, just wondering whether more modest UAS based solutions might come to the fore there.
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Agree a UAV providing 24 / 7 coverage will be a must over a taskforce.
What size said vehicle,what sensors and attributes,wings or rotors or something else is yet to be answered.
Regards S
@Boagrius don't even think about it. Preceptor has a new rack that he's dying to try out and I've just finished making a new cat o'nine tails for him. It has some extras added to it.
You actually raise a valid point regarding OTHR surveillance for low level and sea skimming targets. One way is to place radar pickets at say 30 or 60 nm, but that requires more ships or USVs with the appropriate sensors. Either way it's costly. Finally there is the airborne option. The RAAF can provide surveillance using Wedgetails, but they will be limited by range and other taskings, so that leaves RAN organic airborne surveillance. What form that takes is quite debatable and the first point to find out is whether or not this is part of RAN CONOPS at the moment. If it isn't then it's in the nice to have basket, but not a critical need item.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
Fair point. If RAAF Poseidons were fitted with AN/APS-154 like their USN counterparts, they might also be able to provide low altitude OTH radar coverage to a given task force. The same may be true of Triton, although I am less confident that its sensors would be able to provide a weapons-quality track of inbound ASMs. Tyranny of distance still becomes a problem further from available airbases (making organic airborne sensors desirable) but I suppose it is also fair to point out that any conceivable contingency that would put RAN vessels at risk of super/hypersonic low altitude ASM attack would also involve operating closely with the USN and their E2D coverage. Seems safe to conclude that the RAN sees this arrangement as sufficient, at least until UAS technology matures to the point of allowing NIFC-CA type engagements of OTH ASMs via organic UAS. AFAIK current platforms like Firescout are more focused on the detection of less demanding (?) targets like surface vessels... for now.
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I believe the 'Loyal Wingman' is supposed to sport an interchangeable nose (sensor package and such), so one could imagine that if the flight demonstrations are successful, the RAN may well be able to utilise, if not own, its own UAS systems based upon the 'Loyal Wingman' concept.
Although this likely 180* field of view from the nose cone may not be sufficient for a consistent tracking and search program.
- Having said this, I wonder (I am not trying to create another fantasy thread mods) if 'Loyal Wingman' were to be built in high quantities, would it be a useful idea to have the capability to mount lightweight torpedoes within the weapons bay, to even further the utility of the system, without turning the system into a full out ASW system. This would be extremely useful for use in littoral waters, where MFU's may need to pass through, alongside, giving surface platforms a longer range to target submarines outside the range of their onboard weapons.
Schiebel already claim they can mount ISAR on the Camcopter, which is currently in RAN service. I have no idea if that is part of the package the RAN bought, but given the main intent is to use it as a surveillance asset I would be surprised if it wasn’t being looked at. While I’m not sure that the Camcopter could carry a radar capable of providing engagement grade data on ASMs, I’ve been surprised many time before and it is certainly likely that something of the sort will become available in the near future, if it isn’t already. After all, a number of fast jet radars come in fairly small packages, and if that and a data link was the entire payload the carrying vehicle might not need to be all that big.
Isn't the concept of loyal wingman that it flies with a manned fighter / strike aircraft, so assuming that you can use it as an OTHR surveillance asset is not workable because it is dependent upon RAAF combat aircraft.
For other posters, just to throw a spanner in the works, you should be working on the principle that the USN airborne surveillance is not always available, so you should be concentrating on an organic OTHR airborne surveillance capability. Take it as a given that the RAN is not operating as part of a USN task force.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
If this is the case then OTHR airborne surveillance would have to be provided by the RAAF for the foreseeable future. I am not aware of any ship based UAS that would be able to fulfill this role in the RAN as yet, and the RAN doesn't seem to be interested in manned options (Merlin AEW).
With that said, the USMC recently scrapped plans for the development of a single type tiltrotor AEW UAS to be deployed on large amphibs in favour of a more distributed array of aircraft, including a smaller one for deployment on naval vessels.
Marines Ditch MUX Ship-Based Drone to Pursue Large Land-Based UAS, Smaller Shipboard Vehicle - USNI News
The Marines have ditched their plan to field a very large drone on amphibious ships, instead breaking the four-year-old MUX program into a family of systems that will include a very large land-based unmanned aerial vehicle and a medium-sized one for shipboard operations. Deputy Commandant of the...
news.usni.org
Whether this will produce something that could be deployed on major RAN surface combatants I am not sure, but I could see an argument for embarking something like this on the Canberra class down the track if it proves to be small and unintrusive enough. That said, I do acknowledge that it would be preferable to base such a platform on DDG/FFG so as not to detract from the amphibious capability of the LHD's, and to provide OHTR coverage when the phat ships are simply not around.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves, it unlikely that the aircraft/design has reached anywhere near its combat coded state; as such, I don't believe we should be refocusing the aim of the aircraft (bad idea, as I'm sure you could agree with me).
Rather, my understanding of the public documents around the system suggests, just like the USAF Loyal Wingman program, is that the aircraft are intended to operate with, not to be solely 'operated/commanded by' other airborne platforms.
So with this technicality, it's not unlikely that without changing any of the future coding, that the airframe would be capable of maintaining a search pattern above or around any RAN operation.
I'd hesitate to otherwise suggest any modification to the system before it is in service or at the very least, low rate production; so please do not assume I am suggesting any real airframe or mission changes at this point in time.
Now to make perfectly clear, I would be interested in later seeing if the RAN could use the exact same airframe to provide OTHR surveillance, whilst adding the option to carry lightweight torpedoes for a longer range, adaptable ASW capability.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
The main issue with using Loyal Wingman would be the same one that challenges any RAAF aircraft in this role - persistence. The further a task force strays from RAAF airfields the less on-station time a given airborne OTHR provider can deliver. The problem of persistence is not unique to land based aircraft though - my read of the recent USMC procurement direction for organic providers (detailed above) illustrates this rather well. On one hand you'd ideally want a MALE/HALE UAS as your sensor node to provide the maximum amount of persistence possible. On the other hand most naval vessels are not well suited to launching and recovering MALE/HALE aircraft. That leaves you with rotary and tilt-rotor options, neither of which are ideal for delivering the kind of endurance you want from an AEW/OTHR asset.
The only (LONG shot) alternative I can think of would be some kind of towed JLENS-style aerostat mounted array. On a practical level this would be fraught with difficulty. Aerostats are notoriously big and bulky, and JLENS is infamous for snapping free of its tethers and going on a scenic tour of the US before it returned to earth (this from a STATIONARY anchoring point... never mind a moving ship). Still... it would give you a hell of a lot of persistence.
My suspicion is that we will one day see a HALE/MALE UAS solution developed that can be launched off the flight decks of flat top amphibious ships - something like a suitably adapted Triton or perhaps MQ25 for enhanced survivability. You could then use smaller tilt-rotor type UAS more as a way to cover any gaps in the on-station time of larger, more capable platforms (be they land or amphib based).
The only (LONG shot) alternative I can think of would be some kind of towed JLENS-style aerostat mounted array. On a practical level this would be fraught with difficulty. Aerostats are notoriously big and bulky, and JLENS is infamous for snapping free of its tethers and going on a scenic tour of the US before it returned to earth (this from a STATIONARY anchoring point... never mind a moving ship). Still... it would give you a hell of a lot of persistence.
My suspicion is that we will one day see a HALE/MALE UAS solution developed that can be launched off the flight decks of flat top amphibious ships - something like a suitably adapted Triton or perhaps MQ25 for enhanced survivability. You could then use smaller tilt-rotor type UAS more as a way to cover any gaps in the on-station time of larger, more capable platforms (be they land or amphib based).
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The loyal wingman is to be left out of the discussion because it is not a viable contender anytime soon and is fantasy land at the moment. We're looking at capabilities that are practicable, viable, are not overly risky, and are not fantasy land.
With regard to something the JLENS or similar, I suggest that it would give away the forces location because of its being tethered to one of the ships and would give off a reasonable radar return.
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