TYpe 45 v F22 / F35

[Ozzy Blizzard]

That list is really pushing it. In real world conditions most of those would be not very reliant, and good deal of them would usually not be available at the needed time and needed place.

Submarines would first need to be at the right spot at the right time - which in itself is not an easy task, especially for SSKs. Then they'd need to be very close to surface, if not at periscope depth to trasmit data - all of which would greatly endanger them.

Over the horizon radars would have an extremely hard time distinguishing what they're seeing, definitely not enough for targeting. Besides, only a portion of the seas is covered with them and only a few countries use them - not applicable for all the jassm users.

SBIRS, as it stands today, is A) not meant to be used for naval ship identification (even if a satellite detects something - how will it know which what sort of ship and whose ship that is?) and B) even in perfect conditions, there arent enough of them to go around detecting ships. Those sats still be detecting such small IR signatures on a wide area - they'd need to be fairly overhead. It's highly unlikely they could be relied upon for regular targeting info.

AWACS and any other airborne radar platform would need to be at some 400-450 or so km away from the target, probably a bit less if we want positive ID. So it is again a moot point to fire a missile a 1000 kms away from a plane A, when plane B can't be more than 400 kms away.

First of all your looking at this the wrong way. Its not a single capability that gives you track data, its an amalgimation of various sources that gives you the data you need. Its not just "well i have an OHR capability so i'm all good" its the combination of various intel sources. They all play a different role in the information gathering and distribution system. JASSM-ER may be overkill for anti-shipping work, its primarilly designed to penitrate high end IADS from outside the threat engagement envilope. I mean it will be able to do anti shipping work perfectly well, but your right 1000km is unnessisary. Lets contain this discussion to JASSM.

SSN/SSK's act as the sentry's, they are perfectly equiped for and designed to gather many forms of intel in hostile waters, like near a major enemy naval base. That gives you the initial warning that a task force is headed your way. Of cource thats in addition to attacking the threat itself.

OHR gives you the general target data, and even if the information is not precise enough to target a weapon by itself you can damn well be sure that the 6+ vessels sailing in formation with (possibly) organic air are not part of a fishing fleet. Not too hard to determine a threat methinks. That tells you were to send your more precise IRS assets (ala AEW&C). By the way JASSM users are limited (as it stands now) of the USAF/USN & the RAAF, both of which have very capable OHR systems.

Contemporary AEW&C's can track fighters at 500km+ range, therefore seeing something with an RCS a couple of orders of magnitude greater is not going to be limited to the radar's capability, but rather the radar horizon. I'm not sure what that number is at 40,000+ft but i'm sure its quite large. That WILL give you target track data good enough for weapons release (and then some).

SBIRS is an IIR (Imaging Infra Red) system which i would have no doubt could detect and identify something as large as a warship from LEO, the system is intended to track small BM's and even aircraft, so again assuming the weather is good you could conduct a real time battle damage assessment while the raid takes place. (What an asset!). Because it is a digital Imaging IR system the target could be visually identified.

Once again, a NSM with its LO features and IIR seeker is more than enough for most missions. If you've got to fight through enemy fighter cover to get within launching range - that means they're either got an aircraft carrier (in which case you've got bigger problems to worry about than a ship with PAAMS) or you've pinned them down, fairly close to their coastline and they're using their air force to protect their ships - in which case their navy is already half neutralized anyway. Either way, throwing fighter cover in this equation changes everything, as it's silly to even think of engaging the ships themselves without taking care of their air cover.

What, you want to conduct an offenceinve air superiority mission against the task force's organic air, at extreme range, within the threats radar footprint and SAM engagement envilope? Are you crazy?

Thats the whole point about JASSM launched from an LO platform, they wont see you coming and you can launch from well outside the realistic fighter umbrella. If you were limited to an NSM (which AFAIK is a fair way from becoming reality in an air dropped version and cleared for F-35 drop and carry) you cant effectively engage the threat if it has organic air, without conducting such an air superiority mission. Possible but not very attractive. Anyway if you want to engage a threat without air cover (the pickets anyway) missile range is not an important factor. Unless the target has Airborne radar coverage and SM-6 or equivilant, it wont be able to engage the strike package or missiles untill they appear over the horizon, which may be <20 km's. Have a look at what the Argentinians did to HMS Shefield. In that situation what matters most is your missiles RCS and type of seeker or its speed. I'd put money on JASSM having a smaller RCS than NSM (or JSM as i thought it was to be called) even if it is a bigger missile.

Basically why wouldn't you use JASSM in a maritime strike roll? It has a bigger range, bigger payload, low RCS, passive seeker, it will increase your probability of a kill and allow you to engage a threat with organic air cover. For the high end stuff there is probably no better (arguably) AShM under development.

 

[Todjaeger]

Once again, a NSM with its LO features and IIR seeker is more than enough for most missions. If you've got to fight through enemy fighter cover to get within launching range - that means they're either got an aircraft carrier (in which case you've got bigger problems to worry about than a ship with PAAMS) or you've pinned them down, fairly close to their coastline and they're using their air force to protect their ships - in which case their navy is already half neutralized anyway. Either way, throwing fighter cover in this equation changes everything, as it's silly to even think of engaging the ships themselves without taking care of their air cover.

I have to disagree here... The NSM is/will be a useful missile, however, for AShM attacks vs. large targets, it is unlikely to result in a vessel sinking. The best that could likely be achieved would be damage to important/critical components like radar, comms which cause a withdrawal and mission-kill. I say this because the NSM only has a ~120kg warhead. The larger AGM-84 Harpoon AShM, with a 488lb (~220kg) warhead was used in a 2002 Sinkex (ex-USS Okinawa LPH-3) which sustained several damaging hits, but did not result in a loss of vessel integrity. That was done with a Mk 48 ADCAP.

With that understood, I would expect that a JASSM warhead, being nearly four times the size, would have considerably greater effectiveness for each hit.

-Cheers

 

[Totoro]

Whole point was in using LO delivery platforms, no? So if JSF's RCS works as advertised, why would that plane be in any danger 150 km away from the target? (we'll leave possible fighter cover out of this as that is a completely different situation) Naturally, if all the hoopla about its low rcs against radars that might be found on type 45 is just that - bunch of exaggerations, then we can forget about any sort of approach like this.

RCS of clean F35 might prove to be smaller than of f35 carrying jassms externally. (yeah, yeah, missile itself is LO, but for which wavelengths? what about pylons, etc) While at 400 kms away nothing could engage the plane we have to remember that the travel time would be almost half an hour. Providing the target remains still.

The reason i am always mentioning the 400+ km figure is of course the radar horizon. at some 10.000 meters, against a 10 m high target it would reach to some 425 km. At 12.000 meters feet it reaches to 465 km. Of course, it may not prove to be very fuel efficient to cruise at 12.000 meters...

Why is vessel sinking important? If it was, harpoon, exocet, rbs 15 etc would all have bigger warheads. 150-200 kg warhead seems to be the sweet spot, most bang for the buck, unless you're trying to engage an aircraft carrier. NSM is smaller than that, yes, but the abilitly to carry it internally may be priceless. Four times bigger warhead also carries certain drawbacks with it, so...

At least we agree that 1000 km range is not applicable in this situation and that regular JASSM will do just fine.

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

Whole point was in using LO delivery platforms, no? So if JSF's RCS works as advertised, why would that plane be in any danger 150 km away from the target? (we'll leave possible fighter cover out of this as that is a completely different situation) Naturally, if all the hoopla about its low rcs against radars that might be found on type 45 is just that - bunch of exaggerations, then we can forget about any sort of approach like this.

Look, even if the F-35's RCS means it wont be detected untill its within the missile launch envilope, getting to within 150km when theres a CAP up is going to be a higher risk even in an LO platform. JASSM completely removes said risk.

RCS of clean F35 might prove to be smaller than of f35 carrying jassms externally. (yeah, yeah, missile itself is LO, but for which wavelengths? what about pylons, etc) While at 400 kms away nothing could engage the plane we have to remember that the travel time would be almost half an hour. Providing the target remains still.

So what? Even if the F-35's RCS is compromised to an extent by JASSM carriage, the whole point of JASSM is that it allows you stand off well outside the threat engagement envelope. Therefore you could be flying a legacy platform and still remain undetected.

The track disparity can be updated, thats why they put a datalink on it, same problem with long range AAM's ala R77 & AIM-120.

The reason i am always mentioning the 400+ km figure is of course the radar horizon. at some 10.000 meters, against a 10 m high target it would reach to some 425 km. At 12.000 meters feet it reaches to 465 km. Of course, it may not prove to be very fuel efficient to cruise at 12.000 meters...

At least JASSM allows you to launch at that range, rather than <150km you get with NSM.

Why is vessel sinking important? If it was, harpoon, exocet, rbs 15 etc would all have bigger warheads. 150-200 kg warhead seems to be the sweet spot, most bang for the buck, unless you're trying to engage an aircraft carrier. NSM is smaller than that, yes, but the abilitly to carry it internally may be priceless. Four times bigger warhead also carries certain drawbacks with it, so...

Usually any missile hit will cause a mission kill anyway if your firing at warships. But if your after heavies like a CV or LHD, you want to do as much damage as you can. If you do penetrate all of the defensive layers and actually get a hit on a heavy (ala CVN) 125kg's of HE may not ensure you put that vessel out of action, or kill the units in an LHD. 450kg's of HE is going to do alot more damage.

The ability to carry internally has only 1 advantage IMO, and thats range penalty. Any increase in RCS is more than made up for by the the allmost 3 times larger launch envilope.

Again i'm wondering about the point of this discussion. Basically JASSM is more capable that NSM in practically every way, so why woulldn't you use it against high end threats? Whats your point? Why bother when you've got NSM (which we don't)? My point is why not...

 

[Dave H]

Is the JASSM actualy planned for use against ships, I only ask 'cos Ive just googled it after reading your posts and all the usual and reliable (ie not wiki)sources seem to say its more a tomahawk land attack type role for hitting hardened targets and bunkers, I cant find a ship killing role mentioned???
Info seems to suggest its GPS guided, with a terminal (8second) IR seeker being switched on, and it comes in at 70 degrees or 40 degrees depending on the target. So a subsonic missile coming in high. Now as stealthy as it is, isnt there a range where a radar will even detect a B2, even if it gets within 10 miles before Sampson/S1850M/alternatives detects it, its plunging profile would still allow shots from phalanx or Goalkeepers or even visual cannon shots? I would have thought a seawolf operator on a nearbyT23 would fancy a TV lock? If Samson detects it, even too close for comfort, would the active seeker on Aster be able to lock on a JASSM from very, very close range? PAAMS seems to have been designed to take out fast missiles with very small RCS, and stealth doesnt mean invisible. Granted at night my cunning plan might not work!
Does JASSM have a sea skimming profile? How immune would it be from the ship trying to jam the GPS,launching IR decoys, Chaff. Modern ships are supposedly stealthy down to teh return of a small fishing boat, by the use of floating decoys and old fashion trickery, is it actually that easy to locate ships? Help from the experts please.

 

[PeterCrisp]

???

Have you EVER been involved in Weapons / Systems Trials ??

1. "Hire" the Test area. (@ 'X' thousand £/day)
2. "Hire" the assets to use as targets (@ 'X' thousand £/hr.)
3. Design & build the test rig, using a suitable cannon that's been modified to do the task. (1 off, totally bespoke / Estimate @ £2-£3 Million !)
4. Bring in a team of Engineers to write the trials / testing programme, how they're gonna do it & what the "Acceptance Criteria" results will be. (6 months, x20 engineers, + x5 managers, + office facilities = Estimated £1 -£2 Million).
5. Provide the ship, + crew (with 25 -35 years experience) , + food, + ammunition (Estimate that just having the ship at sea is £250K/per day).


Now add that up plus, spending 3 weeks attempting to get the results, then spending another 6 weeks analysing them.(Estimate another £1 Million)

...Is it any wonder that these ships are EXPENSIVE ???


However, the BEST doesn't come CHEAP !!



Systems Adict

Nope.

I was thinking more along the lines of lust getting something to launch a tennis ball (The army could knock a medieval catapult up for this while on some kind of training exercise just in case we get nuked back to the stone age). Just plonk the catapult in the general vicinity of there the type 45 will be while on normal duty.

I think you can maybe tell by now I've not been in the military as I have no idea if you can just knock things up in such a way as I'm not asking for scientific results just whether or not it can spot a tennis ball at 50 miles (or whatever the manufacturer claims).

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

Is the JASSM actualy planned for use against ships, I only ask 'cos Ive just googled it after reading your posts and all the usual and reliable (ie not wiki)sources seem to say its more a tomahawk land attack type role for hitting hardened targets and bunkers, I cant find a ship killing role mentioned???

AFAIK the RAAF/ADF has put the funds in to develop JASSM's latent shipbuster capability. So its not in the original design goals and its not part of the US program, thats probably why you cant find anything. Remember the missile is still in development.

Info seems to suggest its GPS guided, with a terminal (8second) IR seeker being switched on, and it comes in at 70 degrees or 40 degrees depending on the target. So a subsonic missile coming in high. Now as stealthy as it is, isnt there a range where a radar will even detect a B2, even if it gets within 10 miles before Sampson/S1850M/alternatives detects it, its plunging profile would still allow shots from phalanx or Goalkeepers or even visual cannon shots? I would have thought a seawolf operator on a nearbyT23 would fancy a TV lock? If Samson detects it, even too close for comfort, would the active seeker on Aster be able to lock on a JASSM from very, very close range? PAAMS seems to have been designed to take out fast missiles with very small RCS, and stealth doesn't mean invisible. Granted at night my cunning plan might not work!

The point isn't that JASSM is invulnerable, and you don't need some extra capability to engage the missile, people often have this misconception about VLO. SAMPSON/ASTER 30 will be able to engage the missile as will CIWS, thats not the point. What matters is the detection to engagement cycle, or the time between detection, track, threat assessment & engagement, and whether that all occurs before the missile impacts. Again if your only dealing with 1 incoming then that probably wouldn't be too much trouble, but any serious martime strike package is going to be using swarm tactics. By useing a VLO missile you significantly reduce the detection time and thus the detection to engagement cycle initiation. Thats why the Russians have invested so much in super-sonic, sea-skimming AShM's with all of the penalties involved with that technology (much larger and more expensive), because although they're detected further out, the terminal speed is such that in the time between detection and engagement the missile will have made up alot of ground.

Does JASSM have a sea skimming profile? How immune would it be from the ship trying to jam the GPS,launching IR decoys, Chaff. Modern ships are supposedly stealthy down to teh return of a small fishing boat, by the use of floating decoys and old fashion trickery, is it actually that easy to locate ships? Help from the experts please.

A sea skimming profile could be integrated in about 10 minutes AFAIK. As for GPS jamming, well even against less sophisticated PGM's like JDAM GPS jamming has proven less than effective, remember these systems use an INS as the primary navigational system which is updated by GPS. Anyway the missile would be out of LOS due to the low altitude profile so it would only be effected in the terminal phase, when the IIR seeker takes over anyway. As for locating ships, refer to the previous posts in this thread. Flares are not going to be much good against an IIR seeker, especially when your fireing them from something as large as a ship, and Chaff's not going to be much good against an IIR seeker either.

 

[dHAKAPETE]

Thanks for all the feedback on this one.

I'm with Petercrisp on this one. Use the vessels Heli, fly out 50 / 100 KM and drop a steel ball into sea from 3000' while Heli is cruising along. It either picks it up as it falls or it doesnt. consider further detailed tests later subject to results.

Like many who have expressed views above general feeling is that Wide Area capabilities are pretty good. Some very severe concerns at close in defence capabilities in current configuration.

 

[Dave H]

Yep, recognise that with chaff, I didnt put in enough detail, I meant as far as confusing attempts to actually locate the ships itself, I would assume the missile would have to be put into a spacial "box" before the IIR seeker takes over, so you might be using ECM, chaff etc against the UAV or Awacs that is trying to find you.
I do recall, possibly in Adm Woodwards book that they stalked a US Carrier in a sub and got targetting data by using the ESM antenna, someone on deck had carelessly left a fighter radar on and they detected it, therefore I assume finding ships is very possible. The ships own sensors will give away a lot, The argentinians just flew Boeing 707 missions hoping to spot the task force, nearly getting a Brazillian airliner shot down in response.

I read somewhere about a german IR decoy system that shoots a parachute target that can mask a ships IR signature,others that create a bloom of material to confuse IIR seekers, (Rheinmetals' bullfighter??), land based systems already use smoke screens to mask IR signatures , but probably quite easy on a tank, less so a 7000 tonne ship. Im not doubting JASSM can get round them, just that modern navies will always try and counter the counter.

Good news if its just an adaptation though, perhaps a similar conversion would work on StormShadow??, that would give the RN'S F35B's a good punch.

 

[windscorpion]

The ships own sensors will give away a lot, The argentinians just flew Boeing 707 missions hoping to spot the task force, nearly getting a Brazillian airliner shot down in response.

Oh thats interesting i've never heard of that before, have you got a link or a book reference i could read up something on that?

 

[tphuang]

First of all 1000km launch envilope is going to be outside of practically any CAP umbrella, which is very handy against high end threats (which a PAAMS like system would be defending), BIG advantage.

You dont want to use JASSM on a ship just because of its range, its the LO & IIR seeker pluss the payload's nice. It means against high end stuff like PAAMS the probability of a kill is going to be much higher than legacy AShM's like Harpoon.

As for targeting info, well there are plenty of systems that can provide such data from outside the 1000km envilope. AEW&C, SBIRS, OHR, SSK/SSN to name a few.

are we talking about the same JASSM that was having so much trouble in the testing phase or do you suddenly have this much faith in it. O fcourse, launching from 1000 km out is a a joke, since you won't be able to track anything from that far out (let alone the stealthy looking Type 45s)

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

are we talking about the same JASSM that was having so much trouble in the testing phase or do you suddenly have this much faith in it. O fcourse, launching from 1000 km out is a a joke, since you won't be able to track anything from that far out (let alone the stealthy looking Type 45s)

1) JASSM just had 5 sucsessfull launches. All of the bugs have practically been worked out by LM. The pentagon gave the missile the go ahead last week, so it WILL enter the USAF/USN/RAAF's armory. There was a good article in DT news a few days ago. Here's another one:

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3510334&c=AIR&s=AME

If your questioning the systems capability when it is actually in service, because of a troubled development, well I would point out that many, many systems have had problems in development. The Collins class SSK faced comperable problems, its now the most advanced and capable SSK in the world. V22 had a similar history, it will go on to serve the USMC for the next 50 years. In fact i would challange you to provide a single case were an individual US system performed well under its design goals (and still entered service) because of problems in R&D...

2) First of all you can track a Type 45 at 1000km, just maybe not well enough for a missile shot (depends on the accuracy of OHR the capability of SBIRS and the flight profile, which determines the acquisition basket, JASSM uses), have a look at the previous posts. Second the discussion was not on JASSM-ER, it was on JASSM, so whats your point? Third contemporary radars are not going ta have a problem seeing something the size of a Type 45 at 1000km, even if its "stealthy' looking. They can see fighter sized aircraft at 400km, you think a 150m long destroyer is going to be a problem at twice that range? No i think the only problem would be the earth getting in the way.

Good news if its just an adaptation though, perhaps a similar conversion would work on StormShadow??, that would give the RN'S F35B's a good punch.

These no reason why storm shadow could not be converted in this way, it would prove a formidable shipbuster. It has all the hardware needed, however AFAIK no anti shipping weapon has been intergrated on the RAF's typhoons as yet (and no immediate plans too?) so maritime strike work does not seem to be a priority. Its Australian funds that are behind JASSM's AShM capability (for the most part) and there is a huge need down here for a formidable shipbuster. It all comes down to the threat matrix i guess.

To your other points; there are various countermeasures utilized by naval units, just like the various sensor systems used to find them, they will all have varying amounts of success. IIR sensors/seekers are extreemely hard to fool, simply because you have to mask the image of the target i.e. a bright dot wont confuse the seeker when its looking at the distinct image of a ship. Of course IIR isnt perfect, but the only truly capable countermeasure i know of, is a laser to burn out the seeker.

Chaff is less than effective against contemporary radar's. Western navies for the most part have now moved to active decoy systems (much like the move from chaff to towed decoys in fighters), like the NULKA system used by the RCN, USN and RAN. For more info:

http://www.gunplot.net/nulka/nulka.html

Long story short its a never ending race between weapons system, countermeasure and counter-countermeasure, and no ones saying JASSM is invulnerable or unstoppable, but due to its launch envelope, payload, LO and passive seeker, it pushes the race forward significantly.

 

[Dave H]

I have a feeling it was either Sharkey Wards Sea Harrier Over The Falklands or Adm Woodwards 100 days. I will have a trawl through my collection (a book on HMS Glamorgan and HMS Coventrys fight has just arrived for my holiday read, I might find a cross ref ). I will find the ref, basically the 707 recon flights tried to find the fleet, causing some irritation to the Navy. There was some debate about shooting it down and I recall reading that a Seadart was locked onto a radar track. Fortunatley it wasnt fired because the aircraft on radar was actually an airliner, a catastrophic error that probably would have lost United nation support for the UK. Give me a few days to raid the attic..

 

[Sea Toby]

Admiral Woodward, One Hundred Days, pages 101-103. He called the Argie Boeing 707 the Burglar. They were about a minute away from shooting down what turned out to be a Brazilian airliner. These are his words," If we shot that airliner down, it would have probably left the Americans with no choice but to withdraw their support; the Task Force would have been recalled; the Falklands would be the Malvinas; and I would have been court-martialled."

As I said before, no one shoots blindly. The Argie shot an exocet targeted at one of the carriers, but it was diverted by chaff to the Atlantic Conveyor. What if the AC were somebody's else's cargo ship?

 

[Salty Dog]

As I said before, no one shoots blindly. The Argie shot an exocet targeted at one of the carriers, but it was diverted by chaff to the Atlantic Conveyor. What if the AC were somebody's else's cargo ship?

There were probably NOTAMs (Notice to Mariners) issued at the time to advise maritime traffic of the South Atlantic war zone. Shipping companies would have diverted their ships or run the risk of inadvertent attack.

Sorry for straying from the topic mates.

 

[dHAKAPETE]

Taking the detection question further...couple of ignorant questions....
a) do contemporary vessels such a T45 use beefed up IR detection systems themselves to augment their radar..and would these be an effective long range detection system for approaching stealth aircraft and
b) does anyone know if consideration has been given to using ‘magnetic anomaly' detection systems on vessels as a means of picking up stealth aircraft. If it aint visible on Radar but theres an anomaly then its likely not to be an airliner.

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

Taking the detection question further...couple of ignorant questions....
a) do contemporary vessels such a T45 use beefed up IR detection systems themselves to augment their radar..and would these be an effective long range detection system for approaching stealth aircraft and

I'm not super shore about the T-45, but the RAN's ANZAC class has an IRST system that is specifically designed to target sea skimming cruise missiles, its designed to work with ESSM. Therefore i would assume the more advanced T-45 would as well.

As for useing it to detect VLO aircraft, without a radar cue its going to have all of the same problems as fighter IRST's, i.e. volume search.

b) does anyone know if consideration has been given to using ‘magnetic anomaly' detection systems on vessels as a means of picking up stealth aircraft. If it aint visible on Radar but theres an anomaly then its likely not to be an airliner.

I don't think thats a likely detection or track device, at todays technological level anyway. In ASW the platform has to fly over the target, i think those limitations would also apply to aircraft. i.e. if you were that close, you wouldnt only see it on radar, but you'd see it out the window.

 

[Salty Dog]

I'm not super shore about the T-45, but the RAN's ANZAC class has an IRST system that is specifically designed to target sea skimming cruise missiles, its designed to work with ESSM. Therefore i would assume the more advanced T-45 would as well.

An IRST system at sea would work. However, the LOS range would be limited to the horizon as function of IRST sensor height in the case of sea skimming missiles. By then any good point defense system would have locked on to the incoming sea skimmer as the search radar should have found the target beyond LOS.

As far the RIM-162 ESSM, I understand this is still semi-active homing so a IRST would still have to designate the target to the RF fire control system for the engagement to work. Please correct this if inaccurate.

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

An IRST system at sea would work. However, the LOS range would be limited to the horizon as function of IRST sensor height in the case of sea skimming missiles. By then any good point defense system would have locked on to the incoming sea skimmer as the search radar should have found the target beyond LOS.

As far the RIM-162 ESSM, I understand this is still semi-active homing so a IRST would still have to designate the target to the RF fire control system for the engagement to work. Please correct this if inaccurate.

I think the IRST helps significantly in in heavy EW environments (confirimg a bogey pretty quick), but its only used as a complement to the radar, never alone vs airborne threats. ESSM still needs to be target illuminated.

 

[tphuang]

1) JASSM just had 5 sucsessfull launches. All of the bugs have practically been worked out by LM. The pentagon gave the missile the go ahead last week, so it WILL enter the USAF/USN/RAAF's armory. There was a good article in DT news a few days ago. Here's another one:

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3510334&c=AIR&s=AME

If your questioning the systems capability when it is actually in service, because of a troubled development, well I would point out that many, many systems have had problems in development. The Collins class SSK faced comperable problems, its now the most advanced and capable SSK in the world. V22 had a similar history, it will go on to serve the USMC for the next 50 years. In fact i would challange you to provide a single case were an individual US system performed well under its design goals (and still entered service) because of problems in R&D...

V-22 has a long way to go before proving it's anything but a waste of money. Even now, I still think it's over hyped by some people. JASSM's old problems are probably worked out by now, but it seems to me a few Australian members on this board were overexcited about it before the original problems came out. Who is to say there won't be more problems like that?

2) First of all you can track a Type 45 at 1000km, just maybe not well enough for a missile shot (depends on the accuracy of OHR the capability of SBIRS and the flight profile, which determines the acquisition basket, JASSM uses), have a look at the previous posts.

Right, if you can just use satellites to track a single destroyer in the middle of a huge ocean at any given point, why would you even need to use aircraft radar or naval radar?
If USN really had a need for long range AShM and could effectively track ships from hundreds of km out, why do you think the anti-shipping version of Tomahawk got phased out.

Second the discussion was not on JASSM-ER, it was on JASSM, so whats your point?

I don't care whether it's ER or not, you brought up 1000 km for a missile, so I'm questioning your use of 1000 km.

Third contemporary radars are not going ta have a problem seeing something the size of a Type 45 at 1000km, even if its "stealthy' looking. They can see fighter sized aircraft at 400km, you think a 150m long destroyer is going to be a problem at twice that range? No i think the only problem would be the earth getting in the way.

did I say otherwise? I was clearly talking about ships. But yeah, even in the case of an aircraft, 1000 km away would have the Earth's curvature to worry about.

And you can't compare look up modes in tracking an aircraft to anti-shipping mode with sea clutter and the much more powerful ECM to worry about.