I fear that I didn't make myself adequately clear about Indonesia. I was refering to the earthquake. I did read your comments over on the Aussie board about E.T. Very impressed with your analysis, as I've only a cursory understanding of events there, courtesy of the AUSTRALIAN. It referenced the presence, among a number of incidents, of a single U.S. Army major (referred as an Army Ranger-probably just a tab wearer)-I suspect the military attache to the U.S. Embassy. Perhaps you might find cause to expand further on your Chinese geo-political musings at your convenience. I'd be interested. Thanks.

Easy! No one here said that the US is always on top on technology. In fact, I seem to remember saying that both the French and our friends in the Mid East make some really good stuff. I believe the qualitative comparision I did was between manned and sat systems...which I still stand by. Regardless who makes it...sat systems are inferior. As far as French electronics in American systems...of course there are and there are many more than what you named. I don't pretend that we don't use products produced by other nations...however, comma, but, just because we used something produced by Thales, Thompson, IMI, Mitsu, doesn't mean it is superior. The US government has many reasons for the things it does. The French flew F-8s for years. Would I suggest that this means the F-8 was a superior systems to any France could produce locally? No...in fact, I would have a hard time believe that local French aviation authorities were crying to the government that they could do better. As a matter of fact...one of the French systems I have the most respect for is not sexy, new, or actually all that impressive on its own. The Thompson Tiger G is quite a radar system without being all that impressive when compared to other systems. What makes the Tiger G so impressive is that it is adaptable to many different applications and that it features just enough EPs to survive in anything but the most saturated electronic battlefield. Sure...it is now losing the battle of time, as it gets older it doesn't have the same level of quality repective to its environment...but when we fight in Iraq and you are trying to decide what to worry about, the Flat Face or the Tiger G...draw your own conclusion. And I'll give the same warning for US Government reports that I would for Jane', FAS, etc. Sure, they are darn good sources of information. But when compared to the information coming straight back from the field that the Combat Sent guys collected...please.

One thing that's always puzzled me is why tactical ballistic missiles are never seriously considered in a coastal defence role. A weapon like Iskander, with a terminal manoeuvering capability, and combined inertial+radar guidance and a range of 480km from a road-mobile launcher could be quite readily adapted to blow holes in a carrier. The CEP certainly permits the missile to be used in this role. While it would be easy enought to track, the terminal manoeuvering capability could make for some interesting action vs. maritime SAMs. Using such weapons would be very much more effective as part of a co-ordinated attack on the CBG with aircraft using stand-off weapons(Tu-22M3+Kh-15, and Tu-95+Kh55) and submarines, using both cruise missile and torpedo attacks. If anything, Iskanders used in a costal defence role would force the carriers to stand-off at much more than 300km from the coast.

I think the difficulty is in knowing exactly where the enemy carrier group is at such ranges.

believe i just read about a successful navy test off hawaii where they intercepted a ballistic missile in flight. how significant a feat this was i couldn't say without seeing more information about the test but at least it shows the navy is aware of the threat and actively taking steps to deal with it. i suppose the response by the launching side would be mirving the missile so the cat and mouse will continue.

you should be able to df the assorted radars etc of a carrier group in action close enough to launch terminally guided weapons at them. actually just to be a pita you could target the hawkeye rotating around the group with a missile. it's not very fast moving and quite predictable in flight. have one or two of the mirv warheads be a sam style seeker and it could be a nasty surprise.

Tactical ballistic missiles could be countered if used by themselves. But if used en masse in conjunction with other platforms I think they could be quite potent. Weapons like Iskander, with their hardened bodies and terminal manoeuvering capability, would make quite difficult targets to conventional SAMs, as a proximity hit wouldn't necessarily knock it down. I believe that's why systems like PAC-3 and Arrow are very much in vogue nowadays, but I haven't heard of any US naval impact-kill systems. Targetting could be achieved through multiple channels such as OTH radar, AWACS, maritime patrol aircraft, ELINT, and even submarine reconnaisance. Iskander only needs to lock onto a target during the terminal descent phase and it does so by active radar. In such a descent, at sea, against a target as large as a carrier, I doubt the missile should have too much trouble in acquiring. The real issue would be decided by whether or not the SAMs will sufficiently cripple the missile as to knock it off-course. Iskander does not necessarily have a predictable flight path on the way down, and it descends at extreme velocity. One or two missiles launched could probably be countered easily enough, but if launched en masse (say ten or more) as part of a co-ordinated and layered attack, I think the potential exists to inflict some real damage.

Targetting can also be done by ccoperative datalink between weapons: the double link resent data on target detected to give exact position of ship: you launch a first set of antiship missile and the first missile which detect carrier reorient trajectory. Other solution are a exoatmospheric UAV with radar or a ballsitic missile with expendable radar AN other solution is a UAV subs Or a ballistic missile which would deploy a set of sonoboy in probable task force area. Clearly chinese are working on ballistic antiship missiles. If a technology advanced power want to design a system able to out range carriers and destroy high value targets like carriers, it is possible today. A carrier task force cost 30 B$ on 15 years.For this price you can procure maybe 1500 ballistic missile with multiple antiship conventional warheads with decoys, or 50 modern AIP SSK with training. A country with even a much smaller GDP of US can counter US carriers task forces.US can spend more as this country and still ouperform in cost effectivness US spending on carriers. Carriers are usefull but it is a dead system facing a power who want to counter them.If such a system appear we will move again on smaller carrier to disperse attacks and losses like in cold war when nuclear threat was pushing to smaller ships. Maybe in the future we will again turn on stealth cruisers with a mixed arsenal of cheap ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with multimode autodirectors to deal with ground or sea targets. I repost price evaluation: I take exemple: a single US carrier and 6 Aegis destroyers+ 2 oiler/support+ 3 SSN cost rougly 2 billion $ per year to build, pay crews and training and maintain. In 15 year period it is 30 B$.

"Targetting could be achieved through multiple channels such as OTH radar, AWACS, maritime patrol aircraft, ELINT, and even submarine reconnaisance." If you are a nation akin to Iran, and you had an American carrier group ~200km's off your coast, I would question how long your land based OTH radars and air based AWACS etc would last. I expect subs would be your best bet. The Argentinians had a number of aircraft capable of naval recce, such as modified C130's and Canberras, however they didn't have much luck in pin-pointing the British carriers.

Not possible. First is accurate targetting. A Carrier group can easily shut off its radars and rely only on E-2s. So finding by triangulation is quite difficult. Secondly, the US tends to strike first. So these ballistic launchers would be directly attacked first. As for Iskander vs. PAC-III... I dont know why a system originally designed to deal with fighter planes cant hit a ballistic object. Iskander has a limited ammount of room to manuver and still hit its target.