A Talos would have ruined anyones day but the example I find interesting is the crippling of TCG Muavenet (a mine laying destroyer variant of the Allan M Sumner class DD's transferred to the Turkish Navy) by a pair of Sea Sparrow mistakenly fired from USS Saratoga (no one told the missile crew it was a simulation) during an exercise in 1992.

 

The missiles hit the bridge killing 5, including the captain, and wounding many others, mostly officers.  She wasn't sunk but she was crippled i.e. a tactical kill and subsequently written off, being scrapped later that year.

 

Based on this it can be assumed that a volley of Shrikes or semi active Sparrows (if the clutter issues could be over come)could also disable and potentially sink ships of up to 3000t.

 

Arm the bomber with Talos under the wings and load the bomb bays with Shrike and Sparrow to disable escorts and smaller targets aswell as providing a SEAD and a limited self defence air to air capability.

another example, HMAS Hobart and USS Boston - Gulf of Tonkin

When looking at the warhead performance of missiles versus gun-fired shells,
we have to consider how much of that body diameter/weight is actual warhead bursting charge.

 

Went digging around, and here when we look thru US 8" naval guns, they have bursting charges in the high capacity shells of barely 10kg, with the more common 5" shells of the day barely having 3.5kg bursting charge.

 

Then when we look at SeaSparrow, we get a warhead weight of 40kg (RIM-7M/P).

Now just how much of of that is actual explosive charge, I don't know, but surely a larger amount than the bursting charges of any of the gun-fired shells.

 

Also consider the explosive chemistry: these naval shells used something called Explosive D, but although I don't have specifics on the missile warhead chemistry, it's a good chance it may have been a newer grade of explosives for the day, with a higher energetic material.

 

So even though the more solid (thick-skinned) gun-fired shells may have more initial kinetic energy at impact (to get inside a ship before detonating), the missiles have a larger warhead altogether, whose blast alone can cause considerably more devastating effects, whether detonating outside at impact, or inside after penetration.

 

Consider also what Exocets, with at the day a warhead in the range of ~276lbs, did to vessels like the Sheffield and Stark.

Now imagine multiple hits of such missiles upon a single destroyer-sized vessel.

 

On the other end of that argument, though, we have the Israeli Eilat which took mutiple hits from Styx missiles before being lost (subsonic missiles, but with considerably larger warheads).

So it obviously has just as much to do with the construction of the vessel being hit (armore protection, damage control, compartments, etc) as it does the warhead (and impact speed) of the missile attacking it.

 

In the days when ship-mounted AA systems (guns and missiles) struggled to fend off high-subsonic threats, even Terrier-based ASMs inbound at M1.5 (or greater?) would've been quite capable against numerous ships, plunging inside several feet easily before detonation.

Strike something like the bridge (as evidenced before), into gunnery near magazines, or near enough to the powerplants, and even a complete kill (sink) isn't necessary to take a ship effectively out of action.

 

Now as to the effectiveness of radar seeker missiles, I myself have always been a fan of electro-optical (TV/IIR) guidance, as even though its datalink could be a liability (jammable, if the frequency is known and a ship's crew is high-speed enough to predict such a missile is being used),

I still prefer the option of specifically selecting areas of the target vessel to hit: take out a deck gun or launcher as a strong "You WILL stand down!" effect, or outright target the bridge, helo deck/hangar, or other significant areas for maximum destructive effect...

 

Now, if we really wanted a serious ship killer, imagine developing this farther: Tarzon.

The VB-10 and -11 used TV and IR seekers (resp.), so taking such a step further into Tarzon (or other heavy bombs) wasn't a serious stretch of the imagination,

nor would've been some kind of flip-out wing system for enhanced range such as has become so commonplace today, as could've also a small rocket booster to nudge it ever farther away from

Which ever bomber was chosen in the 60's the ideal replacement would have to be a B-1B variant.  Tomahawk ASM guidance package in a conventional ALCM anyone?

 

Depends on whether or not we would want to continue using the bomber in the penetration role once we got effective stand off weapons for land attack. If so then the B-1B would be the choice with the end of the production run in 1988 fitting in nicely with the notional end of service life for whatever we bought in the early 1960's. If not then we could just do what the Yanks have with the B-52's, upgrade whatever bomber we had and keep them running. Certainly with the B-52 or the V-Bombers there were enough of them being retired for us to have heaps of parts available.

1. For the British bombers, two of them, both of them very expensive. Their wings cannot be plumbed to free carry the desired missile from wing hard-points, nor are their bomb bays easily conformable to three American SARH missiles of the era that could work. The VANDAL is 7 meters long weighs 1.5 tonnes without its booster and needs Mach 0.7 speed to ignite and sustain its ramjet., TARTAR is 4 meters and they are also heavy at 3/5 a tonne; which means the Victor and Vulcan can carry one and three respectively.  You would need an early form of Red Drover designed as a mapper and search radar and a heavily modified SPS-51 or 52  target illuminator. That will take a lot of room.

 

2. My preferred missile, however, is HAWK.

a. single stage about 5 meters long and 550 kg ,mass.

b. Air-launched it will hit Mach 4 at burn out and will have enough KE at arrival to reduce a Sverdlov to ruin with a single hull hit at > 35,000 meters offset, even if the 50 Kg SAP warhead fails to explode.

c.That can be wing mounted easily from either a Victor or Vulcan and it doesn't need fancy Terrier NTU mods to use the eras Yellow River type illuminators. 

d. That leaves the bombbay free for free fall ordnance of any type desired. The upside down air search and tracking missile radars can be used for surface search. Radar, like the SARH missile it supports, doesn't care at what it looks and hits.   

 

Just some notions.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

3.    

Hamilcar    Operational reality.   2/16/2010 3:36:21 AM

1. For the British bombers, two of them, both of them very expensive. Their wings cannot be plumbed to free carry the desired missile from wing hard-points, nor are their bomb bays easily conformable to three American SARH missiles of the era that could work. The VANDAL is 7 meters long weighs 1.5 tonnes without its booster and needs Mach 0.7 speed to ignite and sustain its ramjet., TARTAR is 4 meters and they are also heavy at 3/5 a tonne; which means the Victor and Vulcan can carry one and three respectively.  You would need an early form of Red Drover designed as a mapper and search radar and a heavily modified SPS-51 or 52  target illuminator. That will take a lot of room.   2. My preferred missile, however, is HAWK. a. single stage about 5 meters long and 550 kg ,mass. b. Air-launched it will hit Mach 4 at burn out and will have enough KE at arrival to reduce a Sverdlov to ruin with a single hull hit at > 35,000 meters offset, even if the 50 Kg SAP warhead fails to explode. c.That can be wing mounted easily from either a Victor or Vulcan and it doesn't need fancy Terrier NTU mods to use the eras Yellow River type illuminators.  d. That leaves the bombbay free for free fall ordnance of any type desired. The upside down air search and tracking missile radars can be used for surface search. Radar, like the SARH missile it supports, doesn't care at what it looks and hits.      Just some notions.

The B2 Varients of both the Vulcan and Victor were both developed with the intention of being equiped with Skybolt on wing pylons, once it was available.  Talos should not have been an issue.

I stand by my declarations. Note the radars.

 

H.