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Subject: HOW WILL THE US NAVY DEFEAT THE SUNBURN MISSILES??
LJ813    7/6/2005 9:20:57 AM
read this guys.. http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3905551929fb.htm enjoy!!
 
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YelliChink       12/18/2006 12:32:12 AM
I think that USN operations in the Gulf is totally different from facing the Chinese or Russian in big oceans. Iranians don't have much naval assets, but they will use whatever they have to damage the USN as much as possible. Their major surface combatants can't suffer the first USN strike, even after upgrade with Russian and Chinese systems. However, what Iranians can do is to lay mines both in the Gulf and at Hormuz Straight. That would force the USN to go in and conduct minesweeping operations. A combined attack by submarines, missile boats and land based missile batteries on USN warships in the region. But this scenario will not likely happen, since the USN will retaliate Iranian navy had any ship in the area hit a mine. Is 3M80 or Kh-41 a threat in the hands of Iranians? Yes, but it can only do damage to one or two ships, most likely civilian ships, before Iranian capability is neutralized. Is HF3 a handy weapon in this scenario? No, it is totally useless against Iran. HF3 is good on former Soviet Navy or PLAN fleet in a synchronized attack consist of various missiles. The real bitches in the Persian scenario will be Iranian Kilos, but if the conflict takes longer, they have to return to their bases or rendezvouz with milk-cow ships before they run out of food, water, weapon, fuel or toilet paper, which makes their subs vulnerable. They can't get all US surveillance aircrafts out of the area, even if they can hit a carrier or two, because there are also land based aircrafts in the region. The US can also bring in big guys with big radars via continuous aerial refuel. There are also plenty of spare Perry frigates in USN arsenal.
 
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Nichevo    Yes, How To Defend Merchant Traffic In The Straits   12/18/2006 1:37:43 AM

Naval warfare comes down to range advantage, logistics and mobility.

On one side there is the party that suggests that the Sunburn /Yakhont/ Brahmos threat  is significant to cause the USN  to recoil in fear.
No no no no NO! 

It is not the USN that recoils in fear.  It is the Administration (any administration).  It is Congress.  It is the media.  It is the UN and world governments.  It is the markets.  It is everybody who cannot get their minds around concepts like "Iwo Jima will cost us 25,000 lives.  But it will save 50,000 in saving B-29 crews.  Yeah, let's do it!!!"

The stated case is that land based TEL supersonic ASMs will close the Strait of Hormuz and strangle Western civilization by shutting off the flow of oil.

Aside from the TEMPORARY economic dislocation we suffer while the EU, the US, Japan and Russia reroute some overland gas and oil supply lines (probably over the futile armed objections of the various failed states that we will collectively run those pipelines through.) shall we consider just what the threat actually is and how much trouble it can really cause?
Naw, I won't say anything rude, I can go to balloonjuice.com for that.  But ... while "strangle" is excessive, more like a sleeper-hold ...

Define "TEMPORARY."  Describe the process and specifically timeframe of "rerouting."  Define "futile" and "failed states" as compared to the interdictions of oil production and transport in Iraq.  If a new 60-inch pipeline is so easy to do why isn't it being done?  Waiting to roll it out on the fly like the (IIRC) 6-inch pipelines run under the Channel for D-Day?

First of all, it has been noted that these supersonic missiles have an (understated) range limit. Most of the launchers have to be within 500 kilometers or much less of their intended victims.
Oh well, problem solved.  You may still be thining of China and blue water - I have specifically redefine the problem in terms of the littoral or brown-water.  Look at a map of the Straits of Hormuz. 
Second of all, it has been mentioned that unlike the popular misconception, many of these supersonic missiles in order to be supersonic have to climb to altitude. Supersonic at sea level is murder on an airframe not to mention at sea it is doubly murderous because it is so easy to nose into a swell at MACH 2 and go off on impact. the autopilot might notr be good enough to keep the robot out of the water.

Sure, fine, whatever.  We all know how inept the Russians are at solving physics problems.


Third of all, the target of choice is an onion.
a. It isn't alone. It has lots of buddies bobbing around loaded with chaff, decoys, SAMs, DEWs (yes those radars can burn out a Yakhont's seeker.).
b. It has aircover, which the other side won't have. So it has launch warning which the other side does not.
c. Plus the onion has two legged buddies scurrying around among the other side's countryside  hunting TELS with laser designators, GPS navigation aids and radios. Hide the TEL in a cave? For what are all those lovely thermobaric JDAMs  purchased? Who has the actual RANGE advantage?
Have I noted yet, or have you understood yet, that we are not talking about USN combatant ships, but VLCCs and other mammoth civilian vessels that can hardly get out of their own way, let alone harm's?  Let me put it this way.  In WWII, who got sunk more by subs:  warships or merchant ships?
How many missiles do the badguys have; dozens, a few hundred? How long will they last; a couple of weeks? LOGISTICS. Who outlasts whom?

And with the onion sitting outside of reach, and the Strait of Hormuz blockaded, if it can be blockaded at all, in the face of all that airpower, who starves? LOGISTICS.
I don't know that the Iranians have the same kind of defunct economies as the Arab Gulf states.  I don't think most of those sheep go to Iran, correct me if I'm wrong.  I think the Saudis would get hungrier faster.

And my hypothesis is that ONE VLCC sinking escalates the crisis enormously.  You have not disproved that with handwaving about TEMPORARY di
 
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Nichevo    Yes, How To Defend Merchant Traffic In The Straits   12/18/2006 1:45:22 AM

To defeat SUBURN missiles? Easy: to stay out of range!
FS, I don't mind if you use this board and every post as free ad space for the French military-industrial complex.  Really I don;t Bravo.  But it would be flattering to me personally, a compliment if I have earned it, if you would present the facade of having read my posts before replying to them (if this is in response to me).
A F18 E with harpoon or AMRAAM or air to ground weapon can sink any SUNBURN carrier or destroy a land base site much before it is able to launch its attack.
REALLY?    No really?  I did not know this.  How?  Or are you assuming the launch site is known?  If not, how is it detected, acquired, localized?  Does Sunburn, Exocet, etc., require a long period of emissions to acquire its target?  Do these missiles depend on the launch site for homing?  Remember we are talking about a SCUD hunt plus.  This is like SCUD Hunt crossed with the Norks' 10,000 arty tubes dug into caves and mountainsides.
BTW it is false to think that a SM2+aegis ship is efficient to counter completely a saturating attack.Only ASTER has an high kill probability vs this kind of weapon has it is the only medium range missile designated to counter it.
Gee, M. le ASTER salesman, why is this so?  Tell us all about it.

What do you mean "efficient?"  Also, who said "medium range?'  Do we assume that there is always a launcher close to either the Sunburn TEL site or to the target VLCC?  Might long range be an asset?  Is even medium range needed for point defense?
US need really to uprgade its air defense with a more potent missile than SM2 or even ESSM.With an active autodirector and high manoeuvering missile with vector thrust.

Again, feel free to elaborate on both these sentences and their implications.

 
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Nichevo    Yes, How To Defend Merchant Traffic In The Straits   12/18/2006 1:49:32 AM

if I was the mullah-commander, < i wonder if they have ranks?> what i'd be fielding, along the coastline and in the shallows would be torpedoes. wake homers preferably, perhaps a version of a captor mine.

with processing power being so cheap now, i should think a special suite of software for a PS2 and some other additional off-the-shelf hardware could make cheap and capable weapons possible.

it depends of course on the iranians- and if theyre technically astute enough to have a go at this sort of thing, rather than lots of praying and a mad charge waving a rifle

 

I tend to think theyll go for option B

Re option A, yes, mines and torps are the status quo and sound thinking.  Insofar as we would take measures, though, what a force multiplier if a convincing missile threat (say Exocet class, don't even waste a Sunburn) exists vs. the minesweepers.  How do our minesweepers defend vs even Exocet or C-802 class threats?

 
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Nichevo    Yes, How To Defend Merchant Traffic In The Straits   12/18/2006 1:56:09 AM





Spider-Man can defend himself against the Green Goblin.  How does he stop him capturing or killing Aunt May or MJ?

Kill the Green Goblin.

Herald




Well in the movie he didn't do much finding Osborne - the GG mostly found him.  Don't you think it will be tough to preempt Iran launch sites?  Are these like liquid fueled Titans where they'll have to have them out on the pads hours before firing?  Won;t it be shoot and scoot?  Into rugged territory, caves, etc.?  Why (unless 1991 SCUD hunt and 1999 Serb tank hunt experience is entirely irrelevant) is this pie?

 
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Nichevo    Yes, How To Defend Merchant Traffic In The Straits   12/18/2006 1:58:33 AM

Nichevo;OTH targeting and ground clutter.

 

YC; 

The following is interesting; the previous, too terse for me to quite follow. 


http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991nps..reptT....F</a></div>;" target="_blank">link
 


 

Like I said, there is a lot of stuff about the HF-3 that makes me go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

Herald 

Indeed, things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm.


 
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Nichevo    Yes, How To Defend Merchant Traffic In The Straits   12/18/2006 2:06:28 AM
YelliChink       12/18/2006 12:32:12 AM

Valuable, thank you.  I substantially agree.

However, never mind the carriers.  I say USN vessels are NOT the target (except for nibbling on strragglers, minesweepers, and such). 

The target is VLCCs in the Gulf ans specifically the Straits at key chokepoints.  My thesis is that 102 VLCC or superfreighter sinkings at the right locations will physically or morally close the Gulf and send oil to $300 at which point ROW shiites a brick.  How do we ensure decrease from 1-2 to zero of large civilian casualties?

Zero tolerance for damage of multiple 500+Kton ships in Gulf.  Zero tolerance for loss of any 500Kton+ ships in the Straits.  Nonzero tolerance for damage of USN vessels (or loss, outside Hormuz chokepoints).  How to accomplish?
 
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Herald1234    Nichevo: reply.   12/18/2006 2:50:09 AM

Naval warfare comes down to range advantage, logistics and mobility.

On one side there is the party that suggests that the Sunburn /Yakhont/ Brahmos threat  is significant to cause the USN  to recoil in fear.

 

No no no no NO! 

It is not the USN that recoils in fear.  It is the Administration (any administration).  It is Congress.  It is the media.  It is the UN and world governments.  It is the markets.  It is everybody who cannot get their minds around concepts like "
Iwo Jima will cost us 25,000 lives.  But it will save 50,000 in saving B-29 crews.  Yeah, let's do it!!!"

1. Control the media war. If an idiot like Woodrow Wilson could do it, then what is the trouble?

2. The USN must be eliminated to remove the SLOC control into the Straits of Hormuz. Otherwise it will be a starving mullocracy.

The stated case is that land based TEL supersonic ASMs will close the Strait of Hormuz and strangle Western civilization by shutting off the flow of oil.

That is the stated Iranian naval threat at that choke point against that commodity. Any sinking of a couple of ships is supposed to frighten off the rest of the shipping, ruin insurance rates and give Moslems control of the oil commodity. Any other interpretation is flatly ignoring the economic (applied seapower) underpinning of the Iranian threat.

 


Aside from the TEMPORARY economic dislocation we suffer while the EU, the US, Japan and Russia reroute some overland gas and oil supply lines (probably over the futile armed objections of the various failed states that we will collectively run those pipelines through.) shall we consider just what the threat actually is and how much trouble it can really cause?

Naw, I won't say anything rude, I can go to balloonjuice.com for that.  But ... while "strangle" is excessive, more like a sleeper-hold ...

Induced economic depression via key commodity control is the correct technical term. Oil is the commodity. It is the blood of our civilization. Cut it off and see how soon we strangle economically.


Define "TEMPORARY."  Describe the process and specifically timeframe of "rerouting."  Define "futile" and "failed states" as compared to the interdictions of oil production and transport in Iraq.  If a new 60-inch pipeline is so easy to do why isn't it being done?  Waiting to roll it out on the fly like the (IIRC) 6-inch pipelines run under the Channel for D-Day?

Six months, it will not be a short war or a short dislocation.  

 
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DarthAmerica       12/18/2006 3:12:23 AM

YelliChink
      12/18/2006 12:32:12 AM

Valuable, thank you.  I substantially agree.

However, never mind the carriers.  I say USN vessels are NOT the target (except for nibbling on strragglers, minesweepers, and such). 

The target is VLCCs in the Gulf ans specifically the Straits at key chokepoints.  My thesis is that 102 VLCC or superfreighter sinkings at the right locations will physically or morally close the Gulf and send oil to $300 at which point ROW shiites a brick.  How do we ensure decrease from 1-2 to zero of large civilian casualties?

Zero tolerance for damage of multiple 500+Kton ships in Gulf.  Zero tolerance for loss of any 500Kton+ ships in the Straits.  Nonzero tolerance for damage of USN vessels (or loss, outside Hormuz chokepoints).  How to accomplish?

The only way to ensure anything is to not fight. You can greatly reduce the risk but you had better have a plan b readily available...

...If the coalition decides to attack Iran, security of the strait would be paramount. Fortunately there are a lot of USAF/ USN/Coalition assets available for an attack. This is an ideal operation for a CSF/ARG supported by USAF AEF and an SSGN. Such a force could secure the area in and around the strait, secure the airspace, destroy the Iranian Navy, seize key terrain,  strike SSM units in and around the straight, clear the strait of SSK's/mines and conduct deep strike in support of strait and gulf security. A force built loosely around whats described above would be enough to secure the strait and probably very quickly. But even so, its not a guarantee that there wont be isolated successful Iranian operations designed to disrupt gulf security. The upside is that any successes would be short lived and easily absorbed by the market.


DA

 
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Nichevo    Herald backatcha   12/18/2006 3:17:37 AM
pretty good.  deserves more than this - i am tired and will hit you in the morning.  (geez 3am)

let me just say:

"1. Control the media war. If an idiot like Woodrow Wilson could do it, then what is the trouble?"

Best.  Question.  Evar.

What are we doing wrong in Iraq now?  Do you not think that between 1/3 and 2/3 of the problems are media-related? 

Looking at current trends I expect everything to go against us in this scenario.  We will be blamed for starting it, for the casualties, for deaths in Iran, for deaths in Saudi or wherever, for cold people in Europe, Japan, China, price of gas/plastic toys/fertilizer and foods/airline travel/Internet service, etc etc etc.  ISTM we can never catch a break anymore (unless maybe this happens under a Democratic president).  People will be like, "Why didn't you just let them nuke that s--tty little country?  Geez, it's not like Iranian IRBMs can hit WESTERN Europe!"

IOW all the pressure will be on US to get to status quo ante. 

Perhaps if you grant this you see more of my concern.  I agree if the world would be rational we would get along more or less fine.  Although a physical blockage of the Straits - if I am correct and one or two sinkings would physically block VLCC traffic - would be a big fat deal. I don't know how we'd get around that, short of sinking a megaton of RDX next to the wreck and whammo.

And...I said I was gonna make this short - I still think you're unrealistic about the size/number of pipelines (10x 6" != 1x60"), and the ease of cutting them vs difficulty of defending them - no Skorzenys running around under the Channel attacking PLUTO (good on ya) or, I imagine (?), behind the lines for Operation PLAID.  How many miles, how many soldiers per mile?



...one last before shuteye - I think Iran has limited ability to export out the back end, via Caspian.
 
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