Although the A Bomb tests on post WW2 vessels is useful as an exercise in testing vessel survivability I think it's not a clean reference point due to the following: - My understanding is that the test vessels were at an emergency stations level, ie, no airlocks, no compartmentalisation etc as would happen in vessels dealing with a forewarned nuke strike or with a fire drill where sections are getting closed off to stop the spread of a fire and hence starve fire growth. - The WW2 vessel build quality can't be compared to contemporary construction - Nagato as an example is nowhere near the build quality of a Tico, Arleigh Burke, Meko or Lafayette - Contemp vessels where the Citadel is NBC "proofed" or where scrubbers, sprayers and lockdowns have been actioned wouldn't go through the same degree of post action trauma - A contemp modern CSF would have prior warning of an incoming and lockdowns would be in place - so a reduction in battle damage is likely. - A vessel like Nagato (or Belgrano as a more recent example) only needs 1 Mk48 ADCAP or Tigerfish to be dropped - a CVN such as the De Gaulle or Stennis would need 3-5 of such torps to achieve a similar result. Hence, the likelyhood of contemp vessels such as the prev 2 (and Ticos, AB's etc...) is going to be greater than those unfortunate test vessels. All IMHO of course, but I'd be interested to see what people like USN-MID, Rule Brittania, Fitz etc think of my assumptions.

apart from a grammatical stuff up, I also typed in error: "My understanding is that the test vessels were at an emergency stations level," should read: "My understanding is that the test vessels were not at an emergency stations level,"

excerpt on Nagato: " The Imperial Japanese Navy's modernized battleships of the Mutsu class were the equal of anything in the world at the beginning of WWII. Big, fast, heavily armed, and heavily armored, they could take on just about any opponent on equal footing. When launched at the end of WWI, these ships were the first in the world to be armed with 16 inch rifles. The maximum standard up to that time in Europe and America had been 14 & 15 inchers. Though there were only two of them, these two battlewagons seemed omnipresent throughout the Pacific War. One or both of them were present at almost every major surface campaign or engagement from Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf. The Nagato was the only major surface combatant of the Imperial Japanese Fleet to survive the war. She was later used as a target by the US in the Bikini Atoll atom bomb tests. Nagato sank only after being subjected to TWO bombs. Very tough, it took her 4 days after the impact of the second bomb to finally settle to the bottom of Bikini lagoon" so it looks as though the old girl didn't go down after 1 x A bomb test.

Those bombs were in the tens of kilotons range. And from what I read the first bomb actually fell short 900 ft and wide 2000 ft. Big difference for bomb that small. Try that test with a Kingfish and the Nagato melts then expoldes because it would be in the fireball. The second bomb was exploded underwater which would absord significant energy in a bomb that small. So I really dont think the test applies to todays missiles. Although I do not believ any modern rational nation would use a Kingfish for anythin other than deterence unless a full scale nuclear war broke out.

>>Nagato did not "survive" Baker in any meaningful sense. No one aboard her would have been alive. No weapon would have worked.<< True, but I used survive in the sense of "not sunk." >>And I do have a picture of her being thrown into the sky - vertically<< You may indeed. Given that Baker was an underwater detonation, it isn't an unsurprising event. However, what I took issue was your statement that "I have a picture in which its shadow is visible for its last few seconds of existence." The ship obviously was still in existence for several days afterwards..

"And where the lowered RCS does comes to play when you're going up against someone whose RCS is larger than their weapons. Once you shoot, your RCS drops off. Firing AAMs at long ranges forces them to use their datalinks to get updates from the launching aircraft. Put the pieces together. " And I think the AMRAAM-D will require datakink updates too.... IIRC, if the R-77 doesn't receive a datalink update it continues to fly to the approximated vicinity (bases on the trajectory calculation from the last update) and automatically switches on. It's less accurate this way, but out of a volley of c.100 missiles and with 50 potential targets, you can expect at least half a dozen killed. The Flankers would be free to commence evasive manoeveres. Their losses would be considerably heavier, but they could still close to WVR and give the Super Bugs a beasting. "Well then the Hornets would go in two waves and then blah blah, theoreticals. Are the Flankers boring in with radars blaring? AIM-120Ds are silent killers. As silent as BVR missiles get. That's why they're so good for the F-22...you have no clue it's in the area until the missile goes to terminal phase...and you want to replicate that effect for your Hornets by creating an artificially enhacned friendly environment for the LO features they got. " Flankers wouldn't all go in radars blazing. Remember, they're receiving radar updates too from friendly AWACS. One or to aircraft per formations would briefly turn on their radars, then switch it off and let another take over. This can continue until a target(s) is found. "AIM-120Ds are silent killers. As silent as BVR missiles get" How, then, do they get their targetting data? I'm assuming you're relying on AESA's LO properties, but even the mighty Super Bug will be detected with that many radars and RWRs out there (and those on the A-50 are nearly as sophisticated as on the E-3). Once a possible target is found the Flankers light up en masse and the engagement commences. "You willing to lose an entire regiment of Backfires while you're doing that from running out of gas? They take a long time going around and coming back for another fuel guzzling run in. How many times you wanna try that game? Against missile that may or may not be on the way.. " In a lazy 900km/h loop the Backfire might manage to do this four or five times. And with a regiment of Backfires attacking from multiple directions it's quite a safe assumption that the Americans won't screw around and possibly permit the bomber to get close enough to launch its payload. They'd most probably fire. "Jamming is a range factor. EW will be behind the friendly fighter force, and it will degrade the radar of YOUR fighter force. Helps my guys shoot first" Although my Tu-22PDs aren't as sophisticated, they would make a difference (they were extremely effective in Afghanistan vs. the PAF. No strike packages escorted by them were succesfully attacked, by either SAMs or F-16s). In any case, the combined EW will manage to draw both sides closer together before launch, and that's when I'd most definately not want to be a Prowler/Growler crewman. Elcid, I understand that nobody yet has four regiments of Su-30s. The original question was how to sink a CBG, and I replied that with four regiments of Su-30s, a regiment of Backfires, an A-50 and Tu-22PD escort, it could be done. If you want to turn this into a real-world example, you could substitute Su-27s and MiG-31s for the Su-30s and use the Russian Air Force as an example. Regarding the submarine threat, I didn't count on Most subs in the South Pacific having French/Israeli upgraded sonar suites. That would make a big contribution. You could use a massive airstrike as a diversion for a submarine attack, and that would be much more effective. If I were the Chinese, I would make sure I would take out the CBG before I'd risk an amphibious operation. I'd land airborne brigades, for sure, but I wouldn't send my heavy armour until the Americans had been taken care of. You could use the second rate fighters like the Finback or J-7 for air cover, and the airborne battalions could receive friendly artillery support from mainland shore batteries.

Actually, Jim, a paraphrase of your assertion about the USA is more correct: No country collects and analyzes anywhere close to the quantity and quality of intelligence data on weapon systems that CHINA DOES. [Changes in caps]. The CIA just got into the primary business of gathering scientific and economic intelligence post Cold War, and it is estimated (by its Director) it will need "many more years" to learn how to do this effectively. China has done this for over a thousand years, and Japan for several centuries. Russia is a comparative newcomer, and used methods much more like our own. But Russia has a string of impressive intelligence coups, against USA, the UK, Germany and Japan, to such an extent it is said "one should never underestimate Russian intelligence." Israel is the newest of the lot, but enjoys unique advantages. Israel tends to have more motivated people to work with (although Russia had this for a few decades long ago), and it has more sympathizers outside the country than anyone else ever dreamed of. It also is much more ruthless and willing to do things in ways Machiavelli would approve of than is normal. Japan is so secretive it is almost unknown it eclipsed both Germany and Russia in penetrating the US Manhattan Project. In particular it obtained plans for Fat Man (but apparently not for Little Boy). Both wartime Japanese bomb designs were simplified (one might say more weaponized and reliable) variations of Fat Man. Germany managed to get details of a minor heavy water project and Russia managed to get some details about how to make the lenses for Little Boy - to oversimplify somewhat but those were the biggies. Japanese methods are remarkably like our own - the use of Japanese agents and the use of "other kind of people" (hired agents, in WWII mainly Hispanics). They differed only in their focus - they simply went after technical stuff (mostly) whereas we went after military/political stuff. But CHINA is quite different. CHINA ALWAYS focused on gathering economic and technical intelligence - and they do it almost exclusively via Chinese people (although not necessairily agents in our sense of that term). We barely understood this and we (along with almost everyone else) usually were played without any great trouble. China tends to go for the basic technology itself, and sometimes for advice how to apply it, rather than the plans for the XF-45. Their methodolgy almost always works. Because ours is an open society, it is much easier to gather technical intelligence here than it is for us to gather it in China. Much more often than not, it is available for the asking, or at least for pay. I use similar methods now they have become effective: If I want to know the specs of a Russian weapon, there is an arms broker in Vladavostok with the data on line, and who will answer questions in hours. I learned that US companies sell information to foreigners on a routine basis, both as a customer and as an employee. It is not hard to get US firms to KNOWINGLY sell information to a foreign buyer. And it is downright easy to get them to sell it to a domestic buyer. They are so eager that one can play them WITHOUT actually buying - just let them demonstrate and pitch and provide technical information to study. China also has a system of doing this in China itself - get the foreign company to bring its stuff to China for some reason - say we launch your satellite - whatever. Then they get to play with it. Sometimes they even modify it without telling the company before they launch it - as in adding an extra module. But far more deadly is the technique they use to get things no company has - or would sell if it did - things like nuclear software design code - and that is an example they actually got. They exploit people of an ethnic Chinese ancestry in a very systematic way - they don't hire them at all usually - they flatter them and get them very tired - there are several versions of this - but in the end they end up with what they want. Just as the Russians typically got 100% of their list of technical intel objectives every year during the Cold War, it is likely China gets everything it goes after every year. No one is optimistic they fail in this, except possibly for things like the current issue of the SIOP or the STL. But WE publish declassified summaries from time to time - and these things evolve slowly - so surely they know something about them. This is not the sort of thing China goes after - although I am sure they will take anything that falls into their lap. What they DO go after is "scientific and technical intelligence" - and ever since the silk worm was high tech - and stolen!

It is not our ABILITY to produce it I question. It is our WILLINGNESS to FUND it. It is not uncommon to provice brand new major military platforms with inadequate signal intercept capability. It is not uncommon to provide such a platform with no active jamming capability at all. And when we do buy equipment, it is rarely the technically best choice that wins the contract. Sometimes it is the cheapist. Sometimes it is the most expensive, but not the best, for reasons unclear outside the contract office. EW equipment is not glamorous, and EW training is not either. USAF retired a fine dedicated EW aircraft - without replacement - and this is fairly typical of the kinds of things we do. Yes, they would benefit operational forces, but the funding is not available. It is much easier to get USAF to fight for F-22 funding than for a replacement EW aircraft or conversion. It is not our capability to produce I dispute. It is our capability to use systems we did not buy, or which we did buy which were not the best available from our industry, or which we did buy but didn't teach people to use fully. When you cannot even detect the enemy signal because you don't operate in that band, you cannot counter it. That kind of thing. It happens all the time, and even when you get specific, and DOD officials say "you are probably right, we should do that" it is quite rare for that to go all the way to funding, procurement and deployment. I am STILL advocating the Vulcan/Phalanx be outfitted with the 30mm gun it was DESIGNED for and which WAS built - by GE. In spite of winning USECDEF agreement, we NEVER bought even ONE. One cannot talk about ECM, but it is the same there - we often do not outfit as we know we should. And we hardly are able to outfit for the things we don't know we should - of which there must be some.

GF - you have it backwards. No modern warship (other than a CVN) is built remotely like a battleship in terms of protection. Our ships will not do well if in the fireball or immediate proxcimity of a fireball. Not that anything does well in such a place.

Actually, I was surprised Belgrano sank so easily - until I learned the watertight doors were not closed and many other systems were not working. It should take several torpedos to get her - a 1930s design. The Nagato was much better protected, specifically against torpedos, and it is almost impossible that ANY non-nuclear torpedo could sink her. On the average, one torpedo would only slow her a few knots. The only way to sink her would be to somehow set off a major magazine.