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Subject: How would you sink a Nimitz class carrier??
Herc the merc    1/19/2005 11:00:27 AM
Which torpedoes or cruise missiles could do this effectively, or would it require several. Some of the ASHM simply do not have the fire power to do it alone, torpedoes are also small, and the subs can be detected. Whats the best plan??
 
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SpudmanWP    RE:Correction on USAF assets in area   1/30/2005 4:10:42 PM
There are a couple of things we are leaving out. 1.Sat survailance can also determine ship movements. 2.We have detailed visual, thermal, radar, and acoustic profiles of every ship class in the Chinese navy. The computers on board the B-2 can do all the targetting automatically. When LADAR comes online, it's game over. Here are some LADAR pages. http://www.photonics.com/spectra/tech/XQ/ASP/techid.1507/QX/read.htm http://www.raytheon.com/feature/stellent/groups/public/documents/legacy_site/cms01_042883.pdf
 
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elcid    RE:Correction on USAF assets in area   1/30/2005 7:22:27 PM
Spudman, I already pointed out that satellites can detect ships - but of course it is PRC that has many satellites dedicated to that in the Western Pacific. Actually, there are limits and problems with satellite detection. "Can detect" is not the same as "can detect all targets in all conditions." Ever try to "see" a task force visually under cloud cover? Ever try to run a radar satellite without a major power supply (as in nuclear reactor- the Russian solution)? For some reason, we can see a submarine in port, but not at sea - whatever resolution theory says. And a computer on a B-52 cannot target anything UNLESS something detects the target for it to play with. You are missing the real problem: target IDENTIFICATION. Ignore that and you put USAF in the business of targeting neutrals, allies, etc. (again). Ignore that and you repeat Argentina's air force mistake: take out ships they can afford to lose. Or even things that are not ships at all. [I can make anything that floats look like an ocean liner on classical radar for almost nothing. And I can make any large ship look like a completely different large ship in a few hours at a cost of a few hundred dollars.] Even if you detect an enemy task group, how do you know what to target? Now there are different answers to this question - I am not saying it cannot be done. But doing it requires information of some kind. Getting that information can be problematical. Assuming because we have a satellite in the area the game is over is quite wrong. It probably means nothing at all related to the targeting issue, and if it does, not much.
 
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gixxxerking    so negatve Elcid   1/31/2005 2:44:47 AM
Why must you be so negative. The Chinese ships involved in an invation fleet will stand out like sore thumbs. Stop this doubting of the technical capability. And with regard to cloud cover. Any weather significant enough to disrupt satellite radar will cause a sea state too severe to launch an amphibious assault. And any B-52s will be coordinating with JSTARs and other off board sensors so dont worry about it. You are like a southern fire and brimstone preacher!...lol
 
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El Gringo Said    RE:Nagato and Belgrano   1/31/2005 5:59:41 AM
"What is wrong with Tigerfish? She is still in service, and regarded by some as the best in the world. [Of course, we say that about Mk 48 and others say that about their favorite]. But clearly Tigerfish is a modern torpedo, nothing like a classical one" Nobody regards Tigerfish as the best in the world... and no it isn't a modern torpedo. Tigerfish was a British Attempt to build a home grown torpedo akin to Mk 37. It isnt modern and the only reason it was used even when Spearfish was being procured and in the fleet, was due to the fact that a) Spearfish had teething troubles b) still wasnt in numbers enough. Tigerfish is pants all the way. But feel happy to prove me wrong...
 
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elcid    RE:so negatve Elcid   1/31/2005 6:48:24 AM
Gix: You are confused about radar. I began my professional life as a US Navy radar guy, and went on to become an anti-radar guy, as applied to defending task forces from attacks by things like missiles. Later on I got to go into the cool places missiles and airplanes are developed, and to learn about systems only now becoming things we can talk about. Please do not confuse a sincere effort to describe the real targeting problem with being negative. I hope to detect even a surprise "strait crossing operation" before the fact sufficiently I can get involved with dealing with it. For me it is not a mere academic issue, but a very personal one. I am not negative about defending freedom and opposing aggression. But the job of doing that is much more difficult if the nature of the problem is not properly classified and understood. There is no JSTARS on patrol in the Taiwan area, and you were talking about responding with bombers WITHOUT waiting for US forces to move forward - so don't "cheat" an pull out a trump card that isn't yet available. I am the one who said we can strike effectively later. You are the one who does not wish to wait, and who thinks that UNSUPPORTED bombers in small numbers can substantially sink the invasion force. I wish that were so. Unfortunately it is not. The problem is bigger than just that we lack sufficient forward deployed assets, however. The problem takes two different forms: 1) By the time we can field a significant force - say three CBGs, three expeditionary air wings, allied forces from a few allies (Japan, Philippines, Australia perhaps), a major reinforcement of Marine and Navy air in the area, flying a brigade of marines to the preposition ships at Guam and flying a brigade of 82nd Airborne somewhere - Okinawa - Guam - the Ryukus - Green island - it matters not where - AFTER we do that - and really can take a meaningful offensive - there won't be an invasion fleet to sink. There will be a supply fleet, and sinking it might be decisive, but not in the sense that getting the ships with the troops on them would be. Just getting them ashore may win the war - politically. So this is problem one: PLA has a viable strategy and if it works we will not be able to intervene in time in a decisive way. 2) AFTER assembling a minimum force able to wage offensive warfare, mainly by air, also by submarine and naval forces and occasionally by medium scale landings (a US brigade, a Japanese brigade, an Aussie/allied brigade, backed up by an airborne brigade, a baby Marine regiment and another Marine brigade - these latter three not able to go in on amphibs) - we may STILL find our targeting concepts as far out of sync as they were in the 1991 Scud hunt. It is anything but easy to understand a complex set of task forces, even for naval specialists. And radar does not tell you much about targets other than where they are and how they are moving. Even radars that might tell you more than that - a distinct minority - do not tell you what a naval target has on board? what the damage state of critical systems is? what the amount of munitions or fuel on board is? or even what you think it does about what the target is - that is what it looks like? Against a clever foe, the worst thing you can do is attack the most obvious valuable target - as it was when we bombed hundreds (no exaggeration) of rubber tanks in the former Yugoslavia. You want to attack the biggest ships? Fine - I will give you big targets to shoot at. Either real big ships - nothing in the world can proove a big ship isn't a big ship - filled with ping pong balls and outfitted with SAMs on deck - or fake big ships. You want to attack ships with flight decks - fine - I will give you targets with flight decks. Real navy guys can take the damage control timbers and build you one in a couple of hours - or what looks like one - using metal sheets to insure it makes a fine radar picture. Or I can create big ships out of small ones or even where there is no ship at all. While one might do such things with high tech countermeasures, it is much easier and cheaper to do so with low tech ones. This is a subject of much attention in PLA literature (a bow to Jim, who wants some indication a theory is related to enemy intentions). There are so many ways to mess up targeting that it is PROBABLE (not a one in a billion shot) that some of them are going to work. Figuring out what is really happening will require significant and ongoing attention. IF we act like all MUST BE well, and we do not try to figure out where we are being fooled, then we risk being rendered significantly combat ineffective. We might end up imposing a quite affordable attrition cost in the time we could have imposed a decisive cost and won the campaign. This happened to us in 1991: we FAILED to get ANY Scuds with air strikes; we FAILED to defeat the tiny Iraqi Navy mine campaign to deny us the coast. Not taking a problem serio
 
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elcid    RE:Nagato and Belgrano   1/31/2005 6:54:01 AM
Back in 1982 and 1983, researching the Falklands War, I found British expert opinion of Tigerfish quite prideful and high. Many were surprised at the decision of the captain of Conqs not to use it. But the fate of his opposite number, the captain of the only Arg sub to achieve firing position on the enemy, indicates that equally modern torpedoes of equally great reputation were combat ineffective. The Arg sub TWICE reached firing position and fired torpedoes at the British Task Force. On both occasions, the wires broke and the torpedoes failed to achieve anything. These were German torpedoes, supposedly very fine. [Germany INVENTED wire guided torpedoes, for use from shore batteries, during WWII. They have developed them longer than anyone else.] It is not yet clear that modern torpedoes are combat effective. But I bet some of them are. I do not volunteer to be on a target you fire them at! They may not be as good as their advocates believe, but they will rarely fail 100% as they did fail the Argentines in 1981.
 
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fitz    RE:Nagato and Belgrano   1/31/2005 7:07:04 AM
That's not what happened to the San Luis. In fact she fired SIX TIMES and the wires did not break. She had torpedo problems, but it wasn't the fault of the torpedo's themselves. The fault was in the submarine and, as it turned out later, excrutiatingly easy to remedy. And no, Tigerfish, concieved as an anti-submarine weapon, did not have a reliable anti-surface mode at the time. There were concerns about the weapons reliability. Besides, they were not really required given the nature of the target.
 
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elcid    RE:Nagato and Belgrano   1/31/2005 7:33:25 AM
It is true that San Luis problem was in the submarine - it was a torpedo problem only in the system sense - but I am a systems engineer and it does not matter to me what part of a system fails - even the operator. If your wire will not spool, your torpedo does not work. It was not easy to fix. It was "fixed" during the war but turned out not to work still. It was not fixed for real until almost the end of hostilities, and no target was found after that. I did not say the number of fish fired was two - I said two different attacks. The San Luis did an amazing job of detecting, identifying, localizing, and engaging the enemy. And got away with it against the NATO ASW specialists. Only once was she attacked, and she was not damaged - although almost every ASW weapon was expended (about 200 ASW attacks - mostly on whales, probably). Britain was at risk against her, but not having the option of using simple torpedoes, San Luis could not exercise the choice the captain of Conqueror did. Belgrano had two escorts. The British Task Force had much more than that, at all times. Yet neither British nor Arg subs were ever damaged by enemy ASW, and only once was one actually detected. Not a good sign for believers in ASW being really effective.
 
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El Gringo Said    RE:Nagato and Belgrano   1/31/2005 9:12:04 AM
"Back in 1982 and 1983, researching the Falklands War, I found British expert opinion of Tigerfish quite prideful and high" Well your wrong. I dont have my copy of Vanguard to Trident, but nobody and I do mean nobody was under any impression that Tigerfish in 1982 was anything short of hit and miss... Of course your impression would contradict the millions of pounds spent on the various mods, straight after the conflict to get it up to even up to what Mod 0 spec was meant to be...
 
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gixxxerking    RE:so negatve Elcid   1/31/2005 1:20:23 PM
Elcid, Ok let me read your assessment. I am not questioning your experience or your patriotism. Its just that your words seem very grim. But my field is Armor/Infantry so I have to take your word for it. Hey just get enough of us Army guys over there on your nice shinny ships and we will send the Chinese home screaming!
 
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