Pointblank
Senior Member
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?
One of the most principle aspects of warfare is to find the enemy before they find you, and to engage them effectively. Any surface assets fighting against a CVBG will be detected and attacked repeatedly by the carrier group's aircraft and ships.
The USN is starting mass production of the RIM-174 Standard ERAM. It's a modification of the current SM-2ER Block IV missile, but the semi-active guidance system has been replaced by the guidance system from the active radar homing seeker from the AIM-120C AMRAAM. That means that there will be no need for illumination radars for terminal guidance.
And of course, that's beyond the fact that soft kill systems will be extensively employed by the USN; USN warships usually come equipped with AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare suite which can recognize and electronically attack hostile radar systems, including the terminal guidance radars on missiles. Coupled to the Mark 36 SRBOC chaff and flare decoys and the Nulka decoy, such systems can draw off enemy missiles.
And that's beyond the fact that any good carrier group commander worth their command would use every trick in the book to confuse, decoy and hide his force. For example, instead of a strike group finding a aircraft carrier, it runs into a well placed missile trap composed of a couple Burke's and Tico's working with carrier fighters and E-2's.
The E-2 Hawkeye can monitor with active sensors over 350km around itself, and with passive sensors, much further away. A carrier will always have one or more E-2's in the air at the same time, patrolling in orbits around the carrier group. A very large area of ocean can therefore be monitored and a good carrier group commander can plan his or her attack or counter attack effectively. By carefully allocating aircraft around the carrier group and the use of buddy refueling, long range interceptions of strike assets are very much possible, up to almost 400nm (more when the F-35 finally enters service).
And don't forget large strike waves take time to assemble and coordinate; a well timed pinpoint strike by a handful of the carrier's aircraft while such strike waves are being formed can seriously throw a wrench into an attack against a carrier group, or cause the attack to fizzle well before it begins as the heavily laden strike aircraft will be ejecting their external weapons in order to get away from carrier's fighters.
During the Cold War, Soviet Naval Aviation strike regiments were well armed and equipped to find and attack US CVBG's independently. In a simple engagement where one SNA regiment catches a carrier off guard, the carrier would be at the bottom of the ocean. However, if the regiment has to run a gauntlet of enemy fighters and warships to get at a carrier to launch their missiles and then getting back out, the regiment would have taken crippling losses, to the point where a follow up strike would be impossible to undertake. If the SNA regiment was caught by a fighter and missile trap during its run in for an attack, the fight will be over before it barely starts. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, it is critical for the target to be properly identified and located prior to an attack, and that time to identify and locate a carrier group will be well spent by the carrier group's commander to maneuver, set traps and decoys, and formulate his defense strategy. Don't think that while you are marshaling your aircraft to attack my carrier group I am not planning to ruin your attack well before it can even get underway.
Of course, if I bagged your strike pathfinder or recon asset, the game's up before it really had a chance to start. It's either automatic mission failure for the strike group, or having each aircraft in the strike group spread out and search the ocean 10 square nautical miles at a time... visually I might add.
Not if I kill your launch platforms or your recon assets. USN practice and theory revolves around killing or disrupting the launch platform (therefore taking out large numbers of missiles at once with fewer weapons), while any missiles that got through can be absorbed by systems like AEGIS.
One of the most principle aspects of warfare is to find the enemy before they find you, and to engage them effectively. Any surface assets fighting against a CVBG will be detected and attacked repeatedly by the carrier group's aircraft and ships.
The USN is starting mass production of the RIM-174 Standard ERAM. It's a modification of the current SM-2ER Block IV missile, but the semi-active guidance system has been replaced by the guidance system from the active radar homing seeker from the AIM-120C AMRAAM. That means that there will be no need for illumination radars for terminal guidance.
And of course, that's beyond the fact that soft kill systems will be extensively employed by the USN; USN warships usually come equipped with AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare suite which can recognize and electronically attack hostile radar systems, including the terminal guidance radars on missiles. Coupled to the Mark 36 SRBOC chaff and flare decoys and the Nulka decoy, such systems can draw off enemy missiles.
And that's beyond the fact that any good carrier group commander worth their command would use every trick in the book to confuse, decoy and hide his force. For example, instead of a strike group finding a aircraft carrier, it runs into a well placed missile trap composed of a couple Burke's and Tico's working with carrier fighters and E-2's.
- Making fanciful claims (like how the USN can expect to be able to reliably intercept a PLA strike wave 400km from the carrier, have you even stopped to think how far out you need to detect those planes to have your own planes in position to intercept them 400km out? Obviously not, as you would realize how ridiculous your suggestion is if you had.)
The E-2 Hawkeye can monitor with active sensors over 350km around itself, and with passive sensors, much further away. A carrier will always have one or more E-2's in the air at the same time, patrolling in orbits around the carrier group. A very large area of ocean can therefore be monitored and a good carrier group commander can plan his or her attack or counter attack effectively. By carefully allocating aircraft around the carrier group and the use of buddy refueling, long range interceptions of strike assets are very much possible, up to almost 400nm (more when the F-35 finally enters service).
And don't forget large strike waves take time to assemble and coordinate; a well timed pinpoint strike by a handful of the carrier's aircraft while such strike waves are being formed can seriously throw a wrench into an attack against a carrier group, or cause the attack to fizzle well before it begins as the heavily laden strike aircraft will be ejecting their external weapons in order to get away from carrier's fighters.
During the Cold War, Soviet Naval Aviation strike regiments were well armed and equipped to find and attack US CVBG's independently. In a simple engagement where one SNA regiment catches a carrier off guard, the carrier would be at the bottom of the ocean. However, if the regiment has to run a gauntlet of enemy fighters and warships to get at a carrier to launch their missiles and then getting back out, the regiment would have taken crippling losses, to the point where a follow up strike would be impossible to undertake. If the SNA regiment was caught by a fighter and missile trap during its run in for an attack, the fight will be over before it barely starts. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, it is critical for the target to be properly identified and located prior to an attack, and that time to identify and locate a carrier group will be well spent by the carrier group's commander to maneuver, set traps and decoys, and formulate his defense strategy. Don't think that while you are marshaling your aircraft to attack my carrier group I am not planning to ruin your attack well before it can even get underway.
Of course, if I bagged your strike pathfinder or recon asset, the game's up before it really had a chance to start. It's either automatic mission failure for the strike group, or having each aircraft in the strike group spread out and search the ocean 10 square nautical miles at a time... visually I might add.
Not if I kill your launch platforms or your recon assets. USN practice and theory revolves around killing or disrupting the launch platform (therefore taking out large numbers of missiles at once with fewer weapons), while any missiles that got through can be absorbed by systems like AEGIS.
