Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

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NikeX

Banned Idiot
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

You may find this example of US Navy operations near Soviet bases instructive as to how the US Navy would penetrate an integrated ocean surveillance system. Remember this was in 1981 and involved a Nimitz class carrier, the Ike:

"....In fact, in the August-September 1981 exercise, an armada of 83 US, British, Canadian, and Norwegian ships led by the carrier CVN Eisenhower managed to sail the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) Gap undetected, using carefully planned and rehearsed tactics.

Concealment and Deception
A combination of obvious if inconvenient passive measures like operating under electronic emissions control conditions and active measures like radar-jamming and transmission of false radar signals was used to hide the allied fleet. They even eluded a Soviet active-radar satellite launched into a low to search for it.

As the warships came within operating areas of Soviet long-range reconnaissance planes, the Soviets were initially able to identify but not track them. Meanwhile, Navy fighters conducted an unprecedented simulated attack on the Soviet planes as they refueled in-flight, flying at low levels to avoid detection by Soviet shore-based radar sites."
 
Engineer

Engineer

Major
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:
Notice the search time quoted here is 11 DAYS. Much can happen in 11 days. Plus the carrier is moving and the satellite is moving.
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Note that the quoted 11 days is NOT search time, but coverage of majority of Earth's landmass and ocean. This is achieved with using only one sensor, and it really demonstrates SAR's ability to scan large area in short amount of time. China has no need to have coverage for the entire Earth, just Western Pacific enough. And as more satellites come online, the temporal resolution will only get better.

NikeX said:
Other sources would be needed to maintain a positive track on a carrier that is hiding among other large vessels in the area. And it should be understood that to a SAR satellite, a large super tanker with its large flat deck provides a radar return that looks very much like a carrier. If a carrier is sailing in known shipping lanes and broadcasting a commercial signature it would be hard to distinguish the carrier from a large commercial vessel
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Obviously, there are other things to watch for other than just appearance, such as density of ships in an area, correlation of direction of travel. But appearance alone can provide a lot of information; like I have pointed out, attenuation and polarization of the returned signal will be different for different materials.

Surely, there will be difficulties in searching for an aircraft carrier, just as there will be difficulties in attempts at hiding an aircraft carrier from modern sensors. However, no matter how fast a CVBG can go, it cannot out run multiple satellites high up in space and cannot go in directions that will severely impede the ability to launch and recover aircraft. The initial pass of one satellite providing initial detection means the subsequent satellites have much less difficulties in finding the CVBG again, and these subsequent satellites are going to be used in tracking instead of searching.
 
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NikeX

Banned Idiot
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

You source quotes a simulation. Remember the CVN Eisenhower was doing this for real. And US carrier battle tactics have evolved a great deal since that 1981 exercise.
 
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NikeX

Banned Idiot
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Have you accounted for the satellites being spoofed and misdirected via electronic countermeasures? That is a factor you know.
 
Engineer

Engineer

Major
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:
You may find this example of US Navy operations near Soviet bases instructive as to how the US Navy would penetrate an integrated ocean surveillance system. Remember this was in 1981 and involved a Nimitz class carrier, the Ike...
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The Soviet also managed to let a Cessna flew all the way to Moscow without intercepting it. Now, put the early warning system of a CVBG in place of the Soviet's one, and let that Cessna be missiles and we can see how this would end.
 
Engineer

Engineer

Major
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:
You asked: "Why do you need nuclear power satellite to begin with when you have solar panel?"

Answer: The nuclear source provided the power needed for the radar...
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I too can do a strawman. You claimed: "a SAR satellite must be nuclear powered." It turns out you are false.

Some of the world's
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are not nuclear powered, but are run using solar panels and batteries.
 
N

NikeX

Banned Idiot
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

But you omitted to read the entire quote to where for ANY Ocean surveillance satellite to be effective it must be in low earth orbit. That low orbit makes the large solar panels a generator of drag. Plus the other factor is that for some time the satellite will be in the earth's shadow, the dark and will then be incapable of generating power.
 
S

s002wjh

Junior Member
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Engineer said:
Put it this way, ask your friend to place a small and reflective metal object in a large parking lot. Tie a strand of string to it and tow it while using a spot light to scan the entire area. The reflection of the metal object will move and sticks out like a sore thumb.

carrier is not an reflect object which you can easily pic up. sure it emit RF/EM signal, so does other ships, planes in the thousands sq mile

That's why there are satellites carrying Synthetic Aperture Radar. These are giant AESA radars in the sky capable of rapidly scanning large area in a short amount of time. An example is the
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, where a single sensor scans all the Earth surface between 60°S and 60°N latitude in just 11 days.

mapping radar is different than detecting, identify, tracking something small in the ocean.for mapping, all you need to do is process the reflected signal to generate a 3d image. but to detect a ship, identify it is complete different case

SAR is capable of map creation and detecting moving targets at the same time, and moving objects are distinguishable from cluttered background because of Doppler shift. This capability is used by aircraft with AESA radars now days to map the battlefield and detect ground targets simultaneously. The polarization and attenuation of the returned signal are different for different types of materials, and this is routinely exploited to differentiate different terrain types and even building materials in the field of remote sensing. The top of the carrier isn't water, and this is going to be distinguishable when the returned signal is non-horizontal compared to the returned signal from water. The top of the carrier isn't just bare metal, meaning the polarization and attenuation are also going to be different than the return signal of a commercial ship.

I don't think you gentlemen are aware of how capable modern sensing equipments really are.
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modern radar or optical sensor didn't evolve as fast as the electronic that process it. it doesn't matter using active radar or sensor in the visible spectrum, its still a tough job to find a particular group of ship in the vast ocean. there are tons ships, EM signals etc in that vast area.

for spaceborane SAR, resolution is a critical factors. most SAR are use for mapping, to detect ships, it need much higher resolution. if coverage is too big, then resolution goes down. take a 14M camera take a shot of you from a mile away vs you from 10ft away.
 
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Engineer

Engineer

Major
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Jeff Head said:
I never did say the technology was as good...but the Russians were very good with what they had and had a lot of more operational experience than the PLAN....decades of it.
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I never said you claimed Russia's technologies was not good back in the days. However, it is a fact that what they had back in the days, even though good, are not as good as what is avaiable today.

Jeff Head said:
You are making a bad assupmtion if you think the US has not tested these capabilities against state of the art detection capabilities. They have, and continually improve them. That sort of a test is not like firing a missile out over sea lanes to test its ability to hit a target. No need for maritime warnings or getting clear. Also not easy to detect when the tests are conducted. The US conducts these tests regularly with no need to put out marritime warning regarding the same...and believe me when I tell you it is fully operational, including many, many tests at sea.
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Actually, ASBM doesn't need to be tested against target as sea, just as the aircraft in the '81 exercise didn't need to actually flew over Soviet's airbase to test whether a preempted attack would work.

Regarding detection capabilities, I have never made the assumption that the US would not develop new countermeasures. However, new technologies are also being develop to counter the countermeasures. It would be a mistake to assume only the US is moving forward.

Jeff Head said:
As I said, finding one is not easy...not easy at all.

I have never said they couldn't be found, nor have I ever said that hiding them is easy. It's not. It costs a lot of investment, testing and exercises which the US conducts regularly. I just indicated that it's a hit or miss affair to find one because of all of that investment which is continually improving...that's all.
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Well, I never claimed finding one is easy, either. All I have said is that the initial capability to detect CVBG already exists, as the report has shown, and in agreement with Willard's statement about ASBM. China still has much work to do to achieve full coverage and provide redundancy.
 
Engineer

Engineer

Major
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:
But you omitted to read the entire quote to where for ANY Ocean surveillance satellite to be effective it must be in low earth orbit. That low orbit makes the large solar panels a generator of drag. Plus the other factor is that for some time the satellite will be in the earth's shadow, the dark and will then be incapable of generating power.
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Low orbit can mean anything from 200km altitude to 2000km. Obviously, a satellite even without solar panels will encounter a lot of drag at 200km. But drag decreases enormously as the altitude increases.
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for example orbits at 800km altitude - much much less drag.

Yes, satellites will go into Earth's shadow every orbit, that's why there are batteries on board. Note that China is only interested in scanning the Western Pacific, so China doesn't need to have the satellites scan continuously. This is why solar panels and batteries are sufficed.
 
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