Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Trying to pigeonhole the detection with one specific platform and one specific sensor doesn't make sense.

SAR is only one of the many sensor that they will use to identify the CBG. They probably used to filter the most probable location of CBG using automatic identification system. Then it will transfer to other more high resolution optical system Maritime surveillance satellite like Haiyang and Shijian satellite to confirm Or even add Man in the loop

And there are other EM sensor to confirm the tell tale of CBG, OVH radar, UAV, Spy ships,

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Engineer said:

First of all, there isn't only one camera. With multiple cameras, one can scan while others look at objects to objects for identification purposes. Or, you can have multiple cameras doing scans, and have each zooms in for identification as a target is detected. As for tracking, there is no need for tracking of every moving targets, just those that look like a carrier or escorts.

I would appreciate it if instead of asking me to do silly thought-experiments, you first think about the reverse situation -- that USN has to search for China's battle group, and ask yourself how would USN solves the issues that you claim China will encounter.

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fine use multiple camera to take pictures, let me know how long it will take to detect, identify, and track.

detecting ships is the easiest step out of the three. identify/tracking is another matter.
said you have about a million square mile of sea to scan using several satelite, it still require alot work, require narrow coverage and high resolution. you have thousands ships/planes in that area, some big some small. all those target are gonna be seen on radar image as spots cover only few pixels out of millions pixel or maybe even less than that, depend on how narrow the coverage and resolution of sensor. remember if ship only cover very few pixels on the image, its not enough to ID the ship. so out of thousands targets that was detected which one need to revist to zoom in so satelite can get a better image. also since all those ships are moving around, the satelite has to know which ship was previously detected and identified, this limited re-detection, re-id process when the same ship move to another search grid.

back to our camera example add another 20 camera and operator, it still not enough to detect, id in a short amount of time. like i said detect bunch ships can easily done via image processing, but to determine which one of those spot in the image is the actuall target require better image, but when you have alot detection occured, filter out the non-valid target is gonna be tough. there are certainly more ships such as fishing boat, oil tanker, and other ships in the ocean compare to how many satelite you have for detection, ID, and tracking. the information is overwhelming, it take time to process all potential targets.

do the camera experience with alot people cover alot area, and you still gonna take very long time to do it. it would be even messer if the object is moving around in your search grid.

it really doesn't matter how many satelite you using, it take too much time to cover huge area, filter out ALL non-valid targets. there just too many ships and too big area to cover in short period of time.

also you can't use all your resource just to track 1 carrier. your radar, and other sat has to check other activities from US military elsewhere.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

s002wjh said:

fine use multiple camera to take pictures, let me know how long it will take to detect, identify, and track.

detecting ships is the easiest step out of the three. identify/tracking is another matter.
said you have about a million square mile of sea to scan using several satelite, it still require alot work, require narrow coverage and high resolution. you have thousands ships/planes in that area, some big some small. all those target are gonna be seen on radar image as spots cover only few pixels out of millions pixel or maybe even less than that, depend on how narrow the coverage and resolution of sensor. remember if ship only cover very few pixels on the image, its not enough to ID the ship. so out of thousands targets that was detected which one need to revist to zoom in so satelite can get a better image. also since all those ships are moving around, the satelite has to know which ship was previously detected and identified, this limited re-detection, re-id process when the same ship move to another search grid.

back to our camera example add another 20 camera and operator, it still not enough to detect, id in a short amount of time. like i said detect bunch ships can easily done via image processing, but to determine which one of those spot in the image is the actuall target require better image, but when you have alot detection occured, filter out the non-valid target is gonna be tough. there are certainly more ships such as fishing boat, oil tanker, and other ships in the ocean compare to how many satelite you have for detection, ID, and tracking. the information is overwhelming, it take time to process all potential targets.

do the camera experience with alot people cover alot area, and you still gonna take very long time to do it. it would be even messer if the object is moving around in your search grid.

it really doesn't matter how many satelite you using, it take too much time to cover huge area, filter out ALL non-valid targets. there just too many ships and too big area to cover in short period of time.

also you can't use all your resource just to track 1 carrier. your radar, and other sat has to check other activities from US military elsewhere.

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Fishing boats? Does a fishing boat remotely resemble an aircraft carrier to you?

These small ships and aircraft definitely cannot be an aircraft carrier. There is no reason to detect, identify, or track them unless you are trying to over complicate the problem by . The more important question is how many ships are there in the ocean that are at least half the size of a carrier, specifically in the Western Pacific within the second island chain and outside of the first island chain. These are the targets that needed to be identified. Priority will be assigned, and ships that are sailing too slowly or sailing downwind or travel in manners that are not conductive for flight operation will have low priorities and be identified last. For high priority targets, you can then use a slightly higher resolution scan to see if any ship has anything that resemble escorts. Then once you have done all that you can do an ultra narrow beam for targets that you really interested in. China will have its own search algorithm, but the search procedure will be a pyramidal approach like the example above.

Obviously, the more satellites there are the better. Not having a full constellation does not invalidate what the report had said -- that the amount of reconnaissance satellites launched by China have already began to provide the capabilities necessary to find and track CVBG. Not having a full constellation does not make the problem impossible.

Once again, ask yourself the question as to what USN would do to find Chinese combatants first before coming back with silly thought-experiments.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

The point that must be addressed is that a large super tanker or large container ship looks to a radar satellite like a carrier. These commercial ships are big and have large flat decks. To make the tracking and detection task even harder, the carrier can operate in a mode to where it broadcasts a commercial signal that looks to the satellite like it is a tanker or container ship. The commercial network is called AIS

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automatic tracking system used on ships and by Vessel traffic services (VTS) for identifying and locating vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships and AIS Base stations. AIS information supplements marine radar, which continues to be the primary method of collision avoidance for water transport.

The point is that the carrier can broadcast an AIS signal that can make it look to the satellites like any large tanker or other commercial traffic. And this means the carrier can fall into normal shipping lanes and look like any other large vessel. This makes the task of detection and tracking of the carrier very very hard

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Question: "Once again, ask yourself the question as to what USN would do to find Chinese combatants first before coming back with silly thought-experiments."

Answer: The US Navy would use an approach to where several platforms would be used to track a target of interest. When the Russians and Americans were opposing each other the Russians used what became known as a 'tattletale' This was a ship that stayed attached to the carrier battle group and constantly updated the position of the battle group. In today's environment, the USN would probably use a fast quiet attack boat to trail the target of interest. The latest classes of American attack boats are well suited to the tracking task. Fast and quiet they are able to keep up with surface ships without giving their positions away

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.

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a better analogy would be

imagine a magical quarter dollar coin moving by its own in a hyperstore parking lot at night, dead dark without moon and lamps
you have to look for it with a torch, or much better with a searchlight, and to add more problems, there are also magical shillings, yens, rupees, and euros on the prowl

might as well try listening for the coins

i think the current discussion focuses too much on satellites and space remote sensing
ASBM detection and targeting process is part of a bigger naval ISR capability that PLA have to and is currently building, if we want to have a serious and healthy discussion regarding the ASBM, we need to bring stuffs like long range UAVs, SOSUS, and MPAs into the topic, not just endless discussion if satellites can or can not detect CBG in the ocean

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Engineer said:

Fishing boats? Does a fishing boat remotely resemble an aircraft carrier to you?

.

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like i said before on a radar image or pictures, everythign is represent as pixels(everything is digital today). Now if you have 15M pixel camera, take a pics of you and a semi-truck from different distance so both you and the truck only occupy 1 or 2 pixel on the entire image. can you tell me which one is you and which one is the truck, or tell me which one is larger object, you can't. you need a better image and other analysis, which require zoom in and image processing technic.

for ships detection, radar image is same, it only see bright spot on an image as detection, depend on how far the traget is it can occupy few or less pixels. if the fishing boat is close to the satelite(due to satelite location angel etc) and the carrier is further away, the resolution of the fishing boat might pick up the boat as 2 pixel while the further away target(even is bigger) only occupy 1 pixel. it does not mean the carrier is small then fishing boat!!! the more further away the object is from the sensor, the less pixel it occupy. I seen this alot in my line of work. alot analysis need to used to know the actual size of object from an image.

of course radar has the ability to calcuate the time difference betwen reflected signal vs transmit signal, this make a bit easier to know the size of target. but it does not mean if somethong occupy more pixel than another object, the latter object is smaller.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Discussion on proposed space radar system. Useful information

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

s002wjh said:

like i said before on a radar image or pictures, everythign is represent as pixels(everything is digital today). Now if you have 15M pixel camera, take a pics of you and a semi-truck from different distance so both you and the truck only occupy 1 or 2 pixel on the entire image. can you tell me which one is you and which one is the truck, or tell me which one is larger object, you can't. you need a better image and other analysis, which require zoom in and image processing technic.

for ships detection, radar image is same, it only see bright spot on an image as detection, depend on how far the traget is it can occupy few or less pixels. if the fishing boat is close to the satelite(due to satelite location angel etc) and the carrier is further away, the resolution of the fishing boat might pick up the boat as 2 pixel while the further away target(even is bigger) only occupy 1 pixel. it does not mean the carrier is small then fishing boat!!! the more further away the object is from the sensor, the less pixel it occupy. I seen this alot in my line of work. alot analysis need to used to know the actual size of object from an image.

of course radar has the ability to calcuate the time difference betwen reflected signal vs transmit signal, this make a bit easier to know the size of target. but it does not mean if somethong occupy more pixel than another object, the latter object is smaller.

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Actually, they are not the same -- things are not represented as pixels in radar images. Software are used to do post-processing and convert the data into images that human can understand, but what a radar sees is not what a CCD in a camera sees. Actually, radar is more similar to a sonar than with an optical sensor. Two things that radar sees that CCD cannot are polarity and phase. These are used in remote sensing to distinguished types of materials.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

I miss something. Satellites and high flying UAVs are likely to be able to recognize the wave pattern of a fast moving ship. So an aircraft carrier turning into the wind and increasing speed for flight operations can be recognized and its position estimated by the wave pattern it produces. A reason perhaps to look at narrower carriers, perhaps tricats as the experimental vessel whose photographs we have been admiring the last few days.