Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

You are aware that the Russian ROSAT ocean surveillance system was modified in its later iterations to be able to downlink targeting data directly to shooters like submarines and and aircraft.

The Chinese have not claimed this capability to date. The Chinese may have to build large long range ocean surveillance aircraft like Bear-D to have a fully functional ocean surveillance system capable of following up on contacts first detected by SAR satellites. The Y-8 ASW aircraft looks like a first attempt in that area

Then you had the fact that Russian ROSATs were nuclear powered to avoid the air drag penalty associated with the lower orbits of ocean surveillance satellites.

The Chinese satellites have large solar arrays and will decay from their assigned orbits faster.

So to have a smooth ocean surveillance system the Chinese will have to borrow much from the experience of the Russians including the SS-NX-13

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:

Then you had the fact that Russian ROSATs were nuclear powered to avoid the air drag penalty associated with the lower orbits of ocean surveillance satellites.

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The sat's nuclear power is solely to generate electricity, which is useless and can't be used for the satellite propulsion. The nuclear powered sat will still have to rely on the usual propulsion fuel to alter its orbit, with the added disadvantage of it being much heavier due to the nuclear reactor and thererfore more fuel wasting than solar powered sats.

6 months of orbital life would require an unsustainable number of sats launches for maintaining a network of 10 or even 20 sats for sufficient network coverage.

From the wikipedia,

In addition, in 1987 the Soviets launched two larger TOPAZ nuclear reactors (six kilowatts) in Kosmos satellites (Kosmos 1818 and Kosmos 1867) which were each capable of 6 months of operation.[1]

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Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Quickie said:

The sat's nuclear power is solely to generate electricity, which is useless and can't be used for the satellite propulsion. The nuclear powered sat will still have to rely on the usual propulsion fuel to alter its orbit, with the added disadvantage of it being much heavier due to the nuclear reactor and thererfore more fuel wasting than solar powered sats.

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I am talking about orbital decay, not satellite propulsion. Ocean surveillance satellites by their lower orbits encounter the upper portion of the earth's atmosphere.Satellites with large solar arrays as used by the Yaogan series encounter resistance from the earth's atmosphere and will have to be replaced much sooner to maintain coverage. Check the orbits for yourself

Radar Ocean Reconnaissance SATellite or RORSAT is the western name given to the Soviet Upravlyaemyj Sputnik Aktivnyj (Управляемый Спутник Активный) (US-A) satellites, notorious for the use of nuclear reactors in orbital space. These satellites were launched between 1967 and 1988 to monitor NATO and merchant vessels using active radar. RORSATs were launched under the cover name of Cosmos (Kosmos) satellites.

Because a return signal from a target illuminated by a radar transmitter diminishes as the inverse of the fourth power of the distance, for the surveillance radar to work effectively, RORSATs had to be placed in low earth orbit. Had they used large solar panels for power, the orbit would have rapidly decayed due to drag through the upper atmosphere. Further, the satellite would have been useless in the shadow of earth.

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Here are details of orbital decay

Orbital decay is the process of prolonged reduction in the altitude of a satellite's orbit.
This can be due to drag produced by an atmosphere due to frequent collisions between the satellite and surrounding air molecules. A major cause of orbital decay for satellites in low Earth orbit is the drag of Earth’s atmosphere.

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Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:

You are aware that the Russian ROSAT ocean surveillance system was modified in its later iterations to be able to downlink targeting data directly to shooters like submarines and and aircraft.

The Chinese have not claimed this capability to date. The Chinese may have to build large long range ocean surveillance aircraft like Bear-D to have a fully functional ocean surveillance system capable of following up on contacts first detected by SAR satellites. The Y-8 ASW aircraft looks like a first attempt in that area

Then you had the fact that Russian ROSATs were nuclear powered to avoid the air drag penalty associated with the lower orbits of ocean surveillance satellites.

The Chinese satellites have large solar arrays and will decay from their assigned orbits faster.

So to have a smooth ocean surveillance system the Chinese will have to borrow much from the experience of the Russians including the SS-NX-13

Click to expand...

Rorsat was meant to work with badger C bomber but limited by latency and was not able to store radar image of the target limited it usefulness And there are not that many of them I am not sure if it more than 3 rorsat radar Therefore it still need a scout plane in the form of surveillance plane.Plus the lack of relay satellite inhibit the soss system from networking,automating all the asset(less robust) Here the difference between Soss(Soviet ocean surveillance system and Coss(Chinese ocean surveillance system) Taken from Phd dissertation paper of Solomon

The most obvious difference is that the flight time of a DF-21D fired at maximum range will be about fifteen minutes, whereas the flight time for a Backfire-C raid at aximum unrefueled range was measured in hours. Chinese SAR satellites also will not suffer from the sensitivity and operational lifetime shortcomings that plagued Soviet RORSATs. Unlike RORSAT, Chinese SAR satellites may even possess a target-imaging capability that can be used as a countermeasure against unsophisticated RF decoys.
COSS will have other capabilities that the Soviets never enjoyed. For one thing, COSS may be able to cue electro-optical satellites for remote visual examination of contacts originally detected by other sensors. Thanks to the Tianlian data relay satellite constellation, COSS’s data fusion center will also be able to receive space-based sensor reports at times other than when a given surveillance satellite passes within a ground control station’s line of sight. Lastly, COSS will be able to augment its passive RF direction-finding/ELINT sensors with the activelytransmitting
OTH-B. This will give COSS a peacetime wide-area surveillance capability that can
provide actionable cues to higher-resolution active sensors carried by satellites and second-layer scouts.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:

I am talking about orbital decay, not satellite propulsion. Ocean surveillance satellites by their lower orbits encounter the upper portion of the earth's atmosphere.Satellites with large solar arrays as used by the Yaogan series encounter resistance from the earth's atmosphere and will have to be replaced much sooner to maintain coverage. Check the orbits for yourself



Here are details of orbital decay

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My point was the use of nuclear power has nothing to do with orbital decay. Yaogan uses solar panels and it still has a much longer lifespan than the RORSAT. There're many ways to save fuel, example by simply working at higher orbit, but using nuclear power is not one of the reasons.

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Hendrik_2000 said:

Rorsat was meant to work with badger C bomber but limited by latency and was not able to store radar image of the target limited it usefulness

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ROSAT was meant to provide targeting data to all sorts of Russian shooters. Especially submarines. Multi axis attacks were envisioned on the carrier by many platforms acting in concert.

And there are not that many of them I am not sure if it more than 3 rorsat radar Therefore it still need a scout plane in the form of surveillance plane.

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Also the Russians made effective use of so called tattle-tale ships to provide final targeting data on the carrier battlegroup.

The most obvious difference is that the flight time of a DF-21D fired at maximum range will be about fifteen minutes, whereas the flight time for a Backfire-C raid at aximum unrefueled range was measured in hours. Chinese SAR satellites also will not suffer from the sensitivity and operational lifetime shortcomings that plagued Soviet RORSATs. Unlike RORSAT, Chinese SAR satellites may even possess a target-imaging capability that can be used as a countermeasure against unsophisticated RF decoys.

Click to expand...

However the Chinese SAR satellites are in low earth orbit as required by being an ocean surveillance network and will suffer from orbital decay and will have to be replaced on a regular basis to maintain good network coverage. The Yogan series of satellites is at an disadvantage with their use of solar arrays to generate power

COSS will have other capabilities that the Soviets never enjoyed. For one thing, COSS may be able to cue electro-optical satellites for remote visual examination of contacts originally detected by other sensors.

Click to expand...

To depend on satellites alone would be a foolish move on the Chinese part. Orbital mechanics by themselves makes it impossible for a satellite to revisit the same spot twice during the earth's rotation and satellite orbit. Also satellites cannot hover nor maneuver very effectively. Satellites alone are not enough.

And the satellite cannot track a target because the satellite is moving, the earth is moving and the target is moving. The orbital physics are the limitation

The Chinese will like everyone else have to use the satellites as trip wires to cue interest in an area of ocean and then follow-up with other assets like aircraft or surface ships to confirm what was detected. The Russians found this out and used their long range aircraft in a sea surveillance role. Every country has found this to be true.

China has discovered this limitation in their sea surveillance network and are developing aircraft like the Y-8 for the sea surveillance role. China is years away from putting together an effective sea surveillance network. They are taking the steps but it will take time

The Chinese attempt is called Informationization. Are you familiar with it?

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

What are the Russians current strategy as far as ocean surveillance in both the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean/Black Sea areas (just curious)?

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Everyday new counters are being developed to deal with ASBMs and other threats. The latest thing is this early detection satellite watching for launches of missiles like the DF-21 and others. And before you complain about this technology being too costly note the price tag

The carrier will have plenty of time to deal with the DF-21D

"......With a target cost of less than $500 million a copy, the objective space telescope would have a 20-meter-dia. lens. It would be able to image an area greater than 100 x 100 km with a video update rate of at least one frame a second, providing a 99% chance of detecting a Scud-class missile launch."......

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Watching for Scuds from Space

Scud hunting from geostationary orbit has moved a step closer with Ball Aerospace beginning work on a key component for a demonstration telescope under Darpa's Membrane Optic Imager Real-time Exploitation (MOIRE) program.

"......The MOIRE program will provide persistent, real-time, tactical video and missile launch detection and tracking to the war fighter. Development of diffractive membrane optics may facilitate low-cost geosynchronous imaging. All designs must be traceable to an operational 20 m system providing 24/7 visible NIIRS 3.5+ coverage over denied areas with at least a 1 Hz update rate, FOV > 100 km2, field of regard > 108 km2 with a designed cost not to exceed $500M a copy after initial NRE. This set of criteria is hereafter referred to as the objective Design Reference Mission (DRM)......"

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Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

NikeX said:

To depend on satellites alone would be a foolish move on the Chinese part. Orbital mechanics by themselves makes it impossible for a satellite to revisit the same spot twice during the earth's rotation and satellite orbit. Also satellites cannot hover nor maneuver very effectively. Satellites alone are not enough.

And the satellite cannot track a target because the satellite is moving, the earth is moving and the target is moving. The orbital physics are the limitation

The Chinese will like everyone else have to use the satellites as trip wires to cue interest in an area of ocean and then follow-up with other assets like aircraft or surface ships to confirm what was detected. The Russians found this out and used their long range aircraft in a sea surveillance role. Every country has found this to be true.

China has discovered this limitation in their sea surveillance network and are developing aircraft like the Y-8 for the sea surveillance role. China is years away from putting together an effective sea surveillance network. They are taking the steps but it will take time

The Chinese attempt is called Informationization. Are you familiar with it?

Click to expand...

Who am I talking to 15 year old kids . You don't have just 1 satellite genius You have many satellites and as it fly pass by their target they will inform the next satellite to keep track of the target. All is possible because you have relay satellite that shuttle information back and forth to different satellite. command center. that way you need a large number of satellite to give it latency and not 2 or 3 like your rorsat. Your rorsat is primitive as I said before

Your tattle tale will be blown away before it ever reached the perimeter of CAP radius of modern AWAAC genius.

Y8QX unveiling has nothing to do with ASBM It is meant to detect submarine and ship as secondary target and China has all kind of maritime surveillance aircraft for a long time The last cont they have 44 of this surveillance aircraft check this one

Re: The End of the Carrier Age?

Equation said:

What are the Russians current strategy as far as ocean surveillance in both the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean/Black Sea areas (just curious)?

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Hard to say. The Russians have let their systems run down and they are just a shadow of their former selves