Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Kurt said:

Ramming is the most reliable option to make contact, best combined with spar torpedoes.

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I tried to make an exhaustive approach to the problem. I do that possibly too often and brandish my bookworm-engineer pertubations and some new developments.

The guesswork about measurement effects on algorithms is an attempt to understand the strange reports about Gabriel missile effectiveness in the battles of Latakia and Baltim. The Israeli defense is right according to models, but extremely well adapted. The effect of the Israeli counterstrike with the Gabriel after stomaching the enemy onslaught is unbelieveable, it's like they have been shooting merchantmen without any defenses. The targeting problem was rather due to small size.
The Syrians and Egyptians played 100% by the book of current modeling on naval missile combat, the Israeli answer was "What book? What models? We can't read? These look like small disarmed fishing boats to target." If anyone under current conditions would try to re-run Syria or Egypt against Israel, the Israeli side for some strange reason would devastate the mightiest opponent. Israel has something new up their sleeve that makes the current works on salvo missile combat as relevant as ramming with spar torpedoes and this trick can kill carrier groups with attackers of insignificant size because you need to transport very little explosives to the target!

My personal guess is that the Indian emphasize on returning missiles is right, as well as the Indian emphasis on integrating one of these large returning missiles with multiple homing warheads. Such a construction has range and can deploy a multi-spectral sensor array that defeats the current countermeasure level and raises the required complexity of successful countermeasures to a level unaffordable for most navies, especially on small ships. In the current missile defense calculations these small boats are as much target as a full blown warship of frigate to destroyer size, creating a jeune école paradise that doesn't feel sustainable under duress to me.

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Well ramming would definetly give you the satisfaction of the "hands on approach", and to be quite frank an attack submarine and MK48s would give you that up close and personal feeling as well, but you might not live long in that environment, but the sub does offer the opportunity of a stealthy approach and multiple close in "war shots". So I think I would stick with tried and true, although cruise missles offer you annonimity and survivabilty! Not bad

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Air Force Brat said:

Yes, lots of cobwebs and dust, and a few dusty pigeons flapping about, but lets see if I can stir it up a bit in here.

In the PLAN CV thread people were/are talking about using the Varyag as a foil to any potential advocacy of the USN for our friends on the Pacific Rim, who might feel threated. It seems to me that if the American Pres gave an order tonight to sink any ones carrier, any where on the planet, even one of ours, that job would likely be done by morning and that vessel would be on the bottom, he is one of the few individuals with the where-withal to accomplish this mission. So the carriers usefullness would be lost if she is sunk!

What have I done? Any lets try to keep this in the spirit of academia and not get tooooooo personal.

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well, the ex-Varyag is for the SCS (actually it's for training and experiment right brat? ), using it against the US would be suicidal tactically, strategically, and politically
and the next pair of domestic carriers

not until China can secure the second island chain that it can truly bring the fight to the US, hypothetically
AA/AD works just fine for now

this is an old topic indeed, but stuff like this never gets old
how to kill a carrier? i like torpedoes, but it really is a multi axis solution that will work

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

paintgun said:

well, the ex-Varyag is for the SCS (actually it's for training and experiment right brat? ), using it against the US would be suicidal tactically, strategically, and politically
and the next pair of domestic carriers

not until China can secure the second island chain that it can truly bring the fight to the US, hypothetically
AA/AD works just fine for now

this is an old topic indeed, but stuff like this never gets old
how to kill a carrier? i like torpedoes, but it really is a multi axis solution that will work

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Right, and I really don't think the PLAN anticipates the USN being the adversary, but more of the screen. I'm of the opinion that the Varyag is more of a "Flag" ship, I would say they anticipate that the USN may not like what they're doing, but will not directly intervene unless they launch on one of our Pacific rim allies. I do anticipate that the Varyag will be fully operational and fully capable engaging in shadowing, blocking, harrassing, and power projection, but think about, there are some partners with the wherewithal to sink or at least put the Varyag out of commission. They would of course expect USN to run interferance if they did so, and I don't know how that would go, I would expect Korea, Japan, maybe Vietnam, possibly Phillipines, would likely be bumping and in general some up close and personal games of chicken of the sea? Things could definely get interesting as their are a few more neighbors than in years past. I would say to avoid this kind of business some very strong protocalls would be in order. Besides torpedo and missles, mines etc. might be planted this could definetly be dicey!

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Here is how i would do it. First you begin with waves of EMP attacks against the a mast armada. Jeff says that modern US warships are hardend against EMP attacks well i'll take that but the EMP attacks can still cripple the air wings on board the carriers unless the E2 Hawkeye's and the F/A-18's are hardend against EMP attacks too, which i doubt. Once the air wing is largely crippled you already have half a victory. Without the F/A-18's and the E2 Hawkeye's overhead the fleet becomes vulnerable. The fleet can still defend itself with the SM-2 missiles and the AEGIS defence system. So i will sendt in a few waves of kamikazi/attack drones that either will damage the ships by crashing into them or forcing the ships to fire their ESSM, CIWS and their precious SM-2 missile's which is their main air defence. Once their air defences are weakend then it's a free for all of missile's plane's and sub and torpedo's that pound away the layers defending the carriers and the carriers itself.

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

surface attack on a carrier and a United States Navy Carrier for that matter is probably next to impossible, even if u get a hit i bet the US Carriers still manage it back to port under their own steam, their battle damage crews are second to none added to the fact the carriers themselves can take tons of punishment

best way to sink a Carrier is sub-surface attack, employing advanced SSN tatics, if i was to counter a carrier task force, i would send in the surface fleet as a diversion, then swing round with submarines

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Air Force Brat said:

Right, and I really don't think the PLAN anticipates the USN being the adversary, but more of the screen. I'm of the opinion that the Varyag is more of a "Flag" ship, I would say they anticipate that the USN may not like what they're doing, but will not directly intervene unless they launch on one of our Pacific rim allies. I do anticipate that the Varyag will be fully operational and fully capable engaging in shadowing, blocking, harrassing, and power projection, but think about, there are some partners with the wherewithal to sink or at least put the Varyag out of commission. They would of course expect USN to run interferance if they did so, and I don't know how that would go, I would expect Korea, Japan, maybe Vietnam, possibly Phillipines, would likely be bumping and in general some up close and personal games of chicken of the sea? Things could definely get interesting as their are a few more neighbors than in years past. I would say to avoid this kind of business some very strong protocalls would be in order. Besides torpedo and missles, mines etc. might be planted this could definetly be dicey!

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there will be no games of chicken
a handful of J-15s airwing on a Chinese carrier will send SEA navies and countries shaking in their boots
their military buildup is just appalling

mines, multiple submarines laying mines network sounds bad!

asif iqbal said:

surface attack on a carrier and a United States Navy Carrier for that matter is probably next to impossible, even if u get a hit i bet the US Carriers still manage it back to port under their own steam, their battle damage crews are second to none added to the fact the carriers themselves can take tons of punishment

best way to sink a Carrier is sub-surface attack, employing advanced SSN tatics, if i was to counter a carrier task force, i would send in the surface fleet as a diversion, then swing round with submarines

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but then again there is the SOSUS network and MPAs
US has truly perfected the art of naval battle and carrier battle group strategy

only overwhelming firepower could overrun such a sophisticated system, like what the Soviet had in store

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

The SSGN might be the concept most capable as a strike force. It's a submarine and thus can launch all of the very many missiles without compromising the already significant capabilities as a submarine. The old Soviet CG was a surface combatant approach betting on surface defense systems to survive the onslaught after being spotted and still launch the missiles. That's increasingly unlikely and the more expensive SSGN approach serves with a better surviveability with a hidden speedy approach.

If you have any other sources on ship surviveability I'd be very interested to know.
Why would a carrier need so many explosives? All surviveability estimate calculations on warships agree, as I read in "Fleet tactivs and coastal combat" by Wayne P. Hughe, that surviveability currently increases only with the cube root(not linear and not the square root) of the volume, that is roughly equal to the dwt increase. 3 times more explosive warhead placements apart are needed for a carrier than for a frigate. That sounds strange at first sight unless you consider that all warships in war are packed with dangerous stuff. It certainly takes tons of explosives to sink an aircraft carrier in order to become an artificial reef. Under these circumstances ammunition, fuel and the nuclear reactors have been removed to limit collateral damage. If the ship is functional and one if these systems significantly damaged, we have no idea if there'll be a surviving crew to speak of.

The missile salvo combat model seems strange to many because three corvettes offer better surviveability than a destroyer that has only a better margin by the proportional increase in the largest dimension, the length, that corresponds to the the cube root of deadweight difference! These mathematical calculations are behind Cebrowski's push for numerous small ships. The problem of these small ships is very limited endurance and speed per energy. Energy effectiveness and endurance both increase exponentially with ship size. One suggestion from this observation is the mothership idea of large ships for long endurance transports of lots of material (relaunching the torpedo boat carrier concept that for some time co-existed with the aircraft carrier, often in the same experimental design).

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

I have to confess, I don't think I've heard a single substantive discourse thats inteligible. All this pie in the sky stuff is so much pocket fuzz, and it appears that none of the old heads are going to make a peep. I know the attack sub "could" do it, under favorable circumstances. On the other hand the carrier is certainly not invincible, I know that for a fact, but it seems that nothing on here bears the weight of someone who knows? I think the old heads must have gone to bed or just sent us over here to get us off their thread.LOL

Re: PLAN Carrier Operations..News, Videos & Photos II

weig2000 said:

Does the so-called Chinese ASBM work at all? Does it even exist?

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So far, the only thing that can be tell is that the Chinese did at certain point of time give thought about it, but as to whether they carry it further down the line cannot be confirmed. To this day, it was the West who made the most noise about it, then some Chinese dance with the tune, thought anything the West blabbering about must be true.

Re: PLAN Carrier Operations..News, Videos & Photos II

weig2000 said:

considering the Chinese is not particularly known for their innovation?

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Do they need to be if they can copy everything ? Or perhaps the Chinese can't do a good job copying either ? Then there really is no worries about their ASBMs, planes, ships, nukes, etc, etc. You can surely beat them and their silly gongs a second time around.