Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Jura said:

Equation, I'm sorry, but I'm lost in this post of yours; what does "this" in the first sentence refer to, shooting balloons?

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Oh sorry I meant "this" as from your earlier quote

"the carrier could deploy off-board radar-reflective decoys that could deceive the missile into aiming at a balloon floating over empty ocean."

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Equation said:

What if China just air drop the DF-21D warhead from a bomber in high altitude and test it's maneuverability from there? Do the test in segments at a time instead of the whole launch, search, reentry, maneuver, and destroy all in one?

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An reentry vehicle from a DF-21D would likely be going at >> Mach 5.

Phead128 said:

What is different between DF-21D and DF-21 nuclear variant.

If DF-21D can be electronically compromised, can DF-21 nuclear variants become compromised?

If nuclear variants of DF-21 and DF-21D can be compromised, isn't there no second strike capability (unless China can overwhelm them with numerical superiority or saturation attack)...

But this "electronic counter measure" seems too good to be true, because can't it also work on nuclear variants of DF-21? You can't defeat an entire nuclear force with just electronic warfare itself can you?

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Nuclear version of DF-21 is probably mainly inertially guided, which makes it effectively autonomous, and not reliant upon any outside input during its flight to hit its intended target, which doesn't move. So if the missile is properly shielded, and its target properly plotted on a map ahead of time, the missile would be essentially completely immune to electronic countermeasures.

The anti-ship version of the DF-21 is not autonomous, it must rely on continuing inputs from offboard sensors, and quite probably also from onboard sensors, in order to hit a moving target. Any electronic countermeasure which can disrupt communication between it and offboard sensor platform, or interfere with what its onboard sensors can see, will defeat it.

Lezt said:

That's what nukes are for, to equalize the huge disparity of conventional force. The reason why NK is so feverishly developing ICBMs and Russia is keeping up its huge stock pile deterrents. So would the US park 11 CVBG around Russia or China? The question is always how much war each side is willing to stomach, and if the ante keeps raising, it will only end in MAD.

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Not if the huge disparity in conventional forces is matched by the similar disparity in strategic forces. If anything, the disparity in strategic forces is even greater than the disparity in conventional forces. This suggests China thinks its chances are better in a conventional match than in a strategic exchange.

Zhifu said:

If it keeps carriers 1000 miles away without testing then it has done its job with or without testing.

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If

It takes test to give a basic minimum of reassurance that the if can actually turn into when at a time that counts.

chuck731 said:

An reentry vehicle from a DF-21D would likely be going at >> Mach 5.

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The DF-21 can hit speeds of Mach 11, a properly designed reentry vehicle, with active cooling as opposed to aerodynamically chaotic ablation, could retain the bulk of that speed and contribute less to plasma formation around the RV. Properly coated nails deployed at the last instant before impact by a burster charge should be sufficient to the task of shredding the deck and radar mast of a flattop. At say Mach 8 or so each nail would have a kinetic energy equivalent to it’s mass in high explosive. All the PRC has to do is figure out how to put an antenna probe outside of the reentry body to maintain some type of uplink or locational nav link for the final terminal plunge. Let’s say the PRC spends usd 10 million on each DF-21?D?, task a hundred or so to a single carrier battle group and the cost minus the support network would be about a billion, fairly cheap bargain to scratch one flattop and it’s escorts for the duration of a crisis and who knows, the softkill mode of operation may even serve to prevent escalation.

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Based on recent posts (chuck731, Zhifu, Lezt, Equation) I got an idea that maybe the reentry vehicle could carry a nuclear warhead to pop at 10 (?) kilometers above the ships, at the horizontal distance as low as possible (which might turn out to be huge, due to factors mentioned by several posters here). Even if "it missed" by 50 (?) kilometers, communications impairment would immediately result and the Task Force, however big and strong, would leave (or wouldn't ?!). You may tell me what would happen after that.

chuck731 said:

Not if the huge disparity in conventional forces is matched by the similar disparity in strategic forces. If anything, the disparity in strategic forces is even greater than the disparity in conventional forces. This suggests China thinks its chances are better in a conventional match than in a strategic exchange.

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Some times I wonder if you understand MAD at all, it doesn't matter if the US or Russia can nuke the existent out of a nation with a smaller stock pile. Basically, the fall out and nuclear winter from just the US/Russia's nukes will kill off most of the population in the world including those residing in the USA or Russia.

So I don't understand why you think the US have the upper hand when it can nuke the entire worlds population out of existent doesn't show an advantage to China whom can nuke the entire world population out of existent less than one time.... the fact that the destruction, depletion of ozone, fallout, mutation will render the USA something other than what we can recognize today if she so chooses to nuke China out of existent.

Lezt said:

.... the fact that the destruction, depletion of ozone, fallout, mutation will render the USA something other than what we can recognize today if she so chooses to nuke China out of existent.

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Lezt, you're talking the Last Day of some sort, but there has been plenty of tactical nuclear weapons; their use would not necessarily lead to a retaliation with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, would it? (an example relevant to aircraft carriers: I just read (again) in a credible source that at the time of the breakdown of the USSR, just at the territory of Ukraine there were 1240 AS-4 "Kitchen" anti-ship missiles with as many as 416 nuclear warheads ready for them!)

Lezt said:

Some times I wonder if you understand MAD at all, it doesn't matter if the US or Russia can nuke the existent out of a nation with a smaller stock pile. Basically, the fall out and nuclear winter from just the US/Russia's nukes will kill off most of the population in the world including those residing in the USA or Russia.

So I don't understand why you think the US have the upper hand when it can nuke the entire worlds population out of existent doesn't show an advantage to China whom can nuke the entire world population out of existent less than one time.... the fact that the destruction, depletion of ozone, fallout, mutation will render the USA something other than what we can recognize today if she so chooses to nuke China out of existent.

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Sometimes I wonder if you understand how little relation your notion of power of small number of chinese nuclear weapons have with results from exhaustively analyzed cold war studies of what it takes to serious set back a large nation geared to fight and win a war involving limited nuclear exchange. The number of countervalue warsheads required to seriously set back la large power prepared to fight is meansured in the hundreds. The number of counterforce warshead required to make any difference is measured in the thousands. China has only dozens.

Furthermore, dozens of warheads is a tempting target for very effective counterforce first strike that can unleash thousands in the effort.

Even without any US preemptive counterforce strike, The US would still remain the superpower if it absorbs all china has to dish out in retaliation for being totally destroyed. US would be afterwards be other than what you can recognize only if your power of recognition is very low indeed.

I think some chinese flatter themselves with the pleasing connotation of the word "mutural". China is not there by a considerable margin. When China can deliver 1,000 warsheads anywhere in the US, it would have caught up to roughly where Soviet Union was in 1968. Then let's talk.