052D's and 055's UVLS may be loaded with quad-packed missiles and we are none the wiser.
Next Generation Destroyer thread (after 055, 052D)
- Thread starter ACuriousPLAFan
- Start date
I wouldn't be so sure this is a ding against the Marines, the expectation of a LHA is that the deployment of marines can be made much faster, and done further away from hostile land-based anti-ship missiles, thereby bolstering on-the ground defense until real help arrives. This made sense in 2001 if these LHA came from Kadena or Sasebo to re-enforce the Taiwan military. It made much less sense now. In addition, another problem is that it wasn't big enough to accommodate enough aircrafts that can provide both air support and manpower movement (imagine the space needed to support both V22 and F35B). The concept still make sense, and we see China's Type 76 sort of taking on that role, but providing air support and manpower movement using traditional marine amphibious components, albeit with each component being faster (type 05 and UCAVs) and more efficient space wise.
SLBM on a surface ship is considered as part of future PLAN anti-ship missile development according to this PPT. This is not providing any reasoning but rather why people are talking about it.
One thing that it provides is speed therefor hard to intercept that no conventional cruise missile can do. Even a hypersonic crusie missile if realized still have to cruise at very high altitude making it no better than a simpler antiship BM.
When a submarine shoots a torpedo doesn't it also give away its "precise location", thus making it vulnerable to an enemy counter attack? Using your logic does that mean attack submarines are also an illegitimate weapon system?
Anyways I believe the PLA navy should invest very heavily into "ballistic missile surface ships"
why?
anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) have very long ranges and are very fast. A fleet of surface ships armed with ASBM's would have the ability to attack an enemy from standoff ranges and also do it quickly.
Obviously advertising your "precise location" to the enemy in a war is disadvantageous but if it means you get to attack at such long ranges the enemy cannot counter attack.....sure why not?
Furthermore ASBM's have longer ranges than carrier based aviation.
So a fleet of surface ships armed with ASBM's being supported by drones providing ISR can, in theory, defeat a CBG.
I already answered that in the immediate next sentence in my post.
And while a SSBN is slow, it can keep hiding underwater, thus requiring assets in the immediate area for countering it. A surface ship is slow and cannot do that.
Why did you choose not to quote that too?
Torpedoes have very short ranges especially compared to missiles such as ASBM's.
Therefore submarines are forced to get uncomfortably close to their opponents, maybe only 30 miles away.
Once you fire your torpedoes it makes a lot of noise so congratulations you've just advertised your precise location to the enemy and you are dangerously close.
At this point what you are really depending on is the torpedoes to kill the enemy Not your stealth ability.
Yes stealth is a nice ability to have, but I think you are ridiculously over-valuing it while discounting long range capability.
I think there is room to have Both weapon systems:
a weapon system that has good stealth but poor range and also
a weapon system that has poor stealth but good range
Furthermore an argument can be made that with the advancements in drones and electronic sensors, stealth based technology is "yesterday's news". In a future confrontation between peer rivals I think any weapon system that relies on stealth as its primary attribute is going to seriously under-perform.
Torpedoes have zero bearing on what we are talking about. I was explaining why we are historically seeing ballistic missiles fielded by submarines, but NOT by surface combatants.
The main reason for that as I said is that it didn't make sense to give away the precise location of the firing ship. My argument is that it still doesn't, therefore I don't think we will be seeing said weapons fielded in VLS cells in major surface combatants any time soon. Planes and converted SSBNs, yes. Sea drones, maybe. But destroyers and cruisers, no.
Contrary to popular belief, ballistic warhead precision for ASBM purposes was not an much of an issue, due to the idea of potentially pairing S/IRBMs with nuclear warheads for the task at hand during the cold war, thus making high CEP mostly irrelevant. In other words, the reason we did not see ballistic missiles in ships was not that said missiles could not hit a moving target.
It was the fact that in a theater where ESM and ECM measures were king, and the whole idea was to hit someone without getting hit, giving away your precise location to IR space assets made zero sense. Especially with a force of 100 Tu-22Ms sporting AS-4/6s running at you.
There were some exceptions of course, but mostly weird stuff, like the Long Beach and Albany cruisers "fitted for, but not with" with eight Polaris tubes but never fielding said weapons, or....
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I think this is where you and I - agree to disagree.
You seem to be under this misguided belief that you can run on stealth mode on a surface ship and hide from the enemy.
You are wrong.
With today's satellites, drones, and sensor technology any ship that floats on water and is larger than a frigate will get detected.
Even if you do not fire a ballistic missile giving off a major IR heat signature the enemy can still find you using SAR - radar.
Furthermore in a wartime scenario surface combatants will be traveling in large groups making them even easier to detect.
what's the difference between IR detection of a VLS launch for an ASBM vs. an VLS launch for a SAM? None, the temperature contrast is similar.
and IR detection is still suppressed by cloud cover, regardless of the conditions.
there is no additional risk IMO.
From a historical perspective, a ballistic launch profile a priori ensured that a missile was detected during the boost phase at worst as it broke cloud cover. In other words, this was never a big issue.
I say historically, because today modern space based EO sensors are somewhat indifferent to weather conditions (due to precise measuring of plume sodium/potassium radiance, among other methods).
No, the detectability and traceability of an IRBM IR source from space is not remotely similar to that of a SAM. Having said that, yes there is still a thread of detection, which is why - historically and in a modern context - in times of war all assets follow very strict signal and emission discipline measures.
And this is somewhat irrelevant anyway, since both today and historically ballistic missile launches are not detected by this method only, for obvious reasons. We are getting off-topic though.
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