6 052Cs or 3 051/052Bs load 48 missiles, not 64.
Also, that's why I said "theoretically". In a shooting war where the 052C/D has enough warning so that it is engaging enemy missiles at long range, there is plenty of time to assign only one missile per target and reassess the target after the initial missile makes contact.
As for SEAD, it's all or none, meaning you either destroyed your target or you didn't. It wouldn't take 3 missiles just because SEAD was there. It would still only take either 1-2 missiles or it would take none, because SEAD already killed its target.
Antiradiation missiles in the case of naval engagements are effectively the same as any other standard ASCM as far as air defense missiles are concerned. It's not like a ship is somehow more or less vulnerable to antiradiation missiles compared to ASCMs. Actually probably less since they are almost invariably air-launched which means the defending ship/radar can easily identify them and at longer ranges.
Where did I say the ASuW capabilities of the 051B or 052B are "not effective"? I have said that they are LESS effective against modern adversaries like the US and Japan, and also more than enough for most ASEAN navies.
Yes it will be rare, which is why a single ship with 8 more missiles than another is not huge in the grand scheme of things. You don't need those 8 extra if you are dealing with ASEAN opponents, and 8 extra will be wholly insufficient if you are dealing with the US or with Japan. Besides, the PLAN will soon have only 5 ships (051B, 2x 052s, 2x 052Bs) that load 16 antiship missiles, as the rest of the Ludas are rapidly being phased out of service in the next few years. Most modern destroyers only load 8 ASCMs if they even carry any at all.
Ships like the Slava with its rows upon rows of antiship missile canisters are almost anachronistic at this point in naval warfare history. I'm not saying 16 ASCMs on a ship are somehow definitely wrong, just that they are not as important as they used to be in the face of modern network centric air defense and advanced combat management systems where an attacker literally needs several hundred ASCMs to be able to penetrate such a defense.
Well, since there has never been such a confrontation...and we can all hope and pray there never will be...the statement that it would take several hundred ASCM to penetrate such a defense is simply not known.
My own guess, having spent many years analyzing it and having worked extensively in the industry earlier in my own career, is that it will not take anything approaching several hundred in a huge mass attack to penetrate a battle groups defense...with this caviat...once the attacking entitity actually knows for sure where the battle group is and can target it..
Several groups of a dozen modern missiles coming in from different azimuths simultaneously are apt to have quite a few of one or more of those groups get through.
The key, as I say, is being able to get the platforms close enough in, with strong enough targeting of the actual vessels to be able to effectively launch such an attack.
Both the active and the passive counter measures that nations like the US and other top tier countries have, along with the C4ISR to activate and effectively communicate with them all bfore the attacking entity actually knows where you are becomes the key. and that is not an easy thing to do, even for an advanced near peer attacker.
But, once an enemy who can get, say 72 modern missiles that they can launch from six different point on the compass simultaneously at the heart of the battle group (or at least arriving simultaneously), is going to have, IMHO, a strong chance of doing some serious damage.
But that's just my own thoughts on the matter...and if you were taking all of that into account, then fine, we are probably closer to agreement than not. Bit to me, until you have that solid location, launching missiles by the hundreds is a wasit anyway.
Now, if they one day truly do develop missiles that are intelligent enough to be hunters, and you could launch a couple of dozen long range, high altitude, hyper velocity missiles that could get that info for you, without getting the you know what jammed out of them before they got the inf from an E-2D or other asset way out on the peripheral of a threat axis...then maybe you could locate them easier.
But as I just demonstrated...a CBG commander is going to have his bases covered with assets that can keep that from happening once the balloons go up if he can.
As I say, the key s being able to get those launchers that close, with solid G2 about the absolute location of the group. Until that happens...its not an easy thing to do at all.
Anyhow, we're talking about a lot of what ifs. There are some good simulators out there...but all of them are programmed with the best what if info we can give them.
We have only a very few examples of modern naval missile exchanges...and then we have the SINKEXs we perform all the time. But nothing that truly tells us what we really need to know to perfect what we re talking about.
As t is, I believe AEGIS, and probably the UKs solutions are the best out there given what info we have...and everyone wants to figure out how to break them.
