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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
SlothmanAllen said:
Another important thing to remember is that from the US perspective, its Air Force and Navy would be doing a lot of the heavy lifting for striking targets.
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This won't work in a China-US conflict in WestPac for the reasons below.


SlothmanAllen said:
Their strategy would be to degrade or destroy their enemies capability to utilize UAS like Shaheed.
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How can the US hope to hunt the launch trucks in mainland China?

SlothmanAllen said:
The situation Russia finds itself with in Ukraine is not how China and the United States wish to fight a war. They purchase the high-end systems and in numbers to avoid that type of conflict.
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There's a huge number of potential targets in mainland China (200k+? ), many deep in the Chinese interior. Plus consider the sheer density of air defence assets. You're looking at 150+ airbases in China.

In comparison, the US only has access to a handful of useful airbases which are too close to China, and a small number of carriers for striking at targets.

In an arms race, it is impossible for the US to buy enough long-range, high-end systems to win a conflict against China. Consider how China has a significantly larger economy in real terms, and is now matching or exceeding the US in terms of annual Naval and Air Force procurement. Also consider the USAF presentation with the example of a US hypersonic weapon being 20x more expensive than the Chinese equivalent.

In comparison, it is possible for China to pursue such a a high-end systems strategy because the potential target set (Taiwan, Korea and Japan) is far smaller and is within 1300km of mainland China. This is within range of airstrikes comprising heavyweight fighters such as the J-20, J-16, JH-7 and also the bombers. The Chinese Air Force would be aiming for air superiority over the Japanese Home Islands for example. Then UAS like Shaheed become far more useful. I think of them as JDAMs or SDBs that can fly to the target themselves.

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So in summary, the US shouldn't be wasting money on an air defence system which will easily be countered.
 
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SlothmanAllen

Junior Member
Registered Member
AndrewS said:
This won't work in a China-US conflict in WestPac for the reasons below.




How can the US hope to hunt the launch trucks in mainland China?



There's a huge number of potential targets in mainland China (200k+? ), many deep in the Chinese interior. Plus consider the sheer density of air defence assets. You're looking at 150+ airbases in China.

In comparison, the US only has access to a handful of useful airbases which are too close to China, and a small number of carriers for striking at targets.

In an arms race, it is impossible for the US to buy enough long-range, high-end systems to win a conflict against China. Consider how China has a significantly larger economy in real terms, and is now matching or exceeding the US in terms of annual Naval and Air Force procurement. Also consider the USAF presentation with the example of a US hypersonic weapon being 20x more expensive than the Chinese equivalent.

In comparison, it is possible for China to pursue such a a high-end systems strategy because the potential target set (Taiwan, Korea and Japan) is far smaller and is within 1300km of mainland China. This is within range of airstrikes comprising heavyweight fighters such as the J-20, J-16, JH-7 and also the bombers. The Chinese Air Force would be aiming for air superiority over the Japanese Home Islands for example. Then UAS like Shaheed become far more useful. I think of them as JDAMs or SDBs that can fly to the target themselves.

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So in summary, the US shouldn't be wasting money on an air defence system which will easily be countered.
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I don't really understand what the above has to do with Coyote II and c-UAS procurement in the US?
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
SlothmanAllen said:
I don't really understand what the above has to do with Coyote II and c-UAS procurement in the US?
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Where are the Coyote II going to be used?
In the context of WestPac and Russia, the Coyote II is likely to be an expensive speedbump.

And if we're talking about US procurement of UAS, it's highly unlikely that sufficient volumes can be launched to penetrate mainland China air defences, given the geography of the Western Pacific and imbalance in China-US military capability in this specific region.
 
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SlothmanAllen

Junior Member
Registered Member
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pmc

Major
Registered Member
SlothmanAllen said:
Another important thing to remember is that from the US perspective, its Air Force and Navy would be doing a lot of the heavy lifting for striking targets. Their strategy would be to degrade or destroy their enemies capability to utilize UAS like Shaheed. The situation Russia finds itself with in Ukraine is not how China and the United States wish to fight a war. They purchase the high-end systems and in numbers to avoid that type of conflict.
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China and United States are basically second tier powers if they start fighting like Russia is fighting this war. where you will find 20+ bombers simultaneously launching cruise missiles. its not the bombers but 10X other assets that are airborne at same time.
but most important part is Mideast dont US-China conflict but if such conflict did start they will do every thing to make it shorten which is opposite of this prolong European conflict.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
SlothmanAllen said:
The Coyote will be used to target higher threat level UAS systems at a greater range.
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Such a strategy of reserving Coyote for higher threat systems at longer range (which are therefore worth the cost of a Coyote munition) will not work in the Western Pacific or indeed with Russia.

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Suppose we take a single brigade with 24 launch trucks. With 5-pack pods like we see in Iran, they would be able to launch a wave of 120 Shaheed.

We could expect a few to be variants for surveillance and SEAD specifically tasked with hunting air defence units.

But from the perspective of a Coyote system, all you see are 120 Shaheeds loitering 20km away. Then a few of the standard Shaheeds make an attack run against fixed targets.

This forces the air defence units to reveal themselves to the surveillance Shaheeds.

Then some of the SEAD Shaheeds are tasked with destroying the air defence units, and they are hidden amongst a much larger number of standard Shaheeds.

Again, the air defence units cannot distinguish between the standard cheap Shaheeds and the SEAD ones.

Also consider how standard US JDAMs (which cost about the same as a Shaheed) can receive real-time targeting updates. So potentially standard Shaheeds are all capable of targeting any air defences.

So in summary, the Coyote interceptors cannot be reserved for higher level threats at longer distances, because they will be hunted by Shaheeds which are already flying above them.

And because air defence can't distinguish between different Shaheed variants, they have to treat them all as a threat.

If you redo the cost calculation with different mixes of standard and higher-cost variants of the Shaheed, the Coyotes still end up shooting down Shaheeds which cost 2-3x less.

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This is a Shaheed scenario, but logically, you would time a Shaheed strike with a manned airstrike, which would also include EW and SEAD aircraft which further complicates air defence.

Again, you have the same problem where you can have a few expensive SDB-2 glide bombs mixed in with large numbers of cheap $40K SDB-1 glide bombs. The air defences can't distinguish between them, but they can't allow the SDB-2 to get in close either. Again, the Coyote would end up firing mostly at cheaper SDB-1.

These are just outline scenarios, but you can redo for different permutations of drones and aircraft, and get similar results.

EDIT. DJI FPV-type drones have a stated range of 16km and cost <$500. So what happens if Shaheeds start deploying autonomous FPV drones as a payload at 16km? Is a Coyote going to "reserve" its missiles while FPV drones are racing in?
 
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HighGround

Senior Member
Registered Member
SlothmanAllen said:
I think attack-UAS are probably always going to outnumber counter-UAS. The Coyote is part of a larger system of systems that are both passive and active though, so defensive responsibilities don’t fall solely on it.
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Yeah, I think people are missing that very obvious factor. Coyote is just one more layer in the defense Onion.

SlothmanAllen said:
Another important thing to remember is that from the US perspective, its Air Force and Navy would be doing a lot of the heavy lifting for striking targets. Their strategy would be to degrade or destroy their enemies capability to utilize UAS like Shaheed. The situation Russia finds itself with in Ukraine is not how China and the United States wish to fight a war. They purchase the high-end systems and in numbers to avoid that type of conflict.
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To be honest, that's what I am most afraid of. We've never properly faced a modern IADS before. Iraq did not have anything as advanced as an S-300 really, and that's a pretty old system now.

IMO, the days of air blitzkrieg are gone, unless you're prepared to eat Gulf War level airframe losses or more. And against an opponent like China and Russia... that's not gonna cut it.
 
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