Anti-Ship missiles effectiveness...

[D-Scythe]

Sure, the Moscow or Burke would've detected the Mirage F1, and may have shot it down, but more likely, it would've held its fire. I mean, the Persian Gulf is not an empty place - it's *extremely* busy, with tons of traffic in the sea and in the air. The guys on board would've just as easily shot down a civilian jet if they were not careful - take the USS Vincennes incident as an example.

 

Take the facts: the strait is tiny, with maybe only 20-25 miles from the Iranian shore. ROE complicated things. The Mirage could've hid in the ground clutter - the Exocets could've been launched over land for all they knew. There was also a *war* going on between Iraq and Iran, so military traffic wouldn't have been out of the ordinary. It's not that ship cannot engage, but rather *would* not engage. Look what happened after: people became scared, and then an Aegis cruiser blasts an airliner out of the sky.

 

Unless they were expecting it, or at least knew where to look for it, chances are any ship would've been hit. CIWS may have got one, maybe both, but personally, I'd rather splash missiles BVR than resort to CIWS.

[SUBS17]

A current AAW A/Burke with multiple VLS should knock down 24 missiles with SM-2MR Block 4, with little difficulty ... now, if you used >50 very fast ASW missiles it might have a problem killing all of them in time, but the system can effectively engage 100+ targets simultaneously. Coordinated multi-axis attack should also not offer any significant advantages against an A/Burke DDG (in fact it maybe better to use just a single axis of attack). The two VLS launcher packs can launch 90 SM-2MR missiles (normal load-out - 122 max load), at a rate of 2 per second (1 per sec from each launcher). You need a large airforce and some luck to sink just one of these ships, and the USN will have 57 in service by 2008 (was suppose to be by 2004 but was delayed by the US congress).

 

There were 27 Triconderogas in service in 1994, 22 with Mk41 VLS, and 5 original vessels with high launch surge Mk26 VLS system. If they were modelled correctly you would practically never sink one of these in a Lock On mission.

 

It depends on what version of Ticonderroga that you're talking about, I'm sure the one in Lockon is the older version. I'm also scepticle that this ship can release that many missiles in that amount of time. Remember that there are delays in reloading no matter how efficient the system is.

[D-Scythe]

Sub, the VLS system *completely* eliminates the reload problem ;) On the Tico, there are 127 missile VLS cells, each with one SM-2, and all 127, being independent of each other, can theoretically launch their missiles at the same time.

 

It's like having 127 guns, each with one bullet, as opposed to having one gun, with 127 bullets. That's the concept behind VLS.

[CanadaDave]

Your alluding to USS Stark, right?

 

That OHP used SM-1s and much older and less capable radars, and the Stark's CIWS was not even functional when it left port (which fact came out during the inquiry into why the Iraqi's two exocets struck home without being fired upon by the CIWS).

 

IIRC, the ship's captain had ordered the Phalanx system switched off since it kept firing for no good reason... Not exactly something you want happening...

 

The Stark incident has nothing to do with the efficacy of the AEGIS system, though it does show why you might want one around....

[Kula66]

can theoretically launch their missiles at the same time.

I think that a launch all at the same time would not be possible ... the missile would interfere with each other ... they are very closely packed and you have to vent exhaust gas etc ... I've seen a video of 3 shots at about 1 sec intervals ...

 

James

[Kula66]

It depends on what version of Ticonderroga that you're talking about, I'm sure the one in Lockon is the older version.

Definately the newer version ... the launch rails on bow/stern are unmistakable!

 

James

[BIOLOG]

Hm, when you say that Burke will have no problem shooting 24 missiles down, you missed one small point... SM-2 at their very best will only be about 50% effective against incoming vimpires. So... If its P-500 :) ...

 

Btw, can someone tell me how would missile radio fuse differentiate between target and water? Since some new sea skimmers fly at about 3 meters....

[Ayane]

Oh btw, did they implement the Kh-15C kickback into the game, the missile is presently in 1.02 but does not have an icon, an no Russian Aircraft can use it.. So i was wondering did they enable the Kh-15C kicback onto the Tu-22M3 in 1.1 FC?

[zzzspace]

Hm, when you say that Burke will have no problem shooting 24 missiles down, you missed one small point... SM-2 at their very best will only be about 50% effective against incoming vimpires. So... If its P-500 :) ...

 

Btw, can someone tell me how would missile radio fuse differentiate between target and water? Since some new sea skimmers fly at about 3 meters....

 

Hi Biolog, closeness to water in regard to a naval missile's fusing will matter not at all, for a wavelength would be selected which water absorbs and does not reflect significantly, some radar wavelengths can see into the water column and are simply absorbed (same for laser fuses), yet the metallic missile presents a comparatively hard wave bounce obstacle for differentiation from water.

 

The fusing will work fine, the main complication I perceive will be if incoming missiles are using chaff, plus the multiple radar blooms from showers of debris from previous kills, which might muddy the radar picture and the SPY-1 radar’s ability to resolve which are the actual targets, i.e. if all incoming missiles arrived down approx the same bearing corridor then as little as a quarter of the radar overal resolving power could be available to sort out target from decoys or debris (but all CPU power will be available to the filtering).

[Rysi]

Your alluding to USS Stark, right?

 

That OHP used SM-1s and much older and less capable radars, and the Stark's CIWS was not even functional when it left port (which fact came out during the inquiry into why the Iraqi's two exocets struck home without being fired upon by the CIWS).

 

Irrelevant. It was facing a pair of dated subsonic ASMs fired by an obvious threat that was tracked and identified by both the OHP and an AWACs --- a situation well within the alleged capabilities of the OHP’s defensive systems. Furthermore, statements made by the TacOps officer clearly indicated that the Phalanx system was readied against the potent threat.

 

Anyway, the point is that the claim that a Tico could deal with 50 supersonic sea-skimmers simultaneously is not rational. Even discounting the previous failures against small numbers of massively inferior ASMs, as well as the extreme difficulty of successful interception of an incoming Mach2+ low-rcs sea-skimming missile that is performing terminal evasive maneuvers, there is simply no chance a Tico could even launch a fraction of the necessarily interceptors in the handful of seconds between the time the missiles are detected coming over the horizon (if they even are) and impact.

 

Unfortunately, Lockon doesn’t model curvature of the earth and so sea-skimmers are detected and engaged much further out than they could be IRL, which balances things out somewhat against the limited use of interceptor missiles in game (which is probably done for performance reasons).

[169th_DedCat]

It depends on what version of Ticonderroga that you're talking about, I'm sure the one in Lockon is the older version.

 

Whatever version is in the game, it and every other ship in LOMAC are most often sunk by folks flying below 10 m and dropping a pair of FAB-500s on them. That's really silly and has always irritated me.

[BIOLOG]

GRRR I should have thought of that... Being an idiot sorry.

[CanadaDave]

Irrelevant. It was facing a pair of dated subsonic ASMs fired by an obvious threat that was tracked and identified by both the OHP and an AWACs --- a situation well within the alleged capabilities of the OHP’s defensive systems. Furthermore, statements made by the TacOps officer clearly indicated that the Phalanx system was readied against the potent threat.

 

Care to share your sources on that? Your information seems rather detailed and contradicts any account I've seen.

 

Every account I've read has something being not right with the Phalanx system. I seem to recall the captain being severely criticized for it in the aftermath.

 

Either way, you're still comparing apples and oranges. It's still has no bearing on what the AEGIS system can or cannot do. Other than the fact that both the OHP and AEGIS are US technology.

[D-Scythe]

Anyway, the point is that the claim that a Tico could deal with 50 supersonic sea-skimmers simultaneously is not rational. Even discounting the previous failures against small numbers of massively inferior ASMs, as well as the extreme difficulty of successful interception of an incoming Mach2+ low-rcs sea-skimming missile that is performing terminal evasive maneuvers, there is simply no chance a Tico could even launch a fraction of the necessarily interceptors in the handful of seconds between the time the missiles are detected coming over the horizon (if they even are) and impact.

 

Unfortunately, Lockon doesn’t model curvature of the earth and so sea-skimmers are detected and engaged much further out than they could be IRL, which balances things out somewhat against the limited use of interceptor missiles in game (which is probably done for performance reasons).

 

Get your facts straight:

 

1. The curvature of the earth only hides sea-skimmers for about 40 nm (depending on how high the radar is mounted up), then they are on their own. Even the newest Russian supersonic cruise missiles cannot cover 40 nm faster than 127 SM-2s can be launched.

 

2. What failures against inferior ASMs? The SM-1 in the Stark incident is a late 1960s-1970s weapon - the SM-2MR in the game is a mid-late 1980s weapon, and has never been used against ASMs.

 

3. Evasive terminal manouvers conducted by the latest Russian ASMs are only done in the terminal stage, and is intended as a defense against CIWS only. Otherwise, it would burn up way too much range.

 

I would like to see some solid facts next time ;)

[Rysi]

 

Care to share your sources on that? Your information seems rather detailed and contradicts any account I've seen.

 

Every account I've read has something being not right with the Phalanx system. I seem to recall the captain being severely criticized for it in the aftermath.

 

Note that I did not say anything on the system's operational status. The TacOps officer clearly had no idea that the system "was not working properly" (which was the claim by the Bahrain tech guys). How the system was "not working properly" and yet appeared to function normally for the crew is a curiosity. As always with these things, you can believe whatever you want (either that there really was a problem with the system or that this was just used as an excuse for the failure of the system in intercepting the missiles). As for Brindel's demotion (or whatever it was, I can't remember), the USN needed a scapegoat and got one, IMO. Someone needed to pay for the lives of 37 Americans, and it couldn't be Saddam since he was an ally…

 

Either way, you're still comparing apples and oranges. It's still has no bearing on what the AEGIS system can or cannot do. Other than the fact that both the OHP and AEGIS are US technology.

value

 

I think you've missed the point… which is that claims that are even beyond the alleged capabilities of the system (like taking down 50 supersonic sea-skimmers) carry little weight. Older systems (although in some cases the same or older models of Phalanx or SM-1/SM-2) were unable to cope with situations that were within the supposed capabilities of those systems. Whether AEGIS can do what some say it can is in serious question due to this and many other reasons. Simply put, I don't believe anyone here has any authority to say that the Ticonderoga in Lockon should be able to successfully intercept a Moskit all the time (let alone several dozen simultaneously) or never at all. There is no real-world precedent, and so ED has to make up their own minds based on the data they have. zzzspace believes the system can do even better than claimed. I am pessimistic due to the failures of previous systems, the fact that these newer ASMs are specifically designed to defeat AEGIS, as well as the other reasons I've noted.

 

1. The curvature of the earth only hides sea-skimmers for about 40 nm (depending on how high the radar is mounted up), then they are on their own. Even the newest Russian supersonic cruise missiles cannot cover 40 nm faster than 127 SM-2s can be launched.

 

Either the Ticonderoga has a huge invisible radar mast that only you seem to know about, or we are living on different planets. Here's a fact for you: get a calculator and do some math!

 

2. What failures against inferior ASMs? The SM-1 in the Stark incident is a late 1960s-1970s weapon - the SM-2MR in the game is a mid-late 1980s weapon, and has never been used against ASMs.

 

Not mentioning the relationship between the SM-1 and SM-2… you're actually helping my argument here. There is no reason to believe that an SM-2 could consistently intercept any of the mentioned supersonic ASMs when it has never been faced with anything in their class.

 

3. Evasive terminal manouvers conducted by the latest Russian ASMs are only done in the terminal stage, and is intended as a defense against CIWS only. Otherwise, it would burn up way too much range.

 

Not only do you fail to realize that the maneuvers begin well outside of the CIWS range, but that range/fuel is virtually a non-factor for a 300 km ranged ASM. You do know that they aren't 300 km ranged just to shoot at that range? Nobody does… fuel for 300 km is needed for the waypoints and maneuvers required in a sophisticated attack on a CVBG. Not only that, any decent modern ASM can be equipped with a (relatively) cheap CW detector and perform maneuvers automatically when it detects an attack.

 

 

I would like to see some solid facts next time

 

Yeah, from you. One only needs to look at the first page of this thread to see that you have a total lack of knowledge in this topic. Let me quote:

 

 

No, that's incorrect. Subsonic missiles are just as hard to intercept as supersonic cruise missiles. Supersonic cruise missiles seek to reduce the time it takes for a ship to react to it by flying really fast...subsonic cruise missiles does the same by flying lower and are generally much stealthier. Both designs have pros and cons.

 

Fortunately JJ was around to correct you on that…

 

Oh and this is the last post of yours I'm going to bother responding to.

[D-Scythe]

Either the Ticonderoga has a huge invisible radar mast that only you seem to know about, or we are living on different planets. Here's a fact for you: get a calculator and do some math!

 

I'm getting the idea that you don't know what a Ticonderoga looks like. Lemme help you out - here's a pic:

 

 

See those SPY phased array radar antennae? They're the hexagonal shaped things in case you don't know.

 

Not only do you fail to realize that the maneuvers begin well outside of the CIWS range, but that range/fuel is virtually a non-factor for a 300 km ranged ASM.

 

I'm not going to even respond to this one. Range/Fuel is not a factor? Range/Fuel is *always* a factor.

 

Not mentioning the relationship between the SM-1 and SM-2… you're actually helping my argument here. There is no reason to believe that an SM-2 could consistently intercept any of the mentioned supersonic ASMs when it has never been faced with anything in their class.

 

Do some research buddy. The only things that the SM-1 and the SM-2 share is their shapes. Hell, SM-1 isn't even an Aegis weapon.

 

Oh and this is the last post of yours I'm going to bother responding to.

 

You never seem to have solid information, or worse, logic, to back up your claims anyway. No big loss.

[Alfa]

Guys calm down please.

 

It would be a shame to have one of the few naval discussion threads around here turn into a flame war :) .

 

- JJ.