I didn’t really understand it until I noticed the seriousness in the source’s eyes. I hadn’t given it much thought recently, what with all the other stuff going on around us … MRAP, Air Force shakeup, body armor, tanker — you name it.
But when the far-ranging discussion we were having came around to the subject of aircraft carriers, this guy said (and I paraphrase) “you think carriers are irrelevant in a contested environment now, just wait til someone gets an anti-ship ballistic missile capability. That’ll be a game-changer.”
To me, this seemed implausible. Shooting a ballistic missile at a moving ship?
“Did you see the ASAT test? That was 10-times more difficult,” he replied. “And they’re a lot closer than anyone thinks.”
He wouldn’t tell me the country that’s so close to getting this capability, but it’s not hard to guess which one it is.
From the 2008 Chinese Military Power report:
China is developing an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) based on a variant of the CSS-5 medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) as a component of its anti-access strategy. The missile has a range in excess of 1,500 km and, when incorporated into a sophisticated command and control system, is a key component of Chinas anti-access strategy to provide the PLA the capability to attack ships at sea, including aircraft carriers, from great distances.
That’s subtle — not a whole lot there. But my guy tells me this country that he would not mention could plausibly demonstrate that capability “very soon.”
According to our friends at Globalsecurity.org:
Work is believed to be ongoing to provide this missile with a sophisticated terminal guidance system. According to some reports the Mod 2 version of the CSS-5 will be comparable to the US Pershing II IRBM, employ advanced radar guidance to achieve extremely high accuracy.
Now, here’s what it means: carriers must stay at least 1000 miles off this enemy’s coast. Think how that affects strike planning, surveillance, rescue…any number of factors that go into naval aviation planning. And how do you defend against such a strike? I’m not sure about all the details, but it seems to me there’s a pretty short flight time in which to generate a solution for an anti-ballistic missile interceptor. Maybe ABL could handle this one, but how many can it shoot down at any one time? A salvo of even five or 10 of these could be devistating.
Another source tells me there have been tests of the system but they have so far been unsuccessful. But the source also told me the Russians might have recently delivered a key component to the Chinese to make this system more effective.
We’ll have more on this as it develops and I’ll be interested to see what DT readers might be able to add on this…
– Christian
{ 69 comments… read them below or add one }
An anti-ship ballistic missile isn’t new. The Soviet Union developed the SS-X-N-13 (also designated SS-NX-13 in the West) as a submarine-launched anti-ship ballistic missile. Its second stage was designed to be re-started if necessary to permit terminal maneuvers. Details may be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/5qq8fc
http://tinyurl.com/55h55n
If the Russians have supplied the second-stage rocket technology and/or guidance system from this missile to China, it’d certainly make the development of a land-based IRBM with anti-ship capability a whole lot easier.
Peter
Doesn’t an Aegis equipped Cruiser with the ABM missiles onboard pretty much negate this weapon from being useful against any of our Carrier Taskforces?
I would have thought us shooting down a satelite in low earth orbit as a demonstration to the Chinese that we know they are working on an Anti-ship BM and we already can counter it.
This reminds me of:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002465.html
Except an inverse scenario. So.. why exactly do we need countermeasures?
We already have a nice deterrent:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/ssbn-726.htm
Shorter range ballistic missiles are slower than ICBMs so they should be a lot easier to shoot down. If the ABM tests and development continue, by the time we have to use carriers against China, the fleet should be well protected.
Second, even if China does get some capability, I refuse to accept that they will have guidance capable of high probability hits considering all the variables involved. The Chinese would need to know where the carrier was, its heading, and speed, at the time of launch. How would it get this information? Then it fires the ballistic missile to intercept. If the carriers don’t maintain the same speed and heading, and they likely wouldn’t considering they would be aware of the potential threats (from subs and cruise missiles as well), then this ballistic missile will show up pointed in the general vicinity of the carrier, right?
But the missile won’t come close to actually hitting the carrier without additional guidance. This means the missile will need to use radar. The radar would be detected, could be jammed, and would make interception that much easier. Second, any missile that must maneuver must slow down. If the missile is moving at very high speed, its maneuverability will be very limited. The slower the missile bears down on the carrier, the easier it will be for the carrier to intercept it.
There is also the possibility that the Chinese attempt to use a spotter, like a submarine, and use some kind of GPS type guidance, but in any hot war with China, any Chinese attempt at GPS would be shut down early on.
Finally, the common sense approach: If anti-ship ballistic missiles were really the most successful, then why doesn’t the US have any? Why hasn’t Russia placed more emphasis on the technology? It looks like China will try to get this technology working, but it also appears that the main thrust of China’s efforts to attack US carriers will continue to be submarines and anti-ship cruise missiles.
Question: If the warhead comes in at a high angle, will that be higher than the ability of the CIWS to angle up for intercept?
Because if enough missiles are launched, and the AEGIS screen is overwhelmed and SAMs run out, or are outnumbered, will the gatlings be able to hit them? I know they are great for cruise missles and the like, but haven’t seen just how far up they are able to reach.
This could also be a good incentive for the USN to use UAVs as IR and Radar targets in the event of an attack. If they had the ability to produce a large radar and IR signature, or deploy additional chaff, then it would be a relatively cheap and simple means to confuse incoming missiles. Far cheaper than losing one of our ships, at any rate.
An aircraft carrier would not seem the most likely target to me. As others have noted, aircraft carrier groups have the most effective point defense, missile defense systems in the world, anywhere.
On the other hand, as Robert Downey Jr. playing Mr. Stark notes in the recent Iron Man movie, a weapon you use one with great effect can eliminate the need to use it again. An anti-ship ballistic missile destroying an oil tanker eight hundred miles away, en route to Japan, for example, could have immense impact on commerce to Pacific Rim countries.
If China has enough low altitude satellites with real time cameras, it could track major surface vessels in real time visually (or via thermal/IR/passive radar) allowing for instant guidance of a missile.
But this would require a fleet of LEO satellites, a sophisticated command and control apparatus beaming info either to the warhead itself or control center (all open to jamming or countermeasures).
As others noted, even if the missile was able to adjust its course, a carrier moving at 40 knots would make a much harder target to hit than most think so the chi-coms would have to use nuclear warheads to assure a kill and that brings up MAD doctrine. If they ‘kill’ a carrier (6,000 US service personnel) they’d be asking for a complete take down of their entire Navy, Airforce, and Rocket force. They are more vunerable to infrastructure degrading attacks than we are….
I find it amusing how peopel keep beating the war with china drum. Been going since 1996.
I do not remember the US and Britain fighting a war in the late 1800′s…even though there was a constant drumbeat for war by jingoists on both sides of the pond.
Yeah I don’t understand the fear of China, capitalism has obviously taken root in China, I think people will start seeing China differently after the Olympics.
Iskander-M might already have such a capability.
.
The only real defense against such an attack are
- keep the position of the CVBG unknown (very difficult after a couple of days)
- intercept the missile with dedicated ATBM-capable SAMs like Standard SM-3.
.
The mere ability to intercept doesn’t tell anything about the ability to protect a fleet, though. The price of a single CVN alone without air component equals hundreds or thousands such missiles. Saturation attacks would easily overwhelm the defense, as a typical single CVBG cannot have muh more than 200 interceptor missiles ready (likely just dozens).
.
Even if enough interceptor missiles were available, some TBMs would slip through and CVBGs would be even more inefficient air power platforms (already 10x as expensive per sortie as land-based air power).
.
In short: The pendulum swings towards offense, it’s understandable why the forces are so fixated on ATBM technology and much of the future air power will be untouched by F-22-alike systems.
Ah but we need to cut defense spending and and that horrid missile defense after all if there were no guns no one would ever kill anyone!
all hail the OBAMA!!!!!!!
seriously though..what if they arm these things with nukes you think any nation but ours would be sickend that they nuked 6 to 10 thousand sailors and marines in a carrier group?
Realy, realy need to hurry up on that missile defense crusier
Yeah I don’t understand the fear of China, capitalism has obviously taken root in China, I think people will start seeing China differently after the Olympics.
Posted by: Jeff M at June 24, 2008 02:48 PM
I find it amusing how peopel keep beating the war with china drum. Been going since 1996.
I do not remember the US and Britain fighting a war in the late 1800′s…even though there was a constant drumbeat for war by jingoists on both sides of the pond.
Posted by: Joe at June 24, 2008 02:08 PM
Considering the BENEVOLENT chinese sell weapons to iran and i have no doubt they wouldnt stop even if we went to war with iran. Also wouldnt put it past them to be selling to insurgents in iraq and afghanistan. They already sell to iran as does russia. So you write the letters to the mothers, father, wives, husbands, and children of the dead. After all all the people of the world will come together and love one another if we just hope and wish enough.
If a missle like this had a nuclear-tipped warhead, it wouldn’t even have to hit the ship. All it would have to do is explode with in 50 miles of the fleet and the shockwave would do the rest. If like 10 were fired at a fleet, could the Angues stop all of them? I don’t kno alot about the system. Does it take into acount the idea of multiple missles? or does it send everything it has a the first one it detects?
James, China sells weapons to Iran? So what?
China invaded another country illegally for the last time in 1979, Iran did so round 1729.
USA: 2003.
What is the speed of this missile? If it travels at Mach 3,or even just above Mach 2.5,would the speed alone make it hard for our AEGIS systems to pick it up? We have the Harpoon & the Tomahawk which are subsonic cruise missiles.The French Exocet is also subsonic.The Russians,Chinese,& Indians have been working on supersonic anti-ship missiles for a long time now.The Russians & Chinese have been selling their supersonic anti-ship missiles to Iran.
That Chinese ballistic anti-ship missile only needs to be launched from a Kilo/Song(remember the Song class submarine that trailed the Kitty Hawk,more than once,& even surfaced unexpected right in the middle of an exercise of U.S. Naval ships?0 Class diesel submarine & if it is supersonic,plus nuclear tipped,it will hit any ship it is aimed at before the ship could react.Don’t forget that we have greatly reduced our anti-submarine capabilities & made our ships very vulnerable.Also,China could launch those missiles from their “civilian” class merchant ships.Nobody would expect a civilian Panamax/Post-Panamax cargo ship that normally carries goods to sell in Walmart to launch an anti-ship missile all of a sudden.If it is a supersonic missile,the ship hit would be sunk before the crew even knew what happened.
Kravkid510
i cant remember the sight i read it on but the navy once did a senerio to test the ability of acarrier group against a low tech foregin navy(IRAN). A Marine corps officer was given the task…He blew up a Carrier and a few other ships i think cant remember specifics….but what he saw was a flaw in the missile defense simply send 30 anti ship missiles against a system desgined to combat 10-20 and you can win
Dude darth i dont think China would attack us for no reason i fear they could for a variety of reasons think
1)i dont believe in global warming but think of the droughts and food shortages predicted by retarded and biased media scientist and political converts to holy mother gia. China has a billion ppl to feed your telling me they wouldnt use there military power to get the food to feed there people? there families?
2) I do believe in a phenomena that is far better scientificly factual and far less understood the reduced activity of our sun less solar activity less energy/heat.
last time it was this inactive was when nepoleon invaded russia and ruined crops from all over the world. we should realy feel it in say 4 yrs at most.
3)Awar in the middleast triggers massive shortages in oil threatining a new chinese ecconomy China sends its troops to africa and the middle eat to take posession of these resorces.
ok look cause i suck at this consperacy theorist thing let me stop and just say this how could a people so advanced and coming up with so much skill and such a bright future ever go to war for territory or power?….i imagine the world was asking that about the germans in 1939 such a nice polite ppl which i have no doubt most chinese are. Think about it this way before the nazies started there march germany was given a peice of the now check republic…muchlike tiwan
ok im done beware of black choppers where your tinfoil hates EVERYWHERE and remember….the man is watching……lol
brave soldat shwejk lecture: “how to find big aircarrier in a ocean”
send out some cheap chips with triangle location antenas and shoot your balistic rocets on the biggest moving source of millitary digital comunication in the ocean.
just be sure to hit the right frequences.
If the Chinese think they can sink a ship with a bowel movement, I say let them try.
To the poster “Kaltes”:
You wrote: “If the carriers don’t maintain the same speed and heading, and they likely wouldn’t considering they would be aware of the potential threats… then this ballistic missile will show up pointed in the general vicinity of the carrier, right?”
I don’t give that Chinese missile more than 20 minutes to cover those 1.500 kilometers (that means a speed of 4.500 km/h, and even that’s a rather modest value). In the meantime, a (purely theoretically) 100 km/h fast aircraft carrier would only travel another 33 kilometers in any direction – he would barely make it behind the protecting horizon, and I expect the incoming warhead’s radar to cover a bit more than just a radius of 33 kilometers around the designated impact point too. Sincerely: With a sufficiently strong nuclear warhead (hydrogen) you don’t even need to know which way that whole carrier group turned after the missile’s launch only a few minutes ago, you don’t need any terminal guidance for that missile warhead at all, not even if every single U.S. ship immediately dispersed at 100 km/h! Or do you really expect “aircraft carriers to survive nuclear wars”?
If in doubt, just use three warheads on the same missile! (Who cares?)
You wrote: “Second, any missile that must maneuver must slow down.”
And how does a missile (= its last, diving stage) brake in plain flight?
You wrote: “If the missile is moving at very high speed, its maneuverability will be very limited.”
Considering a missile’s speed, any aircraft carrier is practically static as an island, so there won’t be really much to “maneouvre” in the final moments. It’s an unequal dogfight.
You wrote: “…in any hot war with China, any Chinese attempt at GPS would be shut down early on.”
Pearl Harbour: That’s what I recommend to the Chinese.
You wrote: “Finally, the common sense approach: If anti-ship ballistic missiles were really the most successful, then why doesn’t the US have any?”
(“Common sense” and “U.S.A.” in one phrase?!) Why didn’t the U.S.A. have the first men gliding down from the skies under parachutes, the first sloped armour for their tanks, the first satellites in Space or the first hyper-speed torpedoes either (= Soviet inventions, all of them) ?
Because they “know” how to invest their money in military R. & D., better than the Communists or than the (original) Nazis?
”
James, China sells weapons to Iran? So what?
China invaded another country illegally for the last time in 1979, Iran did so round 1729.
USA: 2003.
Posted by: Sven Ortmann at June 24, 2008 05:09 PM
”
Iran could be understandable but the ANDS is what sets the pattern.
-Myanmar Junta(Burma) – tens of thousands dead millions suffering.
-North Korea – hundreds of thousands STARVING to death millions more suffering
-Zimbabwe Mugabe – thousands starving to death in the onetime food exporter. Millions suffering
-POL POT millions slaughtered for one mans insanity
-Serbia Milosevic(Balkan War) – hundreds of thousands slaughtered
-Sudan – Hundreds of thousands slaughtered and counting
Those are just the dictators China supported or supports as they slaughter their own people. If we open the range a bit just to dictators anti-democratic autocratic governments, the list becomes easier to just mention who is not on the list.
Come to think of it can anyone name one recent dictator not supplied by Chicom weapons and support?
I don’t believe war is inevitable or destine with China. However I firmly believe a wise choice would be to prepare for war (maintain over match) and hope for peace.
I wouldn’t be too worried. The real grail is speed of light sytems, hypersonic missiles and rail technology which all can defeat ballistic missiles once perfected.
Our only worry is what political forces here will derail our efforts. I guess it isn’t hard to understand why our adversaries hail Obama as the new American Gorby.
And I won’t waste my time listing all the firsts for American technology. And let’s be clear that a steerable ballistic warhead is a violation of international agreements. Chinese military efforts have clearly shattered norms. Add this threat to neutron bombs and anti-sat weapons.
FreeFall, are you advocating a pre-emptive strike on the US by China? Is that what you think is sane? LOL
We’ll be fine with respect to China as long as we maintain a peace through superior firepower position.
Of course, the traitor Obama has publicly vowed to gut investment in future weapons system, so that might be harder than it seems.
Come to think of it can anyone name one recent dictator not supplied by Chicom weapons and support?
holy crap you have a point……..oh i know the ones supported by iran!!
ok why cant we have an empire when everyone ele does and were nicer?
and jim has a point how many wars have we averted by looking so damn Powerful? isnt it better to scare away a threat before it begins…but oh hes just a damn chicogo polotician he doesnt have to fight
Besides the “Shanghai Pact” nations,there is the possibility of the GUAM Organization(Georgia,the Ukraine,Azerbaijan,& Moldova) uniting with them(the “Shanghai Pact”) along with Turkey,who is standing on shaky ground & is getting very tired of other EU members refusing their entry into the EU.Then,there are the African nations allied with(& colonized by) China.All together,they may not be very powerful,but they have control over much of the world’s natural resources,& they can easily deny our access to those natural resources.
So,please oh please,SOMEBODY “foolishly” say ‘let them keep their uranium,oil,titanium,& various other metal & resources WE NEED for our very powerful & advanced weapons.Pop Quiz,where does the material come from that we use for our stealth aircraft? Really,because I don’t know.Do the nations I mentioned have control?
Also,almost all of Latin America are turning left Wing(that includes Argentina,Brazil,& Chile,where most of our copper comes from) & aligning themselves with Venezuela & Cuba(& by extension,China).Remember,Germany lost World war II primarily because they were cut off from the raw materials needed to build up their weapons & keep the war machine running.
China is doing all they can to secure access to the world’s natural resources & to deny access to other nations(& they are winning).
FFB, believes that Israel committed 9/11.
With that level of scary genius – he must be taking a day off from splitting atoms…with his mind, man! – it is quite okay to IGNORE him.
“ALL THE 11 / 9 PLANES WERE ELECTRONICALLY HIJACKED BY … ISRAEL !!!”
Posted by: freefallingbomb at March 3, 2008 10:52 PM
I’d bet the 500 nuclear tipped LGM-30 Minuteman missiles that this is a non-issue…
There is no terminal phase BMD capability on any USN ship. SM-3 is a mid-course interceptor. You would need THAAD or PAC-3 on the ships for terminal capability.
The radar in the warhead section shouldn’t be a problem these days, since already done on MGM-31C back in the mid 1970′s. Of course that would be vulnerable to ECM.
Finding the carrier can be done by multiple ways, which are not different from other OTH targeting schemes.
Apart from other countermeasures there is of course the option to multiply the potential targets = build smaller, conventional carriers instead of just a few 100.000 tons supercarriers.
Increases survivability of the fleet, provided the number of escorts per carrier does not decrease too much.
Very exciting, I like it
Everytime you buy something “made in China” because “we need them for a trade partner”, you are helping to fund developement.
Considering cost factor it is intersting that China feels the need for this missle.
This is an area where defense is a lot more expensive than offense. All the Chinese have to do is suggest they have such a weapon, and they can force the US to spend a disproportionately huge amount trying to counter it.
Why is everybody assuming that this missile will be land based? Why couldn’t it be launched from submarines or surface ships? Just think of it as being just one giant bullet. Allthat a submarine has to do is get into range & fire it,& then its Mach 2.5-3 speed capability will land it on target before the sinking ship knows what hit it.
Oh yeah,speaking of “non-existent” weapons(or at least,not in our inventory yet),aren’t WE(the U.S.) banking our “capabilities” on weapons(F-35,LCS,Zumwalt Destroyer,FCS,etc.) not in service or in our inventory yet.Aren’t WE doing exactly what WE are accusing the Chinese(,Iranians,North Koreans,& Russians) of doing?
The Sherman Tank was a POS compared to the German Tiger Tank,but we made so damn many of them compared to the Germans with their limited resources & limited to no access to the raw materials & natural resources to building them & their other “wonder” weapons.
China & her allies can easily cut us off from the resources we need to build our beloved “stealth fighter jets” & “UCAVs.” Where will we be after that(also,China can cause our economy to collapse to Zimbabwean levels of destitution & hyperinflation).
2- OTH(over the horizon) radar doesn’t provide target quality data. It is also weather dependent. You still need to refine data from OTH radars if you need a firing solution. That is not easy to do against a carrier operating in a wartime posture.–
whahahaha.. gosh.. ok.. just imagine japanese general before Pearl Harbor:
Konishiwan mon general-san!
houw, my captain!
just as planed, we can atack american port in no time but it will be a little tricky!
what it does mean “little tricky”!?
well mon general-sama, we have no radar-data and cant refine data for atack..
and?!
mayyyyybbbeee we should scratsh all our war planes?…
———————————————
a side that “wartime posture” means nothing for radar. wartime swiming island is just another swiming island..
I’m confused.
If this isn’t (and wasn’t) a real threat, then why did we develop BMD for ships?
Roy,
There is no solid evidence that the US or any other nation has deployed a weather machine. The US, as confirmed by my Government meterology friend, is researching the possiblity of a weather machine but has not advanced yet to the point of actually constructing one. There are no weather-machine-induced storms yet.
Brad,
Indeed, it is very safe to ignore FFB and his unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. I’m suprised he hasn’t started quoting the Elders of Zion like his conspiracy friend Roy has.
BrianMullholland,
Make that left-wing paranoia as liberals love digging up conspiracy theories on Bush (like FreeFallingBomb) to discredit Conservatives (right-wingers).
to WR
how about an old cup with “shut up”?
we already know about you russian trooshit here
This would be a pretty good weapon to take out unarmed USNS shuttle tankers and supply chain vessels. Soft, slow, unarmed, built to civilian standards, and not supplied with entirely “up to date” communications….
It’d be a turkey shoot. And without those, you can only operate a carrier for what…4 days before fuel and ammo are gone?
This is actually a perfect asymmetric example. A few relatively inexpensive ASBM’s taking out a carrier with total combined value in excess of $35 billion apiece, ballpark. It can be done. At the very least it is a huge deterrent because of the risk it posses to the US. China has been and is being very successful in increasing it’s political legitimacy over all matters concerning Taiwan. This simultaneously decreases legitimacy of possible US intervention on a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Nations are so reluctant to challenge China for fear of losing out on it’s markets. These factors could make the ingredients for China to attempt to take Taiwan. Especially if China waits for the US to have a president that is more inclined toward passivism/appeasment. The US should focus more on the submarine and make it the capital ship of the US navy because carriers are just too vulnerable in the onset of conflicts with an advanced military.
To the poster “DarthAgnan”:
You wrote: “economic connectivity pretty much make direct conflict a remote possibility (between China and the U.S.A.).”
Global economic interdependence didn’t prevent World War Two…
You wrote: “Oh and a few comments back a poster mentioned that ballistic missiles don’t slow down. That is incorrect as well. BM’s have to slow down due to physics.”
I was referring to the lack of any built-in aerodynamical brakes on or braking maneouvres by re-entering missile cones such as the deceleration rockets, thrust inversion, flaps, parachutes, slip angles etc. commonly used by aircraft and space probes, not bare friction with the atmosphere.
If you slam your car into a mountain you didn’t brake it, you broke it.
DarthAmerica
1: first of all Peoples republic of China (PRC) has already own GPS system in the skys.
2: i said it before aircarries use many data- and comlinks for “modern and cool real-time robot and comand warfare”. modern carier shines brither then our sun on radiotelescope(or even more then New York airport). Today a carrier postion can be got very easy just by simple triangonal postion antenas and that for more as 5000 Km distance. (and if you got a simple SAT-com satelite you can get it for whole world) so no problem to get aircarier. just follow its radio waves.
aside a fact that chinese do massive develop of new radar and link-detector systems. (wich btw can be easely sompared to american and european.)
btw. China has at momment more and better educated people for that then USa and Europe together. It is just a matter of time when chinese will learn how to hit a shit of the fly on an amexican presidentos nouse.
—That will only allow an enemy to harvest data from you. Why do you think Iraq got bombed so badly during Desert Storm?–
here is a simple answer. because Iraq had not thousands of ships, radar stations, and boats like chinese PLA whose radars can be linked together and can detect everything around China for a range between Australia and Hawaii. And because USA atacked Iraq more from a land then from carriers.
The Chinese DEPEND on American consumption of their goods to survive. If China was gone tomorrow.
well. not my topic. but you are qrong. actualy whole chinese econmy is splited into 2 independent parts. it can be that chinese will get some headashe after USA gone from their investment market but not more. Chinese inner market wich is important for functionality in a time of war (economical, political, millitary) will still work for China.
And we should not forget. PRC is not USA. communist party is still in power and it does still controll of mind and future of PRC.
—Intelligence says it is land based. Integrating a sub launched BM would require testing and other noticeable activity. —
well. you know that chinese have many islands in south chinese sea. and east chinese sea is closed by korean and japanese soil.
soo.. chinese do need only those roctes to close a smale area between Philippines Japan and Taiwan. thats what they made those rocets for.
DarthAmerica
–Who controls the sea? The United States Navy.–
lol. thats a very old legend. seriously dude. noone controls sea. Usa do control only a sea routes and sea-transport bottleneck. and that not even alone. (friednly hayhoe to our friends around the world)
but back to China. chinese are in CSO. until today chinese got their strategical resources not from around the world. they have very cute virgin places like Tibet/South Mongolia/East Turkestan and they even dont need to conquer it. Noone exsept chinese themselfes knows how much of ressources are there. Oil for China? why at the heck do they need it? for cars? as if chinese communist party cares about. 10 years in the future PRC will have more rail and public transport systems then anyone esle in the world.
Energy for computers? lol. have you ever looked on chinese green energy development? or how fast they developed own fusion reactor program?
i said it before. China is rulled by totalitar regime. such systems are very efective when it comes to invent something huge and revolutionary. see Hitler-germany and Soviet modernisation.
“”I do not remember the US and Britain fighting a war in the late 1800′s…even though there was a constant drumbeat for war by jingoists on both sides of the pond.”"
The UK was a democracy by then, and despite some minor incidents, had overall good relations with the US. We were not strategic rivals.
By contrast, China is a communist country, currently in the process of a massive increase in military spending, with an avowed goal of the forcible conquest of fellow democracy and US ally: Taiwan. China has also acted aggressively against another US ally, Japan, and unlike the UK, China is an “emerging power”. Such countries have a history of starting wars in order to flex their muscle and establish their dominance. Every indication points to aggression from China at some point in the future. Why else would they be spending so much more money on their military when they face absolutely no threats to their territory or economy?
“”If a missle like this had a nuclear-tipped warhead, it wouldn’t even have to hit the ship. All it would have to do is explode with in 50 miles of the fleet and the shockwave would do the rest.”"
Not true. It would still need to hit pretty close. The US Navy tested the use of nuclear weapons against a dummy fleet, and the vast majority of the ships survived despite being clustered close together inside a lagoon. A US carrier would be in deep water, which would absorb the nuclear blast better and would produce less radioactive debris.
Besides, if China used a nuke on US forces, the US would have no choice but to retaliate with nukes against China, or else MAD would go right out the window.
Finally, these kinds of missiles are too small for the chinese to mount nukes on them. China doesnt have tiny nukes like we do.
For optimistic “DarthAmerica”:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/06/28/sm_america28.xml
And what ships survived best battleships.
the new jersey and her sister ships could be upgraded far cheaper and faster than the DDX add the space that can be saved using smaller safer pebble bed reactors and these ships could store and mount an immense amount of defensive systems plus with the reactors directed energy weapons, directed EMP weapons, and later…..heavy railguns the stern gun mount could be removed and a deck put on for vstol/drone aircraft. Meaning these ships could be dispatched with few escort units and effectivly control a vast area while it wouldnt be as large as a carrier it could let us project to more areas of the world. Also it would fufill the support role that the DDX is supposed to fill while supplyimg a fleet with a huge bonus in defense and offensive power
—Finally, these kinds of missiles are too small for the chinese to mount nukes on them. China doesnt have tiny nukes like we do.—
sorry but you are the first person in the world of internet who knows how big are chinese and american “nukes”!
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DarthAmerica
well. thats your point.
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To the poster “Kaltes”:
You wrote: “The US Navy tested the use of nuclear weapons against a dummy fleet, and the vast majority of the ships survived despite being clustered close together inside a lagoon.”
In case you didn’t notice, you just answered yourself: That famous test was performed on a “DUMMY fleet”, dummy! But last time I checked whole fleets don’t sail around the oceans completely unmanned, and men and radioactivity don’t mix! Or do you think that the ships and their crews anchored off Hiroshima and Nagasaki looked good afterwards?
FFB, at the risk of introducing logic to your puny European brainpan, ships can, within a minutes notice, be environmentally sealed.
That’s how they’re designed to keep out that mysterious magical fluid we Americans like to call ‘water.’*
If you and your fellow continentals would only just shower, you might have reflected upon that fact without having to need someone to point that out for you.
*And yes, sunshine, that includes the top decks of carriers as well. The WHOLE thing. The other factor is that element called “fire” and “smoke.” Which means NBC has minimal effects on a ship at sea.
Keep tripping up the small stuff, princess.
Oh, and, moron, a carrier can still steam out of the hazard area.
Seriously, does Trutherism HAVE to be synonymous with retarded, or is it an aftermarket modification?
WR,
I was being tongue in cheek & facetious about the weather machines.I tried to put the meat of my discussion into the second part after “seriously”.Besides,ever since the “World Weekly News” went out of business,there aren’t any more supermarket tabloids to entertain us with such outrageous stories like Bat Boy or the Alien that always visited the presidents & presidential candidates(now I’ll never know if he,or it,supports Obama or McCain).
DarthAmerica,
Another scenario I gave was maybe putting this missile on a civilian cargo ship like a Panamax/Post-Panamax ship.If the missile had a high supersonic(maybe hypersonic) speed rate,it would be like shooting a gigantic bullet,with maybe the same rate of speed,if possible,at the targeted ship.
The other factor is that element called “fire” and “smoke.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element
heh, I’ll see and raise you, know-it-all.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=element&x=0&y=0
Oh, and for my opinion of all this:
Short range BMs are not in themselves a trigger to nuclear retaliation, as repeated Iraqi SCUD launches prove.
But destroying a carrier will probably escalate a limited, regional conflict to total war.
DA is right about the challenges in defeating a carrier battlegroup with this weapon system: it is a bullet in search of a soldier and a weapon to fire it. The Chinese do not have the capability to overcome EM attack, accurately point this weapon for a conventional package (and God help them if they go nuclear; that’s a totally different ballgame), and likely intercepts would also be shot down by AEGIS.
More worrying is Chinese subs, or a combination of Chinese attacks: cruise missiles, subs, and this ASBM all coordinated. But that assumes the carrier is pretty much just a target and not forcefully breaking into the theatre. We only have one carrier stationed within reach of these ASBMs (preemptively hit that and Japan’s basically forced into war); the rest will be deployed within weeks from across the globe, ie, not ‘targets’ but firebreathing airbases.
China would have to be crazy to destroy a carrier. Unfortunately, I am not certain about their mental hygiene. They may be crazy enough to, at least, try.
@ DarthAmerica
Re your comments about my “errors”:
1 – That SM-2 version you’re referring to is not fielded and will not be for another two years (+). And even then it will not have any capability against a missile in the CSS-5 class. (Admitting though, I have no idea about the effectiveness of Aegis BMD and SM-3 against targets on unusual trajectories, plus taking into account coordinated, simultaneous attacks by cruise missiles and subs against a carrier group, keeping the escorts more than busy on multiple vectors.)
2 – Didn’t say anything about radar when talking about OTH targeting. There are options like orbital, aerial, submarines, ELINT, even things like ranging shots and cruise missiles with search patterns. The problem is basically no different from what the VMF had to solve for their P-500 and P-700.
3 – I didn’t talk about the survivability of a carrier being hit. But to lower the probability that a task force is put out of action.
And as a ratio CVN-supercarrier to CV-medium carrier I’d say 3 to 1, making it about 24 medium carriers in case of the USN. (As financial tradeoff the LHDs and LHAs would also be replaced by those medium carriers and the amphib forced entry capability concentrated on LPDs – but that’s another topic).
When talking about fleet survivability, those medium carriers would operate only in groups, e.g. 3 carriers plus 9 escorts (current battle groups also use multiple carriers). Even if one carrier is hit, two others would still operate, whereas the loss of one of today’s CVN’s is a serious blow to the whole task force. With current force levels in a China scenario there would be max two three-CVN task forces, whereas with medium carriers there could be five or six.
To the poster “Brad”:
You wrote: “ships can, within a minutes notice, be environmentally sealed. That’s how they’re designed to keep out that mysterious magical fluid we Americans like to call ‘water’.* If you and your fellow continentals would only just shower, you might have reflected upon that fact without having to need someone to point that out for you. *And yes, sunshine, that includes the top decks of carriers as well. The WHOLE thing. The other factor is that element called ‘fire’ and ‘smoke’. Which means NBC has minimal effects on a ship at sea.”
I’m impressed to learn that thanks to a “shower” (sprinkler system?) ships can not only survive nuclear bombs, but even remain immune against their secondary effects!
Next time just say: “we the Americans”…
To the great
And to all those posters who nurture high hopes for the “survivability” of the entire U.S. American carrier fleet: During the Falkland Conflict 67 % of the 6 Exocet missiles found their marks (= hundreds of times more expensive warships, and the Argentinians had just recently introduced them. They barely understood how to activate their warheads, sparing at least two British warships this way!), and the British had ALL the necessary anti-measures in place too… According to the Scientific American the whole Aegis system is equally useless against extremely low-flying targets (like Exocets) and against “crossing targets”, depending exclusively on last-ditch weapons for its survival, you know: The same ones that failed to fire a single round in the Falkland War and on your pathetic guided-missile frigate “U.S.S. Stark” too.
And when you start gloating about the sea-worthiness and insensibility of U.S. American aircraft carrier hulls against enemy ordnance: Ha ha ha ha…!!!
Why do such names as the “R.M.S. Titanic”, the “H.M.S. Hood” and the “U.S.S. Phoenix” (a.k.a. “A.R.A. General Belgrano”) reflexively come to my mind? Even the late Admiral Hyman George Rickover stated that in any high-intensity (conventional) war all aircraft carriers would last only for TWO DAYS !
You know, reaching always the opposite conclusions from the rest of the World you shouldn’t be too surprised one day if an aircraft carrier gets abducted just like the “intelligence-gathering” ship “U.S.S. Pueblo” was…
Thunder of Erebus, here we come!
Y’all need to go read Payne Harrison.
freefalling bomb is a typical anti-American hater just like the others who troll this site. They are so obsessed with this idea of American invincibility and ‘arrogance’ so they blather on and on about how weak America is, evidently trying to convince themselves.
Let’s see what evidence ffb cites for American weakness:
1) British ships
2) An American cruiser that predated WW2, was sold to Argentina, and sunk by a British nuclear submarine
3) A small (4100 tons) US frigate caught by surprise without having armed/prepared its defenses, which nonetheless survived multiple exocet hits and returned to port.
This is his so-called evidence that a US aircraft carrier at over 100,000 tons displacement would be vulnerable and easy to kill, despite the fact that the carriers have numerous escorts designed to protect them from enemy aircraft and missiles.
“To me, this seemed implausible. Shooting a ballistic missile at a moving ship?”
This initial assessment seems right on the money to me. Ballistic missiles are inherently unsuitable for anti-ship applications. There’s a reason the US Navy has never employed a weapon like this; it’s not as if China holds any technological advantage over us.
—–There’s a reason the US Navy has never employed a weapon like this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_missile
PLA is not US navy.
US Navy has balistic missles.
—-it’s not as if China holds any technological advantage over us.
you are the first guy in the world who is sure about..
I think we should lure the chinese commanders into pointless comment fights and so block their ability to make informed decisions by totally confusing them. Then we shout ‘LASERS!’ and they will love us!
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Seriously, you should all know that stuff like this is possible if you spend enough money and time on it. It’s not new, it’s just a more advanced (combination) of existing technologies.
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Besides: blowing up a carrier is one of the most aggressive military moves you can make. If it comes to that it wont be just this one carrier, but near-total war.
About chinese led toy, toothpaste etc.
Statisticly seen, chinese product are even safer than American product, this according to a Japanese statistic at least, it’s just the share huge quantity of chinese export product that makes ppl think alot of chinese product is of bad quality, but if u look at the procentage, it’s not bad at all.
Chinese military tech. is overall about 10-25years behind the USA, but they are catching up quite fast, their yearly university graduate already exceed the US from several years ago, chinese is the number one source of foriegn student in most western nation University, Silicon valley is full of Chinese(and Indians), East Asians(Chinese, Korean, Japanese) are averagely THE highest educated ethnical grp in the US, this should also tell you something.
Dear Sirs,
Recalling Yale Jay Lubkin’s lessons that radar guidance uses minute quantities of energy reflected from the target…imagine the effect on the receiver when a directed energy “weapon” is shined on the incoming missile with a billion or more times the power; like a non-eye safe laser right in the eyes…and you’re permanently blinded. That is why DARPA is asking for directed energy weapon countermeasures now…just read the solicitations.
We want this protection now because we have the ability to kill radar receivers with our AESA emitters…like the F-22 has, but some of the largest and most powerful ever are found on DDG-51s. The ships can track objects in space, so sharpening up the beam at RORSATs will complicate targeting as well.
Killing this latest conventional “threat” would likely just involve software or antenna array changes you’ll never hear about. A nuclear warhead near hit would still be devastating, but China can do that now.
If this is conventional warhead missile, it will just splash in the water alongside the “super-jazzy fast” radar homing cruise missiles. The really powerful lasers we are testing now will make short work of IR missiles as well…
The missile jig is almost up, China.
Is this the Chinese decade of its Chinese century?
http://forum.atimes.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6364
Whether or not this ASBM system works at the present time is irrelevant. as long as it is rumoured to exist and can send a 5000 man carrier to the bottom with a non-zero possibility that it can get evade any plausible defence that a US carrier battle group can put up, that’s all that’s enough to keep the US carriers at bay. oh let’s not forget about the “possible” existence of those silent Chinese attack subs. Your Caesar never saw the end of the Roman Empire coming…
The new Chinese ASBM can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2,000 km+, maybe up to 3,000 km in time to come.
The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike.
Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2,000km in less than 12 minutes.
Supporting the missile is a network of satellites, radar and unmanned aerial vehicles that can locate U.S. ships and then guide the weapon, enabling it to hit moving targets.