Tsavo Lion wrote:It's clear that they try to have new CMs on every suitable platform possible.
They are putting CMs in all combatant ships. But a carrier has something better. Not only me thinking a carrier is better off being just a carrier, many experts and designers have supported this too. It will have a escort of other ships with CMs so you don't need to bother taking up space and interfering with the flight deck because of some missiles. A carrier is a scarce enough resource to make the most out of it for its main role and not loose focus with secondary ones.
quote]Well, you don't need planes in your carrier then...
It's not an arsenal ship; planes, UAVs & helos have other roles besides attacking surface & ground targets. Unlike in the USN, RN, & FN, it's not even their main role.[/quote]
Arsenal ship would be if you stuff it with CMs.
Role of the carrier is defending the fleet, and that means keeping other vessels and naval aviation far enough. As discussed, you cannot do this with CMs or ASMs only due to fundamental range issues.
Now we are not only ruling out the naval aviation, but the need for a navy altogether.
Not true. LRCMs r needed to strike locations where the dicisions r made, among other things; having them on big ships & subs r asymmetric response to NATO numerical superiority in ships, subs & aircraft, just like having the current CMs on small boats in closed seas & internal waterways that can equalize land based IRB/CM in Europe & the ability to target the ME from the Caspian & Black Seas, eliminating the need to deploy them to the Med. & Arabian Seas. [/quote
]
You are mixing using navy to compensate for INF restrictions (now gone) in the surroundings of Russia with the proper use of a blue water navy, which is to defend interests abroad. The navy is your footprint in such remote areas and the enabler for quick power projection, and now we start talking about trucks with CMs? Sorry the point doesn't make sense to me.
GarryB wrote: Well, you don't need planes in your carrier then...
Well not really... long range anti ship missiles on the K means it can attack and kill ships that approach it, but they wouldn't be much use if instead of a Nimitz class carrier, they detected 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles... having several Su-33s in the air to shoot down some of those missiles would make the defence of the ships easier and better as they could probably take out some missiles themselves with missiles and guns and then track the incoming missiles and support ship based air defences trying to shoot them down too.
The point discussed is whether it makes sense to lose space for planes in a carrier in order to have CMs or ASMs.
I am arguing that naval aviation is a scarce resource in Russian and practically any other navy so the carrier should not really bother with missiles and concentrate on what makes it specially valuable which is carrying planes. Of course I agree shipborne fighters could help intercepting enemy CMs and stopping their carriers before launch, which is the proper way of defending the fleet. Navies go to great extents to get this capability because otherwise they just remain at the receiving end of the enemy's naval aviation, and that has not worked well historically.
Indeed, as a surprise first strike they might work because the enemy is not expecting them, or as a follow up strike after hypersonic missiles have taken down major radar and SAM sites and airfields and HQs and everything is in a bit of disarray...
Unexpected, coming from a well located surface fleet, is not how I would describe it. We have seen in Syria what is the difficulty of shooting down subsonic CMs coming from the sea, and we talk of a devastated military. Any country with some air force and AD network would shot them down by the hundreds. So these can be useful to attack certain targets but not highly defended ones, IMO
Has this anything to do with navy or am I missing something? BTW a missile with 4500 km range does not need to follow the army to be brought close enough to its target I guess...
Well a land based truck mounted system formerly banned by the INF treaty suddenly becomes the simplest and cheapest method of taking out significant targets in Europe or the far east... the benefit is it is relatively cheap and easy to manage and hide... they could use standard shipping containers for launcher designs, and that would free up your navy from the burden of having to devastate continental Europe and Japan et al, so the navy can focus more on anti NATO naval activities like surface ships and subs of NATO...
True, but that was never my point. INF will be addressed properly now. In any case, would this recently freed naval capability not support my point that you don't need so many CMs in every single ship available? I remind you, UKSK is not only meant for CMs, it is meant for ASMs too. If the theatre allows it, use your CMs against ISIS and the like. If not, load Zircons in subs and even small surface combatants and spread them.
Now we are not only ruling out the naval aviation, but the need for a navy altogether.
Ruling out the Russian navy for strategic attack against land based europe and Japan and the various US bases around the place... it can now focus on naval targets near and far from Russia... which should allow much more efficient use of those launch tubes...
Look the original statement from Tsavo Lion. You don't need a navy for the spots you reach with land based assets so this whole conversation is moot.
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