VMF vs. USN scenarios

Hole wrote:The main offensive weapon of western fleets are Harpoon-like missile, either ship- or air-launched. Against that the short/medium range SAM´s of russian ships are the best defence.

And that is what I find particularly funny, as the best piece they have there would be Norwegian NSM, representing ... nothing impressive.
While even the Taiwanese and the Japanese operate fast, supersonic low flying, and maneuverable missiles to challenge the Chinese.

I didn't mention those two by purpose, as those are principally Russian technologies involved.
By the Japanese and Taiwanese used their own school&tech.
That is what makes ze Wezt a shadow of its propaganda picture.

Hole wrote:From Moon of Alabma:

Finally some folks at the  U.S. Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey have also done the appropriate math. Here are their results (pg 57):

The literature review section describes the manner in which [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM)] cruise missiles must be launched in salvos as large as 16 missiles to defeat a target with active defense. Due to its exceptional speed, maneuverability, and low flight path, a single hypersonic glide body missile is likely to be able to overcome an active defensive system that could defeat even a salvo attack of TLAMs.
An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is equipped with 96 TLAMs, or six salvo attacks of 16 missiles each. This means that a vessel equipped with 12 hypersonic missiles can attack as many actively defended targets as two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers firing 16-missile salvos. 12 [All-Up-Rounds (AURs)] was chosen as the highest rating for this attribute because it represents the offensive equivalent of two entire vessels in the scenario where an actively defended target is being attacked.

One Russian Admiral Gorshov class corvette of some 5,000 tons with 16 hypersonic missiles and costing some $150 $500 million has MORE firepower than two U.S. Arleigh Burke class destroyers with 9,000 tons each, 192 missiles and costing a total of some $3.2 billions.

There´s only a "little" mistake. One Gorshkov is the equivalent of 4 or even 6 Burkes, because besides 16 silos for offensive weapons the Gorshkov has another 24 for SAM´s. And no Burke will carry 96 LACM´s against countries like Russia, China or even Iran. In that case they will need any air defence that they can get, therefore at least half the silos will be filled with SAM´s. Or even two thirds of them as planned in the good, old 1980´s.

This is the thesis , i would not lose too much time in this type of imaginary mental contortion: employment of hypersonic glide missiles of the not existing Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (from future US Army's program) from.....Spearhead-class EPF, San Antonio-class LPD or Independence-class LCS

https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/68295/21Sep_Banuchi%20et%20al.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y


Even discounting the technical value of the work itself, and the clear focus on attacks against land targets, it is perturbing to notice the self-deceiving notions present in US Navy's attacks protocols.

To say that 16 TLAM (the maximum possible salvo size delivered by two naval units, due to TLAM's big time of launch) are the necessary number to hit a target with "active defenses" - what type of SAM ? how much? with what type of EW, decoy, masking and hardening ?- is nothing short of a low level non-sense except if the intended target is not some third world one still defended by '60 years or slightly modernized С-125 or Оса-АК.

In Syria against much difficult targets -Delilah missiles - delivered with much less warning, popping out from the mountain near Damascus, and defending targets placed even at 6-10 km of distance from SAM positions, no more than 2-3 Панцирь-С1/Бук-М1Э/M2Э vehicles (export models) have repeteadly destroyed all the incoming missiles in theirs range of interception.

In the US attack of 2018 against Syrian targets ,conducted just with TLAM block IV and JASSM/JASSM-ER , SAA air defenses (obviously much prepared and dense for the expected attack) destroyed all the incoming missiles directed at military targets.

All of that with literally few relatively modern SAM vehicles devoid of EW support, Air Force support and organic area masking and decoy.

In a debate about modern surface to surface naval combat against an advanced opponent TLAM shouldn't even be mentioned.

ALAMO wrote:

Hole wrote:The main offensive weapon of western fleets are Harpoon-like missile, either ship- or air-launched. Against that the short/medium range SAM´s of russian ships are the best defence.

And that is what I find particularly funny, as the best piece they have there would be Norwegian NSM, representing ... nothing impressive.
While even the Taiwanese and the Japanese operate fast, supersonic low flying, and maneuverable missiles to challenge the Chinese.

I believe NATO Naval doctrine just prioritizes avoiding letting the enemy know that a missile has been launched against them until they're already as close as possible. It's not a matter of technology.

As long as you belive in that ...

Isos wrote:Stupid comparison. Arleigh burkes are there for protecting the carriers.

US real strike plateforms are the f-18, f-35 and all the b-1, b-2 and b-52 and submarines.

It's just a matter of time before they come with their own hypersonic weapons.

A flying plateform like f-18 will add another 800km in range to the missile.

And russian ships are even less protected against such weapons because they rely more on corvettes or light frigates, at least until now. Don't expect the Tor on Udaloy, the 9m96 or the Shtil to intercept mach 7-10 missiles.

Burkes VLS are better suited to carry bigger missiles that have a chance against hypersonic missiles if they somehow design such missile. Russian AD vls are too small for bigger missiles and we can see S-500 missiles are much bigger than s-400 missiles which can't even be carried by russian ships.

The first to shoot will be the first to hit and to win. US have lot of awacs and a carrier based aviation that gives lot of stand off range. They also have submarines that will be able to fire such missiles.

This is true Isos, but the question is the profitability of naval based aviation armed with hypersonic missiles.

Hypersonic weapons are surely revolutionary offensive means ,that however on average increase of over an order of magnitude the cost of the single missile.

In the maritime domain, in order to capitalise the introduction of similar armament on board of the tactical aviation (the unique trasportable on naval units) to obtain some increased stamd-off range of delivery, you need to concentrate both those very high cost ammunitions, modified tactical aircraft of enormous cost ,at example F/A-18 and F-35 B/C purposely modified for delivery of miniaturized hypersonic missiles, on board of a single ships of immense high cost - aircraft carriers or helicopter carriers -, this render the aircraft carrier an even more paying target the loss of a which ,even only one, can mean the distruption of 3-4 years of national investements and production capabilities in shipyard output, naval weapons and naval aviation equipment.


The other big problem reside in the nature of target tracking, discrimination and designation in the era of naval mounted hypersonic missiles with range of 1000-1200 or at brief more than 1500 km:

- The primary target tracking and designation mean for targets at similar or greater range are constellation of space based systems.

- The primary mean of discovery and discrimination of surface units for those space based systems are satellite-mounted radar arrays and IR/optical sensors, while the secondary ones are satellite based ELINT systems collecting and crossing selected emission data

- The ships that forcefully must host naval aviation at sea -flat-top dozen million tonnage ships- are today 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more easy to track and designate from space-based radar arrays (cause just theirs enormous flat-top area) space based IR sensors (cause the cyclical take-off, with ample use of afterburning of F/A-18, F-35 and E-2 and landing with enormous amount of dispersed thermal friction at the arrest) and space based ELINT sensors (cause the necessary emissions for aircraft control and from E-2 radars ) in comparison to purposely developed low-observables ,low-emissions, low-tonnage and dispersed surface ships of corvette and frigate class.

This mean that one or more low observable frigates/corvettes will be capable to independently receive exact position and updates about a big flat-top units and theirs aircraft operation and come within engagement range of theirs weapons much before those ships could receive the same information from theirs space-based echelon.

Us Navy are perfectly aware of that ,in facts theirs reorientation toward big scale war against peer enemies envisioned the urgent introduction of "distributed lethality" concept, exactly responding to the problems highlighted, now terribly worsened by completion of tests and near introduction of hypersonic missiles by part of Federation Navy.

 

@Mindstorm

consider what future unmanned platforms like Helios-RLD or similar could do for the maritime surveillance and targeting, with 30+ hours on station, relatively low cost and a minimal footprint onboard a carrier. Space based assets are known, predictable, and eventually easy to neutralize so alternatives are needed.

LMFS wrote:@Mindstorm

consider what future unmanned platforms like Helios-RLD or similar could do for the maritime surveillance and targeting, with 30+ hours on station, relatively low cost and a minimal footprint onboard a carrier. Space based assets are known, predictable, and eventually easy to neutralize so alternatives are needed.

If you have not a working space-based network also maritime ISR missions of your long range HALE UAV become almost pointless, even if we take into account totally authonomous UAVs with full AI control.

The possibility to receive positional data about discovered enemy units......obviously more a matter of mere luck than pre-conceived planning, taking into account speed of those aerial vehicles and the immense maritime area to control.......from those UAVs at 2000-2500 km of distance bocome impossible without a working satellite netork for data relay.

At today and for the foreseeable future, purposely placed ISR satellite groups are completely outside enemy interception's reach, except if operating directly over enemy continental airspace, where strategic level interceptors can be deployed.

Not ship-based interceptor is today and will in the foreseeable future capable to endanger space-based oceanic surveillance sensors at theirs orbital altitude.

Only fully militarization of space could create such a situation and this development will penalize much more the expeditionary structure of our scarcely sympathetic over-oceanic "partners" that are almost totally dependent on those assets for theirs remote air/naval centered operations.


Moreover, for defensive naval operations, typical of Federation's Doctrine, ships and submarines detection, discrimination and data sharing is executed also by suspended and sea-bottom acoustic and magnetic sensor networks that employ submerged communications cables and closer to coasts directional coded acoustic signals, totally independent from satellite surveillance or relay fuctions.

Obviously if you are the attacker you cannot enjoy the same alternative source for maritime positional data.

Mindstorm wrote:

Isos wrote:Stupid comparison. Arleigh burkes are there for protecting the carriers.

US real strike plateforms are the f-18, f-35 and all the b-1, b-2 and b-52 and submarines.

It's just a matter of time before they come with their own hypersonic weapons.

A flying plateform like f-18 will add another 800km in range to the missile.

And russian ships are even less protected against such weapons because they rely more on corvettes or light frigates, at least until now. Don't expect the Tor on Udaloy, the 9m96 or the Shtil to intercept mach 7-10 missiles.

Burkes VLS are better suited to carry bigger missiles that have a chance against hypersonic missiles if they somehow design such missile. Russian AD vls are too small for bigger missiles and we can see S-500 missiles are much bigger than s-400 missiles which can't even be carried by russian ships.

The first to shoot will be the first to hit and to win. US have lot of awacs and a carrier based aviation that gives lot of stand off range. They also have submarines that will be able to fire such missiles.

This is true Isos, but the question is the profitability of naval based aviation armed with hypersonic missiles.

Hypersonic weapons are surely revolutionary offensive means ,that however on average increase of over an order of magnitude the cost of the single missile.

In the maritime domain, in order to capitalise the introduction of similar armament on board of the tactical aviation (the unique trasportable on naval units) to obtain some increased stamd-off range of delivery, you need to concentrate both those very high cost ammunitions, modified tactical aircraft of enormous cost ,at example F/A-18 and F-35 B/C purposely modified for delivery of miniaturized hypersonic missiles, on board of a single ships of immense high cost - aircraft carriers or helicopter carriers -, this render the aircraft carrier an even more paying target the loss of a which ,even only one, can mean the distruption of 3-4 years of national investements and production capabilities in shipyard output, naval weapons and naval aviation equipment.


The other big problem reside in the nature of target tracking, discrimination and designation in the era of naval mounted hypersonic missiles with range of 1000-1200 or at brief more than 1500 km:

- The primary target tracking and designation mean for targets at similar or greater range are constellation of space based systems.

- The primary mean of discovery and discrimination of surface units for those space based systems are satellite-mounted radar arrays and IR/optical sensors, while the secondary ones are satellite based ELINT systems collecting and crossing selected emission data

- The ships that forcefully must host naval aviation at sea -flat-top dozen million tonnage ships- are today 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more easy to track and designate from space-based radar arrays (cause just theirs enormous flat-top area) space based IR sensors (cause the cyclical take-off, with ample use of afterburning of F/A-18, F-35 and E-2 and landing with enormous amount of dispersed thermal friction at the arrest) and space based ELINT sensors (cause the necessary emissions for aircraft control and from E-2 radars ) in comparison to purposely developed low-observables ,low-emissions, low-tonnage and dispersed surface ships of corvette and frigate class.

This mean that one or more low observable frigates/corvettes will be capable to independently receive exact position and updates about a big flat-top units and theirs aircraft operation and come within engagement range of theirs weapons much before those ships could receive the same information from theirs space-based echelon.

Us Navy are perfectly aware of that ,in facts theirs reorientation toward big scale war against peer enemies envisioned the urgent introduction of "distributed lethality" concept, exactly responding to the problems highlighted, now terribly worsened by completion of tests and near introduction of hypersonic missiles by part of Federation Navy.

 

It's pretty easy to counter hypersonic missiles, it's not about speed...it's about reaction time!

Warheads of ICBM are already hypersonic and if the don't maneuver, they are easy to intercept. The problem is the maneuverability of modern warheads.

Problem with hypersonic weapons is not to lose track of the missile and fast reaction, fast course correction. Most AD systems don't work fully automated, some procedures are manually...and that's why you lose time. The intercepting missile (kill vehicle) must be very agile, tail fins are normally too slow.
The S-500 is fully capable of intercepting and destroying hypersonic targets! Maybe Redut with a few updates will be ready too.

Yes...but one big problem is that CIWS are some kind useless against hypersonic missiles, because if you destroy the missile in 1 km distance the debris with less than Mach 10..let's say at least Mach 4-6 will cause tremendous damage to the ship.

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I'm not sure but the only hypersonic weapon that is more or less mature is the AGM-183 ARRW and it failed miserable. The AGM-183 ARRW is not really an anti ship missile, it's a more general missile with capabilities to strike ships. A missile system like Tsirkon is far far from production in USA...I will expect them not before 2025...more 2030.

Warheads of ICBM are already hypersonic and if the don't maneuver, they are easy to intercept. The problem is the maneuverability of modern warheads. 

No they are not easy to intercept. Even today it is impossible to counter ICBM attacks.

They are hypersonic meaning they produce plasma when entering atmosphere making radar detection very hard. They are big missiles carrying tens of decoys but also tens of warheads. Tracking so many targets and trying to discriminate the real from the fake ones in the same time will consume your radar's computer.

To intercept them you need big missiles (see S-500) which means less missile per launchers and per systems.

An attack from only one Borei, 16 bulava, each carrying 6-10 warheads and some (probably?) 20-40 decoys means 96-160 real nuks and 360-600 decoys coming at you all at mach 15-20.

How do you intercept that easily ?

Mindstorm wrote:

LMFS wrote:@Mindstorm

consider what future unmanned platforms like Helios-RLD or similar could do for the maritime surveillance and targeting, with 30+ hours on station, relatively low cost and a minimal footprint onboard a carrier. Space based assets are known, predictable, and eventually easy to neutralize so alternatives are needed.

If you have not a working space-based network also maritime ISR missions of your long range HALE UAV become almost pointless, even if we take into account totally authonomous UAVs with full AI control.

The possibility to receive positional data about discovered enemy units......obviously more a matter of mere luck than pre-conceived planning, taking into account speed of those aerial vehicles and the immense maritime area to control.......from those UAVs at 2000-2500 km of distance bocome impossible without a working satellite netork for data relay.

At today and for the foreseeable future, purposely placed ISR satellite groups are completely outside enemy interception's reach, except if operating directly over enemy continental airspace, where strategic level interceptors can be deployed.

Not ship-based interceptor is today and will in the foreseeable future capable to endanger space-based oceanic surveillance sensors at theirs orbital altitude.

Only fully militarization of space could create such a situation and this development will penalize much more the expeditionary structure of our scarcely sympathetic over-oceanic "partners" that are almost totally dependent on those assets for theirs remote air/naval centered operations.


Moreover, for defensive naval operations, typical of Federation's Doctrine, ships and submarines detection, discrimination and data sharing is executed also by suspended and sea-bottom acoustic and magnetic sensor networks that employ submerged communications cables and closer to coasts directional coded acoustic signals, totally independent from satellite surveillance or relay fuctions.  

Obviously if you are the attacker you cannot enjoy the same alternative source for maritime positional data.  

The topic is complex and the world's top militaries use a combination of surface, air and space assets for both surveillance and relay of information. So the UAV/satellite choice is not really an either/or, but two types of assets that will be used together and that have certain ability to operate independently ones from the others if needed. USN uses fleet internal data links up to 500 km distance, so the fleet is operational even without support of satellite assets, which are reserved normally for strategic comms. What I can imagine in a relatively short term are wings of 6-8 surveillance UAVS on board a carrier, operating at 500 km from the fleet and with a radar horizon of ca. 500 km (at ca. 10 km altitude, to make round numbers). You would need 4 of them on station all the time to have an all-around vision of the tactical situation around the fleet up to ca. 1000 km. The passive detection range of these UAV could be longer, but let's keep it simple. At that distance data relaying could be based on direct, line of sight communication, but if needed, additional platforms with that function can and are being developed.

As to the destruction of surveillance satellites, I don't have complete information, maybe you can correct the following. Recent Russian test intercepted a target at ca. 600 km altitude, previous Chinese ones at ca. 800 km. As far as I know, radar reconnaissance satellites orbit lower than that (ca. 400-500 km), while signals reconnaissance operate a bit higher, ca. 1000 km. All of them are LEO in any case and they can be targeted from interceptors in land when they pass near enough, which happens often enough due to the short orbit periods. Naval interceptors seem indeed limited at the moment, but I would not be surprised if Russia uses ships like the Orlans with S-500 type interceptors that may reach way higher than the ca. 250 km of SM-3. Maybe even ASAT weapons carried by naval fighters can be developed in the future, but I am not sure about their potential.

So in summary, I indeed understand that militaries use overlapping air/space surveillance and communication networks for bigger robustness and optimal use of the resources, and the clear tendency is to use dedicated UAV (even of the HAPS type) for both roles. Russia has voiced similar intentions not so far ago.

Sorry for the off-topic!

Isos wrote:

Warheads of ICBM are already hypersonic and if the don't maneuver, they are easy to intercept. The problem is the maneuverability of modern warheads. 

No they are not easy to intercept. Even today it is impossible to counter ICBM attacks.

They are hypersonic meaning they produce plasma when entering atmosphere making radar detection very hard. They are big missiles carrying tens of decoys but also tens of warheads. Tracking so many targets and trying to discriminate the real from the fake ones in the same time will consume your radar's computer.

To intercept them you need big missiles (see S-500) which means less missile per launchers and per systems.

An attack from only one Borei, 16 bulava, each carrying 6-10 warheads and some (probably?) 20-40 decoys means 96-160 real nuks and 360-600 decoys coming at you all at mach 15-20.

How do you intercept that easily ?

It's very easy! Like you wrote they create plasma...the surface of the warhead reach 1500 °C and the edges and the top reaches up to 6000 °C (that's why it's plasma around) and you can track it in infrared and optical. A warhead during reentry is as bright as the sun! And actually the kill vehicles are using optical and infra red sensor to track the target. GBI and THAAD are infrared in terminal phase.


Why is it now possible and not in the 80ies? Because of the ABM treaty...even the practical test were forbidden. The systems were limited (Moscow and in the USA the ICBM fields) and to ensure a 100 % kill the ABM systems used a 5 kt nuclear warhead (best for 60ies and 70ies technology).

Why are big missiles need for warhead interception??? The warheads explodes in 3 km height (atmosphere detonation, the shockwave comes from above, so no energy is lost in contrast to surface detonation)! So better to intercept it before it comes close to 5 km range.

You are complete right that USA and Russia can't defend against a attack with hundreds of wahrheads and decoys NOW! But maybe in the future...who knows?!

Hypersonic missiles are a bit different, because we assume they are not nuclear in the role of an ordinary AShM missile. So interception in a late stage is no real problem, only CIWS range is maybe a bit too late. But like ICBM warheads...they create plasma, are bright as the sun. Only problem is the maneuverability, if the Tsirkon makes a 30 g turn, the missile seeker of the intercepting missile can lose the track or maybe the intercepting missile can't turn that fast.

An Arleigh Burke will have problems to destroy a Tsirkon, because of the whole procedure. From identification to launching of a standard missile some time is needed...and maybe it's not really enough time for a successful interception. The same problem of course occurs on russian ships.
For successful interception fast electronic is needed, a half automated system with an AI, a good radar with very short wavelenght to give a exact position and a kill vehicle/missile with optical and infrared sensor. Best would be a missile with combined infrared and active radar seeker and a good fast stable datalink to the ship. And crucial for the missile/ kill vehicle is a PIF-PAF system and not conventional fins!!!

And as I wrote...

Russia has NOW a aero-ballistic missile (Kinzhal), a hypersonic glide vehicle (Awangard) and air breathing scramjet missile (Tsirkon) in service. I know Tsirkon will be mass produced next year.

USA failed a few times with AGM-183 ARRW (glide vehicle) and Darpa had only one successful test with HAWC (air breathing scramjet), the X-51 Waverider (air breathing scramjet) failed 4 times during 4 tests (longest flight was 210 s goal was 300 s).

So I personally expect no hypersonic missile for US Forces prior to 2026-2027. Enough time for Russia to evolve AD systems, even smaller AD systems against hypersonic threats. The magic keywords are infrared radar seeker combined, fast data processing and a PIF-PAF system for course correction.

Pif-paf, radar, IR... that would cost 5 million per missiles.

Like I said a ballistic missile carries ten warhead and plenty of decoys.

If I'm a general and you come to me with a system that can intercept 1 or 2 warhead at once, knowing that most ballistic missiles carry 10 warheads, i will tell you "no thanks" and build my own IVBM for assured mutual destruction which is the best defence against ICBMs.

No one cares if an AD missile can intercept one hypersonic warhead. What matters is a combat scenario involving a real number of missiles.

Isos wrote:To intercept them you need big missiles (see S-500) which means less missile per launchers and per systems.

Intercepting them using hit to kill interceptors like S-500 or PAC-3 won't help. You need a system like A-135 and the upcoming A-235 because they don't rely on hit to kill interceptors but rather two-stage anti-missiles with high-explosive and nuclear warheads.

A nuclear blast in space will destroy all the incoming warheads and decoys.

The U.S also realizes how useless PAC-3 and THAAD are. That's why they deployed space plane like X-37B to track and intercept enemy ICBM warheads.

Isos wrote:Pif-paf, radar, IR... that would cost 5 million per missiles.

Like I said a ballistic missile carries ten warhead and plenty of decoys.

If I'm a general and you come to me with a system that can intercept 1 or 2 warhead at once, knowing that most ballistic missiles carry 10 warheads, i will tell you "no thanks" and build my own IVBM for assured mutual destruction which is the best defence against ICBMs.

No one cares if an AD missile can intercept one hypersonic warhead. What matters is a combat scenario involving a real number of missiles.

The original discussion was not about ICBM and MIRV, it was about lighter AD systems against hypersonic missiles. Could a russian corvette defend itself against US hypersonic missiles? It can with upgrades in the future! Is a russian corvette obsolte and defenseless in 10 years? No!

By the way...the Aster family is a system with a PIF-PAF system. The cost range is from 1,7 to 2 million per missile and thus below a PAC-2 or PAC-3 missile.

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Back to ICBM...
Maybe for you it's no difference between losing 20 cities due to nuclear strikes and 40 million deaths or losing only 10 cities and 20 million deaths?! But it is an issue for politics and the army...that's why S-550 is in development and systems like A-135, S-500, GBI and THAAD etc. were developed.

A ABM system can't protect 100 % against hundreds of missiles and thousands of warheads and decoy...but it offers at least some kind of protection. And it protects against rogue states with only a few missiles and few warheads. MAD is not always the solution for everything!

To say that such a system is pointless implies that all russian and american politicians, generals etc are just stupid. But I think they know what they are doing

Maybe for you it's no difference between losing 20 cities due to nuclear strikes and 40 million deaths or losing only 10 cities and 20 million deaths?! But it is an issue for politics and the army...that's why S-550 is in development and systems like A-135, S-500, GBI and THAAD etc. were developed.

No difference. A nuclear attack is Russia and USA launching thousands of nuks at the same time.

Intercepting 10 of them won't save anyone. I wouldn't want to live in a radioactive world anyway.

S-500 is to counter smaller countries mayvbe but rather useless against US arsenal.

By the way...the Aster family is a system with a PIF-PAF system. The cost range is from 1,7 to 2 million per missile and thus below a PAC-2 or PAC-3 missile.

Even France with 50 billion annual spending can't afford enough of them... with radar and IR sensor plus very long range, such missile would cost 4-5 million.

I would not say useless, but S500 certainly gives Russian leadership an advantage in first strike scenario, and decapitation strike scenario.

In first strike role, yasens with zircons can hit important radar sites, and places like vanderberg airbase,  nuclear submarine ports. Timed with avangard strikes on US leadership and Sea based defenses.

This is all going down with bulavas killing US icbm silos,

And s500 and a235 can mop up retaliatory Trident strikes on Russia.

Counterforce domination

On european nuclear arsenals , s500 s400 s550 and a235 can win all out nuclear war against any euro arsenal, knockout any incoming slbms from Triomphant and Trafalgars.

Russians just have to get first strike off on most important assets at the outset. And mop up retaliatory strikes. I think french and English have at most 2 subs patrolling at any one time.

ALCM would not even be a challenge with S500

And this is a scenario without strikes on enemy population. No countervalue strikes, pure military targets and leadership targets

Isos wrote:

Maybe for you it's no difference between losing 20 cities due to nuclear strikes and 40 million deaths or losing only 10 cities and 20 million deaths?! But it is an issue for politics and the army...that's why S-550 is in development and systems like A-135, S-500, GBI and THAAD etc. were developed.

No difference. A nuclear attack is Russia and USA launching thousands of nuks at the same time.

Intercepting 10 of them won't save anyone. I wouldn't want to live in a radioactive world anyway.

S-500 is to counter smaller countries mayvbe but rather useless against US arsenal.

By the way...the Aster family is a system with a PIF-PAF system. The cost range is from 1,7 to 2 million per missile and thus below a PAC-2 or PAC-3 missile.

Even France with 50 billion annual spending can't afford enough of them... with radar and IR sensor plus very long range, such missile would cost 4-5 million.

Emmm...you know that 2058 nuclear weapons were already tested? 528 were atmospheric explosions and 1530 were underground. From 5 kt to 50 mt all kind of nuclear bombs were tested. And...surprise, surprise...we still live! And the world is not radioactive wasted.

Here are the correct numbers of deployed warheads! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_START

USA has 1700 nuclear warheads on ICBM and SLBM. Of these not all warheads would be launched, because some submarines would be not operational at the time and some officers would simply not launch the nuclear missiles (the rate of human morale failure is around 20 %). So in a first strike scenario Russsia or otherwise USA would face 1300-1500 nuclear warheads from missiles...this is not a scenario of thousands over thousands over thousands warheads. This is a solvable problem with the right technology. In a second strike scenario only 200-500 warheads could be started.

So what is your solution??? You have a nuclear threat and no ABM treaty anymore! Doing nothing and simply facing doom? Let the opponent gain a technological advantage...and simply doing nothing?

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Of course the Aster is expensive but the western MIC is known for soaking up endless amounts of money. Russia is more effective with money spent. The Aster is simply a example for a missile with a PIF-PAF system, it's not a system now against hypersonic missile and it's far from perfect. My point is that a lighter AD system against hypersonic missiles is not voodoo or a mystery! That's all!

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Back to topic...

Threat for russian ships the next 10 - 15 years would not be some mysterious american hypersonic missiles it would be the AGM-158C LRASM. Carrier strike groups are always a threat for ALL adversary ships! With the LRASM the USA can strike russian ships and be still out of the range of Tsirkon missiles. They can deplete easy with saturation attacks the AD systems of smaller ships. Advantage of russian corvettes or frigates is the small RCS so maybe US carrier groups are not always aware of them (1000 km range is a lot to control), especially if they are in litoral waters.

Azi I believe the closest real world concept implemented in this regard was the SDI project called brilliant pebbles.

The program was proposed to incorporate a system of thousands of missiles that could be placed into orbit over enemy space, maybe more than 200km above, and from orbiting shells, the missile would he deployed and equipped with UV and Lidar camera receivers, propellant nozzles, batteries, cryocoolers and other systems including processors and computers that meant to take down an interceptor you would need 1 ASAT missile per floating " pebble".

This is an artist's rendition of the initial concept


And then the advanced GPALS or global protection against limited strikes concept, so it evolved to be used with other interception techniques like ground based interceptors of terminal and midcourse interception, space based interception, they tried a laser concept and many others. soviet union also looked into various BMD programs and I think they're being pulled out of the dust bin especially with testing of Kosmos 2499 and other potential killer sats which were coined istrebitel sputnik by USSR.

Ultimately I think its retarded to consider yourself ever safe from retaliation of ICBM. Even US scrapped the program full well knowing it was cost prohibitive and the USSR had ways to punch through the pebbles and get icbms through the gap.

I think ultimately these capabilities are coupled with political demands to get the enemy to sign off on surrender, sort of like ABM treaty which came after the development of SDI when USSR was at point of no return internally , and signed off on suicide.

Russia having first strike advantage and potential ABM capabilities will force the enemy to oblige to an agreement rather than actually fielding the capability ever, because it is not actually feasible, although maybe in distant future it will be when RF is rolling in galactic battle cruisers

Here is rendition of GPALS

The old, if it doesn't stop everything then it is useless theory would have soldiers being ferried around the battlefield in Trucks and soldiers not wearing helmets or flak jackets... well if they shoot you in the face a helmet and flak jacket are not going to help much are they.

Yet armies around the world spend the extra money on BTRs and BMPs and even BTR-Ts...

An S-500 system on its own can't deal with thousands of threats... but the whole purpose of an IADS is to add command and control and communications to the problem of dealing with tens of thousands of aircraft and missiles and standoff weapons...

The new START treaty limits each side to 1,500 warheads... so add 250 more for France and 250 more for Britain and you are looking at a total of about 2,000 threats... when you break that down to the directions many of them have to come from you can limit down the number of problems each region of Russia would have to deal with... a combination of S-500s and S-550s and S-300V4s or perhaps S-300V5s maybe and of course S-400s as well because they can engage targets moving at almost 5km/s themselves and you start to think maybe this could work as a real defence... now add the Moscow defence network with 100 interceptors of the A-135 and A-235 and perhaps Nudol missiles... and in five years time perhaps a similar system in Vladivostok and another system in St Petersberg... and maybe another in Murmansk further down the track and it starts to look like the best defended country by far would be Russia I would say... and with a new early warning system in China protecting them from surprise attack could deal with threats coming from that direction too...

As Russian ships of larger displacement come on line the air defence of their navy will radically improve too to the point of S-400 and S-500 at sea which would give them serious very mobile ABM defence too.

They have said the S-550 wont be going to sea and I suspect the anti satellite nature of the weapon on a ship would probably be too destabilising for the west to stomach... but then if they cross Putins red lines that is another step he could take too.

Russia is still betting on MAD though with Thunderbird and Poseidon programmes going ahead... Thunderbirds on trains....

Arkanghelsk wrote:Azi I believe the closest real world concept implemented in this regard was the SDI project called brilliant pebbles.

The program was proposed to incorporate a system of thousands of missiles that could be placed into orbit over enemy space, maybe more than 200km above, and from orbiting shells, the missile would he deployed and equipped with UV and Lidar camera receivers, propellant nozzles, batteries, cryocoolers and other systems including processors and computers that meant to take down an interceptor you would need 1 ASAT missile per floating " pebble".

This is an artist's rendition of the initial concept


And then the advanced GPALS or global protection against limited strikes concept, so it evolved to be used with other interception techniques like ground based interceptors of terminal and midcourse interception, space based interception, they tried a laser concept and many others. soviet union also looked into various BMD programs and I think they're being pulled out of the dust bin especially with testing of Kosmos 2499 and other potential killer sats which were coined istrebitel sputnik by USSR.

Ultimately I think its retarded to consider yourself ever safe from retaliation of ICBM. Even US scrapped the program full well knowing it was cost prohibitive and the USSR had ways to punch through the pebbles and get icbms through the gap.

I think ultimately these capabilities are coupled with political demands to get the enemy to sign off on surrender,  sort of like ABM treaty which came after the development of SDI when USSR was at point of no return internally , and signed off on suicide.

Russia having first strike advantage and potential ABM capabilities will force the enemy to oblige to an agreement rather than actually fielding the capability ever,  because it is not actually feasible, although maybe in distant future it will be when RF is rolling in galactic battle cruisers

Here is rendition of GPALS

It is absolutely correct what you wrote! But SDI was only a propaganda move by the Reagan Administration to unsettle the Soviet Union. USA knew that any deployment of such an system would threaten the ABM treaty and could easily led during cold war to a fast first strike from soviet side. It was only propaganda and early concepts to show USSR that the USA ist technological superior in any way.

An ICBM needs 30-35 min to travel ~10000 km. The warheads seperates only during the last phase, the last 5 minutes...before the "post boost vehicle" can be intercepted with ALL warheads and decoys included. For this space based systems are absolutely PERFECT....but the militarization of space is now prohibited it's called the "outer space treaty". Next chance to intercept a post boost vehicle is on it's way to it's destination through some kind of the well known AEGIS system (I think it can't intercept post bosst vehicles now...but I'm not sure).

The exisiting ABM systems are now not really operational, but I saw some years ago an interview with a higher russian commander he said Russia fears not american ABM systems now, but they fear in what they will evolve in 10 or 20 years. Russia, USA and China are all working on such systems and it will take some time to find good solutions but I have no doubt that such system will be deployed in 10-15 years.

A big mystery is Russias capabilities in this whole equation...because system like A-135 are more or less operational but no one in publicity knows how capable this systema are. And additional the S-500 system, the missiles of the system are really fast...one of the fastest accelerating missiles...how capable are they?!