Russia's naval doctrine and strategy

IMO it's worth mentioning that AShM/HARMs can be launched by B-1B/52s, F-16s & P-3/8s as well:
https://news.usni.org/2019/12/19/next-generation-anti-ship-missile-achieves-operational-capability-with-super-hornets

Thirty B-52Gs were further modified to carry up to 12 AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles each,..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Armament

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon#Specifications_(F-16C_Block_50/52)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-3_Orion#Specifications_(P-3C_Orion)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-3_Orion#United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon#Specifications_(P-8A)

LMFS wrote:Yes, that is what I meant. The amount is appalling, but I actually don't think it would be very different from reality, in the conditions you are considering. I assume a salvo being launched within few seconds from different directions and a time for the ship's AD from discovery at ca. 15 km to potential impact of each single missile a little below 1 minute.

Actually even if LRASM would proceed at only 5 m above wake since 50 km (a feat that is well beyond the limits of its aerodynamics layout and that would significatively reduce its range) the radar horizon for the EASR of FFGX would be about 32 km.
Taking into account real height of approach of LRASM you have something a bit over 40 km.

LMFS wrote:This is maybe a not so relevant detail in the big picture, but the current crop of missiles with two way datalinks + E-2D in the area makes the guidance an apparently trivial issue, unless I am missing some fundamental fact. I see it not completely obvious for the ship's EW to fool such weapons when left on their own, due to multimode seekers with passive radar locators, ESM/ECCM, IIR and other rather advanced technology, and practically impossible when external high-end platforms are providing the targetting.

Probably you simply miss that missiles close the ships and move away from elements capable to provide third party guidance and that at 50-60 km from ship the guidance channels will be clompletely drowned by the EW on board the ship (or in this instance several ships) that boast also a much greater potential than any airborne one.

Best protection against EW for anti-ship missiles is very high speed because the homing systems on board each missile can acquire the target position at distance where the jamming density -that obviously disperse about at the square of distance - from enemy ship is still too low and the missile can proceed up to a precomputed impact point , executing pseudo-random high-G manoeuvres, without any more correction from the homing system.

There are some important comments here:

LMFS wrote:> Based on the SURGEX report I linked, the Nimitz could generate, on average, 11.6 sorties per hour over a 24 h period (officially considered time by USN is 240 sorties over 24 h or 10 per hour). But that means, considering ALL the operations needed on board, with the differences in tempo between day and night, and in a sustained way. Short term launching of ready planes into the air has a pace of roughly 4 launches per minute. BTW, the act of launching the whole air wing of the carrier is called Alpha Strike and it is considered to take roughly half an hour, including lifting, arming, fuelling and staging the planes. The flight deck can handle roughly 30 aircraft simultaneously, before getting overcrowded.

I know very well the document you have pointed out, the SURGEX was executed with targets placed at 200 nautical miles from the Nimitz carrier (practically well within engagement range of an enemy maritime strike group) with a weapon load out of only 1000 punds of gravity bombs and two AIM-9.

The maritime strike scenario in the Pacific has a distance to cover...and need for additional fuel with the related logistic preparations and repair times - more than double of that modeled in the US Navy Surgex exercise and the loadout of each F/A-18 is near five times more.

As said i have put irreasonably favourable conditions for the carrier, that would never materialize in the reality, only to provide an extreme picture of the difference in potential.

In reality what will reasonably happen is that ISR assets will detect only a small part of the enemy dispersed strike group ,the carrier will operate in its sector launching wasteful attacks towards the few units they have detected while all the corvettes/frigates undetected will come well within delivery range of theirs salvo of anti-ships missiles that E-2D will detect at not more than 250-300 km from the carrier.

Some hours after the sunk of the carrier with all its aircraft on board all military analysts at world will point to the anachronistic, criminal conservatism of carrier's apologists.

Mindstorm wrote:
Probably you simply miss that missiles close the ships and move away from elements capable to provide third party guidance and that at 50-60 km from ship the guidance channels will be clompletely drowned by the EW on board the ship (or in this instance several ships) that boast also a much greater potential than any airborne one.

True, I was not assuming a per default activation of the ship's EW (the missile being at 60 km from the ship, the crew would still be unaware of the attack) in order not to make easier their location on a passive mode or the home on jamming mode of the missile's seekers. Would not the simultaneous jamming of guidance channels and the use of decoys be contradictory?

I know very well the document you have pointed out, the SURGEX was executed with targets placed at 200 nautical miles from the Nimitz carrier (practically well within engagement range of an enemy maritime strike group) with a weapon load out of only 1000 punds of gravity bombs and two AIM-9.

We would need to make a quantitative analysis to see what the maximum range of the planes would be in the configuration we decide as correct. The reasons why on a first approach I have disregarded to do that are:

> The range of the air launched missiles is equal or superior to the surface launched ones, even considering the later have a booster. This is arguable, since I find no official data for either modality, but the air launched option has the advantage of the carrier plane being able to increase altitude or speed release differently to a fixed surface launch and I take this fact as an additional safety margin
> The 200 nm mentioned in the report refer to the use of bombs, not missiles. So the target location in the SURGEX would correspond to the launching point of the missiles in our scenario, and it would be already almost 400 km away from the carrier (and already nearly out of range for the frigates' offensive weapons), to which the actual range of the air launched missiles would need to be added. So there is a robust margin for the carrier's aviation in this regard.
> The report explains that those 200 nm were not representative of the maximum range at which the missions could actually be performed with the sortie rate and fuel load used by the planes

The maritime strike scenario in the Pacific has a distance to cover...and need for additional fuel with the related logistic preparations and repair times - more than double of that modeled in the US Navy Surgex exercise and the loadout of each F/A-18 is  near five times more.

See above regarding the range necessary in the scenario. Using the JSM the offensive load of each F-18 would be roughly 1.5 tons, without considering AAMs. The planes used in SURGEX carried either 1,000 or 2,000 lb bombs, for a load of 500 or 1,000 kg + AAMs.

As said i have put irreasonably favourable conditions for the carrier, that would never materialize in the reality, only to provide an extreme picture of the difference in potential.

In reality what will reasonably happen is that ISR assets will detect only a small part of the enemy dispersed strike group ,the carrier will operate in its sector launching wasteful attacks towards the few units they have detected while all the corvettes/frigates undetected will come well within delivery range of theirs salvo of anti-ships missiles that E-2D will detect at not more than 250-300 km from the carrier.

I will address this in your previous post about the Pacific scenario.

LMFS wrote:make easier their location on a passive mode or the home on jamming mode of the missile's seekers. Would not the simultaneous jamming of guidance channels and the use of decoys be contradictory?

This is a misconception : emitter locating systems ,also in their much more performing space-separed fixed ground based versions, have a precision of some hundreds of meters and are mostly used to merely cue a missile in the right area so that terminal homing can complete the engagement.

The so called "home-on-jam" capability is today a feature almost useless against very agile frequency hopping modern radar/jammers (the reason: the radiation source computation by part of the processing systems produce positional ambiguity incompatible with the realization of engagement).


False radar portrays of the defended ship with the IR opaque aerosols screen before them will all sit in the same area of uncertainty and therefore a fraction of the inbound missiles (already at 10-12 km) will begin to aim for the false targets.

LMFS wrote:> The range of the air launched missiles is equal or superior to the surface launched ones, even considering the later have a booster. This is arguable, since I find no official data for either modality, but the air launched option has the advantage of the carrier plane being able to increase altitude or speed release differently to a fixed surface launch and I take this fact as an additional safety margin
> The 200 nm mentioned in the report refer to the use of bombs, not missiles. So the target location in the SURGEX would correspond to the launching point of the missiles in our scenario, and it would be already almost 400 km away from the carrier (and already nearly out of range for the frigates' offensive weapons), to which the actual range of the air launched missiles would need to be added. So there is a robust margin for the carrier's aviation in this regard.

Those mission was executed at 200 nautical miles (about 370 Km) from the Nimitz carrier included the 3-4 nautical miles of the bombs (5-7 km) therefore those F/A-18 and 14 flown only 365 km with about 600 kg of ordances , in mine example those same aircraft would have flown 390 nautical miles (723 km ) with 2270 kg of ordnances and two conformal 1818 liters fuel tanks ....that probably cannot even mount in this configuration.....

Practically in order to produce the makeshift of a surge in the number of sorties US Navy officials have reproduced WWII missions, with even the same range and type of weapons (that is exactly where carriers shine), if any it prove the ridiculous anachronism of carrier apologists if a conflict against an advanced enemy is taken in consideration.

LMFS wrote:> The report explains that those 200 nm were not representative of the maximum range at which the missions could actually be performed with the sortie rate and fuel load used by the planes

Obviously but increasing even of a low percentage the mission distance and sophostication and mass of weapons to be employed (much much more labour intensive than MK-83 dumb bombs) the sorties rate would collapse to discouraging figures because:

-Each aircraft must obviously cover the additional distance in both directions
-Each aircraft need much more fuel and carry much bigger weapon load and both increase the drag, lower the excess power disposable and lower the authonomy and the average speed to the target area
-Each aircraft reequire much more labour hours to prepare before the mission and for returning operative after one is completed
-Weapon require much more time to be mounted, fixed and programmed

As said i have put unreasonable bonus to the carrier side considered the huge inbalance of forces between the two sides procured with the same resources.

Mindstorm wrote:This is a misconception : emitter locating systems ,also in their much more performing space-separed fixed ground based versions, have a precision of some hundreds of meters and are mostly used to merely cue a missile in the right area so that terminal homing can complete the engagement.

Ok thanks

two conformal 1818 liters fuel tanks ....that probably cannot even mount in this configuration.....

I guess it could due to to the four wet stations in the wings, but the load and DI would be substantial in that configuration. The NATOPS manual provides very accurate data in case we want to do a precise drag / range calculation.

Obviously but increasing even of a low percentage the mission distance and sophostication and mass of weapons to be employed (much much more labour intensive than MK-83 dumb bombs) the sorties rate would collapse to discouraging figures because:

-Each aircraft must obviously cover the additional distance in both directions

This was already considered in the exercise, they even provided an additional table with the potential max range for the strike sorties generated:



In any case this is the size of the safety margin for the carrier to which the range of the aircraft missiles must be added, not the real distance to the target.

I believe that the concept of "maritime distributed lethality" (or "modular naval force concentration" in the domestic version od the concept) is not perfectly clear.....

The possibility of disperse and mask an high number of lower tonnage/lower signature among littoral elements and civil sea ships do NOT aim at allow your group of ships operating from there.

The purpose is instead to negate to the enemy the initial position of wide majority of your units so that its ISR and and Command and Control assets must find each of them and follow each of them separately splitting its surveillance resorces (in particular UAVs and surveillance aircraft) in the space and in the time and rendering them much more easier to destroy -because you cannot provide the necessary CAP protection to each of those UAV/Aircraft like in a recce mission against a large ship force concentration

Understood and in agreement.

This relates to my first comments to your scenario. I agree a defending fleet can use the coast and spread itself to make ISR efforts more difficult. What I have difficulty understanding is how such a fleet deploys far from the own coast. The use of the carrier near of the own shores makes no real sense since air power is already available there.

The kind of fleet you propose, without air cover and advanced airspace surveillance is highly vulnerable in the high seas. The smaller the ship, the smaller its autonomy and its susceptibility to sea state, to navigate and to use weapons. Attacks can come from below its radar horizon and create situations where the short range defences are saturated or simply caught by surprise.

As to the evolution of the warfare in naval domain, I agree there will be a strong increase in distributed offensive means as you say, but also the corresponding advances in AI, unmanned vehicles and space based monitoring act to counter them and mane manageable the increasing amount of information needed to keep control of the tactical situation. For a vessel of medium displacement and slow as a frigate to go within 500 km of a carrier with AWACS, fighters on CAP and in the future numbers of HALE/MALE UAVs in the open oceanic environment unnoticed is not something I can easily accept. Long range hypersonic weapons can push the limits of this airspace control, but current subsonic missiles and surface assets don't do it.

To the Pacific scenario.

Try to not reason in abstract ,naval warfare in real word do not happen on an infinite surface without geographical elements and point of strategic interests

I try to keep the discussion far from too many case-specific details, but I agree the new weapons are making this more difficult, because with ranges reaching > 1,000 km the size of the theater becomes almost of oceanic size.

Let make an example using greography of USA and the Federation (as they was two nations identical ) with the first employing its resource in a single Nimtz-class carrier with its complement of fixed-wings aircraft and the second using the same resources to procure (in a way absolutely inefficient) 22 FFGx.

This is not very realistic because as said the idea is to use the carrier for deployments far from the homeland. The distributed fleet starts in home territory, which is opposed to how I would see reasonable to compare with a carrier, when it would need to cross an ocean to intervene in a remote conflict.

choosing a scenario like Baltic, Northern or Black Sea would had very quickly transformed in a turkey shoot for the FFGx's side

Agree, using a carrier in such an environment makes no sense at all.

The aircraft carrier could be placed about 400-450 km SE of the western part of the Alesians so that its F/A-18-E/F with 2 LRASM (attacking at groups of 5 aircraft at times so to not suffer huge penalties to theirs combat range for wait the preparation and take -off from the carrier of others F/A-18-E/F) could attack enemy ships up to 1282 km far away (390 nm -722,28 km- with two external tanks of 1818 liter and the two LRASM).

What is the need to stay so far from the targets? The carrier has superior propulsion so they can maintain distance as needed. As seen before, the attack groups can be bigger because they can be launched in few minutes (4.5 minutes for the air wing size you calculated).

Taking the proportion of missiles you calculated, 36 missiles x 22 frigates would mean 792 LRASM, which is clearly an exaggeration but I think ultimately within the magazine capabilities of a Nimitz carrier (standard CVN load as mentioned in SURGEX is 800 x Mk 82, 900 x Mk 83 and 200 x Mk 84). As said I don't consider this way of attacking the FFGX not even close to the optimum, but let us explore it.

Enemy FFGx frigates will move ,let put at a speed 20 knots, from theirs dispersed positions converging in two groups of long two SE and E vectors towards Aleutians islands where they will cover and disperse behind the islands.

I assume this convergence of forces is just to facilitate the analysis, but in any case such result would be natural if they ever come to pursuit the carrier.

Let image that space based and long range UAVs or sea bed sensors (the on board E2-D will detect those frigates well within engagement range of theirs LRASM therefore chance of survival are all on third party detection) manage to detect and discriminate from civil maritime traffic very optimistically 13 on those 22 frigates.

I don't understand your reasoning regarding the E-2D not being able to detect the frigates until they are within range to attack the carrier? Their radar has range in excess of 500 km, which is roughly the radar horizon available at their operational altitude and they can stay on station for hours hundreds of km away from the carrier (range ca. 2700 km + air refuelling capable). So the frigates would be detected well before being able to attack the carrier.

So, how long would it take for the carrier to take care of the frigates?

Using the combat range you calculated, 2 hours per sortie would be IMHO a rough but acceptable flight time (1.8 h for F-18 in the SURGEX, considering they were kept waiting in the air according to the max mission range in the table above). With 44 strike planes onboard, two attacking groups could be used in parallel and the rest 8 planes could be used to speed up the tempo. We can consider a cycle of one group of sorties every two hours, well within demonstrated surge capabilities. As the frigates have to come closer to get in range of attack, the carrier will manage its speed to facilitate aircraft operations and can allow the frigates to come closer, as far as they stay outside of their attack range (ca. 500 km). Within the proposed 29 and 34 hours and assuming two groups of 11 frigates are attacked in open sea according to their proximity to the islands, the first group is completely eliminated and the second loses 6 units (sorry but I don't understand why you consider the frigates sailing in open sea manage to avoid detection by AWACS, so I don't know how to compute which ones you think are being detected and which not). After that period, 5 units remain and it is not clear to me whether you would assume they would manage to hide or go away or keep trying to get offensive. In my logic, search groups would be launched by the carrier to find and destroy them.

Assuming all of the above is wrong and the frigates get in position to attack the carrier:
With the 22 frigates attacking from 500 km and assuming the E-2D are operational, there would be roughly 30 minutes to intercept as many incoming missiles as possible and the carrier's air wing needs to act defensively now. Since we are considering that the frigates reach somehow the carrier, I assume the carrier itself is aware and has had the chance of preparing the planes needed for an interception mission. 14 AAMs per F/A-18E/F means the whole fleet's LRASM loadout of 10 x 22  = 220 LRASM would be ideally intercepted by just 16 planes, which could be launched within 5 minutes since the first missiles are detected, without the ship's SAMs even needing to start operating. This, considering that carriers never operate without at least some AEGIS destroyers and therefore this example is abusing a bit the air wing, but I get this goes both ways and the FFGX also may be used in a better way.

As said i have put unreasonable bonus to the carrier side considered the huge inbalance of forces between the two sides procured with the same resources.

Interestingly I have a similar sensation that the carrier's many possibilities and degrees of freedom have not been used in the scenario because of a completely artificial bottleneck caused by the USN's obsession with land attack and neglect of maritime strike incl. current lack of proper AShM. Also the utilization of the carrier without a fleet is a bit senseless, but I understand the idea was to compare both options in as pure a way as possible.

In fact, I think an air wing of Su-33 with Kh-31 could get this mission done on a fraction of the time and the cost...  

To conclude, since I doubt that I can say much more about this issue without repeating myself: I think the correct way of using the carriers is having a complete fleet of offensive and defensively capable ships, like the ones VMF is building now, and protect them with a layer of air power, which is trivially done close to the homeland's shores with land-based aircraft, but can only be proportioned in the far sea regions with the participation of a carrier. A proportion of two / three naval strike carriers to be used when needed and sufficient amount of other vessels that can be used independently does not create an exaggerated burden on the navy's budget (they will be way cheaper than land-attack, payload-on target oriented ones) and is key to create a capable oceanic fleet. I didn't thought that I would come to disagree with you, but it seems this is the case...

I was a pair of days out of city.
Let resume from where we was.


LMFS let me start saying that both me and you know perfectly that this "Surgex "exercise was nothing more than a "puppet parade" constructed purposely by US Navy Command officials attempting to defend the role of aircraft carriers with severe personell and material augmentations and choosing ad hoc missions and equipemnt involved (in particular distance to targets and weapons of airwings) to produce absolutely unrwalizable sortie rate.

But i want to continue the analysis only to show how even within those parameters the cost and operative efficiency of aircraft carriers in any other role except remote ground attack against terribly inferior enemies is terribly low.

LMFS we are attempting to compute how much time would be required to the airwing to conduct long range operations and at what costs in terms of on-board fuel and ordance stock ,in other words what can produce the entire potential of an aircraft carrier in terms of sea control in a not WWII scenario.

* A little note to the edge : we can say that also for that long pasted historical instance several military analysts argue today that the real central element allowing the effective use of airpower against Japanese and German Navy was not the magical quality of air power at sea but much more trivially the fact that in both instances the code for communication and command of the enemy had been breached and allied Navy commander could plan and organize attack and defense from stand-off knowing in advance the exact position and the movement of enemy surface units.

Lacking this game-changing "allowing" element probably today we would talk of a series of terrible allied defeats in the Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

LMFS wrote:This was already considered in the exercise, they even provided an additional table with the potential max range for the strike sorties generated:

Russia's naval doctrine and strategy - Page 5 Surgex10

In any case this is the size of the safety margin for the carrier to which the range of the aircraft missiles must be added, not the real distance to the target.

Not, it was neither considered and neither could be executed at the condictions and preparations realized in this exercise.

What pag. 5 say is simply the maximum potential range of the aircraft at standard flight time and in-area times of stance in the same missions realized of the exercise and not obviously those effectively reacheable at the conditions realized in the exercise's missions; practically they describe the maximum potential of the aircraft in the mission configuration

If you observe at pag 31 you can see that among all the 727 strike missions completed in the 4 days and 2 hours :

- About 68% has been conducted within 100 nmi (let put optimistically 70 n.mi on average from the carrier and therefore 66/67 n.mi - 122/124 km - effectively covered before bomb's release)
- About 24% has been conducted within 150 nmi (let put optimistically 130 n.mi on average fron the carrier and therefore 126/127 n.mi -233/235 km - effectively covered before bomb's release )
- About 8% has been conducted at 200+ n.mi up to 280 n.mi (let put optimistically 250 n.mi on average fron the carrier and therefore 246/247 n.mi -455/457 km - effectively covered before bomb's release )

Those aircraft involved in the SURGEX exercise have therefore optimistically covered on average 94,6 n.mi or 175 km from the carrier in theirs strike missions.
With theirs very light 2 AIM-9 and two 500 punds bombs weapon load we can assume an average speed, at 10.000 meters of altitude of mach 0,9 (limit to transonic) about 1078 Km/h for an average time of flight to target of 9,7 minutes and 19,4 minutes of mission's flight , adding other 2 minutes of additional standing in the area we have an average strike mission's time of 21,4 minutes.

Is eveident that is just this very reduced flgiht time (caused by the purposely chosen targets positioned at very small distance ) togheter with the personell augmentation at allow the enormous surge in the numbers of sorties.

Now in our maritime strike scenario the F/A-18E/F would cover 390 n.mi or 722,28 km before LRASM relaease with a weapon and CFT load of over 5.3 tons.
Assuming a flight toward the delivery point at the same 10.000 m altitude at an optimistic speed of 0,7 mach - 754,74 km/h for the way heavier and drag-generating load, you have an average time of flight to target of about 57,5 minutes and 1 hour and 55 minutes of mission's flight .

That mean that very optimistically the very low range ground strike missions in the SURGEX have required less than 4,8 less time than the maritime strike missions in open Pacific Ocean of the scenario proposed !!
Naturally also the preparations before and after each maritime starike mission -and the fuel and weapons and repair times required - would be immensely more labour and time-intensive in comparison.

LMFS wrote:This is not very realistic because as said the idea is to use the carrier for deployments far from the homeland. The distributed fleet starts in home territory, which is opposed to how I would see reasonable to compare with a carrier, when it would need to cross an ocean to intervene in a remote conflict.

I agree that it is absolutely not reasonable, because in the reality those carriers would almost certainly operate at thousands of km from CONUS in closed sea theatres (Baltic, Mediterranean Sea, Black sea, Persian Gulf etc....) and at only some hundreds of km from enemy EEZ, where would be trapped within engagement range even of coastal-batteries of enemy antiship missilse ,let aside ship and submarine mounted ones, and theirs weapon load would be constituted at 85-90 % of air to ground and air to air ordances ,not anti-ship missiles.

The scenario chosen is the most favourable for the "perpetual-retreat" tactic ,that obviously would be irrealizable in reality because no technology capable to change wind direction exist today and at speed of over 20 knots in a forced direction it would be absolutely impossible to execute any take-off (above all with that weapon and fuel load) except with almost perfect cross wing direction.
But i have assumed, for pure sake of argumentation, that the wind's direction would perfectly match the directions where enemy group of ships alternatively pull the carriers.......admitting that the carrier would be even aware that a group of those low tonnage ships would be coming toward it in a particular direction ,models now existing suggest the opposite.....

LMFS wrote:Taking the proportion of missiles you calculated, 36 missiles x 22 frigates would mean 792 LRASM, which is clearly an exaggeration but I think ultimately within the magazine capabilities of a Nimitz carrier (standard CVN load as mentioned in SURGEX is 800 x Mk 82, 900 x Mk 83 and 200 x Mk 84). As said I don't consider this way of attacking the FFGX not even close to the optimum, but let us explore it.

The figure is for a single salvo against an insulated frigate with the defending ship using about half of its interceptors , in reality density of the most well executed salvo attack will never reach density greater than 12-13 missiles for minute and the frigates would converge in strike groups of at least 3 or 4 units capable each to cover the others, exchange data and jamming power for a significative surge of the PK of each single interceptor.

LMFS wrote:assume this convergence of forces is just to facilitate the analysis, but in any case such result would be natural if they ever come to pursuit the carrier.

Convercence ,in particular of units eventually discovered by subamrines or ISR aircraft happen to increase the anti-ship missile's salvo density and cooperative defensive performances.

LMFS wrote:I don't understand your reasoning regarding the E-2D not being able to detect the frigates until they are within range to attack the carrier? Their radar has range in excess of 500 km, which is roughly the radar horizon available at their operational altitude and they can stay on station for hours hundreds of km away from the carrier (range ca. 2700 km + air refuelling capable). So the frigates would be detected well before being able to attack the carrier.

That radar detection range is for bomber type airborne targets , detecting a surface reduced radar signature low tonnage ship on the sea clutter is all another story.....the 4 E-2D on board a Nimitz in war time situations can assure, through rotation, the continual presence at no more than 100-150 n.mi from the carrier and provide guidance toward 90 degrees in the direction of propable attack of the enemy to the air wing to attempt to intercept enemy bombers.
It is a classical procedure for carrier in play since the Cold Warknown as "Outher Air Battle" ( today USN has lost the F-14 and its interception capabilities).


Pag. 51

https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pdf

Without Space and Submarine based third party surveillance the discovery of enemy ship units would happen by pure chance ,likely by very long endurance UAVs and also in this instance the chance of discovery of the Nimitz calss carrier and of 22 dispersed frigates would be worlds a part in terms of probability of happening.

The range i have proposed in mine scenario take into account space based and sea bed based sensor network providing to the carrier the capability to attack enemy frigates at safe distance (and obviously discover and follow a single flat top behemoth such as a Nimitz is for radar satellites orders of magnitude easier than discover and maintain contact with 22 reduced signature low tonnage ships).

Why so long stand-off range ? Because allowing some groups of enemy ships to come closer ( let put at 800-900 km) to the carrier would expose it to the deadly risk that one or more groups not previosuly discovered would come near delivery range and the carrier at this point would confront several groups contemporaneously.

LMFS wrote:14 AAMs per F/A-18E/F means the whole fleet's LRASM loadout of 10 x 22 = 220 LRASM would be ideally intercepted by just 16 planes, which could be launched within 5 minutes since the first missiles are detected, without the ship's SAMs even needing to start operating. This, considering that carriers never operate without at least some AEGIS destroyers and therefore this example is abusing a bit the air wing, but I get this goes both ways and the FFGX also may be used in a better way.

I sincerely prefere to not elaborate of that……

LMFS you are too intelligent and long time versed in military related matters to ignore that aircraft and theirs A-A missiles (unless purposely conceived and built for the mission) are almost useless in missile defense roles, the chances even only few interceptions are so incredibly low that US Navy ,in theirs models of carrier’s defense from anti ship missiles, discard it entirely and compute instead only the performances of the complex AEGIS AD systems on board the numerous ships parts of the carrier battle group that are present with almost the only role to provide cover to the otherwise totally defensless aircraft carrier.

Therfore i will consider all that that story on the 14 AAM missiles on the F/-18 and the 220 LRASM as a funny boutade…..

..those carriers would almost certainly operate.. in closed sea theatres (Baltic, Mediterranean Sea, Black sea, Persian Gulf etc....)

they won't sail into Baltic & Black Seas, & I doubt the Persian Gulf- too close to Russian/Iranian shore based aviation & AShMs. Recently I heard that a USN CSG left a certain E. Med. Sea area after failing to locate a VMF Kilo SSK.
If a capable adversary decides to attack a CSG, it will use multiple platforms- i.e. subs, aircraft, ekranoplans, & BMs, not just FFGs, if only to increase chances of success & minimize its own losses. 
The Chinese will always have more $ to spend on CVNs than the Russians. 
China will trade with the same countries Russia hopefully will, & when the time comes they can have a division of labor- the PLAN/AF guards the SLOCs with its CBGs,etc. while the VMF/VKS/Army guards the NSR/BRI & provides ISR. 
Why duplicate an effort? After all, the UK, Japan, SK, & Australia all rely on the USN CVNs & don't even think of building their own. 
The Economist’s explanation for Russia’s new strategic effectiveness is two-fold. ‘In 20 years, Mr Putin has turned Russia’s armed forces from an ill-managed bunch of poorly equipped conscripts into a well-armed, largely professional fighting force. But he has also been politically more astute than the West, both in swiftly seizing opportunities and in sticking by his allies’, it says. [url=https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/gdp-isnt-everything/#:~:text=This shows that Russia's economy,compared with Australians' US%2453%2C400.]https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/gdp-isnt-everything/#:~:text=This%20shows%20that%20Russia's%20economy,compared%20with%20Australians'%20US%2453%2C400.[/url]

@ Mindstorm:

I will try to document as good as possible my answers, I think it is better so than giving just my opinion or vague references, but it will take a bit more time.

Not super recent, but never seen this system before. Notice it's container format.

https://weaponews.com/weapons/6984-wireless-communication-device-with-submarines-r-643-pentecostal.html

One of the latest developments in this area is "Pentecostal. "It is reported that the complex of r-643 is a radio transmitter for communication with submarines that are on duty in remote areas of the world ocean. Communications and data transfer in such conditions is a complex task, which requires special approaches and equipment.

According to reports, the "Pentecostal" is not a full-fledged radio station. In connection with the known limitations it provides only one-way data transfer via radio channel. In addition, to obtain the maximum possible communication range of the used super-long wave (vlf). One of the main features of the device r-643 is to minimize its size. Unlike other domestic systems in its class, "Pentecostal" is made in the form of the most compact products are suitable for transporting various types of transport.

x_54_u43 wrote:Not super recent, but never seen this system before. Notice it's container format.

https://weaponews.com/weapons/6984-wireless-communication-device-with-submarines-r-643-pentecostal.html

One of the latest developments in this area is "Pentecostal. "It is reported that the complex of r-643 is a radio transmitter for communication with submarines that are on duty in remote areas of the world ocean. Communications and data transfer in such conditions is a complex task, which requires special approaches and equipment.

According to reports, the "Pentecostal" is not a full-fledged radio station. In connection with the known limitations it provides only one-way data transfer via radio channel. In addition, to obtain the maximum possible communication range of the used super-long wave (vlf). One of the main features of the device r-643 is to minimize its size. Unlike other domestic systems in its class, "Pentecostal" is made in the form of the most compact products are suitable for transporting various types of transport.

Interesting that it's Super-Low Frequency (SLF) as opposed to Extremely-Low Frequency (ELF), but then again it is a 1-way communications relay, which is important to prevent the detection of hidden subs it is communicating with.

@Mindstorm:

sorry for delaying my answer, I did some preliminary research and discovered many other aspects of our analysis that deserved attention, plus I had to attend other obligations. I will post here the first part of my answer and will continue with the rest in the coming days.

Mindstorm wrote:
LMFS let me start saying that both me and you know perfectly that this "Surgex "exercise was nothing more than a "puppet parade" constructed purposely by US Navy Command officials attempting to defend the role of aircraft carriers with severe personell and material augmentations and choosing ad hoc missions and equipemnt involved (in particular distance to targets and weapons of airwings) to produce absolutely unrwalizable sortie rate.

Yes I agree it was a carefully planned exercise, created by the USN in order to demonstrate they were still relevant in land attack missions like those the US military is interested in. And I can accept that wartime SGR (Sortie Generation Rate) can be much lower, as far as the opponent manages to create the kind of threats and variable conditions that impede the carrier command and crew to properly prepare themselves for optimum operation. But ultimately this predictability is a known characteristic of many military exercises, and on the other hand, the capacities demonstrated by the carrier were real. The report even identified many aspects that could be further improved. In essence, I accept the SURGEX values are not to be expected in real wartime operations unless in exceptional cases, but I dispute that the SGR is as critical in a naval warfare as it would be having effective weapons, which is not the case in the USN as I am repeating time after time. The land attack demands delivering huge amounts of payload on largely populated and built regions, while fleets are normally concentrated on tens of ships at most, that are heavily defended targets that can be defeated at best with highly sophisticated weapons but ultimately don't need the sheer amount of ordnance and therefore sorties that sustained land warfare demands. Interestingly, one of the few cases where an elevated SGR would be required would be DCA missions against the air power of a military using highly capable carriers, in order to contain the elevated number of attacks they could deliver on the onw fleet...

But i want to continue the analysis only to show how even within those parameters the cost and operative efficiency of aircraft carriers in any other role except remote ground attack against terribly inferior enemies is terribly low.  

The worst part about all this huge effort by the navy to remain relevant in the prestige role of being world policeman for the US government is that their effectiveness in land attack roles is actually very low compared to land-based air force, that is what was demonstrated in other conflicts and the USN was trying to refute with the SURGEX exercise.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0399carrier/

LMFS we are attempting to compute how much time would be required to the airwing to conduct long range operations and at what costs in terms of on-board fuel and ordance stock ,in other words what can produce the entire potential of an aircraft carrier in terms of sea control in a not WWII scenario.

I agree in doing this exercise, but what I understand as methodologically incorrect is not to consider the sensitivity of the scenario to the different approaches and weapons different navies may use. Using only the USN, a military organization focused in the land attack role and blatantly neglecting the naval strike role as a model can be accepted only by carriers detractors, but not by those like me that defend the role of air power in naval warfare.

So I think we should definitely explore the possibility of using Flanker platforms in our theoretical scenario on board the carrier-equipped CVN, with two options for the AShM loadout: 6 x Kh-31 or 3 x 3M54 like proposed by Novator. I submit that one single of those 3M54 missiles would probably sink a FFGX frigate, given the radar / AD constraints these vessels face against low flying targets and that I will detail on a later post.

Not, it was neither considered and neither could be executed at the condictions and preparations realized in this exercise.

I think this is a misinterpretation of the text:

Page 4

...Almost all the targets were within 200 nm of the USS Nimitz. These distances are not indicative of the maximum striking range of the aircraft, but rather were driven by the proximity of the carrier operating are to the target ranges. We show the maximum operational strike range that the strike / fighters could have reached, based on typical operational  employment and time airborne.

Page 31

...These distances are not indicative of the maximum striking range of the CVW-9 aircraft. Rather the distances were driven by the proximity of the carrier operating area relative to the Southern California target ranges. During the Surge, aircraft were frequently held overhead USS Nimitz awaiting recovery, time that in real operation would have been spent transiting to and from more distant targets. Figure 10 shows the maximum operational strike range that could have been reached on each strike sortie. (3)

(3) We based this computation on the aircraft flight times and on the requirement for aircraft to be in the Marshall pattern at the beginning of the recovery. We also accounted for the time required to engage, receive fuel, and disengage from tanker when refuelling was necessary. We estimated the time for strike aircraft to locate the target as ten minutes. We included a requirement to return to force on a 75 nautical mile dogleg (such a requirement was imposed during Operation Desert Storm)

The resulting table is not very precise but it would indicate roughly the following maximum ranges per sortie:

> ca. 20 sorties below 100 nm
> ca. 60 sorties between 100 and 200 nm
> ca. 440 sorties between 200 and 300 nm
> ca. 270 sorties between 300 and 400 nm
> ca. 40 sorties between 400 and 500 nm
> ca. 80 sorties more than 500 nm

If you observe at pag 31 you can see that among all the 727 strike missions completed in the 4 days and 2 hours :

What you refer is the distance to the target, not the distance effectively covered by the carrier's airwing during the exercise, as the flight time and specific statements in the report show.

Is eveident that is just this very reduced flgiht time (caused by the purposely chosen targets positioned at very small distance ) togheter with the personell augmentation at allow the enormous surge in the numbers of sorties.

I can't agree, see the argumentation above: they calculated maximum range based in actual flight time. In fact those times are also specified and roughly correspond with the mission times you calculated in your scenario and the ones I used, roughly 2 hours. The average flight time of the F/A-18C in the surge was 1.8 hours.

Now in our maritime strike scenario the F/A-18E/F would cover 390 n.mi or 722,28 km before LRASM relaease with a weapon and CFT load of over 5.3 tons.
Assuming a flight toward the delivery point at the same 10.000 m altitude at an optimistic speed of 0,7 mach - 754,74 km/h for the way heavier and drag-generating load, you have an average time of flight to target of about 57,5 minutes and 1 hour and 55 minutes of mission's flight .

See above, this flight time is perfectly compatible with those practised in the exercise, even when it implies striking at a range where  FFGX would need 15 hours of full speed sailing while the carrier remains in place to even get a chance to shoot.

BTW, I have not done the load / fuel against NATOPS check yet.

Naturally also the preparations before and after each maritime starike mission -and the fuel and weapons and repair times required - would be immensely more labour and time-intensive in comparison.

The 28 hoses present at the flight deck of the USS Nimitz were capable of ca. 1,000 lb/min, + 5 minutes needed for hook-up/disengage. So to top a F-18E would take something like 20 minutes for internal fuel, 9 minutes more for 3 x 480 gal EFT. But since these tasks can be done in parallel for as many aircraft as hoses are and also in parallel with weapons loading, nothing of this even comes close to threatening the proposed cycle time of 2 hours flight, 2 hours preparation time for 18 planes each time.

For the weapons loading part, I use JSM instead of LRASM since the later are heavier, would need a hoist and I have no values for this. For the exercise, 1,000 lb Mk 83 were used and they report two of them been loaded manually in 8 minutes, so I assume 16 minute for four JSM of similar (slightly lighter) weight. Fuzzing is difficult to estimate, it took 2-4 minutes per aircraft but I don't know how this is done with JSM exactly and how long does it take.
Using other weapons may imply using other launch racks, for which I don't have precise handling information.

Again I don't see a bottleneck in this area, since every squadron has two 15-strong ordnance handling teams and two squadrons would be involved in each sortie of 18 planes. That would result in a potential to load 30 planes over the given period of two hours time and without the rest of the crews even being involved. If four squadrons were involved and we make the calculation for 4 aircraft each squadron, all of them would be loaded in little more than 30 minutes. The remaining time would be used excess planes (we said there are two groups of 18 + 8 planes that allow to increase the tempo)

@Mindstorm:

I continue with my answers where I left it in my last post

I agree that it is absolutely not reasonable, because in the reality those carriers would almost certainly operate at thousands of km from CONUS in closed sea theatres (Baltic, Mediterranean Sea, Black sea, Persian Gulf etc....) and at only some hundreds of km from enemy EEZ, where would be trapped within engagement range even of coastal-batteries of enemy antiship missilse ,let aside ship and submarine mounted ones, and theirs weapon load would be constituted at 85-90 % of air to ground and air to air ordances ,not anti-ship missiles.

The US concept of operations of carriers (namely, pretending that they can use them directly against the territories of peer nations) does not make much sense, and increasingly less as more and more advanced AShM appear. In any case, despite their rethoric, in real world they take big precautions before sailing with their CSGs into closed seas where attack vectors are less predictable, enemies can be at sea, littoral and land, and reaction times are reduced.

Nevertheless, any fleet operating in such closed seas is going to suffer that kind of risks. I think it is more a discussion about using a capital-ship based fleet or not, not about carriers specifically.

The scenario chosen is the most favourable for the "perpetual-retreat" tactic ,that obviously would be irrealizable in reality because no technology capable to change wind direction exist today and at speed of over 20 knots in a forced direction it would be absolutely impossible to execute any take-off (above all with that weapon and fuel load) except with almost perfect cross wing direction.
But i have assumed, for pure sake of argumentation, that the wind's direction would perfectly match the directions where enemy group of ships alternatively pull the carriers.......admitting that the carrier would be even aware that a group of those low tonnage ships would be coming toward it in a particular direction ,models now existing suggest the opposite.....

 
The approach vector of the frigates depends on the starting conditions. I consider it reasonable to assume that the carrier group would not start completely surrounded and without room for movement. It has the full advantage in open seas, so why not use it? In fact, the question is how long a fleet composed by small displacement ships can pursuit a CVN than can sustain 30+ kt indefinitely. The USN RFI for the FFGX asked for 3,000 NM range @16 kts. The Italian version of the FREMM, which is the base for the FFGX, has a range of 6,800 nmi @15 kts with CODLAG propulsion, that means range at 30 kts would be a fraction of that.

As to the argument that the carrier may need a significant amount of time to sail into the wind to launch and recover planes, in the operational cycle that I calculated based on your proposed scenario, the carrier would need in the worst case to completely reverse for some minutes (5 minutes is enough to launch 18 planes if they have been already prepared, and such amount can be handled on the flight deck in parallel) and between 1 and 1:20 minutes per plane for recovery (between 18 and 24 minutes). So roughly ¼th of the time during those two hours cycle in the worst absolute case, for an effective speed of 22-23 kts (I don't know how much faster than 30 kts the carrier is in reality). FFGX is expected to be 26 kts+, so the potential close-in rate in this worst case is a bit uncertain. In order to check this in a more detailed way even, I would need to check wind over deck requirements for the given plane loads in both launch and recovery to see in what conditions this reversing of the carrier's heading may or may not be necessary, this may take a bit more of time. If the frigates would come too close, the carrier could increase the sortie interval and just recover distance. This is its choice, since the carrier aviation can threaten the frigates at long ranges but the opposite is not true.

It is interesting to consider that Russian shipbuilders have made the remark that giving an eventual VMF carrier full nuclear propulsion would be very expensive. This is the option USN took, it has the big advantage that their CVNs can sail full speed without caring about fuel consumption. But the rest of the ships in the fleet do not have that option and therefore I think that, being pragmatical, the last proposal from Krylov with CONAG propulsion would be sufficient and quite probably more economic.

The figure is for a single salvo against an insulated frigate with the defending ship using about half of its interceptors , in reality density of the most well executed salvo attack will never reach density greater than 12-13 missiles for minute and the frigates would converge in strike groups of at least 3 or 4 units capable each to cover the others, exchange data and jamming power for a significative surge of the PK of each single interceptor.

The convergence of frigates can indeed be a way of increasing the size of the salvo needed, but then one of the main advantages of the distributed fleet would disappear, since if would turn into an increasingly centralized fleet and not a distributed one, reducing the opposing side's ISR effort.

As to the AD capability of the FFGX itself, after reading more about their radars and interceptors I have to consider them not in the same category as an AEGIS DDG. I am not sure the frigate could allow itself to employ just the half of its interceptors, due to the reduced engagement time, I recalculated the radar horizon and considered some other limitations:

The radar is the AN/SPY-6(V)3: A 3-sided phased array fixed version of the EASR.
- It lacks the X band segment normally used for low target search, since it offers superior resolution and clutter rejection
- It uses only 9 RMA against 37 RMA in the case of an Arleigh Burke Flight III, for a fraction of the antenna gain and power performance
- Its altitude over the sea surface is roughly 18 m, which would result in a radar horizon of ca. 14 km against a target flying 5 m over the waves. Against a  0.9 M target that is ca. 45 seconds time, - against a 3 M target that is roughly 14 seconds or quite close to the reaction time of the ship's AD, estimated in ca. 10 seconds for an AEGIS fire control from detection to launch of the first interceptor in optimum conditions. Evaopration conditions can reduce that radar horizon to well below 10 km, which means that the system would not even have the chance to engage the incoming missile (that makes very clear IMHO why “Threat D” was assessed as critical by USN)
- Considering the beam deflection limitations of AESA technology and the lack of overlaping between the three arrays of the FFGX radar, it is questionable if the directions right at the deflection limits of the arrays are not especially vulnerable.
- A small tonnage vessel is specially subject to state of sea and therefore its radar horizon can be additionally affected due to the ship raising and sinking with the waves
- Atmospheric conditions affect through ducting the effective radar horizon, both increasing or reducing it. A serious attacker will consider this and organize their attacks when the fleet's radar field is compromised

http://cimsec.org/how-the-fleet-forgot-to-fight-pt-technical-standards/37361



- Detection of a low flying target against sea clutter is very dependent on radar grazing angles. An airborne sensor can (and actually does it in real world) change its altitude to accommodate to that reality, a surface based, fixed altitude radar cannot and that means during the approach of the missile there will be certain angles when it can be detected and times when it cannot.



- There is also a minimum engagement distance for SM missiles, not official but comparing to similar missiles like Aster a value of 3 km seems reasonable
- LRASM are specially low RCS, low flight missiles that are probably not very easy to detect for a ship's radar. That is the only way I can understand US reliance on such type of weapons.

Given all of the above as explained, I am not sure the frigates would be so effective in AD role as we are supposing until now. I cannot provide a corrected salvo size or level of effectiveness against the AShMs being considered, but it is clear to me that they are a low cost option to the Arleigh Burke and clearly a much lower-end ship overall. The cooperation of several ships would increase the amount of interceptors available but depending on the attack vector it may or may not be of help to improve detection.

An attacker relying on air power can come almost as close as they want to the fleet without airborne ISR and use even short range weapons against it. This is a fundamental asymmetry between the kind of weapons both sides need to employ in the naval strike mission (one needs high end, long range missiles while the other can employ short range, low cost ones). They can also decide when to attack, so that the environmental and tactical conditions suit them, unlike the fleet based only on surface assets.

That radar detection range is for bomber type airborne targets , detecting a surface reduced radar signature low tonnage ship on the sea clutter is all another story.....

Ships have a big RCS despite their design being optimised as of late. Regardless, detecting such vessels in the sea is going to be fairly simple even beyond the radar horizon, once they need to keep their radars permanently operating in order to detect potential incoming attacks. In active mode, the E-2D radar is capable of detecting CMs that AEGIS DDGs and CGs can not, despite being massively bigger than those in the FFGX and having also an X band component against low altitude targets.

This is very old (1983), referred to the E-2C, but it is not easy to get quantitative information about the performance of the E-2 against concrete targets. Just to show the kind of capabilities involved, even decades ago and even in case the frigates may go RF silent:

The system's surface surveillance capability is also very good, apparently the UHF band end-fire antenna mounted in the rotodome will allow the resolution of slow moving surface targets - patrol boat size vessels have been tracked beyond 100nm.

https://www.ausairpower.net/AADR-E-2C-AEW.html

Sea backscatter in UHF seems to be smaller than other bands, also its resistance to weather conditions is better. That makes it good against low speed surface targets:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0f9d/d4b4b7437bcc01b3bdb04c68f0d08460d343.pdf

the 4 E-2D on board a Nimitz

Part of the advantages in flexibility of a carrier mean that the E-2 airwing can be increased. 5 planes can normally be carried, proposals using the same ships currently existing consider 6 aircraft. The airwing in a carrier is highly flexible.

in war time situations can assure, through rotation, the continual presence at no more than 100-150 n.mi from the carrier and provide guidance toward 90 degrees in the direction of propable attack of the enemy to the air wing to attempt to intercept enemy bombers.

It is a classical procedure for carrier in play since the Cold Warknown as "Outher Air Battle" ( today USN has lost the F-14 and its interception capabilities).

That configuration as you say relates to Cold War scenarios oriented towards the threat of Soviet Tu-22M3 armed with Kh-22 missiles of 250 nm range. The time on station of the E-2D would allow to keep them at way longer distances than 200 nm if needed, specially if 5 aircraft are carried instead of 4.

Time on station, 175 nautical miles from base 4 hr. 24 min
Endurance with maximum fuel 6 hr. 15 min

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/e-2.htm

This does not even consider the fact that in few years time the MQ-25 tanker will be available. It should allow to transfer 6800 kg of fuel at 500 nmi of the carrier, therefore more than capable of filling the tanks of the E-2 for another 6 hours on station. Hence AEW missions at extended ranges from the carrier would be easily implemented.

FFGX will not be the main responsable for the fleet's air defence, like FreEMM are not responsable of it into France and Italy navies.
This role is demanded to Destroyers in NATO navies, Burke in the former, Orizzonte/Horizont in the latter (French call both such ships frigates, of first and second rank respectively but still use D and F pennants on the two different model.

Now, a FrEEM is not in any way an inferior ship compared to Orizzonte ( above all in Italian version, having a way superior performance EMPAR radar with AESA modules) it just have a different role, centered on ASW ( and in FrEEM case littoral warfare/ deep strike) and carring AA missiles for just their own self defense.

I doubt that the 16 tubes more the FFGX have instead of a Vulcano-capable 127mm gun (that I will consider ANYWAY a conceptual and doctrinal error) would host AA missiles and not ASROC (i.e. something way inferior to italian MILAS that use angled launcher instead), Harpoon (same when compared to OTOMAT ) and/or Tomahawk missiles.

This does not even consider the fact that in few years time the MQ-25 tanker will be available. It should allow to transfer 6800 kg of fuel at 500 nmi of the carrier, therefore more than capable of filling the tanks of the E-2 for another 6 hours on station.

they can now be refueled by different tankers:
https://navalaviationnews.navylive.dodlive.mil/2018/03/21/fuel-factor/

https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/e-2d-aerial-refueling-test-flight-results-in-a-topped-off-tank

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2019/09/air-refueling-capable-e-2d-advanced-hawkeye-joins-u-s-navy-fleet/

https://news.usni.org/2020/09/01/video-aerial-refueling-for-e-2ds-will-expand-reach-of-carrier-strike-groups

I'm sure the VMF will equip its fixed wing AWACS, if they r procured, with IRPs as well.

China has BM and cruise missiles to blow up Guam too. At least a carrier moves and is harder to find than an island.

VMF CVNs will be easier to find, as they will need to cross GIUK, Gibraltar, Suez/Bab El Mandeb, Tsushima, & Malakka choke points before getting to open Atlantic/Pacific/Indian Oceans. The US has a mini space shuttle that can track them in real time 24/7.

marcellogo wrote:I doubt that the 16 tubes more the FFGX have instead of a Vulcano-capable 127mm gun (that I will consider ANYWAY a conceptual and doctrinal error) would host AA missiles and not ASROC (i.e. something way inferior to italian MILAS that use angled launcher instead), Harpoon (same when compared to OTOMAT ) and/or Tomahawk missiles.

I agree that normally the FFGX would carry ASW weapons, but for the scenario we tolerated the extended SAM load since it is within their capabilities.

Tsavo Lion wrote:Bingo: The bombers, B-1B and B-52s, are flying mostly out of Guam, and are seen as a replacement for US aircraft carriers, which would be too imperiled by Chinese missiles to use in these areas. Pentagon officials emphasize that the planes can bomb as many targets as a whole carrier group

They are slowly waking up, but still they seem to be two steps behind reality... of course a carrier would be ridiculously outgunned by the land-based forces of a superpower like China... but Guam and such vulnerable basing options available to US in the Western Pacific are just minimally better. Chinese have no fear of escalating the production of what they need (i.e. high performance long range BMs) as many orders of magnitude as it is necessary to be successful, and US would be wise not provoking them to test them on their forward bases.

As I posted, the VKS bombers (& modified transports) r no different in that regard. Their TU-22M3/95MC/160Ms have comparable, & some ways superior performances:

You cannot use / protect those bombers if they have to fly above waters controlled by USN or unfriendly countries. They would be dead meat before launching and if they launch, it would be long range and USN would be in the area of attack and have lots of time to shoot down their missiles. By now Russia has an advantage in hypersonic weapons, US is scrambling because they are perfectly aware of their huge vulnerabilities. But inevitably the gap will tend to be closed and missile defence will progress to counter current threats, you cannot permanently defeat a huge enemy force with a silver bullet like currently possible due to the abnormal gap opened by Russia in missile technology.

From bases in Russia, Iran, China, Vietnam, S/C. Africa/America & Cuba they can cover all of the SLOCs.

For that they would need to gain clout to establish bases abroad, pay and defend them, which will not be allowed by host countries or even sought by Russia unless they develop the naval forces needed to sustain a potential war effort far from Russia... and so to avoid them having a fleet like US, you are proposing them to become a colonial power with bases all over the world...just like US    

VMF CVNs will be easier to find, as they will need to cross GIUK, Gibraltar, Suez/Bab El Mandeb, Tsushima, & Malakka choke points before getting to open Atlantic/Pacific/Indian Oceans. The US has a mini space shuttle that can track them in real time 24/7.

Coverage of OTH radars extend for thousands of km too, how do you expect bombers to escape that, plus deployed fleet and naval aviation radar coverage? VMF may be tracked, but you have to consider it would operate together with their submarine complement to the surface fleet and you would need to counter their potential airwings / ASW force in order to harm them. What is the amount of CSGs that would be needed to defeat a single VMF surface group with say three squadron Su-57, advanced AShMs and a proper AEW cover? Exchange rate against fighters like F-18 and F-35 is potentially catastrophic for the US side, which BTW and against all odds is refusing to further develop the F-35C into NGAD and has just kicked off its development as a new platform, with the same already mentioned characteristics of speed, range and payload. A new platform takes a lot of time to be developed and Russia should make a good use of that time.

You cannot use / protect those bombers if they have to fly above waters controlled by USN or unfriendly countries. They would be dead meat before launching and if they launch, it would be long range and USN would be in the area of attack and have lots of time to shoot down their missiles. 

MiG-31s & Su-35s with IL-478s would escort them; their presence would be enough to dissuade the US their allies from blockading any SoCs/coasts.

For that they would need to gain clout to establish bases abroad, pay and defend them, which will not be allowed by host countries or even sought by Russia unless they develop the naval forces needed to sustain a potential war effort far from Russia... and so to avoid them having a fleet like US, you are proposing them to become a colonial power with bases all over the world...just like US

they already have access to bases& will get more if needed; those nations buy Russian/Chinese planes, ships & subs + S-300/400s. No need to be a colonial power in order to have beneficial trade & access to bases.

VMF may be tracked, but you have to consider it would operate together with their submarine complement to the surface fleet and you would need to counter their potential airwings / ASW force in order to harm them.

the US has bases all over from which it could use subs, N/AF fighters, UAVs, MPA, HS AShMs, bombers & tankers. What's the point matching the USN/AF & their allies on the high seas protecting overseas trade? IMO its a luxury Russia can't afford. Instead, better use subs & planes that r need to defend Russia anyway & a lot less costly to produce & operate than CBGs- she will need at least 4-6 of them to have 1-2 deployed + 1-2 more on standby. That's at least 12-18 extra surface ships & 8-12 subs.

Tsavo Lion wrote:MiG-31s & Su-35s with IL-478s would escort them; their presence would be enough to dissuade the US their allies from blockading any SoCs/coasts.

Er... no. No way, really. Try to work out the details of that idea, you will see it is not even remotely feasible.

they already have access to bases& will get more if needed; those nations buy Russian/Chinese planes, ships & subs + S-300/400s. No need to be a colonial power in order to have beneficial trade & access to bases.

How do you protect a base in Cuba where you have bombers threatening CONUS and restricting US at their own doorstep??

What's the point matching the USN/AF & their allies on the high seas protecting overseas trade?

What is the point of matching the US base footprint instead? The costs of that structure are insanely high. And keeping all that in place, safe and operational, demands sea control to start with...

IMO its a luxury Russia can't afford.

Just a question: do you mean that seriously? If so, can I see your numbers? What is the amount that Russia can afford, and by how much building a functional ocean going fleet would exceed that?

Instead, better use subs & planes that r need to defend Russia anyway &

If they are needed to defend Russia they cannot be deployed at the other corner of the world fulfilling their mission.  

she will need at least 4-6 of them to have 1-2 deployed + 1-2 more on standby.

Or fifteen, as USN considers the minimum to cover all their duties... in reality 2 CVN + Kuznetsov would be acceptable, 3 CVN + K would be great. That is the difference between bullying the world and protecting your legitimate interests with the force, only when all other ways have failed.

That's at least 12-18 extra surface ships

Yeah well, when all countries do it like that, then just maybe that is the price of having actual power projection capabilities...

& 8-12 subs.

You said subs would be your proposed alternative and no additional units are necessary since they are already there to protect the country, why the surface fleet would need 8-12 additional ones?

Er... no. No way, really. Try to work out the details of that idea, you will see it is not even remotely feasible.
I already explained that in my prev. posts.

How do you protect a base in Cuba where you have bombers threatening CONUS and restricting US at their own doorstep??
they'll be there to protect SLOCs/coasts, & S-300/400s + fighters-interceptors will protect the bases.
What is the point of matching the US base footprint instead? The costs of that structure are insanely high. And keeping all that in place, safe and operational, demands sea control to start with...
no need for so many bases; sea denial + A2D force is enough. Just a question: do you mean that seriously? If so, can I see your numbers? What is the amount that Russia can afford, and by how much building a functional ocean going fleet would exceed that?
if she could afford everything the admirals & strategists want, we would see a much bigger navy by now; I have no #s but the standard of living there must be a lot higher to justify a naval buildup, or there will be more protests like in Khabarovsk & Minsk.

If they are needed to defend Russia they cannot be deployed at the other corner of the world fulfilling their mission. good point, but defending russia includes defending her mil./economic interests & allies abroad.

Or fifteen, as USN considers the minimum to cover all their duties... in reality 2 CVN + Kuznetsov would be acceptable, 3 CVN + K would be great. considering how long it'll take to refuel/refit/train them, there will be gaps in their deployments with only 2-3 CVNs + 1 CV.

You said subs would be your proposed alternative and no additional units are necessary since they are already there to protect the country, why the surface fleet would need 8-12 additional ones? for extra ASW capability to protect CBGs (with at least 1-2 SSN/SSGNs each) & firepower.

GarryB wrote:US carriers are dead meat, and that is because current and future Russian very high speed missiles render them vulnerable, but over time and with experience Russia is going to be able to develop tactics and defences against such threats anyway... and when they do those tactics and defences can be applied to Russian carriers.

If you would have to entrust the AD of naval assets to someone, would you not choose Russians? They have already said that by the time US gets their act together and fields their newer missiles, they will already have the necessary defences in place... which in plain text means they have already tested them. S-500 is intended against ICBM-class targets, and even Pantsir has already hypersonic interceptors...

What is actually a no-go is trying to defend the ship if your radar horizon is limited to that of a surface vessel. As discussed above, there are circumstances where modern high supersonic missiles can cross that distance before the ship's defences can even react, much less intercept quite difficult targets with effectiveness. With hypersonic weapons this will be even more difficult, granted I don't know if the sea skimming approach is feasible even for a few km at those speeds or on the contrary they will just be used with high level cruising + terminal dive. In any case a surface vessel left to their own devices in terms of radar detection is on a very precarious situation and it is making that even worse due to its need to radiate continuously.