How America lost the Naval War of 2015?

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Sea Skimmer
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Re: How America lost the Naval War of 2015?

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Sarevok wrote:So Skimmer would you say missiles with EMP warheads are like fictional ion cannons ? Disable rather than destroy a vessel. Perhaps even board and capture ?
No, that implies some kind of predictable omni disabling power in my mind, which is the fiction as far as nuclear and non nuclear generated EMP in all its forms goes. Two complex devices exposed to the same energy may react in much different ways, anything from a monitor going to fuzzy to an electronically fused warhead detonating. Devices may be ruined, they may merely blue screen. Items that rely on electrical power but not precise voltage regulation will care less then those which do. You would expect systems disabled on a vessel, rather then the entire thing sliding to a halt. The material condition of the ship and systems, even the weather outside can have a serious effect on what actually happens.

Boarding and capturing a major warship is a highly implausible idea, its not like no guns exist on board particularly on a CVN, though if you want a amusing but serious toned novel with this premise, using sleeping gas rather than EMP, I suggest Raid on Truman by John T. Campbell.

HMS Conqueror wrote: 2. This is because the difficulty of sinking a carrier is not in delivering a large enough weapon at a long enough range, it's seeing where the carrier is. The ability to engage a carrier is still limited by aerial reconnaissance - which is why you need a carrier of your own to fight a carrier.
Satellites can do a much better job of this then they could before. China already orbited a formation flying radio location system similar to the US naval ocean surveillance system, and the radars carried by various spy satellites now have the realistic resolution to identify a carrier from other traffic. You can also just see them, the huge wake making things easier, on plain optical and IR film... the Soviets never orbited satellites with digital photo down links making this unusable as a targeting system, but China now has.

Course, this is also a factor in why the US reminded China it can easily field its own anti satellite weapons in 2006.
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Re: How America lost the Naval War of 2015?

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Satellites also can be easily shot down. The original ASATs date back to the mid cold war era.

So it gives a first shot capability, in principle. However, most satellites are quite useless as a guidance system, which unlike intelligence gathering requires a sustained real time position with high accuracy. It's no good to get some wakes from your data processing software a few hours later.

A constellation of active radar maritime reconnaissance satellites would give such a capability, but that is a serious endeavour and China certainly does not have one. The Soviets planned and launch one for their Granit/Oscar-II/Kirov system, which was a purpose designed and generally less lame version of what China is doing now, but it is not clear if it ever became properly operational. The US has something similar, but given US's powerful carrier arm I am not sure if it was ever intended to guide missiles.

China will become a maritime power in line with its economic capability, but it will do so by building a conventional carrier/SSN fleet. It will probably gain de-facto strong influence over the waters between its coast and Japan, Korea and the Philippines. But I do not believe it will ever attack the US, nor do I believe it will ever possess the capability to fight an effective maritime war against the US given that it has two land borders with great powers.
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Re: How America lost the Naval War of 2015?

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HMS Conqueror wrote: So it gives a first shot capability, in principle. However, most satellites are quite useless as a guidance system, which unlike intelligence gathering requires a sustained real time position with high accuracy. It's no good to get some wakes from your data processing software a few hours later.
Even against a 30 knot target a three hour delay narrows your search area from the largest ocean on the planet to a 100nm radius circle which can be covered very easily by an air search. That's a dramatic reduction in the effort required when you consider all the Chinese interest in high altitude UAVs which could have radar ranges as high as 350nm. Also a warship firing on a satellite gives away its own location in multiple ways which is a tricky problem in its own right.
A constellation of active radar maritime reconnaissance satellites would give such a capability, but that is a serious endeavour and China certainly does not have one. The Soviets planned and launch one for their Granit/Oscar-II/Kirov system, which was a purpose designed and generally less lame version of what China is doing now, but it is not clear if it ever became properly operational. The US has something similar, but given US's powerful carrier arm I am not sure if it was ever intended to guide missiles.
Russian radar satellites flew lots of times; the problem was like almost all Russian satellites they had very short operational lifespans. What China will field in the future , we are talking about the future after all, is unknown but they've already gone from almost nothing to a very serious satellite capability in only a decade.

China will become a maritime power in line with its economic capability, but it will do so by building a conventional carrier/SSN fleet. It will probably gain de-facto strong influence over the waters between its coast and Japan, Korea and the Philippines. But I do not believe it will ever attack the US, nor do I believe it will ever possess the capability to fight an effective maritime war against the US given that it has two land borders with great powers.
One of those land borders is high mountains, the other is so long it actually plays massively into Chinese hands. The Russians can just never defend it effectively without nuclear weapons, and certainly cannot go on the offensive to any meaningful depth. So actual diversion of Chinese resources to these fronts is a lot less than it might otherwise be, and all the more so since air power is becoming more dominating by the day and can rapidly shift between fronts. The biggest drain on Chinese resources in the future is almost certainly the strategic air defenses they are building with so many redundant systems and all oriented against the US and its allies. The US is never going to bother to responding in kind because the Chinese are never going to have bases on the US doorstep before shooting starts.
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Re: How America lost the Naval War of 2015?

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Sea Skimmer wrote:Even against a 30 knot target a three hour delay narrows your search area from the largest ocean on the planet to a 100nm radius circle which can be covered very easily by an air search. That's a dramatic reduction in the effort required when you consider all the Chinese interest in high altitude UAVs which could have radar ranges as high as 350nm. Also a warship firing on a satellite gives away its own location in multiple ways which is a tricky problem in its own right.
The point of the ASBM is that they don't expect to be in range to use aircraft. Which is why the whole thing is something of a con, and why US and Russia never bothered.
Russian radar satellites flew lots of times; the problem was like almost all Russian satellites they had very short operational lifespans. What China will field in the future , we are talking about the future after all, is unknown but they've already gone from almost nothing to a very serious satellite capability in only a decade.
They had the Legenda targeting system for about 2 years before the collapse of the USSR. But I do not know if they were ever in a position to fire a Granit from an Oscar-II guided by satellite.

Now sure they could do it in 10-20 year, but in 'the future' they will just have a conventional navy. 2015 is in three years, so it's pretty much today.
One of those land borders is high mountains, the other is so long it actually plays massively into Chinese hands. The Russians can just never defend it effectively without nuclear weapons, and certainly cannot go on the offensive to any meaningful depth. So actual diversion of Chinese resources to these fronts is a lot less than it might otherwise be, and all the more so since air power is becoming more dominating by the day and can rapidly shift between fronts. The biggest drain on Chinese resources in the future is almost certainly the strategic air defenses they are building with so many redundant systems and all oriented against the US and its allies. The US is never going to bother to responding in kind because the Chinese are never going to have bases on the US doorstep before shooting starts.
As opposed to US which has Canada and Mexico... the US is functionally an island, while China is not. The whole problem they have here is that they cannot redeploy their land-based airpower into the Pacific effectively.
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Re: How America lost the Naval War of 2015?

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HMS Conqueror wrote: The point of the ASBM is that they don't expect to be in range to use aircraft. Which is why the whole thing is something of a con, and why US and Russia never bothered.
Its perfectly well within range of the H-6 bombers China put back into production or air refueled fighters. Russia did in fact work on a MARV equipped anti ship ballistic missile, R-27K I believe it was called, though with a nuclear warhead. Deployment was blocked by the strategic arms treaties, the plan was to arm certain Yankee class hulls with it. The point is in fact simply that such a weapon bypasses most conventional defenses of a naval force, and reacts very quickly reducing targeting problems The USN has been concerned about this sort of attack since the 1950s when SUBROC was being designed.
Now sure they could do it in 10-20 year, but in 'the future' they will just have a conventional navy. 2015 is in three years, so it's pretty much today.
I've already said what I think about 2015; what the article is claiming and what I am talking about are two different things.
As opposed to US which has Canada and Mexico... the US is functionally an island, while China is not. The whole problem they have here is that they cannot redeploy their land-based airpower into the Pacific effectively.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what other enabling assets they build, but in any case the range on USN carrier fighters is nothing overwhelming either forcing them to either close the range, or rely on very poorly defined and developed UCAVs.
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