F-15C, F/A-22 defend against larger F-16 force

[gc]

Very cool. 12 F-15C and 2 F/A-22 fighting against a regenerable 18 F-16Cs. Sounds like a realistic situation we might face against China or N Korea. Good training. In a real war the ratio may more likely be 6-8 F/A-22 and 12 F-15Cs fighting against 24-36 Sukhois.And in that case there will soon be 36 burning sukhois crashing.

Eagles, Raptors team to deter ‘attack’

by 2nd Lt. William Powell
325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

11/8/2005 - TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) -- Every day, F-15 Eagle instructor pilots here teach dozens of student pilots how to fight and win in combat. But the instructors rarely get a chance to showcase their own warfighting skills.

Fortunately, some 1st Fighter Squadron instructors got a chance to test their skills against the toughest and best trained "adversary" there is -- other Air Force fighter pilots.

The event pitted a dozen Eagles and -- for the first time -- two F/A-22 Raptors from the 43rd FS here, against F-16 Fighting Falcons and a QF-4 Phantom II in a mock aerial engagement dubbed "War Day."

Lt. Col. Bert Dreher, the Eagle squadron commander, said War Day is meant to not only keep instructors' skills sharp, but also to remind them and the students they teach that their objective is to fight and win the nation's wars.

"We often get locked into the training mindset and forget that, at the heart of all of this, we are warriors," he said. "(Instructors) are here to pass on the skills we've learned, but as warriors out there, we have the potential of getting shot at.

“This (exercise) reminds us that our objective is to fly, fight and win,” he said.

The goal this time was simple -- defend a simulated high-value target near Carrabelle, Fla., from hostile forces. When received their order, two alert Eagles scrambled from here to join 13 other "Blue Air" aircraft already airborne. Those included a KC-135 Stratotanker from the Mississippi Air National Guard, 10 Eagles and two Raptors.

This marked the first time Tyndall Raptors trained with another weapon system, rather than solely against one. Blue Air's mission was to intercept the aggressor force, or "Red Air." It included 18 F-16s from Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Iowa Air National Guard units, two KC-135 Stratotankers and the Phantom from the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron here.

"We had to destroy all bomb droppers, or strikers, before they reached their target," said Maj. Tom Kafka, 1st FS weapons officer and event coordinator. "If we let even one striker through, we would have failed the mission. But we didn't necessarily have to kill all the air-to-air jets protecting the strikers."

To simulate a massive assault force, Red Air members regenerated after being shot. But Blue Air team members had only one life. So Blue Air being vastly outnumbered. But that's not uncommon, Colonel Dreher said.

"We have trained to fight outnumbered at 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 our entire Eagle career," he said. "Nearly all of our potential adversaries, going back to the former Soviet Union, have outnumbered us."

Red Air pilots had overwhelming numbers, but their combat tactics were purposely "slightly watered down" as they simulated foreign pilots flying foreign-built weapon systems, said Lt. Col. Don Ross, Red Air commander from the Iowa ANG.

"But we certainly weren't going to make it easy for Blue Air," Colonel Ross said. "We tried to complicate their ability to get missiles into all of us, because our ultimate goal was to get a striker across the target."

Despite the Red Air aggressors’ watered down capabilities, Colonel Dreher said American pilots are the toughest opponent to fight.

"They know our tactics extremely well because they practice our tactics when they're in the Blue Air role," Colonel Dreher said. "This is the toughest threat we'll ever face. We know if we can hold our own against (American pilots), then it's a benchmark for how we'll do when it's for real."

The exercise, especially the alert scramble, felt real for the pilots as well as the intelligence officers, air battle managers and maintainers.

"I have launched alert missions before in Kuwait during Operation Enduring Freedom. But this was faster and smoother than we ever did at war," said Staff Sgt. Matthew Train, 1st Aircraft Maintenance Unit crew chief.

The sergeant helped launch the alert jets in under four minutes before a crowd of spectators.

"This exercise shows we still have the war capability here even though this is a training base, and it keeps us fresh because we are not always going to be stationed here," Sergeant Train said.

The exercise is the last time the 1st FS will be able to put up 12 jets at a time, because it is transitioning into a "lean" squadron. As Raptor become fully operational, some Eagles are going to other installations. For this reason, members of the squadron wanted to "go out with a bang," Major Kafka said.

"We wanted to go up against as many aircraft as we possibly could," he said. "The scenario was a potential real-world scenario, and we got the chance to hone our skills in the event we are ever called upon to be in that real-world scenario."

Overall, Tyndall's instructor pilots completed the mission with approximately 22 reported kills, according to Lt. Col. Bill Routt, 1st FS operations officer.

"Due to real-time kill removal difficulties, it is hard to say how successful we were," he said. "However, there would be many MiG stars (referring to the number of kills) painted on the Fury aircraft and some victory rolls over Tyndall if this would have been for real."

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012817

[Holycrusader]

"Red Air pilots had overwhelming numbers, but their combat tactics were purposely "slightly watered down" "

Yep, we all know that enemy is stupid, so lets train this easy way

[AlexNenadic]

"Red Air pilots had overwhelming numbers, but their combat tactics were purposely "slightly watered down" "

Yep, we all know that enemy is stupid, so lets train this easy way

For one thing, F-16C Block50/52 is capable of ripple firing AMRAAMs at multiple airborne targets at once. Name a potentially hostile nation with the capability to put up a massive fighter force capable of doing that?

I suggest you learn a little bit more before critiquing the guys who do this for a living.

[TheBelgian]

Give China a couple of years...

[ed316]

Give China a couple of years...

Like we won't come up with counter measures and superior weapons. Where is China's stealth technology?

[Kingswat]

Like we won't come up with counter measures and superior weapons. Where is China's stealth technology?


Obviously better then yours since you don't know about it.

[ed316]

Obviously better then yours since you don't know about it.

HAHA! I like that

[Limeyfellow]

Like we won't come up with counter measures and superior weapons. Where is China's stealth technology?

Didn't that guy from Hawaii send them all the B2 stealth secrets?

[ed316]

Didn't that guy from Hawaii send them all the B2 stealth secrets?

http://goldsea.com/Asiagate/510/gowadia.jpg
In theses undated images released Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005, by the FBI, Noshir S. Gowadia, 61, is shown. Gowadia an engineer who calls himself the father of the technology that protects the B-2 stealth bomber from heat-seeking missiles has been arrested and accused of selling U.S. military secrets involving the aircraft to a foreign country, the FBI said. According to the FBI, Gowadia in 2002 faxed a document detailing infrared technology classified top secret by the Air Force to a foreign official. He also provided classified information to two other countries, the FBI said. (AP Photo/FBI)

This asswipe:fork:

[Little J]

For one thing, F-16C Block50/52 is of ripple firing AMRAAMs at multiple airborne targets at once. Name a potentially hostile nation with the capability to put up a massive fighter force capable of doing that?

I suggest you learn a little bit more before critiquing the guys who do this for a living.


Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean you shouldn't train for it...

[AlexNenadic]

Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean you shouldn't train for it...

Another armchair general?

[Little J]

Another armchair general?


And Proud!!!!!


Doesn't make me wrong, If you dont train for the unlikely, the unlikely will come back and bite you in the arse.

[bloddyaxe]

Obviously, if they didn't water down the F-16s, the "Blue team" couldn't have defended the objective...

Anyhow, if the potential enemy would be better than the F-16 in real war, maybe they'd try to find more F-15/22s to do the job.

[AmericanImperialist]

And Proud!!!!!


Doesn't make me wrong, If you dont train for the unlikely, the unlikely will come back and bite you in the arse.

Oh, so you have information that we don't train for the unlikely?


Exactly.


Just because in this excercise the opponents were watered down (and to what degree neither of us can claim to know) doesn't mean that in all excercises of this nature the opponenets are watered down.

[Belrick]

Ahhh so you agree then that this exercise was a waste of your taxpayers $$$?

Doesnt take a genius to work out you should train as hard as you can, not make things easy for yourselves.

[AmericanImperialist]

Ahhh so you agree then that this exercise was a waste of your taxpayers $$$?

Doesnt take a genius to work out you should train as hard as you can, not make things easy for yourselves.


no you should train as realistically as you can

[Blanke]

Ahhh so you agree then that this exercise was a waste of your taxpayers $$$?

Doesnt take a genius to work out you should train as hard as you can, not make things easy for yourselves.

No doubt but I think the term "watered down" is a bit misleading in this case, as far as I can see that is. Top Gun instructors (the same guys responsible for USN pilots having their 10:1 kill ratio in Vietnam) have stated many a times that their job is not to beat the heck out of their students (even though they would be quite capable of doing so) but rather perform the same way and use the same tactics as the predicted real world adversaries. In the Cold War it was the USSR and the East Bloc, today it's the pilots from countries like Iran and N. Korea.

[Ogi]

Very cool. 12 F-15C and 2 F/A-22 fighting against a regenerable 18 F-16Cs. Sounds like a realistic situation we might face against China or N Korea. Good training. In a real war the ratio may more likely be 6-8 F/A-22 and 12 F-15Cs fighting against 24-36 Sukhois.And in that case there will soon be 36 burning sukhois crashing.

Eagles, Raptors team to deter ‘attack’

by 2nd Lt. William Powell
325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

11/8/2005 - TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) -- Every day, F-15 Eagle instructor pilots here teach dozens of student pilots how to fight and win in combat. But the instructors rarely get a chance to showcase their own warfighting skills.

Fortunately, some 1st Fighter Squadron instructors got a chance to test their skills against the toughest and best trained "adversary" there is -- other Air Force fighter pilots.

The event pitted a dozen Eagles and -- for the first time -- two F/A-22 Raptors from the 43rd FS here, against F-16 Fighting Falcons and a QF-4 Phantom II in a mock aerial engagement dubbed "War Day."

Lt. Col. Bert Dreher, the Eagle squadron commander, said War Day is meant to not only keep instructors' skills sharp, but also to remind them and the students they teach that their objective is to fight and win the nation's wars.

"We often get locked into the training mindset and forget that, at the heart of all of this, we are warriors," he said. "(Instructors) are here to pass on the skills we've learned, but as warriors out there, we have the potential of getting shot at.

“This (exercise) reminds us that our objective is to fly, fight and win,” he said.

The goal this time was simple -- defend a simulated high-value target near Carrabelle, Fla., from hostile forces. When received their order, two alert Eagles scrambled from here to join 13 other "Blue Air" aircraft already airborne. Those included a KC-135 Stratotanker from the Mississippi Air National Guard, 10 Eagles and two Raptors.

This marked the first time Tyndall Raptors trained with another weapon system, rather than solely against one. Blue Air's mission was to intercept the aggressor force, or "Red Air." It included 18 F-16s from Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Iowa Air National Guard units, two KC-135 Stratotankers and the Phantom from the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron here.

"We had to destroy all bomb droppers, or strikers, before they reached their target," said Maj. Tom Kafka, 1st FS weapons officer and event coordinator. "If we let even one striker through, we would have failed the mission. But we didn't necessarily have to kill all the air-to-air jets protecting the strikers."

To simulate a massive assault force, Red Air members regenerated after being shot. But Blue Air team members had only one life. So Blue Air being vastly outnumbered. But that's not uncommon, Colonel Dreher said.

"We have trained to fight outnumbered at 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 our entire Eagle career," he said. "Nearly all of our potential adversaries, going back to the former Soviet Union, have outnumbered us."

Red Air pilots had overwhelming numbers, but their combat tactics were purposely "slightly watered down" as they simulated foreign pilots flying foreign-built weapon systems, said Lt. Col. Don Ross, Red Air commander from the Iowa ANG.

"But we certainly weren't going to make it easy for Blue Air," Colonel Ross said. "We tried to complicate their ability to get missiles into all of us, because our ultimate goal was to get a striker across the target."

Despite the Red Air aggressors’ watered down capabilities, Colonel Dreher said American pilots are the toughest opponent to fight.

"They know our tactics extremely well because they practice our tactics when they're in the Blue Air role," Colonel Dreher said. "This is the toughest threat we'll ever face. We know if we can hold our own against (American pilots), then it's a benchmark for how we'll do when it's for real."

The exercise, especially the alert scramble, felt real for the pilots as well as the intelligence officers, air battle managers and maintainers.

"I have launched alert missions before in Kuwait during Operation Enduring Freedom. But this was faster and smoother than we ever did at war," said Staff Sgt. Matthew Train, 1st Aircraft Maintenance Unit crew chief.

The sergeant helped launch the alert jets in under four minutes before a crowd of spectators.

"This exercise shows we still have the war capability here even though this is a training base, and it keeps us fresh because we are not always going to be stationed here," Sergeant Train said.

The exercise is the last time the 1st FS will be able to put up 12 jets at a time, because it is transitioning into a "lean" squadron. As Raptor become fully operational, some Eagles are going to other installations. For this reason, members of the squadron wanted to "go out with a bang," Major Kafka said.

"We wanted to go up against as many aircraft as we possibly could," he said. "The scenario was a potential real-world scenario, and we got the chance to hone our skills in the event we are ever called upon to be in that real-world scenario."

Overall, Tyndall's instructor pilots completed the mission with approximately 22 reported kills, according to Lt. Col. Bill Routt, 1st FS operations officer.

"Due to real-time kill removal difficulties, it is hard to say how successful we were," he said. "However, there would be many MiG stars (referring to the number of kills) painted on the Fury aircraft and some victory rolls over Tyndall if this would have been for real."

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012817

Sukhois proved that they are better than F-15. I know, I know everything American is better than anything Russian, by definition. Germans thought that Me-109 were much, much better than Spitfire, but when they clashed they failed to live up to their name. There is to much noise about F-22, and I wonder why Americans have to create such a noise about it if it was really better than anything out there. I'm sure Russians would never refuse a simulated fight between F-22 and SU-30, because even in the past they always offered it against F-15 but Americans never accepted it. In fact I think that somwhere in 1992 there was one simulated fight between SU-27 and F-15 and SU-27 won. It was never published in the western magazines so I suppose you don't know anything about it.

[gc]

yep the sukhoi may be better than the F-15C but 8 Raptors will be able to take out 32 Sukhois without any US pilot breaking a sweat. No enemy pilots will break a sweat too as they don't even know that they are being shot at until the AMRAAM turns on its radar seeker. By then, it will be mere seconds before they will have to pull the ejection tab. The F-15Cs will probably be waiting to prey on the less advanced and heavily loaded strike aircrafts.

[nahimov]

yep the sukhoi may be better than the F-15C but 8 Raptors will be able to take out 32 Sukhois without any US pilot breaking a sweat. No enemy pilots will break a sweat too as they don't even know that they are being shot at until the AMRAAM turns on its radar seeker. By then, it will be mere seconds before they will have to pull the ejection tab. The F-15Cs will probably be waiting to prey on the less advanced and heavily loaded strike aircrafts.

And how do you know all this for a fact? As far as I know there was never a conflict were Sukhois and Raptors were fighting.

[Lerclair]

nahimov wrote
And how do you know all this for a fact? As far as I know there was never a conflict were Sukhois and Raptors were fighting.

They know for sure.. they know everything. it's seemed to be public knowledge.. even though the f22 performance and specs are classifed.

Don't Sukhois need to be detected, painted before any missle launches takes place.

If the F22 depended on AWACS for such a mission, don't the other side have AWACS too.

[Holycrusader]

Something about US led excersises

U Sank My Carrier!
By Gary Brecher ( war_nerd@exile.ru )

Browse Author (81)

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When kids play war, they end up spending less time shooting than arguing: "You're dead!" "Am not! You missed!" It just gets worse the bigger the kids. I remember a D & D'er crying when his character got killed -- wouldn't talk to the rest of us for years, still grieving for his dead elf.

The US military has been having exactly this kind of argument, played out in the world press, since last August. They're even whinier and more of a pain about it than D&Ders, if you can believe that, with leaks and counter-leaks, planted stories, and plenty of good ol' character assassination.

It all comes out of the "Millenium Challenge '02" war games we staged in the Persian Gulf this summer. The big scandal was that the Opposing Force Commander, Gen. Paul van Ripen, quit mid-game because the games were rigged for the US forces to win. The scenario was a US invasion of an unnamed Persian Gulf country (either Iraq or Iran). The US was testing a new hi-tech joint force doctrine, so naturally van Riper used every lo-tech trick he could think of to mess things up. When the Americans jammed his CCC network , he sent messages by motorbike.

But that was just playing around. They wouldn't have minded that. Might've even congratulated van Ripen, bought him a drink for his smarts, at the post-games party.

The truth is that van Ripen did something so important that I still can't believe the mainstream press hasn't made anything of it. With nothing more than a few "small boats and aircraft," van Ripen managed to sink most of the US fleet in the Persian Gulf.

What this means is as simple and plain as a skull: every US Navy battle group, every one of those big fancy aircraft carriers we love, won't last one single day in combat against a serious enemy.

The Navy brass tried to bluff it out, but they were pretty lame about it. They just declared the sunken ships "refloated" so the game could go on as planned. This is the kind of word-game that makes the military look so damn dumb. Too bad Bonaparte never thought of that after Trafalgar: "My vleete, she is now reflotte!" Too bad Phillip didn't demand a refloat after the Armada went down: "Oye, vatos, dees English sink todos mi ships, chinga sus madres, so escuche: el fleet es ahora refloated, OK?"

Everybody in this story has an agenda-starting with the retired USMC General named Paul van Riper, the hero of the story for most readers. Even the Army Times, when it broke the story, admitted that van Riper has a reputation as an "asshole" who has a grudge against hi-tech scenarios like the one the military was testing. He also has a reputation as a guy who lives for the chance to make the brass look bad in war games.

But that's what a good opposing commander is supposed to do. This van Riper may be an asshole, but then most good generals are. Patton wasn't somebody you'd want to be stuck in an elevator with. Rommel was worse; there's a story about how one morning in the desert Rommel announced to his staff officers, "Today is Christmas. We will now celebrate. Hans, how is your wife? Hermann, how is your wife?" and without waiting for his officers, to answer, Rommel said, "That was Christmas. Now-get out the maps."

And whatever agenda van Ripen had, do you really think the brass who "refloated" the ships he sunk are any more objective? Their careers are all riding on the success of this operation and they've got just as much reason to lie or fudge the results.

The story just got dirtier as it bounced around the web. The gullible types who believe everything the Pentagon tells them, decided to trust the brass -- van Riper was just a troublemaker. The paranoid types, the ones who think the CIA controls the weather, took it for granted that the whole war games were fixed from the start.

A lot of the arguments came down to the question of what war games like Millennium Challenge are about. Trusting war-nerds were saying on the web, "Well, the whole POINT of war games is to show up weaknesses! So naturally when van Ripen sank the ships, they made a note and restarted the games!"

It's a nice idea, but kinda naive. Most war games aren't neutral at all. They're supposed to showcase a new weapon or doctrine. Millennium Challenge was supposed to showcase high-tech joint-force doctrine. So when van Ripen sank the fleet, you can bet that the guys running it didn't just say, "Well played, old boy! We must make a note of your tactics in order to avert such mishaps in the future!"

What most casual readers won't get is that some of van Ripen's moves are chicken****, and don't amount to anything-but others are so damn scary that the US Navy will be trying to live them down for years.

That trick of sending messages by motorbike is a good example of a move that gets lots of publicity and sounds smart but doesn't mean much. OK, you send your messages by bike. For starters, that means they move at 30 mph, unlike radio messages, which are almost instant. That's a huge disadvantage. And what happens if your biker gets strafed? No message-or a captured message. I'd be happy to fight an army that had nothing better than motorbikes to communicate with.

But what van Ripen did to the US fleet...that's something very different. He was given nothing but small planes and ships-fishing boats, patrol boats, that kind of thing. He kept them circling around the edges of the Persian Gulf aimlessly, driving the Navy crazy trying to keep track of them. When the Admirals finally lost patience and ordered all planes and ships to leave, van Ripen had them all attack at once. And they sank two-thirds of the US fleet.

That should scare the hell out of everybody who cares about how well the US is prepared to fight its next war. It means that a bunch of Cessnas, fishing boats and assorted private craft, crewed by good soldiers and armed with anti-ship missiles, can destroy a US aircraft carrier. That means that the hundreds of trillions (yeah, trillions) of dollars we've invested in shipbuilding is wasted, worthless.

A few years ago, a US submarine commander said, "There are two kinds of ship in the US Navy: subs and targets." The fact that big surface ships are dinosaurs is something that's gotten clearer every decade since 1921.

That was the year Billy Mitchell finally got the chance to prove what he'd been saying for years: large surface ships without air cover had no chance against aircraft. Mitchell had made himself the most hated man in the Armed Forces for saying this, but he wouldn't shut up. Finally, thanks to the huge surplus of military vessels left over from WW I, he got his chance. A German battleship, the Ostfriesland, and three surplus US battleships were anchored off Virginia to see what Mitchell's rickety little biplanes could do to them. You have to remember how big and tough these "dreadnoughts" seemed to people back then. They had the thickest armor, the biggest guns, the deadliest reps of any weapon on land or sea. The idea that aircraft could sink them was a joke for most people. Of course, the Navy brass knew, and tried everything to stop the tests. They knew all too well what was going to happen--and it wasn't good for their careers.

The little biplanes buzzed out...and sank every ship. First a destroyer, then the huge German battleship, then all three US battleships. The Navy tried to ignore the results, but with Mitchell yapping at their heels, they finally started moving from battleship-based to aircraft-carrier-based battle groups.

The British didn't pay any attention to Mitchell's demonstration. Their battleships were better made, better armed, and better manned. With an impregnable British stronghold in Singapore and the RN patrolling offshore, what could those little Jap monkeys do?

Three days after Pearl Harbor, the British found out. A powerful battle group led by the battleship Prince of Wales and the Cruiser Repulse steamed out to oppose Japanese landings in Malaysia, and ran into several squadrons of Japanese planes. In a few minutes both ships were sinking, The Prince of Wales sank so fast virtually the entire crew went down with her. With its Naval screen gone, Singapore the Impregnable fell so fast the British still can't talk about it.

What the battleship was in 1941, the aircraft carrier is now: a big, proud, expensive...sitting duck.Aircraft carriers came out of WW II looking powerful, but that was before microchips. Now, when an enemy tanker can fire 60 self-guiding cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away, no carrier will survive its first real battle.

Carriers are not only the biggest and most expensive ships ever built--they're the most vulnerable. Because even one serious cruise-missile hit means the carrier can't launch its planes, its best weapons. They will sink to the bottom with their crews, not having fired a shot.

That was the real lesson of Millennium Challenge II. And that's what has the Navy so furious at van Riper: he blew their cover. He showed all the hicks back home that the carrier battle fleet can be sunk by "small planes and boats." As weapons become smaller and deadlier, big targets just won't survive.

The signs have been there all along. In the Falklands War, the Argentine Air Force, which ain't exactly the A Team, managed to shred the British fleet, coming in low and fast to launch the Exocets. And they did all this hundreds of miles off their coast, with no land-based systems to help.

If the Argentines could do that with 1980 technology, think what the Chinese, Iranians or North Koreans could do in 2003 against a city-size floating target like a US carrier.

If your local library has copies of Jane's Weapons Systems, check out the anti-ship missile section. The top of the line in standard weaponry might still be the old US Harpoon, but you don't need anything that fancy. Anti-ship missiles are easy to make and use, because surface ships are very slow, have huge radar signatures, and can't dodge.

We may be lucky a little while longer, as long as we take on losers like Iraq. But what about Iran? The Iranians aren't cowardly slaves like the Iraqis. They're smart, they're dedicated, and they hate us like poison. Imagine how many "small aircraft and boats" there are along the Iranian coastline. Imagine every one of those craft stuffed full of explosives and turned into kamikazes. Now add all the anti-ship missiles the Iranians have been able to buy on the open market. If you really want to get scared, add a nuke or two.

Suppose the Iranians use van Riper's method: send everything at once, from every ship, plane and boat they've got, directly at the carrier. Give the Navy the benefit of the doubt and say they get 90% of the incoming missiles. You still end up with a dead carrier.

Now try shifting the scenario to a US-China fight off Taiwan. The Chinese have it all: subs, planes, anti-ship missiles-Hell, they SELL that stuff to other countries! I'll say it plain: no American carrier would last five minutes in a full-scale naval battle off China.

Let's go back to that objection some of you are probably raising: "The Navy must've thought of all that!" Oh yeah? Why didn't the British think of it in 1940? There was plenty of evidence that battleships were nothing but giant coffins. They just decided not to think about it.

That's what the US Navy does now. There are careers here, big money, tradition. There's always been a surface navy; so there's always got to BE one. That's about as far as their reasoning gets.

One day we'll wake up to a second Pearl Harbor. Maybe not this year--fighting a joke like Saddam, the US Navy can probably getting away with sending its carriers into the Persian Gulf. But if Iran gets involved, those carriers won't last one day. If they ever approach the Chinese coast in wartime, they'll just vanish. If a carrier-based group steams anywhere near the North Korean coast...well, there won't even be enough left to make a good dive-site.

And the sickest part is that the admirals and the captains and the contractors all know it. Goddamn. Maybe we deserve what's gonna happen to us. Only thing is, it won't be the brass who die. It'll be the poor trusting kids on those carriers who'll die, the poor suckers who thought they'd get free training and a world tour, or even get the chance to "defend America." They'll die not even believing what's happening to them as the whole giant hulk starts cracking up and sliding into the water.

[Paracaidista]

Interesting. It is funny to know that in almost every execise where US carrier task forces and foreign (and US too) diesel submarines are involved as opposite force, at least one submarine ends owning the carrier.

I believe complacency more than anything else has created this situation. I think a US carrier can sustain a fair amout of damage from several strike missiles before becoming completely disabled so it has to be abandoned. And also the US navy, I believe, emphasises in damage control training. The problem is the time window between the disabling strike and the ends of the damage control tems finish their jobs. And the brass know it.

The missile issue is being tackled with new antimissile systems of different kinds. The problem, most, if not all of them are effective at best to take slow subsonic missiles. The russians realized that, and swarms made of their new relatively cheap supersonic missiles (i.e., yakhont (http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Yakhont.html)) are unstoppable. The US navy hopes that its new "laser" systems can take down these. But a little bit of ablative armor can be the coutermeasure up to a point.

Underseas, the supercavitating torpedoes can do the trick as well. And the navy, silently, is developing a shock wave system to disrupt its bubble, as well as to preemptive detonate conventional torpedoes. But it's still to early to say if the system works as intended or not.

Only when China gets to manufacturate these weapons, perhaps they will attempt to try their destiny on Taiwan. The Pentagon knows it, and they made an educated guess on the year: 2025. In the meantime, the race between the measures and the countermeasures, the projectile and the shield, continues, perhaps forever.

[gc]

The new RIM-116 RAM is tested against all sorts of targets like Anti-ship missiles and the score 95% success rate. In 10 tests against Vandal targets simulating Sunburn ASCM, all ten targets flying complex profiles at Mach 2.5 were shot down. So ASCM don't pose as much of a problem as you think. The SSKs are a bigger problem.

[Seiyuuki]

Don't Sukhois need to be detected, painted before any missle launches takes place.

If the F22 depended on AWACS for such a mission, don't the other side have AWACS too.

No, any modern air force with modern air-to-air missile is capable of launching the missile and have it goes "autonomous" and home in on the target or receive target information mid-flight by the launcher or system like AWACS.

Yes and no, a single F/A-22 in a strike package was designed and capable of acting in a limited role as a "mini-AWACS."

[Paracaidista]

Indeed, Vandal/Coyote simulating targets are shot down by SeaRAMs. But as I said, countermeasures are on the way. The RIM-116 travels via radar and get the hardkill guided via IR, all to be done in a very short time. Both can be countermeasured a bit by stealth applied on the missile and IR decoys for last second evasion. Got to see the ESSM on this.

Certainly the SSK are the most dangerous. I was careful in not to mention the Sunburn, which is older than the Yakhont and cannot be lauched from SSK, thus making more difficult to the RAMs to track, launch and intercept them in less than 20 miles. Everything depends on how early the US TF can detect the launch and stuff.

http://www.brahmos.com/images/trajecteries.jpg

(Way to go off-topic :))