Re: Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs


Pat Flannery (flanner@xxxxxxxxxx) writes:
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
>>Plus, late and post WW2 combat systems, including weapons, ammo spaces,
>>and C&C spaces, became so volume intensive that the concept of armouring
>>them was swiftly & correctly seen as beyond impossible, so after the spate
>>of early missile ship cruiser conversions were done, it was on to passive
>>protection systems, that worked with the hull of the ship, rather than
>>trying to slater on kilotons of armour plate.
>
> On of the strangest picture I've ever seen is a photo of the aft deck of
> the dreadnought battleship U.S.S. Mississippi (BB-41, commissioned in
> Dec. 1917), with the two stern turrets being replaced with dual thin
> Terrier SAM launchers.
> Now _this_ is a really unique looking battleship!:
> http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/014118.jpg
> http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/014103.jpg

Indeed. She was a test and development ship at the time. Then, when
seaplane tenders started to become surplus, the USS Norton Sound
came into that role.

>>>In that way the cost and
>>>production time of the warship could be significantly reduced, while
>>>allowing higher speed for the same installed horsepower, and also
>>>allowing you to make more vessels for the same financial outlay.
>>
>>Incorrect. As modern combat systems were swiftly becoming the driving
>>factor in both ship design ( volume ) and cost, the cost kept going up,
>>and the cost of even armour was a small factor next to that.
>>
>>It was the utter uselessness of armour on large ships that doomed the
>>plate makers.
>
> If one were to make a Frigate that carried the same armament as a Oliver
> Hazard Perry class ship, with the same number of rounds for its
> armament, same electronics systems, same speed and range... and had to
> armor it up to the level enjoyed by say a WW II era heavy cruiser (which
> you would need to do to get it anywhere near surviving something like
> the Shaddock's one ton warhead), you would be talking about a far larger
> and more expensive ship.

And, an expensive white elephant. Lathering on the armour simply
doesn't stop WW2 rounds from coming in ( Hell, they didn't stop WW1
rounds, as a study of the hits at Jutland can show ), and they'd be far
more useless trying to stop modern weapons.

In addition, the armour makes the hull more brittle, which in a near
miss shock environment, is *worse*, from a survivability point of view.

> That's what I was driving at. Particularly in
> regards to need for installed horsepower to drive it, and the fuel to
> power those motors (assuming conventional power) to the same range,
> significant weight savings of a lightly armored design mean a
> significantly smaller hull to achieve the same capabilities, and hence
> lower cost for the hull, leaving the actual cost of the armor plate aside.

Indeed. But, any platform includes in it, the calculation of it's useful
payload.

For instance, with all the discussion over the years about how to make
the shuttle really " safe ", many schemes result in the shuttle having
negative payload. The same with warships.

>>>Of course the flaw in the argument was that even though the ship might
>>>not be able to survive a direct hit by a Shaddock missile with a
>>>conventional warhead, armoring it might keep it afloat long enough for a
>>>large number of its crew to take to the lifeboats.
>>
>>The trade off was, either a ship whose ability to survive a hit might be
>>upped ~10%, while paying for that in seriously degraded and reduced
>>detection and weapons systems, or a ship with the better detection and
>>weapons systems fits, such that it could reduce it's chances of taking
>>that hit by far more than the 10%.
>
> But of course you never tell the crew "Oh, BTW, if we ever do take a
> direct cruise missile hit, it's all over- pronto" although I did talk to
> a destroyer crewman who knew that was the case, as oddly, the topic kept
> coming up in the crew's conversation, especially when they were within
> range of Iran's Silkworm missiles. ;-)

Oh, I dare say that they mostly know. Talking to their Weps would
get them that info.

> The thing I'd like to know is how we expect to be able to deal with
> multi-mach sea-skimming cruise missiles like the newer Russian ones that
> have stealth characteristics- and are intended to be launched in salvo
> attacks in which individual missiles in the salvo can transmit
> information back and forth between each other to aid in targeting
> themselves, as well as defeat enemy countermeasures by comparing radar
> and thermal emissions of the enemy target vessel from different directions.

Indeed. But, at this point in time, few Russian ships can mount sych
missiles, and few foreign navies will be able to afford and maintain
the systems.

If a fleet of nearly 20 Sovermnyii ( sp ) DDgs wasn't the biggest
USN worry, then 2-4 such ships in the ( anachronistic ) Chinese Navy
aren't going to be the doom of the USN.

> That's going to be a tough nut to crack with vertically launched
> Standard missiles- by the time you detect the incoming missile, get the
> Standard fired, and have the Standard turn downwards to meet the
> incoming missile, it might well have hit you.

Thats why the newer USN CIWS is RAM. Plus, VLS Sea Sparrow. The
latter in Mk 41 VLS quadpacks.

Andre

--
" I'm a man... But, I can change... If I have to... I guess. "
The Man Prayer, Red Green.
.

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