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


Pat Flannery (flanner@xxxxxxxxxx) writes:
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
>>Thats rather a Straw Man, I'd say. I would say that the training of
>>ship's crews would include covering such threats, and how to combat
>>and defeat them.
>
> I'm sure their's was a great deal of training related to either decoying
> or destroying incoming missiles, and great deal of training related to
> damage control if a missile were to hit- but if it were big enough it
> would basically blow the ship in half, and at that point the training
> probably related to seeing how fast you could abandon the ship. :-)

Well, thats the point, to not have it do that. And, what admittedly
little we have seen of the losses of modern surface combattants has
suggested lower casualty rates than in WW2. Whether those would scale
up, when a larger ship were hit with larger weapons, is another question,
possibly one that the USN wanted to get some data on, when they sank
the ex-America ( CV-66 ) this spring.

> We were discussing the real operational capabilities for advanced
> Russian antishipping missiles versus what Russia claims for them, but if
> there is a country out there that presents a real threat in arming
> countries with missiles that might be able to get through our ships
> defenses it would be China, which designs missiles specifically for an
> export market, and has a lot of different designs including ones
> considerably more advanced than the Silkworm available:
> http://www.sinodefence.com/missile/antiship/default.asp

Lots of designs is one thing. Some such actually operational, thats
another thing. As China has few surface combattants that would even
qualify as late 70s cutting edge, I cannot say that I'm all that
worried.

Interested, sure. But, if the threat of the fUSSR's navy was
managable, though risky, then China's should be far less of an
issue. But, it does bear watching, of course.

>>>In the case of the destroyer crewman I mentioned,
>>>everyone on the ship knew that was the case and they didn't have to have
>>>the fact pointed out to them in detail, any more than a Navy pilot would
>>>have to have it pointed out to him in detail that if he ejects at low
>>>altitude with his aircraft inverted, he will probably end up in a
>>>self-dug grave.
>>
>>True. However, your statement seemed to suggest that crewmen who were
>>not " gleefully " told such, had no idea that it was a matter of reality
>>in matters of the Other Side. That suggestion was, of course, false.
>>
>>A RN Type 42 shot down a Shaddock fired at USS Missouri during
>>Desert Storm. Other than that, no one's fired an SSM at a real
>>target, so you cannot shoot down what isn't fired.
>
> The Iraqis had Shaddocks?

My bad. I meant to write Silkworm.

> I thought they only had Styx or Silkworms, Otomats

Its very unlikely that they ever had any Otomats in service. That
SSM was only bought as a surface launched system for the four
Lupo class FFs, and six missile corvettes that they ordered from
Italy in the early 80s, and that were never delivered. The
Lupos are now patrol ships in the Italian Navy, and IIRC, the
corvettes are in Indonesia or Malaysia, but not all in one
navy.

The oiler that Iraq had Italy build along with those ten
warships, as far as I know, is still moored in Alexandria,
Egypt, while final ownership gets sorted out.

> and Exocets.

Andre

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

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