"Surface ships need more offensive punch", says expert (article on AD/AAW)

[CougarKing]

Air defense against SSMs seems to be mentioned more at the beginning of this article though...

Defense News

Surface Ships Need More Offensive Punch, Outlook
Change missile-fighting concepts, add lasers and railguns on ships, expert urges
Nov. 17, 2014 - 03:45AM  |  By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

WASHINGTON — Commanders of Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers long have been confident in their ability to detect, engage and destroy incoming enemy missiles, often employing a layered strategy to hit threats at long, medium and short ranges. That’s key to one of their prime missions, protecting an aircraft carrier from enemy attack.

But there’s a catch. Under a doctrine that shoots two missiles at each incoming weapon, and with missile magazines that carry about a 100 missiles or so, the flow of defensive weapons is likely to run dry in a short time.

“A cruiser or destroyer will exhaust its missiles relatively quickly against incoming missiles — about 50 incoming missiles will use up the inventory of air-defense weapons,” said Bryan Clark, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in Washington.

(...SNIPPED)

To counter these threats, “we need a new defensive anti-air warfare (AAW) concept,” Clark told reporters Monday in a preview of a new study in which he urges the US Navy to “reinvigorate” surface warfare.

“We need to shift to a single, dense defensive, close-in AAW layer rather than a layered approach,” he urged, suggesting an engagement range of about thirty nautical miles.

“Current air defense schemes are based on fallacies and wishful thinking,” Clark, a former top adviser to chief of naval operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, said. “Using my most expensive, biggest weapons first leaves only cheap, close-in weapons.” A shift to 30 nautical miles, he added, takes advantage of cheaper interceptors that can be carried in larger numbers, relying on the ability of the Aegis system’s fire control abilities to hit their targets.

Holding back Standard SM-2 and SM-6 weapons, he said, makes them available as offensive weapons, able to reach out and destroy enemy aircraft.

Underlying Clark’s study is an urge to increase the fleet’s lethality and think more offensively.

“The surface fleet of today really can’t do offensive sea control,” he explained. “I want to make this an executable plan as opposed to an aspirational plan. It’s very payload-focused, based on modifications rather than on a brand-new surface combatant.”

Among the moves Clark espouses are quicker development and fielding of laser weapons and electromagnetic rail guns.

“The Navy now has no plan to integrate a laser into a large surface combatant. There is discussion, but nothing definitive,” he said, noting the need for about 1500 kilowatts for power and cooling needs. But the Flight III version of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, designed with more electrical power and scheduled to begin construction in 2019, could handle an effective weapon.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[NavyShooter]

Using the RIM-162 ESSM, the missiles can be put in a quad-pack with 4 x ESSM per MK.41 vertical launch canister. 

Let's take an average Arleigh Burke as an example.  The  Mod 7 version of the MK.41 on the mid-production series AB's, have 31 cells forward, and 64 aft.

That'd give a load-out of 95 missile cells in total.

Let's take a guess at a rough load-out.

You need to include AAW, ASuW and ASW cells, so a mixture of AA Missiles, Tommohawk, and Harpoon, and ASROC.

Here's a guess at a load-out:

20 Tommohawk
8 Harpoon
8 ASROC

That's 36/95 cells, leaving 59 cells.  Filling those up with SM-2 missiles will give you a max of 59 long-range shots against air targets, and, using the doctrine discussed above would give you basically the ability to kill 30 incoming missiles/air targets.

Suppose we shift the loadout on those 59 cells to a mix of ESSM and SM-2.  Let's go 50/50, or say, 30/29.  That gives you the ability to interdict 15 targets at long range with your SM-2's, and gives you 29 cells left worth of ESSM's to deal with shorter range targets. 

According to Wikipedia, the range of the ESSM is 50km. 

Putting 4x ESSM in 29 boxes gives you 116 missiles, which, using the same 2 shots per target doctrine, gives you the ability to hit 58 shorter range targets.

So.  Having both tools in the toolbox gives a naval commander the ability to hit far out with SM-2's, and still provide a density of fire at close-range with a veritable cloud of AA Missiles.

I will note that the 'new' AAW concept seems to be the 'new' shipboard laser systems that the US (I think) just started deploying.... ???

So, it seems like the ESSM gives a solution to the limited magazine capacity, and the next generation of AAW capability is already being tested/deployed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the problems this author seems to be making, and that you've highlighted seem already to be on the way to being solved...??

NS

 

[yoman]

Using the RIM-162 ESSM, the missiles can be put in a quad-pack with 4 x ESSM per MK.41 vertical launch canister. 

Let's take an average Arleigh Burke as an example.  The  Mod 7 version of the MK.41 on the mid-production series AB's, have 31 cells forward, and 64 aft.

That'd give a load-out of 95 missile cells in total.

Let's take a guess at a rough load-out.

You need to include AAW, ASuW and ASW cells, so a mixture of AA Missiles, Tommohawk, and Harpoon, and ASROC.

Here's a guess at a load-out:

20 Tommohawk
8 Harpoon
8 ASROC

I might be wrong on this but I don't believe the Mk 41 launcher can handle Harpoon missiles.

 

[NavyShooter]

Good point.

<--- credibility....shot?



Add 8 SM-2's?