Surface Ships Need More Offensive Punch, Outlook

sferrin said:
GruntFox said:
uk 75 said:
I remain puzzled by the worry about surface to surface weapons on ships.
The most effective shipkiller remains the nuclear submarine. These need torpedos and missiles designed to do that job.
Surface warships from patrol boats to aircraft carriers have a short life in a shooting war from either air or submarine attack. Since shooting naval wars have been rare since 1945 this is not as bad as it sounds.
The RN lost 2 frigates and 2 destroyers in the Falklands but they and their class companions had many years of service in peacetime.
Modern warships are as much about peacetime duties as war fighting.
The USN is particularly impacted by this. It has lost some destroyers and frigates to sneak enemy attacks but has not been engaged in a naval war since 1945.
China is even less experienced having until the last decade only maintained a coastal defence force. Building impressive looking ships is not the same as knowing how to use them,
Click to expand...
That isn't the case anymore, but then again, people ignore the advances in laser-tech and the fact that UVA and Blue-Green wavelengths are great for zapping torpedoes.
Click to expand...
Why is nobody doing that then?
Click to expand...
Because lasers are just started to get deployed and lasers have been having the same treatment that fusion has for a while now.
 
GruntFox said:
sferrin said:
GruntFox said:
uk 75 said:
I remain puzzled by the worry about surface to surface weapons on ships.
The most effective shipkiller remains the nuclear submarine. These need torpedos and missiles designed to do that job.
Surface warships from patrol boats to aircraft carriers have a short life in a shooting war from either air or submarine attack. Since shooting naval wars have been rare since 1945 this is not as bad as it sounds.
The RN lost 2 frigates and 2 destroyers in the Falklands but they and their class companions had many years of service in peacetime.
Modern warships are as much about peacetime duties as war fighting.
The USN is particularly impacted by this. It has lost some destroyers and frigates to sneak enemy attacks but has not been engaged in a naval war since 1945.
China is even less experienced having until the last decade only maintained a coastal defence force. Building impressive looking ships is not the same as knowing how to use them,
Click to expand...
That isn't the case anymore, but then again, people ignore the advances in laser-tech and the fact that UVA and Blue-Green wavelengths are great for zapping torpedoes.
Click to expand...
Why is nobody doing that then?
Click to expand...
Because lasers are just started to get deployed and lasers have been having the same treatment that fusion has for a while now.
Click to expand...
None are "being deployed" to "zap torpedoes".
 
uk 75 said:
I remain puzzled by the worry about surface to surface weapons on ships.
The most effective shipkiller remains the nuclear submarine. These need torpedos and missiles designed to do that job.
Surface warships from patrol boats to aircraft carriers have a short life in a shooting war from either air or submarine attack. Since shooting naval wars have been rare since 1945 this is not as bad as it sounds.
The RN lost 2 frigates and 2 destroyers in the Falklands but they and their class companions had many years of service in peacetime.
Modern warships are as much about peacetime duties as war fighting.
The USN is particularly impacted by this. It has lost some destroyers and frigates to sneak enemy attacks but has not been engaged in a naval war since 1945.
China is even less experienced having until the last decade only maintained a coastal defence force. Building impressive looking ships is not the same as knowing how to use them,
Click to expand...
It seems like amatuer military watchers love a good symmetrical shooting contest with big vehicles. Unending amount of posts have been spent on shell penetration and armor thickness and "high intensity" mirror shooting matches. Nearly equal amount of effort have been spent on throwing a few hundred tubes of AShM on a hull in different guises. There has been orders of magnitude less talk on things like air defense fire control system, the effectiveness of the smoke generation system or the capability of the air search radar.

Now to be fair, sensors, electronic warfare and other systems are too secret and difficult to understand to be subject to much discussion, so all the talk converges with "more bigger weapon with more armor."

The small load of anti-ship missiles relative to anti-air and air-submarine weapons and equipment for many combatants does point to a understanding of their role in practice.

Escorts are quite important combatants for enabling movement on the sea, but "surface ships need larger sonar arrays" just can't sustain a thread....


GruntFox said:
sferrin said:
GruntFox said:
That isn't the case anymore, but then again, people ignore the advances in laser-tech and the fact that UVA and Blue-Green wavelengths are great for zapping torpedoes.
Click to expand...
Why is nobody doing that then?
Click to expand...
Because lasers are just started to get deployed and lasers have been having the same treatment that fusion has for a while now.
Click to expand...
Now, I haven't done any research on the relevant technology, however the impression is this: (and others probably have the same impression unless new information is provided)

1. Water absorbs more energy than air. Just because there is a band that transmissivity isn't hopeless doesn't mean it matches atmosphere. Various matter mixed in the water makes this even worst.
2. Water dissipates heat better than air, thermal means of destruction is hard
3. Water is more refractive and less stable than air, waves will disrupt laser path and focal point more than in atmosphere
4. Underwater weapon systems do not rely on EM sensors and can be very well protected against EM without disabling their own sensor.
5. There are no known projects for laser anti-torpedo systems

The impression that if anti-underwater laser system is to exist, it would at least come significantly after effective anti-air laser systems. Area defense system (needed for fleet protection) as opposed self defense systems would also come significant after even that.

Now, perhaps the above is not completely fair, torpedoes are much slower than missiles and allow for much longer time on target, and the expense for long range torpedoes means large scale saturation attacks is less feasible. That said, someone need to show the math for it to seem reasonable. There is also the question of torpedo countermeasures from armor to stuff like supercavitation, altered underwater trajectories or even things like "messing with the water."
 
Last edited:
They've barely started using blue-green lasers for communicating through water (don't know if it's actually made it into service) let alone transmitting enough to destroy a torpedo (which is a HELL of a lot tougher than an antiship missile). If they had lasers powerful enough to kill torpedos the antiship missile problem would be over.
 
sferrin said:
They've barely started using blue-green lasers for communicating through water (don't know if it's actually made it into service) let alone transmitting enough to destroy a torpedo (which is a HELL of a lot tougher than an antiship missile). If they had lasers powerful enough to kill torpedos the antiship missile problem would be over.
Click to expand...
It's part of the program down the line from what I've heard. Especially since the USN has been planning to put a laser on their periscopes to give SSNs and SSBNs anti-aircraft capability.
shin_getter said:
GruntFox said:
sferrin said:
GruntFox said:
That isn't the case anymore, but then again, people ignore the advances in laser-tech and the fact that UVA and Blue-Green wavelengths are great for zapping torpedoes.
Click to expand...
Why is nobody doing that then?
Click to expand...
Because lasers are just started to get deployed and lasers have been having the same treatment that fusion has for a while now.
Click to expand...
Now, I haven't done any research on the relevant technology, however the impression is this: (and others probably have the same impression unless new information is provided)

1. Water absorbs more energy than air. Just because there is a band that transmissivity isn't hopeless doesn't mean it matches atmosphere. Various matter mixed in the water makes this even worst.
2. Water dissipates heat better than air, thermal means of destruction is hard
3. Water is more refractive and less stable than air, waves will disrupt laser path and focal point more than in atmosphere
4. Underwater weapon systems do not rely on EM sensors and can be very well protected against EM without disabling their own sensor.
5. There are no known projects for laser anti-torpedo systems

The impression that if anti-underwater laser system is to exist, it would at least come significantly after effective anti-air laser systems. Area defense system (needed for fleet protection) as opposed self defense systems would also come significant after even that.

Now, perhaps the above is not completely fair, torpedoes are much slower than missiles and allow for much longer time on target, and the expense for long range torpedoes means large scale saturation attacks is less feasible. That said, someone need to show the math for it to seem reasonable. There is also the question of torpedo countermeasures from armor to stuff like supercavitation, altered underwater trajectories or even things like "messing with the water."
Click to expand...
That isn't exactly the case, from what I've been told. A lot of it is because 1) we're currently using Continous Wave IR lasers (which is considered the worst type of laser) and 2) the tech has been slow going for years. At least until recently. Another factor you're ignoring is that, from what I've been told, the moment that you get into the megawatts range medium resistance tends to take a back seat as the laser generates its own vacuum.

The USN has been working on getting a laser system operational first before getting into the real meat of offensive/defensive lasers, largely because hypersonic missiles literally render every other defense useless due to that plasma sheath.
 
lol

GruntFox said:
It's part of the program down the line from what I've heard. Especially since the USN has been planning to put a laser on their periscopes to give SSNs and SSBNs anti-aircraft capability.
Click to expand...

Are you familiar with periscopes? If lasers can just zap through water...why bother with a periscope?

GruntFox said:
That isn't exactly the case, from what I've been told. A lot of it is because 1) we're currently using Continous Wave IR lasers (which is considered the worst type of laser)
Click to expand...

At optimal frequency, a blue-green laser has an attenuation length of slightly over 200 meters in pure water. Seawater is hardly pure, and due to turbidity-induced scattering ten meters of relatively clean sea water will transmit approximately 50% of radiation in the blue-green range according to V.V. Rampal in "Blue Green Lasers and Their Military Potential." Shallow coastal water will further decrease this range.

GruntFox said:
Another factor you're ignoring is that, from what I've been told, the moment that you get into the megawatts range medium resistance tends to take a back seat as the laser generates its own vacuum.
Click to expand...

High-powered lasers may heat air until it ionizes into a plasma, reducing its density. Factors you're ignoring are that water has a specific heat roughly four times that of air, a density roughly a thousand times higher, and is a liquid. Not to mention thermal blooming.

GruntFox said:
hypersonic missiles literally render every other defense useless due to that plasma sheath.
Click to expand...

Repeating this doesn't make it less patently ridiculous.

In the foreseeable future blue-green lasers may be useful for torpedo and anti-torpedo fuzes, photoacoustic sonar arrays, and acoustic countermeasures. Even lidar is most likely over-rated (the RAMICS lidar couldn't reliably detect mines in small volumes of shallow water, for example) and seaQuest-style lasers are just bad science fiction.
 
Last edited:
How about asking the service men and women what they need instead
of some congressman deciding.
 
You've got to remember that US Congress has a very long history of screwing over the military. However, those cruisers are bloody ancient and need to be decommissioned anyway, although we need more ships because we've been running our ships and crews ragged.
 
Just pray they don't do a 1-1 replacement of Ticos with Constellation and call it a day. The next gen destroyer is still a decade away and the Burke shipyards are at full capacity.
 
Bhurki said:
Just pray they don't do a 1-1 replacement of Ticos with Constellation and call it a day. The next gen destroyer is still a decade away and the Burke shipyards are at full capacity.
Click to expand...
The Burke shipyard is no where near being full capacity.

Ingells can literally start building 4 burkes at once if Congress cough up the money for them.

It will then take them a month to Ramp up before we go back full Burke Spamming like in the late 90s to early 00s. WE are building the Burkes at a SUSTAIN the yard rate not at max amount in as little time rate.
 
Firefinder said:
Bhurki said:
Just pray they don't do a 1-1 replacement of Ticos with Constellation and call it a day. The next gen destroyer is still a decade away and the Burke shipyards are at full capacity.
Click to expand...
The Burke shipyard is no where near being full capacity.

Ingells can literally start building 4 burkes at once if Congress cough up the money for them.

It will then take them a month to Ramp up before we go back full Burke Spamming like in the late 90s to early 00s. WE are building the Burkes at a SUSTAIN the yard rate not at max amount in as little time rate.
Click to expand...
Given that Congress is going back to its 'screw your budget military' ways... I wouldn't be optimistic about it.
 
Instead of just wanting the newest toys, why not go for the most bang for the buck
in supporting projects.
 
The US Navy has an unenviable task compared with the Cold War years. Matching developments in the Soviet fleet conditioned the type and numbers of its ships until 1991.
There then followed a decade of peace enforcement (Gulf, Balkans) and low intensity (Somalian pirates Iranian Revolutionary Guards).
Then the "War on Terror" after 2001 with its *Littoral Combat Ships".
Now we have "resurgent Russia" with a few new build frigates and nuke subs. And China.
It is hard to see any logic to the PLAN.
It still cannot get the plans for Akula style SSNs.
At best it has two carriers with modest air groups until its first Nimitz lookalike commissions.
Its escort ships are various and look impressive. But what are they intended to do?
Fight the Indian Navy in some future Indo Pakistan confrontation? This could be done but the Indian Navy has been in business for quite a while.
The USN can no longer expect to sail carriers into China's backyard as it used to until relatively recently.
But beyond that?
 
Beyond what?

The PRC doesn't want the USN in the SCS and the USN wants to be in the SCS. It's literally that simple.

It's not that hard to grasp: the PRC doesn't exactly have the greatest imperial ambitions. It's very similar to the Soviet Union, in fact almost identical. It wants to keep the USN out of its territorial waters and it wants to be able to exert military pressure at its furthest land and sea borders to do so.

The USN has an identical task to when it was fighting the Soviet Union: keep pace with the PLAN and monitor them. It's doing an good job at it, too, given it usually has an over-abundance of resources to do so it would be hard to imagine otherwise. Again, no different than the Soviet Union. The USN certainly didn't need 300+ surface escorts or 16 attack carriers to keep the Soviets' single attack carrier and three helicopter carriers in the Okhotsk Basin or their subs from sailing around Narvik or whatever. It's pretty correct to say that the PLAN and USN are unevenly matched, and will probably continue to be for the rest of the XXI century. It's less correct to assume that this means anything, though.

The USN could get away with four or five or so Nimitzes/Fords and half as many Burkes and amphibs if it really needed to without sacrificing much on the China front. Its main striking weapon is going to be submarines, since large carriers can't operate in the closed sea that is SCS much. But Congress doesn't want to do so that so they're giving them far more resources to handle random bombing campaigns in Syria or whatever.

The idea that the USN, or DOD in general, is somehow starved of resources is really funny. It has more than enough resources to handle any foreseeable threat, and it always has, since Congress generally takes their advice very seriously.

The 600 ship navy started out as a low ball proposal during the Ford administration (relative to a 800 ship and 700 ship navy) as an austere (for the USN) fleet composition. Reagan just pumped it up to win an election, so I guess feelings really do trump facts in that case.
 
Last edited:
Plan for PLAN?

First, finally really win the Chinese civil war.
Second, Secure energy lifeline to middle east
Third, Secure investments in Africa

For a example of the third, China had invested heavily in Ethiopia which is now in civil war. A carrier task force with amphibs seems suitable means of intervention.
 
Kat Tsun: the South China Sea is not Chinese territorial waters. If the PLAN wants to roll in the Caribbean, it’s welcome to. If it tries to enforce a claim on international waters, it will come to blows with the US. It’s that simple.
 
The wartime role of the Soviet Navy was never really established. But its peacetime deployments gradually increased into the 80s with task groups operating in the N Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, Pacific on a regular basis centred on a Kiev or Kirov.
The US Navy also had to take into account substantial submarine forces in the Atlantic and Pacific.
The PLAN has so far not been able to create the kind of threat posed by Typhoon SSBN Oscar SSGN and Akula SSN. But if its economy stays intact this capability might be bought.
Surface ships died quickly in any US Soviet conflict gamed by the Naval War College.
The same would be even truer for China after which its ports would be sealed by US and UK SSNs invulnerable to non existent Chinese ASW experience.
The Chinese know this perfectly well and the PLAN build up is aimed at bullying their neighbours from India to Vietnam
 
The Soviet nuclear submarine fleet was very capable force by the late 80s, though it was a little late to the party. The Soviet surface fleet in comparison seemed designed to last only a few days; every account I’ve heard (generally third hand) indicated damage control was an afterthought at best. Given the superiority of the USN in most theaters, that was perhaps a realistic approach.
 
uk 75 said:
The wartime role of the Soviet Navy was never really established. But its peacetime deployments gradually increased into the 80s with task groups operating in the N Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, Pacific on a regular basis centred on a Kiev or Kirov.
The US Navy also had to take into account substantial submarine forces in the Atlantic and Pacific.
The PLAN has so far not been able to create the kind of threat posed by Typhoon SSBN Oscar SSGN and Akula SSN. But if its economy stays intact this capability might be bought.
Surface ships died quickly in any US Soviet conflict gamed by the Naval War College.
The same would be even truer for China after which its ports would be sealed by US and UK SSNs invulnerable to non existent Chinese ASW experience.
The Chinese know this perfectly well and the PLAN build up is aimed at bullying their neighbours from India to Vietnam
Click to expand...
Very simplistically the PLAN wants territorial hegemony and global economic hegemony. Eventually you will hear the constant refrain (you kind of hear it now);

Is it worth war over some islands?
Is it worth war over undersea/seabed resources?
Is it worth war over Vietnamese fishing right/industry
Then eventually is it worth war over Taiwan?
 
We are pushing into non technical discussions not particularly relevant to this forum. I felt the the need to correct one post because it stated something that was not factual that I refuse to normalize in any forum or format, but I think it’s best to move on.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if this thread turns into 'replace offensive capabilities from surface combatants to exclusively submarines' by the time it hits 100 pages.

Cruiser vs SSGN, eh?
 
Bhurki said:
I wouldn't be surprised if this thread turns into 'replace offensive capabilities from surface combatants to exclusively submarines' by the time it hits 100 pages.

Cruiser vs SSGN, eh?
Click to expand...
The advantage of conventional surface ship is that it is a cheap platform that can defend other surface ships that carries the bulk of modern trade. The surface offensive role was pretty dead since aircraft carriers, never mind what goes on nowadays.

People seems to hate the defensive mission a lot and would fall over themselves to propose 16" GUNS!, RAILGUNS!, 100 super hypersonic AShM TUBES! WWII was a good example of how poorly prepared navies can be in the defensive mission, despite the last conflict being well within living memory and ought to be "the one prepared for".

----
China is far from self sufficient in raw materials, its economy is similar to that of Japan's. A small scale opponent unopposed in the Indian ocean could crash the China economy by cutting the oil and other trade. It'd take huge naval capability to deal with this problem to enable freedom to conduct other aggressive actions.
 
Last edited:
sferrin said:
Why is nobody doing that then?
Click to expand...
Because torpedo have thick, constantly-cooled hull, and water is a bad optic medium. Focusing the beam on the torpedo would be complex, especially considering that angle is quite bad. Frankly, the depth charge thrower with homing projeciles is much more practical.
 
Dilandu said:
sferrin said:
Why is nobody doing that then?
Click to expand...
Because torpedo have thick, constantly-cooled hull, and water is a bad optic medium. Focusing the beam on the torpedo would be complex, especially considering that angle is quite bad. Frankly, the depth charge thrower with homing projeciles is much more practical.
Click to expand...
The atmosphere right over the water, with all the spray&water fumes, is already bad enough actually.
 
Firefinder said:
Grey Havoc said:
www.defensenews.com

Navy willing to pay more for more maintainable ships

The Navy is willing to pay more for new ships upfront if it means saving on maintenance and personnel costs throughout the life of the program.
www.defensenews.com www.defensenews.com
Click to expand...
That nice.

Means nothing if they dont you know.

Actually start building ships.
Click to expand...
Remember, production is literally at the mercy of Congress and Congress is going back to its pre-Cold War 'screw the military out of a budget' ways.
 
It's kind of weird they're criticizing the Navy for not spending enough on procurement and likely giving it more than it asked for in its FY22 budget request then.
 
news.usni.org

Raytheon Says it Can Meet U.S. Naval Strike Missile Demand - USNI News

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Key to the Navy and Marine Corps future battle plans in the Western Pacific are populating ships and expeditionary ground units with anti-ship missiles. In particular, both services are ramping up their acquisition of the Norwegian-designed Naval Strike Missile – the...
news.usni.org news.usni.org
 
Interesting, especially given that only a month or so ago the USMC were desperately looking around for a longer term alternative to NSM because there wasn't enough production slack to meet their needs.
 
Last edited:
Grey Havoc said:
Interesting, especially given that only a month or so ago the USMC were desperately looking around for a longer term alternative to NSM because there wasn't enough production slack to meet their needs.
Click to expand...
I would not be at all surprised if the USMC was told from on high that they didn't need as many as they said they did so, "TADA" now they have enough production. That seems to be the most common way of "fixing" the quantity problem in the west lately.
 
Grey Havoc said:
www.wsj.com

Opinion | The Danger of Shrinking American Naval Power

China may invade Taiwan within six years, admirals warn. Is the U.S. ready?
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com

Six years? Far sooner than that, I fear.
Click to expand...

It probably wouldn't be a good idea for them to do so much sooner than that. The US can control the escalation cycle in the near term. The USN can target the mainland on day 1, which puts ports and air bases in range immediately. Likely the USAF could as well, with some preparation. Even assuming all theater bases are destroyed, bombers can stage out of Hawaii and Wake. The US can also refocus a large number of resources from other bases and commands out of reach of the PLA short of nuclear armed ICBMs, so it has strategic depth that the PRC does not. In order for an invasion to work, the PRC either needs the US to simply give up (wildly unlikely for any POTUS, regardless of your politics) or have strategic deterrence in the form of nuclear parity (when all of those missile silos come online). I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom