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So the PLAN, which is deploying roughly 16 major combat vessels per year is following this terrible plan? They seem to value surface vessels. Hypersonic missil

by greedo 5y ago

So the PLAN, which is deploying roughly 16 major combat vessels per year is following this terrible plan? They seem to value surface vessels. Hypersonic missiles (as do ASBMs) require targeting. Breaking the "kill chain" is something both sides will be attempting to do in a conflict, but for now the USN has far more experience as a modern Navy than any other nation (sorry Brits...). But hypersonic missiles aren't anything special and really just hyped a lot. Fast is often good, but not always necessary, or even desired if the corresponding tradeoffs make them either more expensive, or limit how many you can carry. Subs? Subs will always be one of the most lethal combatants. But they have limits. Satellites? They can be jammed, blinded, or destroyed. Sensors? Jammed, blinded or destroyed. EMP? That would be the initiation of nuclear war. Don't want to go there. But making your ships etc survivable to some degree is smart. Better to just outright deter it. Directed Energy weapons? This ship will have that. Modern navies have been experimenting with DE for decades. Whether it's a microwave system or laser, they'll be on this ship and retrofitted where possible to others. They actually help by increasing the volume and depth of your "magazine." Rods from god will be the game changer once launch costs drop. The guidance tech is already good enough, just need to make it cheap to send up a lot of tungsten into space.

nradov 5y ago
Basic orbital dynamics make the "rods from god" concept unworkable. It's just a silly scifi fantasy. In order to achieve sufficient global coverage to hit time sensitive targets would take a huge and ruinously expensive satellite constellation. And the satellites themselves would be quite vulnerable. Any mission for such a system could be accomplished faster and cheaper with ground or submarine launched missiles.
dirtyid 5y ago
>following this terrible plan Same reason PLAN is building aircraft carriers which may very well be obsolete against peer adversaries but still useful to overmatch less capable powers aka basically everyone except US and PRC. Of course also a side of big dick energy prestige. Realistically current PLA strategy for US surface combatants and capital assets is a fuck of load missiles from land and plane, of which hypersonics is just one type. That said recent developments posted on SCMP, i.e. info PLA wants world to know suggest sufficient development in IR sensors that optical/terminal guidance without complex kill chain is possible. Combined with claim: >“With effective hypersonic precision strike weapons, the critical value of ‘strategic depth’ in traditional warfare will no longer exist. All the critical political, economic and military assets of a country will be at risk.” And another recent PRC reveal of AI assistance calibration to produce magnitude improvement in accuracy and I think PRC (as well as US) are pushing hard on prompt global strike capabilities which IMO is much more significant capability than anything proposed for force on force combat in future air and naval platforms. A fleet of conventional hypersonic ICBMs with accuracy/CEP measured in meters is basically conventional MAD. It guarantees PRC (or US) can sink each others expensive Navy's or other assets as long as they spend more than 30 minutes stationary, which is everything that needs maintenance. Stockpile of PGS hypersonics is potentially an end military hegemony capability. One that could also proliferate to smaller powers with time.
- greedo 5y ago
  Terminal guidance is already solved. It was pretty much solved by the Pershing 2 IRBMs in the 1980s. Once a missile is in terminal guidance, you're limited to killing it, decoying it, etc. IR sensors perform poorly in maritime environments, and though "un-jammable" in the strictest sense (since they're passive), you can confuse them. I'm also skeptical of using ICBMs for global strike. The chance of them being confused by peer opponents for nuclear armed versions is very high. And, if I'm a peer opponent and you whack one of my carriers, it's probably time to pull out the nukes. That's kind of the unspoken US policy if a CVN is sunk. And I don't think any of these weapon technologies will result in an end to military hegemony. There will always be the haves and have nots. And the US has only had unchallenged hegemony for a very short period after WW2.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    > IR sensors perform poorly in maritime environments Can you elaborate? One would think big open ocean that contrasts huge ships are prime environment for IR or optical sensors. I also think it's much more difficult to confuse multiple passive sensors enmass. Spamming EW will disrupt all kill chain in bubble / area, but a carrier group is probably not going to have enough dazzler to disrupt passive sensor in a saturation attack. It doesn't scale. >being confused by peer opponents for nuclear armed versions ... > it's probably time to pull out the nukes. That's kind of the unspoken US policy if a CVN is sunk. TBH I think that's just American exceptionalism thinking because up until now CONUS primary vulnerability was ICBMs and virtually no one had accurate ICBMs for conventional use. Same with ability to sink USN carrier groups. So there's this assumption ICBMs heading for CONUS is going to be nuclear/strategic. Or US can afford to scorch earth if CVN gets sunk due to massive overmatch in US power projection capabilities. But those illusions evaporate once adversaries acquire ability to strike first / retaliate conventionally, especially one backed by nuclear. Game theory has to shift to second strike. Reality is US adversaries already carve out exceptions for US bombers or SSGNs whose ordnance can all be nuclear tipped anyway. The line between US conventional and strategic platforms is already blurred, but there's benefit of doubt just knowing US can strike conventionally. Same allowance has to be made when others acquire capability. If US sinks PLAN carrier in ocean, one has to expect PRC to retaliate in kind, even if means sinking a US CVN docked in west coast port with an icbm/hypersonic. > end to military hegemony. Maybe not, but imo proliferation of accurate icbms dramatically elevates small/middle powers ability to deter when big powers can no longer project force with impunity. It's something more attainable for the have nots versus maintaining a competent navy/airforce. That's like any country more developed than North Korea (including North Korea).
Tuna-Fish 5y ago
> Satellites? They can be jammed, blinded, or destroyed. But you can only jam, blind or destroy them starting from some point. There are currently private companies building up satellite constellations that will look at and record the entire surface of the earth more than once a day. It is entirely within the capability of US, China or Russia to today build a satellite constellation that will track the position of every potentially hostile naval surface asset in real time. Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. The sensor density of the modern battlefield is yes. Hiding something that can literally be seen from space will not work. Defending from strikes will possibly work -- hypersonics/ballistic missiles are generally not very nimble and with modern tech intercepting them with a slower missile can be very economical for the defender.
- nradov 5y ago
  That's not how it works in the real world. No one has been willing to escalate to sinking ships as retaliation over non-kinetic attacks on satellites.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. We're already at this point. Now what? https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-are-being-attacked-everyday-according-to-space-force-general https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-a... > U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber attacks, on U.S. satellites "every single day." He also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had first gotten so close to an American one that there were concerns an actual attack was imminent. China and Russia have _ALREADY_ begun to live-test satellite jamming / satellite blinding weapons on live US satellites. -------- Those satellites are going to be obliterated as soon as China or Russia actually gives a damn. Russia is testing anti-satellite missiles. Etc. etc. They're already well within the capabilities to blow up every single US satellite should they so desire!

by greedo 5y ago

nradov 5y ago

Basic orbital dynamics make the "rods from god" concept unworkable. It's just a silly scifi fantasy. In order to achieve sufficient global coverage to hit time sensitive targets would take a huge and ruinously expensive satellite constellation. And the satellites themselves would be quite vulnerable. Any mission for such a system could be accomplished faster and cheaper with ground or submarine launched missiles.

dirtyid 5y ago

>following this terrible plan Same reason PLAN is building aircraft carriers which may very well be obsolete against peer adversaries but still useful to overmatch less capable powers aka basically everyone except US and PRC. Of course also a side of big dick energy prestige. Realistically current PLA strategy for US surface combatants and capital assets is a fuck of load missiles from land and plane, of which hypersonics is just one type. That said recent developments posted on SCMP, i.e. info PLA wants world to know suggest sufficient development in IR sensors that optical/terminal guidance without complex kill chain is possible. Combined with claim: >“With effective hypersonic precision strike weapons, the critical value of ‘strategic depth’ in traditional warfare will no longer exist. All the critical political, economic and military assets of a country will be at risk.” And another recent PRC reveal of AI assistance calibration to produce magnitude improvement in accuracy and I think PRC (as well as US) are pushing hard on prompt global strike capabilities which IMO is much more significant capability than anything proposed for force on force combat in future air and naval platforms. A fleet of conventional hypersonic ICBMs with accuracy/CEP measured in meters is basically conventional MAD. It guarantees PRC (or US) can sink each others expensive Navy's or other assets as long as they spend more than 30 minutes stationary, which is everything that needs maintenance. Stockpile of PGS hypersonics is potentially an end military hegemony capability. One that could also proliferate to smaller powers with time.

greedo 5y ago
Terminal guidance is already solved. It was pretty much solved by the Pershing 2 IRBMs in the 1980s. Once a missile is in terminal guidance, you're limited to killing it, decoying it, etc. IR sensors perform poorly in maritime environments, and though "un-jammable" in the strictest sense (since they're passive), you can confuse them. I'm also skeptical of using ICBMs for global strike. The chance of them being confused by peer opponents for nuclear armed versions is very high. And, if I'm a peer opponent and you whack one of my carriers, it's probably time to pull out the nukes. That's kind of the unspoken US policy if a CVN is sunk. And I don't think any of these weapon technologies will result in an end to military hegemony. There will always be the haves and have nots. And the US has only had unchallenged hegemony for a very short period after WW2.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  > IR sensors perform poorly in maritime environments Can you elaborate? One would think big open ocean that contrasts huge ships are prime environment for IR or optical sensors. I also think it's much more difficult to confuse multiple passive sensors enmass. Spamming EW will disrupt all kill chain in bubble / area, but a carrier group is probably not going to have enough dazzler to disrupt passive sensor in a saturation attack. It doesn't scale. >being confused by peer opponents for nuclear armed versions ... > it's probably time to pull out the nukes. That's kind of the unspoken US policy if a CVN is sunk. TBH I think that's just American exceptionalism thinking because up until now CONUS primary vulnerability was ICBMs and virtually no one had accurate ICBMs for conventional use. Same with ability to sink USN carrier groups. So there's this assumption ICBMs heading for CONUS is going to be nuclear/strategic. Or US can afford to scorch earth if CVN gets sunk due to massive overmatch in US power projection capabilities. But those illusions evaporate once adversaries acquire ability to strike first / retaliate conventionally, especially one backed by nuclear. Game theory has to shift to second strike. Reality is US adversaries already carve out exceptions for US bombers or SSGNs whose ordnance can all be nuclear tipped anyway. The line between US conventional and strategic platforms is already blurred, but there's benefit of doubt just knowing US can strike conventionally. Same allowance has to be made when others acquire capability. If US sinks PLAN carrier in ocean, one has to expect PRC to retaliate in kind, even if means sinking a US CVN docked in west coast port with an icbm/hypersonic. > end to military hegemony. Maybe not, but imo proliferation of accurate icbms dramatically elevates small/middle powers ability to deter when big powers can no longer project force with impunity. It's something more attainable for the have nots versus maintaining a competent navy/airforce. That's like any country more developed than North Korea (including North Korea).

Tuna-Fish 5y ago

> Satellites? They can be jammed, blinded, or destroyed. But you can only jam, blind or destroy them starting from some point. There are currently private companies building up satellite constellations that will look at and record the entire surface of the earth more than once a day. It is entirely within the capability of US, China or Russia to today build a satellite constellation that will track the position of every potentially hostile naval surface asset in real time. Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. The sensor density of the modern battlefield is yes. Hiding something that can literally be seen from space will not work. Defending from strikes will possibly work -- hypersonics/ballistic missiles are generally not very nimble and with modern tech intercepting them with a slower missile can be very economical for the defender.

nradov 5y ago
That's not how it works in the real world. No one has been willing to escalate to sinking ships as retaliation over non-kinetic attacks on satellites.
dragontamer 5y ago
> Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. We're already at this point. Now what? https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-are-being-attacked-everyday-according-to-space-force-general https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-a... > U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber attacks, on U.S. satellites "every single day." He also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had first gotten so close to an American one that there were concerns an actual attack was imminent. China and Russia have _ALREADY_ begun to live-test satellite jamming / satellite blinding weapons on live US satellites. -------- Those satellites are going to be obliterated as soon as China or Russia actually gives a damn. Russia is testing anti-satellite missiles. Etc. etc. They're already well within the capabilities to blow up every single US satellite should they so desire!