4 ms·
The key mistake in your paragraph is "while you still know where they are." Even with RORSats (radar ocean recon sats) it's hard to track ships at sea. And ROR
by greedo 5y ago
The key mistake in your paragraph is "while you still know where they are."
Even with RORSats (radar ocean recon sats) it's hard to track ships at sea. And RORSats aren't cheap, and dish size is important in detection range and fidelity. It'll be quite a while before they're deployed in quantities like Starlink. And Geosync orbits aren't cheap in terms of propellant cost etc etc. If you try to use IR sensors, that's tough in a maritime environment. Trying to use some sort of OCR with photosensors might work, but again, weather screws with that.
Additionally, ships have this ability to move. A CVN and accompanying ships can move at around 30 knots. If your kill chain takes 30 minutes from detection to launch, the CVN and its escorts can dramatically expand the area your missile needs to scan an acquire the target.
And I won't even comment about how you're equating jamming/blinding with an act of war. We even have ships/planes that are routinely exposed to jamming and blinding gear without resorting to outright combat.