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> And as the sinking of the Moskva showed, the signature maritime weapon hasn’t been a ship but an anti-ship missile: the Neptune. Absolutely incorrect analysi

> And as the sinking of the Moskva showed, the signature maritime weapon hasn’t been a ship but an anti-ship missile: the Neptune. Absolutely incorrect analysis. The signature marine weapon is the Poseidon P8. This is a heavily modified Boeing 737 NG configured for maritime intelligence and attack. This is what sank the Moskva. If you read the analysis from intelligence reports, the Neptune is a rather unremarkable anti-surface missile with underwhelming capabilities. The Poseidon hovered hundreds of miles away and relayed the combat information to Ukraine commanders when the Moskva was weakened; and more than likely, when its short range defenses were down (likely due to Russian Incompetence). No doubt the Poseidon has watched every Russian Naval asset to figure out they were taking down defense radars and they devised a plan to sneak a relatively crappy Neptune missile in. I think the defining age is intelligence, but then again, hasn't it always been? It's just taking on new forms. One of the most important and urgent projects the Air Force will undertaken is AWACs replacement with another 737 variant that has PESA, AESA, ELINT, AEW capabilities to this platform and provide the same level of battlefield intelligence on solid ground as we have that the P8 provides for maritime.

avar 4y ago
> Poseidon P8. This is a heavily modified Boeing 737 Max[...] It's a variant of the 737-NG, not the 737-MAX.
- exabrial 4y ago
  ah yes, you are correct
dredmorbius 4y ago
The fact that Ukraine seems to have had, or had access to, uncannily accurate intelligence does seem to be the signature fact of this war. Arms without targeting are at best areal suppression weapons. Russia's impressive-looking mobile rocket-launcher batteries appear formidable, but their effect seems largely to be producing a few seconds of terror over a few hectares of land. Ukraine's ability to target individual generals with precision, to distract and destroy naval flagships, to down helicoptors, to drop munitions on or through tank hatches, to land artillery and rockets with precision on massed troops and materiel ... has been tremendously effective. The shot:kill ratios seem to be extremely high. At the same time, the US has telegraphed Russian moves, plans, and force structures with precision as well. What the state and source of this intelligence is varies. Part clearly comes from near-theatre sources such as the Poseidon, other AWACS assets, and probably other capabilities in Nato Europe, Turkey (itself both part of Europe and Nato, though notable for its position on the Black Sea and control of the Bosperous). Much all but certainly from satellite observations. And I'd suspect a considerable degree is based on signals intelligence. Russia does not control those domains, and has been unable to establish clear control within them. This is unlike, say, any major US campaign of the past 30 years, whatever other concerns might have as to their legitimacy, with the exclusion of satellite capabilities. To date, Russia has not felt it has the ability to move against those intelligence assets. It certainly has the ability to do so should it choose, and a more general conflict might result in that. But for now, it is pinned down in a fishbowl. Effect here though seems to be a combination of intelligence as to enemy position and operations, the ability to deliver force to specific points of need, invulnerability of observation posts, and a general popular support within the theatre of operations. As well as remarkable material support from outside entities. This will be (and all but certainly is being) studied in war colleges and curricula for generations.
- XorNot 4y ago
  A very good reason Russia won't touch satellite assets is that most of the early warning systems are based on those: if your early warning system goes down, then you're exceptionally vulnerable to a first strike.
  - watersb 4y ago
    Even worse: with the loss of early-warning satellite assets, you have to decide how to use (or not!) nuclear weapons with extremely noisy information.
- corrral 4y ago
  The intel sharing arrangements (I wonder who's actually calling the shots—literally—for fire control purposes... every link in the chain slows things down, and they seem to be working very effectively, which implies few links indeed) seem to me to be clearly the most interesting and effective facet of this war. Pity we may never get the story of what's actually going on, because it seems to be a really remarkable effort.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    The impression I get is that the US feeds them satellite info on the general disposition of Russian forces, but the individual targeting seems to be done by drones, some of which are consumer-grade. They seem incredibly accurate. It seems unlikely that there is direct US involvement - the US doesn't want that and it would slow the Ukranians down. They seem to have their own networked fire control: https://en.defence-ua.com/events/digitization_of_ukrainian_army_capacities_of_hermes_c2_tactical_control_system-1649.html https://en.defence-ua.com/events/digitization_of_ukrainian_a... , and have said that Starlink was critical, after the Russian cyberattack bricked a lot of satellite terminals. They even have a local drone startup: https://interestingengineering.com/ukraines-combat-drone-the-punisher https://interestingengineering.com/ukraines-combat-drone-the...
    - trhway 4y ago
sudosysgen 4y ago
Well, not really. The defining thing here is grey-zone warfare. The Moskva (and ships in general) aren't really made for a war where you can't shoot down AWACS. Because they can't be. Generally the assumption is that the AWACS is going to be shot down, very fast. It's a pretty solid one to make, too. But of course there was also a lot of incompetence, and the sheer age and obsolescence of the Moskva didn't help either.
- Tossrock 4y ago
  Why would that be a solid assumption? If Russia were actually engaging US forces and was "allowed" to shoot the AWACS, then they would also be engaging the USAF - by far the most effective air force in the world - who would deny such attempts.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    The USAF (nor anyone else) has no practical way to defend an AWACS against a near-peer enemy. That's kind of the point of the R-37 or PL-15 (even moreso the PL-21), soft targets such as AWACS are vulnerable at 300-400km. That's also the real value proposition of the Su-57, even though they are few and probably can't defeat an F-22, it sure can defeat an AWACS and it's not feasible to detect it before it gets within 300km of an AWACS.
    - greedo 4y ago
      You're making huge assumptions here. One is the reliability of anti-AWACs AAMs, while ignoring both kill-chain issues and ECM etc. Sure the Russian AF might be able to use them during a "bolt out of the blue" attack, but once hostilities have commenced, any airbase that hosts MIG-31BMs will be targeted heavily.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        The killchain issues are very easy to deal with. An AWACS is a massive target, it doesn't take much to get a missile there. As far as ECM, it works a lot better when you have a small radar cross section. The burn through range for a frequency agile radar at that cross section is going to be far too much. > but once hostilities have commenced, any airbase that hosts MIG-31BMs will be targeted heavily. People say this a lot, but Ukrainian and Iraqi planes were flying weeks after that. And it's not just the MiG-31BM that can carry them.
wcarss 4y ago
For anyone else thinking (especially later in this thread) "what is AWACS?": > AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) is the name of the specific system installed in the E-3 and Japanese Boeing E-767 AEW&C airframes, but is often used as a general synonym for AEW&C. > An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system is an airborne radar system designed to detect aircraft, ships, vehicles, missiles, and other incoming projectiles at long ranges and perform command and control from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_con...
ilamont 4y ago
Shortly after the sinking, reports emerged that a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon was in the area before the attack, suggesting that the U.S. may have provided detailed targeting information to the Ukrainians to target the ship. Carlson said while the U.S. could give Ukrainian forces a general idea of where the ship was, it could not provide necessary tracking information to the Neptunes because P-8s datalinks were incompatible. https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warship-moskva-was-blind-to-ukrainian-missile-attack-analysis-shows https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warship-moskva-was-blind-to...
- exabrial 4y ago
  Targeting information no, but that's a distraction in the news to downplay the significance. * Boat moving slowly? Check. * Boat oriented in correct direction for broadside attack at the waterline? Check. * Short range defense radars down? Check. * Other defense assets out of the area? Check. "Ok bring up your targeting radars and fire"
  - JAlexoid 4y ago
    Every part of that whole operation was significant. But the core of the article still stays - smaller weaponry is becoming much more effective and in any future conflict will be critical. We can see it through the centuries - from big castles and heavy armoured knights, to lightly armoured mobile units and temporary fortifications.
  - unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
    So, the hypothesis is that both the Russian and Ukrainian stories are accurate? The ship was disabled by fire, and then attacked when weakened?
    - exhilaration 4y ago
      No, I think the hypothesis is that the ship's short-range radar was disabled due to crew errors or equipment obsolescence, something which the P-8A Poseidon could detect and relay to the Ukrainians. That provided a window during which Neptune missiles could be successfully used. The "fire" started after the missiles struck the ship.
WalterBright 4y ago
Many people think that radar won WW2. The US used radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, which doubled their accuracy (in essence doubling the number of guns). Flak guns used radar proximity fuses in the shells. Ship big guns used radar targeting. And, of course, radar made for long range detection of where the enemy was. In the Gulf War, when the enemy fired a shell, radar was used to calculate where it was fired from, and that location got a radar-directed shell directly onto it. Incredibly effective.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Cryptonomicon (a fictional book) basically argues cryptography won the war.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    It's not an unreasonable point of view. It certainly played a large role in the victory at Midway, and the defeat of the U-Boot campaign.
    - Bud 4y ago
      This is all very fascinating as a minor theoretical discussion, I'm sure, but we all know that WWII was actually won by Wolverine and Captain America. ;)
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Radar won the tactical battlefield. Intelligence won the strategic war.
    - sgt101 4y ago
      Industrial capacity won WW2. 90% of the merchant vessels in the world belonged to the British. The British Empire and the the USA were the 2 largest economies in the world. Once the USA entered the war the outcome was not in doubt, even if the German army hadn't been given mission impossible vs. the Russians - although if they hadn't then the Russians would have attacked them.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
I get into arguments with pro-Navy people about the laughable waste of Naval surface ships. As you state, antiship missiles are unremarkable, I believe 1980s pop and drop from above are undefendable. I got argued down about antiship ICBM/IRBMs, but I still think they will work. And drone subs will make any nearshore unnavigable to capital ships, if the cost of your carrier is 10x the cost of a fleet of 100 drone subs whose only job is basically fire a couple torpedos. Drones/infantry portable weapons are being tested in real time by the pentagon with the Ukraine war, against a reasonable facsimile of a peer war. The only thing lacking is high altitude anti air, but I think this war will result in the true air superiority denial weapon: the cheap air drone. Hell, it could be a solar balloon-drone hybrid: stay up as long as you want, relocate with "acceptable" flexibility, fire missiles at aircraft. That will push more emphasis to Space superiority I predict. The other aspect of force multiplication of drones hasn't been properly explored or used yet in this war: drones are currently used as CENTRALLY coordinated weapons. But if you also have combined arms drones coordinated by boots-on-ground infantry, that means your ten man squad can direct (with low casualty risk) ten faster, better armed, more capable drones in helicopter, grenade shelling, scouting, and direct fire. And if you can give basic AI orders to a drone once you get it place and then direct other drones into position, then a 10 man squad may be able to direct 20-30 ones. And they can have reserves to deploy if their controlled drones get damaged. And they are probably more durable to fire. Truly effective infantry forces have sergeants and officers with ability to adapt tactical battle plans on the fly. Current drone organization doesn't strongly support this, but then again we are in the stone age of drones.
- KineticLensman 4y ago
  > But if you also have combined arms drones coordinated by boots-on-ground infantry, Brings back memories of Network-Centric Warfare [0], with self-synchronising edge-based forces operating on the cusp of tactical anarchy, IIRC. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-centric_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-centric_warfare
- chipsa 4y ago
  Why would "pop and drop" be undefendable? It's not as if the ship won't be able to see the ASCM the entire time it's doing that maneuver. The Harpoon does it because of it's origin: it was supposed to hit surfaced Soviet submarines, and it needs to do it in order to actually hit the target. But that target class disappeared before it really reached service. ASBMs have a similar issue in that there's no way for them to get out of the radar view of the target (or a ship near the target). And we've got missiles designed to take them out as part of the target set (SM-3 and SM-6 are quite capable, depending on range). Drone subs are just mobile minefields. The idea of a mobile minefield isn't new, and you have all the problems of a minefield (including, but not limited to: sinking ships you didn't intend to), along with new challenges like: how do you communicate with your drone subs? Your cheap anti-air drone is just a missile carrier? You're thinking weapons, not systems here. How do you target with them? And how do you keep them from getting targeted? Even being 20kft up (and improving the range that way), an equivalent AAM from a fighter will have longer range, simply because it's able to be launched from Mach 0.85, instead of 30kts. Sure, the drone might be cheap, but the missile won't be.
Animats 4y ago
The Neptune is a rather unremarkable anti-surface missile with underwhelming capabilities. It had enough range to reach the target from shore, enough precision to hit it, and enough warhead to kill it. That's good enough. The lesson from this is that warships can no longer operate with impunity near a hostile shore against a reasonably equipped opponent. "Near" is at least 100km. A truck-mounted system can now take out a major combatant vessel. Finding large ships isn't that difficult any more. They show up on everything from civilian satellite imagery to drone cameras.
- exabrial 4y ago
  It's far more complicated than you think to sink a modern combat ship with a missile. The Neptune would qualify as "minimally capable" and if it weren't for Russian incompetence and target intelligence, or it wouldn't have succeeded. First, you have the sea. It's flat, it's quiet, and it's pretty much void of surface and aerial radar contacts. Missile stealth is really hard in this environment because of the quiet background, and the Neptune is not stealthy. The ship-based radars are really only limited to the curvature of the earth... so for the Moskva, that's probably 9miles in bad conditions, 18miles in best conditions. The cold background even allows IRST to work quite effectively (not sure if the Moskva has that capability). The target ship is going to know you're coming, especially the Moskva, as in the absolute worst conditions, that's about 30s-45s of warning time, or 10m-15m if you have an AEW radar. Second, radar blindness is a two way street. You can fire a missile, but it will be blind to its target until it's pretty close and can activate some sort of terminal phase guidance. Navies _always_ keep their ships moving to avoid attacks. Basically, for a sub-sonic missile, you can fire it at where the target is now, but by the time it gets to where it thinks the target is, it may not be there anymore. There's a couple of ways to handle this. For Navy's very modern LRASM, that's a passive link receiving mid-course updates, with fallback to GPS/Inertial guidance. For the Neptune, it's just inertial guidance. Just _moving_ the target ship around randomly is enough to protect it from a Neptune strike and Russia did not do this. Third, your missile needs to broadside. Ships are designed to cut through the water, so a head-on attack will just cause the missile to skip off the bow. Your missile needs to have enough spare fuel to turn about and detect the orientation of the ship. Again, you can defeat this by randomly turning your ship a bunch of times. There's a case in the Falklands war where an Exocet was coming in hard for a kill, but the ship's commander had enough time to orient the ship towards the missile with full rudder, and the Exocet bounced, then exploded on the deck rather than penetrating. There was damage, but ship stayed in combat. The Neptune doesn't have great loiter time. And its rudimentary radar terminal guidance it's probably easily attacked electronically anyway. Finally you have point defenses. Russia actually has quite sophisticated CIWS systems, both missile and rotary cannon. It's speculated that the only really guaranteed way to defeat these systems is a saturation attack, which was not the case, or a supersonic terminal phase, which the Neptune is not capable of. Russia pretty much had all its defenses down. So no, the Neptune is really not that sophisticated. This attack was successful purely based on knowing the limitations of the weapon system and timely intelligence.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> No doubt the Poseidon has watched every Russian Naval asset to figure out they were taking down defense radars and they devised a plan to sneak a relatively crappy Neptune missile in. Is it just me, or does this comment appear arrogant? You you are taking all the credit and belittling the folks that did all the fighting, based on nothing but your own speculation?
- tpmx 4y ago
  Yeah, this over the top jingoism even for HN. I'm surprised.
- exabrial 4y ago
  To dispel any doubt: no.
occamrazor 4y ago
By the way, Poseidon occupied in the Greek Pantheon a role very similar to the Roman Neptune. Navy weapon-namegivers lack imagination.
stefan_ 4y ago
This is just LARPing. A TB2 could spot that ship just as well and neither it nor the P8 can guide the anti-ship missile that was used.
hbarka 4y ago
I read that the opportunity wasn’t due to defense radars being down. It was due to a diversion tactic (annoyance drone) created to fool the radar operators into focusing on a false flag.
dathinab 4y ago
Intelligence is one of the most important aspects. Through also we had been at a point where a lot of trope movements are always under watch by satellites and now supplemented by various kinds of drones (some call it the unblinking eye) before. We also have a lot of ways to take advantage of it (long range artillery, big drones, Javelins, small suicide drones, etc.). What changed is not the general capabilities we have nothing I listed (except maybe the small suicide drones) is new. What is new is how we can and in case of Ukrain do combine this weaponry and information systems. So I don't thing any of the tech involved is the defining factor, it's the combination of them in the right strategy.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Link to intel report? There have also been regular AWACS circular flights over Romania near the Black Sea and Global Hawk flights in the Black Sea.

avar 4y ago

> Poseidon P8. This is a heavily modified Boeing 737 Max[...] It's a variant of the 737-NG, not the 737-MAX.

exabrial 4y ago
ah yes, you are correct

dredmorbius 4y ago

The fact that Ukraine seems to have had, or had access to, uncannily accurate intelligence does seem to be the signature fact of this war. Arms without targeting are at best areal suppression weapons. Russia's impressive-looking mobile rocket-launcher batteries appear formidable, but their effect seems largely to be producing a few seconds of terror over a few hectares of land. Ukraine's ability to target individual generals with precision, to distract and destroy naval flagships, to down helicoptors, to drop munitions on or through tank hatches, to land artillery and rockets with precision on massed troops and materiel ... has been tremendously effective. The shot:kill ratios seem to be extremely high. At the same time, the US has telegraphed Russian moves, plans, and force structures with precision as well. What the state and source of this intelligence is varies. Part clearly comes from near-theatre sources such as the Poseidon, other AWACS assets, and probably other capabilities in Nato Europe, Turkey (itself both part of Europe and Nato, though notable for its position on the Black Sea and control of the Bosperous). Much all but certainly from satellite observations. And I'd suspect a considerable degree is based on signals intelligence. Russia does not control those domains, and has been unable to establish clear control within them. This is unlike, say, any major US campaign of the past 30 years, whatever other concerns might have as to their legitimacy, with the exclusion of satellite capabilities. To date, Russia has not felt it has the ability to move against those intelligence assets. It certainly has the ability to do so should it choose, and a more general conflict might result in that. But for now, it is pinned down in a fishbowl. Effect here though seems to be a combination of intelligence as to enemy position and operations, the ability to deliver force to specific points of need, invulnerability of observation posts, and a general popular support within the theatre of operations. As well as remarkable material support from outside entities. This will be (and all but certainly is being) studied in war colleges and curricula for generations.

XorNot 4y ago
A very good reason Russia won't touch satellite assets is that most of the early warning systems are based on those: if your early warning system goes down, then you're exceptionally vulnerable to a first strike.
- watersb 4y ago
  Even worse: with the loss of early-warning satellite assets, you have to decide how to use (or not!) nuclear weapons with extremely noisy information.
corrral 4y ago
The intel sharing arrangements (I wonder who's actually calling the shots—literally—for fire control purposes... every link in the chain slows things down, and they seem to be working very effectively, which implies few links indeed) seem to me to be clearly the most interesting and effective facet of this war. Pity we may never get the story of what's actually going on, because it seems to be a really remarkable effort.
- pjc50 4y ago
  The impression I get is that the US feeds them satellite info on the general disposition of Russian forces, but the individual targeting seems to be done by drones, some of which are consumer-grade. They seem incredibly accurate. It seems unlikely that there is direct US involvement - the US doesn't want that and it would slow the Ukranians down. They seem to have their own networked fire control: https://en.defence-ua.com/events/digitization_of_ukrainian_army_capacities_of_hermes_c2_tactical_control_system-1649.html https://en.defence-ua.com/events/digitization_of_ukrainian_a... , and have said that Starlink was critical, after the Russian cyberattack bricked a lot of satellite terminals. They even have a local drone startup: https://interestingengineering.com/ukraines-combat-drone-the-punisher https://interestingengineering.com/ukraines-combat-drone-the...
  - trhway 4y ago

sudosysgen 4y ago

Well, not really. The defining thing here is grey-zone warfare. The Moskva (and ships in general) aren't really made for a war where you can't shoot down AWACS. Because they can't be. Generally the assumption is that the AWACS is going to be shot down, very fast. It's a pretty solid one to make, too. But of course there was also a lot of incompetence, and the sheer age and obsolescence of the Moskva didn't help either.

Tossrock 4y ago
Why would that be a solid assumption? If Russia were actually engaging US forces and was "allowed" to shoot the AWACS, then they would also be engaging the USAF - by far the most effective air force in the world - who would deny such attempts.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  The USAF (nor anyone else) has no practical way to defend an AWACS against a near-peer enemy. That's kind of the point of the R-37 or PL-15 (even moreso the PL-21), soft targets such as AWACS are vulnerable at 300-400km. That's also the real value proposition of the Su-57, even though they are few and probably can't defeat an F-22, it sure can defeat an AWACS and it's not feasible to detect it before it gets within 300km of an AWACS.
  - greedo 4y ago
    You're making huge assumptions here. One is the reliability of anti-AWACs AAMs, while ignoring both kill-chain issues and ECM etc. Sure the Russian AF might be able to use them during a "bolt out of the blue" attack, but once hostilities have commenced, any airbase that hosts MIG-31BMs will be targeted heavily.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      The killchain issues are very easy to deal with. An AWACS is a massive target, it doesn't take much to get a missile there. As far as ECM, it works a lot better when you have a small radar cross section. The burn through range for a frequency agile radar at that cross section is going to be far too much. > but once hostilities have commenced, any airbase that hosts MIG-31BMs will be targeted heavily. People say this a lot, but Ukrainian and Iraqi planes were flying weeks after that. And it's not just the MiG-31BM that can carry them.

wcarss 4y ago

For anyone else thinking (especially later in this thread) "what is AWACS?": > AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) is the name of the specific system installed in the E-3 and Japanese Boeing E-767 AEW&C airframes, but is often used as a general synonym for AEW&C. > An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system is an airborne radar system designed to detect aircraft, ships, vehicles, missiles, and other incoming projectiles at long ranges and perform command and control from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_con...

ilamont 4y ago

Shortly after the sinking, reports emerged that a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon was in the area before the attack, suggesting that the U.S. may have provided detailed targeting information to the Ukrainians to target the ship. Carlson said while the U.S. could give Ukrainian forces a general idea of where the ship was, it could not provide necessary tracking information to the Neptunes because P-8s datalinks were incompatible. https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warship-moskva-was-blind-to-ukrainian-missile-attack-analysis-shows https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warship-moskva-was-blind-to...

exabrial 4y ago
Targeting information no, but that's a distraction in the news to downplay the significance. * Boat moving slowly? Check. * Boat oriented in correct direction for broadside attack at the waterline? Check. * Short range defense radars down? Check. * Other defense assets out of the area? Check. "Ok bring up your targeting radars and fire"
- JAlexoid 4y ago
  Every part of that whole operation was significant. But the core of the article still stays - smaller weaponry is becoming much more effective and in any future conflict will be critical. We can see it through the centuries - from big castles and heavy armoured knights, to lightly armoured mobile units and temporary fortifications.
- unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
  So, the hypothesis is that both the Russian and Ukrainian stories are accurate? The ship was disabled by fire, and then attacked when weakened?
  - exhilaration 4y ago
    No, I think the hypothesis is that the ship's short-range radar was disabled due to crew errors or equipment obsolescence, something which the P-8A Poseidon could detect and relay to the Ukrainians. That provided a window during which Neptune missiles could be successfully used. The "fire" started after the missiles struck the ship.

WalterBright 4y ago

Many people think that radar won WW2. The US used radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, which doubled their accuracy (in essence doubling the number of guns). Flak guns used radar proximity fuses in the shells. Ship big guns used radar targeting. And, of course, radar made for long range detection of where the enemy was. In the Gulf War, when the enemy fired a shell, radar was used to calculate where it was fired from, and that location got a radar-directed shell directly onto it. Incredibly effective.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Cryptonomicon (a fictional book) basically argues cryptography won the war.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  It's not an unreasonable point of view. It certainly played a large role in the victory at Midway, and the defeat of the U-Boot campaign.
  - Bud 4y ago
    This is all very fascinating as a minor theoretical discussion, I'm sure, but we all know that WWII was actually won by Wolverine and Captain America. ;)
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Radar won the tactical battlefield. Intelligence won the strategic war.
  - sgt101 4y ago
    Industrial capacity won WW2. 90% of the merchant vessels in the world belonged to the British. The British Empire and the the USA were the 2 largest economies in the world. Once the USA entered the war the outcome was not in doubt, even if the German army hadn't been given mission impossible vs. the Russians - although if they hadn't then the Russians would have attacked them.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

I get into arguments with pro-Navy people about the laughable waste of Naval surface ships. As you state, antiship missiles are unremarkable, I believe 1980s pop and drop from above are undefendable. I got argued down about antiship ICBM/IRBMs, but I still think they will work. And drone subs will make any nearshore unnavigable to capital ships, if the cost of your carrier is 10x the cost of a fleet of 100 drone subs whose only job is basically fire a couple torpedos. Drones/infantry portable weapons are being tested in real time by the pentagon with the Ukraine war, against a reasonable facsimile of a peer war. The only thing lacking is high altitude anti air, but I think this war will result in the true air superiority denial weapon: the cheap air drone. Hell, it could be a solar balloon-drone hybrid: stay up as long as you want, relocate with "acceptable" flexibility, fire missiles at aircraft. That will push more emphasis to Space superiority I predict. The other aspect of force multiplication of drones hasn't been properly explored or used yet in this war: drones are currently used as CENTRALLY coordinated weapons. But if you also have combined arms drones coordinated by boots-on-ground infantry, that means your ten man squad can direct (with low casualty risk) ten faster, better armed, more capable drones in helicopter, grenade shelling, scouting, and direct fire. And if you can give basic AI orders to a drone once you get it place and then direct other drones into position, then a 10 man squad may be able to direct 20-30 ones. And they can have reserves to deploy if their controlled drones get damaged. And they are probably more durable to fire. Truly effective infantry forces have sergeants and officers with ability to adapt tactical battle plans on the fly. Current drone organization doesn't strongly support this, but then again we are in the stone age of drones.

KineticLensman 4y ago
> But if you also have combined arms drones coordinated by boots-on-ground infantry, Brings back memories of Network-Centric Warfare [0], with self-synchronising edge-based forces operating on the cusp of tactical anarchy, IIRC. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-centric_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-centric_warfare
chipsa 4y ago
Why would "pop and drop" be undefendable? It's not as if the ship won't be able to see the ASCM the entire time it's doing that maneuver. The Harpoon does it because of it's origin: it was supposed to hit surfaced Soviet submarines, and it needs to do it in order to actually hit the target. But that target class disappeared before it really reached service. ASBMs have a similar issue in that there's no way for them to get out of the radar view of the target (or a ship near the target). And we've got missiles designed to take them out as part of the target set (SM-3 and SM-6 are quite capable, depending on range). Drone subs are just mobile minefields. The idea of a mobile minefield isn't new, and you have all the problems of a minefield (including, but not limited to: sinking ships you didn't intend to), along with new challenges like: how do you communicate with your drone subs? Your cheap anti-air drone is just a missile carrier? You're thinking weapons, not systems here. How do you target with them? And how do you keep them from getting targeted? Even being 20kft up (and improving the range that way), an equivalent AAM from a fighter will have longer range, simply because it's able to be launched from Mach 0.85, instead of 30kts. Sure, the drone might be cheap, but the missile won't be.

Animats 4y ago

The Neptune is a rather unremarkable anti-surface missile with underwhelming capabilities. It had enough range to reach the target from shore, enough precision to hit it, and enough warhead to kill it. That's good enough. The lesson from this is that warships can no longer operate with impunity near a hostile shore against a reasonably equipped opponent. "Near" is at least 100km. A truck-mounted system can now take out a major combatant vessel. Finding large ships isn't that difficult any more. They show up on everything from civilian satellite imagery to drone cameras.

exabrial 4y ago
It's far more complicated than you think to sink a modern combat ship with a missile. The Neptune would qualify as "minimally capable" and if it weren't for Russian incompetence and target intelligence, or it wouldn't have succeeded. First, you have the sea. It's flat, it's quiet, and it's pretty much void of surface and aerial radar contacts. Missile stealth is really hard in this environment because of the quiet background, and the Neptune is not stealthy. The ship-based radars are really only limited to the curvature of the earth... so for the Moskva, that's probably 9miles in bad conditions, 18miles in best conditions. The cold background even allows IRST to work quite effectively (not sure if the Moskva has that capability). The target ship is going to know you're coming, especially the Moskva, as in the absolute worst conditions, that's about 30s-45s of warning time, or 10m-15m if you have an AEW radar. Second, radar blindness is a two way street. You can fire a missile, but it will be blind to its target until it's pretty close and can activate some sort of terminal phase guidance. Navies _always_ keep their ships moving to avoid attacks. Basically, for a sub-sonic missile, you can fire it at where the target is now, but by the time it gets to where it thinks the target is, it may not be there anymore. There's a couple of ways to handle this. For Navy's very modern LRASM, that's a passive link receiving mid-course updates, with fallback to GPS/Inertial guidance. For the Neptune, it's just inertial guidance. Just _moving_ the target ship around randomly is enough to protect it from a Neptune strike and Russia did not do this. Third, your missile needs to broadside. Ships are designed to cut through the water, so a head-on attack will just cause the missile to skip off the bow. Your missile needs to have enough spare fuel to turn about and detect the orientation of the ship. Again, you can defeat this by randomly turning your ship a bunch of times. There's a case in the Falklands war where an Exocet was coming in hard for a kill, but the ship's commander had enough time to orient the ship towards the missile with full rudder, and the Exocet bounced, then exploded on the deck rather than penetrating. There was damage, but ship stayed in combat. The Neptune doesn't have great loiter time. And its rudimentary radar terminal guidance it's probably easily attacked electronically anyway. Finally you have point defenses. Russia actually has quite sophisticated CIWS systems, both missile and rotary cannon. It's speculated that the only really guaranteed way to defeat these systems is a saturation attack, which was not the case, or a supersonic terminal phase, which the Neptune is not capable of. Russia pretty much had all its defenses down. So no, the Neptune is really not that sophisticated. This attack was successful purely based on knowing the limitations of the weapon system and timely intelligence.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> No doubt the Poseidon has watched every Russian Naval asset to figure out they were taking down defense radars and they devised a plan to sneak a relatively crappy Neptune missile in. Is it just me, or does this comment appear arrogant? You you are taking all the credit and belittling the folks that did all the fighting, based on nothing but your own speculation?

tpmx 4y ago
Yeah, this over the top jingoism even for HN. I'm surprised.
exabrial 4y ago
To dispel any doubt: no.

occamrazor 4y ago

By the way, Poseidon occupied in the Greek Pantheon a role very similar to the Roman Neptune. Navy weapon-namegivers lack imagination.

stefan_ 4y ago

This is just LARPing. A TB2 could spot that ship just as well and neither it nor the P8 can guide the anti-ship missile that was used.

hbarka 4y ago

I read that the opportunity wasn’t due to defense radars being down. It was due to a diversion tactic (annoyance drone) created to fool the radar operators into focusing on a false flag.

dathinab 4y ago

Intelligence is one of the most important aspects. Through also we had been at a point where a lot of trope movements are always under watch by satellites and now supplemented by various kinds of drones (some call it the unblinking eye) before. We also have a lot of ways to take advantage of it (long range artillery, big drones, Javelins, small suicide drones, etc.). What changed is not the general capabilities we have nothing I listed (except maybe the small suicide drones) is new. What is new is how we can and in case of Ukrain do combine this weaponry and information systems. So I don't thing any of the tech involved is the defining factor, it's the combination of them in the right strategy.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Link to intel report? There have also been regular AWACS circular flights over Romania near the Black Sea and Global Hawk flights in the Black Sea.