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This starts with the false premise that the adversary needs to search the entire ocean. In reality, the comings and goings of our ships are as public as it get

This starts with the false premise that the adversary needs to search the entire ocean. In reality, the comings and goings of our ships are as public as it gets, and our peers quite easily track and maintain awareness of the locations of all our battle groups.

nradov 1y ago
There's a huge difference between knowing the general location of a ship and generating a track good enough for weapons guidance. And much of the searching is done by reconnaissance satellites, which are highly vulnerable and likely to be destroyed in the opening moves of any major conflict.
- relaxing 1y ago
  Well they don't just know the "general location" of a ship. The article addresses the problem of terminal guidance (using out of date information) but it seems to treat targeting issues as fatal flaws, rather than acceptable risks. It doesn't matter if it the hit rate is 25%, they're going to fire ten of them. There might be collateral damage due to misidentification? Boo hoo, you're in an all out war. I get it, you're convinced ASAT warfare is inevitable. The reality is it's akin to MAD. No one's going to start that war because it's lose-lose.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Nah. The whole "Kessler Syndrome" thing is overblown. No one is going to refrain from shooting down satellites if it will gain them a temporary military advantage in a hot conflict. This is not even remotely close to MAD.
    - relaxing 1y ago
      It’s not just Kessler syndrome, it’s that GNSS would be targeted and losing that is catastrophic for the civilian economies.
  - Coffeebean2017 1y ago
    The problem is that to saturate the defences of a carrier's escorts you need hundreds of missiles not dozens. The Chinese have lots of missiles but not an infinite amount; especially not of the modern, purpose-built weapons that can pose a real threat to the carriers. In reality they're going to have just a few tries before they run out of ammo. Just shooting at everything that might be a carrier is a great way to lose the war. To actually pull this off you need to be able to rapidly locate and identify the target, communicate it's location to all your various launchers, then coordinate a complex time-on-target attack between all of them. Any mistakes or disruptions in the chain can ruin your whole attack; misidentify the target and your attack misses, fail to communicate and a portion of your launchers never fire, fail to coordinate and your missiles arrive too spread out and are shot down, take too long to do all of this and the carrier will clear datum and you're stuck waiting for the next pass of a recon satellite that may never come. This is all extremely difficult even under ideal conditions let alone when Uncle Sam is jamming your comms and blowing up your servers. Not to say it's impossible, just that it's not as easy as you may think and that accurate targeting is a major factor.

nradov 1y ago

There's a huge difference between knowing the general location of a ship and generating a track good enough for weapons guidance. And much of the searching is done by reconnaissance satellites, which are highly vulnerable and likely to be destroyed in the opening moves of any major conflict.

relaxing 1y ago
Well they don't just know the "general location" of a ship. The article addresses the problem of terminal guidance (using out of date information) but it seems to treat targeting issues as fatal flaws, rather than acceptable risks. It doesn't matter if it the hit rate is 25%, they're going to fire ten of them. There might be collateral damage due to misidentification? Boo hoo, you're in an all out war. I get it, you're convinced ASAT warfare is inevitable. The reality is it's akin to MAD. No one's going to start that war because it's lose-lose.
- nradov 1y ago
  Nah. The whole "Kessler Syndrome" thing is overblown. No one is going to refrain from shooting down satellites if it will gain them a temporary military advantage in a hot conflict. This is not even remotely close to MAD.
  - relaxing 1y ago
    It’s not just Kessler syndrome, it’s that GNSS would be targeted and losing that is catastrophic for the civilian economies.
- Coffeebean2017 1y ago
  The problem is that to saturate the defences of a carrier's escorts you need hundreds of missiles not dozens. The Chinese have lots of missiles but not an infinite amount; especially not of the modern, purpose-built weapons that can pose a real threat to the carriers. In reality they're going to have just a few tries before they run out of ammo. Just shooting at everything that might be a carrier is a great way to lose the war. To actually pull this off you need to be able to rapidly locate and identify the target, communicate it's location to all your various launchers, then coordinate a complex time-on-target attack between all of them. Any mistakes or disruptions in the chain can ruin your whole attack; misidentify the target and your attack misses, fail to communicate and a portion of your launchers never fire, fail to coordinate and your missiles arrive too spread out and are shot down, take too long to do all of this and the carrier will clear datum and you're stuck waiting for the next pass of a recon satellite that may never come. This is all extremely difficult even under ideal conditions let alone when Uncle Sam is jamming your comms and blowing up your servers. Not to say it's impossible, just that it's not as easy as you may think and that accurate targeting is a major factor.