The first Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 3 production unit was recently delivered so let’s do a quick review of the status of the program. You can read a previous post on the subject, here.
SEWIP, is the Navy’s project to improve the venerable and increasingly obsolete SLQ-32 system. The project is divided into a sequence of four Blocks, each of which adds additional capabilities to the overall system. Not all ships will receive all four Blocks.
Here are the SEWIP Block descriptions as summarized from the Navy website (4)
- SEWIP Block 1 upgrade addresses obsolescence issues by replacing obsolete parts and installing improved control stations and displays. It also adds additional threat signal receivers.
- SEWIP Block 2 upgrades antennas and receivers and improves the signal processing.
- SEWIP Block 3 provides active signal emissions to defeat incoming missiles.
- SEWIP Block 4 is a future upgrade that will provide EO and IR capabilities.
SEWIP Block 3 Array Undergoing Testing
Let’s check a brief history of the program by looking at the timeline.
1974 - Northrop Grumman’s (NG) AN/SLQ-32(V)1 (‘Slick 32’) was launched
2008 – Lockheed Martin (LM) received contract to develop SEWIP Block 1
2009 - LM received contract to develop SEWIP Block 2 (AN/SLQ-32(V)6)
2010 – Navy approves LM Block 2 design
2011 – General Dynamics (GD) begins full rate production of Block 1
2013 - LM began LRIP of Block 2 and delivered the first SEWIP Block 2 system
2015 - NG received a $92M contract modification to a previous contract for SEWIP Block 3 engineering, manufacturing, and development intended to produce two prototype units.(2)
2015 – DOT&E testing found that Block 2 had severe deficiencies in generating and holding target tracks
2016 - LM received full rate production contract for SEWIP Block 2
2019 - Dept. of Defense approved the SEWIP Block 3 Milestone C to enable the start of low rate initial production (LRIP)
2020 - NG received a $16M contract modification to an existing contract to provide support for two Low Rate Initial Production SEWIP Block 3 systems.(3)
2020 - Navy issued a contract to Northrop Grumman for SEWIP Block 3 production systems.
The $100.7 million base contract is for the first follow on production lot of AN/SLQ-32(V)7 SEWIP Block 3 systems. The contract has a maximum value of $1.16 billion. (1)
2021 - NG delivered the first production SEWIP Block 3 to the Navy
There are a few noteworthy aspects to the SEWIP program:
Priorities – For reasons unfathomable, the Navy has never considered electronic warfare to be of much value. The original SLQ-32 served for 34 years with only minor improvements. For the last decade or so, the SLQ-32 was so obsolete as to be almost useless. In contrast, during the same time frame, the Navy poured vast resources and funds into Standard missile development, clearly demonstrating where their priorities lay; this despite the overwhelming evidence that electronic countermeasures have, historically, proven far more effective than hard kill measures.
Even with the commencement of the SEWIP program, it has taken 13 years to get the Block 3 into initial service.
The Navy misguidedly and unwisely continues to place little emphasis on electronic warfare. The time span and leisurely pace of development demonstrates that the Navy is not particularly serious about shipboard electronic warfare. We’ve discussed how the Navy should be hugely increasing the size, scope, capabilities, and power outputs of ship’s EW systems and should be building dedicated EW ships. One has only to consider the vast resources and wide variety of equipment and capabilities being put into ground combat EW systems (with Russia leading the way!) to see that the Navy simply does not prioritize EW defenses despite overwhelming evidence of their effectiveness (see, “AAW – Hard Kill or Soft Kill”).
Block 3 – This is the development that adds active output transmissions and provides active countermeasures. This needs to be thoroughly tested under realistic conditions and widely installed across the fleet. The distribution is a concern because the previous SLQ-32 system was not uniformly distributed. Ships received different, less capable versions depending on the ship type. Once upon a time, when some ships were cheaper and therefore more ‘expendable’ this might have made some degree of sense (not really!) but today, with every ship costing $1B+, every ship should have the maximum possible protection.
Testing & Reporting - The last report from DOT&E on the SEWIP program was 2016. In that report, SEWIP Block 2 was reported as operationally effective but not operationally suitable or survivable due to myriad reliability, training, reboot times, and cyber vulnerabilities. Reports mysteriously stop at that point. I don’t know if that means that the Navy has stopped conducting tests, which would be foolish in the extreme though not without ample misguided precedent, or if the Navy considers the SEWIP program ‘finished’, which would also be foolish since the system has never been tested in anything approaching an operationally realistic manner.
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(1)https://seapowermagazine.org/navy-awards-sewip-block-3-contract-to-northrop-grumman/
(2)https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/621915/
(3)https://www.afcea.org/content/northrop-gets-contract-mod-continue-naval-sewip-block-3-support
(Don McCollor)...How little has been remembered from WW2 when accidently an electric shaver static disrupted the aircraft control of a very accurate German glide bomb. The Brits got hold of an intact one, and refined the signal - able to shoot it down with the flip of of a switch. Things have gotten much more sophisticated, but not much better. Almost every long range missile probably uses GPS. Now can it be spoofed, overriding satellite signals (jamming is so crude)...
ReplyDeleteComNavOps, I was wonder if you've seen this and if you follow Sub Brief?
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/ecxiQ68CA5g
I never look at wargame 'results' because the results are totally dependent on the conditions, assumptions, and constraints of the game. Most, if not all, modern wargames are conducted with a pre-determined outcome intended to support whatever agenda the game player has.
DeleteFor example, if you were the Navy and you wanted more funding, what would you do? Well, one thing would be to stage wargames where you lose badly and then you can go to Congress and claim you need more money.
Until someone releases a detailed description of the conditions and conduct of the game, I give none of them any credence, whatsoever. Anyone who reports on wargames without fully known conditions and attempts to draw conclusions is either an idiot or has an agenda of their own.
The only thing that the reports on the wargame that make this one seem a bit more legit is that it showed the very point you are making with this particular post. They lost because their distributed firepower networks were broken by cyber attacks and their ships and planes proved vulnerable to EW.
DeleteThe rumor (unconfirmed of course) is that it was such a failure that if unclassified it would kill the military (not just the Navy) plans for drones, network-centric warfare, and a dozen other pet tech projects of the Pentagon.
Unfortunately, most reports I've read have been on sites that may be indulging in "told you so" rather than actually knowing the real details. The internet is not exactly the Encyclopedia Britannica in its trustworthiness. But then neither is Britannica anymore.
To add on CNO's ideas, the wargame presumably pointed out that our network was lost almost immediately. Here are the proposed directives to improve the situation:
Delete"Contested logistics. Creating new ways to deliver fuel and supplies to front lines. U.S. Transportation Command and the Air Force are working on using rockets and a space trajectory to get large cargo spaceships into and out of battlefields.
Joint fires: “You have to aggregate to mass fires, but it doesn't have to be a physical aggregation,” Hyten said. “It could be a virtual aggregation for multiple domains; acting at the same time under a single command structure allows the fires to come in on anybody. It allows you to disaggregate to survive.” Hyten said the joint fires concept “is aspirational. It is unbelievably difficult to do.” And the military will have to figure out what part will be affordable and practical, he said.
JADC2: The Pentagon’s push to connect everything demands always-on, hackerproof networks, Hyten said. “The goal is to be fully connected to a combat cloud that has all information that you can access at any time, anyplace,” so that, like with joint fires, the data doesn’t get exposed or hacked because it’s housed in one centralized location, he said.
Information advantage: This element is the sum of the first three, Hyten said: “If we can do the things I just described, the United States and our allies will have an information advantage over anybody that we could possibly face.”"
Source: https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/07/it-failed-miserably-after-wargaming-loss-joint-chiefs-are-overhauling-how-us-military-will-fight/184050/
Hyten is just spewing buzzword nonsense. His statements show the zombie-esque reiteration of a push for information dominance. Just another drone thats forgotten what destroys stuff and kills the enemy. I mean c'mon, massed fires without being massed??? Either he doesn't know how things work, has forgotten how things work, or just doesnt care and is unapologetically on the idiotic network bandwagon...
DeleteIm not even gonna go into the insanity of resupplying forward forces with spaceships. Seriously???
What ever happened to the good old American idea of just showing up to a fight with an overkill level of firepower??? I suppose its just a symptom of not having that capability anymore and scrambling to make up for it somehow.
We spend a gazillion dollars on defense, as a nation, and have a decided lack of firepower. These buzzword binges are just an attempt to appear relevant. The Chinese know exactly what capabilities we actually do and don't have … and the 'don't's' far outnumber the 'do's'. They're laughing while we spout buzzwords.
DeleteAnd isnt it interesting that you see them copying the Aegis/Burkes, Nimitz/Fords, and the LH platforms. But we havent seen any copies of the Zoomies or LCS... Kinda shows who is serious about a blue water Navy...!!!
Delete"Electronic countermeasures have, historically, proven far more effective than hard kill measures."
ReplyDelete"The Navy simply does not prioritize EW defenses despite overwhelming evidence of their effectiveness (see, “AAW – Hard Kill or Soft Kill”)."
These points cannot be over-emphasized. The historical data on ship engagement with guided missiles clearly emphasizes these points. A ship's armor is found in both metal and in electronics, and ours need immediate attention.
While it's true that ECM has historically proven more effective, the number of cases we're talking about is still rather small.
DeleteThe problem with ECM has always been we have no real way of quantifying its effectiveness today, and even more so
tomorrow.
We know if an interceptor hits a missile far enough away from the ship the engagement was successful.
ECM is highly dependent on the details of each specific missile seeker. What may work on one, may not work on another. What may work on today's missile variant, may not work on tomorrow's. Even simple software upgrades to missiles can reduce the effectiveness of ECM.
So I think the Navy has preferred the certitude of shooting missiles down, to the uncertainty of ECM.
Additionally, since ECM doesn't physically kill the enemy missile, it can successfully seduce or distract the missile away from one target, only to have it acquire another.
This is exactly what happened in the Atlantic Conveyor incident. HMS Alacrity deployed chaff, which seduced the Exocet away from Alacrity, only to have it fly through the cloud and re-acquire Atlantic Conveyor.
So ECM isn't great for the primary mission of an escort, who's mission is to keep other ships safe.
"While it's true that ECM has historically proven more effective, the number of cases we're talking about is still rather small."
DeleteThe number of cases of hard-kill intercepts is equally small or smaller and the demonstrated success rate for hard-kill is very poor - around 1%-25%.
"we have no real way of quantifying its effectiveness today"
Bilgewater! We have just as much ability to quantify soft kill as hard kill. We use surrogate targets to quantify hard kill effectiveness during tests and we use surrogates to quantify soft kill, as well. Now, it's perfectly valid to question the faithfulness of a surrogate target but that applies equally to hard and soft tests.
"What may work on today's missile variant, may not work on tomorrow's."
Again, that applies equally to hard and soft kill. Tomorrow's missile may be faster, more maneuverable, and have better penaids and may render our hard kill ineffective. We can't know. No one can predict the future.
"it can successfully seduce or distract the missile away from one target, only to have it acquire another."
That's completely valid and has happened once in the history of missile warfare, to the best of my knowledge. Not a common occurrence, to say the least! However, that's why I've proposed an integrated, co-ordinated, group-wide soft kill response; to avoid exactly that scenario.
Just out of curiosity, why did you not point out the hard kill counterpart to this problem which is hard kill missiles/projectiles missing their target and hitting friendly assets? That exact thing happened in Desert Storm, for example, and there have been many examples of SAM missiles hitting friendly assets. I'm unaware of any example of a soft kill inadvertently damaging a friendly asset.
So ECM is far more appropriate, safer, and historically effective than hard kill measures.
"Bilgewater! We have just as much ability to quantify soft kill as hard kill. We use surrogate targets to quantify hard kill effectiveness during tests and we use surrogates to quantify soft kill, as well. Now, it's perfectly valid to question the faithfulness of a surrogate target but that applies equally to hard and soft tests."
DeleteIt is MUCH easier to develop a surrogate that simulates the physical properties and performance of an enemy missile than one that simulates its seeker performance (which may be unknowable unless we've acquired and analyzed the variant in question).
"Again, that applies equally to hard and soft kill. Tomorrow's missile may be faster, more maneuverable, and have better penaids and may render our hard kill ineffective. We can't know. No one can predict the future."
Not to the same degree. There are many variants of the C-802 missile. They all have, broadly, the same physical characteristics and end-game performance, but have widely different seekers, including completely different seeker technologies (e.g. radar, IR, dual radar). Most widely used missiles exhibit the same thing. Even within one missile/seeker combination, upgrades in ECM resistance can take place (e.g. improvements in antenna design, HOJ, S2N processing improvements).
ECM techniques that work against one variant won't necessarily work at all against another.
But a hard kill system that works against one C-802 variant should work against all of them.
"Just out of curiosity, why did you not point out the hard kill counterpart to this problem which is hard kill missiles/projectiles missing their target and hitting friendly assets?"
I was focused on pointing out the limits of ECM and the resulting hesitation by the Navy to emphasize it over hard kill. Hard kill certainly has its own issues.
One caveat to missile performance is that upgrades can introduce new maneuvers that can change the effectiveness of hard kill. Thinks like pop-up and jinking maneuvers.
DeleteBut these are still constrained by the physics of the missile. A C-802 doesn't suddenly become a hypersonic missile, or able to pull 50G maneuvers.
So the limits of what's possible is more predictable.
"unless we've acquired and analyzed the variant in question)."
DeleteOf course we have! There are no secrets in the world today. We can monitor an enemy's testing (like they do ours), hack their networks (like they do ours), acquire examples on the black market (like they do ours), and just plain steal examples (like they do ours).
"They all have, broadly, the same physical characteristics and end-game performance"
No more or less so than the electronic components. There are, broadly, only a few types of seekers and the general performance is well known. An enemy may tweak sensor performance, like they tweak physical performance, but the general characteristics are known and remain approximately the same.
I would also point out that it is far easier to upgrade EW capabilities since it is mostly software. One has only to look at the billions of dollars and decades it takes to develop new or even improved hard kill weapons. EW upgrades can happen quickly. Hard kill upgrades are usually nearly obsolete by the time they enter service.
"A C-802 doesn't suddenly become a hypersonic missile, or able to pull 50G maneuvers."
DeleteA missile can acquire radically new capabilities with the simple addition or modification of penaids which are best countered by EW, not hard kill. You're countering your own argument!
"So I think the Navy has preferred the certitude of shooting missiles down, to the uncertainty of ECM."
DeleteFrankly, I doubt that you have any direct knowledge or experience of the Navy or of missile warfare.
There is a number of live warshot missile engagements with ships. That number is good enough for real statistical analysis, and that analysis clearly, overwhelmingly attests, over and over again, in every way possible, of the superiority of electronic soft-kill, seduction, and decoy measures.
Hard-kills missiles are perhaps more exciting to consider and certainly the videos are dramatic, reality overwhelmingly supports soft-kill electronic systems as far more superior and important in missile defense.
The Battle of Latakia was the first and prototypical naval missile engagement. Its lessons span the tests of time and are as relevant today as they have always been.
" certainly the videos are dramatic"
DeleteWhat we don't see are the videos of the hard kill intercepts that fail. For example, a US Navy Burke fired several missiles at attacking anti-ship missiles off Yemen in 2016 and recorded zero hits. We haven't seen the video of that.
As far as I know, Standard missiles have not yet recorded a single successful real world intercept. To be fair, there have been very few attempts.
"Frankly, I doubt that you have any direct knowledge or experience of the Navy or of missile warfare."
DeleteI don't. But douchey responses aside, it's obvious that I'm right. Add up the cost of the hard kill systems on a DDG and compare it to the cost of the soft kill systems. We spend an order of magnitude more on hard kill.
This shows the Navy's clear preference for hard kill.
"A missile can acquire radically new capabilities with the simple addition or modification of penaids which are best countered by EW, not hard kill. You're countering your own argument!"
DeletePenaids like what? I named one, maneuvers. I'm struggling to think of another that's commonly used. VLO requires significant redesign, essentially a new missile. I can't think of any missile in widespread use that uses chaff, flares, jamming or towed decoys.
"But douchey responses aside"
DeleteThat's enough, all around. Argue the idea not the person.
"it's obvious that I'm right"
No, it's not obvious and simply saying so doesn't make it so. Produce data to support your contention. That's what this blog is based on.
"We spend an order of magnitude more on hard kill. This shows the Navy's clear preference for hard kill."
Do I need to list all the things that the Navy spends money on that have been proven useless? Simply spending money may well indicate where the Navy's preference lies - and it's clearly on hard kill systems! - but that does not even remotely imply wisdom. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Navy's emphasis is almost invariable incorrect as demonstrated repeatedly on the pages of this blog.
The reality, as proven by history and data, clearly shows that soft kill options are far more effective. That's not even debatable - it's just a simple statement of fact. Now, that's not to suggest that hard kill systems be abandoned. Instead, it suggests that a much greater emphasis needs to be placed on soft kill systems.
"Penaids like what?"
DeleteSeriously? Why don't you check out this RAND report as a starting point to learning about penaids:
RAND - Penaids
From a "Drive" article discussing the Chinese DF-41 missile:
"The missile also reportedly carries decoys and has other unspecified penetration aids to help it get past hostile missile defenses."
I'm not a personal research service so I'm going to stop there and let you go learn about penaids on your own. The Internet is full of articles and they make for fascinating reading. The Soviets, for example, had dedicated EW missiles that provided penaid for the strike missiles.
"Frankly, I doubt that you have any direct knowledge or experience of the Navy or of missile warfare."
DeleteDirect experience is not a requirement for good understanding or good ideas. Admirals and Generals have lots of direct experience and yet routinely vomit very poor ideas.
Comments and ideas stand or fall on their own merits.
ECM doesn't kill missiles. It confuses them or seduces them away from the real target. They don't just dive into the ocean when you turn on a jammer or launch a Nulka. They fly on until they run out of fuel or malfunction.
DeleteAn escort's job is to protect the ships its escorting. If all it does is use ECM to seduce missiles away from hitting the escort itself, and those missiles then fly past it to acquire the escorted ships, it's failed in its mission.
An escort-launched chaff cloud that a missile ignores because its already locked on to the HVU (or flies through to then acquire the HVU) is worthless to the mission. That missile needs to be shot down.
ECM is useful for self defense. This is where it has been most successful. It is less-to-not useful for area defense, the mission of an escort.
Our DDGs, CG and FFGs are designed to be escorts. They have emphasized ECM less for this reason.
"ECM doesn't kill missiles."
DeleteDid someone say it did?
"and those missiles then fly past it to acquire the escorted ships"
In all of history, I'm aware of one example of that. You should probably move on.
"Our DDGs, CG and FFGs are designed to be escorts."
The reality is that ships very often find themselves in isolated situations so soft kill is vital.
"They have emphasized ECM less for this reason."
No, the Navy has de-emphasized soft kill for all the same kinds of reasons they've mistakenly and unwisely de-emphasize gun support, armor, manning, logistics, and a host of other horrible decisions. They've also de-emphasized it because soft kill measures don't result in enormous budget increases like missiles do and budget grabbing is why the modern Navy exists.
I'm sorry but you're just incorrect. Clearly, though, you've made up your mind and no one is going to change it. That's fine. I can lead you to water but …
Feel free to have the last word. I'll be moving on to more productive discussions!
I suspect it's endemic in the whole US military:
ReplyDeleteEg USMC retired EA-6B without replacement. Apparently F-35 will be able to do EW at some unspecified stage in the future.
Eg USAF retired EF-111 without replacement, replaced F-4G with less capable F-16CJ and are cutting numbers of EC-130H Compass Call EW jammers. Only 10 EC-37B's will be acquired to replace 14 EC-130s. USAF openly stated USMC/USN will handle bulk of this mission with EA-6B then EA-18Gs.
I think it's the result of not having fought anyone with capable C3, ISTAR etc systems in many decades. Indeed your average American's opponent since 1991 has either had 1970s vintage Soviet equipment or most likely mobile phones!
I'm not an expert by any means,but it does seem strange to me the Navy has F18G's but the airforce doesn't have an equivalent.
ReplyDeleteUSAF just announced a few days ago that they looking at buying the same advanced ECM pod USN is working on. Still feels very stop gap from USAF but better than nothing.
DeleteI think its because USAF is just still so much in love with stealth that they can't buy ECM gear. It torpedoes their whole LO is everything approach...
"I'm not an expert by any means,but it does seem strange to me the Navy has F18G's but the airforce doesn't have an equivalent."
DeleteI think the last AF tactical EW aircraft was the EF-111 the last of which was retired in 1998. I've never understood the rationale behind that decision nor have I understood why the AF hasn't resurrected a tactical EW aircraft over the ensuing decades.
Apparently, the AF is going to procure 10 EC-37 Compass Call aircraft but those cannot provide tactical EW support.
The F-111 was indeed a capable tactical EW aircraft as well as a very long-ranged strike aircraft with a good degree of tanker independence. The Australians certainly learned to appreciate the versions they were sold, and they are clearly feeling the loss as they now don't have anything with the same level of capabilities to replace their retired F-111s.
DeletePardon me for going on a tangent, but given that you mentioned the F-111, are you going to do an article on the viability of swing-wings for naval aircraft? You've come out in favour of them before, but as I recall you haven't dedicated a full-on post to variable-geometry swing-wings yet. You could start by taking a look at this article that was not in favour of them on fighter-type aircraft:
https://defenseissues.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/why-variable-sweep-wings-or-swing-wings-for-fighter-aircraft-are-not-effective-at-air-superiority/
My understanding of AN/SLQ-32(V)7 SEWIP Block 3 timescale is slightly different to CNOs, the first delivery in June is an Engineering and Development Model (EDM) for continued government land based testing following its formal qualification testing, not a production model. It should be noted, though not saying the Burkes will be the first of the planned approx 50 ships to be fitted with Block 3, the first Block 3 to be fitted to a Burke will be the ship funded in FY2022, FY2021 funded Bukes will still use the Block 2. On cost Block 3 is $73.4 million vs Block 2 at $16.6 million per the FY2022 budget proposals.
ReplyDeleteFebruary 2015 Navy awarded Northrop Grumman a $267 million contract for preliminary design of the SLQ-32(V)7 SEWIP Block 3 system and October 2015 Northrop Grumman received a $91.7 million contract modification for SEWIP Block 3 EMD, with development already underway. November 2017 Inspector General (IG) released a report that found the Northrop’s Block 3 EMD program was experiencing significant cost overruns that could put the program behind schedule and NAVSEA reportedly partially terminated the SEWIP Block 3 EMD phase in September 2017, but by mid-2018 there was no indication that the Northrop Grumman SEWIP Block 3 EMD would be either re-competed or ended.
https://tealgroup.com/index.php/teal-group-media-news-briefs-2/teal-group-news-media/item/high-value-naval-electronic-warfare-programs>
This turns int a qty issue aside from the does it work issue. When SLQ-32 got rolling it was going on several ship types all building large numbers per yard per year. In our current construct Blk III will get production quantities of only 1 or 2 per year.
DeleteI apologize if I've left comments less useful than CNO's preference.
ReplyDeleteLet's put up a idea: The "kill chain" of modern missile warfare is intricate and delicate. A target must be detected, identified, a weapons quality track must be established, that track must be handed off to a missile engagement system, the missile must be given the initial "launch" guidance, fired, updates to that target track must be provided as the target maneuvers "mid-course guidance", the target track must be handed off to the missile "terminal guidance", and the missile must complete its track coincident with the target.
In the case of hard-kill missile defense, these complexities fall in favor of the attacker, who has the major benefit of initiative, most crucial in missile engagements. The defending hard-kill missile must then complete its own "kill chain", at an initiative deficit, with the additional challenge of impacting a target with far great speed-distance maneuverability than the defending vessel.
On the other hand, a soft-kill attack on the offensive missile has the great advantage of leverage against the complexity and delicacy of the "kill chain". It is called a "kill chain" because if it is broken at any point, the chain fails. As can be see from the above description, there are multiple time-and-place methods for the chain to be broken. Even fracturing the chain at multiple places can cause it to fail.
Soft-kill electronic warfare attacks the weakness of missile warfare, while hard-kill kinetic warfare not only must be positioned against the strengths of missile warfare, it exists at intrinsically disadvantaged position.
Missile-antimissile kinetic warfare is exciting to visualize, where electronic warfare is not. Naval vessels defend fixed, land positions. Kinetic warfare is harder and more expensive. Naval leadership has sad priorities. None of these things change the physics of missile engagements.
If none of this is convincing, I would offer that kinetic "antimissiles" not needed on account of electronic warfare can/might have offensive capabilities. Any missile defeated electronically makes, for example, SM-2 and SM-6 missiles that much more available to strike at the enemy.
I was told, for what it's worth, that ECM is at its best when the missiles are simply never launched. Apparently this happened in the Falklands and a few other engagements.
ReplyDeleteThat would, if true, eliminate the problem of reacquisition.
To me, all this arguing hard kill versus soft kill prompts what seems to be an obvious question:
ReplyDeleteWhy not both?
Each seems to have its place, and each seems to be necessary in its place.
"Why not both?"
DeleteOf course both! The issue is not one or the other, exclusively. It's the balance and emphasis that's the issue. Currently, the Navy places very little emphasis on soft kill while, contrarily, placing enormous effort and resources on hard kill. This is unwise in the extreme because soft kill has been proven so much more effective - hence, the 'debate' which data actually renders non-debatable! The Navy needs to drastically reallocate its priorities and resources and greatly increase the emphasis on soft kill.
It's kind of odd, really, given the Navy's wholehearted - and utterly misguided - emphasis on digital, networks, and data in all other areas and yet they emphasize hard kill firepower in AAW. Trust the Navy to get everything backwards!
"Trust the Navy to get everything backwards!"
DeleteAnd get it backwards in the most expensive way possible.