One of the lamentable tendencies exhibited by naval
observers and commenters is to evaluate weapons in isolation. I’ve preached about the dangers of this yet
it still happens all too frequently. For
example, if one considers the use of offensive missiles versus large caliber
naval guns, the discussion invariably becomes a one-versus-one comparison - a
single missile’s properties versus those of a single shell. People will cite range or speed or
explosiveness or whatever supports their favored weapon. However, that kind of comparison and
evaluation is always incomplete and always wrong. Consider the following example.
An enemy’s island base needs to be destroyed. How do we do it? The obvious answer is we stand off a thousand
miles and launch cruise missiles at it.
The less obvious but likely more realistic answer is that we used up
most of our cruise missile inventory in the first month of the war and we,
essentially, have none left and our industry, which is geared towards a
peacetime production of a hundred missiles per year, can’t even begin to supply
replacements in any useful quantities and what few we get are reserved for only
the very highest priority targets. Now
what do we do?
We could place a carrier in harm’s way and try an air
strike, however, the island base is heavily defended by SAM batteries so we’ll
suffer aircraft losses that our industry can’t replace in any useful time
frame.
We could have the Air Force try a bomber strike but the
enemy destroyed our only base in the region on the first day of the war and our
handful of flyable bombers are tasked with much higher priority missions.
Hmm … Now what?
Well, if we had ships with large caliber naval guns we could
just sail up to the island and erase it from existence. Of course, the tactical situation would have
to be appropriate but that’s always the case for any mission.
Thus, a missile might have more desirable properties but the
correct answer is more likely large caliber naval guns when one considers the
larger picture of the overall war, munitions inventory, and replacement cost
and time frames.
This also illustrates another guiding principle and that is
flexibility. Again, so many people
debate weapon systems as mutually exclusive, one or the other, instead of
acknowledging that there is a need for multiple options instead of one,
exclusive choice. It’s better to have
options and not need them then to need them and not have them. Options give us flexibility. When we lose our only useful base, when our
industry can’t supply replacement munitions, when industry can’t replace
aircraft losses, when the enemy upsets our plans, flexibility gives us the
ability to stay in the fight.
 |
| USS Boston CAG-1 Guns or Missiles? Both! Note two forward triple 8" mounts and aft missile launcher. |
Keep this in mind as your discuss (let’s be honest … as you argue) weapon systems. The ‘correct’ answer is almost always ‘both’ and it’s quite likely that the less advanced system will turn out to be the preferred choice for reasons other than pure performance specifications.
"The Navy has unwisely selected only guns when the correct answer is both! "
ReplyDeleteCould there possibly be a typo in there? (guns instead of missiles)
Oops! Yes, mistake. Corrected. Thanks!
DeleteBut the Navy is smarter than CNO, there is a third way,
Deletethe missile/gun!. The AGS combined high rate of fire with high cost munitions.
"But the Navy is smarter than CNO"
DeleteThat stung a little! : )
"Oops! Yes, mistake. Corrected. Thanks!"
DeleteI suspected it was actually just a deliberate test to see if we were paying attention !!
Well, ... ... you passed !
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete"The enemy hasn't mined the waters around the island": that's a strong point for any island on a continental shelf. I take it that mid-ocean islands are effectively impossible to defend with conventional mines. Or is my guess wrong?
DeleteComment has been deleted for being deliberately obtuse, willfully ignorant, and argumentative.
Delete"I take it that mid-ocean islands are effectively impossible to defend with conventional mines."
DeleteAs you noted in the post, the example was conditional with the statement,
" Of course, the tactical situation would have to be appropriate but that’s always the case for any mission."
As far as mines. They are a serious threat but they can't be everywhere. Consider an island, as in the example. A battleship can stand 20+ miles off and bombard. An island with a 20 mile area of mines covers an area of 1300 sq.mi. If there was a mine every, say, tenth of a sq.mi. that would require 13,000 mines. China certainly has that many but they'd likely be used in and around Taiwan. China has dozens of small islands and heavily mining each one for twenty miles out and around would be beyond their inventory and capacity.
Too many observers have a tendency to believe that if there's a single weapon in existence that could be a threat that it will be everywhere and we'll be paralyzed. No enemy and no weapon can be everywhere in the world, simultaneously.
If the enemy does opt to mine an island for twenty miles around, then we have to move on to some other option. The point is to have flexibility in options, which was the point of the post.
This also illustrates that the Navy has abandoned any serious mine countermeasures and left us vulnerable and potentially unable to conduct certain operations.
I observe that the Navy intends to arm the new Frigates with the naval equivalent of a peashooter.
ReplyDeleteAs was said about my favorite hockey team, they may be small but they're slow.
DeleteSimilarly, the Constellation's gun may be small but it's wildly inaccurate.
Considering that the old destroyer escorts had 3-inch guns, and that some modern corvettes have 76 mm guns, equipping modern frigates with 57 mm guns seems odd. *If* a 57 mm gun were very accurate it could be a great secondary or tertiary gun, depending on the type of ship.
DeleteBoth? No argument here. Mechanics and carpenters don't just have one hammer, saw, screwdriver, and so on.
ReplyDeleteI see your independent cruiser as a 21st century counterpart to the guided missile heavy cruiser pictured above.
One advantage of battleships and heavy cruisers for fire support is when the enemy's position is not precisely known, the big guns are a better weapon than missiles or air strikes in most situations. On the other hand, if a high value, heavily defended target is beyond gun range, missiles don't risk pilots. But if a lot of targets must be attacked at once, it might not be possible or practical to hit them all with missiles. Attack aircraft might be the best weapon in the arsenal.
I have read that if a tank and a missile-equipped tank destroyer spot each other at the same time and they are within gun range, the tank has an advantage because the tank gun can score a hit more quickly than a missile. I don't know what the official policy is, but I wonder if a ship unexpectedly encounters an enemy warship, perhaps the best thing to do is get the ship's gun on target and fire while simultaneously preparing to follow up with an anti-ship missile as soon as possible. (Your post about the complexity of fighting around islands got me thinking about this.)
"I have read that if a tank and a missile-equipped tank destroyer spot each other at the same time and they are within gun range, the tank has an advantage because the tank gun can score a hit more quickly than a missile."
DeletePretty much, yes. Tank rounds have higher velocities than missiles - the Silver Bullet DU penetrator for Abrams has a muzzle velocity of 1700 meters per second, or a bit over a mile a second. Fighting at a mile, a DU sabot will impact in one second; at the same distance, a TOW missile will impact in 5 seconds.
If we are going to be serious about guns, a 20 mile gun isn't going to cut it, not when tube artillery also reaches out to 20 miles, and where rocket artillery and SSM batteries can reach out to 70 miles. We need to look at the Army's efforts on their 70 mile gun and leverage that for a naval gun.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to shot even 40 miles allows the battleship to place itself outside tube artillery range and fire with impunity, and as you've noted earlier CNO, rocket artillery with DPICM submunitions faces the challenges of 1) using a fixed target weapon against a constantly maneuvering target and 2) HEAT submunitions being less effective against an ARMORED battleship. This then leaves SSMs as the only weapon capable of threatening a battleship, but standing off at 50 miles from the shore means we are behind the radar horizon, where the SSM battery's radar can't see our battleship, and because guns don't need to use radar, we're not putting out emissions that could guide the missile trucks to take shots at us.
Of course, at 50 miles, the rounds would need to be guided to ensure sufficient accuraccy; the dispersion of unguided 6" land artillery increases to an unacceptable level past 28 miles due to wind and atmospheric effects, requiring guided shells be used for extended range shots. On the other hand, with mass production, we could surely be able to get the cost down to 100,000 to 200,000 dollars per round, which is chump change, all things considered - we fire 100,000 dollar Javelins at machinegun and mortar teams because that's ultimately cheaper and faster than calling in an million dollar Apache to shoot cheap hundred dollar 30mm rounds at the target.
Of course, nothing says you can't be carrying a mix of extended range guided round and shorter range dumb rounds. The Army has plus hundred thousand dollar Copperhead, Excalibur and PGK smart rounds, and they also have the cheapo thousand dollar dumb HE rounds.
"a 20 mile gun isn't going to cut it, not when tube artillery also reaches out to 20 miles"
DeleteWrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong ... and also incorrect.
This is yet another example of our insistence on evaluating and discussing weapons in total isolation. Here, you've noted that a ship would have a 20 mile range and artillery might have a 20 mile range and concluded that, therefore, it's impossible for a ship to effectively use its gun. Nothing could be further from the truth once we step outside that isolated comparison and start considering overall, real world scenarios.
This isolated example that you've created is a false, unrealistic, non-existent scenario. In no reality is a ship going to sail up to land and engage in a one-on-one duel with enemy artillery. In any real world scenario where we'd consider using a gun (say, gun support for an amphibious assault) we'd have many other assets working in cooperation. Instead of the enemy's artillery being able to leisurely shoot at our ship until it sank, we'd have air support searching for and killing any artillery that tried to shoot. We'd have anti-radiation missiles launching at any artillery fire control radar that appeared. We'd have counterbattery fire killing any artillery after one shot. We'd have many ships providing area bombardment. We'd have helos out searching for artillery and killing them. We'd have drones searching for artillery. We'd have troops and scouts searching for artillery and killing them.
Does that sound like a scenario conducive to long life for enemy artillery? No! Will we be 100% successful in killing all enemy artillery before they can fire? Of course not but it says that we will harass and destroy enemy artillery to the point that a constantly moving, armored ship has a more than reasonable chance of providing gun support without undue risk and the occasional fire from enemy artillery is why we should have armored ships.
Well, what if we don't have supporting aircraft and troops and missiles all searching for enemy artillery? THEN YOU SHOULDN'T BE UNDERTAKING THE OPERATION! You attack when you have decisive, overwhelming assets and firepower. You defend when you don't. We didn't attack Japanese islands with one ship and a platoon of soldiers so as to give the enemy artillery a fair fight against us; we attacked with overwhelming force.
Do you understand, now, why the pursuit of ever-longer ranged guns is not needed? Also, every longer range weapon represents a decrease in firepower because you achieve long range by using sabot munitions which are, by definition, undersized and contain less explosive. Longer range is a fool's pursuit, to a large extent. If you really need longer range, you use/create other weapons like Air Force bombers or MLRS or SSGNs or cruise missiles - the flexibility discussed in the post.
I'm not picking on you or really even criticizing you, personally. This tendency to discuss in isolation is a common phenomenon and I'm trying to get people to recognize and avoid it.
Anonymous,
DeleteIf I recall correctly, when the battleships were phased out of service in the early 1990s we were almost ready to produce the EX-148, a 13-inch, saboted shell that would be fired from a 16-inch gun. It weighed almost 1,400 pounds and would have a 41-mile range. There also was under development an 11-inch saboted shell weighing over 500 pounds with a range of 115 miles.
Admittedly, battleships would take years to be available (whether we update the Iowas or build entirely new ships). But the Mk 71 8-inch gun could be implemented right away. It can be installed on a Burke-class destroyer (though previous comments on this blog say the mount would interfere with proper navigation). I wonder how far a saboted 155 mm shell fired from an 8-inch gun would travel.
CNO, regarding your comments, I recognize that it is not possible to always keep a ship out of harm's way. Extending the range of battleship guns can, to some degree, enable a battleship to substitute for an aircraft carrier, and that is a good thing in some circumstances. I think extending a gun's range is a good idea so long as we are reasonable and don't get into diminishing returns, such as the 5-inch Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) and 155 mm Advanced Gun System (AGS)-type debacles.
Delete@CNO, you presented a scenario where the enemy SAM threat is too strong for airstrikes, and your solution therefore was to use battleships for shore bombardment. It's a little disingenious of you to then put airstrikes on the table in support of the battleship. You can't have it both ways, you're arguing to win.
DeleteAlso, we don't necessarily need to use sabots, not when advances in shells and guns have allowed us to gain better range. Consider: in WW2, 6" guns shot out to 17 miles. Today, standard 6" shells can reach 22 miles with sufficiently long barrels and bag charges. Base bleed rounds - no sabots there! - can reach 30 miles. Rocket assissted full bore 6" can get to 40 miles. Excalibur 155mm has popout smart fins to adjust its trajectory and keep it on target, achieving a 30 mile range when fired from 52-cal Archer guns. These are all full bore rounds, no sabots involved.
I don't think 50 miles is an unreasonable or overambitious target for modern battleship guns; WW2 16" guns shot out to 24 miles. Imagine the kind of range you could get by incorporating 80 years of advancements in shell design, base bleed, and rocket assist projectiles - note the range increase of today's 6" vs WW2 6". And a 2 ton shell means that it has a lot of volume to act as a cargo shell, which means it'd be absolutely devastating as an area weapon if we developed DPICM shells for 16".
I'm not saying that it's impossible to use the gun, I'm saying that with more range, we can 1) increase the standoff and therefore margin of safety that the battleship has to operate in, and 2) provide gunfire support beyond just the shoreline.
In WW2, our battleships had the longest gun ranges and did gunfire support at the shoreline and as far inland as they could reach. I don't see why trying to do that a bit better is such a controversial idea.
"mount would interfere with proper navigation"
DeleteYou mean we might run into merchant ships? Oh wait ... we do that anyway.
We have navigation radars, bridge wings, cameras, lookouts, GPS, INS, and many other ways to navigate.
"I think extending a gun's range is a good idea so long as we are reasonable"
DeleteAnd 'reasonable' means not sacrificing firepower. We could probably shoot a 9mm bullet a thousand miles out of a battleship's 16" gun but the firepower would be non-existent. 'Saboting' a 16" shell down to a 57 mm shell accomplishes nothing. We have to be very careful that our pursuit of range doesn't result in a decrease in firepower.
"Of course, the tactical situation would have to be appropriate but that’s always the case for any mission."
DeleteYou'll note that I said,
"Of course, the tactical situation would have to be appropriate but that’s always the case for any mission."
"we don't necessarily need to use sabots"
I'm wholly in favor of any increase in range THAT DOESN'T SACRIFICE FIREPOWER!
"I'm wholly in favor of any increase in range THAT DOESN'T SACRIFICE FIREPOWER!"
DeleteYou're not a land combat person, so you're probably not aware of this, but most of the efforts on increasing the range of land-based tube artillery have revolved around longer gun barrels and more propellant charges. The Europeans get 20 miles of range for their 155mm guns, while our Paladin only gets 11 miles, because Archer, Caesar and Pzh-2000 use 52-cal barrels, while Paladin uses a 39-cal barrel - and this is before we get into base bleed and rocket assisted projectiles, where we can get further increases in range without going to subcaliber rounds.
It's actually interesting to see how much of an aberration Vulcano 155 is, it being the only saboted artillery projectile in development: every other long range 155 round project is either using base bleed, rocket assist, guidance, or a mix of methods.
/Terry
Part 1
DeleteA little over 20 years ago I read a lot of proposals to reactivate some or all of the Iowa-class battleships. There was a great website called the US Naval Fire Support Association (USNFSA) with informative, thoughtful articles. Alas, it seems to be gone. One interesting thing I learned is the proposed 13-inch, saboted shell would cost about $50,000--the same as the ERGM. But the big shell would have been much more effective, and a guidance system should have been much easier to engineer. And it would cost much less than a missile. The ERGM was not reasonable because it was a clear case of diminishing returns.
http://www.g2mil.com/ERGM.htm
During that time, I saw a lot of arguments and counterarguments. Those who didn't like battleships said they required a large crew, were expensive, and their main reason for being, the 16-inch guns, had a range of approximately 25 miles. Battleship opponents argued the ships' capabilities were limited. Stuck in the 1940s, they said. Battleship opponents acknowledged that the armored box launchers added to the Iowas during the 1980s brought a lot of firepower to the fleet. But by the early 2000s a lot of ships could fire those missiles, and thus the advantage had diminished. During that time the Navy wanted amphibious warfare ships to avoid enemy cruise missiles by keeping 25 nautical miles away from the shore. This requirement rationalized the ERGM. As I recall, the distance rationalized the high speed requirement for the ill-fated Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). Mind you, skeptics said any Marines on board would likely be quite seasick when they got to shore after traveling 25 nm in one of those things. Skeptics also said supporting amphibious operations across a 25 nm distance is so extremely impractical that it isn't doable real world. Nevertheless, there it was. And battleship critics used this as another reason to reject them.
"We could probably shoot a 9mm bullet a thousand miles out of a battleship's 16" gun but the firepower would be non-existent. 'Saboting' a 16" shell down to a 57 mm shell accomplishes nothing."
These statements are true, but with all due respect, they are irrelevant. A 13- or 11-inch shell constitutes heavy artillery by any definition. The Russians and Ukrainians are using 200 mm (approximately 8-inch) guns, but I am unaware of any land artillery in use today that comes close to battleship guns. Increasing the guns' effective range to 115 or even 41 miles significantly increases a battleship's value to the fleet. The reference to 9 mm bullets and 57 mm shells is not refutation.
"I'm wholly in favor of any increase in range THAT DOESN'T SACRIFICE FIREPOWER!"
Would adding the sub-caliber, saboted ammunition to the magazines have a detrimental effect by reducing the number of 16-inch projectiles carried? Yes, so far as that goes. In discussions of what ammunition, telescopic sight, red dot sight, bipod, night vision device, grenade launcher, or suppressor should or should not be added to an M4 carbine or M16 rifle, one likely comes across the expression, "the mission drives the gear." The mission drives what type and ratio of shells should be loaded aboard a battleship. The mission drives what you hang under the wings of an F/A-18. And so on.
Part 2
DeleteThis old page has interesting material, including some similar to that of the defunct USNFSA site. It is long, and you might not want to read it all. You might not agree with everything on the page. I might not either, and that is okay. I will call out some of the details most relevant to this discussion.
http://www.combatreform.org/battleships.htm
A quarter of the way down you see a map of Vietnam with the effective range of 8-inch, 16-inch, and enhanced 16-inch guns marked on it.
Quote: "...we could have had 100 mile range 16" guns that WOULD HAVE REACHED HANOI AND BEYOND. It's entirely possible that instead of Linebacker II B-52 air raids and aircrew losses we could have bombarded North Vietnam to a truce without risking ANY pilots and not going broke with expensive aircraft and munitions."
Can you really blame anyone for wanting those saboted 11-inch shells? The late Senator John McCain was a naval aviator who liked battleships.
A third of the way down, the page begins discussing ramjet projectiles for 16-inch guns. These projectiles could have a range of 460 miles, perhaps more, and have a devastating effect against hard targets like bunkers.
Four quotes:
"Scramjet projectiles, using technology now being developed for Navy and Air Force missiles, would enormously increase Navy firepower and reach -- by several orders of magnitude. The great penetration capability of these extremely high velocity rounds would be especially effective in attacking caves and deep installations."
"Two BBG-21s could, in 48 hours, have fired 2,600 precision-guided scramjet projectiles that could have precisely reached any target in Iraq within seven minutes and with a variety of warheads, including deep penetrators."
"With its at-sea replenishment capabilities and with full replenishment every third day (time depends on "hostile zone" location and available replenishment assets), one BBG-21 could hypothetically fire 433 such projectiles a day in a continuous firing attack for one week."
"A 500 mile or more scramjet projectile range capability would place within reach of the BBG-21's guns all of Syria and on to Baghdad from the Mediterranean; most of Iraq (including Baghdad) and most of Iran (including Teheran) from the Persian Gulf; the southern third of Afghanistan (including Kandahar) from the Arabian Sea; most of China's major cities and all of Korea. (The 500-mile range could well eventually be extended.) A pair of BBG-21s so equipped would serve as a powerful deterrent to any nation or collusion of nations with designs on taking advantage of our otherwise overly extended conventional warfare capabilities. Also just adding two BBG-21s to the fleet could, when scramjet projectiles come on line, enormously improve the Navy's ability to simultaneously cope with two major regional nation-state conflicts."
Would we expend the specialized ammunition on shore bombardment? Of course not. But if the battleships had been kept in service and ammunition continued to evolve, our troops could have gotten fire support from battleships in the early stages of the war in Afghanistan. The shells could have pierced caves. The fire support probably would have been delivered in a more timely manner than air strikes from a carrier.
Is that not a force multiplier?
But with classical 16-inch shells, useful firepower in that conflict would be zero. There have been a lot of technological advances since the 1940s and we should make use of them where appropriate.
"It's actually interesting to see how much of an aberration Vulcano 155 is, it being the only saboted artillery projectile in development: every other long range 155 round project is either using base bleed, rocket assist, guidance, or a mix of methods."
DeleteI think it is all interesting.
I wrote the 13-inch shell had a range of 41 miles, though this source says it would have been just under 40. (Of course, we never test-fired it.) If you do a search on Mark 148, you will find some details. Just above is the Mark 147, which would have increased a 16-inch shell's range without reducing the diameter.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php#Additional_Pictures
This is speculation on my part, but those behind the 13-inch project and the 11-inch proposal may have believed they couldn't achieve the ranges they wanted without sub-caliber munitions.
You're overlooking a few things.
DeleteAs you move from 'simple as dirt', dumb naval shells to scramjet powered, guided shells, or whatever, the cost soars and the reliability (due to the complexity) plummets.
A 13-in or 11-in sabot would be a useful weapon IF WE DIDN'T ALREADY HAVE THE SAME OR MUCH, MUCH GREATER CAPABILITY. I'm referring, of course, to cruise missiles. Even the venerable Tomahawk has a thousand mile range and a thousand pound warhead! Why would we, even for the briefest moment, contemplate a massive and massively expensive development effort to add a few miles to a battleship's gun range when we already have a 1000/1000 weapon in production? And, before you reply that a scramjet sabot wouldn't cost anywhere near what a Tomahawk does, consider the LRLAP which was 'just' a simple rocket with a modest goal of 70 miles or so and it wound up costing a projected $1M per round before it was cancelled (and that cost was still headed up!).
We keep trying to make every asset and weapon a do-everything, win-the-war-single-handed wonder weapon. Why can't we just let each weapon do what it's good at and do it cost-efficiently. Let naval guns provide very heavy firepower within 20 miles. If you want to hit targets beyond that, use bombers, cruise missiles, MLRS, artillery, or whatever.
If we can, for nearly no cost, increase the range of a naval gun without sacrificing explosive firepower, sure, do it. Otherwise, let other existing weapons do their jobs.
I don't know how much the 11-inch shell or 16-inch scramjet would cost. That, I admit.
DeleteI did state above that the 13-inch shell would cost as much at the 5-inch ERGM. Within its range, the 13-inch shell would be more cost effective than a missile.
The LRAP was a 155 mm (6.1-inch) projectile and thus probably was much more difficult to develop than any of the above proposed options for a 16-inch gun.
"how much the 11-inch shell or 16-inch scramjet would cost."
DeleteCost is an issue, for sure - sometimes it's a disqualifying issue, as in the case of the LRLAP. However, the more important consideration is whether there's a COMPELLING case for the weapon's use. If we can hit the same targets with the same (or greater!) firepower with other weapons, then there is no compelling case for developing a sabot, scramjet, whatever. If, on the other hand, there is a compelling case and no other weapon can fill the requirement then we need to develop the weapon and cost becomes almost irrelevant.
We too often tend to look at weapon development as a technical challenge for its own sake rather than as a response to a compelling combat requirement. Just because we COULD develop a longer range battleship gun/shell doesn't mean we SHOULD. Do you see the sense in that?
"We too often tend to look at weapon development as a technical challenge for its own sake rather than as a response to a compelling combat requirement."
DeleteThat is a very interesting observation. There could be a lot of truth to that. I don't know anyone involved with the USNFSA, but I think they were sincere. (Yes, that's just my opinion.)
I think a bigger issue, though, is the influence of defense contractors on politicians and military procurement. I think the people who make missiles make more money than the people who make guns. I think the companies supporting aircraft carriers have more money than those who would support battleships. I don't want to violate the blog's no-politics rule, so I'll stop.
Again, I don't know how much an 11-inch shell or 16-inch scramjet would cost. If anyone who has an idea is reading this, please chime in. With the information I currently have, I still think the Mark 148 13-inch shell would be a worthwhile project if battleships ever come back.
" I still think the Mark 148 13-inch shell would be a worthwhile project"
DeleteWhat compelling combat requirement do you see that cries out for this 13 in shell? What target set can it destroy that no other existing artillery, MLRS, HIMARS, ATACMS, bomber, or cruise missile can't handle?
I'm not trying to win an argument. I sincerely am curious what compelling use case you might see. I'd love to add such a use case to my own pro-battleship thoughts!
As I recall, multiple contributors to the USNFSA had infantry backgrounds. They wanted that fire support. They may have envisioned scenarios in which the sea was the only source of support, at least in the initial stages of operations. This might not just be an amphibious assault but an airborne assault deeper into a country. There may be little or no land artillery, MLRS, HIMARS, or ATACMS available. A battleship was considered potentially superior to air support, and cruise missiles weren't considered fire support. One author criticized the concept of the Tactical Tomahawk, considering it a contradiction of terms. Some of the material was written in the 2001 time frame. It's been a long time since I've read about the initial stages of combat in Afghanistan, but I do recall reading that the mountains cast shadows that made air support difficult.
Delete"They wanted that fire support."
DeleteAt what range and for what purpose?
One of the things that no one considers is the relevant tactical situation when gun support is needed. Let's face it, we're talking amphibious assault. It's difficult to imagine a scenario when ground troops would be engaged and not have their own gun support (artillery) other than during the initial stages of an amphibious assault.
So, consider what that means regarding gun support. It means that the ground force has only recently landed and is very close to the shore. If, for example, they were twenty or thirty miles inland then they'd have long since brought their own artillery ashore and could provide their own gun support. So, in the initial stages when they need naval gun support it will be only close range and long range gun support won't be necessary or relevant. They'll be fighting an enemy that's meters away, not fifty miles.
If we need to, say, interdict enemy reinforcements as at Normandy, that would have been worked into the assault plan and aircraft or paratroopers or whatever would have been allocated to that task. As at Normandy, naval gun support would be focused on the immediate ground force front. If things are going so well that naval guns can think about targets 30-50 miles away, then the ground force would have long since brought their own artillery ashore and, again, no need for naval guns.
"airborne assault deeper into a country. There may be little or no land artillery, MLRS, HIMARS, or ATACMS available."
Again, this was the Normandy case. We dropped paratroops deep inland with no support and acknowledged that we had to link up with the main force within 24-48 hours or we'd lose them. If a commander concocts a scheme to deploy infantry deep inland with no support and no viable plan to quickly link up, he would be incompetent and should be fired. Making up scenarios in which we have no fire support as a way to justify a new weapon is not a compelling case - it's operational incompetence.
Again, we need to distinguish between gee-wouldn't-it-be-nice wish lists and actual compelling combat cases. If we have truly unlimited funds and resources then, sure, let's develop all the wish list items. In the real world, though, we need to remain disciplined and focused and concentrate on the compelling combat cases.
Just because we technically can do something doesn't mean we should do it or that it's wise to do. Am I making my point?
"If a commander concocts a scheme to deploy infantry deep inland with no support and no viable plan to quickly link up, he would be incompetent and should be fired."
DeleteFair enough.
I would have to do more digging for information on the early days of Afghanistan and the performance of air support to provide a more complete response. I don't have time right now.
Another use case for long range guns would be reducing air crew losses, mentioned with excerpts from the Combat Reform site above.
"Just because we technically can do something doesn't mean we should do it or that it's wise to do."
True.
"Another use case for long range guns would be reducing air crew losses,"
DeleteAbsolutely! And we already have cruise missiles to do that! If we're willing to risk a $80M aircraft and highly trained pilot then we can certainly justify the cost of a LOT of cruise missiles. Again, it's difficult to come up with a compelling case for long range naval guns.
Here's another thought regarding long range and target sets. It's highly unlikely there would ever be a scenario calling for area bombardment at very long ranges. Very long range targets tend to be known, fixed targets like headquarters, bases, ports, etc. They're not area targets like an armored division on the move or a camouflaged, dug in infantry unit. Thus, the ideal weapon for a long range, known, fixed target IS a cruise missile. A naval gun, unless you're going to add guidance packages and terminal sensors ($$$$$) to the naval munition, is not suited for precision targeting and, again, we already have long range, precision guided weapons called cruise missiles.
"Very long range targets tend to be known, fixed targets like headquarters, bases, ports, etc. They're not area targets"
DeleteImportant point, thank you.
I will keep my eyes open for anything new, anything different or original on enhanced 16-inch guns. Even if you or others don't agree with it, it might still be interesting and thought-provoking. But I don't have particularly high hopes. The newer literature on long-range naval guns is about rail guns (a technology that has not matured despite a lot of work) and already discussed on this blog.
Since the Iowas arent coming back, if we want to seriously look at 16in (or any battleship sized gun), we have to consider that they'll be brand new. And herein lies the ability to gain at least a bit of range. The North Carolinas and SoDaks used 16in/45s. The Iowas improved with 16in/50s. Why not continue the trend and increase the caliber. We probably wouldnt even need to significantly alter the original design of the mounts to compensate for the weight/balance with todays improved hydraulics!! Im not sure how much increase wed need to gain say, 5 miles, but itd be likely worth it, and quite simple to do. The thoughts of 50-100 mile ranges with expensive ammo doesnt seem worth the expense, as other systems and joint warfare is what's called for at that point. But engineering in a few extra miles of range into a new gun is relatively simple and basically free!!!
DeleteDidn't the Navy have this same issue when they didn't equip the F-4 fighters with cannons over Vietnam? It seems like the lessons of yesterday (you never know how things work out in war so be flexible) are lost or not taught.
ReplyDeleteSo now were going to send hundreds of sailors into harms way lacking enough weaponry to make the adversary and hostile natives stay away from our ships.
Don't get me wrong missiles definitely have they're uses but I'm seeing today's ships lack weapons to bombard islands but even defend against speed boats (USS Cole).
The Navy compounded the early missiles' reliability problems by attempting to train fighter pilots CHEAPLY, meaning those pilots were utterly ignorant of HOW to fight; and imposing restrictive rules-of-engagement that denied the pilots the range advantage the missiles were supposed to provide.
Delete"Didn't the Navy have this same issue when they didn't equip the F-4 fighters with cannons over Vietnam?"
DeleteIf you look at the historical kill/loss records, an interesting trend emerges: in the same time period,flying the F-4C and firing essentially the same version of sidewinder, the USN Phantoms outperform their USAF counterparts. All USN pilots have at least some idea of the concept of dogfighting, weapons envelopes, and maneuvering to advantageous angles to maximise missile energy. Meanwhile, USAF pilots didn't train for dogfighting and tended to fire as soon as they had tone, whether they were in a good angle or not.
It's worth noting that Colonel Robin Olds and the Triple Nickel Squadron were able to gain a fair amount of sucess with their F-4Cs.
/Terry
"An enemy’s island base needs to be destroyed. How do we do it? The obvious answer is we stand off a thousand miles and launch cruise missiles at it. The less obvious but likely more realistic answer is that we used up most of our cruise missile inventory in the first month of the war and we, essentially, have none left and our industry, which is geared towards a peacetime production of a hundred missiles per year, can’t even begin to supply replacements in any useful quantities and what few we get are reserved for only the very highest priority targets."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't this also apply toward the Chinese? With the noise the Marines have been making about their island hopping missile trucks, I'm starting to wonder if they're hoping to force the same consideration against the Chinese. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit.
"Doesn't this also apply toward the Chinese?"
DeleteOf course!
It strikes me that they have only 3 options of dealing with the Marines' missile trucks on islands:
Delete1. Cruise missile and ballistic missile strikes. This reduces their available missile inventory - every suppression mission on an island is a missile they aren't shooting at us.
2. Airstrikes. The Marines don't have air defenses, and their carrier air wings could do a leisurely bombing campaign to sanitize marine missile islands. Hwever, this would burn air wing spares and flight hours on sanitizing islands, which would reduce their uptime against our carriers.
3. Shore bombardment. This is the cheapest solution; however, to get into range for shore bombardment would put their ships within the radar horizon, allowing the missile trucks to target them. They could try risk their corvettes to sanitise the islands, but if I were them, I wouldn't consider it a good trade.
But perhaps the goal of the Marine isn't really to be a credible antiship threat. It strikes me that in a sense, this is akin to mining the waters. You're trying to be enough of a nuisance that the Chinese have to decide to either waste weapons on sanitizing islands where you might be, or else avoid those islands.
It strikes me that the purpose of mining isn't really to destroy ships or tanks, tho that's welcome when it happens. Rather, it's to create an obstacle in the terrain to either slow the enemy, or force them away and lead them to where you want them to go (shaping the battlefield).
" reduces their available missile inventory"
DeleteUnless the Chinese military is being run by accountants, this isn't a concern.
"burn air wing spares and flight hours"
It's a WAR! No one is counting flight hours or spare parts.
I'm also not sure you grasp how little effort and munitions it would take to eliminate a couple of trucks and a platoon of troops.
"Unless the Chinese military is being run by accountants, this isn't a concern."
Delete"It's a WAR! No one is counting flight hours or spare parts."
I'm not talking from the economic case, I'm talking from the logistics case.
Missiles, aircraft, spares, these are all consumable items with long lead times. I'm thinking that if we can make the Chinese waste their missiles on what are essentially worthless targets, we're hampering their operations. They don't have tenders and can't reload at sea or forward atoll bases.
Like you said, the flow is that ships will execute their mission, then return to base to reload. Say the Chinese fleet flushes their attack cells and sterilises all the islands in this AO. That's great, they don't have any risk anymore, but now they're short on missiles to counter us when we attack them.
Sure, people aren't counting flight hours in war, and you can get by with minimal maintennance for a while, but eventually their air wing is gonna havta be grounded for repairs and maintennance if they wanna keep flying. That potentially takes another tool away from them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that this is a war winning tactic. I just think that for relatively little cost and effort, we can constrain the enemy somewhat. Every little bit helps. Like we say in the infantry: ounces make pounds.
"I'm talking from the logistics case."
DeleteI honestly don't know what to make of this. You realize that the South China Sea is China's backyard, right? They won't have any resupply problems. They're just hours away from resupply. You also realize that our resupply borders on impossible, right?
"eventually their air wing is gonna havta be grounded for repairs and maintennance"
You realize that's not how air wings operate in war, right?
Are you serious or are you just pulling my leg?
"They won't have any resupply problems. They're just hours away from resupply."
DeleteAssuming a throwdown around the Spratlys, that's 520 nautical miles from Hainan Island, or 26 hours at a transit speed of 20 knots. That's a bit more than a few. In the most optimistic case, it represents a timeframe where PLAN ships can be attacked and can't shoot back. (More realistically their magazines would be partially expended.) If they're heading back to Hainan to rearm, they're not in the south china sea, and this means there's a modicum of freedom for our shipping and convoys to move.
(I have heard speculation that the Chinese intend to use their carrier groups to play hide and seek in the SCS, drawing away USN CSGs from reinforcing Taiwan and acting as a fleet in being to restrict convoy moments through the SCS,)
"You realize that's not how air wings operate in war, right?"
For every x hours of flight time, an aircraft has to spend y hours in maintennance, being inspected and readied for the next mission. Take engines - once you reach the specified flight hours, you've gotta pull the engines for servicing and swap in new engines. You can stretch and defer maintennance, of course, but that just risks the plane breaking down on the cat (or even worse, in midair). At some point they have to cease flight ops in order to conduct maintennance. Now, of course, they would be cylcing their aircraft to avoid an all or nothing scenario, but that still means that they won't have the full strength of their air wing. The tool has been degraded.
As you recall, you've used the movie Greyhound to illustrate this point: destroyer Keeling fires too many depth charges against a U-boat early in the movie and has to ration the remaining supply of depth charges, restricting its tactical options.
You seem to believe that China, despite having a numerically larger fleet than the US, will be crippled by resupply requirements despite having replenishment ships and operating in their own backyard whereas the US, with a smaller fleet and operating many thousands of miles from any base, will have no problem.
DeleteYou also seem to think that China using a tiny handful of missiles to attack Marine units will find itself critically short of missiles despite having, by all reports, more missiles than we do. Further, you seem to feel that the US, with concerning shortages of existing missiles and little industrial capacity to replace them, will have no problem with missile expenditures.
You also seem to think that Chinese air wings will quickly fly themselves into maintenance induced inactivity while US air wings, which routinely deploy for nearly a year at a time will have no problem.
Did that about sum it up?
I say this semi-gently ... you appear to have no idea how naval operations and logistics are conducted. Please do some study of historical naval operations before you comment again. You'll find it enlightening and educational. Good luck and enjoy!
"Further, you seem to feel that the US, with concerning shortages of existing missiles and little industrial capacity to replace them, will have no problem with missile expenditures."
DeleteWe're worse off than them and we need all the advantages we can get. A couple of trucks and a few squads of Marines for a dozen chinese missiles is better than trading destroyers for those missiles.
Of course they can rearm easier than we can. But we should make every effort we can to chip away at their advantages. Otherwise, we might as well give up before we even fight.
A big advantage rarely mentioned was known during World War II. When aircraft (and now missiles) are inbound, they are seen by lookouts or radar and a siren goes off or people shout warnings. Everyone stops work and dashes to shelter.
ReplyDeleteIf you have an enemy battleship or cruiser offshore, they can loiter for days and open fire at any time. Since the gun rounds are supersonic, explosions occurred with no warning. This killed lots of people and made the rest feel helpless. They would do this on purpose, firing a salvo every couple hours all day and night. Soldiers couldn't sleep and little work was done.
Large caliber guns are useful for warships, but they must be mounted on large ships capable of absorbing the recoil of their firing- and God forbid the Navy try to reduce the construction costs by omitting the armored magazine meant to prevent battle damage from igniting the onboard ammo and blowing the ship to Kingdom Come!
ReplyDeleteThen there's the fact the US hasn't used battleship guns in DECADES, meaning we'll have to build new factories to build the guns and their ammo, as well as train workers for these factories, unless we "make nice" with Russia so we can import Russian guns and ammo for our own use.
Here's hoping our government remains stable enough to invest and KEEP INVESTING the necessary time and money to build those factories, train those workers, and keep them employed. We also have to build additional shipyards capable of building large ships capable of mounting large caliber guns, as our existing shipyards will likely be busy building replacements for worn out aircraft carriers, and additional shipyards will be helpful in case any ships require battle damage repairs in war; build steel mills capable of manufacturing armor plate for those ships; train workers for the relevant industries, and keeping them employed.
I haven't had the chance to read through all the comments here, but.....both.
ReplyDeleteGuns and missiles are complementary systems.
Lutefisk
Today's modern naval guns fire at very high speeds, for instance Burke's 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun fires at 16-20 rounds/min in auto mode, China's H/PJ-38 130mm gun (70 caliber, on type 052D and type 055) fires at 40 rounds/min. There is no need to install many of them.
ReplyDeleteFiring toward far away targets, accuracy is a problem. To fix it, you need to use projectiles, effectively missiles - artillery to replace first stage rocket of a missile. To attack far away targets, accuracy is a must as no one can afford to fire tens of thousands rounds.
To make 8" naval gun is not cost effective. Since it aims for long range, accuracy is always a problem. To compensate, you need fire many rounds (good for movie) which is not as cost effective as precision guided missiles.
If we can get the cost per round to around 100 to 200 thousand, that would be an affordable cost. We're already regularly firing millions and billions of dollars of missiles and other weapons - we fired 700 Tomahawks and dropped 5,000 JDAMs during OIF, that's 835 MILLION dollars spent, not counting the cost of the platforms - DDGs, SSGNs, bombers, fighters, CVNs - that fired the weapons.
Delete"To make 8" naval gun is not cost effective. Since it aims for long range, accuracy is always a problem"
DeleteHave you actually read about the Mk71 development and testing? The rounds were laser guided and spot-on accurate during firing tests.
But, that only works when you can lase the target, usually from the air, which would be difficult to do in a contested environment.
Delete"But, that only works when you can lase the target..."
DeleteInfantry units- usually special operations forces- can and have carried laser target designators into battle. If a Marine or Army landing force can get ashore with such a designator, the marines or soldiers can designate targets for a warship, destroying targets too tough for any infantry weapon to handle.
We'll have to remember to send a thank you note to the enemy for allowing these magical special forces to land, unhindered, and find and designate all the enemy bunkers, again unhindered. Seems odd that a heavily defended beach would allow these ghosts to do that but, hey, that's modern military thinking - everything we do will work and the enemy won't attempt to interfere, at all!
DeleteBack to reality ..
So why do you think we have so many laser guided bombs?
DeleteI'm actually quoting ComNavOps from 2019:
Deletehttps://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2019/08/chinese-type-05-amphibious-assault.html
Scroll down in the comments and you'll see where he made that remark.
"get ashore with such a designator, the marines or soldiers can designate targets for a warship"
DeleteOnly in very specific and limited circumstances. If lasing from the ground (meaning, not hills/mountains), the distance is limited to a hundred yards or so, barring flat open plains. That's of no use.
Lasing from an elevation is quite useful if it can be achieved but, again, that's a limited circumstance.
Lasing at sea, from a ship, is quite doable and useful in anti-ship combat (Mk71 8", for example).
Lasing at sea, from an aircraft, would be limited to enemy vessels that have little or no AAW capability otherwise the lasing aircraft would be shot down before it could do its job.
So, lasing is doable and useful under limited circumstances.
An 8 inch precision round is easily found by adapting existing tech to a different caliber size. Take the M1156 kit for the 155mm howitzer. Once adapted to an 8 inch gun it could easily fill the roll of precision long range hard hitting fires. Bonus, it's current unit costs is slightly above $13,000 per round. That's a steal when it's compared against Excalibur guided shells or tomahawk missiles.
Delete"M1156 kit"
DeleteThis appears to be standard GPS guidance which would be great for low tech/threat, peacetime use but is highly questionable in peer combat where GPS may well be unavailable.
The military has recognized the vulnerability of standard GPS and has gone to either so-called 'hardened' GPS or alternate guidance mechanisms (INS, terrain, etc.).
I've seen no data on realistic combat use (meaning, GPS contested environments). One can imagine a round being 'hijacked' using spoofed GPS signals.
Are you aware of any realistic combat testing?
This also does not address anti-ship 8" naval gun use as GPS is useless against moving targets.
More details on the Mk71 here.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.g2mil.com/8inchguns.htm
Many fail to understand the need for bombardment firepower. If the Marines say there are a thousand bad guys dug into the side of a hill, they don't know the exact grid coordinate of each fighting position. They'll want 500 rounds to blanket one-square mile. That is not practical for $2 million missiles.
If gun is brought in to the equation, there is the issue that the enemy might have shore based anti ship missiles and that the range of gun based artillery means risk bringing the ship close to shore.
ReplyDeleteAnother option is a MLRS fire support ship.
"means risk"
DeleteWar is risk.
There's something to be said for engaging with a weapon that outranges your enemy. A common Taliban tactic was to engage from beyond 600 yards with recoilless rifles, PKM, RPG and mortars; the M4A1 carbine with M855* ammo has an effective range of 400 yards, which meant that our troops would be outranged, unable to return fire unless they could call in mortars or other fires. GPMGs and HMGs could counter Taliban fires, but these were often vehicle mounted and thus the priority target, necessitating rifle squads use Javelin ATGMs to return fire, this being the longest ranged weapon organic to the squad.
DeleteOn the ground side, Artillery branch has no small amount of angst at the thought of the 39-cal Paladin having half the range of its 52-cal European counterparts - hence the Army's efforts to develop longer ranged artillery.
*The "new" standard issue M855A1 round, introduced in 2014, increases the M4A1's effective range by an order of magnitude; M855A1 can achieve consistent lethal hits up to 550 yards, and consistent wounding hits out to 650 yards, thanks to a more lethal bullet design that fragments consistently at a lower velocity treshold compared to M855.
"There's something to be said for engaging with a weapon that outranges your enemy."
DeleteOf course there is! HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that EVERY weapon we have has to outrange EVERY weapon the enemy has. Should every rifleman drag an artillery piece around with them so that they won't be outranged with just their rifles? That would be silly. If you're taking long range fire then you call on other assets that have the range to take up the fight. Trying to make every weapon we have a million mile ranged weapon is counterproductive and unaffordable.
The same risk also applies to air strikes which risk the attacking aircrafts.
DeleteIf we look at the last 60 years of American practice: ranged fires basically falls into several brackets:
Delete- infantry mortars
- 155mm guns (towed & SPG), 11 miles
- rocket artillery (MLRS & HIMARS), 20-60 miles (unguided rockets max at 20, G-MLRS does 60 miles)
- Tactical ballistic missile, 100 miles
- Air strikes: 30-200 miles.
While we have rocket and TBM systems, the fires we can deliver with these systems are limited and dwarfed by tactical air. And historically that's worked out okay for us, we've always had more tac air on call than our adversaries have had long range arty.
We don't have the same investment into long range artillery as other nations do because we use the Air Force's fighters as our long range artillery: what the Russians would use cruise missile strikes for, we send tac air to deal with. At the end of the day, we're overreliant on a single platform to provide long range fires. SAMs can suppress and restrict aircraft operations, and shorter ranged guns mean we have a much smaller swath of targets we can service, which is a problem when operating on a large wide frontage (and don't get me started on the difficulty of constantly moving supply to feed the guns, god that is so much ass)
#ComNavOps I just came across this article
ReplyDeletehttps://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/maritime-strike/
In this article there was a section
HISTORY OF AIRPOWER AND MARITIME STRIKE
American military interest in employing land-based air power in counter maritime operations has risen and fallen over the decades, along with the perceived naval surface threat of
enemies and potential adversaries. In World War II, the US Army Air Forces conducted reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare, mine laying, and anti-shipping attacks against the
German and Japanese navies. But for decades after World War II, interest in the Air Force’s maritime operations languished with a lack of significant enemy naval threats. In that
era, the Air Force realigned to focus on nuclear bombardment and minimized conventional maritime operations while the Navy de-emphasized surface warfare and focused on building
up naval aviation.
Of Course as the Author is an Ex-Airforce Personnel, he will have bias tilted towards Airforce
But to what extend this is true
and can USN Air Arm or US AirForce or combine effort can recreate this capability ?
You seem to be asking, can the AF and/or Navy prosecute maritime (anti-ship) warfare. Yes, we can but we have two major challenges:
Delete1. Targeting. We have no long range, survivable detection/targeting assets. As I constantly say, a million mile missile is useless if your targeting is at the horizon. We MUST solve this and I've presented multiple approaches to this throughout the blog.
2. We have very few long range, anti-ship weapons and the ones we do have, have vanishingly small inventories. We must settle on our preferred weapons and build up our inventories.
Combustion light gas guns are a way to increase the range of artillery to a degree that current projectiles compete well with rockets at a much lower cost. Much of the design work has already been completed.
ReplyDeleteHome
combustion light gas gun
At a quick glance, this seems like a massive equipment requirement to launch a very small projectile. What am I missing?
Delete