The Navy’s trend in ship design has been towards lighter and
lighter built ships with less and less defensive capabilities. Well, let’s step in and put a stop to
that! Since the Navy clearly doesn’t
know how to design a ship with defensive capabilities, let’s do it for them.
We’re all familiar with the concept of a carrier group’s
layered defense. Aircraft provide wide
ranging defense against search aircraft and provide the initial defensive layer
against an attack. Standard missiles
offer the possibility of very long range intercepts. Escort ships range dozens of miles out to
provide extended ASW and AAW protection.
Medium range defense is provided by closer escorts and medium range
defensive missiles. Various missiles,
electronic warfare systems, and CIWS provide close in defense.
Similarly, an individual ship’s defense should consist of
more – much more! – than just Standard/ESSM missiles and one or two RAM/SeaRAM,
as the Navy seems to believe. A ship’s
defense should be a multi-faceted, layered construct. Let’s consider the individual components.
Outer Layer
Middle Layer
Inner Layer
A few supplementary comments are warranted:
Sensors – 360 degree EO/IR with targeting capability (IRST)
in addition to supplement and largely replace radar. Such a system would involve far more than the
current one EO sensor on ships today.
This would be several, perhaps dozens, of sensors each scanning a
portion of the sky and acting as a single, integrated system. During war, this may actually be the main
sensor system so that the ship doesn’t have to radiate.
UAVs – This has been posted on previously. Every ship should sail with several dozen
small, stealthy, passive UAVs for establishing situational awareness. These are cheap and expendable. They must be stealthy. It’s pointless to try to establish
situational awareness if doing so gives away your own position. We must be able to see without being seen.
Long range missiles – I hesitate to even include long range
missiles as I believe their use will be quite limited, bordering on never. No enemy is going to present high altitude
targets other than ballistic missiles which are a special case. So many people forget that long range
missiles can only engage high altitude targets because of the radar horizon
limitation. Beyond the radar horizon,
radar can only see targets at altitude.
Close In – Attackers will get through. It’s guaranteed. Even in scripted exercises, they always
do. Every ship should have several to
dozens of close in weapon systems instead of the nearly useless single (or no!)
close in weapon on today’s ships.
Inner Layer - The inner layer has the most components and
yet the Navy devotes the least amount of effort and resources to it. The Zumwalt has no close in weapons. The DDG(X) concept graphic has only two RAM
launchers for close in defense. The
Burkes have only one CIWS.
EW/ECM is the most common and, historically, the most
effective anti-air component and yet the Navy devotes very little attention or
resources to it. Even the current SEWIP
upgrades are a limited effort, poorly executed.
Focus - So, what does the Navy focus its attention and
resources on? That’s right, the most
expensive and least likely to be used component: long range missiles.
- UAVs – small, stealthy, wide ranging UAVs providing passive aerial sensor coverage
- Standard Missiles – long range anti-air defense
- Passive Sonar – long range detection
- EO/IR – long range visual and infrared detection integrated into a 360 deg hemispherical sensor system
- ESM – very long range signals analysis (Outboard/COBLU and S-3 Shadow type sensing) providing detection and triangulation
- Stealth – do all the above without, in turn, being detected
- EO/IR - medium range visual and infrared detection integrated into a 360 deg hemispherical sensor system combined with fire control
- ESSM – medium range anti-air defense
- EW/ECM – detection, jamming, spoofing, etc.
- Stealth – do all the above without, in turn, being detected
- EW/ECM – point defense jamming, spoofing, etc.
- RAM/SeaRAM – close in anti-air defense
- CIWS – close in anti-air defense
- Decoys – integrated into Aegis
- Stealth – do all the above without, in turn, being detected
The USN has been dysfunctional since forever. Its been almost 49 years since I first reported to boot camp. The faces at the top have changed but the mindsets have not. For cripes sake we are still building DDG 51s a design that dates to 1980!!! Steel first cut December 1988. But commissioned on July 4th, 1991. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteSorry posted before done. Operator error. But even that ship was criticized by all the compromises imposed thanks to politics and a fairly long gestation as a result. At least they didnt draw out the construction. Will the USN ever build a suitable and useful Surface Combatant in a reasonable timeframe? Odds are poor.
DeleteLong range missiles can be useful using the Cooperative Engagement Capacity when the outer screen detects and feed the targeting info to the cruisers. By the time the target gets into the cruiser's detection range the missile is in the air and closing on the target. The radar on the missile could also lock on to the target. The E-2Ds can add to that as well for low level. Drones as missile trucks could be fed solutions by the screens too.
ReplyDeleteI know there is that problem of emissions but its at least a part of the defense system.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/02/us-navy-awards-sewip-block-3-backfit-on-more-destroyers/
ReplyDeleteThis block has electronic attack capability. Block 4 is a future upgrade. Passive defense is another layer of defensive capabilty & I see that you have a post on this.
Do you know if there has been any work- -even just theoretical computer simulations- on using large guns with high explosive shells, aimed by modern fire control systems, to take out missiles? It seems like that would be an elegant solution- you use the big guns to take out mass swarms of missiles or drones, then use interceptor missiles or CIWS to take out individual missiles that leak through. But as far as I know this has never been explored as a modern option.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, up to now, USN has no defense against hypersonic missiles, not even claims to have any.
ReplyDeleteRecently displayed YJ-19 hypersonic anti-ship missile is a particular concern. It is powered by ramjet (with an obvious air inlet but details were covered). Later, state media mentioned it is submarine launched.
China's definition of a hypersonic missile is
1. always above 5Mha while in atmosphere
2. high maneuverability
3. whole fly path controllable
This means once a submarine gets target information from another platform (drone, satellite, ... etc.), it fires YJ-19 and forget. Since it travels very fast, no mid course guidance is required. For instance, a ship sails at 30 knots, 300 miles away from this submarine, let's use a conservative average 6Mha speed of YJ-19 , ~ 4 minutes later, it will hit this ship. At that time, the ship sails about 2.3 miles. For such a small range, the missile's radar can easily catch it while switches on.
A fleet's defense circle against submarine is far smaller than against air and surface targets.