The Navy is looking to develop an anti-air missile for use
in submarines (and surface ships).
The War Zone website has an interesting article about this with a decent discussion of the weapon and some of the benefits and drawbacks.[1] The weapon is presented as a modular miracle that can include hypersonic versions, various ranges, and various packaging options and will be capable of destroying everything that flies, from drones to hypersonic ballistic missiles. Truly a miracle weapon … as all new weapons are.
Will this be a common sense, evolutionary development or
enhancement of an existing, proven weapon?
No! It will be revolutionary!
How many weapon systems just over the last few years have promised to revolutionize naval warfare? Dozens!
How many weapon systems have actually revolutionized naval
warfare? None!
And yet we keep making the claim. Hmm …
But, let’s get back to the specifics on this particular
system.
The article describes the potential use by submarines to
shoot down ballistic missiles in the launch/boost stage, at any point in
flight, or for terminal defense as well as for use in providing AAW protection
for carriers and, of course, for shooting down local ASW helos and patrol
planes.
To be fair, the article does briefly mention a few potential
issues with this and we can think of others.
A submarine operating tactically close enough to a surface
group to provide anti-air protection is subject to the ages old problem of
blue-on-blue friendly fire. No surface
ship is going to allow an unknown submarine to operate near it on the
possibility that it might be friendly.
Submarines are a sink-on-sight target, no questions asked. It is the responsibility of the submarine to not
operate near any other friendly submarine or ship because of the inability to distinguish
friend from foe.
Every subsurface to air missile cuts into the very limited
missile inventory of the submarine and reduces its offensive capability which
is, of course, the submarine’s entire reason for being. A submarine’s need for subsurface to air
(SSAM) capability would be extremely rare.
Let’s face it, if you’re a submarine captain and you find you need SSAM
very often then you’re not doing your job correctly!
A submerged missile launch requires the submarine to come to
a shallow depth – generally the opposite of what a submarine wants to do in
combat.
A missile launch creates a great deal of noise, heat, and
visual display. In other words, it
likely gives away the submarine’s position.
Most obviously, the major issue is targeting. A submerged submarine has extremely limited
air search capabilities so where is the targeting for all these wondrous
anti-air scenarios coming from? Even the
local anti-air scenario presents difficulties in targeting. You may be able to hear a helo and have a
general direction but that’s not enough for an anti-air launch. Surface ships with exact radar pictures have
a hard time establishing exact targeting for SAMs and a submerged submarine has
far less chance. Simply launching a SSAM
and hoping it can find a target somewhere in the hemisphere around the sub is a
recipe for wasting missiles.
As far as receiving targeting from a remote platform, it is
challenging, at best, to send real time targeting data to a submerged submarine
without unacceptable risk to the submarine.
This also ignores the practical question of what platform could survive
long enough to produce targeting data deep inside enemy waters.
Discussion
The SSAM inventory on a submarine would be very small unless
someone wanted to abandon the submarine’s primary mission and instead perform
AAW. Is a very small inventory, meaning
a very small AAW contribution, worth risking the submarine and compromising its
main role? I think not. This smacks of yet another example of the
Navy’s misguided attempts to make every platform a single-handed war
winner. We have ships designed
specifically for the AAW role. Let them
do their job and let submarines do theirs which is offensive operations. Do we want to risk (due to friendly or
unfriendly fire) a several billion dollar sub trying to shoot down a million
dollar missile when there are surface ships (Aegis) designed and suited exactly
for that task?
Some might say that a submarine could be the unseen, forward
AAW “shooter” with targeting provided by some other platform in a scenario
analogous to the unmanned USV “shooter” vessel being placed far in front of a
surface group and cued by a Burke or patrol plane . Of course, that ignores the problem of how to
communicate real time targeting data to a far distant, submerged submarine (as
well as the blue-on-blue issue). As far
as I know, that’s a practical impossibility.
That said, it might be worthwhile having a half dozen or so
SSAMs for the local defense scenario (anti-ASW helo) if the targeting issue can
be solved.
There’s a reason why there has not been wide spread adoption
of this technology among world navies.
_____________________________
The U.S. Navy has shared details about its vision for a new family of modular surface-to-air missiles that is expected to include a version that will arm future variants of the Virginia class submarine.[1]
The War Zone website has an interesting article about this with a decent discussion of the weapon and some of the benefits and drawbacks.[1] The weapon is presented as a modular miracle that can include hypersonic versions, various ranges, and various packaging options and will be capable of destroying everything that flies, from drones to hypersonic ballistic missiles. Truly a miracle weapon … as all new weapons are.
The United States Navy (USN) is seeking a new, modular interceptor to serve as the basis for the Naval Modular Missile (NMM) program, a next-generation initiative designed to revolutionize surface naval capabilities … [1]
How many weapon systems just over the last few years have promised to revolutionize naval warfare? Dozens!
https://www.twz.com/sea/u-s-navy-is-seeking-a-submarine-launched-anti-air-missile
Haven't TKMS already developed this system?
ReplyDeleteSSAM for local defense eg. anti helo means the submarine will have to surface or go to periscope depth, revealing its precise location. It's seems rather dangerous.
ReplyDeleteDepends how far the helo is operating from it's base ship or if the base ship has already been sunk.
DeleteSurely 1 VLS with quad packed ESSM's would be enough for anti-helo ops you just need to deal with targeting.
ReplyDeleteWe have heat seekers so can we do a SAM with acoustic seeking since Helo's are loud?
Whoa! Most previous efforts looked at adapting small, land/air based missiles such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder which is half the diameter of an ESSM.
DeleteAlso, a submarine VLS is not a Mk-41 VLS that is found on surface ships. An ESSM (or any missile) cannot launch the same way underwater that it does from a ship or plane. It is a challenging engineering task to get a missile to launch underwater and transition to air. This was the major advance in early SSBNs.
In short, ESSM is not likely the preferred approach. Targeting/guidance remains a nearly unsolvable challenge regardless of the missile.
This crops up every couple of years, wasn't it studied in the 90s? I vaguely recall a French/German? missile that was looked into but between the technical issue and the utility and mode of employment, not sure if this is just another attempt by some missile company to get some new order or just finance some new crazy idea.....
ReplyDeleteYes, the US Navy (and other countries) have looked into this from time to time. The USN performed some land based testing of a AIM-9 Sidewinder intended to simulate a sub launch. I read one report of an actual sub launch but have not been able to confirm it. Development appears to have been dropped although it is possible it entered some type of classified status for continued testing and development although I doubt it.
DeleteI'm inclined to agree with you that it's mainly about missile companies making sales rather than a serious combat capability.
The British Blowpipe missile was briefly used by Israel
Deleteon their submarines, the Brazilians also funded the development, but they never deployed it.
The primary tool of submarines is stealth. Firing missiles to take down aircraft is not stealthy. A diesel sub caught on the surface might have use for it, but the US fleet is all nuclear and a missile launch to take down ASW aircraft would be more likely to simply prove the existence of the sub than successfully defend it.
ReplyDeleteThe only realistic need would be for surfaced arctic subs or subs undergoing unrep at sea. For that there is no need for “revolutionary” SSAMs but better portable launchers, or at most an enclosed RAM/ciws unit that is only used on the surface and otherwise water tight.
Any weapon that requires a submarine to come to periscope depth during a combat engagement is unlikely to result in an outcome favoring the submarine.
DeleteIt's almost like who ever has been pushing this doesn't know much about subs or how they operate, how a sub skipper wouldn't go to periscope depth if he could avoid it......
DeleteAfter re-reading the article and some of the comments, I do maybe have an idea to maybe, potentially, don't necessarily say I agree with USN BUT this could explain the need for a Sub to Air missile: does the USN think that our technological advantage in our SSN will disappear in the next 5 to 10 years and that a China war scenario, our SSNs will have to fight to get in the zone of operations or need to fight to get out??? Does USN think that we will be getting closer to a WW2 U-boat in Atlantic or US vs Japan combat where it was lot more close combat, on the surface, nasty fight compared to old Cold War USN sub vs Soviet sub knife fight with everyone better stay quiet??? That the future isn't just stay quiet and stealth but be prepared to fight a lot more "dirty"???
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase, slightly: The simplest explanation which fits the facts is invariably the correct one.
DeleteAssuming the Navy is making a carefully thought out decision requires that they have developed a comprehensive military strategy and developed a comprehensive set of submarine tactics to support that plan. Alternatively, they're being as stupid as their endless list of idiotic decisions would suggest.
Which explanation seems the simplest and, therefore, likey the correct one?