Missile Attack Analysis

We’ve discussed the mechanics and timing of an anti-ship missile attack in various posts and comments.  It’s clear, however, that a lot of people don’t quite have a grasp of how short the window of time is for defensive efforts because I consistently see comments about the value of having a large number of VLS cells despite the fact that we’ve demonstrated, repeatedly, that a defending ship will be very fortunate to get off two salvoes (4 missiles total) per attack.  Well, it’s time to bring it home, graphically, with a second by second analysis of a theoretical attack and see what the implications are for our defenses.

 

 

Assumptions:

 

Anti-ship Missile

 

Type = Chinese C-80x family

Speed = Mach 0.9 = (761.2 mph * 0.9 = 685 mph = 11.4 miles/min = 0.19 miles/sec)

 

Defense

CIWS, effective range = ¾ mile

ESSM, effective range = radar horizon; launch rate = 1 missile every two seconds from two separate VLS clusters for an overall launch rate of 1 missile per second.  ESSM missile speed = Mach 4 = (761.2 mph * 4 = 3,045 mph = 50.7 miles/min = 0.85 miles/sec)

 

Radar Detection Point - For a radar 18 m high (Burke arrays) and a target 5 m above sea level (sea skimming anti-ship cruise missile), calculations[1] give,

 

Radar Horizon = 10.9 miles = 9.44 nm

Radar Target Visibility = 16.6 miles = 14.4 nm

 

Note: the radar target visibility distance is slightly greater than the nominal radar horizon due to ducting of the radar waves.

 

 

Scenario

 

For simplification, this scenario involves a single Burke and a single attacking anti-ship missile of the type described above.  Further, this scenario assumes that the crew and sensor/weapon systems are exquisitely trained and poised for instant action – eyes glued to screens, no hesitation, instant decision, fingers resting on launch buttons.

 

The general sequence of events is

 

• Detect target
• React
• Launch defensive missiles
• Observe results
• Repeat until target is destroyed or ship is hit

 

It is necessary to understand the Navy’s typical engagement sequence which is shoot-shoot-look.  This means that two missiles are launched at a target and then the defending ship waits to see the results.  This waiting period allows the cluttered radar picture, which has been obscured by exploding missile debris, to clear as the debris from the intercept attempt falls clear and the actual target is reacquired, if it survived.

 

 

Event

 

Here, then, is the second by second analysis of an attack and defense.

 

 

Elapsed Time, sec	Missile Range, miles		Action
0	16.6		Missile crosses radar detection horizon
5	15.6		Operator verifies contact and reports detection
5-10	14.7		Command absorbs information
11-16	13.6		Engagement orders issued, targets assigned
16-19	13.0		Engagement enabled
20-21	12.6		2x ESSM missiles launched
22-24	12.0		Missiles tip over and acquire target
27	11.5		ESSM = 2.55 miles outbound from ship
30	10.9		ESSM = 5.1 miles outbound from ship
35	9.9		ESSM = 9.3 miles;  intercept explosions
36-40	9.0		Radar picture clearing
41	8.8		Re-engage
42-43	8.4		2x ESSM missiles launched
44-46	7.9		Missiles tip over and acquire target
50	7.1		ESSM = 2.55 miles outbound from ship
53	6.5		ESSM = 5.1 miles outbound from ship
54	6.3		ESSM = 5.95 miles;  intercept explosions
55-59	5.4		Radar picture clearing
60	5.2		Re-engage
61-62	4.8		2x ESSM missiles launched
63-65	4.2		Missiles tip over and acquire target
70	3.3		ESSM = 3.4 miles; intercept explosions
71-75	2.3		Radar picture clearing
76-86			CIWS/RAM engages for 11 seconds
87	0		Missile impacts ship

 

 

There it is, 87 seconds to defend against an attack.  That’s not much time and you can clearly see that there is only time for a theoretical maximum of three defensive engagement salvoes and the third is unlikely because it’s too close and would probably wind up within the missile’s non-engagement safety zone.  Also, the sequence is based on absurdly optimistic conditions of perfect, unhesitating response and speed of execution.  In addition, various time consuming steps were left out such as weapon system warm up time, external safety alarms and time to clear the decks of personnel, etc.  Perhaps the Aegis system, operating in full auto mode could approximate this kind of response time;  I have no idea.

 

Far more realistically, a ship would be lucky to get off a single salvo and two would be phenomenal. 

 

Thus, having ten thousand VLS cells and missiles would be utterly useless in any single engagement.  As we’ve demonstrated, a ship would be fortunate to get off 2-4 defensive missiles.  The remaining 9996 missiles are of no use.  This suggests that our ship design tendency toward ever larger VLS loads is pointless, at least from a defensive AAW perspective.  Using the cells for offensive cruise missile attacks is another story.

 

Now, consider the above scenario and timing from a more realistic perspective.  The radar/sensor operators are going to get momentary indications and will have to wait to try to firm up the possible detection.  The ‘command’ will hesitate, wanting confirmation, and will require some time to evaluate the situation.  Weapon operators will not have their fingers resting on launch buttons and will need some time to configure their systems, obtain weapon tracks, and prepare for launch.  Missiles, while not needing much time, still need a brief ‘warm up’ period.  And so on.  All of that adds time – time that is simply not available.  Hence, a ship would be lucky to get off a single defensive salvo.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Some of the conclusions from this scenario are:

 

• Detection beyond the horizon is critical, though very difficult;  UAV ‘screen’ to provide early warning?
• Auto mode is the preferred mode in combat
• Training is critical to minimize hesitation time
• The defensive action sequence needs to be shortened as much as possible and ‘command’ layers need to be eliminated, to the extent possible
• Desperately need a better radar that can maintain target contact in a debris filled sky so that missiles can be launched continuously without needing to wait for the ‘look’ portion of shoot-shoot-look.  Ideally, we want shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot …

 

 

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Disclaimer:  I have not participated in an actual missile defense exercise so I may well be wrong about some of the events or timing – although it’s hard to imagine I’m overestimating any times!  These are just my semi-informed best guesses.  If anyone has actual experience and cares to share it, I’d appreciate it.

 

This post is NOT intended nor purported to be an actual combat simulation.  It is simply an exercise in the approximate timing of some of the events in a missile defense scenario so as to provide a feel for the time frames involved.

  

 

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[1]https://www.translatorscafe.com/unit-converter/en-US/calculator/radar-horizon/?hr=10&ht=15&u=m

 

The Battle of Heligoland Bight

In the recent Open Post, a commenter suggested doing an analysis of older (pre-WWII) naval battles.  That suggestion led me to wonder whether there were useful lessons to be learned or whether the subsequent advances in technology have rendered any lessons invalid and irrelevant.  Well, let’s take a look at the first naval battle of WWI, the Battle of Heligoland Bight, 28-Aug-1914 and see if it has lessons to offer us today.

To set the stage, at the outbreak of WWI, the British and German navies emphasized strong main battle fleets of dreadnoughts and older battleships supported by battlecruisers, cruisers, and destroyers.  The British implemented a blockade strategy of Germany’s northern coast but were forced to execute a distant blockade instead of a close port blockade due to the threat of submarines and mines.  Germany had several naval bases along the North Sea coast in a large ‘inlet’ of the sea.  The inlet area approach was called the Heligoland Bight and was protected by a series of islands, the most important of which was Heligoland which was heavily fortified.

The German naval forces remained in their protected bases while the British maintained their distant blockade.

As the two naval forces settled into their routines, the German’s developed the habit of sending regular nighttime and daytime destroyer patrols out into the North Sea.  These patrols were escorted out and then met and escorted back by cruisers.

The British developed a plan to ambush the returning destroyers with a locally overwhelming force.  Eight British submarines were positioned around Heligoland Island to act as bait to draw the destroyers out to sea where two destroyer flotillas of 15 and 16 destroyers would engage the Germans.  Two British battlecruisers were tasked with providing additional support for the destroyer flotillas.  In addition, several other British battlecruisers and cruisers were inserted into the action on a haphazard and largely uncommunicated basis.

As the British forces took their positions, the Germans were alerted by increased radio traffic and implemented their own plan which was, essentially, the reverse of the British plan.  The Germans planned to use their destroyers as bait to lure the British ships closer to shore and then have light cruisers engage the British ships.

Weather played a factor with fog and mist causing severe identification problems for both sides.

The battle became a confused, chaotic affair with ships entering the area and engaging and disengaging almost randomly.  Detailed descriptions of the sequence of events can be found in the reference links below. (1,2)  The individual events of the battle are difficult to follow and decipher.  Careful reading and reference to the accompanying maps are required to make sense of the battle.  The sheer confusion for those involved must have been nearly overwhelming.

At one point, in a friendly fire incident, a British submarine fired two torpedoes at the British light cruiser Southampton but missed.  The Southampton then attempted to ram the friendly submarine but failed.

The British lost no ships but suffered heavy damage to one light cruiser and three destroyers.  The Germans lost three light cruisers and a destroyer with several other ships damaged.

So, are there lessons to be learned from this battle?  I think so!  In no particular order,

• Fortune favors the bold – when the bold are backed by local numerical and firepower superiority.  Although the plan largely fell apart, the localized concentrations of British ships enable them to inflict more damage than they received.  Firepower/mass overcame confusion.  This is an important lesson for us, today.  We’ve begun to forego firepower in favor of data and networks.  When confusion comes calling (no plan survives contact with the enemy!), what firepower will we be able to call on to overcome the chaos?


• German destroyers were acting as distributed lethality assets.  Small patrols were sent out to search for targets of opportunity.  Unfortunately, this simply led to the German destroyers being isolated and defeated in detail, with little support.  Despite this lesson, the Navy, today, wants to implement exactly this isolated, distributed lethality operation.


• Submarines caused blue-on-blue engagements and served to increase confusion – this is the classic submarine communication issue.  Nothing has changed today.


• British radio communications were not secure and gave away the impending action, if not the actual details.  It was not, apparently, that the Germans intercepted and listened to the British communications but, instead, they detected a significant increase in radio broadcasts and deduced from this that an action was imminent.  This suggests to us, today, that our communications and data transmissions may not be as secure as we believe and that it is not necessary for an enemy to intercept and decode the transmissions.  They merely need to detect increased transmissions or, indeed, the mere presence of transmissions to glean valuable, actionable information.  We need to regain the ability to operate without communications as we did during the Cold War (EMCON – Emissions Control).  Of course, this directly conflicts with the Navy’s current concept of vast regional networks and fleets of unmanned vehicles all of which require continuous, high bandwidth transmissions.


• General chaos of battle versus our neat concept of perfect data is perfectly illustrated by the neat, tidy, logical British battle plan which disintegrated the moment contact was made with the enemy.  As has often been said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy”.  Despite this oft-repeated lesson, the Navy, today, is counting on perfect situational awareness to execute operational plans that depend on the perfect arrangement of every element.  This is lunacy!  We need to simplify our operational concepts and doctrine and learn to act within the context of confusion.


• On a larger level, the German navy’s refusal to leave their ports violates the adage that, “the seat of purpose is on the land”.  A navy that stays in port has no impact on events on land and is useless.  The modern US Navy runs this risk due to the risk-averse mindset of being unwilling to lose overly expensive ships.

Well, there you have it – a wealth of lessons, most of them seemingly timeless, for us to benefit from today.  It would seem, therefore, that there are lessons that transcend technology. 

This has been a fascinating exercise and I think I’ll try to apply a similar analysis to even older naval actions.  An action from the age of sail ought to make for an interesting study.

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(1)BritishBattles.com website, “Battle of Heligoland Bight”

https://www.britishbattles.com/first-world-war/the-battle-of-heligoland-bight/

(2)Wikipedia, “Battle of Heligoland Bight (1914)”,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Heligoland_Bight_%281914%29

Assault Ratio

One of the well known cornerstones of maritime strategy is,

The Seat of Purpose is on Land (1)

Too many naval observers tend to view naval matters in isolation, as purely ship-on-ship affairs.  The reality is that navies exist to support ground actions.  Yes, they may do this, in part, by ship-on-ship battles but the ultimate purpose of a navy is to influence and support matters on land.  Thus, the US Navy in WWII found itself conducting a series of amphibious assaults in the Pacific in order to support the overall strategy of seizing the LAND(S) of Japan.

Unfortunately, the land (islands) that needed to be seized was held by Japanese forces that had had sufficient – often lengthy – periods of time to build fortified defenses.  Thus, overwhelming force was needed to ensure victory against a dug in and fortified defense.  This brings us to that well known axiom of attack which gives the advantage to the defenders by a margin of 3:1.  This means that the attacker must bring a numerical superiority in troops of 3:1 in order to ensure victory.

Attack is to Defense as 3 is to 1

Let’s look at the historical data for the Pacific campaign and see how the numbers and troop attack:defense ratios compared in several of the major defended assaults.

	Date	US Troops	Japanese Troops	Attack:Defense
Tarawa	Nov 1943	18,000	4,800	3.75 : 1
Hollandia	Apr 1944	50,000	14,000	3.57 : 1
Saipan	Jun 1944	59,000	29,000	2.03 : 1
Guam	Jul 1944	36,000	22,000	1.64 : 1
Tinian	Jul 1944	41,000	8,000	5.12 : 1
Peleliu	Sep 1944	47,500	10,900	4.36 : 1
Philippines	Oct 1944	200,000	85,000	2.35 : 1
Iwo Jima	Feb 1945	110,000	21,000	5.24 : 1
Okinawa	Apr 1945	183,000	76,000	2.41 : 1

Indeed, we see that the attacking US forces did, generally, have a 3:1 advantage although the ratios varied quite a bit.  A further factor affecting the ratio is that in an amphibious assault, there are other elements involved such as aircraft and ships which may positively impact the attacker’s effective ratio (fire support, bombardment, etc.) while not impacting the numerical ratio.  In short, the attacker:defender ratio is a useful concept but is affected by many factors beyond just troop counts.  The takeaway from the ratios we see in the table is that the attacking force did seem to recognize the necessity and/or desirability of having a significant numerical advantage and this is the lesson for us, today.

One also can’t help but be struck by the sheer numbers of troops involved.  We’ve come to believe that war is something that is conducted by a squad or platoon on patrol and that a major action might involve a company of a hundred or so troops.  In stark contrast, amphibious assaults in WWII involved multiple regiments, divisions, and even armies!  Given that a single big deck LHA amphibious ship can carry 1600 or so troops and other amphibious ship classes even less, where are we going to get the transport capacity to move 50,000 – 200,000 assault troops for a single operation?  But, I digress …

The numbers of troops – and remember that this was repeated for each assault! – suggest that we need to radically readjust our operational thinking.  When was the last time we practiced an amphibious assault with more than a single ship, let alone the twenty to ninety troop transports necessary for a serious assault?  If we think we’re going to conduct major amphibious assaults (a notion that ComNavOps does not agree with!), as the Marines claim to be able to do, we need to begin practicing how to coordinate that many ships, how to integrate them into a single operational plan, how to simultaneously unload them without them getting in each other’s way, how to get all those troops ashore (currently, we can only land a portion of the troops as we are limited by AAV numbers – how will the rest get ashore?), how to get the troops ashore quickly, how to move enough supplies (the logistics that are the heart of any operation) to sustain an assault, and a thousand other aspects – including fire support and, yes, I’m going to continue to bang that drum because our doctrine calls for it, assumes we have it, and yet we have none.

On a broader level, this same 3:1 requirement applies to land battles.  I’m not as familiar with Army matters but I know that for the last few decades we have stopped exercising complete, large units.  It’s probably safe to say that there is no serving General who has commanded an entire division in an exercise.  The Army has been leading the way among the services as far as refocusing on major war but even they are still woefully behind the curve.  Perhaps they’ve begun to exercise at brigade and larger levels but, if so, I’m unaware of it.  Regardless, the Navy and Marines are absolutely not operating at these levels and they need to begin doing so, immediately.

I touched on it, already, but these kinds of troop numbers also point to a need to reinvigorate our logistic capability.  How will we supply food, ammo, fuel, water, and the thousand other items needed by 50,000 – 200,000 men in the field?  How will we get that quantity of supplies to the operational area?  How will we provide escort for the logistic ships?  How will we get the vast quantity of supplies ashore in a timely manner given that we struggle to get enough supplies ashore during a minor humanitarian assistance mission?  How will we get supplies ashore if we don’t have a secure port?  And so on …

As I’ve stated in previous posts, it is not reasonable to have all the equipment and capabilities to accomplish this on hand today.  We didn’t have that capability at the start of WWII, either.  Those are the things you build during the war.  What is reasonable is to have designs for cheap troopships ready to go, prototypes of effective landing craft (not the nearly useless LCACs that we have) that are operational and working on tactics, plans in hand for likely major assaults, fire support plans (you know, for our non-existent fire support capability), etc.

Regarding exercises, no, I don’t expect us to perform an amphibious exercise involving 50,000 – 200,000 troops (although the assault fleets did exactly that prior to each assault!) but we should do at least a yearly assault exercise involving, say, a complete Marine Expeditionary Brigade (14,000 troops or so).  What a cluster**** that would be but, at least, we’d know where the problems are and we could begin addressing them now rather than waiting for our own Tarawa to find out that we don’t know what we’re doing.

We need to wake up. 

We need to remember that war involves massive numbers of people and equipment. 

We need to recognize that what we’re organized for and training for, today, bears almost no resemblance to actual war. 

We need to begin preparing for war …  China is.

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(1)http://www.navy.mil.za/SANGP100/SANGP100_CH01.pdf , p.6

Carrier Vulnerability and Operational Reality

There is a persistent faction of naval thinkers out there who believe that a carrier is an outdated, obsolete, vulnerable target just waiting to be sunk by Chinese “carrier killer” ballistic missiles, submarine torpedoes, massive supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, and all manner of converging, lethal weaponry that can’t be stopped.  In fact, if one listens to these people, the only question one comes away with is, how can the vast array of attacking weapons not collide among themselves as they approach the carrier!  I guess they probably will but there will be so many that it won’t matter.

Obviously, the rest of this post is going to be about how wrong these people are and the lead in to that discussion is the question, why are these people so very wrong?  How did they come to such an incorrect conclusion?

The answer is one of ComNavOps pet peeves:  they consider the carrier in isolation rather than in its true operational form.

If one considers a lone carrier, sitting out at sea, presumably motionless in these thinker’s minds, with no support and no purpose other than to survive, fighting off wave after wave of attacks, then, sure, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, the carrier will be sunk.  So, that’s it then.  The carrier is obsolete and unsurvivable.  We need to say goodbye to the carrier, the mainstay of naval power since WWII and move on in our naval thinking to the next mainstay – networks, perhaps?  Or small UAVs?  But, I digress …

The problem with this line of thinking, as I noted, is that it considers the carrier in isolation rather than in its true operational form.

We need to keep firmly in mind the true nature of a carrier. It's not a carrier - it's a carrier GROUP. That's an incredibly important distinction. One lone carrier is somewhat vulnerable. However, a wartime carrier group would consist of 3-4 carriers, 300 some aircraft, and 30 or so Aegis cruisers/destroyers (you’re not going to risk 3-4 carriers without substantial escorts, are you?  Check the WWII historical escort ratios) with multiple Hawkeyes out in all directions providing situational awareness. It is an immensely powerful, LAYERED, defense.

The layered defense includes long range carrier fighters, long range Standard missiles/Aegis, medium range ESSM, short range SeaRAM/CIWS, passive ECM and decoys, and more. Nothing is getting through all of that easily. Nothing is invulnerable but a carrier group on a wartime footing is as close as you can get to invulnerable.

Regarding escort numbers, consider our WWII experience and Adm. Marc Mitscher’s description of a carrier group composition..

“Said Mitscher: "The ideal composition of a fast-carrier task force is four carriers, six to eight support vessels and not less than 18 destroyers, preferably 24. More than four carriers in a task group cannot be advantageously used due to the amount of air room required. Less than four carriers requires an uneconomical use of support ships and screening vessels." (1)

Even this description is a bit light.  Every carrier group had multiple cruisers and, often battleships attached in addition to the listed destroyers.

We’ve gotten so used to single carriers sailing around in peacetime with only 3-4 escorts that we’ve come to believe that’s how carriers will fight in a war and that’s just plain wrong.  We’ve also gotten so used to a numerically tiny navy that we’ve come to believe that escorts of up to 30 vessels is unthinkable.  Well, combat will change our thinking quickly enough.  We learned all this in WWII and have completely forgotten it.

Multiply This By Four !

There is another, almost always overlooked, layer to the carrier’s defense and that is that a carrier group's best defense is a good offense. We all think of a carrier, on its own, sitting in the middle of the ocean trying to fight off wave after wave of attackers and we conclude that the carrier, ultimately, has no hope. The reality, however, is that the carrier group has a mission. It doesn't stay in one place. It moves at high speed to a mission execution point, executes the mission, and returns to base. During that movement and execution, rather than passively playing defense and hoping to survive long enough to execute the mission, the group would be launching massive Tomahawk cruise missile attacks against all likely enemy bases and missile sites to suppress attacks before they even begin. This is the part of the layered defense that most people overlook and the part that, properly planned and executed, can be the most effective.

If each Aegis escort (Burkes) had 30 Tomahawk missiles, the group of 30 escorts would have an inventory of 900 Tomahawks.  That’s a lot of suppression over a thousand mile radius!

Recall, typical WWII carrier strike operations.  The carrier group would dash into aircraft range of the strike target, launch fighter sweeps to suppress enemy counterattacks, strike the target, and leave before effective counterattacks could be mounted.  The same holds true today except that we now have thousand mile suppression attack capability.

The submarine is probably the carrier group's greatest threat and we'll come to regret the loss of the S-3 Viking. Still, a carrier group is going to be moving at 30 kts and no submarine, unless it gets lucky and finds itself dead in the group’s path, is going to catch up to a carrier group without giving itself away.

Even if a submarine managed to launch a salvo of torpedoes at a carrier, none would make it to the carrier.  With an escort of 30 vessels, the torpedoes would latch on to the escorts rather than the carriers.  That would be tragic for the unlucky escort but that’s part of their job description.  Again, the group is a very tough nut to crack.

“Consideration in isolation” is one of the major problems with modern naval thought and analysis and its application leads inexorably to incorrect conclusions.  It’s at the root of the win-a-war-singlehanded school of thought that leads to massively capable (only on paper) and massively expensive ship designs such as the Burke.  Instead of recognizing that a Burke is just one ship and should have only one main function as part of a group of other ships, each with their specialized functions, we load it up with every function we can think of because we consider it in isolation.  Seriously, does anyone think a single ship has the time to train to perfection as an AAW, BMD, ASW, ASuW, group air defense controller (when the Ticos are gone), and land attack platform?  Good grief, the acronyms alone would take a year to master!  It’s been demonstrated that we can’t even train to perform basic seamanship proficiently yet we believe that a single ship will master all those disparate combat functions?  That’s a fantasy that Walt Disney would be proud of.

A carrier, when considered in its proper operational form as a group, is the most survivable military asset there is.  It’s time to put the misguided, incorrect notions about carrier vulnerability to rest.

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(1)Taylor, Theodore, “The Magnificent Mitscher”, Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1-59114-850-2, p. 316