Just Make a Decision

Naval News website reports that Japan is interested in co-producing SM-6 Standard missiles. 
 

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani has announced that Tokyo proposed joint production of the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) ship-to-air missile during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on March 30.[1]

Japan has previously agreed, to some nebulous extent, to co-produce AMRAAM and PAC-3 missiles although no action appears to have come of that, yet.
 

… the U.S. and Japan in Tokyo in July 2024, both governments had already agreed to “pursue mutually beneficial co-production opportunities to expand production capacity of AMRAAM and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE).
 
Nakatani’s [Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani] proposal this time will not only include joint production of AMRAAM and PAC-3 MSE missiles, which have been under consideration since the previous Joe Biden administration, but also include the long-range ship-to-air missile SM-6 … [1]

What is the US reaction/response?
 

… the U.S. side responded, by saying “We would like to continue to discuss the joint production of missiles that are mutually beneficial for both Japan and the United States, including the SM-6, as well as AMRAAM, and PAC3 that we have discussed so far, even at an administrative level. We understand the importance, so we would like to deepen the discussion at the administrative level in the future.”[1]

Good grief.  What a bunch of wishy washy nonsense.  Make a decision, already.  Endless studies and discussions benefit no one.  This is what’s wrong with modern government.  They’re incapable of acting, instead defaulting to never ending commissions, studies, reports, and discussions.  A major reason China is outproducing us their ability to make a rapid decision and then get about implementing it.  We, in the meantime, continue to study the issues to death.
 
I don’t have all the details on this particular issue but it certainly seems like a win-win proposition.  As the Ukraine war has demonstrated, we lack the weapon production capacity to meet our needs.  If Japan can help fill that need, where’s the downside?
 
Do it or don’t do it but make a damn decision!
 
 
 
_________________________________

 
[1]Naval News website, “Japan proposes co-production of SM-6 missiles to the U.S.”, Kosuke Takahashi, 3-Apr-2025,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/04/japan-proposes-co-production-of-sm-6-missiles-to-the-u-s/

Ship Magazines - Do The Math

One of the recurring fears among some naval observers is the inability to reload VLS systems at sea.  We’ve just recently debunked the concern but the fear lingers (see, "War Deployments").  Well, here’s yet another perspective on the issue that proves reload capability is not needed:  the math!

A carrier group, for example, will consist of 3-4 carriers (4 is ComNavOps preferred number) and 20+ escorts (25-30 being ComNavOps preferred number) (see, "Carrier Task Force").  Let’s assume that each escort is a Burke with 96 VLS cells and that 50 are Standard missiles, 30 are quad packed ESSM, and the remainder are Tomahawks and VL-ASROC, neither of which are relevant to this discussion.

So, let’s do the anti-air warfare (AAW) math.

Standard Missiles:  20x ships X 50 Standards per ship = 1,000 Standard missiles

ESSM Missiles:  20x ships X 30 cells X 4 ESSM/cell = 2,400 ESSM missiles

Total = 3,400 AAW missiles

This ignores any SeaRAM point defense missiles the group might have.

So, in order for reloads to even be required, the group would have to fire off well over three thousand missiles!  Given that the enemy’s anti-ship missile inventory is limited just like ours, does anyone really believe a single battle will see the enemy bring over three thousand anti-ship missiles to bear on a single carrier group????

Let’s do some more math.  The average modern warship carries somewhere around 8 anti-ship missiles and possibly up to a dozen or two.  For sake of discussion, let’s use the higher number of 24.  How many ships would be needed to launch three thousand missiles?  Well, 3000 missiles / 24 missiles per ship = 125 ships.

The enemy would need to assemble a force of 125 ships to launch 3000 anti-ship missiles!  No navy in the world can do that and even if an enemy had that many ships it couldn’t assemble that many in range in time.  A reasonable assembly of enemy ships opposing a carrier group might be 12-24 which would give an anti-ship missile inventory of 96 – 576.

Well, you say, the enemy can also launch anti-ship missiles from aircraft.  Yes, yes they can!  Let’s assume, say, 4 anti-ship missiles per aircraft – I know, there are some aircraft that can theoretically carry more but the impact on aircraft range and endurance is significant and that load would be uncommon.  So, 4 missiles per aircraft is a reasonable average.  Thus, the number of aircraft needed to launch over 3000 anti-ship missiles is, 3000 missiles / 4 missiles per aircraft = 750. 

The enemy would need to assemble, in short order, a force of 750 aircraft (of the right type!) to deplete our carrier group’s defensive missile inventory!  Not possible.

Of course, this analysis is simplistic.  Defending missiles aren’t launched one-for-one at attacking missiles.  A ratio of 2:1 is more realistic.  That means that the defending force in our example can only engage 1,700 attacking missiles.  Go ahead and rerun the math.  That’s still way, way beyond the attack capacity of any actual enemy.

A more realistic scenario is a single engagement with, perhaps, a dozen surface ships and/or a few flights of 10 or 20 attack aircraft.  Of course, the attackers would have to get past the carrier’s defensive aircraft before missiles even come into play but we’ll ignore that aspect.  We see, then, that a realistic scenario likely involves only a few to several dozen attacking missiles versus the defensive inventory of over 3000 missiles.  Depletion of the ship’s missile inventory is simply not conceivable and, therefore, reloading at sea is not a requirement.

Recall the old Soviet attack plan against US carrier groups?  Regiments of bombers would launch a couple of anti-ship missiles each for a total of 70+ attacking missiles.  Again, not even remotely near depleting the ship’s defensive missile inventory.

Here are the salient points to keep in mind regarding ship’s missile inventories.

• The enemy’s inventory of attack missiles is just as limited as a ship’s inventory of defensive missiles.

• Assuming even a small amount of surprise, the enemy has to assemble their attacking forces with little notice and can only bring a small fraction to bear in time.  This assures that attacking missile numbers will be small and manageable.

• Ship’s don’t just stand in one spot and slug it out.  They appear, execute a mission, and retire.  Typical missions (the combat portion) last hours or a few days.

• Ships don’t fight individually, they fight as groups and it’s the group’s missile inventory that matters.

Missile depletion is simply not a concern and, therefore, at-sea reloading is not a requirement.

Yemen Missile Attacks

It’s coming up on two years since the series of reported attacks on US Navy ships off the coast of Yemen.  It’s worth taking a look back at the events and see what lessons can be learned.  As a reminder, here’s the timeline and description of events.  Note that the descriptions are pieced together from many reports.  As such, I’ve not included any specific references because the reports, at the time, were fragmentary, sometimes contradictory, and far from definitive.

Sunday, 9-Oct-2016

USS Mason (DDG-87), a Burke class destroyer, operating near the Bab-el-Mandeb strait off Yemen’s southern coast, in concert with the USS Ponce (AFSB-15), was reportedly targeted by two missiles fired from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen. Both missiles fell short and impacted the water.

Some reports state that the missiles were detected over a 60 minute period, suggesting two separate launches of one missile each.

Initial reports indicated that Mason employed countermeasures but did not launch its own missiles.  Later reports indicated that Mason fired two SM-2 Standard missiles and one RIM-162 ESSM missile as well as deploying its Nulka decoys.

Official statements say that it is not clear whether the attacking missiles were shot down or crashed on their own.

One report indicated that one of the missiles traveled more than two dozen nautical miles before crashing into the water.  Two dozen miles would be an incredibly short distance for an anti-ship missile.  This report seems highly questionable.

Confirming the uncertainty, USNI News reported that the crew of the Mason was uncertain if the suspected cruise missile was taken out by an SM-2 or went into the water on its own. The Pentagon claimed that an investigation was ongoing.

Some reports suggested that the missiles coming from Yemen might have been intended to strike Ponce.

Wednesday, 12-Oct-2016

On Wednesday, 12 October 2016 Mason was again targeted by missiles fired from Yemeni territory while operating in the Bab el-Mandeb strait.  Mason was not hit by the two missiles, which were fired from near the city of Al Hudaydah.   While the Navy is not certain whether the first incoming missile was intercepted or it just fell into the sea, officials claim Mason successfully intercepted the second missile at a distance of about 8 miles (13 km).

Thursday, 13-Oct-2016

On Thursday, 13 October 2016, US ships attacked three radar sites in Houthi-held territory which the Navy claims had been involved in the earlier anti-ship missile attacks against U.S. ships.  Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from USS Nitze. The Pentagon assessed that all three sites were destroyed.

The areas in Yemen where the radars were located was near Ras Isa, north of Mukha and near Khoka.

Saturday, 15-Oct-2016

USS Mason was targeted in a third attack by five anti-ship cruise missiles while operating in the Red Sea north of the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Reports claim that Mason launched radar decoys, an infrared decoy, and several SM-2 Standard missiles in response, either neutralizing or intercepting four of the five incoming missiles. The Navy claims the fifth incoming missile was neutralized by a radar decoy launched from USS Nitze, after Mason alerted her to the threat.  Thus, the Mason was the only ship to have seen the claimed attack.

One report puts it this way:  one of the U.S. ships saw on radar what sailors believed to be missiles being fired on it out of Yemen at night.  Well, was it or wasn’t it attacking missiles?

Here’s a quote from CNO Richardson which indicates the general uncertainty and inability to even determine whether an attack even occurred.

“The latest is there has been recent activity today with the Mason once again. It appears to have come under attack in the Red Sea again from coastal defense cruise missiles fired from the coast of Yemen.” (1) [emphasis added]

So, according to the CNO, the Mason “appears” to have come under attack.  Put another way, no one can say for sure if an attack actually occurred.

Conclusions

To the best of my knowledge, no Navy report has ever been publicly issued about the purported attacks and I have not seen any results from the subsequent official investigation.

It is obvious that the Navy has no definitive idea whether any missiles were actually launched against any Navy ships.  If they were, they would likely have offered much more public proof because such attacks are potential windfalls for the Navy in terms of going to Congress and asking for money.

It is further obvious that the Navy has no evidence that any of the defensive missiles hit any attacking missiles if such even existed.  If they had, they would have plastered the news all over the media since successful combat operations would bolster recruiting efforts, justify increased budgets, “prove” the validity of Navy weapon systems, and help make a case for more ships – the thing the Navy wants more than anything else.

We see, then, that despite the most advanced suite of shipboard sensors ever constructed, despite the combined sensor systems of multiple ships, despite the use of networked naval data sharing which make up the foundation of the Third Offset Strategy, despite the oversight of satellite coverage, the Navy appears to have no credible evidence that actual attacks occurred and no credible evidence that any attacking missiles were shot down if there were actual attacks.

Regarding the question of whether the Saturday attacks were real, it is telling that there was no retaliatory attack as there was after the Sunday and Wednesday attacks.  The US Navy didn’t hesitate to respond to those attacks and yet a supposedly larger attack involving several missiles prompted no response.  The conclusion seems obvious that the Saturday “attack” did not actually occur.

This strongly suggests that the crew that reported the attack was seeing what they were conditioned to see.  It is noteworthy that despite the presence of several US ships in the immediate area as well as additional regional sensors, only one ship, the Mason, ever reported attacks and it was that ship that reported all three separate attacks.

USS Mason - Scenario Fulfillment?

Finally, if the attacks were real and the Mason actually shot down one to several attacking missiles, the Navy would, without a doubt, have showered medals on the Captain and crew.  You’ll recall that the Navy gave a medal to the crew member of the seized riverine boats who tried and failed to send a radio request for help.  If they would give a medal for a trivial, failed action they most certainly would have showered medals all around for the first successful combat action in quite some time – not only a successful combat action but hugely successful if they actually shot down four of five attacking missiles!  The conclusion is, again, obvious – there were no actual attacks.

It appears highly likely that the crew of the Mason behaved as the crew of the Vincennes did many years prior.  They saw a scenario that they “wanted” or were conditioned to see.  That the fog of war lead an overeager crew to see missiles where none existed is mildly interesting but hardly shocking.  This is nothing more than a common human tendency of scenario fulfillment demonstrated ad nauseum throughout history.  No, the more important aspect is that all of our vaunted technology utterly failed to tell us what was (or, was not) actually happening.  Despite this blatant failure of technology, we remain firmly committed to placing our entire combat welfare in the hands of technology and basing our entire military future in the hands of the Third Offset Strategy which is based entirely on sensor technology – technology that has been demonstrated repeatedly to be unreliable in application.

I know that my analysis completely contradicts the official Navy story but, lacking any documentation from the Navy, the logic is compelling and inescapable.

_____________________________________

(1)USNI News website, “CNO Richardson: USS Mason ‘Appears to Have Come Under Attack’”, Sam LaGrone, 15-Oct-2016,

https://news.usni.org/2016/10/15/cno-richardson-uss-mason-attacked-cruise-missiles-off-yemen

Cruise Missile Characteristics Related To Detection and Engagement Range

The US Navy is committed to an anti-air warfare path of long range intercepts using the Aegis and Standard systems.  The wisdom of this is debatable for a variety of reasons.

Long range intercepts depend on being able to detect the target at long ranges.  You can’t engage what you can’t see!  For targets that obligingly fly at high altitudes, this is a viable approach.  For targets that fly at low altitudes or are less detectable due to small size and/or stealth, this approach is not feasible.  Unfortunately, the trend in anti-ship missile (ASM) technology is towards stealth and sea-skimming altitudes.  Many missiles have options for an initial high altitude cruise phase followed by a sea-skimming attack phase.  The question is how far out from the target does the cruise phase terminate and the sea-skimming attack phase commence?  If the cruise phase terminates and converts to the low altitude attack phase beyond the effective range of defensive missiles then the ASM is, for all practical purposes, a purely sea-skimming missile.  This is what seems to be the typical case today.  Thus, it is quite likely that a defending ship will never see, or at least not have the opportunity to engage, the attacking missile until it enters the radar horizon (20 miles or so).

Another problem with the Navy’s long range intercept path is that it’s very expensive.  For example, the Standard SM-6 costs around $4M each and has a claimed range of 150-300 miles.  Launching volleys of $4M missiles quickly becomes prohibitively expensive.  Of course, the cost of a volley of $4M missiles is, arguably, a bargain if it prevents the destruction of a multi-billion dollar ship!  Still, the price tag of Standard missiles does impact the budget and the number of missiles procured. It’s not just the missiles that are expensive.  The Aegis system that enables the Standard missile costs hundreds of millions of dollars and the developmental costs for the ever-changing software are astronomical.

Before we go any further, let’s take a moment to look at some characteristics of common potential enemy anti-ship missiles as provided by readily available open source information.  Note the attack altitudes and relatively small sizes.  These missiles will be hard to detect and engagement windows will be very short.

C-801

Speed   Mach 0.75

Flight Altitude  <20 m

Attack Altitude  <20 m

Range  40 km

Length  5.8 m

C-802

Speed  Mach 0.9

Flight Altitude  7 m

Attack Altitude  5 m

Range  120 km

Length  6.4 m

Exocet

Speed  Mach 0.92

Flight Altitude  2 m

Range  72-180 km

Length  4.7 m

P-270 Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn)

Speed  Mach 3.0

Flight Altitude  20 m

Attack Altitude  <7 m

Range  90-240 km, depending on version and flight profile

Length  9.7 m

P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck)

Speed  Mach >1.6

Flight Altitude  high

Attack Altitude  <25 m

Range  625 km

Length  10.0 m

P-800 Oniks (SS-N-26 Strobile)

Speed  Mach 2.5

Flight Altitude  high

Attack Altitude  10 m

Range  370 miles

Length  8.9 m

Kh-59 MK (AS-13 Kingbolt)

Speed  Mach 0.8

Flight Altitude  7 m

Attack Altitude  ?

Range  285 km

Length  5.7 m

BrahMos

Speed  Mach 3.0

Flight Altitude  high

Attack Altitude  5 m

Range  280 miles

Length  8.4 m

Even if not designed as stealthy airframes, ASMs are small and have an inherently small radar cross section.  A small missile, in sea-skimming mode, down in the wave clutter, will not be readily detected.  First detection is likely to be inside the radar horizon.  Even the presence of an airborne radar plane will not greatly increase the detection range of an incoming sea-skimming missile. 

Also, detection and targeting are two separate issues.  An airborne radar may detect a missile further out but being able to maintain a steady lock sufficient to guide a defensive missile is another matter and likely will not be achievable until the attacking missile has gotten much closer to its target.

What is the overall point of this discussion?  It’s that I suspect that the actual targeting detection range of most ASM’s is going to be very short.  That being the case, one can’t help but ask whether the Navy’s focus on very long range Standard missiles is appropriate.  It would seem that the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (RIM-162 ESSM) would be a more likely and useful defensive system.  ESSM range is given as 27 nm which would seem to be an appropriate match to the expected detection range.

In fact, I have doubts that intercepts at ranges of hundreds of miles are even feasible given the cruise characteristics of enemy anti-ship missiles.  What enemy missile or aircraft is going to fly obligingly high, straight, and level for an extended period while we guide a Standard missile to it?  Ballistic anti-ship missiles do fly predictable paths and, for those, long range intercepts are both feasible and desirable – but that’s another topic.

If my conjecture is correct and the vast majority of anti-ship cruise missile engagements are going to occur at radar horizon ranges, shouldn’t the vast majority of our defensive systems also be optimized for those same ranges?  Wouldn’t it be better to emphasize ESSM defenses over Standard missiles?

Further, given engagement ranges of radar horizon and closer, shouldn’t we also greatly beef up our short range engagement capabilities such as RAM, SeaRAM, and CIWS?  Sure, debris from a successful short range intercept may still impact the ship and cause damage but it will be a lot less damage than having an intact, functioning anti-ship cruise missile hit the ship.  Consider that most Burkes have only a single CIWS for close in defense and, for a time, Burkes were built with none.  Burkes do not mount RAM/SeaRAM.  Our short range defenses are lacking, to put it mildly.

We need to do several things to beef up our medium range (out to 30 miles or so) AAW capability.

1. Install multiple RAM/SeaRAM launchers on every ship.
2. Provide at least 3 CIWS for every Burke.
3. Focus on electronic anti-missile defenses (soft kill).
4. Develop radars/sensors optimized for medium/short range use.
5. Develop methods to effectively launch and utilize high density volleys of ESSM and RAM.  This would include the ability to track the incoming target even in the presence of high clutter returns due to near miss defensive missile explosions.  Given the short engagement window, it is vital that we can continuously track and engage rather than have to wait for the radar picture to clear after a near miss.  The traditional engagement sequence of shoot-shoot-look is no longer viable.  The engagement sequence has to be shoot-shoot-shoot-keep shooting!  We also need to be able to track the incoming missile in the presence of many outgoing missiles.

The last point also suggests that Aegis is likely not the optimum AAW radar.  We don’t need bigger and longer range AMDR radars (well, we do for ballistic missile defense but, again, that’s a topic for another post); we need very high definition, very rapid response, enhanced capability medium/short range radars combined with much greater numbers of medium range ESSM and integrated fire control systems.  We need to greatly reduce our emphasis on Aegis/Standard and put far more emphasis on medium range engagement.

We also desperately need to improve our AAW electronic countermeasure (ECM) capability.  The venerable – and never all that effective, according to reports – SLQ-32 needs to be enhanced far beyond even the current SEWIP (Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program) block improvements.  We need massively more capable and powerful detection and active jamming/decoy systems (remember our discussion about an electronic warfare version of the Zumwalt?).

In summary, future naval AAW engagements are not going to be the long range intercepts that the Navy has designed for – they’re going to radar horizon, close range, short window, affairs that require an optimized radar fire control system capable of operating a continuous fire defensive system, backed up by extensive short range and ECM capabilities.

Respond or Leave

Everyone has heard by now of the apparent cruise missile (C-802 is the most likely) attacks on two US Navy ships.  If you haven’t, you can check out the USNI article (1).  The USS Mason, a Burke destroyer, launched two SM-2 missiles and one ESSM in response to the cruise missiles.  Both cruise missiles landed in the water short of the ships and there is no indication that either was shot down by the destroyers missiles.  It appears that either the cruise missiles never had a target lock or the destroyer’s electronic countermeasures prevented a lock.

I’m not going to waste time speculating about the performance of the weapon systems since we don’t have enough information.  Instead, let’s see what other lessons we can learn.

First, the fog of war is eternal.  Despite all our sensors, electronics, radar, IR, optics, and computer software, we don’t know whether the missiles we fired in defense hit anything.  How is that possible?  No one was trying to deny us sensor data as would happen in a peer war.  We had a completely unhindered view of a small battlespace and yet we couldn’t even see whether any of our three missiles hit anything?  This should serve as a lesson to all those who want to commit us to the vaunted Third Offset strategy based on networks, unmanned vehicles, and a wholly unfounded belief that we will have an omniscient view of the battlefield thereby enabling and enhancing our forces.  What a bunch of cow droppings!  We can’t see an uncontested battlefield clearly and it’s only going to be much, much more confused when a peer enemy contests the battlefield with electronic warfare.  We won’t know jack about what’s going on.  That’s the reality of war.  That’s the fog of war.  We should be training for that confusion rather than blindly believing we’ll see everything.  The fog of war is eternal and all-encompassing.  We need to embrace it and train for it, not ignore it.

Second, we need to respond with massive and deadly force – or leave the area.  Any other course is just going to get US sailors killed and ships sunk.  Failure to respond will simply embolden our enemies and ensure further attacks.  The various actors in the area need to understand that threatening US ships is a fatal mistake.  If it’s not a mistake and they can launch missiles at us with impunity as we demonstrate our restraint and passivity then we need to leave the area because we clearly aren’t doing any good.  I think the odds of us responding are negligible so I think we should leave the area.

Third, this illustrates the need for a counterbattery (countermissile, in this case) capability.  The moment the incoming cruise missiles were detected, Tomahawk missiles should have been heading towards the cruise missile launch point.   Further, a UAV should have been directed to the launch point to look for follow up attack possibilities.  The two cruise missile attacks were apparently launched an hour or so apart.  It’s not clear whether they were launched from the same point (there’s that fog of war, again!) but a UAV should have been overhead, watching, for the second launch.  A UAV might also have allowed us to preemptively attack the second missile launch site.  If we’re going to operate on the modern battlefield, split seconds will be all we have and a countermissilebattery fire capability is badly needed.

What response will the Navy and the country make?  If history is any indicator, none. 

What lessons will the Navy learn?  If history is any indicator, none. 

______________________________

(1)USNI News website, “USS Mason Fired 3 Missiles to Defend From Yemen Cruise Missiles Attack”, Sam LaGrone, 11-Oct-2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-to-defend-from-yemen-cruise-missiles-attack

Standard Missile Has New Anti-Ship Capability

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter just unveiled a secret new capability for the Standard missile, SM-6 – it now has an anti-surface ship mode.  As reported by Defense.Gov website,  SecDef revealed the secret to a group of sailors for the first time.

“…Carter said the sailors were the first to learn about a powerful new capability, secretly tested just last month, that builds on the existing SM-6 missile.

“You know the SM-6,” Carter said. “You launch it from surface ships. It's a fantastic surface-to-air weapon, highly maneuverable aerodynamically, and can stop incoming ballistic and cruise missiles … in the atmosphere at a very low altitude.”

He said the SM-6, already one of the department’s most modern and capable munitions, will be modified so that in addition to providing missile defense it also can target enemy ships at sea at extended ranges.

“This is a new anti-ship mode … that can shoot down airborne threats, and now [the same missile] can attack and destroy a ship at long range,” Carter said, calling it a potent new surface warfare capability.” (1)

Wow!!!  A “new anti-ship mode” and a “potent new surface warfare capability”?  Using a surface to air missile as an anti-ship missile?  This could change naval warfare!  I’ve never heard of anything this revolutionary since the April 1988 Praying Mantis operation in which the USS Wainwright and USS Simpson launched several Standard missiles at the Iranian Combattante fast attack vessel, the Joshan, and disabled it.  Ah …  …  …  wait a minute.  Standard missiles had an anti-surface ship mode back in 1988?  Did someone forget to tell the SecDef that this is not new technology?

The Navy is now claiming that old, existing technology is some kind of amazing breakthrough?  SecDef doesn’t know the basic capabilities of the Navy and no one in the Navy thought to tell him that this was technology the Navy has had for decades?  This is just embarrassing.  Worse, this is demonstrating incompetence.  SecDef is making decisions about the future of the military’s force structure and doesn’t even know the basic capabilities of what we have? 

Every time I think Navy leadership has hit rock bottom, they dig a little deeper and lower the bar a little further.

(1)http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/650254/carter-details-proposed-2017-budget-capability-improvements-for-navy

A New AAW

Anti-air warfare (AAW) is the backbone of the Navy.  You’d think the backbone would be some sort of offensive capability, wouldn’t you?  But, I digress …  We’ve discussed how the Navy has lost its offensive focus and become defensive oriented (see, "The Best Defense Is A Good Offense").  Our frontline ships, the Burkes, are primarily defensive platforms with only a modest and limited capability for Tomahawk strikes.  Anyway, given the importance the Navy attaches to AAW, let’s take a closer look at it.

We’ve already discussed the relative value of active (hard kill) versus passive (soft kill) defenses and the track record of each (see, "AAW - Hard Kill Or Soft Kill?").

Let’s look a bit closer at the hard kill side of the issue.  A few things jump out:

Effectiveness – The historical data shows that AAW missiles are only marginally effective with success rates of 1% - 25%.  Against modern supersonic aircraft and missiles supported by ECM and decoys the success rate will probably be in the 1%-10% range.

Engagement Density – The speed of modern aircraft and missiles makes for very short engagement windows which means that the number of missiles (the density) that can be launched per target is very small.

Cost – The Navy’s Standard missile costs $1M+ each and the more advanced versions (SM-3 & SM-6) are more than that.

What do these factors mean?

The marginal effectiveness means that you need more missiles per target to ensure a kill.  That’s straightforward but the limited engagement density precludes increasing the number of missiles to compensate for marginal effectiveness.  Worse, when the marginal effectiveness is combined with the cost, the desire for more missiles per engagement leads to skyrocketing costs even if we could increase the engagement density.  This is a self-limiting path.

The preceding suggests that the Navy’s emphasis on long range, hard kill missile-based AAW will be only marginally effective and exceedingly expensive.  Compounding this is the Navy’s neglect of short range AAW defense.  The Burkes, for example, typically carry a single Phalanx CIWS (some ships carry two).  That’s hardly adequate.

 

It’s easy to project the ultimate result of the Navy’s current path.  AAW missiles are getting bigger and more expensive.  As the Navy attempts to build ever faster, longer ranged, smarter AAW missiles they will be able to afford fewer and fewer.  Missile size will soon exceed the Mk 41 VLS cell size and have to switch to the Mk 57 Peripheral VLS system of the Zumwalt with the attendant decrease in cell numbers.  Thus, we can foresee a path of increasing costs and decreasing numbers.

We’re already able to see a dilemma involving enemy UAVs.  Do we really want to spend $1M+ to shoot down a $5K or $50K UAV?  If not, what’s the alternative?

So what’s the solution?

Conceptually, we can engage at greater distances to increase the engagement density.  The further out we begin the engagement, the more time we’ll have and the more AAW missiles we can throw at the target.  That’s expensive but would be effective.  The problem is targeting.  Modern anti-ship missiles are generally sea skimming high-subsonic or supersonic which is difficult to detect especially in an ECM environment.  Thus, attempting to engage at greater distances won’t work unless we come up with a breakthrough advance in detection technology.

Conceptually, we can engage at the same, or closer, distances but with much greater engagement density.  The greater number of weapons would compensate for the marginal effectiveness.  The problem is that we’re limited in terminal guidance and target detection and discrimination once missiles start exploding in the target’s vicinity.  Thus, greater numbers are only going to result in untargeted or incorrectly targeted AAW missiles being wasted at $1M+ each.

So, conceptually we can increase our AAW hard kill chances but there are significant problems.  Now what?

Well, this is where we reach the point of this post.  The following is a conceptual missile-based hard kill AAW system patterned after the CIWS.  Imagine a missile that is medium to short ranged (we aren’t going to detect anti-ship missiles beyond that range anyway! – ballistic missiles notwithstanding), cheap, and doesn’t require precision guidance.  We could fling large numbers at targets and increase our overall effectiveness.  

Such a missile system is based on the CIWS concept.  The missiles are fragmentation types that are intended to explode in the path of the incoming target, creating a “wall” of debris for the target to fly through.  As such, precise targeting and guidance is not required since skin-to-skin contact is unnecessary.  A salvo of several missiles thrown in the approximate path of the target ensures a “hit”.  As with CIWS, the missiles can be continually launched until a kill is achieved.

The missiles would be relatively cheap since they would be short to medium ranged and would not need a sophisticated seeker.  In essence, a proximity fuze is all that’s required.  The missiles would not be guided but would simply be launched at a calculated intercept point.  Of course, they would need to be high speed to minimize the amount of maneuvering the target could accomplish before the missile’s arrival.

An added benefit is that massively capable radar systems like Aegis/AMDR are not really necessary since very long distance, precise targeting and guidance is not needed.

In essence, this is a CIWS missile with a much greater range than a conventional CIWS gun.

On an interesting, related note, occasional attempts were made to do something similar to this in WWII using large caliber battleship guns which would fire shells into the water in front of low flying, incoming aircraft with the hope that the planes would fly through the resulting water spouts and be knocked down.  It wasn’t tried often and I’ve never heard of any success with the technique but it is an interesting parallel.

You'll note that I've left out any specific discussion of ESSM.  This is because it falls under the same cost and capability path of diminishing returns and because it has some severe problems to the point that it may not even be functional on a practical basis.  Admittedly, I'm drawing somewhat suspect conclusions about this from various reports.  Regardless, it doesn't change the premise of the post.

This is one of those conjectural posts that ComNavOps comes up with from time to time.  It’s offered as an interesting discussion point and an outside-the-box idea.  Would it work?  Who knows?  It’s worth a few minutes thought, though.  Feel free to offer alternatives that would address the hard kill AAW issues because the current AAW path is unsustainable.

On a related note, I think the Navy recognizes the unsustainable path they’re on and are responding by trying to develop lasers and railguns.  Unfortunately, those technologies are still decades away from practical use.  The approach in this post offers a shorter term alternative.

BMD Performance

Actual performance data for AAW systems is hard to come by, as we've seen.  The May 2013 issue of Proceedings (p. 65) offers a bit of data for the Ballistic Missile Defense system.  Proceedings reports that Aegis/SM-3 have intercepted 22 of 27 (81%) missiles in test firings.

There are two ways to interpret this information.

We should be encouraged because both Aegis and SM-3 are still developing and and 81% success rate is outstanding and will only get better as the system matures.

We should be disappointed because these test firings are highly staged affairs with perfectly tweaked missiles and radar systems launched under absolutely ideal conditions against extremely simple targets in a non-ECM environment.  A failure rate of 19% doesn't bode well for actual combat situations against high performance ballistic missiles with on-board ECM.

Where does the truth lie?  Somewhere in between, undoubtedly.  Both perspectives are true although I lean far more towards the latter.  The Navy is famous for staging test firings which are ridiculously slanted towards success.  Nonetheless, the data offers a hint that China's carrier-killer missiles that so many people are so terrified of won't be quite the wonder weapons that they're made out to be.  Aegis/Standard is capable of some level of BMD success.

Although I've stated it many times, it bears repeating that China (and the US) have not solved the far-over-the-horizon targeting challenge.  That weakness combined with some level of BMD intercept capability suggests that ballistic missiles are no more than a low level threat for the time being - a threat to be respected, for sure, but not a game changer, yet.