U.S. Navy Successfully Thwarts Attack With First Engagement Of Missile Defense S

[TomS]

The Saudis and others are flying over Yemen routinely and not taking significant losses, especially at altitude. Heck, the US is flying Predators over there as well.

The radars the USN targeted are probably simple coastal surveillance sets. They don't lock on to a target, just pass location info. Until the Houthis started shooting at ships, such radars were not especially threatening.

Do you think they're just shooting them out there hoping the missiles lock onto something? Something like, "hey there's a blip at X,Y,Z, shoot it over there and maybe the seeker will see it".

Possibly. There are also reports of small boats being used as spotters.

 

[marauder2048]

They've probably left the launch point before the missile even crosses the coast. Truck mobile launchers, you know.

If the US wanted to kill the launchers, we'd put aircraft over Yemen and hit them right after launch. But I think we're content to attrit the missiles and kill the fixed sites associated with them.

True, but anything less than a Global Hawk and they'll probably just shoot it down. If they've got mobile antiship missile launchers, and the radars to target them, it's not a stretch to think they might have something a bit better than MANPADS to defend them. And even strike aircraft take time to drop bombs. An air launched Long Range Precision Fires with a Mk72 booster on it might fit the bill though. Frankly I'm surprised we don't see those radars as soon as they light off to start looking for a ship.

Well you have to concede that, collectively, this is all an unimaginable scenario for which no superior defense could have been envisioned or developed.

*facepalm*

 

[marauder2048]

Do you think they're just shooting them out there hoping the missiles lock onto something? Something like, "hey there's a blip at X,Y,Z, shoot it over there and maybe the seeker will see it".

Possibly. There are also reports of small boats being used as spotters.

Some of the photos of the suspected launchers seem to show them as equipped with what looks like 2D maritime radar.

 

[seruriermarshal]

Do you think they're just shooting them out there hoping the missiles lock onto something? Something like, "hey there's a blip at X,Y,Z, shoot it over there and maybe the seeker will see it".

Possibly. There are also reports of small boats being used as spotters.

Some of the photos of the suspected launchers seem to show them as equipped with what looks like 2D maritime radar.

where the photos ?

 

[marauder2048]

Just a file photo of the Noor missile and its launcher. The video of the attack on HSV-2 Swift seems to show a typical
2D marine radar display

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTNeEYlO3Iw

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/uss-mason-fired-again-coast-yemen-officials-n666971

http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20310&start=60#p268544

Not an attack after all but a 'radar malfunction'?

 

[sferrin]

Where's the actual source? ???

 

[Grey Havoc]

Apparently CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/15/politics/uss-mason-fired-on-again/index.html

 

[marauder2048]

The Saudis and others are flying over Yemen routinely and not taking significant losses, especially at altitude. Heck, the US is flying Predators over there as well.

Another explanation could be that none of the Coalition overflights were seen as threatening to the high value assets
(the TELs, the ASCM launchers etc) that the conjectural SAM batteries are tasked with protecting.

 

[TomS]

The Saudis and others are flying over Yemen routinely and not taking significant losses, especially at altitude. Heck, the US is flying Predators over there as well.

Another explanation could be that none of the Coalition overflights were seen as threatening to the high value assets
(the TELs, the ASCM launchers etc) that the conjectural SAM batteries are tasked with protecting.

But the Saudis have been "Scud-hunting" (albeit without much success) and these notional SAM batteries aren't coming out to play. The logical conclusion is that they don't exist.

 

[marauder2048]

The Saudis and others are flying over Yemen routinely and not taking significant losses, especially at altitude. Heck, the US is flying Predators over there as well.

Another explanation could be that none of the Coalition overflights were seen as threatening to the high value assets
(the TELs, the ASCM launchers etc) that the conjectural SAM batteries are tasked with protecting.

But the Saudis have been "Scud-hunting" (albeit without much success) and these notional SAM batteries aren't coming out to play. The logical conclusion is that they don't exist.

They've been Scud Hunting over an area larger than all of Iraq with far fewer assets (air and ground) than were employed
against a smaller area of operations in Western Iraq in Gulf War I.

I'd be hesitant to accept absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

 

[Moose]

Iranian Noor missile TELs look like commercial delivery trucks right up until the moment they erect for launch. It will take a sizable commitment of assets to locate them. And, thus far, the pattern of firings suggests as few as one TEL actually in the area.

 

[sferrin]

Good luck finding that.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-usa-idUSKBN12H284?il=0

 

[Moose]

History does not repeat but it thymes, CARNEY successfully engaged 3 cruise missiles fired by Houthi forces October 19th 2023.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715090890987798956

View: https://twitter.com/CavasShips/status/1715090890987798956

 

[Moose]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715607521010868573

View: https://twitter.com/US5thFleet/status/1715607521010868573?t=n9aWq1OIXvOBEwhNF3cPJA&s=19

 

[sferrin]

Taking out $50,000 drones with million-dollar missiles is unsustainable.

 

[asVAL]

Agreed. However the damage that those drones wouldve caused had they reached their targets would be even more unacceptable., hence the SM-2.
It's borderline criminal why the USN hasn't pursue a low-cost interceptor program yet. Jammers and DEWs are great solutions but only for the low, slow and unhardened. Swarms of cheap airbreathers/ ballistic missiles like YJ-98s or DF15s deployed from the mainland would be killer. A strategy to saturate the short-range air battle with networked LCIs would deny the cheaper munitions from massing while the hypersonics and aircrafts get knocked down from afar by SM-6s and SM-3s. Something like the Iranian 358 missile or whatever was experimented with MALD. A small, turbojet/piston powered missile guided via a missile-missile and ship-missile datalink and its own optical seeker. I see a Griffin with the rocket engine replaced by a cheap turbojet; the existing warhead switched for a smaller, DIME-type one with a directional shaped charge to kill the high-speed threats; the RF seeker from RAM Blk 2 and a new WFOV EO/IIR seeker that could lock on both cool and hot targets and a modern FBW implemented like what LM did to JAGM-MR ( double the range in the same size!). Such a missile could be stored as 9-packs, potentially even 16-packs if you can manage to get 4 in the space of one ESSM. Hell, given one Griffin is only over a metre long, while the ESSM is over 3 and a half, you can possibly stack them vertically. 4x4x2, that's 32 missiles in one single Mk41 cell! 32 missiles per swarm is already unheard of. You can deny a battery of YJ-12s or the entire AShM magazine of a Type 054B with that.

 

[Moose]

They used the Mk45 for at least some of the drones. That changes the calculus a bit.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1716484862574526942

View: https://twitter.com/KToropin/status/1716484862574526942?t=isFmI8AMovgvomU5dG3BXQ&s=19

 

[TomS]

Ok, I take back all some of the bad things I've said about Mk 45 over the years.

 

[Moose]

Ok, I take back all some of the bad things I've said about Mk 45 over the years.

Time to add a second gun to DDG(X).

 

[TomS]

Turns out that radar-aimed, proximity-fuzed 5-inch HiFrag (HE-CVT) is remarkably effective on air targets that are noticeably slower than WW2 torpedo bombers. Who'd have guessed?

Edit: HE-CVT is a guess, but it seems more likely to me that the KE-ET suggested by the Twitter thread. Long-range drones can be smallish, but still big enough to function a prox fuze.

 

[isayyo2]

They used the Mk45 for at least some of the drones. That changes the calculus a bit.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1716484862574526942

View: https://twitter.com/KToropin/status/1716484862574526942?t=isFmI8AMovgvomU5dG3BXQ&s=19

Carney must have been pretty confident in their Mk45, they were doing live-fire exercises earlier in the month!

USS Carney (DDG 64) Conducts PACFIRE

231003-N-GF955-1017 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Oct. 3, 2023) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) fires the Mark 45 5-inch gun during a pre-action calibration firing (PACFIRE) in the Atlantic Ocean, October 3, 2023. Carney is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. Naval...

www.dvidshub.net

 

[asVAL]

Carney must have been pretty confident in their Mk45, they were doing live-fire exercises earlier in the month!

View attachment 710256

USS Carney (DDG 64) Conducts PACFIRE

231003-N-GF955-1017 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Oct. 3, 2023) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) fires the Mark 45 5-inch gun during a pre-action calibration firing (PACFIRE) in the Atlantic Ocean, October 3, 2023. Carney is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. Naval...

www.dvidshub.net

So it's the older Mod 2?
One must ask in mind the utility of the more modern Mod 4 against small flying threats like drones etc then. A large-bore 5 in gun updated for more potent AAA shells could be a great substitute for the Phalanx, especially when the fore-mounted CIWS are essentially "fitted for but not with" on the Flight III DDG51s.

 

[sferrin]

Ok, I take back all some of the bad things I've said about Mk 45 over the years.

I wonder if they used the shotgun round, like duck hunting.

 

[TomS]

I wonder if they used the shotgun round, like duck hunting.

View attachment 710261

I don't think so, if only because all of the public testing has been versus small boats and personnel. Plus, the inventory of KE-ET (and HE-ET) is limited, while the inventory of HE-CVT is quite large.

 

[TomS]

So it's the older Mod 2?
One must ask in mind the utility of the more modern Mod 4 against small flying threats like drones etc then. A large-bore 5 in gun updated for more potent AAA shells could be a great substitute for the Phalanx, especially when the fore-mounted CIWS are essentially "fitted for but not with" on the Flight III DDG51s.

Useful vs drones, certainly. I'm not convinced that it's useful vs ASCM.

I am curious what the current status of a long-range AAA round like HVP is. HVP was supposedly cancelled in 2021, but it's still listed on the BAE website and there were recent tests of the concept from land artillery plus at least one gun simulating a naval weapon.

 

[isayyo2]

So it's the older Mod 2?

Carney is a Flight I, so yes. Though the ship was modernized with AEGIS BMD and mounts a SeaRAM aft.

 

[Moose]

Useful vs drones, certainly. I'm it convinced that it's useful vs ASCM.

I am curious what the current status of a long-range AAA round like HVP is. HVP was supposedly cancelled in 2021, but it's still listed on the BAE website and there were recent tests of the concept from land artillery plus at least one gun simulating a naval weapon.

And the Air Force has a current Hypervelocity Ground Weapon System, AKA Multi-Domain Artillery Canon program to use HVP fired from a 155mm gun artillery system for missile defense.

 

[sferrin]

Turns out that radar-aimed, proximity-fuzed 5-inch HiFrag (HE-CVT) is remarkably effective on air targets that are noticeably slower than WW2 torpedo bombers. Who'd have guessed?

Edit: HE-CVT is a guess, but it seems more likely to me that the KE-ET suggested by the Twitter thread. Long-range drones can be smallish, but still big enough to function a prox fuze.

Maybe these guys have the right idea, using 3 76mm for CIWS:

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I'm fond of the latest Italian 127mm and 76mm naval guns but I think the USN has committed itself to sticking with their own 127mm gun and going with the BAE 57mm instead of the Oto-Melera 76mm.

Everything is a trade off, the 76mm and 57mm guns can engage an incoming missile sooner but I'd feel like something faster firing in a smaller caliber has a higher probability of defeating a missile once its in effective range. Probably hard to determine which is better without extensive real world testing which would be extremely expensive.

I'm fond of the new South Korean designs for their CIWS-II program, they seem to pretty much be a 30mm "Goalkeeper 2".