Anti-ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM)

Sujoy wrote:
It's not an effective technology ...that's why

It is an effective technology but its limited to defending coastal targets at best 300-500 km assuming you can track object in real time within that radius ...its good for the chinese to deter USBG being station close to its coast during crisis.

Let's take for example the Chinese "carrier killer" missile DF 21D :

Firstly, (unless it is using a nuclear warhead) it is going to need terminal guidance in order to fine tune the warhead’s trajectory when it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere. This is true regardless of how well China needs the position of the target carrier - the target it wants to shoot at.

AShBM does not re-enters atmosphere but boost glide at 40 Km and tries to be at a place where its Homing Radar Active seeker can track the Ships , ofcourse it has to be give a good intelligence on the probable location of ship so that it can be there at shortest possible time and then rely on its homing Radar to track ship and dive on to it.

Austin wrote:AShBM does not re-enters atmosphere but boost glide at 40 Km and tries to be at a place where its Homing Radar Active seeker can track the Ships , ofcourse it has to be give a good intelligence on the probable location of ship so that it can be there at shortest possible time and then rely on its homing Radar to track ship and dive on to it.

Slowing the warhead for terminal guidance makes it prohibitively vulnerable to interception.Requisite satellite coverage is unattainable, as are sufficient naval and surveillance craft and overseas bases for signals intelligence.

How does one strike a CSG that moves during location, data transmission, and ASBM delivery? Ballistic missiles are less accurate than cruise missiles because the Ballistic Missiles trajectory is relatively fixed.

One possible way could be that as long as the initial ASBM trajectory is reasonably accurate, appropriate homing corrections can be made. Precision can be improved with passive radiation homing and activating terminal guidance at higher altitude to allow the seeker to scan a larger area, and selecting opportune moments for attack for example when tailwinds or at-sea replenishment preclude significant mobility.

But then interference capabilities on board naval carriers can yield equipment capable of misdirecting the weapon's tracking mechanisms.Whatever Missile has a seeker can be jammed.

The kill chain is so complex that such a ASBM can easily be intercepted unless China ( or any other country) develops an entire system to make such a missile work coz the missile by itself is pretty useless.

Sujoy wrote:Slowing the warhead for terminal guidance makes it prohibitively vulnerable to interception.Requisite satellite coverage is unattainable, as are sufficient naval and surveillance craft and overseas bases for signals intelligence.

An AShBM travels at hypersonic speed at 40 Km Altitude to avoid getting intercepted and can pull many G's while its gliding toward the target which can be reached in 5-6 minutes if its 300-400 Km which is where AShBM is effective and not greater than that.

The disadvantage is if you are travelling that high you would be detected early and Carrier would take some evasive action but you can fire half a dozen AShBM against a single carrier or CBG.

What you need is the general location in a area of say 100 Km where CBG is located and then fire at the last known co-ordinates , one can obtain such location from ASW aircraft , Submarine or Land Based OTH radar or ships in vincinity.

Once the AShBM arrives at that general location it avtivates its radar and due to high altitude it can look at 100-200 Km below and once it detects the CBG which wont move beyond 100 Km in 4-5 minutes the Missile RV if it has ISAR mode would than co-orelate the RF image of target with that of prestored image or just home into Carrier Radar Source in passive mode and Dive on to the target at speed not less than 4-5 Mach , it can guide using its control surfaces or a combination of Thrust Control and Control Surfaces.

After that it would be a SAM versus AShBM game ......it would not be an easy target for any SAM to intercept such fast , high G targets even if it gets detected early as the target would get 4-5 minutes of warning time and more so when you have a dozen AShBM coming at you.

If the PLAN wants to make it more difficult then they can co-ordinate the DF-41 launch from multiple location and programming it to arrive at the same time or in few sec difference at the target.

Seekers are difficult to jam but in case they do get jammed most modern seeker has Home on Jam Capability built in them.

Tny Austing for excellent explanation.

But I have few more questions.


1.  Why do you believe ASBM can only be effective up to 400 km. That does not makes sense to me.

   cozz if you have ways to communicate and change RV trajectory than distance should not come as

   a technological problem impossible to solve

2.  Why do you believe that ASBM flys only at 40km attitude and not that it could be one of its

   possible mode?

Hello Viktor you are asking questions that are at best of a highly classifed nature and I dont claim to be privy to any classified information on Topol-M or Avangrad , except to what i can get from open source or make sense of it , So take it for what ever its worth.

1.  Why do you believe ASBM can only be effective up to 400 km. That does not makes sense to me.

   cozz if you have ways to communicate and change RV trajectory than distance should not come as

   a technological problem impossible to solve

Its more of question of Sensor to Shooter time all in real time , if you can track warship moment in real time at long distance then you can try shooting at it but the longer the flight time the longer is the ability of opponent to track and try to defend it.

2.  Why do you believe that ASBM flys only at 40km attitude and not that it could be one of its

   possible mode?

Because of the sweet spot where the missile can glide at hypersonic speed and remain invulnerable to most SAM when flying at that altitude , Do you know why Iskander also travels at that altitude at hypersonic speed

Austin wrote:Its more of question of Sensor to Shooter time all in real time , if you can track warship moment in real time at long distance then you can try shooting at it but the longer the flight time the longer is the ability of opponent to track and try to defend it.

Ability of opponent to defend itself is a different story but if China has ability to track carriers of instance at some range than

it has no problem guiding ASBM on that range. So for instance if China can track carriers 2000km offshore than it can guide its

ASBM on that range. Do you agree?

Now China has some maritime satellite system for such role, OTH radars are another method and other planes and means of surveillance .

Austin wrote:Because of the sweet spot where the missile can glide at hypersonic speed and remain invulnerable to most SAM when flying at that altitude , Do you know why Iskander also travels at that altitude at hypersonic speed

Austin wrote:

Yes Im aware about the Iskander trajectory althrow I think it has many more than only one. Given the situation most appropriate is

taken. Thats why Im not sure DF-21 has only one trajectory and Im not so sure that SM-3 would be 100% efficient just because DF-21 does

not have unpredictable trajectory.

Viktor yes I think if China has developed a good sensor shooter grid then they should be able to take out ships at longer range.

But since i do not follow DF-21 development I wouldnt know where it stands may be some one here can answer your query better.

I dont follow either but remember reading about some maritime launch satellites being put in orbit for such purpose.

Could look into the thing in the coming days.

To explain the intercept problems lets simplify it a bit and use a flat open field with a man running and a man with a ATGM.

This is simplified because we are using only two dimensions instead of three... though the problem is actually a four dimensional problem but I will explain that later.

When shooting at a target that is moving if you aim directly at the target you will miss unless the target is moving directly towards or away from you, or the target is moving very very slowly or the projectile you are firing moves very very fast like a laser beam and the target is not far away.

You can ease the problems of interception by making the projectile you fire a guided projectile as you can compensate for the targets movements during the flight of your projectile to the target.

If the target is jogging in a fairly straight line at a steady pace it is fairly easy to add a little lead to shorten the flight time of your missile and then drop the crosshairs back to onto the target for the last few hundred metres or so (assuming an engagement at 4-5km). By aiming at where the target will be you greatly reduce the flight time of the intercept and reduce the energy wasted by your intercepting missile. At running speed the lead distance will not be that large even at 4-5km because of the fairly short flight time of the intercepting missile and the huge speed of the missile compared to the speed of the target.

However if you greatly increase the scale of the field to thousands of kms and you replace the slow moving man with an RV travelling at 7km/s, even with a laser beam that can cover the distances in half a second the intercept point will be 3.5km away from the actual target.

In reality however using a missile to intercept that might take tens of minutes to cover the distance then you start to have problems.

Very simply the intercept point for a target is based on the time it will take for the interceptor to reach it... multiplied by the speed of the target... so if the interceptor will taken 20 minutes to reach the intercept point then the interception point... assuming a straight and steady speed of the target will be 8,400km in front of the target missile. Imagine a stick poking out the front of the target missile that is 8,400km long and that is the interception point... where interceptor will meet target. The problem is that this target can manouver in 3 dimensions... a turn of a few degrees will swing that stick poking out the nose of the target thousands of kms. A turn of a few degrees is nothing for the target, but for the interceptor all of a sudden it now needs to be in a new place thousands of kms away... the whole engagement calculation needs to be recalculated because the interceptor has to turn which uses fuel and reduces the interceptors speed which will effect the exact interception point. To counter a manouvering target there is no point in going exactly to the new interception point because it is likely to turn again, so an educated guess based on what the target might be can be used to get it much closer... as the interceptor gets closer to the target the interception stick gets shorter so the interception point moves shorter distances... yet at the last second a simple turn could leave the interceptor 7km away from the target... even a nuclear warhead would have trouble destroying a target from that range unless you want to use really big nukes... in which case your interceptor missiles might do more damage than the incoming missiles.

It is a 4 dimensional problem as I mentioned above... the fourth dimension is time... you can get your interceptor missile to the same place in three dimensions as the target, but if the time is wrong... even by half a second... then you will miss a 7km/s target by 3.5km.

Accuracy is critical and even then the best real solution is increasing the speed of the interceptor to the speed of light with lasers...

Nice post Garry my vote.

One more point to note is that with the advent of HTK interceptor the interceptor besides the challenge mentioned by Garry as to actually Hit the Target at the right place to kill it which makes the window of opportunity for the interceptor even smaller.

Hitting at the right place which is warhead section is important as hitting the missile body might lead to the warhead still surviving and continuing on its journey

Adding to the arguements against AShBM; it should be noted that a normal anti-ship cruise missile will be far more versatile in terms of how its employed; not just launched from land-mobile vehicles or launch sites but also from multi-role fighters, long-range strategic bombers, stealth aircraft, ships of various designations, submarines, even from covert sites such as container ships and trucks (as popularized by the Klub cruise missile ads).

Obviously a ballistic missile will be far more limited in options. A cruise missile on the other hand can just be readily fired from where-ever you can fit one of its launchers; all the more so if it uses a standardized VLS compatible with other cruise missiles.

I'll also imagine that a cruise missile will be cheaper and definitely more compact; it can fit into a launch tube or otherwise be completely concealed more easily - the enemy may never know their locations until they are fired.

With something like the Brahmos-2 - it will be able to attain somewhat BM-style hypersonic speeds at least during the phases of flight when speed is the most critical factor.

Overall I think that anti-ship ballistic missiles are something of a dead end.

I've been wondering why Russia, of all countries, still hasn't developed or tried to develop an ICBM that can deliver conventional warheads (or cruise missiles) of some sort to extreme accuracy...

The usefulness of such a weapon could not be understated... targeting enemy facilities (naval yards, docked ships, government buildings) from home and with less than 1 hour of flying time would be a game changer.

The closest thing is the Chinese anti-carrier ballistic missile.

Is it simple too hard to slow down the re-entry vehicle as it comes in from orbit for it to release some form of guided munition?

The cost of an ICBM is rather more than any cruise missile, and their numbers in service and where they can be deployed is limited by treaties.

Very simply the Russian C4IR is not up to a standard that could find and identify a target that would need to be hit within an hour.

The other main reason an ICBM conventional weapon is bad is because when you launch one... all of your nuclear armed rivals will suddenly panic... they have no way of knowing if this is conventionally armed till it explodes... and by then it is too late... what happens if it has a powerful nuclear warhead and flys near enemy airspace and is detonated high up in the atmosphere to blind your radars to cover the full launch of nuclear armed missiles?

And thirdly... only the US needs to be able to find, identify, and then judge and execute someone without any legal process at national level let alone international level.

I've been wondering why Russia, of all countries, still hasn't developed or tried to develop an ICBM that can deliver conventional warheads (or cruise missiles) of some sort to extreme accuracy...

And the source for this "information" what should be ?

In the cruise missile department at today domestic "Kaliber" vastly surpass any western analogue in both range and precision (for not talk of capability to dramatically change trajectory and altitude to avoid interception).

About ballistic missiles (a sector where, at today, Federation's scientific lead in respect to any foreign competitor is simply embarrassing....) domestic version of Iskander represent ,at today, the most precise, versatile, unstoppable and lethal specimen in its category.

About ICBM "conversion" to the role ,is important to stress that the apocalyptic danger represented by potential misunderstanding on the precise nature of the ICBM attack (with the possible thermonuclear retaliation to the perceived enemy first wave "opening" attack) has ,until now, stopped any development in this direction.

Naturally if the US counterpart should not agree to abandon the purpose of its "Prompt Global Strike" program the Federation will be sadly forced at proceed in the same direction with its new generation of heavy ICBM missile as recently repeated by General Sergei Karakaev :


"Наличие в составе РВСН мощной жидкостной МБР позволит реализовать и такие возможности, как создание стратегического высокоточного оружия с неядерным оснащением с практически глобальной досягаемостью, если США не откажутся от своей программы создания таких ракетных систем"


http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20121214/914773044.html

Mindstorm wrote:
http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20121214/914773044.html[/url]

Mindstorm , any idea , which weapon is this that Colonel-General Karakayev is referring to

числе и космический эшелон ударных средств

Mindstorm , any idea , which weapon is this that Colonel-General Karakayev is referring to

Space based US ABM components, including perspective defeating elements (based both on HTK mechanism and ,in middle term, DE solutions).

Both sides are very active in this crucial (potentially decisive in future) department ; when the race for space weaponization will openly begin the most farseeing actor will gain a position of technological and strategical preeminence for some decades

during the 1980s were any of the soviet SLBMs equipped with conventional non-nuclear warheads ?

I meant the Delta/typhoon/yankee class subs any non-nuclear SLBms ?

thanks

nastle77 wrote:during the 1980s were any of the soviet SLBMs equipped with conventional non-nuclear warheads ?

I meant the Delta/typhoon/yankee class subs any non-nuclear SLBms ?

thanks

You mean an ICBM with conventional/chemical warheads, never heard of something like that, if you think about it, it makes no sense tactically or strategically.

If you launch something like that from a Delta/Typhoon/Yankee it needs to be something that can level a small town with the ground or an entire airfield (especially the ones that can support bombers) or you just risk loosing that submarine and all of its other nuclear missiles for nothing.

Remember, if you launch something like an ICBM the other side doesn't have a way of confirming whether it is nuclear or conventionally armed, so they have to respond with a real nuclear ICBM. Basically you would destroy their building and they will in turn destroy your entire city.

miroslav wrote:

nastle77 wrote:during the 1980s were any of the soviet SLBMs equipped with conventional non-nuclear warheads ?

I meant the Delta/typhoon/yankee class subs any non-nuclear SLBms ?

thanks

You mean an ICBM with conventional/chemical warheads, never heard of something like that, if you think about it, it makes no sense tactically or strategically.

If you launch something like that from a Delta/Typhoon/Yankee it needs to be something that can level a small town with the ground or an entire airfield (especially the ones that can support bombers) or you just risk loosing that submarine and all of its other nuclear missiles for nothing.

Remember, if you launch something like an ICBM the other side doesn't have a way of confirming whether it is nuclear or conventionally armed, so they have to respond with a real nuclear ICBM. Basically you would destroy their building and they will in turn destroy your entire city.

Makes a lot of sense

nastle77 wrote:

miroslav wrote:

nastle77 wrote:during the 1980s were any of the soviet SLBMs equipped with conventional non-nuclear warheads ?

I meant the Delta/typhoon/yankee class subs any non-nuclear SLBms ?

thanks

You mean an ICBM with conventional/chemical warheads, never heard of something like that, if you think about it, it makes no sense tactically or strategically.

If you launch something like that from a Delta/Typhoon/Yankee it needs to be something that can level a small town with the ground or an entire airfield (especially the ones that can support bombers) or you just risk loosing that submarine and all of its other nuclear missiles for nothing.

Remember, if you launch something like an ICBM the other side doesn't have a way of confirming whether it is nuclear or conventionally armed, so they have to respond with a real nuclear ICBM. Basically you would destroy their building and they will in turn destroy your entire city.

Makes a lot of sense

What they could however is to make a naval Iskander for use on surface vessels. One luncher with reloads. They could put it between the two hangars for helicopter on the future Lider class.

One Iskander can destroy really big targets so a small number per ship is enough (like 4 or 6) and the range could be increased to 1500 or 2000 km easily.

Isos wrote:

nastle77 wrote:

miroslav wrote:

nastle77 wrote:during the 1980s were any of the soviet SLBMs equipped with conventional non-nuclear warheads ?

I meant the Delta/typhoon/yankee class subs any non-nuclear SLBms ?

thanks

You mean an ICBM with conventional/chemical warheads, never heard of something like that, if you think about it, it makes no sense tactically or strategically.

If you launch something like that from a Delta/Typhoon/Yankee it needs to be something that can level a small town with the ground or an entire airfield (especially the ones that can support bombers) or you just risk loosing that submarine and all of its other nuclear missiles for nothing.

Remember, if you launch something like an ICBM the other side doesn't have a way of confirming whether it is nuclear or conventionally armed, so they have to respond with a real nuclear ICBM. Basically you would destroy their building and they will in turn destroy your entire city.

Makes a lot of sense

What they could however is to make a naval Iskander for use on surface vessels. One luncher with reloads. They could put it between the two hangars for helicopter on the future Lider class.

One Iskander can destroy really big targets so a small number per ship is enough (like 4 or 6) and the range could be increased to 1500 or 2000 km easily.

Why would this be preferable to e.g. a Zirkon?

Big_Gazza wrote:

flamming_python wrote:Why would this be preferable to e.g. a Zirkon?

Bigger warhead, more destructive potential against naval targets (ie fragmentation/blast as opposed to mainly kinetic).  Also the option of EMP pulse warheads to kill enemy ABM/AAM defense systems.  Iskander is known to have an optically guided warhead option, so this would be ideal for selective targeting, ie killing enemy flat-tops.

Iskander is reckoned to be hypersonic M6-7 at the height of its trajectory, so its fair to assume it's terminal attack speed will be greater again.  Its ability to maneuver could allow it to perform a top-down attack, ie striking from near-vertical, at thereby pose an extreme tracking challenge for ship-borne radars which lack coverage at the zenith.

The range could be greater too. But difficult to say because specs of both missiles are classified and what we can read on internet is probably bullshit.

I don't think the range or manueverability will differ significantly.
Kinetic at Mach 7 will be plenty destructive enough; you don't really need an HE or cluster warhead at such speeds. Not for nothing are they planning to equip the Sarmat ICBM with Yu-74 hypersonic glider vehicles that release pure-kinetic warheads to destroy targets such as hardened missile silos.. where are their nuclear or explosive payloads?
No reason why a Zirkon can't be fitted with an EMP warhead, or even have optics and cameras for image-matching and guidance (although in an anti-sea role I really don't see why this would be neccessery).

And of course the Zirkon as a cruise missile has far more flight profiles available to it; it can sea-skim at supersonic speeds instead if that is what has the best chance of getting through. Or even better the ship can just launch a Kalibr instead.
You won't get that versatility if you just build a ship around the Iskander-M.

BTW the Iskander actually slows down in its terminal stage to supersonic speeds, typically, in order to perform anti-ABM defence manuevers.

Some of you guys have been swayed by China's new anti-ship ballistic missile system, I can see.
But this is fundamentally old tech.
China relies on these big launchers with 1-2 missiles a vehicle, and with a network of coastal radars to support them. They haven't come up with a naval variant of it.

The Zirkon on the other hand is a cruise missile that's far more compact and that can possibly be fitted onto the UKSK containers of any Russian ship or to the Bastion-P coastal defence anti-ship missile complex, goes at about the same speed as the Chinese missile, and is targeted using the ship's or launching system's own radars. They'll likely be able to come up with an air-launched version of it too. Probably cheaper than the Chinese solution too.

flamming_python wrote:I don't think the range or manueverability will differ significantly.
Kinetic at Mach 7 will be plenty destructive enough; you don't really need an HE or cluster warhead at such speeds. Not for nothing are they planning to equip the Sarmat ICBM with Yu-74 hypersonic glider vehicles that release pure-kinetic warheads to destroy targets such as hardened missile silos.. where are their nuclear or explosive payloads?
No reason why a Zirkon can't be fitted with an EMP warhead, or even have optics and cameras for image-matching and guidance (although in an anti-sea role I really don't see why this would be neccessery).

And of course the Zirkon as a cruise missile has far more flight profiles available to it; it can sea-skim at supersonic speeds instead if that is what has the best chance of getting through. Or even better the ship can just launch a Kalibr instead.
You won't get that versatility if you just build a ship around the Iskander-M.

BTW the Iskander actually slows down in its terminal stage to supersonic speeds, typically, in order to perform anti-ABM defence manuevers.

Some of you guys have been swayed by China's new anti-ship ballistic missile system, I can see.
But this is fundamentally old tech.
China relies on these big launchers with 1-2 missiles a vehicle, and with a network of coastal radars to support them. They haven't come up with a naval variant of it.

The Zirkon on the other hand is a cruise missile that's far more compact and that can possibly be fitted onto the UKSK containers of any Russian ship or to the Bastion-P coastal defence anti-ship missile complex, goes at about the same speed as the Chinese missile, and is targeted using the ship's or launching system's own radars. They'll likely be able to come up with an air-launched version of it too. Probably cheaper than the Chinese solution too.

Iskander has a 800 kg warehead. Imagine you want to destroy an airfield or damage it seriously. You will need like tens of Kalibrs to do so like US did to Syrian airbase. With an Iskander you can put a warehead with submunitions and touch all the area to destroy any fighter that is not covered and even if it is detected it can't be destroyed by SAM (very difficult, not impossible).

Zircon has yet to prove all these capacities. You have 0 proof it has a range of a true land Attack cruise missile (1000+ km) or it has lot of flight profiles.

I didn't say to use Iskander for antiship missions but for land Attack on big target behind enemy lines. But to answer to you remark about chinese BM, it is a dangerous weapon because it attacks from the top. Radars have dead zones, and the chinese antiship ballistical missile exloits these dead zones (like normal antiship flying low to be under the coverage of radar) to go through defences.

You should compare what Houti's BM did to saoudis and what can do a single cruise missile. The difference is huge in terms of results.

Iskanders are not Scud to miss targets by 1km or more. They are as precise as kalibr but fly just 5 to 10 minutes befire reaching the target with 4 times bigger warehead than kalibr.