Probability of Russian Anti-Ship missiles to hit/destroy an AEGIS equipped target

By the way, I am curious if the Iskander could be utilized for an Anti-Shipping role? The high speed, accuracy, interception prevention would make the Iskander a pretty damn deadly AShM.

IronsightSniper wrote:By the way, I am curious if the Iskander could be utilized for an Anti-Shipping role? The high speed, accuracy, interception prevention would make the Iskander a pretty damn deadly AShM.

With the right seeker they can develop a Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile which as you know are quite in the news these days , but I am not sure if Russia would need that as they have many capable anti-ship missile

Austin wrote:

IronsightSniper wrote:By the way, I am curious if the Iskander could be utilized for an Anti-Shipping role? The high speed, accuracy, interception prevention would make the Iskander a pretty damn deadly AShM.

With the right seeker they can develop a Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile which as you know are quite in the news these days , but I am not sure if Russia would need that as they have many capable anti-ship missile

Soviets had an anti-ship ballistic missile on paper or working on it but at that time it wasn't deemed worthy.

I don't remember though what ballistic missile they were going to modify ..it should still be on MP.net somewhere in the Russian photo thread.

The Iskander is basically the Russian replacement for the SCUD.
The model the Russians use is believed to be called Tender-M and is believed to have a range of 480km and it has two main guidance options, optical, where a satellite photo or aerial recon photo is scanned and loaded into the memory of the seeker with the target highlighted for terminal guidance to impact, and active radar which obviously requires a radar image of the target area for terminal guidance.
The FROG series btw was replaced with the smaller shorter ranged Tochka-U with similar guidance options and warhead options but the shorter range of about 120km.
Unlike the Iskander the Tochka only carries one missile ready to launch, while the Iskander has two on the TEL.
These missiles were designed for the Army and not much consideration was given to other purposes. Right now production is probably not meeting Army requirements let alone thinking about Navy needs.

Traditionally the Russian Army has expected to fight alone without airpower in support. They have focussed on supporting their own forces with artillery of all types with the Iskander being in many ways the equivelent of an all weather day night strike aircraft with rather good accuracy. With the new focus on air power the importance of such assets might diminish considerably despite their performance.

To answer the original question they already have more options than they really need in the anti ship missile department including the Club series, the Sunburn/Moskit series, the Yakhont/Onyx/Brahmos series, the Granit, the Vulkan, and then there is the Uran, and the other air to surface missiles that can be used against ships like the Kh-25, Kh-29, Kh-31, Kh-35, Kh-38, Kh-58, and Kh-59. (ie AS-10, AS-14, AS-17, AS-??, AS-??, AS-11, and AS-18)

Well of course Russia has multiple methods for anti-shipping, but with the advent of the ever more common western missile based CIWS systems like the ESSM, it would be quite logical to explore other methods of AEGIS penetration. The BMD dodging capabilities that the Iskander has would make it an invaluable asset against Carrier battle groups, which unlike supersonic seaskimmers like the Klub, would not have to be fired in saturation to penetrate and destroy.

However, one idea would be to lure a CBG to lets say, 300 km to the shore, fire 1-5 Iskanders outfitted for the anti-shipping role(maybe an armor piercing thermobaric warhead?) and then fire a volley of 6-12 Klubs from docked Corvettes, and in tandem, would have a significantly increased success rate of eliminating the Carrier or the entire group.

IronsightSniper, every weapon have their own pluses and minuses and there is nothing like a perfect weapon.

AShBM travel quite high and are trackable at long ranges without any background clutter but tries to beat the system with speed and some manouveribility , anti-ship missile flies low fast or slow and tries to beat by flying below radar as far as possible ,against sea clutter and better manouveribility but at slower speed.

SAM will have their own set of problems dealing with both.

And that's why I said using them in tandem

My calculations show that the radar horizon of the AN/SPY-1 for a Klub-type sea skimmer is about 25 km. Traveling at about Mach 3 at 3-5 meters above sea level will mean that upon detection, AEGIS will have 25 seconds to counter the Klub. That is not an impossible task, and there's likely hood that 1 or 2 Klubs per 6 missile volley will get hit. The Klub itself would be far more effective when used in tandem with an Iskander.

GarryB , The most important changes they have made with Iskander-M and this is purely from a technological pov is they have improved the guidance to an extent where pinpoint hitting of target is possible and real time targeting information can be provided to the missile even while in flight.

The other most important changes is they have introduced the Hypersonic Boost Glide Concept with Iskander-M which allows it to cruise hypersonically at 50 km altitude and for a small missile gives it a long range and makes a difficult target for ABM and various attack mode has been introduced.

The Hypersonic Boost Glide concept was so far only limited to advanced IRBM/ICBM and they call that BGRV or Boost Glide Reentry Vehical.

Note that recently it has been reveled that use of Glonass Signal on Brahmos gives it a very precise hit capability , GLONASS signal will add to precision strike of Iskander-M.

Iskander-M takes technology to a new level and makes its peers Tochka-U , Frog , Lance , M-11 and similar class missile look like monkey.

Ironsightsniper, of course the variety of methods of attack will always make defence harder, but the Russian Navy already has lots of tools for the job.

It would certainly be possible to fit and ISKANDER into a converted AKULA (NATO codename TYPHOON) or perhaps a KIROV class vessel, but it would be like the US fitting LANCE II missiles into an OHIO class sub. It is not a Navy missile and the current available weapons on paper should be able to do the job.

The US policy is to use HARPOON mainly from aircraft and to simply use more HARPOONs than the defence can handle.

Soviet and Russian policy was that US carrier group defences were so layered and so effective that it was assumed from the start that the attack would be detected early on and that there were two real options to breaching the defences.
One was stealth, which was not really seen as ideal because you will need a lot of platforms to deliver enough missiles to defeat the target so stealth and surprise goes out the window.
The other option is speed, assuming the enemy will detect you fairly early on, use simple brute speed to defeat the defences and in some cases height.
The Kh-22M for example can fly very very low or very very high. The Kh-15 was designed to fly at 40,000 metres and dive on the target at mach 5. The Kh-22M was designed to fly above the effective flight envelope of the Phoenix AAM and the Standard Naval SAM and dive at very high speed on the target (mach 3 or so).
Granits and MOSKITs and YAKHONTS fly at just under mach 3 at very low heights and operate in an organised pack taking data from satellites to find and attack sea targets.
The Club combines stealth with a small subsonic long range cruise with speed to defeat CIWS when it is close enough to be spotted anyway.
Club can be tube launched and several waves of weapons can be launched to arrive on target at specific times including 650mm 100km range torpedos that can be fired to effect the target ships ability to manoeuvere. (most ships will turn end on to an incoming missile to reduce its size and hopefully limit damage).

Most Russian antiship missiles, including the supersonic ones already perform limited manoeuvers in the terminal phase.

I would thing the task of surviving a Russian attack would be difficult for even the most modern vessel.

Well, although I do prefer the Kh-22 above most modern weapons(big, heavy, fast), it's not in service as far as I know. The Kh-15 would be well within the detection envelope of any AEGIS equipped ship, as it's range does not allow for it to cruise the distance to the target. The 30 degree dive also would not help it, even at Mach 5, it would be a difficult target for a Phalanx, but easy for a Sea Ram. For the Granit/Moskit/Yakhont, the answer would be simple, shoot down the top flying ones first and then of course, a next one will take it's place and off with that one. Really, in my opinion, the only AShM weapon that Russia has that is capable of defeating all layers of AEGIS would be the Klub. Stealth features will not help the Klub(or in fact, any high mach missile). This was discussed at another forum, a RAM equipped Klub or Yakhont will be spammed with the full brunt of all the radar signals of AEGIS. Surely, the sheer power and amount of radar signals sent and received by all the AN/SPY-1s in the CBG will detect the Klub. And you cannot forget it's IR signature. The FLIR of the Phalanx/Sea Ram would easily detect the heat of something moving at Mach 3. And there was also talk about some sort of trail a high mach craft would produce, but I cannot recall that.

Of course, you can always saturation fire it, but in the interest of saving money, that is why I asked if the Iskander could be used for the AShM role. More quality = less saturation, which would mean the Corvettes get to sail another day.

Big, heavy and fast isn't ideal in terms of maintenance, manoeuvrability,sea skimming, rcs and etc.

A reduced rcs and IR signature/emission will in fact help the klub to get to it's final stage when it goes supersonic. At which point it will show up on radar no matter how small it's rcs is or it's IR signature is.

At that point speed and manoeuvrability is the key. To me klub/3M-54E is great system to be built upon.

I do agree with that, but that's irrelevant when you're talking about the amount of radar equipment a standard AEGIS equipped CBG has. Hell, even if you get a F-22 to sea skim, it'd show up like a sore dot on the radars of all AEGIS ships, at least 25 km away(which is the radar horizon for a 3-5 meter sea skimmer v.s. AN/SPY-1 radar).

And no, the "reduced" IR of the Klub will help, but not by a lot. Understand that they use ramjets with kerosene fuel, which as much as the Russians can try, will also show up as a big hot chili pepper on the FLIRs of Sea Rams. Besides, the small stature of the Klub will not help it diminish the heat it has by traveling at high machs at low altitudes.

Again the klub only go's supersonic at it's final stage at that range it will be detected one way or the other.

As I said, 25 km detection range for the Klub equates to a 25 second time to detection to impact. That's enough time to train a Sea Ram on it.

Well, although I do prefer the Kh-22 above most modern weapons(big, heavy, fast), it's not in service as far as I know.

Its liquid propellent was rather toxic and difficult to handle, so I doubt it would be missed. There was talk of a replacement called Kh-32 with double the range and a higher flight speed that looked externally the same. During the 1990s there were cases where the Kh-22M was displayed as a hypersonic test vehicle with a flight speed listed at mach 4.5. I have seen post 2000 photos of Tu-22M3s with what looks like a Kh-22M, though it could easily be a Kh-32 so it is very hard to say one way or another.

The Kh-15 would be well within the detection envelope of any AEGIS equipped ship, as it's range does not allow for it to cruise the distance to the target. The 30 degree dive also would not help it, even at Mach 5, it would be a difficult target for a Phalanx, but easy for a Sea Ram.

Easy? Really? Lets assume it performs a snake like manoeuvre just before impact, is it still easy to intercept? Travelling at mach 5, lets put some bones on this, at 320m/s for Mach 1 then mach 5 means it is travelling at 1.6km/s so even quite a fast missile will have an aim point well ahead of the target. A slight turn of maybe 5 degrees could shift the impact point by hundreds of metres. I would want to see it actually hit a diving mach 5 manoeuvring target before I gave it a pass. Remember each Backfire could carry up to 10 Kh-15s (with 6 in an internal rotary bay and 4 on external hardpoints).

Of course the SEA RAM was designed when the Kh-15 was known about so it is possible it could get a hit.

I am guessing that a hypersonic Brahmos II development would likely replace any Kh-15 derivitive and any Kh-22M or Kh-32. Being hypersonic I would expect it to be a high flyer and the payload would reduce to 4 missiles with the Brahmos II being too big for internal carriage on the Backfire.

For the Granit/Moskit/Yakhont, the answer would be simple, shoot down the top flying ones first and then of course, a next one will take it's place and off with that one.

The top missile just scans once with its radar and then drops down and processes the data to decide how many targets are detectible, assigns missiles in the formation to targets and passes the radar picture back to the launch sub and HQ via the satellite link. It would only take a few seconds to scan and then maybe 20 seconds to process and datalink targeting data to the other missiles. Unless you can shoot it down before it gets to 300m and starts its scan getting it later wont matter too much. There is a reason why there are 20 Granits per Kirov class and 24 per Oscar class, it will probably be 3-4 dozen missiles per strike and that does not include other weapons they will probably try to launch as well. A carrier battle group is a very high value target and perhaps 1/3rd will be nuclear armed missiles/torpedos.

This is war, not a movie. I rather doubt the US will hold back from using nuclear weapons at sea either. Morality has nothing to do with it, it is the winner that sets the morals. The US won in the pacific in WWII so the attack on Pearl Harbour will live in infamy. If Japan had won it would have been pre-emptive self defence that was fully justified.

Really, in my opinion, the only AShM weapon that Russia has that is capable of defeating all layers of AEGIS would be the Klub.

But that is the point, there is no single missile or weapon that can reliably defeat an air defence system. You need a variety of effective missiles and the platforms to deliver those missiles in large quantities. Granits would be useless to most countries without Kirovs, Kuznetsovs, and Oscars. They operate best as a pack.
Yakhont and Onyx and Brahmos have similar software though they are smaller to allow use from smaller platforms. They are not Harpoon size, but instead of backfire size aircraft you can use Flanker sized aircraft... which multiplies the number you should be able to get on target.

Stealth features will not help the Klub(or in fact, any high mach missile).

Stealth is supposed to work for the Klub up until it gets to about 30-40km from the target where it drops down and accelerates to very high speed to breach the inner defences.

This was discussed at another forum, a RAM equipped Klub or Yakhont will be spammed with the full brunt of all the radar signals of AEGIS.

Spammed? Radar signals from AEGIS will enable attacking missiles to operate in a completely passive mode during the attack the greatest advantage a carrier group has is its mobility and keeping quiet about its position.

Surely, the sheer power and amount of radar signals sent and received by all the AN/SPY-1s in the CBG will detect the Klub.

And every enemy launch platform in the area will detect those radars.

And you cannot forget it's IR signature. The FLIR of the Phalanx/Sea Ram would easily detect the heat of something moving at Mach 3.

The IR signature against a cold sea will always be a problem for any missile with a jet engine... the difference is that with a Harpoon you have about 30 seconds from detection to impact while with a Club you might get 10 seconds.

And there was also talk about some sort of trail a high mach craft would produce, but I cannot recall that.

More relevant to high flying aircraft and missiles than low flying sea skimming ones.

Of course, you can always saturation fire it, but in the interest of saving money, that is why I asked if the Iskander could be used for the AShM role. More quality = less saturation, which would mean the Corvettes get to sail another day.

What you are suggesting has a lot of merit, but I think the technology will filter through the various systems and that the hypersonic Brahmos II will likely have the speed and manoeuvre capabilities of the Iskander.

There was some talk of many of the Granits not carrying warheads but carrying onboard jammers and decoys and other things to effect the defence. Even a load of corner reflectors and thermal flares could make the work of spotting the targets much harder. A sensitive proximity fuse and some side thrusters to dodge incoming missiles could be an option too. The original Granits had Titanium shields to protect their warheads from external explosions because the best way to shoot down a Granit is to make its warhead explode. The shields were added to make it very hard to make the warhead explode prematurely without increasing weight too much, but those missiles with flares and decoys without warheads would actually be rather hard to bring down because even when riddled with fragments it would continue on its trajectory and might possibly hit the ship anyway with 3-4 tons of metal at mach 2.5.

And no, the "reduced" IR of the Klub will help, but not by a lot. Understand that they use ramjets with kerosene fuel, which as much as the Russians can try, will also show up as a big hot chili pepper on the FLIRs of Sea Rams. Besides, the small stature of the Klub will not help it diminish the heat it has by traveling at high machs at low altitudes.

Actually the supersonic Klub is a solid rocket fueled terminal stage weapon and being visible is not the same as being easy to shoot down. The SR-71 was very easy to see, you would need specific tools to defeat it like S-300 or Mig-31s.

As I said, 25 km detection range for the Klub equates to a 25 second time to detection to impact. That's enough time to train a Sea Ram on it.

If a carrier group is going to sail around with its radars scanning the horizon for Klubs it can expect a lot of attention from radar silent passive radar homing anti ship missiles.

If the SEA RAM system is not turned on it will take about 2 minutes to turn it on and prepare it for engaging targets. Anything radar guided will take maybe 5 minutes.

Equally you are assuming the attack will take place in open water and the conditions will be perfect. What about heavy sea fog, sea state 3-4 at night during a shift change on watch?

The Russian solution to good carrier defences is speed and numbers. The Klub can be torpedo tube launched, land launched, sea launched, and air launched. A flanker can carry about 3 Klubs and a Mig-29 should be able to manage at least 2. A Bear and Backfire should be able to carry quite a lot each too.

[quote="GarryB"]

Easy? Really? Lets assume it performs a snake like manoeuvre just before impact, is it still easy to intercept? Travelling at mach 5, lets put some bones on this, at 320m/s for Mach 1 then mach 5 means it is travelling at 1.6km/s so even quite a fast missile will have an aim point well ahead of the target. A slight turn of maybe 5 degrees could shift the impact point by hundreds of metres. I would want to see it actually hit a diving mach 5 manoeuvring target before I gave it a pass. Remember each Backfire could carry up to 10 Kh-15s (with 6 in an internal rotary bay and 4 on external hardpoints).

Of course the SEA RAM was designed when the Kh-15 was known about so it is possible it could get a hit.

Yes, quite easy. Because it cruises at 40 km, AN/SPY-1 would easily detect such a missile. A SM-2 would have the range to intercept the Kh-15 mid course(which I highly doubt would be doing maneuvers then), and SARH homing missiles like the RIM only requires a guy to point the radar at the missile's general direction, and these aren't dumb missiles no, they can maneuver to kill.

This is war, not a movie. I rather doubt the US will hold back from using nuclear weapons at sea either. Morality has nothing to do with it, it is the winner that sets the morals. The US won in the pacific in WWII so the attack on Pearl Harbour will live in infamy. If Japan had won it would have been pre-emptive self defence that was fully justified.

So, assuming we just fire SAMs tipped with mini-nukes, how is that supposed to change everything?

But that is the point, there is no single missile or weapon that can reliably defeat an air defence system. You need a variety of effective missiles and the platforms to deliver those missiles in large quantities. Granits would be useless to most countries without Kirovs, Kuznetsovs, and Oscars. They operate best as a pack.
Yakhont and Onyx and Brahmos have similar software though they are smaller to allow use from smaller platforms. They are not Harpoon size, but instead of backfire size aircraft you can use Flanker sized aircraft... which multiplies the number you should be able to get on target.

When it comes down to it, most Russian AShMs aren't that different from each other to counter. Either it climbs up and dives on it's target, climbs up, cruises, drops down, cruises to target, or just a cruise at low altitude.

Stealth is supposed to work for the Klub up until it gets to about 30-40km from the target where it drops down and accelerates to very high speed to breach the inner defences.

Yes, and when it does, the small frame and high speed of the missile will illuminate the Klub to ever FLIR camera on the fleet.

Spammed? Radar signals from AEGIS will enable attacking missiles to operate in a completely passive mode during the attack the greatest advantage a carrier group has is its mobility and keeping quiet about its position.

Or you could of said Radar Horizon. 25 seconds isn't a long time but long enough to train some RIMs on the incoming.

And every enemy launch platform in the area will detect those radars.

As if they'd try to do something about it. As far as I know, Soviet doctrine indicated a shoot and scoot tactic for using AShMs.

The IR signature against a cold sea will always be a problem for any missile with a jet engine... the difference is that with a Harpoon you have about 30 seconds from detection to impact while with a Club you might get 10 seconds.

I already did the calculations. For something like the Tomahawk(cruising 30 meters), radar horizon with AEGIS comes out to 40 or some km, and traveling at high subsonic makes the time from detection to impact out to about 2 minutes. Radar horizon for a 4.5 meter sea skimmer like the Klub is 25 km. At M. 2.9, that's 25 seconds from detection to impact. And I know, that's assuming all missiles are detected when they enter the horizon. But, you have to remember, there are some pretty damn big radars in use on AEGIS class ships.

What you are suggesting has a lot of merit, but I think the technology will filter through the various systems and that the hypersonic Brahmos II will likely have the speed and manoeuvre capabilities of the Iskander.

Well, sure, but the BrahMos is a missile not currently able to be wielded by much Russian ships, and BrahMos II is still in development. If all one needs to do is to design a different seeker head for the Iskander, than I think that would be the most cost effective choice.

There was some talk of many of the Granits not carrying warheads but carrying onboard jammers and decoys and other things to effect the defence. Even a load of corner reflectors and thermal flares could make the work of spotting the targets much harder. A sensitive proximity fuse and some side thrusters to dodge incoming missiles could be an option too. The original Granits had Titanium shields to protect their warheads from external explosions because the best way to shoot down a Granit is to make its warhead explode. The shields were added to make it very hard to make the warhead explode prematurely without increasing weight too much, but those missiles with flares and decoys without warheads would actually be rather hard to bring down because even when riddled with fragments it would continue on its trajectory and might possibly hit the ship anyway with 3-4 tons of metal at mach 2.5.

Although I would agree that that would be pretty damn cool, the problem with the Granit compared to something like the Moskit is that things like a Phalanx/RIM wouldn't have to hit the warhead to kill, but rather just hit the fuel. Because the Granit uses a solid propellant, a couple hits from the Phalanx would equate to the fuel combusting prematurely. That doesn't work, however, for something like the Moskit which uses a liquid propellant and therefore, harder to ignite with a couple hits.

Actually the supersonic Klub is a solid rocket fueled terminal stage weapon and being visible is not the same as being easy to shoot down. The SR-71 was very easy to see, you would need specific tools to defeat it like S-300 or Mig-31s.

Ah well, that was a failure on my part :O But, with things like the ESSM, it's considered quite to be the specialized tool.

If a carrier group is going to sail around with its radars scanning the horizon for Klubs it can expect a lot of attention from radar silent passive radar homing anti ship missiles.

True, but that doesn't make them harder to intercept.

If the SEA RAM system is not turned on it will take about 2 minutes to turn it on and prepare it for engaging targets. Anything radar guided will take maybe 5 minutes.

Equally you are assuming the attack will take place in open water and the conditions will be perfect. What about heavy sea fog, sea state 3-4 at night during a shift change on watch?

The Russian solution to good carrier defences is speed and numbers. The Klub can be torpedo tube launched, land launched, sea launched, and air launched. A flanker can carry about 3 Klubs and a Mig-29 should be able to manage at least 2. A Bear and Backfire should be able to carry quite a lot each too.

Those variables are irrelevant. We are comparing 2 things, AShMs and AEGIS. To assume one is not working properly would throw off all results. We haven't moved from theory to practice yet so we are going to keep things in tip op shape. The same logic could be applied to the Klubs, what if some of the batteries for the ARH wasn't full charged? What if there were defects in the metals used? Etc. Besides, the higher the sea state, the worst it would be for AShMs :O

Look, at the point 3M-54E goes supersonic ..the point of stealth (or reduced IR emission to some point) is moot on account nothing will be stealthy at that range.


Before the final stage stealth and reduced IR emission up's the chances to get the 3M-54E to it's final stage.

When it comes down to it, most Russian AShMs aren't that different from each other to counter. Either it climbs up and dives on it's target, climbs up, cruises, drops down, cruises to target, or just a cruise at low altitude.

That's true.

Yes, quite easy. Because it cruises at 40 km, AN/SPY-1 would easily detect such a missile. A SM-2 would have the range to intercept the Kh-15 mid course(which I highly doubt would be doing maneuvers then), and SARH homing missiles like the RIM only requires a guy to point the radar at the missile's general direction, and these aren't dumb missiles no, they can maneuver to kill.

Which model SM-2 can engage a missile sized target at 40,000m or something like 130,000ft altitude?
More importantly which model could do it in the 1980s when the missile became operational?

So, assuming we just fire SAMs tipped with mini-nukes, how is that supposed to change everything?

For an attacker to toss around nuclear armed missiles makes sense because it is just his missiles there and he is safe well away from the mushroom clouds. For a defender to start tossing around nuke armed missiles then the problem becomes... what happens when you fire a missile at a missile heading at you but where your missile is going to intercept the missile coming at you is the carrier you are supposed to be defending and your missile detonating above it might do more damage to it than the missiles you intercept. There is also the problem of multiple nuclear explosions around the place suddenly render you IR and radar equipment rather less effective in spotting targets. With Glonass built in the incoming missiles could easily determine the coordinates of targets scanned by radar from space or by another missile in the attack pack so when their radars stop working because all the nukes have ionised the air they can still fly on intertial nav to where the target could be and explode their nukes with a fairly good chance of success.

When it comes down to it, most Russian AShMs aren't that different from each other to counter. Either it climbs up and dives on it's target, climbs up, cruises, drops down, cruises to target, or just a cruise at low altitude.

They have the range of flying very low (3m for Uran to under 7m for Moskit and 10m for Granit) very high (up to 40km altitude for AS-15) with a speed range of mach 0.8 for Uran, 1.8-2.0 for Granit, 2.2 for Moskit, 2.9 for the supersonic Klub, and Mach 5 for AS-15.

I would say they have rather more variety in flight profile, attack profile, and attack speed than the US options of Tomahawk and Harpoon, both of which are low level cruisers at about mach 0.8 with the option of staying low or a small climb just before impact and vertical dive to impact.

Yes, and when it does, the small frame and high speed of the missile will illuminate the Klub to ever FLIR camera on the fleet.

Indeed, but over those last 10-20km most targets could be detected so covering those last few tens of kms as fast as possible limits interception time and maximises impact performance. (the impact energy is the velocity squared times mass)
Even a missile travelling at 800km/h will likely be a significant IR target compared to the temperature of the sea.

Or you could of said Radar Horizon. 25 seconds isn't a long time but long enough to train some RIMs on the incoming.

More related to EMCON because a carrier group scanning the radar horizon for low flying high speed incoming threats also broadcasts its presence to most of the ocean the vessel is sailing in. As a general rule of thumb a radar seeker looking for an emitting radar signal can generally detect a radar at 3 times the distance that same radar could detect a platform looking for it. And that doesn't take into account the radar horizon, so a big powerful radar that can spot aircraft at 400km (at high altitudes) could be detected at 1,200km or more by an elint aircraft.

If US warships did emit radar all the time then the Russians wouldn't need the Liana series satellites.

As if they'd try to do something about it. As far as I know, Soviet doctrine indicated a shoot and scoot tactic for using AShMs.

A platform like an OSCAR II detects emissions from a US carrier group will immediately contact HQ via satellite link and all Soviet assets in the area would coordinate an attack based on the signal strength and direction of the emissions. When your missile has a range of 700km the target is probably in range.

At M. 2.9, that's 25 seconds from detection to impact. And I know, that's assuming all missiles are detected when they enter the horizon. But, you have to remember, there are some pretty damn big radars in use on AEGIS class ships.

For most of the 1980s and the early 1990s an AEGIS class ship could detect supersonic targets 4.5m off the water, but couldn't actually do very much about them as the Standard SM-2 could not engage targets below 7m because of their proximity fuse and the software and missile design.

On paper the Exocet should not have been a problem for the British in the Falklands war. They had missiles that should have been able to deal with them. The British had Exocets in service themselves!

Well, sure, but the BrahMos is a missile not currently able to be wielded by much Russian ships, and BrahMos II is still in development. If all one needs to do is to design a different seeker head for the Iskander, than I think that would be the most cost effective choice.

The Brahmos is a modified Yakhont, externally they are rather similar. Most previous Soviet antiship missiles were rather larger than the Brahmos, so if they decided to adopt the Brahmos they would probably be able to significantly increase the number of missiles carried per platform.... for instance after dragging around the almost 6 ton Kh-22M the Backfire could probably carry two Brahmos missiles for each Kh-22M it could carry. It could carry a max of 3 Kh-22Ms so that would mean the 2.5 ton Brahmos should be able to be carried at a rate of two per wing hardpoint and probably a single weapon under the engine trunk positions allowing 6 missiles to be carried over shorter ranges. Well... 6 x 2.5 = 18 tons and the Backfire can carry 24 tons when fuel load is reduced so that would be a potentially realistic load.
If it carried one under each external position that would mean 4 missiles carried with plenty of weight capacity for the internal rotary bay to carry more missiles like AS-15s.

Although I would agree that that would be pretty damn cool, the problem with the Granit compared to something like the Moskit is that things like a Phalanx/RIM wouldn't have to hit the warhead to kill, but rather just hit the fuel. Because the Granit uses a solid propellant, a couple hits from the Phalanx would equate to the fuel combusting prematurely. That doesn't work, however, for something like the Moskit which uses a liquid propellant and therefore, harder to ignite with a couple hits.

I disagree as the nose will contain the radar and guidance stuff, and behind that will be the warhead with the armour, so to get to the fuel, which is actually a liquid for Granit, which uses turbojet propulsion. The Onyx which is its replacement uses a ramjet... also liquid fuelled.
BTW Phalanx is only fitted with DU rounds which would not be very efficient to ingite either solid or liquid fuel. Equally by the time it is near the target ships defences the fuel tank will almost be empty and if I know the Soviets they will have pumped cooled fumes from the engine into the tanks to pressurise fuel flow but also remove all the oxygen to prevent fuel explosions.

Ah well, that was a failure on my part :O But, with things like the ESSM, it's considered quite to be the specialized tool.

As far as I know the Klub will be the standard vertical launch antiship missile for Russias conventional subs. The subsonic version will be for land attack use, while the supersonic model is for anti ship use mainly.

True, but that doesn't make them harder to intercept.

It will attract enemy fire like walking upright and out in the open with a flamethrower tank on your back in Iwo Jima would.

The battle groups best chance of survival is to be hard to find. Blasing away with your radars 24/7 is the opposite of that.

Those variables are irrelevant. We are comparing 2 things, AShMs and AEGIS. To assume one is not working properly would throw off all results. We haven't moved from theory to practice yet so we are going to keep things in tip op shape. The same logic could be applied to the Klubs, what if some of the batteries for the ARH wasn't full charged? What if there were defects in the metals used? Etc. Besides, the higher the sea state, the worst it would be for AShMs :O

Do you think the person firing antiship missiles is the attacker or the defender?
Has to be the attacker right?
It is completely up to the attacker as to whether they attack or not.
It is also up to the attacker what sort of attack will be used and when.

The attacker might decide to fire an anti ship missile at the carrier group every hour and a half... 24 hours a day for 6 days. Such an attack rate would be straight forward to implement if you have air power in the region and a safe place to launch from. After 2 days of high stress and little real sleep the attacker might decide to suddenly launch 100 missiles at the group all arriving from different directions at about the same time. After monitoring the US Navy for 60 odd years they might have noticed certain regular procedures or patterns, like refuelling at sea etc where part of the fleet is not at its most ready and during such periods an attack has more chance of success... just as an example.
The attack will use any situation to make their attack more likely to succeed.

BTW the higher the sea state the higher the anti ship missile flys... remember its height is measured above the wavetops so high sea states are no risk to the missiles but in anything more than a sea state of 5 most weapon systems suddenly become ineffective. Sea spray over the deck make IR sensors pretty useless too.
High sea states also mean that even trivial damage can become much more life threatening.

Which model SM-2 can engage a missile sized target at 40,000m or something like 130,000ft altitude?
More importantly which model could do it in the 1980s when the missile became operational?

Note that I said Range. A SM-3 would be able to intercept the majority of all Russian AShMs save the Shipwreck and it's sorts.

For an attacker to toss around nuclear armed missiles makes sense because it is just his missiles there and he is safe well away from the mushroom clouds. For a defender to start tossing around nuke armed missiles then the problem becomes... what happens when you fire a missile at a missile heading at you but where your missile is going to intercept the missile coming at you is the carrier you are supposed to be defending and your missile detonating above it might do more damage to it than the missiles you intercept. There is also the problem of multiple nuclear explosions around the place suddenly render you IR and radar equipment rather less effective in spotting targets. With Glonass built in the incoming missiles could easily determine the coordinates of targets scanned by radar from space or by another missile in the attack pack so when their radars stop working because all the nukes have ionised the air they can still fly on intertial nav to where the target could be and explode their nukes with a fairly good chance of success.

Wait, how is this supposed to be relevant? I thought we were discussing AShMs v.s. AEGIS

They have the range of flying very low (3m for Uran to under 7m for Moskit and 10m for Granit) very high (up to 40km altitude for AS-15) with a speed range of mach 0.8 for Uran, 1.8-2.0 for Granit, 2.2 for Moskit, 2.9 for the supersonic Klub, and Mach 5 for AS-15.

I would say they have rather more variety in flight profile, attack profile, and attack speed than the US options of Tomahawk and Harpoon, both of which are low level cruisers at about mach 0.8 with the option of staying low or a small climb just before impact and vertical dive to impact.

Well I doubt anyone on this forum disagrees with that, but the point I was trying to make is that there are not a lot of variety in terms of attack profiles that a Russian AShM has, it certainly has the most options, but it's not that much options which means the U.S. wouldn't have to develop a massive array of different defenses to counter each and everyone but only have to develop things along the lines of a RIM launcher or ESSM.

Indeed, but over those last 10-20km most targets could be detected so covering those last few tens of kms as fast as possible limits interception time and maximises impact performance. (the impact energy is the velocity squared times mass)
Even a missile travelling at 800km/h will likely be a significant IR target compared to the temperature of the sea.

Yes, and as I've said before, it comes out to 25 seconds from Detection to Impact time for something like the Klub cruising at 4.5 meters.

More related to EMCON because a carrier group scanning the radar horizon for low flying high speed incoming threats also broadcasts its presence to most of the ocean the vessel is sailing in. As a general rule of thumb a radar seeker looking for an emitting radar signal can generally detect a radar at 3 times the distance that same radar could detect a platform looking for it. And that doesn't take into account the radar horizon, so a big powerful radar that can spot aircraft at 400km (at high altitudes) could be detected at 1,200km or more by an elint aircraft.

If US warships did emit radar all the time then the Russians wouldn't need the Liana series satellites.

Well yes, but I'd much rather have a CBG be able to detect the incoming threats rather than not just to have what little protection not emitting radar signals gives.

A platform like an OSCAR II detects emissions from a US carrier group will immediately contact HQ via satellite link and all Soviet assets in the area would coordinate an attack based on the signal strength and direction of the emissions. When your missile has a range of 700km the target is probably in range.

Yes, I've read that AShM document from that German Information group, problems come to be when you notice how few Oscar II subs the Russians have.

For most of the 1980s and the early 1990s an AEGIS class ship could detect supersonic targets 4.5m off the water, but couldn't actually do very much about them as the Standard SM-2 could not engage targets below 7m because of their proximity fuse and the software and missile design.

On paper the Exocet should not have been a problem for the British in the Falklands war. They had missiles that should have been able to deal with them. The British had Exocets in service themselves!

That's what a Phalanx/RIM is for.

The Brahmos is a modified Yakhont, externally they are rather similar. Most previous Soviet antiship missiles were rather larger than the Brahmos, so if they decided to adopt the Brahmos they would probably be able to significantly increase the number of missiles carried per platform.... for instance after dragging around the almost 6 ton Kh-22M the Backfire could probably carry two Brahmos missiles for each Kh-22M it could carry. It could carry a max of 3 Kh-22Ms so that would mean the 2.5 ton Brahmos should be able to be carried at a rate of two per wing hardpoint and probably a single weapon under the engine trunk positions allowing 6 missiles to be carried over shorter ranges. Well... 6 x 2.5 = 18 tons and the Backfire can carry 24 tons when fuel load is reduced so that would be a potentially realistic load.
If it carried one under each external position that would mean 4 missiles carried with plenty of weight capacity for the internal rotary bay to carry more missiles like AS-15s.

That option would be good for maybe a long range maritime strike, but that still does not discount the Iskander. Russia already has Iskanders but Brahmos are just starting to trickle in. I still think that modifying an already existent weapon would be cheaper than to produce, retrain and rearm all the Tu-22M3 out there to use the Brahmos.

I disagree as the nose will contain the radar and guidance stuff, and behind that will be the warhead with the armour, so to get to the fuel, which is actually a liquid for Granit, which uses turbojet propulsion. The Onyx which is its replacement uses a ramjet... also liquid fuelled.
BTW Phalanx is only fitted with DU rounds which would not be very efficient to ingite either solid or liquid fuel. Equally by the time it is near the target ships defences the fuel tank will almost be empty and if I know the Soviets they will have pumped cooled fumes from the engine into the tanks to pressurise fuel flow but also remove all the oxygen to prevent fuel explosions.

Ugh, I'd like to know your source for the Granit being liquid fueled as the DTIG site doesn't say anything about it's turbojet's fuel source. We're not talking about the Onyx btw.

But no, the amount of fuel remaining in the Granit's tank depends on the range it is launched. Plus, even if the Soviets do what you say they do, a couple of pierces from the Phalanx's ammo would allow air flow to come in, thus fulfilling the Fire Triangle. I would agree that the DU ammo wouldn't be super efficient in igniting it's fuel, but it's not impossible.

Besides, the Phalanx doesn't have to shoot directly at the Granit, assuming the Granit is going to impact somewhere to the left/right of the Phalanx, that'd allow a Side shot.

As far as I know the Klub will be the standard vertical launch antiship missile for Russias conventional subs. The subsonic version will be for land attack use, while the supersonic model is for anti ship use mainly.

Which is a good decision. However, the Klub isn't used as widely as I'd like it to be and I've only seen them on one or so ships.

It will attract enemy fire like walking upright and out in the open with a flamethrower tank on your back in Iwo Jima would.

The battle groups best chance of survival is to be hard to find. Blasing away with your radars 24/7 is the opposite of that.

Again, it's best to be blasting your said radars to detect and engage threats rather than to shut them down and have the threats hit you while you're blind. Also, being hard to find isn't as easy as it is anymore, we have Satellites

Do you think the person firing antiship missiles is the attacker or the defender?
Has to be the attacker right?
It is completely up to the attacker as to whether they attack or not.
It is also up to the attacker what sort of attack will be used and when.

The attacker might decide to fire an anti ship missile at the carrier group every hour and a half... 24 hours a day for 6 days. Such an attack rate would be straight forward to implement if you have air power in the region and a safe place to launch from. After 2 days of high stress and little real sleep the attacker might decide to suddenly launch 100 missiles at the group all arriving from different directions at about the same time. After monitoring the US Navy for 60 odd years they might have noticed certain regular procedures or patterns, like refuelling at sea etc where part of the fleet is not at its most ready and during such periods an attack has more chance of success... just as an example.
The attack will use any situation to make their attack more likely to succeed.

BTW the higher the sea state the higher the anti ship missile flys... remember its height is measured above the wavetops so high sea states are no risk to the missiles but in anything more than a sea state of 5 most weapon systems suddenly become ineffective. Sea spray over the deck make IR sensors pretty useless too.
High sea states also mean that even trivial damage can become much more life threatening.

We're not assuming a real life battle situation. Again, we are comparing 2 systems here in perfect conditions. All that you just said in the first 2 paragraphs are irrelevant. Besides, you're assuming that the U.S. CBG would just sit there, for all we know, they might head back to Virginia or just attack.

Note that I said Range. A SM-3 would be able to intercept the majority of all Russian AShMs save the Shipwreck and it's sorts.

SM-3 has no experience against a manouvering target and has only been used against a non manouvering satellite whose trajectory was fixed and known in advance.
How many SM-3s are operational on US vessels and how many other navies have it?

How long does it take from detection to launch?

In the last gulf conflict a UK destroyer shot down a Silkworm anti ship missile with a SAM. It took 90 seconds from detection to interception. A supersonic Russian Anti ship missile would have taken less than that time from detection to impact by your own calculations.

Wait, how is this supposed to be relevant? I thought we were discussing AShMs v.s. AEGIS

You think a conflict between Russian platforms and AEGIS class cruisers would not go nuclear very quickly? 25% of all Soviet Anti ship missiles were nuclear armed, do you think the Russian navy will not do the same? (Note the Russian navy is introducing the Kh-101/102 nuclear and conventional cruise missiles back into operation so one expects it will do the same across the board to compensate for the overwhelming advantage in numbers that NATO currently enjoys).

Well I doubt anyone on this forum disagrees with that, but the point I was trying to make is that there are not a lot of variety in terms of attack profiles that a Russian AShM has, it certainly has the most options, but it's not that much options which means the U.S. wouldn't have to develop a massive array of different defenses to counter each and everyone but only have to develop things along the lines of a RIM launcher or ESSM.

I have ignored the use of mines and torpedoes.
Something you are ignoring is that most countries don't have defences as good as a US carrier group so against those sorts of threats the variety of Russian systems is overkill.
The reality is that if Russian antiship missiles fail to defeat US carrier groups it really doesn't matter because those TOPOL-Ms will be trashing US cities in 30 minutes and Minutemen will be doing the same to Russian cities not long after.

After a period of 15 or so years starved of funding the Russian options for destroying surface vessels is still formidable and while US defences have greatly improved over the last decade and a half they still do not offer 100% protection from what the Russians have now. Once they have worked on Brahmos II with a supersonic combustion ramjet engine (ie scramjet) and mach 6-8 speeds for an air breathing manoeuvring missile threat suddenly raises the bar even more.
The game of measure and countermeasure is never ending.

Yes, and as I've said before, it comes out to 25 seconds from Detection to Impact time for something like the Klub cruising at 4.5 meters.

Detection is only the first step. You need to determine course and speed. Identify the target as hostile. Activate the defence system. Allocate a weapon to engage. Get senior officers permission to fire. ...and Fire.

In an ideal world they should hit it every time.

Few navies operate in an ideal world.

Well yes, but I'd much rather have a CBG be able to detect the incoming threats rather than not just to have what little protection not emitting radar signals gives.

I hope you will understand if I strongly disagree with that.

The greatest danger to a CBG is a coordinated attack from a lot of platforms by a large number of missiles at once. The best way to ensure the enemy knows where you are and can plan such an attack is to broadcast your position to everyone by radiating.
You are a carrier group... use AWACs for looking for targets and threats.
AWACS emissions tell the enemy you are there but don't show where the AEGIS class cruisers or the carrier itself is.

Yes, I've read that AShM document from that German Information group, problems come to be when you notice how few Oscar II subs the Russians have.

Even one Oscar carries 24 missiles... that is a fairly potent attack for any target short of a carrier group. The Yakhont and Brahmos can be air launched from Flankers and they have a few of those and are getting more.
The withdrawal of the F-14s and their Phoenix missiles has reduced the CAP reach of US carriers, so Tu-22M3s become more potent.

That's what a Phalanx/RIM is for.

Except Phalanx has never been successful against a truly sea skimming missile and would certainly be of little use against a supersonic missile.

That option would be good for maybe a long range maritime strike, but that still does not discount the Iskander. Russia already has Iskanders but Brahmos are just starting to trickle in.

Actually I would say the opposite, Iskander missiles are trickling into service at a fairly slow rate. Production facilities for Brahmos have been set up in Russia and in India and GLONASS receiver chips have been integrated into the Brahmos design already. The Iskander is a ground launched solid fuelled rocket with a launch weight of almost 4 tons and a range of 280km. Yakhont/Brahmos in the air launched version has a range that is similar but weighs 1.5 tons less. Being liquid fuelled the Yakhont/Brahmos could easily have its range extended with 500kgs more fuel, but the promise of scramjet propulsion is even more enticing and will likely make doubling or even tripling the range of the missile straight forward.
A jet engine means that the flight path and manoeuvring can be made more efficient because the engine can be throttled.
(an example is a house brick with a rocket engine where the rocket burns for x amount of time and puts x amount of force on the brick. The brick will have an aerodynamic speed where it will cruise well, but a rocket will simply push for a period and then stop. A jet engine can apply force more efficiently and this means the brick will travel much further though slower.)

I still think that modifying an already existent weapon would be cheaper than to produce, retrain and rearm all the Tu-22M3 out there to use the Brahmos.

That is the logic that led someone to suggest getting the makers of the TOPOL to make a solid fuel missile for SSBNs that had never made SLBMs before and had no experience in that role designing the Bulava.

Ugh, I'd like to know your source for the Granit being liquid fueled as the DTIG site doesn't say anything about it's turbojet's fuel source. We're not talking about the Onyx btw.

Not sure I have ever seen a solid fuelled turbojet before. Onyx (and Vulkan and Moskit) are next in the family tree... why shouldn't we mention it/them?

Plus, even if the Soviets do what you say they do, a couple of pierces from the Phalanx's ammo would allow air flow to come in, thus fulfilling the Fire Triangle. I would agree that the DU ammo wouldn't be super efficient in igniting it's fuel, but it's not impossible.

Unless there is a serious structural failure that destroys the missile I rather doubt fuel leaking from holes in the fuel tank will burn like a hollywood bad guys car while it is travelling at almost mach 2. Sure there is lots of oxygen at that altitude but supersonic combustion is a tricky thing to get going let alone get it to explode.

Besides, the Phalanx doesn't have to shoot directly at the Granit, assuming the Granit is going to impact somewhere to the left/right of the Phalanx, that'd allow a Side shot.

Assuming it flys straight in to the side of the ship then it would have to be well within the minimum range of phalanx to count as a side shot... if the Granit explodes within 300m then the warhead alone will do serious damage to the ship anyway, and even if you slash the sides of the Granit within 200m it will be travelling with enough momentum that it will hit the ship no matter what you do to it the explosion will do serious damage anyway.
In actual practise the Granit will be turning as it arrives and remember a side shot at something travelling 800m/s that is 300m away means almost aiming at the ship you are supposed to be protecting.

[quote[Which is a good decision. However, the Klub isn't used as widely as I'd like it to be and I've only seen them on one or so ships.[/quote]

It can still be considered new because the Russians haven't been buying new stuff for the last two decades or so. As they buy new stuff and update their older stuff you will find they have plenty of what they think they need.

I can tell you that if the upgrades of the Kuznetsov goes through then that is 12 less Granits, but if the three remaining Kirovs get upgrades then the potential for large anti ship missiles becomes immense... plus the three Akula (Nato TYPHOON) class subs getting fitted out with all new gear that could be SSGN orientated or it could become some sort of arsenal underwater vessel... or they might make them research vessels with mini subs for rescue and research...( which means naval spetsnaz delivery vessel.)

Again, it's best to be blasting your said radars to detect and engage threats rather than to shut them down and have the threats hit you while you're blind. Also, being hard to find isn't as easy as it is anymore, we have Satellites

The USN disagrees with you. Having certain radars on makes sense but not all and not all the time. Radars can also operate in a listening mode and if you have lots of very large radars listening that can link together you can get range information by triangulation totally passively without giving away your position.

Remember a SSN can use electronic emissions to find and attack CBGs too.

Besides, you're assuming that the U.S. CBG would just sit there, for all we know, they might head back to Virginia or just attack.

If they attack then the "attackers" have something they need to deal with. If the group goes home then the attackers can claim a win. Odds are that the president sent that CBG there for a reason... the attacker is hardly going to take on a US CBG for fun.

If the location is open ocean then locating the CBG is the attackers biggest problem.
In more limited waters like the Persian gulf then other aspects come in to play. To launch a strike the carrier assets have x range so plot that range from likely targets and you get areas to search and directions the attack can likely come from.
One way to deal with a CBG these days might simply be to take on the aircraft in the air group and use mines and coastal defences to keep the ships away.

SM-3 has no experience against a manouvering target and has only been used against a non manouvering satellite whose trajectory was fixed and known in advance.
How many SM-3s are operational on US vessels and how many other navies have it?

How long does it take from detection to launch?

In the last gulf conflict a UK destroyer shot down a Silkworm anti ship missile with a SAM. It took 90 seconds from detection to interception. A supersonic Russian Anti ship missile would have taken less than that time from detection to impact by your own calculations.

You have to remember that the Kh-15 does not maneuver.

And as I have said before, I've already did all the calculations, 25 km detection range, 25 second to impact. Please stop telling me stuff I already knew ._.

You think a conflict between Russian platforms and AEGIS class cruisers would not go nuclear very quickly? 25% of all Soviet Anti ship missiles were nuclear armed, do you think the Russian navy will not do the same? (Note the Russian navy is introducing the Kh-101/102 nuclear and conventional cruise missiles back into operation so one expects it will do the same across the board to compensate for the overwhelming advantage in numbers that NATO currently enjoys).

Pff. Again, this is NOT A SIMULATION ABOUT HOW IT'D GO DOWN IN REAL LIFE. We are comparing AShMs v.s. AEGIS, get that straighten out before talking further.

I have ignored the use of mines and torpedoes.
Something you are ignoring is that most countries don't have defences as good as a US carrier group so against those sorts of threats the variety of Russian systems is overkill.
The reality is that if Russian antiship missiles fail to defeat US carrier groups it really doesn't matter because those TOPOL-Ms will be trashing US cities in 30 minutes and Minutemen will be doing the same to Russian cities not long after.

After a period of 15 or so years starved of funding the Russian options for destroying surface vessels is still formidable and while US defences have greatly improved over the last decade and a half they still do not offer 100% protection from what the Russians have now. Once they have worked on Brahmos II with a supersonic combustion ramjet engine (ie scramjet) and mach 6-8 speeds for an air breathing manoeuvring missile threat suddenly raises the bar even more.
The game of measure and countermeasure is never ending.

Again, WE ARE NOT COMPARING RUSSIA V.S. WORLD, We're comparing AShM's v.s. AEGIS, and please read this sentence over and over again before you get it through your corrupted mind, AEGIS.

Detection is only the first step. You need to determine course and speed. Identify the target as hostile. Activate the defence system. Allocate a weapon to engage. Get senior officers permission to fire. ...and Fire.

In an ideal world they should hit it every time.

Few navies operate in an ideal world.

Ergo, Phalanx operates automatically. Another ergo, that is assuming everything is done with a hand held pace, these are very big and fast computers we're talking here. A firing solution can be calculated within seconds. Grabbing a phone and yelling fire will take a few more seconds. Maneuvers will be of no use to 50 kg+ fragmentation warheads. Yes, Navies in RL do not operate perfectly, but we're comparing 2 Systems here, in a perfect world, so please rewrite your programming to adapt to those changes.

I hope you will understand if I strongly disagree with that.

The greatest danger to a CBG is a coordinated attack from a lot of platforms by a large number of missiles at once. The best way to ensure the enemy knows where you are and can plan such an attack is to broadcast your position to everyone by radiating.
You are a carrier group... use AWACs for looking for targets and threats.
AWACS emissions tell the enemy you are there but don't show where the AEGIS class cruisers or the carrier itself is.

That really will be irrelevant if I could just spot you from hundreds of km up via Optical satellites.

Even one Oscar carries 24 missiles... that is a fairly potent attack for any target short of a carrier group. The Yakhont and Brahmos can be air launched from Flankers and they have a few of those and are getting more.
The withdrawal of the F-14s and their Phoenix missiles has reduced the CAP reach of US carriers, so Tu-22M3s become more potent.

24 Missiles per Oscar II x 2 = 48 Missiles total. The problem again is numbers, the Russians do not have enough Subs to engage every single(or at least most) U.S. CBGs. And Air launch wise, even without Phoenix missiles, a super bug will still be able to engage the Flankers or Backfires.

[/quote]Except Phalanx has never been successful against a truly sea skimming missile and would certainly be of little use against a supersonic missile.[/quote]

Same could be said for the Klub. It has never seen combat against an entire U.S. CBG, how do we know it isn't overhyped Soviet-krap?

Actually I would say the opposite, Iskander missiles are trickling into service at a fairly slow rate. Production facilities for Brahmos have been set up in Russia and in India and GLONASS receiver chips have been integrated into the Brahmos design already. The Iskander is a ground launched solid fuelled rocket with a launch weight of almost 4 tons and a range of 280km. Yakhont/Brahmos in the air launched version has a range that is similar but weighs 1.5 tons less. Being liquid fuelled the Yakhont/Brahmos could easily have its range extended with 500kgs more fuel, but the promise of scramjet propulsion is even more enticing and will likely make doubling or even tripling the range of the missile straight forward.
A jet engine means that the flight path and manoeuvring can be made more efficient because the engine can be throttled.
(an example is a house brick with a rocket engine where the rocket burns for x amount of time and puts x amount of force on the brick. The brick will have an aerodynamic speed where it will cruise well, but a rocket will simply push for a period and then stop. A jet engine can apply force more efficiently and this means the brick will travel much further though slower.)

I would disagree with that. With an Eastern European Missile shield being set up, that would only put more precedence to Russia to develop more Iskanders. Developing the Brahmos would be over kill, as it's just a slightly faster Moskit and is inferior to the Klub.

That is the logic that led someone to suggest getting the makers of the TOPOL to make a solid fuel missile for SSBNs that had never made SLBMs before and had no experience in that role designing the Bulava.

Did I say we should make a solid fuel missile for SSBMs?

Not sure I have ever seen a solid fuelled turbojet before. Onyx (and Vulkan and Moskit) are next in the family tree... why shouldn't we mention it/them?

Because we weren't even discussing about the Onyx, Vulkan or Moskit, we were discussing the Shipwreck.

Unless there is a serious structural failure that destroys the missile I rather doubt fuel leaking from holes in the fuel tank will burn like a hollywood bad guys car while it is travelling at almost mach 2. Sure there is lots of oxygen at that altitude but supersonic combustion is a tricky thing to get going let alone get it to explode.

There is a small possibility that the friction or the tracer ignites the fuel, but that's a quite small chance. But on that note, I should also say that even with an armored warhead, I doubt that the Russians are stupid enough to fit enough armor to survive a 20 mm DU round.

Assuming it flys straight in to the side of the ship then it would have to be well within the minimum range of phalanx to count as a side shot... if the Granit explodes within 300m then the warhead alone will do serious damage to the ship anyway, and even if you slash the sides of the Granit within 200m it will be travelling with enough momentum that it will hit the ship no matter what you do to it the explosion will do serious damage anyway.
In actual practise the Granit will be turning as it arrives and remember a side shot at something travelling 800m/s that is 300m away means almost aiming at the ship you are supposed to be protecting.

Of course that's assuming you're engaging it at 300 m. Raytheon tests with the Phalanx had a M. 2.5 diving AShM(and last I remember, the Granit is a M. 2.5 diver) diving at the Phalanx, and the Phalanx opened fire at about 3.4 km and ended with a kill at 1.4 km.

It can still be considered new because the Russians haven't been buying new stuff for the last two decades or so. As they buy new stuff and update their older stuff you will find they have plenty of what they think they need.

I can tell you that if the upgrades of the Kuznetsov goes through then that is 12 less Granits, but if the three remaining Kirovs get upgrades then the potential for large anti ship missiles becomes immense... plus the three Akula (Nato TYPHOON) class subs getting fitted out with all new gear that could be SSGN orientated or it could become some sort of arsenal underwater vessel... or they might make them research vessels with mini subs for rescue and research...( which means naval spetsnaz delivery vessel.)

That is something we can agree on, the Russian military as of today have a lot of potential to be a Superpower again, all it takes is rearming and refitting.

The USN disagrees with you. Having certain radars on makes sense but not all and not all the time. Radars can also operate in a listening mode and if you have lots of very large radars listening that can link together you can get range information by triangulation totally passively without giving away your position.

Remember a SSN can use electronic emissions to find and attack CBGs too.

Maybe so, but as far as ELINT goes, I could care less. It's really all irrelevant if I could see a CBG with a satellite.

If they attack then the "attackers" have something they need to deal with. If the group goes home then the attackers can claim a win. Odds are that the president sent that CBG there for a reason... the attacker is hardly going to take on a US CBG for fun.

If the location is open ocean then locating the CBG is the attackers biggest problem.
In more limited waters like the Persian gulf then other aspects come in to play. To launch a strike the carrier assets have x range so plot that range from likely targets and you get areas to search and directions the attack can likely come from.
One way to deal with a CBG these days might simply be to take on the aircraft in the air group and use mines and coastal defences to keep the ships away.

Again, we're not doing a war simulation. Comparing AShM v.s. AEGIS, I shouldn't have to say this again

You have to remember that the Kh-15 does not maneuver.

Says who?

The Kh-15 was designed as an anti radiation missile for the Tu-22M3 to allow it to fly through heavily defended airspace by taking out all the main radar bases and SAM sites.
The standard warhead was a 200Kt nuclear device.
The Anti ship model uses a conventional warhead and there is no reason to believe it doesn't manoeuvre during its descent. All the large anti ship missiles before and after it were designed to fly snake like turns during the terminal phase.
In fact in many ways the anti ship version of Kh-15 is very much like an air launched Iskander. Mach 5, 300km range, solid fuelled, it only weighs about 2 tons but then it is air launched which greatly reduces the requirement for fuel weight to get the missile moving.

And as I have said before, I've already did all the calculations, 25 km detection range, 25 second to impact. Please stop telling me stuff I already knew ._.

I didn't tell you, I asked you a question whose answer you knew to remind you of the figure you calculated because that number is interesting compared to the real world example I gave.

Pff. Again, this is NOT A SIMULATION ABOUT HOW IT'D GO DOWN IN REAL LIFE. We are comparing AShMs v.s. AEGIS, get that straighten out before talking further

I think it is rather useless to compare a single AShM with the air defence of an entire CBG. Anyone wanting to attack will not sail up to a CBG and fire a single missile of any kind and expect it to succeed.
These missiles were designed with AEGIS in mind but were never intended to be fed to the AEGIS cruisers one at a time. There is a reason the Oscar class subs carry 24 Granits. There is a reason why Granits have datalinks that allow multiple missiles share information and pass that information to satellites and other platforms.

There is a reason AEGIS is designed to handle lots of contacts at once, but then in a busy shipping lane with lots of commercial shipping present it can't just blaze away at everything it detects either.

Experience in the Falklands show that sometimes ships need to operate near islands and with other less well protected vessels and that even if your AEGIS destroy can decoy away some missiles, if those missiles hit the transport ship carrying all your tanks then the intervention force you are part of might have just failed.

Again, WE ARE NOT COMPARING RUSSIA V.S. WORLD, We're comparing AShM's v.s. AEGIS, and please read this sentence over and over again before you get it through your corrupted mind, AEGIS.

That is funny. This thread is about the Iskander-E missile and I thought we started talking about using it as an antiship missile because all the other antiship missiles the Russians have are crap. I think keeping in perspective that not every naval target the Russians want to sink is a USN CBG that most of their missiles will do fine and there is no need to convert the Iskander into a naval weapon afterall.

Ergo, Phalanx operates automatically.

Only when there is a perceived threat. Also it will rarely be set to open fire on its own due to the risk that it might start opening fire on friendlies (like the returning ships helo). Also Phalanx is useless against supersonic sea skimming missiles.

Another ergo, that is assuming everything is done with a hand held pace, these are very big and fast computers we're talking here. A firing solution can be calculated within seconds.

Can be calculated in seconds for a ballistic or non manouvering target. Has to be calculated in real time for manoeuvring targets.

Maneuvers will be of no use to 50 kg+ fragmentation warheads.

Really?

Wonder why they are spending money on the RIM-174 Standard ERAM (SM-6), an upgraded version of the SM-2 under development designed to target both aircraft and high performance cruise missiles .
Afterall if existing Standard missiles can already engage high speed low flying missiles what need is there for RIM-174?

Yes, Navies in RL do not operate perfectly, but we're comparing 2 Systems here, in a perfect world, so please rewrite your programming to adapt to those changes.

A system that works only in a perfect world is not much good to anyone. That is why the Russians intend to fire off lots of missiles at targets like CBG. They might fire a single missile at a lower value target, but for most high value well defended targets they will launch as many as they can.

That really will be irrelevant if I could just spot you from hundreds of km up via Optical satellites.

Can optical satellites see through cloud?
The problem with optical satellites is that there are millions of ships at sea at any one time... probably hundreds of millions actually. You can either scan large areas with low detail or you can zoom right in so you can ID a target... in which case it will be like looking for a carrier through a straw.
Computers and software can speed things up, but they can't make clouds invisible.
The other problem of course is that in a real conflict how many satellites will remain operational?

24 Missiles per Oscar II x 2 = 48 Missiles total. The problem again is numbers, the Russians do not have enough Subs to engage every single(or at least most) U.S. CBGs. And Air launch wise, even without Phoenix missiles, a super bug will still be able to engage the Flankers or Backfires.

According to wiki (not the best source I know) they have 5 operational Oscar and Oscar II subs.
They don't need to engage every US carrier battle group... just the ones near their country. And Flankers can carry 3 Klubs and Backfires can carry 10 missiles per aircraft. Is that enough?

Same could be said for the Klub. It has never seen combat against an entire U.S. CBG, how do we know it isn't overhyped Soviet-krap?

No. The USN actually tested Phalanx against very low flying missiles and it failed because of radar returns from the sea surface. They put an IR system for aiming at very low flying targets to solve the problem. However when they tested it against very low flying very fast targets they found that it was ineffective and so they developed SEA RAM to replace phalanx.

Sizzler might be overhyped soviet crap but the people talking it up the most are the USN.

I would disagree with that. With an Eastern European Missile shield being set up, that would only put more precedence to Russia to develop more Iskanders. Developing the Brahmos would be over kill, as it's just a slightly faster Moskit and is inferior to the Klub.

Development of the Brahmos makes sense. It is already faster than Moskit and with a scramjet engine instead of a ramjet engine would make speeds of mach 6-8 possible with the ability to throttle and manoeuvre.

The Russian army will likely continue work on Iskander too and if a European BM shield is built without their participation I could see Russia withdrawing from the INF treaty to allow longer range ballistic missiles to be developed.

Did I say we should make a solid fuel missile for SSBMs?

No, you are suggesting naval use of an army weapon. The makers of Iskander also make anti tank missiles and Iglas. Now they might have some experience in navalising their weapons... SHTURM and ATAKA are fitted to some small patrol craft and Igla is certainly used at sea as well, but the point I am raising is that assuming that a land based system can be navalised easily can be a mistake.

Because we weren't even discussing about the Onyx, Vulkan or Moskit, we were discussing the Shipwreck.

I thought we were comparing a potential naval Iskander with currently used equivelents. That would have to include all of the currently available missiles wouldn't it?

There is a small possibility that the friction or the tracer ignites the fuel, but that's a quite small chance.

The DU rounds the Phalanx fires would rapidly ignite material if the target were stationary. You couldn't start a fire with a blowtorch if you were trying in a wind blowing at mach 2. Equally a fire isn't enough... it would quickly blow out. You would need a suddenly large volume of oxygen in the fuel tank to get an explosion. In the 2 seconds a mach 2 missile is within firing range of a Phalanx I just don't think it is possible.

But on that note, I should also say that even with an armored warhead, I doubt that the Russians are stupid enough to fit enough armor to survive a 20 mm DU round.

The Russians are not stupid, the armour is specifically designed to stop the few rounds that might actually hit the missile in the last 2 seconds before impact. The entire purpose was the DU shells from a 20mm cannon. The combination of speed, moderate manoeuvre, and armour renders the Phalanx useless. Goalkeeper fires a heavier round out to longer range and might have a better chance, and there are other defence systems that might do better... like KASHTAN-M with its two 30mm gatlings and missiles, but the current standard will be missiles to defeat Granit like targets.

Of course that's assuming you're engaging it at 300 m. Raytheon tests with the Phalanx had a M. 2.5 diving AShM(and last I remember, the Granit is a M. 2.5 diver) diving at the Phalanx, and the Phalanx opened fire at about 3.4 km and ended with a kill at 1.4 km.

A nice 45 degree dive makes it a much easier target because it can be detected from much further out and there is no interference from the sea surface... and of course the Vandal target the USN uses has no armour and does not manoevre.

The Granit can go low all the way to target.

Maybe so, but as far as ELINT goes, I could care less. It's really all irrelevant if I could see a CBG with a satellite.

Only two countries in the world with satellites capable of reliably tracking surface vessels and one of them is the US. Considering the state of the Russian navy it makes sense for the USN to go around not broadcasting its presence till it wants to.
The idea is that the carrier just turns up offshore in a trouble spot to sabre rattle. Being able to track it is the first step in being able to defeat it so why give everyone that first step?

Again, we're not doing a war simulation. Comparing AShM v.s. AEGIS, I shouldn't have to say this again

I am sorry but just looking at one missile and one AEGIS vessel is not very practical or interesting to me. Perhaps we should just end the discussion here?

The Russians will not use one missile and AEGIS is not designed to stop one missile. They weren't designed in a vacuum and they weren't meant to be used that way either.

The whole purpose of a carrier group is to have multiple platforms that support an airgroup. The aircraft contribute to the defence and form the main attack component as does the AEGIS ships (with SAMs and LACMs respectively) and SSNs that operate with them.

The Kh-15 was designed as an anti radiation missile for the Tu-22M3 to allow it to fly through heavily defended airspace by taking out all the main radar bases and SAM sites.
The standard warhead was a 200Kt nuclear device.
The Anti ship model uses a conventional warhead and there is no reason to believe it doesn't manoeuvre during its descent. All the large anti ship missiles before and after it were designed to fly snake like turns during the terminal phase.
In fact in many ways the anti ship version of Kh-15 is very much like an air launched Iskander. Mach 5, 300km range, solid fuelled, it only weighs about 2 tons but then it is air launched which greatly reduces the requirement for fuel weight to get the missile moving.

Do you have any literature to prove that the Kh-15 can even do maneuvers during it's decent? If not, than it's logical to assume it does not.

I didn't tell you, I asked you a question whose answer you knew to remind you of the figure you calculated because that number is interesting compared to the real world example I gave.

Yes, and that is irrelevant.

I think it is rather useless to compare a single AShM with the air defence of an entire CBG. Anyone wanting to attack will not sail up to a CBG and fire a single missile of any kind and expect it to succeed.
These missiles were designed with AEGIS in mind but were never intended to be fed to the AEGIS cruisers one at a time. There is a reason the Oscar class subs carry 24 Granits. There is a reason why Granits have datalinks that allow multiple missiles share information and pass that information to satellites and other platforms.

There is a reason AEGIS is designed to handle lots of contacts at once, but then in a busy shipping lane with lots of commercial shipping present it can't just blaze away at everything it detects either.

Experience in the Falklands show that sometimes ships need to operate near islands and with other less well protected vessels and that even if your AEGIS destroy can decoy away some missiles, if those missiles hit the transport ship carrying all your tanks then the intervention force you are part of might have just failed.

No one said a "AShM', I said, "AShMs".

That is funny. This thread is about the Iskander-E missile and I thought we started talking about using it as an antiship missile because all the other antiship missiles the Russians have are crap. I think keeping in perspective that not every naval target the Russians want to sink is a USN CBG that most of their missiles will do fine and there is no need to convert the Iskander into a naval weapon afterall.

No one ever said they were crap, simply inefficient in the task of sinking a CBG.

Only when there is a perceived threat. Also it will rarely be set to open fire on its own due to the risk that it might start opening fire on friendlies (like the returning ships helo). Also Phalanx is useless against supersonic sea skimming missiles.

Do you have much proof otherwise? It can defeat a Supersonic cruise missile due to the virtue of early warning, a Supersonic sea skimmer like the Klub could be detected at 25 km range, and due to the Network based style of AEGIS, AN/SPY-1's could communicate targetting info to Phalanx well before the Klub comes to impact. Of course, the Phalanx is completely outgunned by ESSMs which puts tonnes of pressure on Russian engineers to design a better AShM as the Klub's superiority over AEGIS will only start to crumble away.

Can be calculated in seconds for a ballistic or non manouvering target. Has to be calculated in real time for manoeuvring targets.

Or just set to air burst, 9M311 has a 5 m blast radius with a 9 kg frag warhead. The RIM-116 has a 11 kg frag warhead so you can expect a larger radius. Plus, you are not accounting that such maneuvers will actually drain the speed of a Klub, so that Mach 3 speed won't be so.

Really?

Wonder why they are spending money on the RIM-174 Standard ERAM (SM-6), an upgraded version of the SM-2 under development designed to target both aircraft and high performance cruise missiles .
Afterall if existing Standard missiles can already engage high speed low flying missiles what need is there for RIM-174?

Same question could be asked for why would there be need for a Klub or Hypersonic BrahMos when you already have Moskits.

A system that works only in a perfect world is not much good to anyone. That is why the Russians intend to fire off lots of missiles at targets like CBG. They might fire a single missile at a lower value target, but for most high value well defended targets they will launch as many as they can.

I don't think you understand me here. We're comparing AShM's v.s. AEGIS in a perfect dandy world. We're not deciding which to buy but rather which would win. And notice, would win. This was a perfectly unrealistic scenario to start off with but since you can't understand abstract thinking, I don't think there would be a point to ask you to understand what a comparison is for.

Can optical satellites see through cloud?
The problem with optical satellites is that there are millions of ships at sea at any one time... probably hundreds of millions actually. You can either scan large areas with low detail or you can zoom right in so you can ID a target... in which case it will be like looking for a carrier through a straw.
Computers and software can speed things up, but they can't make clouds invisible.
The other problem of course is that in a real conflict how many satellites will remain operational?

Might not be an all purpose solution, sure, but I ask you this, would you rather hide in the shade to shield yourself from a foe or would you rather prepare for the conflict? I think a good USN Admiral would scan for any Klubs or for that matter, Oscar IIs as Russian subs aren't very quite in their walks.

Of course, this isn't a real conflict, and all Satellites are in tip top shape.

According to wiki (not the best source I know) they have 5 operational Oscar and Oscar II subs.
They don't need to engage every US carrier battle group... just the ones near their country. And Flankers can carry 3 Klubs and Backfires can carry 10 missiles per aircraft. Is that enough?

Most likely. But the problem, again, is numbers. If you break one U.S. CBG, how much more do you think we can send at Russia? Sinking an entire USN CBG would be a major morale killer for our fleet and a huge propaganda victory for Russia, but the situation would be the same, and all we would have to do is send our Subs to Russia, spam Tomahawks, and see how Russia copes(I know I just contradicted myself and turned this into a RL scenario).

No. The USN actually tested Phalanx against very low flying missiles and it failed because of radar returns from the sea surface. They put an IR system for aiming at very low flying targets to solve the problem. However when they tested it against very low flying very fast targets they found that it was ineffective and so they developed SEA RAM to replace phalanx.

Sizzler might be overhyped soviet crap but the people talking it up the most are the USN.

Yes, and it should be quite known that Gun-based CIWS are ineffective against Sea skimmers. The SEA RAM was a good choice, and you must understand that a lot of the guys in Washington spew love all over Russian material not to acknowledge it's superiority over our equipment, but rather to gain funding for their equipment. Same was done in the hearings for the F-22.

Development of the Brahmos makes sense. It is already faster than Moskit and with a scramjet engine instead of a ramjet engine would make speeds of mach 6-8 possible with the ability to throttle and manoeuvre.

The Russian army will likely continue work on Iskander too and if a European BM shield is built without their participation I could see Russia withdrawing from the INF treaty to allow longer range ballistic missiles to be developed.

Maybe for the Surface strike non-ballistic role, but the Iskander has many things going for it over the Brahmos in terms of performance and penetrative capabilities.

No, you are suggesting naval use of an army weapon. The makers of Iskander also make anti tank missiles and Iglas. Now they might have some experience in navalising their weapons... SHTURM and ATAKA are fitted to some small patrol craft and Igla is certainly used at sea as well, but the point I am raising is that assuming that a land based system can be navalised easily can be a mistake.

Can be a mistake, but the potential benefits outweighs the potential risk.

I thought we were comparing a potential naval Iskander with currently used equivelents. That would have to include all of the currently available missiles wouldn't it?

We were discussing a potential Nasalized Iskander, but in this quote section, you or I bantered about the Shipwreck's solid fuel and armored warhead.

The DU rounds the Phalanx fires would rapidly ignite material if the target were stationary. You couldn't start a fire with a blowtorch if you were trying in a wind blowing at mach 2. Equally a fire isn't enough... it would quickly blow out. You would need a suddenly large volume of oxygen in the fuel tank to get an explosion. In the 2 seconds a mach 2 missile is within firing range of a Phalanx I just don't think it is possible.

More like 4 seconds. The Phalanx can open fire at 3.6 km.

The Russians are not stupid, the armour is specifically designed to stop the few rounds that might actually hit the missile in the last 2 seconds before impact. The entire purpose was the DU shells from a 20mm cannon. The combination of speed, moderate manoeuvre, and armour renders the Phalanx useless. Goalkeeper fires a heavier round out to longer range and might have a better chance, and there are other defence systems that might do better... like KASHTAN-M with its two 30mm gatlings and missiles, but the current standard will be missiles to defeat Granit like targets.

4 seconds. And in that 4 seconds, there would be a relatively high probability of penetration, titanium is a strong material, but even with moderate maneuvers, you really don't need much 20 mm DU ammo to penetrate. For a Shipwreck like target, it would only be easier for a CIWS actually. Granits only travel at M. 1.5 while sea skimming and at M. 2.5 while diving. The Phalanx indeed has engaged a M. 2.5 diving target before and successfully at that.

The Kashtan can defeat a Granit, no doubt about that.

A nice 45 degree dive makes it a much easier target because it can be detected from much further out and there is no interference from the sea surface... and of course the Vandal target the USN uses has no armour and does not manoevre.

The Granit can go low all the way to target.

It was actually a 30 degree dive, the Phalanx started tracking it with RF at 11 km, got a FLIR track at 7.6 km, and killed it at 1.4 km. Also, going sea skimmer mode means less speed. At M. 1.5, the time from detection to impact for a sea skimming Shipwreck would be 50 seconds. That's a lot of time.

Only two countries in the world with satellites capable of reliably tracking surface vessels and one of them is the US. Considering the state of the Russian navy it makes sense for the USN to go around not broadcasting its presence till it wants to.
The idea is that the carrier just turns up offshore in a trouble spot to sabre rattle. Being able to track it is the first step in being able to defeat it so why give everyone that first step?

Most of the time they don't have to capability to track it. But in the event they do, and decide to launch a hostile action against a CBG, I'd much rather have all my radars searching for the crap you're throwing at me rather than just running and hiding.

I am sorry but just looking at one missile and one AEGIS vessel is not very practical or interesting to me. Perhaps we should just end the discussion here?

The Russians will not use one missile and AEGIS is not designed to stop one missile. They weren't designed in a vacuum and they weren't meant to be used that way either.

The whole purpose of a carrier group is to have multiple platforms that support an airgroup. The aircraft contribute to the defence and form the main attack component as does the AEGIS ships (with SAMs and LACMs respectively) and SSNs that operate with them.

We can end this discussion here if you'd like, really getting annoying having to move the quote tags around a bunch.

Do you have any literature to prove that the Kh-15 can even do maneuvers during it's decent? If not, than it's logical to assume it does not.

I have seen no literature to suggest there is a dedicated anti ship Kh-15, but the experts talk about it like it exists.
The Tu-22M3 is used for theatre strike and naval strike roles. Considering both versions are described as having an internal bay designed to carry 6 Kh-15 missiles and that the description for both models talks about the capability to carry up to 10 missiles suggests internal missile carriage and that apart from bombs no other type of missile is associated with internal carriage on the Tu-22M3 I think an assumption is fair.

Yes, and that is irrelevant.

No. I was reminding you of your calculated figure before I mentioned a real world example for a standard British Type 42 class destroyer in a real world engagement.
I think that is very relevant. Not every ship is an AEGIS class cruiser.

No one ever said they were crap, simply inefficient in the task of sinking a CBG.

They were pretty much custom designed for the purpose. I would suggest to you that if a mach 3 missile at 7m above the wave tops is inefficient then Harpoon must be rubbish.

Do you have much proof otherwise? It can defeat a Supersonic cruise missile due to the virtue of early warning, a Supersonic sea skimmer like the Klub could be detected at 25 km range, and due to the Network based style of AEGIS, AN/SPY-1's could communicate targetting info to Phalanx well before the Klub comes to impact.

So why are they replacing Phalanx with SEA RAM? The US Navy admits the Phalanx is little defence against a supersonic sea skimming missile.
If a 20mm gatling gun could really cut it then why do the Russians put so many KASHTANs on their ships? 2 x 30mm gatlings plus 8 ready to use missiles and 24 reloads sounds like a rather potent system when they are only facing the threat of Harpoons from the US Navy.

The simple fact is that guns of whatever calibre are not good enough for very low flying high speed anti ship missiles that manoevre. The KASHTAN-M uses MMW radar for very low and sea surface targets, CM wave radar for all other airborne targets and IR an digital TV for all targets too.

Of course, the Phalanx is completely outgunned by ESSMs which puts tonnes of pressure on Russian engineers to design a better AShM as the Klub's superiority over AEGIS will only start to crumble away.

Indeed, but that sort of thing can be dealt with... the size they have to play with they can design rear components to fall off and distract incoming missiles... they really only need the warhead and guidance component to hit the target ship. Also scramjet technology will allow speed increases to mach 6 and above which will make things harder too.

Plus, you are not accounting that such maneuvers will actually drain the speed of a Klub, so that Mach 3 speed won't be so.

It doesn't need to perform high g turns to be effective. Its high flight speed will move the interception point well in front of the missile so even a turn of a few degrees will require the intercept point to be moved. How far it needs to move will depend on when it stops turning and it could simply start turning again so the interception point is constantly moving. It is a 4 dimension problem... getting your interceptor missile to the right height, the right longitude and latitude and at the right fraction of a second or it will miss. You can't get there early or late and still intercept.

Same question could be asked for why would there be need for a Klub or Hypersonic BrahMos when you already have Moskits.

Moskit is 4 tons. Club is 2 tons, Yakhont and Brahmos are about 2.5 tons in the air launched models, while the Brahmos has land attack capabilities too. The Brahmos IIs hypersonic speed will mean it will cover distances much faster and be even harder to intercept. Scramjet performance will mean it will need to fly a high profile so it will rely on very high speed and manoeuvre capability to survive.

I don't think you understand me here. We're comparing AShM's v.s. AEGIS in a perfect dandy world. We're not deciding which to buy but rather which would win. And notice, would win. This was a perfectly unrealistic scenario to start off with but since you can't understand abstract thinking, I don't think there would be a point to ask you to understand what a comparison is for.

The answer is very simple. One or two missiles will not be effective of any type. As you increase the numbers of missiles the job of the AEGIS gets harder.
The purpose of flying low and very fast is to reduce the number of effective defence options the AEGIS class cruiser has so while on paper it could repel hundreds of targets at once, in practise it will not take hundreds to overwhelm if they all arrive together.

I think a good USN Admiral would scan for any Klubs or for that matter, Oscar IIs as Russian subs aren't very quite in their walks.

I'd think you'd be surprised how quiet modern Russian subs can be. After the 1980s when they started focussing on making their subs quiet they have made a lot of progress... to the point where the USN now uses active sonar... it never used to.

Sinking an entire USN CBG would be a major morale killer for our fleet and a huge propaganda victory for Russia, but the situation would be the same, and all we would have to do is send our Subs to Russia, spam Tomahawks, and see how Russia copes(I know I just contradicted myself and turned this into a RL scenario).

Which is what I am saying... all roads lead to the first attack ="Act of war"... Satans and Minutemen...

If the antiship missiles can sink enough of one carrier group to make it go away then what makes you think more carrier groups would be safer?

Yes, and it should be quite known that Gun-based CIWS are ineffective against Sea skimmers. The SEA RAM was a good choice, and you must understand that a lot of the guys in Washington spew love all over Russian material not to acknowledge it's superiority over our equipment, but rather to gain funding for their equipment. Same was done in the hearings for the F-22.

The DU rounds that are fired by the Phalanx are 30 calibre and while they are very heavy and relatively hard they are pretty ineffective against hard targets beyond about 1.6km. Don't you think there might be a reason for most other CIWS to be 30mm calibre or bigger? Do you think the Soviet and Russian navy... the two navies with the most experience with supersonic anti ship missiles have a mix of guns and missiles... and up to 8 KASHTAN mounts and extra single gun turrets on each their large ships?
Guns are multipurpose and over very short range are very good, but for high speed 7 ton missiles like Granit with 750kg+ HEFRAG warheads with Titanium armour plate protecting them I really think a 20mm gun no matter how fast it fires is underpowered. It isn't worth crying or getting upset about. For 90% of the rest of the worlds antiship missiles it can still do a good job, but against the main threat it is likely it will not.

Maybe for the Surface strike non-ballistic role, but the Iskander has many things going for it over the Brahmos in terms of performance and penetrative capabilities.

I am not saying it is a bad idea or that you are wrong. Converting LANCE III into an Antiship missile would probably have the same merit, but I rather doubt it will happen either.

Can be a mistake, but the potential benefits outweighs the potential risk.

I would respectfully suggest that rebuilding the Russian Navy will be a higher priority than introducing the replacement for SCUD from the Army to the Navy.

From the commonality point of view it clearly makes sense because in a sense they are both doing the same thing... penetrating air defences designed to defeat ballistic missiles and lots of other air threats.
I would not be upset if they decided to create a cell for the vertical launch systems they are using on their Kirov class vessels for a AShM. The Granit is about 7 tons and the land based Iskander is 3.8 tons so they could mount a large booster rocket on it that might double its range and still be lighter than the Granit.

More like 4 seconds. The Phalanx can open fire at 3.6 km.

Not really. Its practical effective range is given as 1.6km to about 500m minimum range. It can open fire before the target is 1.6km away... in fact it would have to for a supersonic missile but the impacting rounds only become effective at about 1.6km. Remember it is firing slugs that are only .30 cal.

Have a look at this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

Now normally I don't like wiki, but look at the effectiveness table about a quarter of the way down the page.
The comparison of AK-630, Phalanx, and Goalkeeper. The figure for the AK-630 for max range is 4km but that is for HE shells against ground targets. The Phalanx figure is 3.6km and is optimistic rubbish against a missile sized target with DU or Tungsten ammo. The figure for Goalkeeper is 2km, which is a sensible range figure for both 30mm gatlings listed (ie AK-630 and Goalkeeper) and puts the 1.6km real Phalanx range estimate in perspective. (Remember the Goalkeeper uses the GAU-8 7 barrel 30mm cannon as used in the A-10).
The extra projectile weight of the 30mm rounds make them more effective over longer distances because they retain energy better and are less effected by wind etc.

The Phalanx indeed has engaged a M. 2.5 diving target before and successfully at that.

Diving targets are easier and the target was a vandal target that wasn't performing manoeuvres.

The Kashtan can defeat a Granit, no doubt about that.

Not with guns alone. It would use missiles.

At M. 1.5, the time from detection to impact for a sea skimming Shipwreck would be 50 seconds. That's a lot of time.

It sounds like a lot of time. If you are in a Type 42 class destroyer you are dead.

But in the event they do, and decide to launch a hostile action against a CBG, I'd much rather have all my radars searching for the crap you're throwing at me rather than just running and hiding.

Just because you have most of the main radars not emitting doesn't mean they are off. You will have AWACS and a Combat air patrol of fighters in the air and you might have one AEGIS vessel as a radar picket looking for trouble.
Having everyone emitting gives away the position of all your assets and even a weak enemy could simply let you pass and hit the largely unarmed logistics tail that keeps you battle group operational.

We can end this discussion here if you'd like, really getting annoying having to move the quote tags around a bunch.

Do we have anything new to discuss?
Basically the CBG concept is a strong layered air defence system that one missile will not penetrate but if you fire lots at the same time then missiles will start penetrating. NATO has shown that land based AD networks can be taken apart if you have the right support assets so there is no reason to think naval based AD networks can similarly be reduced. No one missile is or will likely be perfect... if the Russians introduce the Iskander I am sure the US Navy will respond with lasers to shoot them down as a response to the problem of high speed manoeuvring targets.
While the threat of conflict between the US and Russia is so low then I really don't think we need the answer.

BTW can I recommend you try what I do, and right click on the reply button below your post and choose open in new tab. I then scroll back up to the top of the first post I haven't read yet and then highlight and copy the bits I want to quote and paste them in the other tab with the post a reply page on it and click on the quotes button (that looks like two speech bubbles) after I paste the text while it is still highlighted to wrap quote quotes around it...

The SM-2-6 standard is the most powerful AD weapon almost all NATO standard warships have and they carry hundreds of them which have high performance and excellent range(not to mention AS capability as well) But I'm wondering how do russian AshMs fare against it. Being subsonic I'm assuming the Kh-35 and subsonic klub have very little chance to evade these SAMs even if they can do some maneuvers while while the onyx while supersonic is still too slow and unmaneuverable(I may be wrong about that) to evade a SAM going at Mach 4+ and able engage targets on sea level over horizone. Same problems have P-1000 and P-700(Correct me if I'm wrong).

So is there a way to hit a ships that has SM-2s or SM-6s without having to waste 100+ AshMs  for it?