Anti-Ship Missiles Thread

Always healthy to be skeptical...

And from memory the story of the Soviet sub that sank the ship with 47mm gun fire was certainly a civilian transport type unable to defend itself.

Apparently the main deck gun was jammed so they used the 47mm AA gun and took hours to sink the target with hundreds of shots...

Yes, it sound hard, very hard to believe.

The instances about WWII naval battles of which i have memory ,and i have read a lot on the subject, never mention the sinking of even a medium displacement ship exclusively from low power ordnances.

Obviously if we talk of a small patrol boat or a not military vessel ,constructed with civil grade steel with low strenght and tensile resistance it is possible to sink it also with 3 or 4 AGM-114 hits.

Atgm penetrates tank's armour. Ship's steel is not a problem. The hollow charge is similar to antiship hollow charges. Then if you start 20 fires in a ship instead of 1 big you can just burn the ship while the smoke will kill the crew or make them impossible to fight the fires.

Mindstorm wrote:
Can someone provide the info about the exercise where the ship was sunk by the 25 AGM-114 ?  Thanks

https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=96657

"The boat sank in 5 hours after sustaining 22 missile hits, finally succumbing to hellfire missiles shots by the "Golden Falcons" of HSC 12."


Edit: Maybe I'm wrong. I have a doubt here. They talk about some gliding bombs in the text and the word hellfire could be used as an adjective.

Edit2: there is this video also that may prove it happened.

Exactly Isos  

The ship has been hit by at least 2 harpoon anti-ship missiles (from what i have read four ,two from USS Benfold and two from the USS John S. McCain), several - from the accounts of a participant 8- AGM-65F Maverick delivered from P-3 and F/A-18 , a JSOW C-1 delivered by am F/A-18, and finally several AGM-114 delivered from MH-90s and sunk after 5 hours.




https://www.stripes.com/news/sink-exercise-takes-down-retired-frigate-near-guam-1.428943

https://www.navysite.de/ffg/FFG46.HTM

Now SO the story is more credible.

You do NOT sink a ship constructed with military grade steel with AGM-114 , period .

Maybe after much, much more powerful ammunitions have heavily damaged its hull and put it already in sinking state, it is possible for several of those mosquito missiles to produce some minor damages on the military ship.

GarryB wrote:these light missiles have a range of about 20-30km with 30-50kg warheads which makes the launch platform safer because 20-30km is outside manpads range and 30-50kg HE frag warheads will be rather more effective.... while the 100-200kg missile weight is still in the range of most helicopters can operate with.

But in the anti ship role these helicopters can easily be targeted by ship based SAMs like 3K95 Kinzhal or even Barak 8 ER that have a range of 50kms +.

Also if they are engaging ships with smaller Sea Venom missiles, under what circumstances do they intend to use helicopter, fighter launched Naval Strike Missile?

Sea Venom does have some good features like:

(1) sea skimming and pop up/top attack; and

(2) track-via-missile guidance via data-link option that provides the missile with an an autonomous engagement capability

Maybe after much, much more powerful ammunitions have heavily damaged its hull and put it already in sinking state, it is possible for several of those mosquito missiles to produce some minor damages on the military ship.

Well you can. You will need plenty of them but if each of them starts a fire that grows then the ship will be destroyed. But that's only theory. In practice that woukd be a dailed mission because range is too short against frigate's or destroyer's weapons.

Against small missile boats or light corvette 2-4 atgm would easily destroy it or at least damage enough to not be repairable fast.

Mindstorm wrote:

Yes, it sound hard, very hard to believe.

The instances about WWII naval battles of which i have memory ,and i have read a lot on the subject, never mention the sinking of even a medium displacement ship exclusively from low power ordnances.

Definitely happened a few times when U-boats were attacking WW2 merchant shipping. Especially daytime if no escorts were around and after a torpedo had damaged the target but not enough to sink it. They wouldn't want to waste a valuable torpedo. On the BBC last week there was an interview with a guy who was a gunner on merchant ships and he mentioned it, also the Germans took photos.

Not heard of a U-boat going for an undamaged ship with its gun, too risky.

GarryB wrote: Against a target like that US spy ship in the gulf that the Israelis almost sank you could launch some ATGMs to take out the two 50 cal HMGs and then close in to about 6km range and loft unguided rockets at them all day long... the rockets are cheap enough...

Assume you are talking about the USS Liberty Garry, it was in the Med not the Gulf just outside Egyptian territorial waters. The Israelis hit it so that the US wouldn't find out until it was too late that Israel was attacking Syria the next day. Then the US basically hushed it up due to a secret 'gift' of an operating Egyptian SA-3 system, captured by the Israelis, which was then used to design jammers to stop the huge loss of US aircrew in Vietnam. The jammers worked.

Atgm penetrates tank's armour. Ship's steel is not a problem.

ATGMs make finger width penetrations into heavy armour but they don't set the metal on fire, they normally set fuel or ammo on fire or just fittings like seats and padding and material inside the tank on fire.

The hollow charge is similar to antiship hollow charges.

For ATGMs the key is to penetrate the heavy outer armour layer to get into the flammable and explosive material inside, for anti ship missiles the intent is normally to get through as many armoured layers as possible to spread any fire and damage as far as possible... similar but not the same.

Then if you start 20 fires in a ship instead of 1 big you can just burn the ship while the smoke will kill the crew or make them impossible to fight the fires.

There is no assurance that all 20 hits will start fires... a ship is a totally different thing from a tank... there is a lot more empty space that is not filled with fuel or ammo and on a ship each of those parts is separately armoured (the military ships anyway).

"The boat sank in 5 hours after sustaining 22 missile hits, finally succumbing to hellfire missiles shots by the "Golden Falcons" of HSC 12."

I think you are confusing something many navies do with something that might be a useful tactic.

When you have a ship you want to sink instead of scrap and you don't want to pay to have her scuttled, you use her as target practise... so you attack it with all sorts of things. A somali pirate boat might have thousands of rounds of small arms fire shot into her hull and a few RPGs and well and perhaps even some bursts of 30mm from the ships gatling... but that does not mean this is a new way of dealing with the air defences of an AEGIS class cruiser... because there is no way they have more SAMs than Russia has RPGs...

Edit: Maybe I'm wrong. I have a doubt here. They talk about some gliding bombs in the text and the word hellfire could be used as an adjective.

Against a civilian vessel it would probably be fine, and civilian vessels get called in for military use all the time...

Not really the basis for a new anti ship tactic however... instead of 24 Ka-52Ks with Vikhrs or Hermes missiles it would be rather more effective and efficient to send 6 Ka-52Ks with two Kh-35s and two Kh-31s each...

The ship has been hit by at least 2 harpoon anti-ship missiles (from what i have read four ,two from USS Benfold and two from the USS John S. McCain), several - from the accounts of a participant 8- AGM-65F Maverick delivered from P-3 and F/A-18 , a JSOW C-1 delivered by am F/A-18, and finally several AGM-114 delivered from MH-90s and sunk after 5 hours.

That is quite impressive that it took that much to sink her... and a bit of a lesson... each of those Mavericks will have payloads of about 50kgs like a Sea Skua and the Harpoons four times bigger...

But in the anti ship role these helicopters can easily be targeted by ship based SAMs like 3K95 Kinzhal or even Barak 8 ER that have a range of 50kms +.

A 50kg warhead is not going to sink anything bigger than a Corvette anyway and what have HATO Corvettes got to protect themselves?

I have also mentioned the Mistrals... armed with MANPADS and HMG mounts...

[qutoe]Also if they are engaging ships with smaller Sea Venom missiles, under what circumstances do they intend to use helicopter, fighter launched Naval Strike Missile?[/quote]

NSM would be used against better defended (to get hits without the launch platform being shot down) and larger vessels (the bigger warhead would make it more effective in sinking bigger ships). Sometimes you just want to stop a ship and don't want to sink it... in which case a smaller lighter missile with a weaker warhead is better.

Against small missile boats or light corvette 2-4 atgm would easily destroy it or at least damage enough to not be repairable fast.

It would quickly and effectively neutralise a threat from small vessels without costing too much... and without killing everyone on board... if you are wrong then this is an important factor...

Then the US basically hushed it up due to a secret 'gift' of an operating Egyptian SA-3 system, captured by the Israelis, which was then used to design jammers to stop the huge loss of US aircrew in Vietnam. The jammers worked.

Why should they give a damn about their bomber crews they clearly didn't give a shit about their sailors...

JohninMK wrote:

Mindstorm wrote:

Yes, it sound hard, very hard to believe.

The instances about WWII naval battles of which i have memory ,and i have read a lot on the subject, never mention the sinking of even a medium displacement ship exclusively from low power ordnances.

Definitely happened a few times when U-boats were attacking WW2 merchant shipping. Especially daytime if no escorts were around and after a torpedo had damaged the target but not enough to sink it. They wouldn't want to waste a valuable torpedo. On the BBC last week there was an interview with a guy who was a gunner on merchant ships and he mentioned it, also the Germans took photos.

Not heard of a U-boat going for an undamaged ship with its gun, too risky.

Sure, merchant ships (i image of very low tonnage) in the '40 years, absolutely possible.

The problem is when you instead take into account military ships , with military grade steel with even a percentage of high yield steel, you need very high potential of the warhead and ,even better, high kinetic impact energy of the missile to delaminate the hull and several meters of the internal structure before the detonation.  


The extensive employment of this high tensile grade steel in military ships construction render today so difficult to sink them, in particular employing subsonic anti ship missiles.

You can see in the US's SINKEX exercices how old generation ships of the light frigate type, with the lower percentage of high yield steel -HY-80- among US's military surface ships (about 10% of the steel in the hull, against at example the 51% -about 6% HY-80 and 45 % of HY-100-of an aircraft carrier) is capable to remain afloat after an enormous amount of hit by part of ship and air delivered ammunitions of various potential.

Situation today is obviously much worse, because even structural, not armoured, steel and steel alloys (for not talk of new low cost composites and metamaterials that provide absurd level of tensile strenght) show mechanical characteristics often very near or even superior those of low percentage of armoured steel that render so resilient those old ships to subsonic amminutions !

The new generation of armoured steel in shipbuilding (always not taking into account new composites...) ,in particular in domestic military ships construction, where new generations has been developed,  has characteristics widely superior even to US counterparts not used in theirs military naval construction (Hy-130 with its 900  MPa tensile resistance).

Only to provide an example : пр. 971 and 1144 in the '70 years extensively used third generation of armoured АК-32 steel with a strength of 980 MPA, for comparison today Virginia use YU-80 with strength of about 550 MPa; some warheads that would completely delaminate the latter would barely damage the formers ;

https://msk-metall.com/stati/marki-vysokoprochnyh-staley.html  

Domestic shipbuilding construction employ today fourth and fifth generation steel laminate and obviously composites.

Anyone can easily figure, having as reference the SINKEX exercises against old US frigates with very low percentage of vastly inferior armoured steel, the outcome of attacks with subsonic ammunitions against an up to date domestic unit that actively defend itself (and also those defensive systems vastly surpass in performances foreign counterparts)

AGM-114 in anti-ship role ? Oh please.......[/b]

JohninMK wrote:

GarryB wrote: Against a target like that US spy ship in the gulf that the Israelis almost sank you could launch some ATGMs to take out the two 50 cal HMGs and then close in to about 6km range and loft unguided rockets at them all day long... the rockets are cheap enough...

Assume you are talking about the USS Liberty Garry, it was in the Med not the Gulf just outside Egyptian territorial waters. The Israelis hit it so that the US wouldn't find out until it was too late that Israel was attacking Syria the next day. Then the US basically hushed it up due to a secret 'gift' of an operating Egyptian SA-3 system, captured by the Israelis, which was then used to design jammers to stop the huge loss of US aircrew in Vietnam. The jammers worked.

Those jammers worked so well....that they still lost nearly 10,000 aircraft, including B-52's.

Jammers are not perfect... the US lost at least one F-16 to SA-3s in Iraq in the 1991 gulf war, and of course the F-117 was shot down by an SA-3... it is nice the SA-2 got the U-2 Scalp and the SA-3 got the F-117. We just need to engineer a situation where a B-2 is flying near an SA-4... going to be tricky....

Regarding sinking ships, this was training and target shooting, I would expect if the attack was a proper coordinated attempt to sink the ship that all the attacks could have been focussed and centralised in one place to make sinking much quicker and much more likely.

Small Russian patrol boats have Ataka missile mounts for use at sea because such weapons can be useful. Normally they have about 6 missiles mounted and I suspect they don't expect that to sink anything, but many ships have HMGs as well for dealing with light enemy boats like inflatables and speed boats... or even surfaced mines...

GarryB wrote:Small Russian patrol boats have Ataka missile mounts for use at sea because such weapons can be useful. Normally they have about 6 missiles mounted and I suspect they don't expect that to sink anything, but many ships have HMGs as well for dealing with light enemy boats like inflatables and speed boats... or even surfaced mines...

Might I suggest that another reason for patrol boats to carry ATGMs is in case they need precision strikes on land vehicles?  Terrorist VBIED perhaps?

Keep in mind the original Buyan was designed for supporting shore actions and landings.

That is very true.

And of course there is no sense in designing a small compact precision guided missile to do the job when an existing type has already been developed.

Many ATGMs wont work of course because their guidance systems get confused by the reflection in the water of the missiles tracking marker... used by the guidance system to determine where the missile is in regard to the crosshairs to work out what flight commands are needed to bring it back on target.

Something like TOW or HOT or Konkurs would struggle because of this but it seems laser beam riding missiles don't care...

Actually new land based BMPs with 40mm or 57mm guns would be quite a potent anti small vessel vehicle, so being able to ping them at extended range might be useful too...

Is there any work still being done on havy anti ship missiles?

It could be problematic if the pindos ever get an anti ship tomahawk in service since that thing has a longer range than Russian ASHMs and a battlegroup armed with 500+ anti ship tomahawks could overwhelm a lone destroy or missile cruiser armed with Zircons before it got into firing range. Having a few 3000 km ranged heavy ASHMs could easily solve this.

Perhaps an improved iskander with an HGV warhead.

Range isn't actually that important most of the time.

If the enemy have AWACS then they will detect an anti ship missile or a fighter carrying an anti ship missile from great distances, and modern SAMs would be able to start engaging at max range with the relevant information...

Tomahawk with 500km range is not much less potent than Tomahawk with 1,000km range because as a subsonic missile it relies on a low flight profile to avoid being detected by radar, whereas high speed Zircon expects to be detected at very long range... it uses its manouvering to evade interception to hit their targets no matter what...

With a range of say 1,200km each both missiles will be detected at long range by AWACS support... the difference is that the Tomahawk will be moving at one kilometre every three seconds, while the Zircon will be moving at 3kms every second... both would be detected by a carrier group out to 600km, so neither might have their launch platforms detected, but the Russian battlegroup will have about 40 minutes to intercept... A US carrier group would have about 3 minutes 20 seconds... but it is worse than that... 40 minutes to intercept a low flying subsonic target that does not really manouver that much, vs a hypersonic missile that is designed to pull enormous g to evade interception on its way to its target...

Equally it is a bit amusing you expect a lone destroyer or missile cruiser to be able to take on an entire US battle group...

Would be easier to fit out an Oscar II with 72 Zircons for the job...

GarryB wrote:Range isn't actually that important most of the time.

If the enemy has AWACS they can detect you at the maximum range of thier missiles and if that is greater than the maximum range of yours they will be able to fire first.

As seen is syria the tomahawk is virtually useless at bypassing air defence systems but when they can fire more tomahawks at you than you have AD missiles then you have a problem and the pindostanski navy has a ludicrously large fleet of its air defence barges that can be fitted with huge numbers of tomahawks.

Perhaps the solution is just to pile on the Tors to every Russian ship but simply having a missile that can outrange the tomahawk and (unlike kalibr) guarantee a kill (anti ship HGV or multi stage cluster zircon) would mostly solve this problem.

GarryB wrote:Equally it is a bit amusing you expect a lone destroyer or missile cruiser to be able to take on an entire US battle group...

As of now around 5 of Buyan Ms using Oniks missiles and with some Awacs support could do that.

Russia is building Yasen M specially to destroy US carriers before they can use them. Then those Arleigh Burkes can have 10 000km range tomahawks it won't change anything as they won't have the tools to detect anything further than 1000km with their helicopter which will very likely be destroyed. Then the tomahawks won't have mid course updates and end up in the water because at subsonic speed and 1000km range the target will move from initial position.


What they really need is upgraded Oscar 2 with 72 VLS for oniks or Tzirkon. US can't risk all of its carriers against Russia so they will send only half if them in a potential war. So that's 5 carriers. Russia needs only 10 yasen/upg Oscar 2 to deal with them.

The new corvettes are getting either 12 or 16 redut or pantsir with 20+ missiles so they can defend against swarm attacks of tomahawks.

If the enemy has AWACS they can detect you at the maximum range of thier missiles and if that is greater than the maximum range of yours they will be able to fire first.

But what are they detecting?

Your ships and aircraft or just your aircraft?

From 1,200km away they could be within range of Zircon... what current US anti ship missile will reach them in return.

Detection of AWACS radar signals will identify the general location of their surfaces ships... satellite recon will give them more precise locations... Oscar class subs could be moved to within Onyx range (about 500km) and launch an attack and then turn and leave what chance is there of US naval forces detecting an Oscar at 500km range?

Russia has 300km range AAMs in service now... the US has D model AMRAAM. The US might be working on new long range AAMs but so is Russia.

Firing first is meaningless if you don't hit.

Firing first with a catapult is little consolation when they fire back with laser blasters and your rocks just bounce off their armour.

This isn't Star Wars...

As seen is syria the tomahawk is virtually useless at bypassing air defence systems but when they can fire more tomahawks at you than you have AD missiles then you have a problem and the pindostanski navy has a ludicrously large fleet of its air defence barges that can be fitted with huge numbers of tomahawks.

That is good, because Tomahawks are easy to shoot down... the more Tomahawks they carry the less self defence SAMs they will be able to carry to defend their own ships from much longer range much faster Russian anti ship missiles...

Perhaps the solution is just to pile on the Tors to every Russian ship but simply having a missile that can outrange the tomahawk and (unlike kalibr) guarantee a kill (anti ship HGV or multi stage cluster zircon) would mostly solve this problem.

TOR, Pantsir, Redut, S-500 and new model Shtil will be packed on to their new ships in large numbers... they have a history of protecting their ships and armour...

Scramjets will transform anti ship and anti aircraft missiles... giving them much greater range and speed.

As of now around 5 of Buyan Ms using Oniks missiles and with some Awacs support could do that.

But it is not something they will actually do. They will more likely be used coastally defending Russian waters and the airspace over Russia from enemy incursion and of course try to repel the inevidible response to Russias attack on the so called west with nuclear weapons of all types...

What they really need is upgraded Oscar 2 with 72 VLS for oniks or Tzirkon. US can't risk all of its carriers against Russia so they will send only half if them in a potential war. So that's 5 carriers. Russia needs only 10 yasen/upg Oscar 2 to deal with them.

Odds are at any given time less than 5 will be operational anyway.... and any that approach Russia to launch attacks will be dealt with by MiG-31s with Kinzhal, and Tu-22M3Ms with Kh-32 and Kinzhal and indeed Gzur when it is ready...

GarryB wrote:

That is good, because Tomahawks are easy to shoot down... the more Tomahawks they carry the less self defence SAMs they will be able to carry to defend their own ships from much longer range much faster Russian anti ship missiles...\

Well perhaps I would not be suggesting a longer ranged ASHM if the tomahawk did not outrange the Zirkon the tomahawk last time I checked had more than twice the Zircons range meaning that a Russian ship would get overwhelmed by them before it could get in range to fire its zircons.

The only other way to counter this would be to arm every battlegroup you expect might come into contact with an emeny one with over 1000 air defence missiles which is hardly ideal.

How clear do I need to make this?

But it is not something they will actually do. They will more likely be used coastally defending Russian waters and the airspace over Russia from enemy incursion and of course try to repel the inevidible response to Russias attack on the so called west with nuclear weapons of all types...
\

The Buyan M cannot provide area air defence, it would either be used as a missile boat with the help of reconisance assets or as a sea mobile Kalibr launcher.

The-thing-next-door wrote:


Well perhaps I would not be suggesting a longer ranged ASHM if the tomahawk did not outrange the Zirkon the tomahawk last time I checked had more than twice the Zircons range meaning that a Russian ship would get overwhelmed by them before it could get in range to fire its zircons.

The only other way to counter this would be to arm every battlegroup you expect might come into contact with an emeny one with over 1000 air defence missiles which is hardly ideal.

How clear do I need to make this?


The Buyan M cannot provide area air defence, it would either be used as a missile boat with the help of reconisance assets or as a sea mobile Kalibr launcher.

The subsonic missiles are quite irrelevant against ships with CIWS.

USA needs to throw at least ten tomahawak against each Buyan corvett to have slight chance, most likelly the optimal number is closer to 20 .

On the other side, the weaponary of the Burke could be defeated with 8 Onyx with good chance.


The tomahawk slow speed means that the target could move 50 km during its flight, getting out from the range of the small radar in the missile.

And finally , the Zircon range is unknown, I am sure there are no classified range/capability data on the Wikipedia about the weapon systems.

While yes it is possible to easily counter tomahawks the point of an anti ship HGV would be that it would eliminate the need to waste large numbers of air defence missiles on defeating them and also allow Russian ships to immediately wipe out any enemy ship that has been located from the other side of an ocean.

A Granit sized missile with an HGV could have a range in excess of 5000 km, or you could replace the HGV with 4 Zirkons to get make up for the lower count of the larger missiles.

Future missile cruisers could have 80 Zirkons and 8 of the heavier longer ranged ASHMs. This would makeit impossible for the enemy to perform stand off attacks against it as it would outrange any carrier based aviation and could even fire on enemy ports from its own territorial waters.

Russia could atleast develop a land based version similar to the Chinese anti ship HGV in order to nullify ant attempt at standoff attacks by enemy surface vessels without the need to rely on thier tu22s and 160s.

If he's armed with Zircon it's quite possible. A volley of several Zircon can sink an aircraft carrier and some destroyers. Currently, the aircraft carrier group is unable to defend itself against this missile. Zircon completely changes the rules of the game.

The point is though that he wont, because the direct result of a ship sinking a US carrier battle group will be the start of WWIII, which he can't do much about and really does not benefit from at all.

It is like saying I can stab you in the eye and kill you... so what... I am not going to...

Well perhaps I would not be suggesting a longer ranged ASHM if the tomahawk did not outrange the Zirkon the tomahawk last time I checked had more than twice the Zircons range meaning that a Russian ship would get overwhelmed by them before it could get in range to fire its zircons.

Please tell me at what range a Tomahawk cruise missile can sink and Oscar Class SSGN?

You don't think Russian carrier groups or frigates are going to be hunting US carrier groups do you?

Why do you think Oscar and Oscar II and Yasen class subs exist for?

Obviously a Russian carrier group will be equipped with weapons to allow it to fight carrier groups, but why do you think they would go out of their way to do so?

It is like saying the BMP is a tank killer... they carry anti tank missiles to defend themselves but it is only a defensive thing... most of the time the wont take on enemy MBTs if they can help it... Russian tanks are better equipped for that job... and anti tank units with ATGM missile vehicles like Shturm and Kornet and Krisantema are intended for that job... usually in conjunction with a minefield and other preparation.

How clear do I need to make this?

You are not doing very well... why does Russia need longer ranged anti ship missiles so a small missile corvette can defeat the entire US Navy.

Will you keep the Russian Army and Air Force to the same standard... one tank to take out all of HATO and one fighter plane to shoot down every western fighter ever made?

Russian corvettes wont be sailing the worlds oceans... especially in times of tension... they will have an umbrella of protection from land base air power and missiles stretching out about 2,000km thanks to MiG-31s and Kinzhal.

Kinzhal is a simple basic solid fuelled rocket launched from the high ground at high speed from a MiG-31... so a scramjet powered upgraded model should be orders of magnitude better in terms of speed and range.... and in 5 years time when the first MiG-41s are entering service with a flight speed of mach 4.2 these new long range missiles... perhaps based on a ground launched missile that would have been banned under the INF treaty but will be perfectly legal will have even better performance...

The Buyan M cannot provide area air defence, it would either be used as a missile boat with the help of reconisance assets or as a sea mobile Kalibr launcher.

Soldiers armed only with Makarov Pistols are not normally tasked with providing squad support fire power... that is why soldiers with RPK-74s and SVDs and PKMs are in the group for.

Name a single HATO corvette that could provide area air defence?

USA needs to throw at least ten tomahawak against each Buyan corvett to have slight chance, most likelly the optimal number is closer to 20 .

And that is important because it puts their capacity to carry large numbers of anti ship missiles in to perspective.

It is also important to point out that a single Buyan could engage quite a few subsonic low flying missiles... its jammers and decoys could deflect the attention of quite a few more, but if it is near other Russian ships they can actually work together so the sensors on the Buyan will be able to detect and track vastly more targets than its air defence systems will be able to engage at one time... but 40km away there could be a bigger ship with Redut and 150km range 9M96 missiles that can be fired in large numbers to help out... a quick satellite link could communicate to nearby Russian naval vessels and aircraft that an attack was in progress and information from land based over the horizon radars might identify the exact moment the attack was launched so the Buyan could start moving closer to other Russian vessels so that mutual support is more effective... meanwhile a dozen MiG-31s are launched with a single Zircon each to sink the ships that launched the unprovoked attack...

Zircon was listed at over 1000km range according to what Putin quoted.

I would suggest that is most likely the range of the model with a conventional warhead.... a nuclear armed model might reach 1,500km which is still very good for a surface launched missile...

Russia could atleast develop a land based version similar to the Chinese anti ship HGV in order to nullify ant attempt at standoff attacks by enemy surface vessels without the need to rely on thier tu22s and 160s.

What makes you think an SSBN couldn't enter the coordinates of a patch of sea and launch an SLBM at a group of ships?

Western ships are no longer the problem they used to be because of their vulnerability to even just Onyx... which is an excellent missile... or the supersonic Sizzler anti ship missile...

The-thing-next-door wrote:Well perhaps I would not be suggesting a longer ranged ASHM if the tomahawk did not outrange the Zirkon the tomahawk last time I checked had more than twice the Zircons range meaning that a Russian ship would get overwhelmed by them before it could get in range to fire its zircons.

You checked very badly..........there is so much mistakes and false idea that i do not know where to begin.

Let begin saying that BGM/UGM-109 missile series is a full subsonic US Navy's cold war cruise missile design conceived exclusively for ground attack.

Its range for the most up-to-date conventional armed models -Block IV-, that oviously need much heavier warheads and navigation and terminal homing sensors in comparison to nuclear armed ones, is at best in the 900-1000 statute miles -1450-1600 km- for an operational unsuitable hi-hi attack profile,

Obviously when you attempt to modify a similar ground attack missile to render it an anti-ship one (to the contrary of cruise missiles the layout of which is instead designed, since the first drafts drawing board, to be employed against ships) its range decrease drammatically above all for subsonic designs for the additional sensor, ECCMs, marine environemnt shielding and navigation equipment required and ,even more, for the modifications to the airframe and aerodynamic actuators in need for proceed at low altitude in a marine environment and manoeuvring to hit the moving target in the final stage of the engagement.

Results of the last time US designers attempted a similar trasformation of a ground attack missile in an anti-ship one - the RGM-UGM-109B TASM - was a range's decrease from 900 miles ( about 1450 km) to....... a bit less than 300 miles ( about 460 km) !!


If would be ever possible to employ ground attack cruise missiles to strike ships, at theirs basis range, simply by substituting some sensor components domestic naval units could employ the significantly superior ,under virtually any cardinal paramenter (range ,average speed, warhead's potential, sensor ECM resistsance and variety, manoeuvrability, flight profile selection and carrying platform allowance) 3М14 at over 2500 km of distance instead of the much more complex and shorter range 3M54, moreover the salvo delivery time and consequent salvo'sdensity of those missiles in comparison with primitive BGM-UGM-109 would be imcomparable.......





Naturally the same idea to begin a similar low level adaption of ground attack cruise missile for anti-ship role would appear simply RETARDED for domestic academicians and engineers that have passed the latest 40 years in achieving scientifical breakthroughs ,at today still unrivaled worldwide, purposely in design of anti-ship missiles and that  today are in charge to monitor the operational introduction tests of the fist hypersonic anti-ship/land attack cruise missile on the planet 3M22 Циркон , that will also substantially outrange any anti-ship missile both of domestic and foreign construction.


Those repeated "frankenstein" by part of US's designers for anti-ship cruise missile role, last one is the LRASM - an adapted JASSM -, is the product of a colossal technical-scientifical gap accumulated in this field in comparison to domestic Institutes ,where neither electronic component or software is involved but hard, complex, material, propulsion and aerodynamics related scientifical acquisitions. In substance those are forced choices by part of US's designers ,not deliberated ones.