And this:
Say goodbye to your missile batteries. The path gets cleared and the Nimitz class carriers get closer to finish you off.
Posted on 09/22/2007 10:36:44 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Analysis: China artillery force seeks to strike aircraft carriers
HONG KONG, Sep. 21
ANDREI CHANG
Column: Military Might
In the event of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, if the United States were to send an aircraft carrier to the scene, it would likely remain in an area 800-1,000 kilometers from the spot of engagement. This is what happened in 1999 when China sent a series of air sorties over the island and the United States sent two aircraft carriers to the area as a warning. This distance poses very complicated and difficult challenges for detecting, positioning and tracking the target when aiming to strike the aircraft carrier with ballistic missiles.
China's DF-21 and DF-15 ballistic missiles use inertia plus gyroscope guidance at the middle course, and as a result the flight trajectories are quite inflexible. Even if new optical and radar image guidance technologies are applied at the terminal course, it is still extremely difficult to quickly adjust the direction when attacking a moving target.
Suppose a DF-21M middle-range ballistic missile were to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier from a distance of 1,000 kilometers away at an average speed of 7 Mach, or flying at a speed of 2,380 meters per second -- the whole course would take approximately seven minutes. Of course, because the U.S. Navy has developed the naval theater missile defense, or TMD, system, about 10-90 seconds after the DF-21M was launched, the DSP-1 infrared detection satellite would catch the signal and transmit the data through the data link to the ground-based joint tactical centre, or JTAG. The JTAG would transfer the data to the naval-based Aegis TMD system.
Almost all the Aegis Class guided missile destroyers, or DDGs, are equipped with joint tactical terminal receivers specifically designed to receive JTAG and DSP-1 satellite data. Even if no action were taken to intercept the DF-21M, the aircraft carrier could still evade the attack at full navigation speed. All of the U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers have a maximum speed of 32 knots. In other words, they can move 30.866 meters each minute and 216.06 meters within seven minutes.
In line with the latest trends of the Chinese military forces, an upgraded version of the HF sky-wave over-the-horizon backscatter radar is currently under development. The China National Electronics Import and Export Corporation has unveiled some of the technical details of this type of radar system. Documents indicate that the construction of pole-shaped antennae has been completed, and therefore at least one experimental variant of the radar system is in operation.
The transmitting and receiving arrays of the radar are respectively 200 x 100 square meters and 1,100 x 60 square meters, at an elevation of 60 degrees. This transmitting radar array can track 100 different targets simultaneously, and has a detection range of 800-3,000 kilometers. The CEIEC has also introduced an HF surface-wave over-the-horizon radar, which was specifically designed to detect stealthy targets and has an effective detection range of 300 kilometers. Of course, digital image reconnaissance satellites, oceanic surveillance satellites and a variety of signal surveillance systems could also determine the approximate position of the USN aircraft carrier.
Even if the Chinese missiles could not accurately hit the aircraft carriers, shooting them in their direction would allow the Chinese military forces to impose "coercive isolation" on the U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups, keeping them out of the Taiwan Strait combat theater.
There has been speculation that China has developed sub-munitions and canister warheads for the DF-15 and DF-21. What progress has the PLA Second Artillery Force made in developing ballistic missile warheads? The answer to this question can be partly found in China's export of P12 ballistic missiles and the development of warheads for the WS-1B and WS-2 multiple-role rocket systems.
Firstly, China's military has invested heavily in developing blasting warheads, blasting cluster warheads for P12, sub-ammunition warheads, cloud blasting warheads and blasting-burn warheads for ballistic missiles and WS-1B and WS-2, all of which are capable of inflicting mass destruction upon designated targets.
Taking the sub-munitions fitted on the WS-1B as an example, the combat part of the warhead weighs only 152 kilograms; it has 475 munitions; the dispersing area of the sub-munitions is 28,000 square meters, and of course this dispersing area can be reset.
If a DF-15 ballistic missile were fitted with a 500-kilogram warhead, the total number of sub-munitions could be 3.2 times those fitted on the WS-1B. In other words, there would be 1,520 sub-munitions or even more depending on the different weights of the sub-munitions. If the dispersing areas of the sub-munitions were the same, that would mean a dramatic increase in unit strike intensity.
If the ballistic missiles used Russian satellite guidance at the middle course plus a certain kind of terminal guidance system, the threat that a DF-15 could pose to an aircraft carrier is very obvious. Psychologically, this would keep the U.S. aircraft carriers 600 kilometers away from the Taiwan Strait combat theater. And if China chose to launch attacks with DF-21M medium-range ballistic missiles, the so-called "coercive isolation" zone would be much broader. Even if these attacks did not seriously damage the aircraft carrier itself, the sub-munitions assault could destroy the radar, command and communications systems of the aircraft carrier battle group and force it to withdraw from the battle.
If a cloud-blasting warhead were used, the 90-kilogram munitions would have a lethal radius of 70 meters and overpressure lethal radius of 50 meters, while the 500-kilogram warhead would have a lethal radius of 388 millimeters and overpressure lethal radius of 277 meters. Using a blasting-burn warhead, the 70-kilogram combat load would have a lethal radius of 70 meters, whereas the 500-kilogram warhead's lethal radius could be as broad as 500 meters.
--
(Andre Chang is editor-in-chief of Kanwa Defense Monthly based in Hong Kong.)
You can also hunt deer with a ball peen hammer if they’ll stand still long enough.
Wow, comparable to a nuke. ;-)
The author writes well but has a problem with numbers
And this:
Say goodbye to your missile batteries. The path gets cleared and the Nimitz class carriers get closer to finish you off.
Uhh, correction: maximum PUBLISHED speed of 32 knots...;)
Yeah suuure... Expect your limited detection capabilities to get blinded. Lots of sea out there to hide in even for big dick carriers.
About fifteen inches? Doesn't seem very large.
Part of the problem is that the submunitions will include pyrotechnic rounds which will cause fire, smoke, and confusion.
Here’s what can happen when one of our own rockets misfires, let alone an enemy engagement:
http://ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2003/02/images_deck_landings/u124794.jpg
But wait. Isn’t China our friend?
I had to double check the article too...
Methinks that if the Chinese are going to attack American targets a thousand miles from the Taiwan Straits, we could hit Chinese targets that are equally far from the Taiwan Straits.
Exactly. I wish I could find that picture of the Nimitz kicking out a rooster tail about 60 feet high and 300 feet long.
“U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers have a maximum speed of 32 knots. In other words, they can move 30.866 meters each minute and 216.06 meters within seven minutes.”
Good Deal! Lets hope that the Chinese, like the author, continue to believe that our subs at flank speed could only move the equivalent of about 20 football fields in an hour.
60 min / 7 min = 8.5 8.5 x 216.06 m = 1836.51 m / hr
100 yrd * 36 = 3600 inches / 39 inches = 92.3 m
1836.51 m / 92.3 m = 19.897 football fields per hour!
2000 yards per hour = about 1.5 mph!
Not many people realize that an aircraft carrier has more than enough speed to waterski behind! But if you fall down, the turning radius to come pick you up is pretty darn big...
Quite correct sir...been on a carrier that exceeded recomendations...
Say what?
OK, look, I am going to do this in grade school arithmetic.
A "knot" - a nautical mile - is 1,852 meters, or 6,076 feet. 32 times that is 59,264 meters, or 194,432 feet.
That's 59.264 kilometers, or 32 nautical miles, in an hour.
Divide this by the number of minutes in an hour, and you get 987.7 meters per minute, or 3240.5 feet per minute.
In seven minutes, the carrier will have moved 6,914 meters, or 22,683.5 feet - 3.733 nautical miles, which for us infantry types works out to be 4.296 landlubber miles.
And if anyone has bothered to read any of the literature in the last 20 years, it is a matter of record that a carrier in a hurry can crank out something over 40 knots - can, in fact, outrun her escorts.
Last but not least, the US Navy has this nasty tendency to shoot back - and now has a functioning ABM capability - the Standard 3 with a 'smart rock' inertial impact warhead - which in tests has outperformed the Air Force's ABM interceptors.
That's an understatement.
Interesting little factoid...
The typical maximum speed in knots of a full displacement hull is approximately 1.34 times the square root of the length of the hull at the waterline, in feet.
If you’re 1000 feet long (like a carrier), then you can do about 1.34 times 31.6, or around 42 knots at full displacement. This is taught to just about any rookie hull draftsman, and is known world-wide. Carriers should be expected to do at least this fast (at least, US carriers, given than every other country has considerably shorter carriers).
You can go faster, but power requirements increase exponentially. Of course, with your own nuclear power plants on board, power isn’t really the issue - it’s the torque rating of the prop shafts and the props themselves! But you can typically add another 25% or so on top of your displacement limit, if you really push it.
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