Would the U.S. Still Lose the Naval War of 2015?

Real Clear Defense ^ | July 2, 2013 | Harry Kazianis

[snowrip]

You can’t win blue water Naval engagements against aircraft carriers except with nuclear submarines and/or other aircraft carriers

Google "SS-N-22". The Chinese have a bunch of them, BTW.

[SampleMan]

Google the maximum range of the SS-N-22 and riddle me how a surface ship capable of carrying them will get within launch range of a CVN.

[SampleMan]

I would remind you that the Yamato heavily outclassed the aircraft carriers that sank it in both weaponry and armor, but it came up short in range.

If you are meeting an enemy in a flat barren desert, would you rather have a .30 carbine or a stub nose .44 mag revolver? I’d take the rifle all week long and twice on Sunday.

The Sovremenny DDGs can’t survive a USN airstrike, and they will be within range of airstrikes for well over 10 hours before they close within SS-N-22 range. As I said, anyone can conduct a surprise attack once, just as anyone can be murdered if the attacker acts without motive or warning, but it gets much harder after that first round.

[tanknetter]

Hitting a battle group at sea is not an easy task...the oceans are large and the ability to detect, track, target and then launch on and reacquire once the warhead re-enters is not something any other country can really do at this point.

Jeff - have you seen/read this article before?

It's a bit old (1999) but is about as comprehensive a retelling of some of what went on during the NORPAC-82 exercise as I've seen. Told by one of the participants who was on the USS Midway.

[central_va]

The enemy asset that carrier battle groups have never, in any exercise, been able to deal with is a task group of SSN's and SSGN's opposing transit. Every year, for years and years, Atlantic Fleet admirals have run their LANTFLEX exercise on such scenarios, and the submarines have come out on top every time.

Having participated in fleet exercises I am not impressed. You start out with the submarine in perfect position knowing where the battle group is located at the start. The hole premise is stupid. In reality a sub might have to travel hundreds of miles at a fairly high rate of speed(noise) and that is when you get them. In wartime a CVBG isn't going to even go into waters with a possub within 100 miles.

[snowrip]

The Moskit, and it’s newer Onyx/Yakhont variant, are modified to be lauched from submarines as well as from the Su-27 (which the Chinese have) and the Su-33 (which the J-15 is based upon). Moreover, the SS-N-26 has a range of close to 200 miles.

With the assets available from the Chinese mainland, the PLA/PLAN are easily able to launch saturation attacks on a carrier battle group. This holds especially true if the CVN and its attendant screen enter the Taiwan Strait. Purely from the perspective of numerical advantage, a carrier battle group would not survive 50-100 incoming ASMs moving at Mach 2, especially considering some (or all) of them will be armed with nuclear warheads.

[SampleMan]

I taught ASCM threats to the USN for many years. I'm somewhat limited on what I can share, but you are overstating the threat substantially, not so much concerning the arrows, but rather the archers.

The SS-N-22 and SS-N-26 cannot be launched from a submarine torpedo tube, not now, not ever. They are far too large. That is significant, because it limits their subsurface use to SSG(N)s, of which the Chinese have none.

To my knowledge, no one is making a vertical launch system for them (like an SSBN) although it would be possible (e.g. The Russian OSCAR SSGN carrying 24 SS-N-19 Shipwreck ASCMs in vertical tubes). The Chinese might someday have such capabilities, but they have nothing close to that now. The SS-N-25, SS-N-27, and Chinese ASCMs are tube launchable, but are not a real threat to a CVN strike group, which can handle or absorb that the small numbers that could be launched from submarine torpedo tubes. Mind you, a submerged submarine is going to require someone else to provide targeting at ASCM ranges.

Missiles can have enormous range, but they have to have targeting, and target movement during time of flight is an issue for the subsonic missiles. Without long range targeting that range is meaningless. Even with equal targeting, a CVNs reach is greater that the range of an SS-N-19 (Oscar class SSGN) Granite SS-N-19.

This brings us to a key element of the point I made, i.e. “blue water” operations. Blue water is a term that refers to areas beyond the range of normal land based systems. We would be tactically stupid to send a CVN into the Straits of Taiwan or within 200 nm of the Chinese coast, until their systems are taken out. The better ground to fight on, as it were, is blue water, and we can force that fight by putting a naval blockade on China.

Why take a CVN within 50 nm of the Chinese coast (in the straits) when you can do what is needed from hundreds of miles away? As for surviving 50-100 incoming ASCMs moving at Mach 2+, that would take 6 to 12 Sovremmeny class DDGs, the Chinese have 4 (those missile tubes are not reloadable at sea). But 32 incoming ASCMs is very serious, so let's look at that. With inorganic targeting, they would have to close inside of 150 nm to launch, if they are denied that targeting, they will have to close to less than 50 nm.

So, how does a surface group of DDGs close on a CVN strike group on the high seas? They will be discovered and attacked hundreds of miles away and they can't even chase the strike group down. The CVN and its escorts could put them aft and keep them at a constant 300 nm for days.

Nukes? If they fire a nuke, then its a totally different ball game. Only the expectation of total restraint on our part could explain the Chinese doing such a stupid thing. The response that could/should follow, would be USN SSBN nuclear strikes against all of their key military targets and their unhardened nuclear missiles, shortly followed by Chinese surrender as we threaten the next round of nuclear strikes.

As I used to tell my students. The Russians made/make the best ASCMs in the world, so DO NOT let an attack platform get within range. However, given the choice of fighting with what they have or what we have, I would take what we have hands down.

I watched ZULU DAWN last night, and the age old adage remains that a superior force is defeatable if it falls victim to over confidence and poor tactics. We definitely have to respect those Chinese ASCMs, but unless we engage foolishly, we have the clear upper hand... for now.