12 June 2012

Future Chinese Missile Attacks on US Ships?

The Chinese make public statements about how missiles would be used to attack ships.

Tan Weihong, Commander of China's Second Artillery Force says, "Conventional missiles are a trump card in modern warfare. So we must be ready at any time. We must be able to deliver a quick response to attacks, hit the targets with high accuracy, and destroy them totally. Of the 114 missiles [our brigade] has launched so far, all have accurately hit the target."
For each incoming missile a U.S. Navy ship will have to perform some variation of the following actions:
First it will launch a long-range air defense missile, like a SM-2ER. If that fails, then a shorter range missile like the ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile) will go out — then the ship's main deck guns will fire anti-air rounds with fused airburst shells.
Surviving missiles will be engaged by close-in weapons systems like the Mk-15 Pahalanx or the RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile). Any incoming missiles struck by these systems will be so close, and moving so fast, that incoming shrapnel and debris would likely be unavoidable.
While all these "Hard Kill" options are going on the ship's electronic warfare systems will have been trying to jam the incoming missile, offering the missile a false target, while firing off chaff (for radar guided weapons) and flares (for infrared guided weapons).

How much missile-hunting within China will this lead to before any opposed naval actions inside the Indonesia-Philippines-Japan ring of islands around Asia?

By: Brant

1 comment:

besilarius said...

In one sense, this scenario is simpler than the Soviet plan of attacking a carrier battle force with a 360 attack.
In the 70s, they did some wargames using Backfire bombers to attack with seventy or so missiles from every direction.
Since all of these, presumably, will be land launched, the threat axis will be much simpler.
Interesting that no one ever mentions taking out the radar early warning aircraft.
The early ones were designated WLF, which irreverent sailors translated as, "Willie Fudd, Elmer's smart brother."