Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nigel Tzeng) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Anti-Balistic Missiles Now Message-ID: <1990Dec13.032732.18386@cbnews.att.com> Date: 13 Dec 90 03:27:32 GMT References: <1990Dec7.011307.474@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec8.221641.27118@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec12.030935.9815@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, MD, USA Lines: 75 Approved: military@att.att.com From: xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nigel Tzeng) In article <1990Dec12.030935.9815@cbnews.att.com>, swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams) writes... ^ ^ ^From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams) ^ ^>>If not, how does a carrier battle group defend itself from incoming warheads? ^> ^>It doesn't. Nobody does. Everybody has very abruptly woken up to the ^>fact that such a capability would be a good idea. ^ ^Aircraft carriers have various "lines of defense" against anti-shipping ^missiles: ^ I believe that the previous posters meant ballistic type missiles. Hard to intercept when the things are comming straight down. The hard part for the shooter is finding out where the targets are and programming the missiles to get there in time. I also don't know of any "ballistic" type of missile with any sort of active terminal guidance. Any such weapon at this point would have to be nuclear to do much good. Of course this doesn't mean that someone won't (or hasn't) built a missile with multiple seeking warheads. If you can find the targets you can kill them from almost any distance. Interesting thought...a RORSTAT picks up a carrier group and gives the targeting info to a ICBM which launches and drops 10-20 warheads on it (assuming active terminal guidance that will find the carrier). How would you defend against that anyway? They could just be solid chunks of steel with some sort of seeker on it (back to the brilliant pebbles thingy). Would the launch window be long enough? The RORSAT will only cover that stretch of sea for x minutes. If we assume, say, a 20 min flight time would the position of the ships still be accurate enough to let the seekers find them? ^ First line of defense is about 300 miles from the aircraft carrier; ^ F-14 Tomcats shoot down bombers carrying missiles. Tomcats are ^ directed to enemy bombers by early warning aircrafts and ships. ^ ^ Second line of defense is about 100 miles from the aircraft carrier; ^ guided missile cruisers shoot down bombers carrying missiles. My impression is that the cruisers shoot down the incomming missiles rather than the bombers. The Soviets believe in big long range missiles (I think 250 nm for the Kingfish or whatever the thing is named?) that exceed the range of SAM coverage. I've seen articles that suggest that Tomcats (when unable to intercept the bombers for whatever reason) also serve as an intercept against missiles. ^ ^ Third, and last, line of defense is the CIWS (Close-In-Weapon-Systems) ^ installed on aircraft carriers (and also other capital ships). ^ CIWSs utilize Gatling machine guns to shoot down oncoming missiles. ^ ^Of course, the best defense is to destroy the airfields where the bombers ^are based. This is the strategy that Japan used in the Pearl Harbor ^attack; the first targets were the airfields. Hard to do...the range of the carrier based aircraft is much shorter than for Backfires. Also those bases are pretty well protected by SAMs, Migs and distance. Generally you hope to do enough damage to the incomming bomber force to make them a non-threat the next time around. You might get away with a TLAM attack that is so popular these days in stories and games but it is a risky venture. After all the multiple sub launches could be mistaken for a nuclear cruise missile attack...you'd never know until the first warheads hit. NT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // | Nigel Tzeng - STX Inc - NASA/GSFC COBE Project \X/ | xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov | Amiga | Standard Disclaimer Applies: The opinions expressed are my own.