Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: tek@CS.UCLA.EDU (Ted Kim (ATW))
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: maximum number of a/c against missile ships
Message-ID: <6750@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 May 89 03:17:28 GMT
References: <6568@cbnews.ATT.COM> <6709@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
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From: tek@CS.UCLA.EDU (Ted Kim (ATW))

In article <6709@cbnews.ATT.COM> bucsb!brianb@cs.purdue.edu (Brian Bresnahan) writes:
>...   The Standard Missile 2(SM2) has
>guidance system that has many modes.  It can be constantly directed 
>by the ship as the SM1 and previous missiles were.  It can also
>go on intertial guidance, with course corrections from the ship.  It
>also has its own active Radar, which can be turned on by the ship, or
>can be programmed to come on after a specific amount of time.  

All references I have seen to the SM2, indicate it has a SEMI-ACTIVE
radar homing capability, *not* fully ACTIVE. Hence, the need for
weapon directors in that mode of operation. By the way, the missiles
go semi-active in the terminal phase when they actually make their
attack run. 

> ...
>From what I have seen the only limitations on the number of missiles
>the system is capable of managing is based of mechanical limitations.
>There are only 2 directors on the ship, and there were a large number
>of targets coming from many different direction, the system could not
>cover the sky with directing beams.

I may be wrong, but on the Ticonderogas I thought there were 2 forward 
directors and 2 aft ones. On the Arleigh Burke, there are supposed to
be 2 forward ones and one aft director. Just to elaborate on what's
being said here, the problem of finding the maximum number of targets
that can be engaged reduces to optimizing weapon director utilization.
You need to know: 

1. How long the semi-active terminal phase is (for reasonable accuracy).
2. How long it takes to switch weapon director targets.
3. How many weapon directors there are.

Such things as processor power and ROF should not be limiting factors.
If anyone can actually say something about this information, I would
be very interested to know.

One would think, it might be possible to adapt the SPY-1 so that it
could illuminate the targets. If that were the case, then you would
not have to worry to much about having enough directors.

> ...
>The worst situation for the system is when there are more targets
>than missiles, in this case it just fires at what are perceived
>as the most threatening, until it runs out of missiles.

Number of missiles available is, of course, a limiting factor also.
HARPOON puts the standard loadout at:

Ticonderoga (Mk26 dual arm launcher) fwd: 26 SM2MR & 28 ASROC, aft: 44 SM2MR
Bunker Hill (Mk41 VLS) fwd: 61 SM2MR, aft: 61 SM2MR
	(presumably some space will go to ASROC VLS when available)

Ted Kim                           ARPAnet: tek@penzance.cs.ucla.edu
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