POTD: Missile Firing Exercise 2019

@Hyok Kim A VT Proximity Fuse won't arm unless it's near it's Target! Before that range is reached, it's a Smart/Dumb Missile...

@Secundius I know it won't arm till then. My question is how would the system in question counter ASM with smart (guided) cluster bomb with proximity fuse?

@Hyok Kim At what point do you program the Proximity Fuse to Arm. When it's near the ship or further away. RAM will engage out to a range of ~9,000-meters. Which makes arming a PF sort of a useless endeavor...

@Secundius "At what point do you program the Proximity Fuse to Arm. When it's near the ship or further away."

Of course, near the ship, why would one arm the fuze further away from the ship?

"RAM will engage out to a range of ~9,000-meters. Which makes arming a PF sort of a useless endeavor..."

You obviously do not understand how PF works. If PF were armed further away, the blast on the target would be ineffective. Not only that if PF armed thus could detonate prematurely when RAM closed by.

@Hyok Kim If some fired a Missile at my ship, I'm not going to fire a Single Missile to counter the threat. I'd Fire back what ever I had until that threat was destroyed...

@Secundius "If some fired a Missile at my ship, ….. "

You obviously do not understand cluster bomb: an ASM missile with cluster munition would release more than a dozen separate bombs (guided) at the furthest distance the bombs have enough velocity to reach the ship in question.

The bombs would form a 'blanket' of KZ. Even if you fired multiple missiles, they would not be able to take out all the clusters already in the air, especially when they are not even armed yet.

Not only that, some of the clusters would be below the deck, a little above the ocean. How are you going to shoot all of them down? You have a lot of friendly ships nearby.

It's like shooting a flock of birds at distance with a rifle, with kids playing nearby. What's the chance of one shooting all the birds down with a rifle at a distance, without having to worry about the kids?

"I'm not going to fire a Single Missile to counter the threat. I'd Fire back what ever I had until that threat was destroyed..."

You have a very limited number of missiles on board. The enemy could be shooting ballistic ASMs from inland. They are not limited to just what you could carry onboard.

Their trajectory could be from above or horizontal, or both.

Remember Nelson's maxim, "A ship is a fool to fight a fort." Within reason, that maxim still stands true.

@Hyok Kim ASM = Anti-Shipping Missile NOT Cluster Bomb...

@Secundius It really depends on the model of fuze. Those specifically designed for AA work normally are set to arm after a min safe distance, this allows them to “go hot” fast to allow close in engagements. Fuzes designed for indirect fire, Controlled Variable Time, CVT, in USN parlance have an an additional setable arming time to allow clearance of intermediate reflective objects that would case detonation. CVT/VT fuzes goes active prior getting to the set time and some model turn on 2-5 seconds prior to set time (when you compute safety you add 5.5 seconds to the predicted minimum time of flight to the min range line to ensure it does not go active prior to the impact area).

VT fuzes all have a backup point detonation feature to ensure function in case the proximity function fails or is jammed. So once the minimum safe and arming distance is met, the fuze will function if the round runs into something inadvertently

@Secundius Cluster munitions were used in ASUW warfare when they don’t have PGMs. A6s dropped quite a few Rockeyes on Iranian vessels during Operation Praying Mantis and Iraqi patrol boats during desert storm.

However they are a non-preferred weapon because you are not going to get sufficient penetration to do major damage to large vessels

Interesting tidbit, almost ever time an ASCM has caused significant damage to a warship, the warhead did not function and the real damage was done by unused fuel and flammable objects on the ship.

@Ron As I recall Cluster Munitions are Dropped on Target, so unless the Ship "isn't" avoiding being Hit it will be targeted with a direct strike. As a Ships Captain, I would have more than one missile and/or gun system targeting ASM with Cluster Munitions. A Multi Billion Dollar Ship isn't expendable enough for a Single Missile Engagement...

@Hyok Kim There is no such thing as ASM with cluster warhead. You need quite large warhead to disable warship, so you cannot really use clusters. Closest would be French-British missile Perseus, currently under development, which would have two inertially guided 50kg effectors (as addition to main 200kg warhead) optionally launched before the impact, but that's it.

Also what do you think "the furthest distance the bombs have enough velocity to reach the ship" is? Radio horizon can be like 20km or even more (depends on radar antena height and target altitude) and there are things like Aster or ESSM with way more range than that. Those are missiles ment to deal with saturation attacks of supersonic sea-skimming ASMs (unlike RAM which is basically "last resort" point defence system).

Oh and one more thing - enemy shooting missiles from inland can have very likely less amount of missiles available, than your guided missile destroyer has. A. Burke has 96 VLS (much smaller Sachsen still got 32 VLS) and ESSM are quad packed in one VLS, although some VLS are reserved for Standards and Tomahawks, it's still a LOT of defensive missiles just on single ship (iirc Sachsen loadout is 24x Standard and 32x ESSM) and just because your ASM launchers are shore based, doesn't mean you have unlimited amount of them.

I mean seriously, did you really think people designing these things didn't think it through and you, random stranger from the Internet, just outsmarted everyone?

@Secundius So pedantic, but ASM can include cluster bomb, no?

@Ron "Cluster munitions were used in ASUW warfare when they don’t have PGMs. However they are a non-preferred weapon because you are not going to get sufficient penetration to do major damage to large vessels"

I was talking about the future use of PGM Clusters.

"Interesting tidbit, almost ever time an ASCM has caused significant damage to a warship, the warhead did not function and the real damage was done by unused fuel and flammable objects on the ship."

Taking advantage of the enemy's fuel/ammo on board for the major damage has always been the case even since gunpowder had become the primary weapons for the navy through WW1, WW2.

@Secundius "As I recall Cluster Munitions are Dropped on Target, so unless the Ship "isn't" avoiding being Hit it will be targeted with a direct strike."

With proximity fuse, the clusters do not have to be dropped on target. It doesn't have to be a direct strike. That's the advantage of proximity fuse.

"As a Ships Captain, I would have more than one missile and/or gun system targeting ASM with Cluster Munitions. A Multi Billion Dollar Ship isn't expendable enough for a Single Missile Engagement..."

It doesn't have to be a single missile engagement, a land base is cheaper and more wide spread than a ship.

And they are not as limited to how many missile they can launch as a ship.

They can launch far more missiles than a ship can handle. With the guided clusters no less.

A missile land base doesn't have to cost a multi billion, a lot cheaper than that, plus far less upkeep.

@Ron Wow! Thanks for the education. I was kinda busy with my project before I could reply to Secundis.

@Ron Thanks for the education, again.

That was the case with Midway, and the paranoia of the dreadnaught designs around WW1. The real damage was done by the enemy shell/bomb exploding the fuels and ammo compartment onboard

@Hyok Kim And how is Cluster Munitions deployed...

@Hyok Kim I suspect in you're scenario where the Cluster Munitions is employed and is able to severely damage or destroy the ship. The Ship's Captain isn't doing anything to avoid destruction...

@Secundius From the getgo, I was talking about smart/guided clusters from ASM, which currently does not exist, but in the near future?

There needs to be a paradigm change regarding Naval strategy. Aircraft carrier centric approach is as outdated as the battleship centric approach before WW2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

@Secundius I'm talking about smart/guided clusters that would be developed in the near future, not the dumb clusters that are in use.

They would spread out once the ASM carrying them reach the distance where the clusters inside would have enough kinetic energy to reach the target.

They'll start spread out in 3d shape so that by the time the clusters reach the target, they would saturate the entire target area. That's for the horizontal attack.

Remember, a single cluster, or for that matter, a number of clusters do not have to damage the entire ship. Just the sensors, radars, missile launch tubes, decks, conning towers, command towers to the point they degrade the ship's defense temporarily, but long enough for the next knock out blows.

Once ship's defense is temporarily out, then comes the knock blows, and it's not going to be cluster based, but heavy duty warhead.

Think of smart/guided clusters, like jabs probing the enemy's defense, and making the enemy waste his energy/stamina so that the set up for the combination knock out.

For the vertical attack, it would be the smart/guided clusters from above.

@Hyok Kim Adding "Cluster Munitions" to a Cruise Missile isn't new, and dates back to at least 1986. The Chinese started Smart Cluster Munitions on their DF-16B Missile as early as 2011. And can hit a Land Moving Vehicle from ~1,000-km distance with a within ~10-meter accuracy, only drawback being Land Target and not Sea Target. Where the Sea Target is moving on three Axis of Rotation (X, Y & Z) at the same time. Which means "Racking" the Target or Hitting the Same Place every time. Not an easy thing to do, even using Smart Munitions on a moving target at sea. Fiber-Lasers of ~150-kW LaWS output are to enter US Navy Service by 2020 and ~1-MW LaWS Lasers by 2023. How far does a Cluster Munitions traveling in Meters/Second travel compared to a Fiber-Pulse Laser traveling at ~299,792,458 meters/second...