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MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
NAVAL MISSILE DEFENSE Is the US Navy overestimating the missile defense system like Russia did? If China shoots 10 missiles at a major warship, what are the chances that none hit the ship? Original article: Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | ||
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Is the US Navy overestimating the missile defense system like Russia did? If China shoots 10 missiles at a major warship, what are the chances that none hit the ship?
Written by Tim Blizzard ... PhD in Ancient History & War Studies, Macquarie University (Graduated 2021) April 21st 2022 So, firstly there is no real comparison between the Moskva and the major surface combatants in the United States Navy. Therefore, trying to make any conclusions in a China/US scenario based off how a Russian ship performed against a Ukrainian missile is like using a game between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 69ers to figure out who would win if the Rams and Cowboys met in the Super-bowl (or ‘insert your local sporting analogy here’). The missiles and defensive systems are different, so its really not all that relevant. But considering just how many people are asking a version of this question, its obvious that people don’t really understand these differences. When the first Slava class cruiser became operational in 1982 (Moskva), her defensive systems were reasonably good. But that was 40 years ago. Like much of the Russian military, the Moskva had been through only modest upgrades and refit since then. In fact, only a single major refit in about the year 2000, just after the Russian economy collapsed in 1998 when they had zero money for anything (meaning said refit was modest). So, generally speaking, what you are seeing in the Moskva (especially in terms of weapons and sensors) is essentially what it was built with. When you are trying to shoot down an Anti-Ship Cruise Missile (ASCM) your sensors and combat system are every bit as important as your weapons, and here the Moskva was hardly at the cutting edge technologically. In fact she was stuck in the 80s. These are her primary air search sensors and fire control systems. 
The two primary radars are the Top Pair and Top Steer systems. AFAIK these have not been upgraded since she was commissioned (someone can correct me if I'm mistaken there). Both the Top Steer and Top Pair radars were reasonably modern in the early 1980s, with a high power output, long range and ability to track targets in 3 dimensions (meaning they can give altitude information); but they are very, very dated by today’s standards. Firstly they are both mechanically scanned arrays, meaning they have to literally turn the whole radar in order to do a scan. This drastically limits their scan rates in comparison to an electronically scanned array, which is a critical issue when you are trying to engage sea skimming missiles; you only have about a minute to engage them, even the subsonic missiles, so picking them up quickly is absolutely critical. Secondly, these systems are wholly analogue, meaning their signal processing and back end architecture are not digital. Remember electronics from the 80s and early 90s (anyone who is over 35)? How do you think it compares to today? These radars still work, especially if they are engaging high flying aircraft, but the lack of a digital back end, and the relatively poor resolution of these systems, will certainly hurt them when they are trying to track small missiles flying at low altitude. Thirdly we have the fire control radar, the Top Dome. This system can reportedly control 2 missiles at once (with 6 in the air simultaneously), but can only provide terminal guidance for one target at a time. This is possible because a semi-active radar homing missile only requires the target to be illuminated for the last few moments before interception. Nonetheless, the system as a whole can only illuminate 1 target at a time, although it can switch between targets quickly. Finally, we have to consider the combat system. Combat systems are basically like a ship's central nervous system; they connect the sensors, people and weapons together to form an integrated whole. If you have a modern, digital integrated combat system like AEGIS, this can make a ship react to an incoming missile almost instantly, but if you have an old, slow and largely analogue system, your reaction time is going to be much greater. This is important because of something called an OODA loop limitation. Basically it takes a certain amount of time for you to detect the threat, orient your systems or weapons, decide to do something and launch a weapon, and modern combat systems like AEGIS are specifically designed to minimise that time by automating much of this process. In essence, because ASCMs are so fast, even the subsonic ones, if you are too slow then you simply wont shoot down the missile in time. Basically you have about 80 seconds to shoot down a subsonic anti ship cruise missile that is flying at low altitude, so you need to be fast, and as far as I know Moskva was largely running a combat system from the 80s (and the soviets were behind in this form of technology then). So, lets look at the American example, a flight II Arleigh Burke: 
Unlike the Moskva the Burke uses something called a Passive Electronically Scanned array radar. Not only is the SPY-1D(v) an immensely powerful system (it can track satellites in low earth orbit), because it electronically steers the radar beam its scan rates are amazingly fast. Basically, instead of turning the whole radar the system adjusts the phase of elements within the radar antenna, which means the beam can be steered in mere fractions of a second. There are four radar faces that each cover a 90 degree field of view. When you put this together it means that although the total range of the system might not be all that much more than the “Top Pair” (which doesn't matter all that much for sea skimming targets), it scans the airspace around the ship at a rate that is several orders of magnitude faster. Secondly, the Mark-99 fire control system (a core element of the AEGIS combat system) is a fully digital computer system that manages the engagement of any contact automatically, from detection, to selecting the appropriate defensive weapon, to interception. It completes this process extremely quickly. For fire control it has 3 illuminators for SARH missiles (as opposed to 1 on the Moskva), meaning 3x more targets can be intercepted simultaneously. The Mark-99 system is just one component of the wider AEGIS combat system, which when introduced in the 1980s was the first complete battle management system ever fielded. AEGIS takes information from the ship’s sensors and automatically classifies and tracks hundreds of targets, presenting this information to the ships crew as a single, coherent picture of the battlespace. It can also automatically engage hostile targets, greatly mitigating OODA loop limitations (meaning it can react much faster). Basically you don’t need a human watching a display to classify targets, the computers just do it all for you. AEGIS was way ahead of the Soviets when it was first introduced, but after dozens of improvements and upgrades its now entering its Baseline 9.2 which, for example, is designed to engage hypersonic threats and anti-ship ballistic missiles. I cant underline just how much more capable a modern AEGIS battle management system is in comparison to the largely analogue combat system used by the Moskva. Its literally an iPhone compared to a flip phone. In terms of the ship’s weapons, unlike the S-300F the ESSM, SM-2 Block III and SM-6 are all specifically designed to engage anti-ship cruise missiles. Don’t get me wrong, the S-300 can shoot down these targets, but it wasn't optimised for this role, not to mention the system is getting dated. Whenever I say that Russian systems tend to be old people always make the same counterargument that western systems are old too: “how can you say that about the Russians when the Standard Missile 2 was introduced in 1978!”. The difference is that, although the missile shape has remained largely the same, everything else has gone through a substantial set of upgrades. Because the Russians lacked the funds they haven't upgraded their systems in the same way. Just as an example, the SM-2 Block IIIB has a dual mode seeker, with a semi-active radar homing element combined with an imaging infra red seeker, like on a sidewinder. This is critical if you are engaging targets with a small RCS, like a cruise missile, because you can use both IIR and SARH to search for the target. Additionally, the Burke now fields active homing missiles like the SM-6, which essentially have the seeker from an AMRAAM. These do not require any illumination, meaning even more missiles can be in the air. It also allows the SM-6 to shoot down missiles that are over the radar horizon though a technique called cooperative engagement capability. The new SM-2 Block IIIC also has an active radar seeker, meaning it doesn't require illumination (so you can engage many more than 3 targets simultaneously) and it can also engage targets over the radar horizon (a critical upgrade for dealing with sea skimming missiles). An over the horizon capability effectively gives you more time to engage the threat. 
So, when you put this all together, the defensive systems on a US destroyer are simply far superior to those deployed by the Moskva. The radars are much better, the fire control system is much better, the combat system as a whole is much, much better and the weapons are much better. You are basically taking a warship from the 80s which failed to stop a reasonably modern ASCM and asking “what does this mean for a modern destroyer”? By itself, it means absolutely nothing. Plus we don't even know what the circumstances were onboard that ship. For instance, were they even at general quarters? Were its defensive systems even operational? How many supporting assets were with it? A ship’ defensive systems are useless if the weren't even turned on (I'm not saying they weren't, but without this information its hard to make judgements about the defensive system’s performance). Personally, I don’t think the Moskva detected the incoming missiles until it was too late. That’s what I suspect happened. Now, to answer your second question “If China shoots 10 missiles at a major warship, what are the chances that none hit the ship?”, well it depends. What missiles? Is the warship alone, or is it part of a carrier strike group with things like airborne radar coverage? All of these things matter. But lets pose the question a different way. Is it possible for a single Arleigh Burke to shoot down 10 subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles alone? Here is the most prolific Chinese anti ship cruise missile, the subsonic YJ-83: 
Could the Burke shoot down 10 missiles? Well it would have roughly 80 seconds to do so (very rough numbers; 600 knots airspeed, 12 nautical mile radar horizon). Well, it takes less than a second for an SM-2 to leave a Mk-41 VLS complex, and a Burke can launch multiple missiles simultaneously. The SM-2 has a top speed of Mach 3, so there would be time for 20 missiles to be launched and guided before they reached the ship. So the simple answer to that question is yes, it can (at least theoretically) shoot them down. But there are some other things to consider. A ship has a layered defences. Even after the missiles you have to get past the close in weapons systems such as the Phalanx, and you have to deal with the ship’s electronic countermeasures, such as the Nulka decoy. Plus, US warships don’t typically fight alone. If they are part of a formation like a battlegroup, an American destroyer will be supported by other warships and aircraft, that will allow it to fire over the radar horizon, giving the defensive missile systems even more time to engage the incoming missiles. But none of these defensive systems are worth anything if you don’t see the missiles coming, so the quality of the air search radar is absolutely paramount. The thing to understand about a ship’s defensive systems is something called saturation. No matter how good your defensive radars, combat system and missiles are, if you shoot enough missiles at the ship there will be a point where the defences are overwhelmed. Supersonic missiles just reduce this number. So in a war between China and the United States it is certainly possible that US ships could be sunk by Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles, and that isn't because their defences don't work, its just because the Chinese were able to achieve saturation of their defences. Defensive systems aren't a magical force field, they aren’t perfectly effective. Nothing is. What they are designed to do is increase your chances and limit the damage; you will always lose ships, platforms and people in a war.
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