USN vs the rest of the Worlds Navies combined.

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » 2003-06-22 02:56pm

Thanks Sea Skimmer, that was a rather in-depth analysis (pun intended... wooo, I'm so funny) of SSK's.

I still say the US would win any open water affair since it's basically the only navy built more or less entirely to project power away from its home soil. The rest of the worlds navies are designed to protect territorial waters and coastlines, and thus, most of them are meant to work in concert with land based anti-ship missiles and air craft.

Again possible exception would be the Royal Navy, and possibly Russia (depending how much of it remains).

It would be a more interesting vs debate if the USN was the aggressor trying to get a beachhead.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-06-22 03:17pm

The Russian navy isn't even a real threat anymore, especially considering that the Russians are trying to fund a huge military with only ~$11 Billion a year (compared to our ~$370 Billion).

Now, a really interesting fight would be the USN vs the Royal Navy, with equal numbers of ships and aircraft (actually, you'd have to give the Royal Navy two or three carriers for each the USN's CVNs, in order to balance out the aircraft).

Setzer · Post by **Setzer** » 2003-06-22 03:38pm

For a while, I though only the US had "real" carriers, and the rest of the world just had mini-carriers.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-22 04:18pm

Very nearly true.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-06-22 04:34pm

Setzer wrote:For a while, I though only the US had "real" carriers, and the rest of the world just had mini-carriers.

Well, IMO only the French have a true carrier at the moment. While the Russians have a rather nice machine, it can't project power worth shit and that is where a carrier gains its reputation. I would rather have the three RN Carrier-Cruisers. Funny thing to, before the French got their carrier, any single USN carrier could equal the combined airpower of the rest of the worlds carriers.

Things would have been slightly different had Varyag been finished and the Ul'Yanovsk class been built by the Russians.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-22 07:16pm

Still even De Gaulle is a mini-carrier of sorts. Its embarked air wing is only 40 aircraft, after all.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-22 07:26pm

Howedar wrote:Still even De Gaulle is a mini-carrier of sorts. Its embarked air wing is only 40 aircraft, after all.

The whole thing is only 36,000 tons standard, a WW2 Midway is 45,000 and an improved Nimitz is 73,000 tons. At full load its 40,000, 67,000 and 105,000 tons respectively.

Kunetsov is somewhat larger, 45,900 standard and 58,500 full load but she only carries 18 Su-33's along with a dozen SS-N-19 anit ship missiles

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-06-22 07:30pm

::blink::

I didn't realise that CdG was so small. Even a Wasp at full displacement is on part with the French CV.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-22 08:04pm

phongn wrote:::blink::

I didn't realise that CdG was so small. Even a Wasp at full displacement is on part with the French CV.

The French government initial told the Navy there new carrier could be no larger then the Clemeneau's it replaced, which where just 27,000 tons Standard, 32,000 full load. They had to fight to get the extra tonnage. 60K is the minimal for a real carrier, smaller vessels are very inefficient.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-06-22 11:52pm

Vympel wrote:
Arrow Mk84 wrote:I think the USN takes it. The only real problem would be the British navy and possibly the Chinese. Now if this was set twenty years ago, the Russian navy would pose a very serious threat.

But keep in mind that I'm biased on this one!
The Russian Navy can sink the entire Chinese Navy incredibly easily- all it would take would be the Pacific Fleet's 949A Oscar II SSGNs, guarded by Akula SSNs. The surface combatants need not get involved.

And then you have to remember the Australian and British subs that would be launching torps at, not taking close-up photo's of the hulls of US carriers.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-22 11:55pm

weemadando wrote:
And then you have to remember the Australian and British subs that would be launching torps at, not taking close-up photo's of the hulls of US carriers.

Yes the myth of the might sub strikes once again. What is always forgotten is that in exercises USN carriers are typically restricted to single grid squares in which they endlessly circle. That allows subs to simply sit and wait for them to pass by.

In reality a battlegroup would steam over a far vaster area at twenty knots or more, making it impossible to simply sit and wait. But that doesn’t give the sub commanders a chance to train since even if they didn't get sink sunk could still take the whole length of the exercise to set up for a shot.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-06-23 12:07am

Sea Skimmer wrote: Yes the myth of the might sub strikes once again. What is always forgotten is that in exercises USN carriers are typically restricted to single grid squares in which they endlessly circle. That allows subs to simply sit and wait for them to pass by.

In reality a battlegroup would steam over a far vaster area at twenty knots or more, making it impossible to simply sit and wait. But that doesn’t give the sub commanders a chance to train since even if they didn't get sink sunk could still take the whole length of the exercise to set up for a shot.

And again I'm forced to remind you that this has happened BOTH in wargames and while the carriers been at sea normally. Its not limited to the wargame attacks.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-23 12:34am

weemadando wrote:
And again I'm forced to remind you that this has happened BOTH in wargames and while the carriers been at sea normally. Its not limited to the wargame attacks.

Unhun, The only example outside of a war game I've ever heard involved the Enterprise, which was steaming without escort conducting training in the mid 90's.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-06-23 12:40am

And to throw in my 2cents...

The USN will probably win this battle in the end, but its not going to be a particularly easy or nice fight. There are going to be LOTS of fucking casualties on both sides and to be quite honest I don't think that the term "win" is really suitable in this context.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-23 03:19am

weemadando wrote: And again I'm forced to remind you that this has happened BOTH in wargames and while the carriers been at sea normally. Its not limited to the wargame attacks.

Support your bullshit claim.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-06-24 09:43pm

Howedar wrote:
weemadando wrote: And again I'm forced to remind you that this has happened BOTH in wargames and while the carriers been at sea normally. Its not limited to the wargame attacks.
Support your bullshit claim.

Numerous occasions in the past 20 years where British and Aussie subs (and I'm sure some others as well), have taken hull and prop-shots of US carriers and other vessels, both in open sea and while returning to ports. Either way, it shows that the subs are more than capable of getting shots off if need be.

Sources - several RAN officers and seaman, including a few from the old Oberon class subs.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2003-06-24 10:42pm

weemadando wrote:
Howedar wrote:
weemadando wrote: And again I'm forced to remind you that this has happened BOTH in wargames and while the carriers been at sea normally. Its not limited to the wargame attacks.
Support your bullshit claim.
Numerous occasions in the past 20 years where British and Aussie subs (and I'm sure some others as well), have taken hull and prop-shots of US carriers and other vessels, both in open sea and while returning to ports. Either way, it shows that the subs are more than capable of getting shots off if need be.

Sources - several RAN officers and seaman, including a few from the old Oberon class subs.

Conveniently easy substantiation, Conveniently Hard to look up.

US Los Angeles Class subs have and had done the same thing to Soviet ships on their way to home port. They have also come so close to Soviet boomers that they have been caught in practice ascents and crash dives.

Source. "Blind Man's Bluff"

However, the chances of SSK's having the stamina and specs to chase down a carrier group in deep water are practically nil. The moment they surface to snorkel, radar con. massive cavitaton, Sonar Con. Any inkling of noise would bring a couple Sea Kings/Sea Knights/Whatever with MAD and LOFAR buoys and some Mark46 Torpedoes. That's assuming they don't get picked up by Los Angeles Class or Seawolfs and wasted with ADCAP Mk 48s.

The US Navy trained for half a century on blue water ASW against foes a lot more competent than the gaggle of Kilos that make up most of the Worlds SSK fleet, and the Diesel/Electric boats with crack NATO crews are too short on legs and too few and far between to make much difference.

And while the US Sub fleet is running interference, the World Navy is on the recieving end of 12x72 plane Airstrikes before they are within effective weapons range. The Japanese and British AD ships are saturated and sunk, and if the USN wanted to, they could recover their strikes, steam away at Flank speed and do it all again the next day, or it could fragment into it's constituent battlegroups and still coordinate multi squadron strikes from 12 different approach vectors.

Once the British and Japanese elements are eliminated, the rest of the World Navy may as well jump into the ocean with cinder blocks around their necks and floaties on their ancles.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-06-25 12:23am

Thankyou ever so much for making my point - Submarines are NOT completely pointless - they can and HAVE regularly and routinely penetrate surface action groups and taken "offending" photographs. This happens on both sides and as such, thankyou for supporting me in my statement of this fact.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-06-25 03:27am

Yes, SSNs definately have done that in the past. It should be noted that they did this in peacetime, not during a battle with the whole fucking naval forces of the entire world!

But the idea that a SSK could catch a carrier on blue-water ops and take hullshots is frankly laughable. I throw this claim in your face and laugh at you. You clearly have no brain.

But then, most of us already knew that.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-25 04:01am

Their chances at hitting an enemy major surface combatant would be improved if they had more than torpedoes. The Kilo SSK variants can all be armed with the Club series of ASuW and ASW missiles quite easily.

3M-54E: supersonic anti-ship missile, 220km range with 20km of supersonic flight (up to Mach 3) in the terminal attack stage, 200kg warhead

3M-54E1: subsonic anti-ship missile, 300km range, 400kg warhead

They're low flying and use inertial guidance with active radar homing in the terminal phase.

India uses the 3M-54E1 on it's Kilo SSKs.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-25 06:11am

Vympel wrote:Their chances at hitting an enemy major surface combatant would be improved if they had more than torpedoes. The Kilo SSK variants can all be armed with the Club series of ASuW and ASW missiles quite easily.

The trick is actually getting decent targeting information. I wouldn't trust a convergence zone contact to be accurate enough for such a launch; missile seekers have very narrow fields of view. And without that you still need to get within 30 miles or so to launch. There is also the problem that with a dozen E-2's watching the air your launch will be instantly spotted, and then a swarm of SH-60's show up overhead.

The low number of missiles fired also makes it fairly easy to defeat such an attack, the defenders have hundreds of missile directors and independent CIWS mounts and thousands of weapons to launch.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-06-25 12:31pm

You all realise that once the Russians perfect the guidance on their 'rocket torps' any surface ship is fucked right?

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-06-25 12:36pm

Crown wrote:You all realise that once the Russians perfect the guidance on their 'rocket torps' any surface ship is fucked right?

They don't have it yet, and given the way the Russians have quietly shelved and given up every major research project over the past decade after getting one nice pretty prototype for photo ops, I remain skeptical.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-25 12:38pm

Crown wrote:You all realise that once the Russians perfect the guidance on their 'rocket torps' any surface ship is fucked right?

That's the stupidest thing I've heard in some time. The weapons range is three miles; and guidance simply isn't possibul while the gas bubble is formed. That’s why it was designed to have a nuclear warhead as suicidal weapons for subs under attack. The USN will have its active torpedo countermeasures perfected well before physics change.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-06-25 12:42pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Crown wrote:You all realise that once the Russians perfect the guidance on their 'rocket torps' any surface ship is fucked right?
That's the stupidest thing I've heard in some time. The weapons range is three miles; and guidance simply isn't possibul while the gas bubble is formed. That’s why it was designed to have a nuclear warhead as suicidal weapons for subs under attack. The USN will have its active torpedo countermeasures perfected well before physics change.

What active torpedo counter measures? Are we talking about a patriot like system under the water?