Joseph Chikva wrote:ladajo wrote:Real probability of hit (not probability of kill) of air defense and not missile defense missile varies from 50 to 70%. As I know, this is for fragmentation warhead of interceptor. And probability of hit of a single fragment.
Antimissile interceptor by some reasons has non-explosive direct hit warhead. Will that have higher than 70% probability?
And how effective that system will be in case of mass attack?
Interception of antiship missiles would be much easier than ballistic.
Have we battle proven warship defense systems? USA use two of them: Phalancs and RAM.
Recall two events: Argentina-UK conflict (French antiship missile Exoset has been used) and attack on Israeli destroyer "Eilat".
Joseph,
These is much deeper complexity to all this than you realize.
Missile defense and decoys and whatnot is not as cut and dryed as you think. The defense systems are very robust and redundant. But, fair enough, not yet set up for saturation attack capability. The next major step will be boost phase engagements while mid-course and terminal are polished. Mid-Course is especially handy to target as it catches a weapon before it deploys CM or goes into maneuvers. Once capability is achieved to engage all phases, I would expect the systems to develop bench depth to handle larger and larger saturation attacks.
As for ship defense, in the cited example of the Falklands, you should know that the Brits did very well with ship defense, and this in fact resulted in multiple warships successfully dodging the exocet that subsequently hit the Atlantic Conveyor which had no countermeasures or defensive ability. Someone forgot to explain the "Missile Sponge" part of a Frigate's mission to the Frigate Captains.
I knew about successful declinations of several exosets with the help of decoys. But you should also agree with me that there is not example of successful interception of antiship missile in real battle situation (so, no battle proven systems neither close-in artillery nor missile)
During first gulf war Saddam launched his SGAD missiles to Israel. Statistic of their interception does not allow us to consider Patriot as reliable missile defense system.
Yes, after that time Patriot has been improved (PAC-2 as I know mostly against aerodynamic targets and PAC-3 mostly against ballistic). But then again has not been proven. I think that today we have rather effective and proven air defense systems but not missile defense.
And I see you agree too that: "not yet set up for saturation attack capability". But both examples were not "saturation attacks".
Nevertheless:
On 4 May, two days after the sinking of Belgrano, the British lost the Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield to fire following an Exocet missile strike from the Argentine 2nd Naval Air Fighter/Attack Squadron. Sheffield had been ordered forward with two other Type 42s to provide a long-range radar and medium-high altitude missile picket far from the British carriers. She was struck amidships, with devastating effect, ultimately killing 20 crew members and severely injuring 24 others. The ship was abandoned several hours later, gutted and deformed by the fires that continued to burn for six more days. She finally sank outside the Maritime Exclusion Zone on 10 May.
The incident is described in detail by Admiral Sandy Woodward in his book One Hundred Days, Chapter One. Woodward was a former commanding officer of Sheffield.[57]
As soon as the commander of the naval forces gave his orders to destroy the destroyer when entering the territorial waters, two missile boats came out of Port Said base to do the mission, the first one launched a missile which hit directly the destroyer that began to sink, after launching the second missile the Israeli destroyer sank completely with its crew in the northern-east of Port Said, After 5 p.m. of 21 of October 1967, Eilat sank a mile away inside the Egyptian territorial waters.
Then the two boats came back to the base. All forces of the canal front and the armed forces were very excited for the quickness and efficiency that gave such outstanding result.
Sinking the destroyer "Eilat" by two surface-to surface missiles, was a beginning of new stage of developing the naval weapons and struggle all over the world. This day become, efficiently, The day of Egyptian Naval Forces.
Joseph,
I do not think the example of Eilat is comparable to modern combat systems. In those days "Soft Kill" was not fully developed. There were ideas, and some limited systems, but full on integrated defense had not come to be esspecially when discussing non Tier 1 navies.
Interstingly enough, many countries watched these events, as well as Israeli tactics in the use of anti-ship missiles, and many lessons were learned and applied.
As for the SHEFFIELD. You should note that the quote you supplied does not discuss Woodwards own analysis on what happened to SHEFFIELD from pages 171-177.
The short of the long of it is he went into the research and analysis thinking it was a people and employment failure, and determined (more or less given the politics) that it was an equipment and employment issue. He felt that the systems on the SHEFFIELD (SEADART & Co) were to be trusted, however he determined that was not the case. He also noted that there were gaps in the defensive coverage employments, specifically allowing the Argentines to exploit the low-level arena due to lack of coverage by CAP. That all said, the fundamental flaw in the whole deal seems to have been SHEFFIELD's systems not being up to speed for an integrated combat environment as well as the fact that SEADART is limited in engagement range. Which in itself is ironic given the the Type 42 had the long range radar. He cites on page 174 how the SCOT terminals were in use (SATCOM) and these interfered with the ESM, blinding her to the Entendard's Radars. Other ships on the field did detect both aircraft, and subsequently missiles. GLASCOW specifically saw the entire thing from soup to nuts and did her duty on the Air Defense nets. However, SHEFFIELD never got ESM, never got radar (until the last moments), and did not get visual until the last moments, all too late. If SHEFFIELD had not suffered ESM interference from ownship SATCOM, she would have picked up the Entendards, and subsequently the Exocet. She would also have cued Chaff, and been able to focus SEADART down the relevant bearing. In short, she did not see it coming, and its was too late when she did. It is of note that the YARMOUTH was close enough to the Exocet path that as it passed by, they were able to note the orange color of the fins. The other ships all successfully employed countermeasures and self defense postures. SHEFFIELD did not, had she, there is a good chance they would have not gotten hit. This was amply displayed later when the Atlantic Conveyor got hit, after the attack passed through the warship defensive line, and the warships all successfully evaded. Ooops.