Is The West Falling Behind In Anti-Ship Missiles?

[Flieger56]

With the recent, apparently successful, and ahead of timeline test of the Russian Zircon hypersonic missile, development on the Russo-Indian BrahMos II missile [also hypersonic] and Chinese weapons like the YJ-12 coming into service could it be that the West, equipped with upgraded Harpoons and the new [though sub-sonic] Naval Strike Missile [NSM], RBS-15 and LRASM is falling behind the aforementioned countries in anti-ship missile development, and thus possibly creating a capability gap? What are your thoughts?

[Umikami]

all of which can be taken smooth out the box by railguns whenever the USN gets ammo that works, and the government decides to pay for it.

the weapons to worry about now are chemo/bio mutant virus strains

[Captain_Dorja]

No one here is qualified to answer that question, so my reply is

 

 

[Hatework]

No, we're not falling behind.  We simply are behind.

 

Also, railguns have been in development since I was a kid.  Over 30 years ago.  I'll believe in them when they're operationally deployed.

[GrandAdmiral_2016]

The Russians and Chinese have been operating big supersonic anti-ship missiles since the 70s. Going one better with hypersonic missiles simply complicates anti-missile defence by shortening acquisition and response times to 10 seconds or less for low flyers, and 12 seconds or less for high flyers re-entering the atmosphere. Interesting problem in interception guidance and ballistics...

[TornadoADV]

Hypersonic missiles are paper tigers because they have the flight profiles of IRBMs and MRBMs and will be treated as such by the US in open war. IE : The offended nation will be nuked in response, it's the same reason that the Pentagon put the kabosh on any conventionally tipped Polaris or Pershing missiles.

[Captain_Dorja]

1 hour ago, TornadoADV said:

Hypersonic missiles are paper tigers because they have the flight profiles of IRBMs and MRBMs and will be treated as such by the US in open war. IE : The offended nation will be nuked in response, it's the same reason that the Pentagon put the kabosh on any conventionally tipped Polaris or Pershing missiles.

Ouch yeah. Anything that makes the world think you might be nuking someone is a weapon you really want to avoid using.

[Hatework]

13 minutes ago, Captain_Dorja said:

Ouch yeah. Anything that makes the world think you might be nuking someone is a weapon you really want to avoid using.

Tomahawks can be nuclear armed and we've been firing them at everyone for decades.  Thats jsut one example, we use plenty of nuclear capable cruise missiles. 

That said, "dual use" weapons have been argued most of my lifetime.  I dont foresee anyone not using them in the future however.

[Murotsu]

The hypersonic / extremely fast weapon is an attempt to get around the problems of targeting and soft kill technologies.  Russia and China as arms designers have only really pushed electronics and "smart" weapons of high sophistication for about the last decade or two.  They're still behind the US and West in this respect.

Why is this important?  Because "Industrial warfare" of the sort seen in WW 1 and 2 is pretty much a dead end now.  Mass armies using low tech equipment are a thing of the past.  They were so Industrial Age.  We're almost a century into the Electronics Age (no, it's not the "Information Age" like some say as the information has always been there, its just now electronics allows easy collection, storage, and access to it) and warfare is going to have to radically change to fit the growing use of electronics in everything.

You don't need a nuke if you can put a convention munition in somebody's back pocket from fifty miles...  Nukes are only necessary for mass destruction on a grand scale, or to make up for inaccuracy of the weapon system.

 

[Captain_Dorja]

57 minutes ago, Hatework said:

Tomahawks can be nuclear armed and we've been firing them at everyone for decades.  Thats jsut one example, we use plenty of nuclear capable cruise missiles. 

That said, "dual use" weapons have been argued most of my lifetime.  I dont foresee anyone not using them in the future however.

 

Yeah but if you detect a Tomahawk being fired, it doesn't instantly make everyone in the world say, "Oh crap that's a Tomahawk! We've only got 12 minutes to decide what to do before the very real potential of the end of life as we know it." Would you use an anti-ship missile if the possible price of it was someone mistaking it as a nuclear launch, and in the heat and fear of the few minutes to decide what to do end up causing your home country to be nuked? I know I wouldn't. I'd use a different tool that doesn't involve the possibility of someone destroying the entire world via nukes over a mistaken identity of my chosen weapon. This is way too close to Dr. Strangelove.

[Hatework]

Thats a fair point, and a big point in the dual use weapons debate. 

I (mostly) agree with you though.  Cost aside, using an ICBM body to launch a conventional warhead is just asking for a nuclear reaction.

[mofton]

Ever since WWI the trend has increasingly been that ships are not the biggest threat to ships.

In WWII for instance the British lost 153 destroyers of which 'only' 22 were lost to other ship gunfire/torpedoes or about 14%. Of the ten capital ships lost - Courageous, Glorious, Eagle, Hermes, Ark Royal, Royal Oak, Hood, Prince of Wales, Repulse and Barham two were lost to ships. I don't think the US lost a capital ship to surface attack period.

Falklands - one cruiser to submarine, four escorts to air attack.

Iraq - some patrol boats mostly to air/helicopter attack.

 

So yeah I think the west may be behind if you look up the fancy stats on these various missiles, but I also think that investing in things like NIFC-CA for cooperative-engagement, sensor integration and AMDR technology may be more worthwhile than super-duper ASuW missiles. ASW and mine warfare should also be emphasized in my ill-informed opinion.

[Xero_Snake]

Dare to say Kalibr missiles killed ISIS targets more effectively than GPS-guided Tomahawks from afar?

Well let's not talk about less than half of the Tomahawk missiles missed/drifted from Syrian airbase.

PS: It's funny how people neglect India, which also possess some supersonic cruise missiles too.

[Eisennagel]

 

I posted an article on the news thread that the Chinese are working on a missile/drone/flying torpedo that flies just barely, barely above the water surface.

 

The newest generation of supersonic missiles have a different flight profile than before.

 

Previously when you fire a supersonic missile, it goes supersonic quickly soon after launch and stays that way for the duration of the flight.  Because it is so fast, it has to fly higher to prevent it from crashing into the water due to turbulence, and the speed heats up the skin of the missile, both factors makes the missile detectable.  In order to maintain that range while flying so fast, it needs to carry that much fuel, forcing it to be really big in design, making it even more detectable.

 

The later generation of missiles will only fly Mach 1 to 2, and at a much lower level than before.  As they are efficiently supercruising, they have a much longer range while holding less fuel on a smaller body.  The speed does not heat up the missile surface, the combined factors of size, coolness and flight height makes the missile less detectable.  Once the missile gets into its terminal kill radius, it goes into Mach 3.

 

The other kind of missile is a two staged one.  The first stage is a turbofan booster with wings that lets the missile fly at subsonic speeds, very low, and at a long range.  This makes the missile harder to detect and it will appear in its flight and radar profile as a sea skimmer.  Once it get into its terminal kill radius, the first stage drops and the second stage ignites to supersonic, Mach 2 to 3 speed, giving little time for defenses to react.  At the same time, the first stage still keeps on flying, act as a potential decoy.  

[Eisennagel]

9 hours ago, Murotsu said:

The hypersonic / extremely fast weapon is an attempt to get around the problems of targeting and soft kill technologies.  Russia and China as arms designers have only really pushed electronics and "smart" weapons of high sophistication for about the last decade or two.  They're still behind the US and West in this respect.

Why is this important?  Because "Industrial warfare" of the sort seen in WW 1 and 2 is pretty much a dead end now.  Mass armies using low tech equipment are a thing of the past.  They were so Industrial Age.  We're almost a century into the Electronics Age (no, it's not the "Information Age" like some say as the information has always been there, its just now electronics allows easy collection, storage, and access to it) and warfare is going to have to radically change to fit the growing use of electronics in everything.

You don't need a nuke if you can put a convention munition in somebody's back pocket from fifty miles...  Nukes are only necessary for mass destruction on a grand scale, or to make up for inaccuracy of the weapon system.

 

 

 

Being older in electronics doesn't make you any better, like given how the way "newcomers" like China and Korea has literally edged Japan out in electronics and for that matter, even more importantly, in software.  Electronics is a field that requires sustained development, if you started out earlier, but failed to sustain it, you can lose that edge, forever.  (This is where in the long run, the educational system can fail you).  Furthermore, having a strong electronics industry is required for the mass production and lowering the volume costs of these items, as sadly it seems that these components may have to be obtained from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and even China.   Another thing is that consumer electronics are way way ahead of military electronics by many cycles, because Moore's Law is at work with the consumer's market, whereas bureaucracy meant that when a weapons system has finally passed approval, many many Moore cycles have passed.  

 

Another is the question on how fast and how short the technological cycles are.  AESA radar remains rare and a novelty even in the West with their cost, and when deployed, tend to be rather small but the Chinese are putting it all over the ships and planes since 2006, bypassing PESA that the US relied on three decades.  The Chinese naval AESAs are breathtakingly huge --- the biggest in the world right now which means a lot of range, sheer output, and ability to work on lower frequency ranges that can counter stealth.  The Japanese were the first to use AESA radars on ships, and for the most part, militarily, but the number of ships that have them remains limited, since they are part of an indigenous defense suite, and their destroyers are still using AEGIS/SPY-1 suite.  Furthermore I heard, but not very sure, that the cels used for the Western AESAs need to be made in Japan, which raises the cost and lowers availability.  On the other hand, the Chinese are making their own cels.  Its even a bigger problem that China has a monopoly on rare earth elements, and not too long ago, the thought or the threat that the Chinese would ration their shipments of these to Japan nearly sent the Japanese into panic --- and potentially you can see how that would affect production of Western AESAs.  And with the fabs and natural resources at home, the Chinese are pumping out AESA radars like there is no tomorrow --- and the more they pump out, the lower the cost of each cel.

 

I would say the Europeans and the Russians have some pretty advanced work on their radar systems as well.  

[Xero_Snake]

22 minutes ago, Eisennagel said:

 

 

Being older in electronics doesn't make you any better, like given how the way "newcomers" like China and Korea has literally edged Japan out in electronics and for that matter, even more importantly, in software.  Electronics is a field that requires sustained development, if you started out earlier, but failed to sustain it, you can lose that edge, forever.  (This is where in the long run, the educational system can fail you).  Furthermore, having a strong electronics industry is required for the mass production and lowering the volume costs of these items, as sadly it seems that these components may have to be obtained from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and even China.   Another thing is that consumer electronics are way way ahead of military electronics by many cycles, because Moore's Law is at work with the consumer's market, whereas bureaucracy meant that when a weapons system has finally passed approval, many many Moore cycles have passed.  

 

Another is the question on how fast and how short the technological cycles are.  AESA radar remains rare and a novelty even in the West with their cost, and when deployed, tend to be rather small but the Chinese are putting it all over the ships and planes since 2006, bypassing PESA that the US relied on three decades.  The Chinese naval AESAs are breathtakingly huge --- the biggest in the world right now which means a lot of range, sheer output, and ability to work on lower frequency ranges that can counter stealth.  The Japanese were the first to use AESA radars on ships, and for the most part, militarily, but the number of ships that have them remains limited, since they are part of an indigenous defense suite, and their destroyers are still using AEGIS/SPY-1 suite.  Furthermore I heard, but not very sure, that the cels used for the Western AESAs need to be made in Japan, which raises the cost and lowers availability.  On the other hand, the Chinese are making their own cels.  Its even a bigger problem that China has a monopoly on rare earth elements, and not too long ago, the thought or the threat that the Chinese would ration their shipments of these to Japan nearly sent the Japanese into panic --- and potentially you can see how that would affect production of Western AESAs.  And with the fabs and natural resources at home, the Chinese are pumping out AESA radars like there is no tomorrow --- and the more they pump out, the lower the cost of each cel.

 

I would say the Europeans and the Russians have some pretty advanced work on their radar systems as well.  

Though Japan literally got edged out by China & (South) Korea concern me a bit, given how their digital electronics products like smartphones from Samsung, Huawei to Lenovo, got very popular globally in recent years.

[TornadoADV]

29 minutes ago, Eisennagel said:

 

 

Being older in electronics doesn't make you any better, like given how the way "newcomers" like China and Korea has literally edged Japan out in electronics and for that matter, even more importantly, in software.  Electronics is a field that requires sustained development, if you started out earlier, but failed to sustain it, you can lose that edge, forever.  (This is where in the long run, the educational system can fail you).  Furthermore, having a strong electronics industry is required for the mass production and lowering the volume costs of these items, as sadly it seems that these components may have to be obtained from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and even China.   Another thing is that consumer electronics are way way ahead of military electronics by many cycles, because Moore's Law is at work with the consumer's market, whereas bureaucracy meant that when a weapons system has finally passed approval, many many Moore cycles have passed.  

 

Another is the question on how fast and how short the technological cycles are.  AESA radar remains rare and a novelty even in the West, but the Chinese are putting it all over the ships and planes since 2006, bypassing PESA that the US relied on three decades.  The Japanese were the first to use AESA radars on ships, and for the most part, militarily, but the number of ships that have them remains limited, since they are part of an indigenous defense suite, and their destroyers are still using AEGIS/SPY-1 suite.  Furthermore I heard, but not very sure, that the cels used for the Western AESAs need to be sourced from Japan, which raises the cost and lowers availability.  On the other hand, the Chinese are making their own cels.  Its even a bigger problem that China has a monopoly on rare earth elements, and not too long ago, the thought or the threat that the Chinese would ration their shipments of these to Japan nearly sent the Japanese into panic.  

 

I would say the Europeans and the Russians have some pretty advanced work on their radar systems as well.  

So advanced by stealing code, designs and other industrial secrets from the USA, yeah no, China is only as far as it is because it takes part in wholesale theft of intellectual property. Military brute performance "falls behind" consumer grade because the brain box that the F-22 Raptor uses is exposed to outside forces that would turn a consumer grade mobo into dust or overload it from a hard kill jamming attack and EMP from nuclear warfare. I'll gladly take a 486 from a Raptor over anything on the market today as I'd literally have to drop it into molten lava to stop it from functioning.

Also, your "missile ideas" are a flat out joke, you're either creating a super complicated one shot weapon that costs more then a 5th gen fighter or simply ignoring physics on how super cruise works. So kindly keep your misinformed opinions to yourself. Also, it's so nice of China to focus on loud and obvious AESA for US LPR to track and destroy. Being the loudest person in the room is the worst possible thing you can do in war.

[crzyhawk]

Yes, certainly.  We've hid behind carrier battlegroups so long, we haven't needed ASMs.  The fact is, imo, a proper cruiser is a hell of a lot cheaper than a CV.  We should not have to deploy an entire CV BG every time we need to project a little power.  We should have competent SAGs too.

[TornadoADV]

2 minutes ago, crzyhawk said:

Yes, certainly.  We've hid behind carrier battlegroups so long, we haven't needed ASMs.  The fact is, imo, a proper cruiser is a hell of a lot cheaper than a CV.  We should not have to deploy an entire CV BG every time we need to project a little power.  We should have competent SAGs too.

We haven't had a proper cruiser since the Long Beach. The Arsenal Ship would of been pretty awesome had it survived the end of the Cold War.

[Eisennagel]

Just now, TornadoADV said:

So advanced by stealing code, designs and other industrial secrets from the USA, yeah no, China is only as far as it is because it takes part in wholesale theft of intellectual property. Military brute performance "falls behind" consumer grade because the brain box that the F-22 Raptor uses is exposed to outside forces that would turn a consumer grade mobo into dust or overload it from a hard kill jamming attack and EMP from nuclear warfare. I'll gladly take a 486 from a Raptor over anything on the market today as I'd literally have to drop it into molten lava to stop it from functioning.

Also, your "missile ideas" are a flat out joke, you're either creating a super complicated one shot weapon that costs more then a 5th gen fighter or simply ignoring physics on how super cruise works. So kindly keep your misinformed opinions to yourself.

 

The F-22 is said to have many problems with its electronics, and even with its oxygen life support.  You can only "copy" --- most of the time, reverse engineering does it easier and faster --- when you are able to determine the specific behavior and parameters you want to achieve.  Espionage stuff is only good for a head start, not for sustained development which is already where the Chinese have reached. 

 

As for consumer grade mobos, we have already tested sending straight out commercial smartphones into space and they are working out quite nicely.  

 

And by the way, those missile ideas no longer ideas, you just need to check out the real missiles that work like these, including Brahmos, YJ-12, Klub and YJ-18. Supercruise means supersonic cruising without afterburners, which is what ramjets do.

[TornadoADV]

24 minutes ago, Eisennagel said:

 

The F-22 is said to have many problems with its electronics, and even with its oxygen life support.  You can only "copy" --- most of the time, reverse engineering does it easier and faster --- when you are able to determine the specific behavior and parameters you want to achieve.  Espionage stuff is only good for a head start, not for sustained development which is already where the Chinese have reached. 

 

As for consumer grade mobos, we have already tested sending straight out commercial smartphones into space and they are working out quite nicely.  

 

And by the way, those missile ideas no longer ideas, you just need to check out the real missiles that work like these, including Brahmos, YJ-12, Klub and YJ-18. Supercruise means supersonic cruising without afterburners, which is what ramjets do.

Ramjets only work at extreme speed envelopes, so you're either going really fast and high up or trying to plow through the thicker air much lower and burning a ton more fuel and heating up like a fireball. The Chinese are continually caught stealing material from the US for their military development (The J-20 being the latest offender), they can't self develop to save their lives, they can't even properly reverse engineer the turbines in their Flanker knock offs. (J-15) But do tell me how far and long those consumer smartphones are staying in LEO, have they gone further then that, how many Gs can they sustain before failure? I can tell you, it is less then what the Raptor can do.

As for the O2 problems with the Raptor, (And the couple of times they've crashed) is because it was either caused by failure of the module itself (in terms of the O2) or the ground crew failed to re-calibrate the system before sortie (concerning the crashes). None of those are the direct fault of the Raptor's brain box.

As for all your mentioned missiles, they are old missiles or copies of old missiles (The Sizzler and YJ-18), which have to pop-up attack when they go super-sonic or they are copies of late Cold War air launched anti ship missiles (Krypton and the YJ-12), the YJ-12 which has to pop up attack or fly high to achieve top speed or the final missile, or is also a copy of a copy of the Moskit (The Brahmos) which is so lengthened to try and squeeze range out of a small air launched ASM from a ground platform that you'd probably get a radar return from space on it when it's flying high in the air at top speed. (In which it can either try to foolishly attack high or bleed all it's speed and become a subsonic skimmer.)

[Eisennagel]

11 minutes ago, TornadoADV said:

Ramjets only work at extreme speed envelopes, so you're either going really fast and high up or trying to plow through the thicker air much lower and burning a ton more fuel and heating up like a fireball. The Chinese are continually caught stealing material from the US for their military development (The J-20 being the latest offender), they can't self develop to save their lives, they can't even properly reverse engineer the turbines in their Flanker knock offs. (J-15) But do tell me how far and long those consumer smartphones are staying in LEO, have they gone further then that, how many Gs can they sustain before failure? I can tell you, it is less then what the Raptor can do.

As for the O2 problems with the Raptor, (And the couple of times they've crashed) is because it was either caused by failure of the module itself (in terms of the O2) or the ground crew failed to re-calibrate the system before sortie (concerning the crashes). None of those are the direct fault of the Raptor's brain box.

 

Define extreme.  Ramjets work efficiently at supersonic speeds.  In fact, they are more efficient at supersonic speeds than turbojets and in fact, the turbofans are the worst of all when it comes to this speed regime.  How you direct the air into the combustion chamber requires careful engineering and aerodynamic sculpting, tuning and testing of the intakes and intake ducts to a specific speed range, something you can do with wind tunnels and supercomputer simulations --- both the Chinese have no lack of and certainly plenty of the latter.  For that matter, the Chinese may have originally learned this from studying the Russian Kh-31 and Sunburn missiles the Russians sold them.  What you think is a problem is already solved by the Russians decades ago and only needs to be improved and refined since.

 

As for the F-22, I also hear stories that the "brain box" has to be rebooted at times.  

 

As for the J-20, it does not bear any similarity to the F-22 in terms of aerodynamic planform and design.  The J-20 is a delta with canards with no tail elevators.  That's a very unstable design and requires its own FBW software to work specifically for it.  It specifically uses the canards to generate lift vortices across the main wing.  This has more to do with the previous J-10 project and which may have its head start from the Israeli Lavi project.

 

 

[TornadoADV]

Ramjet performance is terrible at anything below mach 2 compared to turbojet and turbofan and lacks any sort of throttle control. (As was proven by the SR-71) The J-20 and J-31 are built off technology stolen from the F-35 project. I never said it was built off technology specifically stolen from the Raptor program. Also, I'd like to hear these stories of the Raptor's CPU having to be re-boot outside of normal maintenance and to re-calibrate to the new area after a ferry flight.

But let me re-iterate here for effect, all the missiles you have mentioned have been around since the mid 80s or earlier (The originals, not the knock off copies) and were taken into account when the USN created the AEGIS program and it's attendant systems. (The AEGIS particularly loves missiles like the Sizzler and Sunburn to shoot down as they approach high to use their speed before either trying to drop down to sea level to skim or terminal phase dive from 20k+ feet.)

[Xero_Snake]

Brahmos was based on Oniks, not Moskit, mind you.

Well, what do you think of PAK FA?

[Eisennagel]

22 minutes ago, TornadoADV said:

Ramjet performance is terrible at anything below mach 2 compared to turbojet and turbofan and lacks any sort of throttle control. (As was proven by the SR-71) The J-20 and J-31 are built off technology stolen from the F-35 project. I never said it was built off technology specifically stolen from the Raptor program. Also, I'd like to hear these stories of the Raptor's CPU having to be re-boot outside of normal maintenance and to re-calibrate to the new area after a ferry flight.

 

Turbofan is certainly not efficient.  Ramjet performance is terrible below supersonic but is flyable, but its acceptable once you reach that past that, and climb to Mach 2.  YJ-12 attains highest efficiency at Mach 4 where it reaches the highest range at 400km.  But YJ-12 is generally up to Mach 2 at cruise (2.5 for higher ranged targets) and Mach 3 at terminal.  Again, you need to carefully see how the intakes goes, the SR-71 uses variable cone like intakes, where as the ramjet missiles (Kh-31 and YJ-12) uses inwardly straked intakes that could massively aid air stream compression.

 

J-31 is definitely inspired from F-35 but the configuration on the J-20 is certainly not like the F-35.  Like I said, delta-canard requires a totally different FBW system of its own, not to mention you cannot apply the same data since a delta canard lifts differently on a turn than a conventional tail layout.  Its hard to say what is stolen from the F-35 (other than what I suspect are the composites).  The J-31 is not accepted for PLA service, this is an export product. Maybe its easier to convince sales to politicians in other countries when it looks like an F-35.  So far no takers though.  Chinese may have learned diverterless intake design from the F-16 DSI project, and this intake is also used on the F-35.  This intake design is also being used on second generation J-10s, and this intake design is tangibly more efficient than the fixed intake on the F-16.

 

Starting a few years ago, the Chinese have also begun manufacturing indigenous engines for their J-10s, J-11s and the J-20.  I believe these WS-10 engines have more of the GE CF-110 as inspiration for their core designs.