Naval operations..

Kaktus29 · March 27, 2013

Can somebody with knowledge say more about the naval operations and how they operate..

i never understood how can combat ships without air recon know what is the ship they see on the radar? .. is the radar so precise they can distinguish an enemy combat ship from a commercial ship? .. we all know about the BVR problems and IFF, but here it becomes even more dangerous if you "miss" the target and not destroy it in the right time or god forbid fire a ASM attack on a fishing boat..

if you are blessed with aircraft carrier than of course your chances increase somewhat of getting the right target, ..but if have only surface ships armed with radar and other sensors can they really detect and target the "enemy" and only him without the chance of hitting commercial shipping..

and would it in case of war all commercial shipping be stopped or would it continue.. in a major air war all civilian planes are grounded and obviously don't fly, but commercial shipping i don't know.. and if civilian ships continue this would create so many radar signal and the need to check each and every one of them before you find the enemy..

and satellites .. how much help does a navy get from a satellite.. i don't mean navigation but in searching of enemy fleets?..

i guess making naval ops for DCS is for right reasons very complex since there is so many systems involved that make it a totally new experience than the Air simulations right now that DCS is creating..

How much sustainability does the Aircraft carrier have? (i mean how much ammo for planes, fuel, bombs etc? without the need to refuel, re-arm the airwings back in port or do they do it can they do it in the open seas ? ) .. can the CV sustain their air ops for 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 1 months, before they deplete their bombs, rockets, etc.. (under assumption there is high intensity combat where planes are flying 24/7 using bombs, missiles etc..).. is this information available or confidential..

Maior · March 27, 2013

For the info on carriers, if you can't find it in Google, it's probably classified. But their stores are big. especially on American carriers. Also, there are supply convoys coming and going.

Naval operations are very complex but the advanced RADARS from ships nowadays allow for very good SA. Also, if they get a reflected signal from a ship, if that ship has the RADARS switched off, it's hard to determine what ship it is. If RADARS are on, you can take an estimate based on the kind of emitter installed on that ship. It's not pin point accurate in info though since, for example, the targeting RADARS of the Udaloy class and the Udaloy two class have the same signature. Only one, is a much better weapon system than the other. Also, Fleets always have an air arm. Usually helos. If a carrier is available, then some jets.

Satellite imagery is used all the time. If you look at the newest navy program, CEC, you'll see what I mean. This will be the most significant increase in naval operations in the mid term future. All sensors fused displaying the most detailed map of the AO ever. Pretty impressive.

Naval doctrines vary from country to country. For example, Chinese naval doctrine consists on depleting the aerial defences of high tech navies (like the American, South Korean, Singapure and Japanese) using waves of low tech missiles. Since rearming the VLS tubes is not easily done, once these Self defence weapons have been spent, send in the second wave of high tech missiles to home in on the opposing fleet. That's why they built over 80 stealth missile ships. Small boats with 4 long range missiles with VLO characteristics. That's 320 missiles right there.

high tech navies on the other hand, rely on advanced systems for maximum SA so that they are the first to spot and the first to shoot. Any carrier group is a scary target since you know, you'll always take losses. And I don't mean just the Americans. Heck even the Japanese helo carriers present a potent adversary since they can lauch several waves of attack helicopters with anti ship missiles.

American carrier groups are just more dangerous than the rest ^^ That's why Soviet doctrine envisaged massed aircraft strike with cruise missiles so that the enemy defences were overwhelmed. They assumed losses would be very high. It was just worth it to blow an American carrier fleet since force projection would be greatly reduced.

Kaktus29 · March 27, 2013

tnx for the answer Maior..

yeah, thats what i thought about radar searching a ship that has its radar off.. you get a signal that there is a ship on the other side, nothing more than that.. and than the nervous feeling what if this ship is an enemy and they have data from a sub that spotted us and are right now launching massive ASM attack? .. what to do what to do.. blow it up and say "oops" if it turns out to be a pleasure cruise ship )) .. can't imagine the tourist on the pleasure cruise walking the deck and having their captain go : and here on the right we have splendid islands with great natural habitat and on the left we can see a massive anti-ship cruise missile attack heading towards our ship.. may you kiss your lives goodbye,we're going collateral in 3,2,1..

i knew about CV getting supplies but thought its more of a fuel and maybe some food packages etc.. like most ships get(apart from CV-nuclear powered that don't need fuel), but how do you re-supply the bombs, missiles etc.. in high seas is beyond me, so far no documentary showed this if this indeed happens-re-supply of bombs for instance on the carrier by some other supply ship.. somehow i don't see the resupply ship hauling a 2000JDAM with the use of those cables stretched from one ship to the other..

the space is huge, but is it really so huge, .. i mean we have 5000 people crammed, 70-80 planes, fuel for planes-that must take huge space, spare-parts for planes, other equipment, plus whatever left for ordnance for the planes..

you mentioned the chinese potential strategy of depleting the ships that would have problems re-loading resupplying in time for the second-third wave that would be coming, while carrier groups of the west calculating on better SA and performance like that..i would agree .. but something that worries me is the use of satellite's and huge range of land-based aviation that can easily outnumber the carrier group wings..

its easier to launch a coordinated 200 planes to attack a CV known location that it is for CV to attack a ship-especially if that ship is in the umbrella of land-based aviation..

The russian strategy during the cold war was fused with surface ships acting as cruisers that would launch the attack, subs that would act as detection net coupled with satellite coverage and marine based long-range aviation that would be used for detection plus ordering the final blow by Tu-22 firing the cruise missiles as well..

its all about the range of course, do you have enough range to do this and that.. back in 1960-90 the navy of usa had fighter/bombers that had a combat radius of what? ..am about 300 miles?..maybe 500 miles at best, F-14 was good in its role but the F-18 had especially bad range.. while soviet missiles could be fired form 400 miles away.. coupled with coast long-range aviation that can cover 3000 miles and one can cover the eastern part of atlantic from Archangelsk ..

but all this depends on one very important thing. who detects who when..

i would prefer a much smaller presence on the sea's..i think big naval task force's are a thing of the past.. a much smaller ships with certain ships like "carriers of drones" that would fire those sea-faring-drones which would have VLO and be the dimensions like 10m*3m*1.4m .. armed with sensors, passive and active.. but mostly passive.. than send them to "fish".. when they get some info, data, they relay it.. and then you launch a massive "false" attack with cruise missiles that have no warhead to deplete the defenders.. and after 2,3,5th attack send the real one and sink the whole task force..

i think the chinese are doing and hoping for drone relay station, stealth drone that would snoop "passive" signals from 80.000 feet and relay it back and guide the cruise missile attack..

but, what we all can agree here is.. we really don't know too much about naval engagements.. not enough info.. about air combat we have allot, .but here, much more sensitive area..to both sides..

also, do you know how do subs communicate, ..i mean, how does a US subs patrolling lets say south atlantic know they are listening to US sub patrolling the same area? .. do they have the signal coded into the computer to get it this is our sub, and if they do, is there any way to communicate with them.. lets say you want to say, hei, we need to turn back or something.. how do you do that? use morse code with pings? )) and alert the whole ocean of your presence.. or open the hatched and use sign language?..

all in all, i see why DCS is avoiding doing naval ops.. its a nightmare.. even with ship info there is not allot data for tactics, strategy etc..

Maior · March 27, 2013

Well, not quite as you put it.

Regarding RADAR detections: You can get an idea of the ship by analysing it's RCS and comparing it to known ships. That is not very precise however. You always get Helicopters on the air so you have some aid in helping ID detected contacts. Also, with modern UAVs and satellites, your SA improves a lot. Remember, a fibre glass UAV is cheap and very hard to detect. You can gather enough info with those assets.

Regarding Chinese doctrine:

The big fleets aren't done. A carrier task force is pretty big and usually the more numbers you get, the more protection you have available. and the harder it is for your sensors to be overloaded. Also, nowadays a big fleet can be operating hundreds of miles apart and still be effective. outnumbering carrier group wings isn't easy. Look at the American system with AEGIS equipped frigates, destroyers and cruisers? They all have long range AA systems and anti missile missiles, and CIWS for point defence. It's not easy. Going through one (for you to have a capability idea, one modern destroyer weights as much as a WWII light cruiser and you'd need the navies of all the world in WWII to match it's capabilities). Russian Udaloy destroyers and Kirov cruiser have S-300 AA missiles. Range 162nm. That's a lot of firepower. You usually have a frigate/corvette screen with heavier ships nearer to the center of the formation. Choppers in the air and, the US task forces can have 80~90 aircraft per carrier. Imagine going against a task force with four carriers. that's 320, 360 aircraft available.

Also, the 60-90 period doesn't make much sense. Technology went leaps and bounds from there. The navy always had good performers. The F-4 was very good and the F-14 and 18 were great machines too. In the late 80s, early 90s, the F-14 was probably the best interceptor available in the World. The F-15 had a lot of press but the F-14 was at least as capable an aircraft. The F-18 with external fuel tanks has pretty long legs. And don't forget that even legacy models are still very smart.

Your mention to what's being important is who detects who, you're exactly right. Be it in the air or in the sea, SA is always the deciding factor. Errors in judgement on this area are costly. Look at Pearl Harbour. Better yet, there was a NATO exercise some years ago and Portugal managed to sink one american carrier with an old diesel sub. How? the carrier crew thought the sub was a whale. Failures in SA are usually catastrophic.

Your future fleet scenario is still a long way away. In 50 or 60 years, maybe and all ships will be autonomous. Near future, Navies will have big ships and smaller vessels. Remember, a small vessel carries less weapons and is more vulnerable.

I also know quite a bit about modern naval engagements. It's usually not as glamorous as air engagements making it harder to find. It's around though. Follow the Waypoint (hint) to begin with your quest for knowledge...

You need to remember, in most people minds, air combat resembles some sort of medieval joust with planes instead of horses. Naval engagements have always been much more abstract. An individual looking at a bluish screen assigning targets which appear on other ship's bluish screens and there is no "individual" prowess (you actually just see Vampire symbols flying around).

Subs communicate through relay buoys that are attached by cable to the sub and contain an antenna that activates near the surface. On sub with sub, you have a noise database which the sonar compares it's return to and assigns a sub type to it. Also, they can communicate under water through morse code pinging with their sonars.

Again, there is data available you just need to look for it. Naval war is always tricky since they rely so much on integration between different assets. Still doable given time :)

Ripcord · March 28, 2013

Remember also the forefathers of the naval security group, or crypotologists, who broke the Japanese code at Midway. Radio transmissions, callsigns, simple sitreps, all of those things are very minor but the sum total, when analyzed, can tell you a lot -- just like electronic emissions intelligence or sonar signatures can ID a platform. All of that is of course super crazy classified stuff, of course -- for obvious reasons. Still today that is the only 'sensor' onboard any ship or aircraft that can tell a commander what a potential adversary intends to do next or in the immediate future.

Kaktus29 · March 28, 2013

@Ripcord.. so very true.. the crypto tech is the one most important in war, even more today with so many system inter-connected and reliant to each other..

same happened with germans using their u-boat while the brits broke their code and knew where they were and just avoided their subs for major part of the war while germans being frustrated as to why no convoys coming where our subs are.. and all they received was destroyers coming to kill them..

i guess new tech for info and conveying messages is laser one, .. shooting a laser into a "drone" flying high up there, then this thing relays it back to whom-ever was the message intended.. it would make sending messages and communication more... concentrated and much harder to "break" since unless you are in direct line of the laser there is no chance of even trying to break the code ..

Maior · March 28, 2013

@Ripcord.. so very true.. the crypto tech is the one most important in war, even more today with so many system inter-connected and reliant to each other..

same happened with germans using their u-boat while the brits broke their code and knew where they were and just avoided their subs for major part of the war while germans being frustrated as to why no convoys coming where our subs are.. and all they received was destroyers coming to kill them..

i guess new tech for info and conveying messages is laser one, .. shooting a laser into a "drone" flying high up there, then this thing relays it back to whom-ever was the message intended.. it would make sending messages and communication more... concentrated and much harder to "break" since unless you are in direct line of the laser there is no chance of even trying to break the code ..

Lasers in Oceans is tricky business. Also, lasers have problems with information integrity. There's a reason why most data waves are in the microwave/RADAR wavelength. Remember, if you have a LASER comm, your sensor is picking up visible light as well and changing humidity in the near atmosphere can "corrupt" the beam. What is being used currently are quiet directional beams. They're also pretty hard to detect and if detected very hard to pinpoint them. UAVs normally receive them from Satellites to give you an example.

Comms are more secure now than they ever were. Modern military comms are also with the use of directional beams. This means you can crack all the codes you like, if you don't have an asset parked between communicating vessels, you can't hear a thing. The advantages of this when coupled with spaceborne assets, are pretty obvious. Also, comms are not how they were. Nowadays, most "communications" are through datalink, sharing target information and increasing SA. It's not a voice comm so, even if you detect and break the code, the message can still make little sense. AESA RADARS are also able to share battlefield information at a faster rate and more securely than current datalink 16. That's why assets are now being developed as part of a complex grid that has to operate as one. The case study for this kind of assets is; dun dun dun! the F-35.

Invader ZIM · March 28, 2013

Kaktus, if your looking for info to help you visualize how naval forces operate and how the radar's would detect things, one good naval simulation I would recommend would be to try out Harpoon 2 or 3.

Aside from radars, many ships use ESM, or electronic support measures. http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare_support_measures

In Harpoon, if you keep your radars off to help avoid detection, ESM systems will give you a contact if they detect something of military interest, like a radar that just scanned for a moment. You won't know exactly where it was, depending on it's aspect to you and other factors, as ESM tends to use triangulation with other ships to determine bearing and range of the emitter, but you will know the radar type. You then go into your library in Haproon and look up all ships that have that type of radar and then your on your way to discovering what it might be. :thumbup: Additional watching of the contact to see where it's moving, and if other emitters are nearby may indicate a task force. Launching a helicopter to fly within 30 nm at low altitude and them popping up briefly can also help identify the contact.

The tutorials and instructions there alone will help explain to you how a Carrier task force can resupply aircraft and ordinance from the supply ships. It even simulates the time to resupply depending on the amount of rough seas are in the operating area and the ordinance to be loaded.

You seem to be looking only at the maximum ranges of missiles and aircraft, but in actual operation with help from the above mentioned simulators you can better visualize how a flight of F-18's can fly out to a position, below the radar horizon, radar's off, within 40 nm from the closest enemy contact in the task force, some loaded with 4 Harpoon missiles each, and some loaded out with 16 MALD's each, other's loaded with HARM's. Using a little math from the speed of the MALD decoy launch to fly over a large Russian Task Force and coinciding the Harpoons to arrive at about the same time, while having the Harm laden F-18's launch at multiple ships to poke out their eyes or at least add to the confusion, it becomes clearer how overwhelming the enemies radar with decoys and jamming helps the subsonic missiles to work.

It's pretty fascinating stuff when you get into it, really opened my eyes 20 years ago when I got Harpoon 2 and saw just how complex naval operations and the ships systems work to determine what's out there and how to deal with it.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Invader ZIM

Maior · March 28, 2013

20 years ago? Man you're old! 20 years ago I was playing Red Alert and thought that was an awesome representation of warfare... I was oblivious that games like Harpoon existed. Had I known, I probably wouldn't give a damn. ^^

Harpoon was also my first contact with modern naval warfare. Harpoon 3 to be precise. You can also go for the opensource CGB 2 and, the soon to be released Command. Check them out. There's a Paradox title called Naval War: Arctic Circle but I advise against it since it is the proverbial "Rubbish".

It's actually funny you mention harpoon since that's what I envisage for this series to become. Mass operations with hundreds of players and bots duking it out with one player controlling the missions as required (if wanted). You know, a modern day IL2. Focusing on the late 80s and early 90s is great ^^.

For Kaktus, the hint I gave you "Waypoint", was a magazine published by players of Harpoon 3 together with a defence magazine. Read it. You'll enjoy it!

http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=484

Invader ZIM · March 28, 2013

LOL, I am getting old. I liked Harpoon, don't get me wrong I was also playing Red Alert and Command and Conquer as well in the mid 90's.

But it was games like Harpoon that inspired me to read more into things and analyze how a scenario can play out, instead of reading just a generic or biased news article somewhere. These ships and their systems can be far more capable than many think if used correctly, and if used incorrectly, they can also be very expensive artificial coral reefs. :music_whistling:

I didn't realize your hint for Waypoint until after I posted lol, I used to love reading the articles there, I really recommend diving in at the Waypoint site Kaktus and start reading the articles that interest you. There's great stuff on stealth, and anti-stealth technology, satellite recon etc, anything related to the worlds navies and their ships, as well as capabilities.

I'm really looking forward to the "Command: Modern Air-Naval Operations" Looks like a real successor to Harpoon 3. I died a little inside back in 2003 when they cancelled Harpoon 4 for the PC though. :(

Kaktus29 · March 29, 2013

i knew about the ESM triangulation in navy, but its strange, why not use same thing for airplanes on ground AD forces?.. can a nation just have many of this ESM passive receivers around the nation, and then as an enemy flies with its radar on you will get quite a precise position of the plane, might even target him?..

i guess thats why all navies spy on each other, to get their "library" full of signatures so they can know who is who when S*it hits the fan ..

it makes it also dangerous for training to use your radar since you are giving the enemy your signature to store it and use it later in a war.. maybe navies use different radar-training mode- or something,so the "real deal" is hidden until hostilities commence? ..

anyway, would enjoy a a decent sub simulation in DCS, even if the whole naval ops is not there.. but the sea should be improved, the weather as well.. right now the black sea looks like the black lake.. with no wind!))

Silver_Dragon · March 29, 2013

The naval environment request a very big planning and word to simulate them some accurate. And the ED ship, air and land systems need change to match with them.

A point not simulated on ED ships has independent radar systems. For now, has not a adequate simulate ship on DCS: wold, all ships use old Lomac / FC argoritms and not see a realistic AI accord with a antiair / antiship / antisubmarine warfare.

The ships not react with intelligence to a external threat on a task force, maintaing course and speed. The sensors characteristics has a FC stile (very, very flat). ECM, ESM and ship countermeasures (chaff, flares) and decoys has no exist. The ship cannons (30mm up) don´t engage air and missile targets. And the surface to air and antiship missiles don´t work properly (a Tu-22M antiship strike by missiles vs Aegis / SM-2(?) missiles has bugged) NATO ships can´t use datalink to deploy anti-air missiles out a "30 Nm" limit ? and the OTH (Out the horizon) capability is missing.

Maior · March 29, 2013

Well, the road is long however, ED has to look seriously into the naval aspect of the game in order to make a decent warfare simulation. I for one would like a proper carrier group showdown in the black sea :D

Kaktus, ESM tracking is used in air combat. Look for the Kolchuga system. This is an ELINT system designed to detect electric emissions. Really, you should give harpoon a try. It'll explain things way better than I can while writing. See some Harpoon 3 youtube videos. Search for the Harplonked user name.

vanir · April 1, 2013

I watched a documentary about a Nimitz class carrier that said there was enough fuel and munitions capacity for two weeks of normal air operations without support or tender, similar on crew consumables. They're very dependent upon support tenders and I presume in a wargames scenario the Russian philosophy would concentrate on attacking the tenders with submarine action and holding off the carrier strikes in the meantime with fortified ports, then finally attack the battlegroup using force coordination and surface action groups (ie. land-air, SSGN, corvette flotilla and high value cruiser strike with air warfare screens).

Russian cruisers generally have the electronics and command ship fit that is in US carriers, so Russians tend to use cruisers as flagships whilst the US uses carriers as the flagship and cruisers as carrier escorts.

Russian carriers have a very different role to US carriers, primarily ASW with secondary surface action or in Kuznetsov case air defence. They don't do force projection but are designed to support either port fortification or for surface action groups and hunting boomers (SSBN). The heavy emphasis of Russian navy is ASW and surface action, it is designed to kill enemy naval units rather than attack land based targets or engage in remote aerial warfare.

Russian missile strategy is designed to work in a high ECM environment so doesn't rely as much on remote guidence updates as NATO gear which is designed to work in environments under NATO control. Russian antiship missiles can use fire directors for course update in long range strikes (more than 150km from the firing ship), but few projects use things like satellite/GPS systems and in contended airspace rely on short range attacks with heavy warheads (typically a ton of high explosive or a small nuke), using advanced "AI" coordinated-release algorithms and the missiles' own onboard radars/ECCM for mid-course updates. Put in simple terms, the missiles are designed to be released in salvos of four or more, three skim the water to avoid countermeasures and one flies high and guides the entire flight using its on board avionics. If the guiding missile falls to countermeasures, another one scoots up and takes over that job. The idea is fire 8-20 ramjet powered missiles at a carrier battlegroup and there's a very good chance since they're travelling at about 3 Mach at least half are going to hit and only one will sink a carrier.

The latest US/NATO missiles use GPS mid-course guidence but this is because they can generally assume electronics warfare superiority in most engagements. The system does fall down if Russian jamming beats NATO ECCM but it is thought unlikely, especially since the USN has been experimenting with things like green-laser satellite communications uplinks for years now. Doesn't sound easy to jam a laser with electronic noise, I think you'd actually have to make big fiery explosions between the emitter and receiver to refract the laser. But still there's always a way.

What all this means is that you're not really going to see a classical WW2 protracted surface action warfare between naval units. US/NATO and Russian navies are constructed and equipped so differently that each wars completely independently of each other even when attacking each other.

I think what you'll see is the kind of thing in my opening paragraph, a contention for ports, enemy action to cut off supply tender and only when air warfare capacity is diminished in the carrier battlegroup there'll be a desperate assault by land based air and various naval units to release large salvos of antiship missiles at high attrition that ultimately only need a few hits to sink the whole fleet. If all out warfare something like 4 in 12 warheads will be nuclear, the rest big conventional ones, the total missile attack in the region of 60 heavy and 20 medium antishipping warheads on four or more attack fronts per target.

So it's still not going to involve the need of major sim development for naval warfare. DCS/FC would still concentrate on a few pilots in Flankers or Hornets (or Fullbacks, MiG-K and Superbugs), shooting down enemy missiles and their launch craft, or making independent antiship strikes. You don't need and won't have advanced ship-ship warfare, nothing that wouldn't be simulated purely by the mission editor during mission creation.

Edited April 1, 2013 by vanir