ARENA for everything?

[Kaktus29]

just thinking about the Russian ARENA active protection against incoming RPG and other kind of kinetic attacks on tanks, and was wondering how come this isn't implemented on a grander scale like.. ships, EW stations, Tracking S-300,400 radars, pretty much all this systems that are bound to be targeted by missiles of multiple sources ..

 

having built a ring around the EW one could knock the ARMs much easier than using the S-300 or Tor systems, and cheaper as well..

 

about ships, this could act as last act of defense.. if the "goalkeeper" fails you get your last active defense by destroying the projectile meters from the impact..

 

 

other form of protection for EW systems i thought could be armoured plating thick enough to protect the EW from incoming ARMs.. ARMs are usually high explosive and can't penetrate any kind of armour ..so having this "active shield" pop up when radars notices the incoming ARMs can "jump" from the ground up and enclose the EW or other Tracking radar like a turtle with its back or hedgehock with its body or roman legions with their shields.. after the ARMs go boom boom, you are open for business ..

[Griffin]

ARENA and such are designed for very small weapons compared to what is used in the naval warfare. As such they would be insufficient. Also someone mentioned in another thread that a missile that is shot up by CIWS might be already so close that the warhead might hit the ship anyway. In such case an ARENA would perform even worse (let alone with high speed, high explosive ship cannon shell).

 

If I'm not completely wrong, the ARENA and such are supposed to destroy the form of the HEAT warhead. The shape of the warhead is vital to concentrate the warhead's explosive energy into one spot. When the shape is destroyed by ARENA or ERA, it will no longer work as supposed and the armor itself has easy time taking what's left of the blast. It probably works the same way against the APFSDS.

 

So as ARENA is supposed to destroy the projectile's armor penetration ability, it will not do any good in naval environment where the explosives are much bigger and might still hit the ship (and are not supposed to be armor penetrating).

[Kaktus29]

well, i know ARENA will not be able to stop BRAHMOS ))but i said same or similar concept..

 

the ship "arena" would be bigger, stronger, with different explosives.. and would obviously act as last line of defense not something you count on exclusively..

 

about the armour shield for EW and other tracking radar to protect them in ARMs incoming fire so far i haven't seen a problem with this.. instead of making EW mobile and hiding them, they should rather be exposed and their location known, but protective with serious armour bunker type variant.. that closes the EW in time when ARMs rain in, and opens after the rain has passed to continue performing its mission..

 

to destroy and penetrate the heavy duty armour would need such a huge weapon that would be massive in weight and size would be easily picked up by anti-missile missile from the s-300,400 or patriot variant..

[marcos]

Good stuff.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_Active_Protection_System

[GGTharos]

the ship "arena" would be bigger, stronger, with different explosives.. and would obviously act as last line of defense not something you count on exclusively..

 

Ship's defense is multi-layered precisely because the weapons are larger. You get interceptors first, then ship's long range SAMs, then short range SAMs, then something like CIWS (which is now removed in favor of short range SAMs, because CIWS cannot destroy the target weapon far away enough from the ship - so any notion of 'Arena' is useless right off the bat).

 

From the NATO perspective you have fighters, say F-18's or Rafale's, then SM-2/SM-6, then SeaRAM. SeaRAM is your 'arena' for the ship. You can probably figure out the layering for the Russian naval forces along the same lines, except they can still use guns because US anti-ship missiles tend to be slow.

 

about the armour shield for EW and other tracking radar to protect them in ARMs incoming fire so far i haven't seen a problem with this.. instead of making EW mobile and hiding them, they should rather be exposed and their location known, but protective with serious armour bunker type variant.. that closes the EW in time when ARMs rain in, and opens after the rain has passed to continue performing its mission..

 

And how are you going to move all that armor? Not only does it cost more vehicles and fuel to move, but how are you going to put it up in time to defend against something like HARM? This is all very impractical - you can try to use lighter armor or decoys to trigger the fuze further away instead.

[Kaktus29]

@GG about EW protected by amour..no, i didn't intended to have it "mobile" .. its if you think of it, EW being stationary ..but then you have build into the ground this heavy duty armour that would come out of the ground and envelop the EW or tracking radars, and after the rain stops(ARMs all slam into the armour) it goes back into the ground exposing the EW to the sky to work again..

 

what would make this move? the armour? generators built underground, providing power etc.. moving and closing and opening such an armour in-time (modern radars i believe notice the ARMs in the air in time to shut their radars, but it doesn't help since you are still there in the same position) ..so time for the massive armour to enclose this could very easily be made with such a speed(under 2 seconds) and voila, HARM can HARM no one anymore..

 

and if you send something massive enough to penetrate the shield than SAM can knock it off easy anyway..

[GGTharos]

@GG about EW protected by amour..no, i didn't intended to have it "mobile" .. its if you think of it, EW being stationary ..but then you have build into the ground this heavy duty armour that would come out of the ground and envelop the EW or tracking radars, and after the rain stops(ARMs all slam into the armour) it goes back into the ground exposing the EW to the sky to work again..

 

By then it would be raining bombs :)

 

what would make this move? the armour? generators built underground, providing power etc.. moving and closing and opening such an armour in-time (modern radars i believe notice the ARMs in the air in time to shut their radars, but it doesn't help since you are still there in the same position) ..so time for the massive armour to enclose this could very easily be made with such a speed(under 2 seconds) and voila, HARM can HARM no one anymore..

 

Depends on the radar, but yes, some can. Generally speaking though you're going to have so many planes and ECM interference happening in a fight that I would doubt you would be able to easily make it out of all of that clutter.

In any case, you are mistaken about the HARM - as long as your radar is silent, the HARM is doing its job. You've basically devoted a whole bunch of resources and expense to defeat this missile, and you're going to have a rain of those coming lasting long enough for the strikers to do their job.

 

That's not all - the HARM uses a frag warhead, so it can cause damage to surrounding equipment.

 

Anyway, I don't think it is at all a practical idea. If you think about how long it takes just to raise missiles to launch-ready position, you'll see that this shield is not a very good idea. There are other ways of defeating ARMs.

 

and if you send something massive enough to penetrate the shield than SAM can knock it off easy anyway..

 

Can it? What if it's 20 SDBs? :)

[Kaktus29]

well, defeating SDB and other SLOW ASS ordnance is foolishly easy with short missile defence systems such as Pantsir and other designed for point defence.. and this guys would be taking them out in case as you said lots of stuff would be dropped on the shielded EW position..

 

again, you assume EW would have closed for a long time, i didn't say that.... seeing the incoming missile is possible, meaning, all that you need to do is make the shield that comes from the ground up and envelopes the EW.. assuming HARM doesn't do a HARRIER in mid air to wait for the shield to go down-i don't see how HARM will damage the shield..

 

i hope you can use your imagination to understand what kind of shield i'm thinking, .. not something like 2 inches of steel, but something along the lines of 2000 mm of armour ..composite, ballistic, you name it..

 

so, whatever you are throwing into it, it can bounce off like nothing... unless you want to spend thousands of missiles by firing at that location to make the EW "hide" for the duration of 1 hour so you can make the mission i the tactic would work just nice..

 

i think you are seeing this mechanization as a slow shield that takes 20 minutes to close the EW)).. no, i'm thinking something along the under 1 seconds CLOSURE rate..

 

Fragmentation warheads will do nothing, heck even Tank fire will do nothing.. what you need to have is such a massive weapon that blind people will detect it long before it reaches the EW , meaning it will be targeted long before it comes into contact with EW position..

 

Another idea i had of protecting this very important sites is, having them on "tracks".. imagine small tracks, the tracks go in a circle of diameter of 1000 m, .. as ARMs race in to the "location" of the EW, or tracking radars, this thing accelerates along the tracks to another position and ARMs fail to adjust for one its only Air-to-ground missile anyway.. while the EW on forced tracks could be designed to make such rapid change in course and position that its impossible for missile to strike it EVEN if it would have Amraam or R-77 maneuverability ..

 

the "tracks" would be hidden from plain sight, so you can't make a plan of assuming where the EW will "blitz" ..

 

 

 

all in all, i think EW protection is actually much more easily to be obtained than what we sadly see in DCS where that thing is looking like glutton of punishment .. )

[Kaktus29]

omg, just thought of something even more simple.. and it exists already.. the SILOS version of protection..

 

basically having space under earth for the EW to drop in and then covered on the top by heavy armoured doors.. after enough time(that is calculated from detecting incoming ARMs to logically hitting the position) the shield opens, EW pops up from the ground like miracle come true and operates without a hitch..

 

as far as i know those blast doors at SILOS are so strong that nothing short of a point blank nuke will take it out..

 

so, something "cheaper" for the ARMs, and SDB, and other small potatoes could be designed relatively cheap.. the most expensive part comes by installing generators underneath the earth, providing link with electricity and other forms of power..

 

why the hell hasn't nobody thought of this.. are ARMs so unreliably that nobody saw the need to do this, or am i so smart? and i know i'm not, i'm just saying, its weird that at least in publications i haven't seen anything in this lines..

 

of course, i reserve the right that this my idea could of course be so stupid it is beyond imagination.. i would only like to know why.. i know it has to be a stupid idea, but i want to debunk this "defence idea" more easily.. like, the armour is too heavy, the engines don't exist to move this, the armour can be penetrated by new generation of armour piercing warheads..or something along those line.. so far i haven't seen any of such arguments to make this crazy idea of mine well, retarded..which i hope it is, because if its not then allot of highly paid scientist are wasting time with all those chaff and crap they have to save the EW from ARMs attack..

[GGTharos]

why the hell hasn't nobody thought of this.. are ARMs so unreliably that nobody saw the need to do this, or am i so smart? and i know i'm not, i'm just saying, its weird that at least in publications i haven't seen anything in this lines..

 

It can all be summed up in a few words: It is not practical. EWR antennas are very large and fairly delicate. Moving huge amounts of tonnage quickly is impractical, you need that power/fuel for other things.

 

Your defense of that EW radar consists of SAMs and air force. ARMs won't easily target EWR, or not at all if the EWR radar frequency is very low. Those EWRs are targets for cruise missiles and other such weapons.

 

As for the notions that SAMs will stop all incoming, that's a non-issue if an attacking force can deploy ECM and decoys, and that is pretty much the kind of force you are trying to defend against.

 

Everything is about practicality and the number of resources you are willing to commit to achieve a goal (and as a consequence, the amount of losses you will take for it).

 

You make mentions of intercepting SDB's and other such things with Pantsir - but Pantsir is limited in the number of targets it can engage, and is quite susceptible to ECM compared to more powerful SAMs. Aside from this, an attack with SDBs can inclure a huge amount of such weapons being released all at once. If you consider a strike flight of 4 F-35's (or would you prefer that I use older planes? In that case, Pantsir is pretty much non-issue) or perhaps more realistically, 8, each one of those things can pack 8 SDBs. That's 64 weapons targeted at your EWR and its defending SAMs, comm buildings, etc. It's really not a pleasant situation to be in.

 

If you're fighting older aircraft then it's really your SAMs that are trying to fend off attacks and being kept busy with ARMs and other fun things while cruise missiles are being snuck through.

 

Really, this is all about logistics, and it's equally important for everyone involved in any kind of warfare.

[Invader ZIM]

This sounds like a job for JASSM or JASSM-ER :smilewink:

 

[Kaktus29]

does anybody know what is the distance that SAM launchers can be from the tracking radar? ..is it only 500 m, or can it be with data-link or plain wire-data-link-to prevent any kind of jamming from tracking radar to launcher and make this distance up to 50 miles? ..

 

if so, wouldn't that make targeting SAMs extremely difficult? .. i mean, you might see the tracking radar 200 miles from you, but the launcher could be 5 miles from you.. so, SAM could potentially out range any ARMs and planes that attack it..

 

i know, F-35 can detect the launch of the missile, and we are back at protecting this or camouflaging it.. i was thinking either of having 10 decoy launcher in the vicinity of the real launcher, the real one is of course more hidden then the fake one.. after the launch the launcher moves away to a prepared "hide out" while the fake one's get hit by retaliation.. my idea is about kinda hit-and-run tactics.. as soon you attack one launcher another one fires at you, and draws you inside other rings of fire..the point is, the launcher that would fire first, and therefore destroy a plane that costs 100 million of dollars... now i don't think 1 launcher costs even 2 million dollars, so in worst case scenario 1 plane for 1 launcher the SAM wins..

 

about decoys, yes, thats a tough one, you can send cheap drones immitating attack, so you need to fire at them or something..and thus exposing your launchers.. but i guess not all hope is lost, this drones could be hit by air force that could use the EW, track radars that would be protected as i said..

 

@GG you said its impractical.. so, it could theoretically work..but its not practical.. now, if F-35 can approach the EW at 5 miles than maybe it can be destroyed, or cruise missiles made to penetrate 2 m of heavy armour,but such a missile would be radically much bigger and slower and expensive than todays ARMs are..

 

about Pantsir inability to shoot down missiles and even bombs, so far no info yet to prove this, while many tests were done under heavy ECM and pantsir shot down everything from LGB, to Bombs, to cruise missiles, and other low-flying fast targets..

 

you could try to "overwhelm it" but you don't know where it is, and anyway, you are not targeting pantsir but the EW or Tracking radar of long range SAMs..

 

pantsir and other hidden units around it are there just in case you send 10.000 pounds of massive ordanance to finally knock this heavily protected EW out..

 

unless we get stealth cruise missiles that no radar can pick up i can't see how easily can one knock this contraption i made..

 

as far as i know SA is very important, so how come having your EW survive most of what will be thrown at it is not something that is strategic and very important..

 

AWACs for instance if better than EW on the ground, it can move, yet in a way its worse off, it can't really accelerate fast and change direction fast..

 

while my second idea of having EW reinforced so it doesn't brake under huge acceleration one can make it tracked on tracks hidden under the grass and make a last ditch move that moves it 500 meters away thus avoiding a hit..this is the second tactic of not having armour protection for EW but would be protected by mobility and evasive manoeuvres that even the most agile missiles couldn't hit..

 

so, in the end you get yourself good SA even under heavy fire, thus most of your defensive elements keep working close to 100% efficiency ..

 

but i guess ,nobody wants to take a chance like this, since its really out there, this idea of mine, they rather go the safe way, try to make it more stealthy, more low frequency as GG said, and thus it all ends up in tech-war-competition who makes the more ultra silent electronics while my tactics is more dangerous since it either works and its revolutionary move or it doesn't and all your EW and other tracking elements are destroyed ever more easily than before..

[GGTharos]

does anybody know what is the distance that SAM launchers can be from the tracking radar? ..is it only 500 m, or can it be with data-link or plain wire-data-link-to prevent any kind of jamming from tracking radar to launcher and make this distance up to 50 miles? ..

 

It is said about 10km at most with microwave data-link, cable is closer.

 

if so, wouldn't that make targeting SAMs extremely difficult? .. i mean, you might see the tracking radar 200 miles from you, but the launcher could be 5 miles from you.. so, SAM could potentially out range any ARMs and planes that attack it..

 

This is already accomplished by IADS with data-links, but it's the EWR that is relatively far away (or some other radar in the network) while the SAM remains silent and powers up only to attack you.

 

i know, F-35 can detect the launch of the missile, and we are back at protecting this or camouflaging it.. i was thinking either of having 10 decoy launcher in the vicinity of the real launcher, the real one is of course more hidden then the fake one.. after the launch the launcher moves away to a prepared "hide out" while the fake one's get hit by retaliation..

 

You do realize that the bigger SAMs aren't mobile. It's just not going to happen. The real threat with the F-35 is that it can know which launcher is fake and which is real. 'Blinking' and other SAM tactics that switch targets between SAMs have been used for a long time, so your idea in some respects is already in use.

 

about decoys,

 

There are also decoys that are just decoys. They are cheap, and they just glide around and give you extra targets. Some can dispense chaff to make things extra messy.

 

@GG you said its impractical.. so, it could theoretically work..but its not practical.. now, if F-35 can approach the EW at 5 miles than maybe it can be destroyed, or cruise missiles made to penetrate 2 m of heavy armour,but such a missile would be radically much bigger and slower and expensive than todays ARMs are..

 

LOL, 2m of heavy armor :) I don't think you understand what 'practical' means. It's like buying a nuclear power plant for your house. Sure, it's theoretically possible - there's no reason why you couldn't physically do it, but why the heck would you spend all the money and effort and take the risks associated with it?

It's the same thing with any kind of armor, especially if you have to move it. There's a reason why the most resistant bunkers are under-ground, and not just shielded.

 

about Pantsir inability to shoot down missiles and even bombs, so far no info yet to prove this, while many tests were done under heavy ECM and pantsir shot down everything from LGB, to Bombs, to cruise missiles, and other low-flying fast targets..

 

Depends on the version of that system - older versions can't attack bombs, newer can ... but it is still limited in that it can attack one at a time. It won't be very effective under heavy ECM no matter how much one might wish for that to happen since that will compromise its ability to search for targets.

 

you could try to "overwhelm it" but you don't know where it is, and anyway, you are not targeting pantsir but the EW or Tracking radar of long range SAMs..

 

You don't need to know where it is to overwhelm it - that should be obvious :)

 

pantsir and other hidden units around it are there just in case you send 10.000 pounds of massive ordanance to finally knock this heavily protected EW out..

 

All it takes a couple of those JASSM's that Invader Zim mentioned.

 

unless we get stealth cruise missiles that no radar can pick up i can't see how easily can one knock this contraption i made..

 

With JASSM ... it's stealthy. You won't know it's coming until it's pretty close.

 

as far as i know SA is very important, so how come having your EW survive most of what will be thrown at it is not something that is strategic and very important..

 

What good is your EW if it's jammed halfway to death or forced to hide? Antennas can be repaired for a fraction of the cost it would take to implement your idea.

 

AWACs for instance if better than EW on the ground, it can move, yet in a way its worse off, it can't really accelerate fast and change direction fast..

 

Compared to your SAM installation and your EW installation, it can accelerate and change direction pretty darned fast! :D

It's weakness is station time. The ground station is always there, the AWACS needs refueling.

 

while my second idea of having EW reinforced so it doesn't brake under huge acceleration one can make it tracked on tracks hidden under the grass and make a last ditch move that moves it 500 meters away thus avoiding a hit..this is the second tactic of not having armour protection for EW but would be protected by mobility and evasive manoeuvres that even the most agile missiles couldn't hit..

 

Now you're saying absolutely ridiculous things. What is this thing, a Gundam? Again, it is far easier to just repair the antenna that implement what you just suggested.

 

so, in the end you get yourself good SA even under heavy fire, thus most of your defensive elements keep working close to 100% efficiency ..

 

... trying to shoot down cheap guided bombs, and they eventually get hit. If you have ridiculous Gundam EWR, I can have all the bombs and JASSMs I want, not to mention ECM - see how your 100% holds up then :)

 

but i guess ,nobody wants to take a chance like this, since its really out there, this idea of mine, they rather go the safe way, try to make it more stealthy, more low frequency as GG said, and thus it all ends up in tech-war-competition who makes the more ultra silent electronics while my tactics is more dangerous since it either works and its revolutionary move or it doesn't and all your EW and other tracking elements are destroyed ever more easily than before..

 

What you are suggesting isn't tactics. What you're suggesting is spending all of your money on that EWR. There are already extremely expensive EWRs out there ... but the money isn't spent on armoring them, it is spent on making them more capable in range and resolution, and ECM resistance.

[Invader ZIM]

+=

 

:lol:Sorry, couldn't resist.

[GGTharos]

Only one man dares give me the raspberry ... :D

[Invader ZIM]

LOL, I didn't want to have to use nukes in the scenario to get rid of the site Kaktus was describing, but it's the only way to be sure.