Although I agree with your overall point I question the bolded part. Modern naval vessels are mostly non-stealthy. Some are a bit that way; most are not at all. Compared to the signature reduction done in current combat aircraft, naval stealth is in its primitive infancy.
Which leaves jamming and other EW techniques. Without knowing a bunch of specifics, we can’t say for sure that modern EW equipment covers the frequency ranges used by WWII radar. It might, but without certain knowledge I’d be reluctant to make a categorical statement like that.
In general over the years radar tech has moved upwards a lot in frequency = downwards in wavelength. There is now some movement in the opposite direction as a counter-stealth measure, but that’s real minority specialized stuff.
Calling for an expansion of our navy is a textbook example of a stupid political issue. There is no need for a larger navy; we have complete global naval dominance. Our navy is far more powerful than any possible combination of opposing navies we might ever have to fight. But if some candidates are able to sell the argument that our navy is “weak” we’ll end up spending literally billions of dollars to build unneeded ships.
I’d you look at the article from ** Elendil’s Heir**, you will see some effort to justify it in terms of our ability to protect force around the globe, to serve as support for staging of other assets, and to accomplish our mission goals. They state in those terms there is a need for more hulls, and more importantly, what it means if we don’t, since budget is a real issue. Basically, we will have to do more with less, as the platitude says.
I’ll stay away from the debate/opinion part of the comment, but it deserves to be recognized that some of the calls for increasing the size of the fleet are very, very expensive propositions.
For example, John Kaisch has called for increasing the carrier fleet to 15 from the current 11. The new Ford-class carriers cost about $11 billion each, and take more than five years to build. It would simply take a long time to build five additional carriers alongside those currently planned. Construction simply can’t be sped up as though you’re building a five new buildings instead of one new one, for the main reason that one can’t simply go down to the Navy Exchange and buy a nuclear reactor.
But in addition to that, we would have to add carrier air wings, which would cost in the general neighborhood of $5 billion to build the additional airplanes. Then the Navy needs to get larger, because tens of thousands of sailors aren’t exactly sitting around waiting to find something to do. Then there’s all the associated ships that go along with the battle group – about $1.5 billion per destroyer, and there’s a few of those, another $2.4 billion each or so for more subs, and shoot, we don’t even build cruisers anymore.
Gov. Kaisch’s plan is a really, really expensive proposal.
You would never try to sink another ship with helicopter torpedoes. Also, a good number of surface ships can’t carry a heliccopter detachment, more specifically flight 1 DDGs. Ships do carry torpedoes these days for anti sub warfare but if you ever found out a sub was close enough to shoot it, it would have already shot you first and it would be too late.
There is a lot of other misinfomation in this thread. Modern surface ships don’t carry anywhere near 120 tomahawks. Also, the anti ship variant has been discontinued for over 10 years.
If it ever somehow came to an actual fight between today’s Navy and the WW2 Navy, it would be all planes and subs. It’s unlikely the cruisers and destroyers would shoot any missiles and they would never even think of coming into gun range. Destroyers and cruisers don’t carry a lot of harpoons, no more than 8 and usually 4, so if anything they’d fire sm2 missiles but that seems like a waste when you have planes and subs.
Radar signature and all that is largely irrelavent. The ships would never get close enough.
It should be noted that while this is true for their total ships, the percent loss of IJN ships due to subs was considerably smaller, with still an impressive 30%.
It should also be noted that the problems with the Mark 14 were isolated by Sept. '43, 21 months after the beginning of the war.
My bolding.
A more careful reading of that thread will show that it would not have had a significant difference and that this summary does not describe the premise of the OP.
The modern navy would have to be completely drunk to allow the WWII version to close within range of its planes, let alone the battleships.
Since helicopters are a major difference between today’s Navy and the Navy of the past, I’m wondering about the following which is pertinent to possible military capability gaps:
Can helicopters carry and launch anti-ship missiles with warheads in the 100-300kg range?
What’s the highest out-of-ground-effect altitude ceiling on the common types of helicopters?
I’m seeing some helicopters come in at 40M$+ per unit. They must have some fancy electronics. Do some of them have AESA radar and DRFM jamming?
Helicopters can carry anti ship missiles but it’s unlikely you’d ever use them like that…anything a helo could shoot at would likely be able to shoot back.
Ew capabilities are classified and anyone who knows the answer isn’t going to tell you.
Not if there’s a spotter helo far away and a shooter helo closer & below the horizon.
If the possibility of being shot back at made it unlikely that a platform would be used, hardly any platform would be used. It just doesn’t follow that because the target could shoot back, a helo would be unlikely to be used against it.
You’ve got to be taking the piss. Some aspects of EW are like you describe but whether or not a platform has AESA or DRFM is quite often* openly available information.
I could have just as well asked whether or not the F-35 has AESA or DRFM. Do you think it would still follow that “anyone who knows the answer isn’t going to tell you”?
The USN has used the Penguin ASM in the past on both SH-2s and -60s. AIUI, they’re transitioning to the Longbow Hellfire for use on the Littoral Combat Ship and the MH-60R helicopters it carries. Standoff range for either missile is sufficient to stay out of most AAA and small naval SAM systems that’ll be on the sorts of targets the LCS is likely to run into, like small patrol craft/militarized speedboats.
MH-60R and S have a pretty sophisticated surface search radar suite. (AN-APS 147 or 153) They were intended to find SSK masts and snorkels, so small craft should be fairly easy to find.
I’d link, but this phones a pain and Google should give you the answers you seek.
Well why would you use a helo to shoot anti ship missiles? Why wouldn’t you use harpoons or sm2s from a ship or asuw missiles from a plane? Now you are asking the targeting helo to be a target itself. Either helo can only be so far away, otherwise hitting the wrong target becomes a risk. Also, where are all these helos coming from? You want a ship to risk both its helos?
I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that your scenario isnt how things are done.
You are correct, the radars on a helo probably are open source. Im not sure what they carry these days. I was referring specifically to the jamming question.
It would be ridiculous of me to say that using two helos would be more effective than a modern destroyer or a planes from a carrier battlegroup. However, in some situations they may be more efficient such as when 1) dearer assets are allocated to other tasks or 2) the commander prefers to directly expose two helos rather than a destroyer and he doesn’t want to get a carrier within plane range of the target.
I was also thinking of the possibilities for other navies for which the cheaper way may be the only way.
I think one can deduce from your response whether or not 40M$ helicopters have DRFM or not : )
The Seahawk MH-60R is supposed to be about 40M USD according to Wiki, which, as an anti-sub helo, may well not have DRFM, I will admit. Others in the same price range may well, however.
I’ve been unable to find the unit cost of the HH-60H. The only hint as to its cost is that:
“the HH-60H is the primary combat search and rescue (CSAR), naval special warfare (NSW) and anti-surface warfare (ASUW) helicopter.” and " It carries various defensive and offensive sensors, it is one of the most survivable helicopters in the world.[citation needed] Sensors include a FLIR turret with laser designator and the Aircraft Survival Equipment (ASE) package including the ALQ-144 Infrared Jammer, AVR-2 Laser Detectors, APR-39(V)2 Radar Detectors, AAR-47 Missile Launch Detectors" Its EW must be nifty. If the statement about it being one of the most survivable helicopters in the world is true, the main way that a navy helo could achieve that is obvious enough.
Yeah, with the associated ground equipment, trainers, etc, that looks about right. But for apples-to-apples, I’d say that $30 million is probably a better answer to “how much to buy one Romeo?”
I’m pretty sure it has been many years since one of those were purchased. The Navy has been buying Romeos and Sierras for quite some time.
True. However, it is rather unlikely that the Sierra has less fancy electronics than its direct predecessor. That is not the US way, is it?
Since you’re a man who’s a fan of black birds and you reside in/near DC, perhaps you can offer an educated guess as to why a helo could end up costing that much and whether or not the people who have clout over procurement would wish to have DRFM onboard.
Also, any idea as to what kind of altitude a helo optimized for spotting from high altitude could reach? One of the nice things about helos in naval warfare is that they can get close enough to get a good radar signal and play peekaboo over the radar horizon.
In actual combat, that’s a great way to get your helo shot. As soon as it turns its radar on any warship will immediately know its there.
Don’t get me wrong, helos are the single most useful and practical weapon system on a warship…jusst not for the stuff you think they should be used for.