"PENTAGON WORKING TO GIVE F-35 JSF NUCLEAR-STRIKE CAPABILITY"

On May 7, 4:32*pm, frank wrote:
On May 7, 3:09*pm, "Keith Willshaw"



wrote:
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in ...

On May 7, 12:32 am, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in
...

On May 6, 6:54 pm, J wrote:
On May 4, 4:05 pm, Ed Rasimus wrote:

2.) Disabuse yourself from the notion that a CV is any sort of easy
target. I spent a lot of years trying to successfully do just that
in
exercises. It is damn close to impossible.
Ed,

Were you ever successful? (To the extent you can say.)
Thanks . . . J

Ed's comment was directed to me on May 4th.
I *think* he's suggesting a fighter attack on a CVN.
Currently, cruise missiles and/or MRBM's, because
of the wide spread availability of precision electronic
guidance, basically has a CVN as equivalent to a
heavily armored *blimp* in a fluid.

As a back-drop, 27 years ago,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet#Falklands_Conflict
(Seems like yesterday).

Delivered by aircraft as a standoff weapon, the target identification
was down on board the aircraft.

Neither MRBM's nor most cruise missiles are well suited to
attacks on moving targets. The guidance systems on ballistic
missiles are designed to hit a given set of co-ordinates and
the flight dynamics make terminal manoeuvering very difficult
even if you had sensors capable of penetrating the plasma
around the vehicle.

Things could have changed. I have a good idea
of what's *technically* possible, I hope you're
right.

Cruise missiles have the problem of being targets in their own
right and so typically fly low which makes searching for the
target very difficult and makes for a high likelihood of
attacks on the wrong vessel (see Atlantic Conveyor and Falklands)

ditto.

There are a few systems like the Russian Granit designed to
operate in swarms where one missile will pop up to medium altitude
to provide course correction information for the others but that
of course leaves them open to spoofing and meaconing.

It's a bit difficult to hide a CVN from a satellite.

Sure but getting real time location from a satellite is difficult and
VERY expensive

1) Any given low earth recon birds will only revisit any given spot
at infrequent periods typically *measured in daysor at best *hours
rather than minutes

2) Standard recon satellites use optical or infrared methods which
limits their effectiveness in case of clud cover

3) Even if your satellite happens to fly over *a CVN you have to
have people analysing the data in real time.

To get round the problems the Soviets launched a whole series
of Radar satellites (RORSAT). These were BIG and typically
powered by type BES-5 nuclear reactors. They weighed in at
around 4 tons and to get decent coverage of even a fairly small
part of the planet they had to launch a whole constellation of
them at vast expense.

AFAIK there have been no such satelllites in service for more
than a decade.

IIRC, the last war where severe attacks were waged
on CV's with a large defensive screen was off Okinawa,
with kamikazes operating as missiles.
Ken

Okinawa was rather unusual. The CV's were tied to small area by
the requirement to provide air cover for the invasion fleet.
Worse still they were within range of the enemies (large) air force.
That said such refinements as AEW radar rose directly from that
experience.

I deviated the topic to F-35 (nuke able) for the navy
is to be absolutely unnecessary and of nil usefulness.
(The A-5 Vigilante again).
I'll go further, all nuke weapons should be banned by
treaty from international waters and air space.
Ken

There goes the US nuclear deterrent

Keith

Back when 'those were the days' the Soviets though nothing of putting
up stuff weekly, even if it had to be replaced in a few months due to
low orbits. Would even launch recon sats just for an exercise. Overfly
this battle group or whatnot.

Way different than how the US did it. But, our stuff was like the
Energizer bunny, kept going and going and going....
cost real money too. No wonder the had a black budget.

Difference between communications from orbit and the Soviet
requirement to land the bird to get the film out.