asymetric warfare

In article ,
"John" wrote:

On the other hand five miles is about the right range for AT-missiles.

That's interesting, because the vast majority of deployed ATGM systems
in the world have a range of much less than half that, and only one or
two can make as much as 6,000 meters.

The smaller ones that would fit in the "slap it on an SUV" category
would be in the 1,000 to 1,500 meter range.

--
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Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In sci.military.naval John twisted the electrons to say:
UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads ...

Operative word there being *can* - by all accounts, they only carry 3
warheads per missile. This being done to defuse the peace-niks in the UK
by saying it's not a massive upgrade over Polaris because it only has the
same number of warheads ...

Otherwise a single sub can destroy america. MAD remember?

1 sub x 16 missiles x 3 warheads a piece, I think America consists of
more than 48 places of "interest" ...
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

On 23 Dec 2003 16:07:42 GMT, Alistair Gunn wrote:
In sci.military.naval John twisted the electrons to say:
UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads ...

Operative word there being *can* - by all accounts, they only carry 3
warheads per missile. This being done to defuse the peace-niks in the UK
by saying it's not a massive upgrade over Polaris because it only has the
same number of warheads ...

Possibly. Another interpretation is that it's in continuation of
british policy of getting bad value for money in military equipment.
Another example of the same policy is the MRAV armoured vehicle:
Britain spent large amounts of money developing an 8x8 wheeled
vehicle (why? there are plenty of others on the market, and its a
mature technology so no big breakthroughs are possible), then
decided it didn't want the thing after all.

The UK has very small armed forced considering the size of the
country's defence budget. Compare the UK (Population 59
million, spends 2.5% of GDP on arms) ordering 220 Typhoons whereas
Sweden (population 9 million, spends 2% of GDP on arms) can order
almost as many (204) Gripens. Even taking into account that Britain
spends a larger proportion of its defense budget on its navy, and
the Typhoon's unit cost is larger than the Gripen's, there's
something wrong here.

--
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people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

In message , phil hunt
writes
On 23 Dec 2003 16:07:42 GMT, Alistair Gunn wrote:
Possibly. Another interpretation is that it's in continuation of
british policy of getting bad value for money in military equipment.
Another example of the same policy is the MRAV armoured vehicle:
Britain spent large amounts of money developing an 8x8 wheeled
vehicle (why? there are plenty of others on the market, and its a
mature technology so no big breakthroughs are possible),

See any hybrid diesel/electric 8x8s out there? Or any rapidly
reconfigurable vehicles available off-the-shelf?

MRAV had some goals, none of the off-the-shelf candidates met them,
turns out MRAV didn't either. But then MRAV wasn't too expensive.

The UK has very small armed forced considering the size of the
country's defence budget. Compare the UK (Population 59
million, spends 2.5% of GDP on arms) ordering 220 Typhoons whereas
Sweden (population 9 million, spends 2% of GDP on arms) can order
almost as many (204) Gripens. Even taking into account that Britain
spends a larger proportion of its defense budget on its navy, and
the Typhoon's unit cost is larger than the Gripen's, there's
something wrong here.

Not really, no. The UK buys the strategic lift and the support
infrastructure to be able to put troops, tanks, ships and aircraft far
overseas and fight: other countries concentrate on headline-grabbing
numbers of frontline assets but aren't able to send them anywhere (and
aren't tested in their ability to commit them to combat).


--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:The UK has very small armed forced considering the size of the
:country's defence budget. Compare the UK (Population 59
:million, spends 2.5% of GDP on arms) ordering 220 Typhoons whereas
:Sweden (population 9 million, spends 2% of GDP on arms) can order
:almost as many (204) Gripens. Even taking into account that Britain
:spends a larger proportion of its defense budget on its navy, and
:the Typhoon's unit cost is larger than the Gripen's, there's
:something wrong here.

Britain spends money on things that Sweden does not, of course.
Strategic weaponry is expensive to develop and maintain.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

"John" wrote:
35 knots (let's be generous) and half an hour means a ship or convoy could
get 32410m away from the target point. This gives an area of
3,299,954,370m2. UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads which will
start fires at 9km, meaning they'll make the fuel onboard a carrier explode
within an area of 254,469,005m2.

ROTFLMAO. Theres considerable more energy required to burst tanks in
the bottom of a steel ship than there is to start an urban area on
fire. (On top of which modern combatants are designed to withstand
considerable overpressure.)

So you need a total of 12 warheads (or two missiles) to kill the convoy. This
assumes the US has perfect reaction times, and can instantly guess the
arget at the moment of launch, which it can't.

This assumes that you can determine the position, course, and speed of
the convoy accurately (no navigation error in your sensor), get the
information back within a reasonable timeframe (without getting killed
when you radiate) and fire your missiles with a sufficiently low CEP
(1 mile)... And even then it's unlikely you'll actually sink a ship.

As I said, nuclear buckshot will kill most things.

Thats the wet dream of most armchair admirals. The reality is quite
different.

D.
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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
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discussion.

"John" wrote in message
...
"Peter Stickney" wrote...

Actually, John, you don't seem to have much of an understanding of how
tanks work, or what the typical engangement ranges are.
Five miles is right out.

Got to agree with the above statements.

I can only go by what I read. On sedcond thoughts, that does sound a bit
far
though....

Also consider that your millimeter-wave emitting SUV is ligking itself
up like a neon sign in a part of the radio spectrum that nothing else
is on. A couple of sinple horn antannae on the turret sides (Sort of
like the old coincidence rangefinder ears) for DFing, and an
omnidirectional antenna up with the Wind Sensor on the turret roof for
general detection, and you won't, say, be able to hide your
Tank-Killer SUV in Madman Morris's SUV Dealership's parking lot.

On the other hand five miles is about the right range for AT-missiles. So
if

The US ARMY fact file http://www.army.mil/fact_files_site/tow/ gives
TOW a max range of 3750m. 3750m is less than half of five miles and
TOW is one of the longer ranged anti-tank missiles.

your tanks want to get to point blank range they'll still need to drive
through a kill-zone. At 40mph that'll take seven and a half minutes. How
many tanks will die in that time before they even get off a single shot?

Not as many as you might think.
First, vision is going to be obscured over much of that distance by trees,
buildings, fences, haze, etc. Heck, at 2000m on perfectly flat & open
ground I'm not sure that a SUV & tank would be over the horizon from
each other yet. You are going to need altitude for those long shots.
Sure, there are places where this can done (I can think of a couple of
places out west that could conceivably hit 35 miles) but they are rare
and they will be heavily scouted before they are entered.

Of course helicopters would be sent first, but you can buy 100 SUVs for
the
cost of a single tank. The helicopters may simply run out of missiles.
Unlike tanks the SUVs may well be able to see as well as they can. And
unlike tanks, the SUVs can fire-back.

Of course, if they run out of missiles they may simply go back for more,
use the chain gun on the soft targets like SUVs with missile launchers,
call in an Air Force strike or even an artillery strike.

What makes you think that tanks can neither see nor shoot-back?

Time of Flight of IRBM, 30 minutes. Speed of CVBG, 25 kts. Detection
of launch, instantaneous. DSP Sats, y'know. Radius of circle that
could contain the target - 12.5 Nautical Miles.

35 knots (let's be generous) and half an hour means a ship or convoy could
get 32410m away from the target point. This gives an area of
3,299,954,370m2. UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads which will

Oh, not only are you figuring on nuclear missiles but thermonuclear
missiles.
Kind of getting away from the original character of your hypothetical
country
aren't you?

start fires at 9km, meaning they'll make the fuel onboard a carrier
explode
within an area of 254,469,005m2.

Gee, you think it just might be a little harder to light off the jet fuel in
a carrier's bunkers than, say, a dry field of brush or an exposed wood
timber framed home? I suspect you'll have to get significantly closer
than 9km to a carrier to kill it and it won't be by igniting the jet fuel.

So you need a total of 12 warheads (or two
missiles) to kill the convoy. This assumes the US has perfect reaction
times, and can instantly guess the target at the moment of launch, which
it
can't. As I said, nuclear buckshot will kill most things.

Na, no point getting into the geometry.

Time of arrival of U.S. ICBM ('cause we're Nice Guys, and aren't going
to unleacsh somethig on the order of 10 Trident MIRVs on your country,
and only take out single targets, roughtly 1.0-1.5 hours after launch.
Your Command Centers and missile bases, or Missile Sub ports don't
move, and you made the mistake of going Nuclear first.

Attacking a military convoy (particularly of an agressor) is very
different
from attacking a civilian or semi-civilian target. Particularly when the

I would not count on the nation who's convoy you just nuked thinking
that way.

fall-out will drift over large parts of europe, who will not exactly thank
you in exchange. Again, there is no international law that says, "Thou
shalt
not attack the US." The US would also *not* launch against the british
islands without making damn sure they'd knocked out our ballistic
submarines
first. Otherwise a single sub can destroy america. MAD remember?

Besiodes which we have no silos or command centers! Have you seen the
state
of London traffic? There's be no way the PM could get out in time! ^.^

In article ,
"John" writes:
"Peter Stickney" wrote...

Actually, John, you don't seem to have much of an understanding of how
tanks work, or what the typical engangement ranges are.
Five miles is right out.

I can only go by what I read. On sedcond thoughts, that does sound a bit far
though....

You need to read more, then. No insult intended.

Also consider that your millimeter-wave emitting SUV is ligking itself
up like a neon sign in a part of the radio spectrum that nothing else
is on. A couple of sinple horn antannae on the turret sides (Sort of
like the old coincidence rangefinder ears) for DFing, and an
omnidirectional antenna up with the Wind Sensor on the turret roof for
general detection, and you won't, say, be able to hide your
Tank-Killer SUV in Madman Morris's SUV Dealership's parking lot.

On the other hand five miles is about the right range for AT-missiles. So if
your tanks want to get to point blank range they'll still need to drive
through a kill-zone. At 40mph that'll take seven and a half minutes. How
many tanks will die in that time before they even get off a single shot?

No, 5 miles is about twice the maximum range of an AT missile.
And an AT missiles, especially a havyweight long range job like a TOW
or HOT has three severe drawbacks. They have a very impressive firing
signature - all manner of smoke, flame, and debris kicked out of the
back, (and picked up off the ground & flung about by the backblast),
They have a long time of flight - It'll take about 25-30 secinds to
travel downrange. Going much faster makes teh guidance problems
difficult - you don't have time to steer - and degrades the
performance of the HEAT warheads they carry. They also need to be
fired from a stable platform. A fast-moving, jinking SUV isn't going
to cut it.
So, as soon as you've fired, you've revealed your position. (After,
of course, beaconing yourself with the mm-wave radar. You're shooting
a slow-moving (relatively) missile that requires a steady platform, so
you need to be a steady target. In that time, the target vehicle can
get between 3 and 5 main gun rounds off. (That's one of the reasons
that U.S. tanks use manually loaded guns with 4 man crews - An
autoloader can't stand radio watch, or man an OP, or help break track,
or make the coffee, and it doesn't get excited in crunch situations
and load 3 rounds in 12 seconds. - I've seen it done, and on the move,
at that.) So, yeah, it'll be a killing zone. But not the one you're
thinking of. Helicopters, BTW, aren't much better. They also have to
be steady platforms - either hovering or flying fairly straight, and
have to be at low altitudes. Normal U.S. Doctrine is to shoot a main
gun round at him as you begin to evade. You stand a significant
chance of hitting, and even if you miss, you'll negate the attack.


Of course helicopters would be sent first, but you can buy 100 SUVs for the
cost of a single tank. The helicopters may simply run out of missiles.
Unlike tanks the SUVs may well be able to see as well as they can. And
unlike tanks, the SUVs can fire-back.

At this point, you're passing Balloon Gas.

Time of Flight of IRBM, 30 minutes. Speed of CVBG, 25 kts. Detection
of launch, instantaneous. DSP Sats, y'know. Radius of circle that
could contain the target - 12.5 Nautical Miles.

35 knots (let's be generous) and half an hour means a ship or convoy could
get 32410m away from the target point. This gives an area of
3,299,954,370m2. UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads which will
start fires at 9km, meaning they'll make the fuel onboard a carrier explode
within an area of 254,469,005m2. So you need a total of 12 warheads (or two
missiles) to kill the convoy. This assumes the US has perfect reaction
times, and can instantly guess the target at the moment of launch, which it
can't. As I said, nuclear buckshot will kill most things.

Analysis of the trajectory to be able to predict the point where the
warheads calve would be about 20 seconds. This is something we're
very good at. You might also consider the Flaming Datum problems that
you have here, as well. Postulating a U.K. sized military, you're
only going to have 1 missile sub at sea. (That's why they bought 4 of
the original Polaris boats - to be able to have 1 at sea, at any given
time. Nuking anything is, shall we say, a pretty definitive Statement
of Intent. At that point, even if you're postulating Massive
Retaliation against the U.S., you've not only marked your only viable
launch platform, in the worst possible way, you've expended 1/8 of
your missile & warheads on a relatively minor target. When the
Pointy-Haired Cannibal Hordes come pouring out of the wreckage of your
cities and drag you out of your bunker to invite you to dinner, well,
let's just say that you'll be well served.


Time of arrival of U.S. ICBM ('cause we're Nice Guys, and aren't going
to unleash somethig on the order of 10 Trident MIRVs on your country,
and only take out single targets, roughtly 1.0-1.5 hours after launch.
Your Command Centers and missile bases, or Missile Sub ports don't
move, and you made the mistake of going Nuclear first.

Attacking a military convoy (particularly of an agressor) is very different
from attacking a civilian or semi-civilian target. Particularly when the
fall-out will drift over large parts of europe, who will not exactly thank
you in exchange. Again, there is no international law that says, "Thou shalt
not attack the US." The US would also *not* launch against the british
islands without making damn sure they'd knocked out our ballistic submarines
first. Otherwise a single sub can destroy america. MAD remember?

Points: Not it its your convoy. We tend to take such things
personally.
It's not a case of Missile Subs, it's Missile Sub. (You've got 3, one
of which _may_ well, would be at sea, or you wouldn't be in a position
to screw up so mightily. The boats that are in port are gone.
Even if your boat at sea can avoid destruction, well, I hate to tell
you, but even a full load isn't going to do anythig but mightily ****
us off. Yes, we'll lose cities, but you're talking 14-16 missiles.
While you might have MIRVed warheads, they can only deviate from the
initial trajectory by a small amount. We're a big country, with stuff
fairly widely seprated. Hell, if you nuked Texas, we might not nitice
for years. If you nuked Nevada, property values would increase.
As for fallout, that is something that can be mitigated by, among
other things, the height of burst required to produce maximum effect.
Not that the Continental Euros might notice anything different - the
Eastern Midlands Coal Board puts several hundredweights of Thorium,
not to mention Uranium, particulates, and Sulfer compounds into the
European air without the slightest concern. (Did the number crunching
for an Internation Acid Rain Symposium back inthe '80s. Now I'm not a
Strict Environmentalist by any means, but these guys were/are daft!)
With the improvement in air quality, and the introduction of the
Gauloise shipments, life expectancy in France might actually increase



Besiodes which we have no silos or command centers! Have you seen the state
of London traffic? There's be no way the PM could get out in time! ^.^

Hmm. You should have thought about that before you started playing.

(And where in the British Isles could you get a 5 mile Line of Sight
to _anything_?

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Peter Stickney wrote:
No, 5 miles is about twice the maximum range of an AT missile.

Except for Hellfire, or the Israeli Nimrod, or the various
AT-9 missiles (Ataka or Vikhr), South African Mokopa,
all of which have ranges better than 8,000 meters.

4-5 km is the common max range, but not true extreme.


-george william herbert

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 13:30:53 -0000, "John"
wrote:

Time of Flight of IRBM, 30 minutes. Speed of CVBG, 25 kts. Detection
of launch, instantaneous. DSP Sats, y'know. Radius of circle that
could contain the target - 12.5 Nautical Miles.

35 knots (let's be generous) and half an hour means a ship or convoy could
get 32410m away from the target point. This gives an area of
3,299,954,370m2. UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads which will
start fires at 9km, meaning they'll make the fuel onboard a carrier explode
within an area of 254,469,005m2.

That's start fires of flamable material left exposed in the open,
not inside a steel hull. You're going to need to be a lot closer than
that to ignite the fuel stored in a carrier. UK Trident missiles are
based on the W76 warhead, not the W88 warhead, and have a 100kt yield,
not 475kt.

US ships constructed after 1969 were specially designed to resist the
shockwave generated by a nuclear weapon. You could cause severe
damage to the ship out to 1.8 nm or so. To sink it you would need to
be close enough destroy the ship through overpressure by being within
..8 nm or so. If you are close enough for the thermal pulse to burn
through the hull to ignite the fuel the shockwave would rip the ship
apart.

If you wanted to guarantee a kill by being within .8 nm or so it
would take about 400 warheads to cover all the ocean a 32 knot carrier
could reach in 30 minutes. Catching it within 1.8 nm by two different
warheads and could sink the ship from flooding and only take you 160
warheads or so; but this wouldn't be 100% certain.

Sure, it's possible that you can take out a CVBG with a shotgun nuke
approach, but it would take the UK 35% of it's missiles and 80% of
it's warheads to be reasonably sure of success.

--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft