Russian Navy to have nigh-unstoppable hypersonic missiles by 2018

[Deleted]

I think you're mistaking a carrier for a kick-down-the-door platform. It isn't. Those are stealth platforms and long range missiles of our own.

Im not suggesting it is a kick down the door platform - but forcing your navy to stay away is all they want.
if the engagement becomes long range Air power and missiles against each other, well you navy is entirely superfluous - all the money you sunk into a Navy just became worthless - Its a guaranteed win win.
You don't have to engage your enemy to win, just ignore them (by making them irrelevant) - its what the US did with a number of Japanese surface elements in WW2 - They penned them in, and then ignored them, because they didn't have to do anything to them.

- - - Updated - - -

This may be a dumb question, but as missiles are much easier to defend against than torpedos, why does nobody try building long range high speed guided torpedoes? A quick Google shows Russia has 400 kph rocket torpedoes but they are a design from the late 70's, why don't they try and improve on this?

You cant go supersonic in water i think?
(i.e you can detect them via sonar)
best guess.

[Deleted]

This may be a dumb question, but as missiles are much easier to defend against than torpedos, why does nobody try building long range high speed guided torpedoes? A quick Google shows Russia has 400 kph rocket torpedoes but they are a design from the late 70's, why don't they try and improve on this?

That kinda limits them in their use, wouldnt you say?

An airbourne projectile can hit pretty much everything, everywhere.

[Hammerfest]

The military race sure is heating up. How will Russia's enemies respond to this news?

Considering who is the US President and who will likely be the next US President? Acquiescence.

[Crispin]

That kinda limits them in their use, wouldnt you say?

An airbourne projectile can hit pretty much everything, everywhere.

Surely he meant as a weapon against ships, not Colorado :P

[Skroe]

This may be a dumb question, but as missiles are much easier to defend against than torpedos, why does nobody try building long range high speed guided torpedoes? A quick Google shows Russia has 400 kph rocket torpedoes but they are a design from the late 70's, why don't they try and improve on this?

It's not a stupid question at all.

The US and Russia (and others), over the last 40 years have experimented with "Supercavitating torpedoes"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation
SuperCavitating torpedoes have an key failing though that can't be designed around. What they do is encase the torpedo in a bubble that allows it to travel through the water at high speed. Because due to the intrinsic nature of the bubble of the cavitation effect that allows the torpedo to travel at high speed, the torpedo is blind. It can fire in one direction, and that direction is straight. It cannot update it's course, or be wire guilded or circle around for another pass if it missed it's target. It cannot maneuver due to drag.

High speed torpedoes simply cannot "see ahead" and cannot turn and make multiple passes, and that makes them virtually useless. It's a dead end technology which is why it hasn't been worked on aside from on and off science projects.

Instead the US is investing in underwater drones, and smarter, quieter torpedoes. For example, over the last 20 years the West has made big strides in more advances pump-jet designs replacing propellers, designs that are being implemented on ever-more modern Submarines (since the principle is the same as a torpedo, just larger). US torpedoes developed and built over that time have reflected the pump jet advances.


Ultimately dynamic capability, cost effectiveness, endurance and smarts win over speed every time. This is a recurring theme.

[caervek]

That kinda limits them in their use, wouldnt you say?

An airbourne projectile can hit pretty much everything, everywhere.

Well the OP was touting the new techs use as an anti-ship missile.

Because due to the intrinsic nature of the bubble of the cavitation effect that allows the torpedo to travel at high speed, the torpedo is blind. It can fire in one direction, and that direction is straight. It cannot update it's course, or be wire guilded or circle around for another pass if it missed it's target. It cannot maneuver due to drag.

Great info Skroe but I'm a bit confused, that link shows the torpedo has fins that stick out the bubble to maneuver it :S

Also with modern technology is the no way a modern torpedo could be radio guided using GPS or something, even if it's driving blind it may be able to listen to instruction /shrug.

[Skroe]

Im not suggesting it is a kick down the door platform - but forcing your navy to stay away is all they want.
if the engagement becomes long range Air power and missiles against each other, well you navy is entirely superfluous - all the money you sunk into a Navy just became worthless - Its a guaranteed win win.
You don't have to engage your enemy to win, just ignore them (by making them irrelevant) - its what the US did with a number of Japanese surface elements in WW2 - They penned them in, and then ignored them, because they didn't have to do anything to them.

But that's my point. There is no way to permanently force a carrier away. All it does is delay it until our kick-down-the-door platforms make it safe to move in.

You're trying to really warp this so that the US has no way to make it's carriers relevant and safe, when all it will take is our actual kick down the door platforms to take out the A2/AD sites.

And more to the point insofar as carrier-jets go, this is why the Navy is working on things like X-47B (Stealthy long range strike drone) or the CBARS drone, which will be a tanker/long range strike drone. A carrier with 10 CBARS is a carrier with 10 tanker drones, on top of Air Force and Navy air refueling. It's why it has also done things like turn the SM-6 into a 1500km land attack missile.

I mean there are many ways to skin this cat. There is now way for A2/AD to permanently pen up carriers. It delays them moving until after the kick-down-the-door attack happens.

I mean here it is, the playbook (slightly out of date).
http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/ASB-...y-May-2013.pdf



And the slides that explain the concept:













- - - Updated - - -

Well the OP was touting the new techs use as an anti-ship missile.




Great info Skroe but I'm a bit confused, that link shows the torpedo has fins that stick out the bubble to maneuver it :S

Also with modern technology is the no way a modern torpedo could be radio guided using GPS or something, even if it's driving blind it may be able to listen to instruction /shrug.

I don't know the answer to this, although those fins may not be manuevering fins (or could be an experiment to attempt to manuever it, judging by the article content).

As for guidance, most modern torpedoes are still wire guided (or at least can be) to make use of the launching sub's passive sonar.

- - - Updated - - -

You'd think with today's technology we could come up with a way to use outside sensors to communicate with a supercavitating torpedo.

Some torpedos, like the Mk48 ADCAP can operate with or without a wire. The wire is used so the torpedo can make use of the sub's passive sonar.

Here's an article from 2010. Should put some stuff in perspective.
http://www.ausairpower.net/SP/DT-Tor...n-Dec-2010.pdf

Passive acoustic homing guidance tracks the target’s
noise signature, and has the advantage of not
providing early warning to the target. Modern designs,
unlike their predecessors will use sophisticated signal
processing to reject noise generating decoys.
Active acoustic homing guidance uses a high
frequency sonar system in the nose of the torpedo
to produce range, angle and velocity measurements
of the target. The characteristic acoustic signature
will alert the target to the approaching torpedo.
A scheme described in some publications is semiactive
acoustic homing, where the launch platform
‘paints’ the target with a sonar signal, which the
torpedo seeker homes in on to impact.
All these schemes can be combined in a modern
guidance package design, as the volume of the
guidance package is large enough to provide
significant internal computing capacity.
Most modern submarine launched torpedos are
‘wire guided’, in the sense that the torpedo after
launch is tethered to the launch platform by a cable
which is used to transmit steering commands to
the outbound torpedo. At some point the torpedo
is commanded to switch over to its internal seeker,
and the cable is cut. This approach permits the
torpedo to be guided over a long distance using
steering commands generated from a passive
sonar in the launch platform. The “wire” may be
a metal cable or in some designs, an optical fibre,
the latter providing enormous bandwidth compared
to metal cables.
An alternative to conventional homing guidance is
that of wake homing guidance, employed especially
in Soviet Type 53 series heavyweight torpedoes,
intended for attacking capital ships and large
transports. A wake-homing guidance system looks
for the wake of its target, and when it crosses the
wake, it will turn back toward the wake. Repeated
zig-zag turns will eventually converge with the
direction of the wake, and drive the torpedo into
the stern of its target. Wake homing is considered
to be especially difficult to defeat, since there
are no easy ways of producing decoy wakes of
comparable size to that produced by a large ship.
The long term outlook for torpedo guidance evolution
is increasing sophistication and countermeasures
resistance, as volume and power supply are not
significant constraints for contemporary signal
and data processing hardware, and the basic
computing technologies involved follow exponential
growth laws.
More interesting will be developments in propulsion
technologies, especially battery driven systems, as
that area of technology will see significant growth
in coming years. Supercavitating torpedoes may
also see significant growth, as China and Iran
both appear to have gained access to Russian
technology.

[Deleted]

But that's my point. There is no way to permanently force a carrier away. All it does is delay it until our kick-down-the-door platforms make it safe to move in.

Just out of question, how exactly would you 'kick down the door' against Submarine launches?

You're trying to really warp this so that the US has no way to make it's carriers relevant and safe, when all it will take is our actual kick down the door platforms to take out the A2/AD sites.

No, that's not what I'm saying, - You know what - im just going to use your next quote as an explanation:

And more to the point insofar as carrier-jets go, this is why the Navy is working on things like X-47B (Stealthy long range strike drone) or the CBARS drone, which will be a tanker/long range strike drone. A carrier with 10 CBARS is a carrier with 10 tanker drones, on top of Air Force and Navy air refueling. It's why it has also done things like turn the SM-6 into a 1500km land attack missile.

yeah see they accurately see that Carriers, and their strike groups, are increasingly vulnerable, and that CAP's are no longer all you need to defend them.
They need longer range force projection, so they can stay further away.

I mean there are many ways to skin this cat. There is now way for A2/AD to permanently pen up carriers. It delays them moving until after the kick-down-the-door attack happens.

How about in a scenario where you don't want to go 'kick down the door' ? How often haven't the US move its fleets into forward positions for the simple point of 'projecting force' ?
What i'm saying is, that anything that keeps your Carriers away, is a win for Russia and China, even if its only a few days in case of war, or longer in case of 'posturing'.
Your gripe with A2/AD - which really should be A3D as far as I'm concerned - is that its 'defensive' - But you seem to both ignore the relative position, and actual position.
The US is dominant - They should focus on defensive armaments - But more importantly, Via location, neither Russia or China 'really' needs (the same kind of) force projection capabilities in their navies - because Russia and China are where they want to project force - You are the ones that are not.
Imagine if North America was where Africa is, would the US have the same, kind and size, of Navy it does now?
Realistically, even if you inflated the Russian GDP and population to the same as the US one, It still wouldn't want to build a navy designed around force projection.

[Deleted]

I've seen them on the news a while back. No missile shield can touch these it seems.

It ensures Russia's place in this century as a military super power.

no missile shield works anyway.

and you dont want it to. Becuase that sparks a new arms race.

[Nuipofig]

My knowledge of lasers is pretty much non-existent, but this one is doing more than frying eggs tho.


And that video is from 2014.


Dissapointed that they didnt add some kind of red laser light to it tho

Would like to see how this thing works if it's raining. Or if there is a mist. Or, Or, Or...Or are there tests and videos of them working during the bad weather?

At the battlefield: Hey enemy guys lets take a break, it is going to rain!

Anyway, impressive technology, look forward to see it in the real action!

[Crispin]

Would like to see how this thing works if it's raining. Or if there is a mist. Or, Or, Or...Or are there tests and videos of them working during the bad weather?

At the battlefield: Hey enemy guys lets take a break, it is going to rain!

Anyway, impressive technology, look forward to see it in the real action!

Yes, they have tested it succesfully in rain and fog, you could have googled it faster than posting your reply.

[Deleted]

No where near the same level.

Not really, they are on the same level. Anyway, everyone should avoid mainstream media (CNN, BBC, RT, The Guardian, etc) because they are supported by the corporations. They always hide the actual truth so people continue being ignorant.

[Reeve]

Anti-Access/Area-Denial

It is the new(ish) term in use for a set of defense technologies designed to keep the US (or somebody else) from operating in a region due to the risk of being present in a region. For example a Surface to Air missile system like the Patriot or S-400 is an A2/AD system.

Thanks for this explanation, by the way. I know a lot of people feel these are things that should just be googled, but I find that I tend to get more in depth interesting information, sometimes with additional asides, from people who have an interest in the topic than from a Wikipedia page.

[Mad_Murdock]

I've watched Red Dawn multiple times, let the commies come. We'll deal with them Wolverine style!

[Shibito]

This isnt a tennisface thread ! Also Summerdrake will youtube video us to death

[Crispin]

Not really, they are on the same level. Anyway, everyone should avoid mainstream media (CNN, BBC, RT, The Guardian, etc) because they are supported by the corporations. They always hide the actual truth so people continue being ignorant.

Huh? The guardian published the NSA files from snowden and the panama papers, I guess you think snowden is full of shit then.

[Nuipofig]

Yes, they have tested it succesfully in rain and fog, you could have googled it faster than posting your reply.

So you've got the video? Could you please show me? I cant find it.

[Skroe]

@Skroe
I know you participate a lot on NASA forums, but where did you actually learn all that stuff about military?

Just years and years of reading, great websites like Foxtrot alpha and forums like this.

Tell me if you've heard this one before: "The UK has the best army in the world, followed by the US". You go back about 17 years, pre-Wars, pre-9/11, and on a very different interwebz, that was pretty much an article of faith. On what grounds is that true? Who knows, but everyone "knew it".

Little by little you read and you look things up and pick up details. "Oh there is an F-16 the US didn't actually buy"... "what's a SM-3?".

At some level, this appeals to my core interest and career (Computer Science). I'm a very problem solving, math and statistics driven person just by inclination. On one level, something we discuss, say "How can country A with X resources penetrate the A2/AD of country B with Y resources" is very interesting to me from that point of view.

Also as we've discussed before, one of my core hobbies is very very wonkish Foreign policy. There is no true understanding of foreign policy without understanding security policy, and there is no understanding security policy without understanding budgeting, planning and procurement practices. And there is no understanding that without understanding how what your buying works independently and a larger framework (i.e. why are we buying DDG-51s rather than DDG-1000s?)

It all comes together.

As for specific sites:

(A) Real Clear Defense: http://www.realcleardefense.com/
This should be your first stop, because it's a kind of moderated defense information aggregator, but it will save you time. However you have to understand the context of what is written.

(B) Defense News: http://www.defensenews.com/
This is the best pure as-it-happens defense policy and acquisition website.

(C) "The Others"
http://www.dodbuzz.com/
http://breakingdefense.com/

ALternatives to A and B, usually with some redudnancy. THey're good for filling in the cracks.

(D) The knowledge base:
Foxtrot Alpha - For CONTEXT. You'll notice a lot of what I write from a technical perspective is similar to this. With good reasson. It's awesome.
Missilethreat: http://missilethreat.com/
IHS Janes
Wikipedia is pretty good for technical details and history.
https://news.usni.org/ - This has some news, but it has something more important: links to PDFs of Official Government documents, usually from the AWESOME Congressional Research Service. THese documents are INVALUABLE because they are non-partisan and are the same documents that form the basis of procurement planning.

(D) The Foreign Policy
Foreign policy magazine: http://foreignpolicy.com/
foreign affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/
Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/
STRATFOR: https://www.stratfor.com/


Put together you get the whole picture. But you have to keep context: about a third of everything written on these sites has a policy agenda in mind. Sometimes it's a person (such as a specific writer on Foreign Policy). Sometimes it's a lobbyist passing itself off as an neutral commentator (there is an article going around about Hypersonic weapons that INTENTIONALLY conflates what the US and Russia/China are working on).

If your ead this stuff without a critical eye as to WHO is writing it and WHY they may be writing it, you're setting yourself up to be snookered by people whose job it is to snooker people, or worse, get a radically bad understanding of the policy and the status of US and international security. For example, Lorne Thompson at Investors Business Daily... good writer with some good viewpoints, but he was a big fan of the B-21 bomber program (then LRSB), until Northrop Grumman won it over the Lockheed/Boeing consortium, both of which which contribute to his think tank. Suddenly the B-21 ain't so hot anymore in his eyes. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

It's important to keep track of the actors. Heritage Foundation publishes some good documents, for example, but they're a very conservative organization and portray things in more dire lights on purpose to push an agenda. The Center for a New American Security was founded in 2007, mostly to give Obama foreign policy a think tank to back it up. The Cato Institute, highly libertarian, rejects the entire foreign policy consensus. Brookings is usually spot on, but sometimes way too deferential to the Obama Administration depending on the writer. The American Enterprise Institute is also usually spot on, but sometimes far to critical of the Obama administration depending on the writer. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about: read it but ask "why is he writing this? In what context is this being written?" A good example is Anne Applebaum. She writes some of the best and most thoughtful US-European foreign affairs articles out there. But her Husband was also Polish Foreign Minister from 2007-2014. Anything written by her has that kind of conflict of interest (she's very close to the situation in Eastern Europe), so I don't quote her and her articles need to be viewed through that light.

If you're going to read this stuff, it is important to keep a healthy perspective. Nothing is the end of the world. China testing a hypersonic weapon doesn't mean the West is fucked. A projection of 10 US carriers by 2050 doesn't mean we're weaking (i.e. it'll be 10 if we keep to the Obama 5 year build plan, but 12 if the US goes back to our historic 4 year build plan, which is funded in FY2017).

There is no way to binge and learn this stuff. The only way to learn about it is little by little.

Let me give you an example. I'm not a torpedo maker. I don't know jack about fluid dynamics. But I've read and heard about the Supercavitating torpedo for years on and off. Someone had a question, I refreshed myself and found a document from a pretty good source that acted as a primer that brought me up to date and when I shared, brought everyone else up to date. For the purposes of a forum discussion, that's good enough. This contrasts of course, with the Space Stuff, which I know inside and out, but the route in which I got started with space stuff, is similar: "whats a RD-180?" "How is that different from an RD-170" "How does it compare to an RS-68". Questions leading to more questions and eventually you'll be able to draw an RD-180 from memory.

[Crispin]

Never mentioned a video.

[Nuipofig]

Never mentioned a video.

Why so? Many of them demonstrating tests in the clear weather and not a single in the rain/fog since 09/2014 when they announced success? I'm not telling that it is impossible. But right now it looks doubtful.