China, Iran and Russia can easily attack US aircraft carriers with new technology

[Penguin]

I congratulate China (would be) and Russia (has been) on their achievements.

“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.”
― Lao Tzu

“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
― Sun Tzu

... and good luck with that.

 

[Arminkh]

I want to see a credible source that says ALL Tomahawk cruise missiles missed their targets due to GPS jamming.

Of course you won't find any credible source for that since the only source that knew where the missile was aimed at and where it ended up is US military itself and it is never going to say how vulnerable their GPS based systems are however, here the author believes they were effective as all six jamers that Iraq had were destroyed by bombers immediately:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/safeguarding-gps/

There were a few that landed in Iran but it goes way back to the first war that was kind of before internet era. So I can't find anything in internet to show you but I personally remember hearing the news.

But a more credible source was the RQ-170 that was brought down in Iran using the same technique.

 

[BoQ77]

For a cruise missile at speed of 850 km/hr, that distance is reduced to 4.7 km, meaning it need to correct its path at least up to 4.7 km before hitting the target to be able to score.

So ASBMs have a much easier job to do when it comes to hitting a moving carrier than a cruise missile. (I'm not talking about evasive maneuvers shown in the video you posted. I also doubt that can happen)

You just invented this doubtful idea.
I think 99.99% wouldn't agree with you.

As general recognization, a good cruise missile would all the way hit a moving target at A/C size within its range, but Ballistic Missile always has a CEP even against stay still target.

As you know the ballistic arc could be computed since the launch to final course, If you agree that BM has very limited maneuverable ability,
spreading rain of bullet to it from CIWS likely could kill it. or interceptor would kill them easier than killing cruise missile.

This fact follow how hard to shoot flying bats, but it's easier to shoot a HSR train. The most challenge is the response time.

I want to share you the way Vietnam guerrilas use to shoot enemy air fighters.
Shoot them when facing them during a dive bombing.

Classical attacks to aircraft carrier ( as in WW2 )

This samurai could cut a coming bullet by his sword because he know the bullet would make very little turn on the flight to him, mean, the coming angle is very small.

 

[gambit]

Of course you won't find any credible source for that since the only source that knew where the missile was aimed at and where it ended up is US military itself and it is never going to say how vulnerable their GPS based systems are however, here the author believes they were effective as all six jamers that Iraq had were destroyed by bombers immediately:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/safeguarding-gps/

There were a few that landed in Iran but it goes way back to the first war that was kind of before internet era. So I can't find anything in internet to show you but I personally remember hearing the news.

But a more credible source was the RQ-170 that was brought down in Iran using the same technique.

Yeah...I thought so...

GPS jammers are not new. In fact, GPS jammers are as old as -- GPS. The original GPS jammers were ACCIDENTAL and those who interrupted the local GPS signals did not even knew they did it. Simply put, the GPS signals were were weak enough that even concert loudspeakers can interfere with their reception.

But according to YOUR source...

The failure of the Iraqi military to continually throw GPS-equipped Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles severely off course can be attributed to several factors. Among the most important was the installation of backup inertial navigation systems (INS) that could keep the bombs and missiles on target if the GPS signal was compromised.

ALL Tomahawk cruise missiles were jammed ? Please...

 

[Tiqiu]

ook, before you write all this, read my post and get my point. My whole point is that ASBMs are pushing carriers further and further away from where the action is. That way land based air raids will become more and more competitive to the point no one would use a carrier anymore.

Those who are pretended of sleeping can never be woken up.

 

[gambit]

look, before you write all this, read my post and get my point. My whole point is that ASBMs are pushing carriers further and further away from where the action is. That way land based air raids will become more and more competitive to the point no one would use a carrier anymore.

This is speculation and baseless at that. Similar arguments were made when the aircraft became a weapon -- that the aircraft will render navy fleets ineffective after General Billy Mitchell successfully bombed and sank a ship in a demonstration. In that event, the target ship was stationary and did not offer any resistance. Still, proponents of airpower had no problems being overly enthusiastic and predicted the end of the surface fleet as a viable offensive weapon of future wars.

We know what happened navies since then, do we ?

And there are passive radars and detection system that don't submit any electromagnetic signals. They simply measure the change in Earth electromagnetic field or even those of regular radio stations that is caused by a moving object, i.e. an airplane. They no longer need a transmitter. They use other electromagnetic sources that are so ubiquitous these days as the transmitter. They are not as accurate as active radars but are great for early warning system. Having a number of them, you can triangulate the location of the object.

I explained to this forum the basics of radar detection that included the bi-static configuration which is the foundation of the so called 'passive radar' yrs ago, before you came on this forum. You are not telling me and the forum old timers anything new.

But you are still wrong about the phrase 'passive radar'. There is no such animal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_radar

The word radar came from an acronym of 'radio detection and ranging'. That is actually NOT as common knowledge as believed. The reason is because the acronym is so commonly used that it became ordinary and careless of its origin. Use the word 'radar' in lay conversation and everyone will understand that it is about detection of airborne things with electromagnetism. The fact that it is a two parts process is unknown. Your argument is evident of that ignorance.

When you said this...

...use other electromagnetic sources that are so ubiquitous these days as the transmitter.

...You are describing the bi-static radar configuration.

In the illustration above, each receiver is actually a 'passive receiver of reflections from opportunistic signals'. The word 'opportunistic' denotes transmission sources that are NOT under the ownership/control of a singular entity such as yourself. In a mono-static configuration, YOU are that owner/controller of transmission and reception. In a bi-static configuration, you take any reflections as available. If any transmission sources go offline -- too bad. Your reception is either gone or degraded in quality. If there are multiple receivers in a network, the set up could be called 'multi-static', but the foundation of the set up is still bi-static.

The phrasing 'passive radar' is one of convenience that have at best partial technical basis. But it is essentially wrong. If you are a radar engineer, use that phrase in the company of peers and you will be laughed out of the room. If you are a layman, you will be tolerated.

That's how Iran detected US SR-71 approaching its borders a few months back. They didn't know what it was. However they knew its speed, direction and estimated location. Based on that, they submitted a notice over radio frequency and made it turn around.

And I am certain that you do not have any credible source for that either. How convenient.

You are right: "Technical ignorance results in flawed military tactical and even strategic errors". Hopefully your military leaders look at Wikipedia before they make a decision. Good that I warned you!

Iranian military leaders uses wiki. US military leaders have the real stuff and people like me to advise them how to use the real stuff best.

By visual I mean direct line of sight. They use a variety of sensors like infrared and etc. Same systems that enables the spy satellites to do their job regardless of the weather or daylight.

And you believe sensors cannot be seduced/deceived ? Let me guess, we are talking about 'Chinese physics' and 'Iranian physics' ?

So ASBMs have a much easier job to do when it comes to hitting a moving carrier than a cruise missile. (I'm not talking about evasive maneuvers shown in the video you posted. I also doubt that can happen)

Here is where you are wrong...

Which is easier to hit with a rock, a strip of surface area or a square of surface area, assuming both have the same real estate size ?

In the above illustration, the strip actually have a better chance of survival than a square.

More of your technical ignorance...The nose cone have limited internal volume.

If the sensor is radar, there is an inverse relationship between antenna size and beamwidth, meaning the smaller the antenna, the wider the beamwidth which results in poor target resolution.

http://meteorologytraining.tpub.com/14271/css/14271_60.htm

Beamwidth varies directly with wavelength and inversely with antenna size. Radar systems that produce relatively small beam widths generally provide greater target resolution.

See the highlighted ?

What this mean is that given the limited internal volume of the nose cone which will result in a small radar antenna, most likely the best resolution the radar will see of the ship is a spot of light.

The above is an AIM-7 air-air missile radar seeker antenna. The AIM-7 missile is an 8 in diameter body so that mean its radar antenna is smaller than the palm of your hand minus the fingers. Assuming the DF-21D have a radar, do YOU know its radar antenna size ?

Most weapons systems are untested in combat. But the reality is that of the world's major sophisticated weapons systems, ours have the highest quantity of weapons systems that actually took action in combat. I am not going to criticize the DF-21D as untested in combat, but unlike the aircraft that have no countermeasures when it came out, the ship already have a complement of combat tested countermeasures when the DF-21D came out.

You are not debating this subject who is a student like you.

 

[j20blackdragon]

Acquiring anti ship cruise missiles (even ASBM) is the easy part. Finding a carrier strike group that is sailing around at 30-40 knots in the middle of the ocean is the hard part. That's like trying to find a needle in the haystack. The ocean is a very big place.

The Chinese GF-4 geosynchronous remote sensing satellite solves all that.

A geosynchronous orbit is a circular orbit 22,236 miles above the Earth's equator and follows the direction of the Earth's rotation. A satellite in such an orbit has an orbital period equal to the Earth's rotational period, and thus appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers.

Like this:

Therefore, geosynchronous orbit satellites provide a permanent, uninterrupted coverage over a portion of Earth. In the GF-4's case, its range of view is a 7,000km by 7,000km box of 49 million square kilometers of Asian land and water in and around China. The satellite's 50m resolution is good enough to spot aircraft carriers. A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has a length of 332.8 m. The GF-4's 22,236 mile orbit above Earth also puts it outside of the range of SM-3.

Furthermore, China has OTH radar covering everything from the Taiwan Strait to the Philippine Sea.

Also gambit is right. GPS jamming (by itself) may be insufficient in dealing with GPS/INS guided weapons. A JASSM or Tomahawk that temporarily loses its ability to get a GPS update still has INS. However, INS drift accumulates over time and the weapon becomes increasingly less accurate the longer it goes without a GPS update. Thus it is to the defender's advantage to jam the weapon as early as possible. But it is also important to remember that a LACM like Tomahawk is usually flying at low altitudes, close to the ground. How does a ground-based GPS jammer target something that is below the horizon?

A much better solution is to destroy the GPS satellite constellation directly.

Here's one example of a Chinese road-mobile space launch vehicle.

The satellites in the GPS constellation are arranged into six very-predictable orbital planes surrounding the Earth. Launch ASAT kill vehicles into these six orbital planes.

 

[j20blackdragon]

Also, is there any reason why China can't put an active radar seeker into the GLCM and turn it into an anti ship cruise missile like the Tomahawk Block IV?

1,000 trucks can carry 3,000 missiles.

10,000 trucks can carry 30,000 missiles.

Anything is possible during WW3. The Chinese economy can handle it.

 

[BoQ77]

LOL. You may visit this
China ability to track air-sea-land targets by their satellites, radars, sonars...

GF-4 resolution 50m is not so good as you think. I think it can't use as real time, reliable tracking system to anything that moving on Earth. 50x50m object would be 1 pixel in GF-4 photo taken. A/C would be about 6 pixels. Hope it wouldn't mix to the electronic noisy interpolated photo.
And do you know why the color is gray? you need high contrast to point out those few pixels, if luckily there's no cloud cover.

Acquiring anti ship cruise missiles (even ASBM) is the easy part. Finding a carrier strike group that is sailing around at 30-40 knots in the middle of the ocean is the hard part. That's like trying to find a needle in the haystack. The ocean is a very big place.

The Chinese GF-4 geosynchronous remote sensing satellite solves all that.

A geosynchronous orbit is a circular orbit 22,236 miles above the Earth's equator and follows the direction of the Earth's rotation. A satellite in such an orbit has an orbital period equal to the Earth's rotational period, and thus appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers.

Like this:

Therefore, geosynchronous orbit satellites provide a permanent, uninterrupted coverage over a portion of Earth. In the GF-4's case, its range of view is a 7,000km by 7,000km box of 49 million square kilometers of Asian land and water in and around China. The satellite's 50m resolution is good enough to spot aircraft carriers. A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has a length of 332.8 m. The GF-4's 22,236 mile orbit above Earth also puts it outside of the range of SM-3.

Furthermore, China has OTH radar covering everything from the Taiwan Strait to the Philippine Sea.

Also gambit is right. GPS jamming (by itself) may be insufficient in dealing with GPS/INS guided weapons. A JASSM or Tomahawk that temporarily loses its ability to get a GPS update still has INS. However, INS drift accumulates over time and the weapon becomes increasingly less accurate the longer it goes without a GPS update. Thus it is to the defender's advantage to jam the weapon as early as possible. But it is also important to remember that a LACM like Tomahawk is usually flying at low altitudes, close to the ground. How does a ground-based GPS jammer target something that is below the horizon?

A much better solution is to destroy the GPS satellite constellation directly.


1,000 trucks can carry 3,000 missiles.

10,000 trucks can carry 30,000 missiles.

Anything is possible during WW3. The Chinese economy can handle it.

10,000/30,000 ?
can Tell me estimated current quantity ?

@Arminkh : btw, you talked about 150kW laser on aircraft, how about the main object of this thread, on the aircraft carrier ?
Ford class A/C would adopt the new type of nuclear reactors, with power capacity about 800MW x 2
Do you think it can launch some high energy laser beams of 1 or a few MW ?

 

[BoQ77]

Don't tell me you would shoot some dozen missiles to each noise pixel in the image.

 

[Tiqiu]

GF-4 resolution 50m is not so good as you think. I think it can't use as real time, reliable tracking system to anything that moving on Earth. 50x50m object would be 1 pixel in GF-4 photo taken. A/C would be about 6 pixels. Hope it wouldn't mix to the electronic noisy interpolated photo.

You are right, an AC is only about 6 by 2 pixels under GF-4, that image alone is not enough to differentiate between AC or oil tanker. But you forget GF-4 is only a small part of a big system comprising more than 20 satellites(GF-4, YG9/17/20/25/29, YG6/13/18 and YG5/12/14/21).GF-4's task is to monitor a specific area of the sea and give alert of the possible AC entering. Once alerted, other measures, and other satellites will be engaged to further investigate.

First, AC normal sail at their cruise speed of 18-22kt vs Oil tanker's 10kt, this difference in moving pace enable us to calculate which is which over an interval of time from the changing of position of the target.

Second, Chinese Yaogan-9, Yaogan-20 and Yaogan-29 reconnaissance satellites will be used to collect electronic signatures of the target to further investigate whether it is ASG or oil tanker.

Third, upon further needs, other Jianbing series Low orbit high resolution optical imaging and SAR satellites will be utilized ad hoc to produce identifiable image of the target.

Fourthly, according to China Science Department Feb 19 report, second generation of GF-4, China's panchromatic image with 2.5m resolution satellite at geostationary orbit, will be deployed in 5 years. By then, we can even tell how many F35 are on the flight deck.

When you have the world No.1 manufacturing capability and the largest base of engineer , you have the late mover advantage. Beware America.

 

[BoQ77]

You are right, an AC is only about 6 by 2 pixels under GF-4, that image alone is not enough to differentiate between AC or oil tanker. But you forget GF-4 is only a small part of a big system comprising more than 20 satellites(GF-4, YG9/17/20/25/29, YG6/13/18 and YG5/12/14/21).GF-4's task is to monitor a specific area of the sea and give alert of the possible AC entering. Once alerted, other measures, and other satellites will be engaged to further investigate.

First, AC normal sail at their cruise speed of 18-22kt vs Oil tanker's 10kt, this difference in moving pace enable us to calculate which is which over an interval of time from the changing of position of the target.

I doubt that you are confusing between still photo taken and video recording.
GF-4 takes still photo of 400kmx400km with dot value = 50m, its photo has 64 Megapixel ( 8,000x8,000 )

Google sat imager could take photo with 0.25m ( not 25 or 2.5 ) of a dot value but we aren't sure they could use to track a moving A/C or not.

Try below link ( a 64Megapixel photo of Earth by NaSA ) and tell me, how many suspect objects as a small island?
Don't care about how long to proceed that single photo.

All sizes | Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth - Blue Marble 2012 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Tiqiu]

I doubt that you are confusing between still photo taken and video recording.
GF-4 takes still photo of 400kmx400km with dot value = 50m, its photo has 64 Megapixel ( 8,000x8,000 )

Google sat imager could take photo with 0.25m ( not 25 or 2.5 ) of a dot value but we aren't sure they could use to track a moving A/C or not.

Try below link ( a 64Megapixel photo of Earth by NaSA ) and tell me, how many suspect objects as a small island?
Don't care about how long to proceed that single photo.

All sizes | Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth - Blue Marble 2012 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Yes it only takes still pictures. but has 100 million pixels, not 64 as I read.

Islands are not moving so by comparing image taken in different time, you may know any new object/dot is entered into the area under surveillance. This is just my laymen's guess.

 

[BoQ77]

Yes it only takes still pictures. but has 100 million pixels, not 64 as I read.

Islands are not moving so by comparing image taken in different time, you may know any new object/dot is entered into the area under surveillance. This is just my laymen's guess.

400,000m divide 50m = 8,000 x 8,000 equal 64,000,000 dot pixel.
You didn't count weather aspect, night aspect...
and as photography, electronic noise.

Why we must count on noise level, because we are talking about pixel level.
You know there're noises added to the image, they don't represent for any real thing.

The big problem isn't identifying an A/C from other oil tanker, but identifying which some pixels are ships, which are cloud and their shadows on Earth, which are LEO satellites, which are asteroids which some pixels are just noise. I must tell you even GF-4 can't capture pixels of an A/C because the contrast level is very low. It's not as high as an ongoing big fire in the forest at night.

One of the situation is you found thousands to millions suspected pixel arrays, and technically can't investigate all of them in more details during limited time.

Image noise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[jhungary]

You are right, an AC is only about 6 by 2 pixels under GF-4, that image alone is not enough to differentiate between AC or oil tanker. But you forget GF-4 is only a small part of a big system comprising more than 20 satellites(GF-4, YG9/17/20/25/29, YG6/13/18 and YG5/12/14/21).GF-4's task is to monitor a specific area of the sea and give alert of the possible AC entering. Once alerted, other measures, and other satellites will be engaged to further investigate.

First, AC normal sail at their cruise speed of 18-22kt vs Oil tanker's 10kt, this difference in moving pace enable us to calculate which is which over an interval of time from the changing of position of the target.

Second, Chinese Yaogan-9, Yaogan-20 and Yaogan-29 reconnaissance satellites will be used to collect electronic signatures of the target to further investigate whether it is ASG or oil tanker.

Third, upon further needs, other Jianbing series Low orbit high resolution optical imaging and SAR satellites will be utilized ad hoc to produce identifiable image of the target.

Fourthly, according to China Science Department Feb 19 report, second generation of GF-4, China's panchromatic image with 2.5m resolution satellite at geostationary orbit, will be deployed in 5 years. By then, we can even tell how many F35 are on the flight deck.

When you have the world No.1 manufacturing capability and the largest base of engineer , you have the late mover advantage. Beware America.

A few point I would like to point out.

1.) US aircraft carrier have an un-overheated top speed of 32 knots, OH speed are classified. And no, it's engineering impossible to track a ship by predicting its course, simply there are too much variable. Tracking must be done real time. which mean it need to calibrate the satellite to basically fly above your target, then start tracking before you lose feed.

2.) You cannot move the satellite to track your target, all you can do is to gain control of minor adjustment, each satellite have their own manuveroability envelope. I don't know (And most likely so did you) about the GF-4 envelope but most likely it would have been the same envelope as with Western Satellite. Which will give anywhere between 6 to 10 degree movement.

3.) What you are talking about is IMGINT. which is completely different than Target Tracking (ISTAR), you can look at some picture with high grade resolution does not mean you can track your target in real time. And also, ISTAR have a pre-requisite that was to have a constant survellience capability on target. Satellite will move out of target area, which would not give a continuous picture of any given target. Satellite are never good for ISTAR.

You can have the GF-4 loop thru the US Naval Base each day, probably twice daily to a maximum of 7 times a day), but the best you can do is for a GF-4 to tell you the US carrier have left port before previous interval and you will not be pick it up with a one directional search (Satellite can only orbit in one direction) with a GF-4 or any other satellite, unless you are really that lucky that the carrier sail the same direction as your satellite orbit.

I think you watch way too many movie and overestimating what a spy satellite can do. Real world does not work like 24 (The TV series) at all, on TV, they will have a satellite when they need one. In Real life, if you need a satellite, you will need to wait until it enter your target area. They are actually only ever able to give you a hint. Not enough to track anything, if they can, it won't take us 11 years to find Osama Bin Laden

[EDIT] Just read up some article on GF-4. Apparently it is an GEO orbit satellite (which mean they are constantly overhead on the same patch of land). Well, it have a effective surveillance area of 7000kmx7000km. Which means the satellite only effective when the Carrier enter the surveillance area........