Interesting perspective from the other side: The Soviets trained for multi-regiment Backfire strikes (40-60 strike aircraft per carrier, plus SEAD and ECM support) to get all missiles on target within one minute for best results and two minutes for satisfactions ones. Wider timings in training were considered a failed strike.
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Maybe. This is one of my big issues with the DCS ship damage model. Hits to the island take out heat exchangers and cooling pumps for radar support equipment, motor generators for communications equipment, and other things going to the combat systems that are secondary, but can take you out of action.
Add in potential damage to the uptakes, and you’re looking at probably losing boilers. And if you’re trying to get power to any weapons other than self - defense systems via the emergency generators, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Then there’s also the question of whether or not any of the weapons elevators will be operable, due to the rig for reduced electrical loading, and the hits to the flight deck.
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Can we discuss approach altitude and surprise in anti-ship strikes? How important are they? What was the USN tactic in that regard?
What I find is that in games/sims, they play little role. You can approach ships at medium altitude in broad view with little consequence, as long as you stay outside the engagement envelope of defensive weapons.
As contrast to this there is the sinking of HMS Sheffield. The two Super Etendard approached at low level under British radar and operating under EMCON. The fighters popped up briefly twice to conduct a radar sweep. While this was picked up by British ESM, the signals were dismissed as false as there have been multiple false alerts over the past days. Consequently, HMS Sheffield was completely unaware of the attack until a few seconds from impact, when the inbound Exocet was spotted by lookouts. Surprise (and the human factor) was instrumental in the successful attack on this warship.
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Well, if you’re high and visible it’d be easier to direct fighters on your position- sinking an enemy ship is half the job, you also have to come back home.
Keeping “violent” profiles allow you to reach retirement age… methinks.
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That is true. One reason more that the naval environment in DCS badly needs proper air search radars for ships (currently they only have search radars with sufficient range to cue their SAM tracking radars) and ships that can act as ground controllers for AI and players.
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True enough, if you are shooting at one ship, that argument can be made. Yet, as mentioned, the most lethal SAM systems (SA-N-6) still need a dedicated, directional fire control radar which means a limited amount of missiles can be fired at once and in one direction per FC radar. Still, there is something to be said about overall diminishing the targeted ship’s magazines–missile and AK-630–which a multi-axis strike will tend to do.
However, we are not trying to overwhelm the defenses of one ship. We are trying to overwhelm the defenses of a formation of ships. Each ship will have a primary sector to defend yet can “help out” into other sectors if there is no threat in their sector. So if you engage from multiple axis you spread out–perhaps a better description is thin out–the air defenses of the entire formation. That provides a better chance for missiles to get through. (aka “leakers”)
Truer words have not been written. With that in mind, let’s look at their air defense systems and make rough comparisons to western systems. SA-N-4 w/ POP GROUP radar. Max range something like 8 Nm. This is a selfdefense weapons system analogous to the NATO Sea Chicken…err…Sea Sparrow. AK-630 (DRUM TILT or BASS TILT? I always get them confused) is a close in, “last ditch” missile defense system analogous to Phalanx CIWIS…but not as good. So, as stated by @near_blind, these guys are out doing ASW. Their air defense systems are real meant for surviving on their own or the “#@%!!!” moment when they see a couple of Harpoons meant for the KIROV heading their way instead. So, sure if they happen to be in a position in formation when the Harpoons come over the horizon, they’ll shoot if they can.
True!…still, perhaps the scariest noise I can think of hearing on a carrier in a hot battle is the sound of the CWIS going off…its good but its not perfect. Against the SS-N-22 ???…I’ll be synching up my life vest, finishing my coffee, and hoping my abandon ship station is on the non-engaged side…just say’n. Which brings me to…
The Sovremennyy was designed from the keel up as an ASUW platform. It is not just the SS-N-22, for which I cannot comment due to my still classified memory beyond 8 with no reloads. Suffice to say it is a Bad @$$ missile.
What is often overlooked are the Sovremennyy’s guns. They are an anti-ship system if there ever was one. Twin 130mm water cooled guns (AK-130-MR-184) in each turret (2 turrets) that can fire at about 30 rounds per minute per barrel…that gives it a “broad side” rate of 120 rounds per minute…think of it as two rounds per second hitting your ship. In simple terms, after smacking you around with SS-N-22s, it moves in for the kill and guts your ship with guns. When it is all said and done, I would not want to be on that DDG out sub-hunting away from formation, nor that CG placed a couple dozen Nm down the threat axis if a Sovremennyy happens to sneak into SS-N-22 range.
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True…and it is preferable if you come home in the jet rather than in the life raft. 
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Can you elaborate on that a bit more? Because, surely due to me being uneducated on the subject, I don’t really see it.
Let’s make a very simplistic example to get down to the basics. Lets assume we have a HVU with 4 air defense escorts, one each to the north, east, south and west. We shoot 4 ASM simultaneously from every direction, then each escort gets to shoot at a single head-on target. If we shoot 4 ASM simultaneously just from the north, then primary the northern escort has to defend against 4 ASM, the western and eastern escorts only get low pk side-aspect shots (assuming they are in range at all) and the southern escort has to shoot over the HVU (also assuming it has a system with the range and speed to intercept the ASM before it reaches the HVU). To me, the second situation is clearly preferable for the attacker and has a higher probability to get a missile through.
Also, and this might sound a bit silly, from my experience with playing Command Modern Air/Naval Operations, it is preferable to concentrate fire on few/single ships in order to open up gaps in the defensive screen to exploit, rather than to wither away at all escorts simultaneously.
Don’t you have a GQ station you’re supposed to be at, shipmate? 
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To paraphrase Clausewitz “Surprise=Good”
The answer is “It depends” (You all knew I was going to say that.)
The tactics–to include ingress speed and altitude–are determined by threat.
The USN intelligence definition of “threat” is “capability plus intent”
Capability is determined by many considerations–the technical specifications the entire weapon system, its state of maintenance, its age, the training, skill and proficiency of its operators, etc. For DCS all weapons are 100% and the skill of the operators is determinedly a menu setting…if only the real world was as simple
Electronic warfare in its many facets-electronic attack (EA; i.e. jamming of some type), ECM, ECCM, etc plays a much bigger and much more complicated role that any computer simulation has ever …um…simulated. There are a lot of reasons for that but the primary one is “It’s Classified” - both by us and them.
So without operating in a “difficult” electronic environment, tactics may come down to common sense. Stealthy/EMCON approaches, like the Argentine attack on HMS Sheffield, is a tried and true tactic in the absence of an airborne EW aircraft like the E-2C. Would the Argentinians have gotten away with it if the RN had an E-2C airborne? They would have had much less of a chance.
If a Russian task force has an A-50 AWACS in support, the obvious tactic is to shoot it down before you attack the ships. Of course in the real world this will “tip off” the enemy that “something bad” is about to happen (and I suspect I could configure triggers in a DCS mission to do the same). Result: Higher defensive posture, relaxed ROE, Weapons Free status, etc. So now you are dealing with an enemy more prepared to meet you. If there is no way to sneak in, maybe a big “Alpha Strike” is a better idea–high to low altitudes, use the KISS wheel and hit them with everything you got
Again, I must emphasize that the goal is often not to sink the HVU…that may be a fortunate side effect, but not the primary goal.
Example: The Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is making a contested choke point transit (a strait, passing through some islands, etc) A Sovremennyy DDG is “guarding” the choke point so that the exit is within its weapons range. The goal is to get through the choke point and into the open water beyond. A mission kill…even a temporary mission kill…on the Sovremennyy may be sufficient. What would the tactics for that be? It depends.
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My GQ station was SUPPLOT where the coffee was always hot…but not always good.
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It depends on the escorts and their capabilities against ASCMs. Depending on how much Indications and Warning (I&W) that formation receives, it may have time to reposition the side units into sectors with a higher pk.
If I have given you all the impression that a multi-axis is the only viable tactic, forgive me. In a lot of cases it is the preferred tactic; in other cases it is not. And “multi-axis” simply means more than one. (I think saw a four axis practice strike once). Even 3 or two axis strike are made generally within a 180-225 degree arc.
In a single axis strike it comes down to a calculation of pk’s and number of “rounds” on both sides. The hire pk & more rounds, the more likelyhood of coming out on top.
In a multi axis strike you are looking to thin out the defenses and (hopefully) find the seams. To quote doctrine: JP 3-01: "enemy IADS need to be analyzed in depth to neutralize or avoid enemy strengths and exploit enemy weaknesses. [my emphasis]
If I happen to know where a less capable ship is in the formation–maybe a KASHIN DDG–, I’ll probably load up the bulk of my strike assets on that sector and probably two smaller groups on other sectors
How quickly can you follow up on the gaps? A screen can change in minutes and gaps can rapidly be closed.
Re “whittling away at the escorts” IMPO, except for Sovremennnyys I don’t care too much about the escorts - I want to get that HVU as quickly as possible…multiple axis or strong single axis– everybody is shooting at the HVU.
Think of the Battle of Midway. Everybody went for the carriers. Japanese carries sunk=4 of 4. Japanese escorts sunk=1 of about 40-50.
In the Cold War we practiced the multi-axis attack for a war at sea. Would it have worked? The best naval operations and tactics doctrine minds thought so, but it was never put to the test. In DCS, Harpoon 2.0, CMANO and countless War College simulations various tactics have been tried–some work, some don’t. But each sim–even the War College sims (which is just a bunch of professors playing the bad guys)–has its limitations and quirks.
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This is reminding me of the missile attack on the Stennis in the movie version of The Sum of All Fears. The ship was heavily damaged, but wasn’t completely sunk (and likely won’t sink unless a lot of people all screw up in lots of ways at the same time), but the ship is most definitely completely combat - ineffective for a very, very long time to come. Especially telling is that hole in the flight deck, and thinking of what’s currently burning there on the O-3 level…
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I swear if they broke my USS GUAM coffee cup, there would have been hell to pay!!!
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Not a naval warfare professional at all so all opinions are my own entirely.
I think in terms of multiple axis of attack, you are always looking for the best one to hit the hardest. In the situation of four escorts, one of each axis no axis has the advantage. If they’re in close enough to be mutually supporting your have a crap shoot on what axis is the best.
I’d venture that rarely will you see a formantion that is completely symmetrical. In general the most assests are going to be in the area of the highest threat. Second due to the nature of the weapon systems, if you bring them close enough to be 100% supporting you’ll be paying a big range penalty versus having them only partially mutually supporting. Range means time, which means possible reengagements if needed.
So ideally you identify the weakest axis and hammer everything you have that way. Real world I’d imagine you rarely have that information, and so you are taking your best guess and hedging it by trying another axis or too. Additionally you force the enemy to commit and hopefully overwhelm them as they try to cover all routes. For example if you have 10% overmatch in ASM’s versus the enemies ability to shoot them down with aircraft (the classic F-14 vs backfire scenario), you have some optionss. YOu can be happy with a 10% success rate, or take the risk of being overmatched and try to creat a major local advantage. Say sending 75% of your strikers to one axis and hoping they only meet 25% or 50% of the defenders.
Additionally real world 4 escorts won’t all be equally proficient, well maintained, etc. One of them will be a better route of attack. Multi axis attacks take advantage of that as well.
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So far in game the only Russian naval SAMs we have are the SA-N-4, SA-N-6, and SA-N-9, so saying the attack is effective against 100% of enemy systems is pretty good I think :D.
Comparing the two in purely DCS terms. Trying to saturate on a single axis was less effective because the enemy by keeping the majority of missiles within their FCR, the SA-N-6 and SA-N-9 were simply able to knock down ASCMs quicker than they could get through.
When I broke the attack up into eight discrete groups, this divided up the enemies ability to target. The SA-N-6 could only engage one group of twelve missiles at a time, which allowed the other 84 to get within SA-N-9 range untouched. When they got within Guantlet range, the two escorts again, could only engage one stream each of twelve missiles. So now we’re down to 60 or so missiles that are able to punch into the Kuznetsov death zone. (The SA-N-4 equipped ships were only able to get one or two ineffective salvos off). The Kuznetsov, which is bristling with FCRs and CIWS is always going to be a PITA to hit, but I was able to push many more missiles to that screen than I did on a single axis attack.
I’m SWAGGing my numbers here, the Moscow and Guantlet Frigates did better than twelve missiles a piece, and I’m ignoring the SA-N-7s because the Luyangs sort of suck compared to their older brothers. The point I’m ineffectively trying to make is that with a superior fleet formation, I was able to get significantly more missiles on target because they were better positioned to take advantage of gaps in the enemy picket force, and to open up more gaps by tying down the most effective air defense systems.
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This is also where the asymmetry of subsonic attacking missiles vs supersonic defensive missiles comes into play.
When the missiles coming in are going supersonic, the total amount of time they are in the defensive zone is decreased. Double the Harpoon speed and they have half the time to intercept them.
While Soviet and general Eastern doctrine has been about making long-range large and fast weapons launched from outside engagement range (of all but interceptors usually), Western practice has been to make the platforms more capable and launch weapons from closer in.
It does bear some inspection, though. Why aren’t there more supersonic missiles aside from those meant to defeat air targets? Why give the enemy more time to move/counter/shoot down/whatever your incoming missiles?
Just count how many LGB/GPS short range guided weapons the West has, now do the same on the other side. Notice they don’t count on getting within 5 miles of their target to fire? They do have some, for those times when they would have knocked back air defenses and are freer to operate, but at that point they seem to favor unguided bombs and rockets more.
For a number of reasons I’m not going to elaborate, the Soviets favored fast, long range missiles because the further out they could engage, the more likely their offensive surface combatants would be able to contribute to attriting the enemy before inevitably getting blown out of the water by the nearest plane/sub.
But to get a fast, long range missile with a big warhead meant that the missile they made were very large to support all that warhead, fuel, and engines. This precluded using the highest performance missiles on smaller ships, and instead a tiered hierarchy of cruise missile required. The soviets didn’t mind this: generally when they designed a new class of ship, they determined what weapons they wanted well in advance, and often times the two were developed in parallel. This style of development began in the late 50s.
The US is different. Post War US naval doctrine was CCs, Aircraft and Subs will kill the big targets. DEs and DDs will kill the subs and small targets, and CGs will protect the carrier. This all gets turned on it’s head in the 1960s with the proliferation of cheap, effective anti-shipping missiles that allow small patrol boats to kill much larger ships. Suddenly the concept of closing to gun range and murderizing the small targets with masses of 5’’ gun fire seems very antiquated. The Harpoon was begun as an attempt to give surface ships the ability to reach out and strike equal or smaller size enemy surface combatants without necessitating closing to gun range. It quickly was expanded to include an air launched variant (to deal with rapidly improving SAMs), and a sub launched variant (to deal with increasing ASW capability).
You now need a missile that is light enough to be carried by tactical strike aircraft, narrow enough that it can be fired from a 533mm torpedo tube, and small enough it can be bolted onto any number of surface ships of varying size. This precludes the size and bulk needed to produce a big fast missile. The strength of the of Harpoon is that you can put a bunch of them on just about anything if you try hard enough (except the LCS, attempt no ASCM there).
By the time it was figured the Harpoon needed more oompf, the naval threat had seemingly disappeared, at least until recently.
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I believe that the greater threat now is proliferation of sub tech as opposed to surface vessels. Naturally, doesn’t apply for DCS.
Has anyone been able to get the AI to attack ships with bombs? The Harrier has a couple anti-shipping loads that include LGBs, but the AI doesn’t seem to want to use them on any boats.
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There seems to be some sort of hidden flag in the AI logic where they won’t go after any ship frigate sized or bigger with bombs. I’m curious if this is a bug, as it’s relatively new behavior.
I agree, but it’s not an all or nothing situation. We’ve let our Navy atrophy on multiple fronts while the Chinese are building a fleet far more formidable than anything the Soviets ever possessed.
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