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Post by bigbombr on Dec 11, 2016 6:38:44 GMT
I am actually pretty interested to see how the dynamics of naval warfare will change with the creation and implementation of the railgun since now an extremely low cost projectile can easily destroy even the largest naval vessels from fairly extreme range. Armoring against it is nowhere near financially doable. I think this dilemma is what most of us are facing at the moment in game, and there isn't a real world solution example yet. The naval railguns going into trials now will not be magical superweapons that kill everything everywhere. Their penetration at over-the-horizon ranges will be comparable to what we already have. The most important difference is that the rounds will cost less, take up less space, and be far, far safer to store. Now, for direct-fire situations? Yeah, the railgun is going to penetrate any naval armor currently afloat. But at the ranges naval battles are actually fought these days, atmospheric drag will slow the projectile down to speeds comparable to conventional AP rounds. The extra velocity the railgun imparts will simply allow it to compete with missiles for range, while modern PGM guidance packages will enable similar accuracy. The railguns will have a range of approximately 178,6 km. Most anti-ship missiles have a range in excess of 300 km, some in excess of 1000 km. In atmosphere, railguns of a feasible size has nowhere the range to compete with anti-ship missiles.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 11, 2016 7:01:15 GMT
The railguns will have a range of approximately 178,6 km. Most anti-ship missiles have a range in excess of 300 km, some in excess of 1000 km. In atmosphere, railguns of a feasible size has nowhere the range to compete with anti-ship missiles. Railgun shells with rocket/jet assist (as already exist in modern artillery shells) can easily push that range past 250km. While Railguns are never going to compete with huge land-based hypersonic AsHMs in raw range, Railgun shells are almost immune to any practical point defense system we could deploy in the next half century. Furthermore, basic railgun shells are going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than ASMs. Even rocket-boosted Rail artillery shells are going to be cheaper than ASMs. As laser based point defenses get better, the role of the jet attack aorcraft - particularly manned aircraft - will shrink. The future Navy is likely to be fleets of electric-power centric warships packed with VLS missile cells, multiple laser point defense systems, and a railgun mount (or two). The larger ships may have an UAV recovery platform and a launch catapult, but the days of air dominance will be over.
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Post by bigbombr on Dec 11, 2016 12:19:35 GMT
The railguns will have a range of approximately 178,6 km. Most anti-ship missiles have a range in excess of 300 km, some in excess of 1000 km. In atmosphere, railguns of a feasible size has nowhere the range to compete with anti-ship missiles. Railgun shells with rocket/jet assist (as already exist in modern artillery shells) can easily push that range past 250km. While Railguns are never going to compete with huge land-based hypersonic AsHMs in raw range, Railgun shells are almost immune to any practical point defense system we could deploy in the next half century. Furthermore, basic railgun shells are going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than ASMs. Even rocket-boosted Rail artillery shells are going to be cheaper than ASMs. As laser based point defenses get better, the role of the jet attack aorcraft - particularly manned aircraft - will shrink. The future Navy is likely to be fleets of electric-power centric warships packed with VLS missile cells, multiple laser point defense systems, and a railgun mount (or two). The larger ships may have an UAV recovery platform and a launch catapult, but the days of air dominance will be over. Don't forget submarines. Railguns, anti-ship missiles, directed energy weapons, ... all are useless against them. Only torpedoes, (rocket-boosted) depth charges and saturation attacks with HEAT-grenades (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rXc9FUGfEU) (when in shallow waters) pose a credible threat to subs.
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erik
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Post by erik on Dec 11, 2016 13:49:37 GMT
The by far number 1 threat to a submarine in blue waters is the helicopter. The submarine is powerful because it not only carries enormous firepower, but because its location is unknown or uncertain. A discovered submarine is very often a dead and almost always at least an ineffective, temporarily harmless sub, and ASW helicopter operating from aboard a ship with its hydrophone, passive and active sonar buoys is the tool for locating them. In blue waters that is, outside of passive ocean floor hydrophone networks and such.
I don't think the aircraft will lose its role in naval warfare, since after all aircraft are means of bringing the missiles to range from the surface fleet or land base, or bringing AAMs in range of aircraft that are carrying ASMs. Then theres the whole thing of air superiority and CAS/SEAD missions over land, so they're also very flexible and can do many tasks at great range from the surface fleet they're based on.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 11, 2016 19:06:26 GMT
I don't think the aircraft will lose its role in naval warfare, since after all aircraft are means of bringing the missiles to range from the surface fleet or land base, or bringing AAMs in range of aircraft that are carrying ASMs. Then theres the whole thing of air superiority and CAS/SEAD missions over land, so they're also very flexible and can do many tasks at great range from the surface fleet they're based on. The problem with Aircraft as missile buses is one of the reasons we're unlikely to see fighters in space combat; it's more dV/mass efficient just to build an extra stage to boost the missile into terminal range. As for SAMs... The existence of powerful laser batteries mounted on warships and Railgun rounds fused for shrapnel/flak make any aircraft in the LOS of a warship dead meat. Aviation that wishes to operate within this Death Zone must fly really close to sea level. The effectiveness of laser & rail-based AA makes conventional SAM obsolete. Manned helos in the ASW role are likely to be replaced by UCAVs with extreme loiter times. Perhaps the entire fleet will evolve into submersible warships, complete with supercavitating torpedo tubes and shape optimization for subsurface travel, rapid ascent and surfacing, and crash diving when faced with threats PD cannot safely handle.
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Post by lawson on Dec 11, 2016 19:15:23 GMT
*snip* I don't think the aircraft will lose its role in naval warfare, since after all aircraft are means of bringing the missiles to range from the surface fleet or land base, or bringing AAMs in range of aircraft that are carrying ASMs. Then theres the whole thing of air superiority and CAS/SEAD missions over land, so they're also very flexible and can do many tasks at great range from the surface fleet they're based on. heh, and at minimum the F-35 is likely to be a good energy weapons platform. The lift fan means they are all setup to drop in a shaft driven energy weapon system to use the 10-100 Megawatts of shaft power available. (This won't be soon 'cause the lift fan is a TINY space to pack 10s of Megawatts into...)
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erik
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Post by erik on Dec 11, 2016 20:28:39 GMT
The problem with Aircraft as missile buses is one of the reasons we're unlikely to see fighters in space combat; it's more dV/mass efficient just to build an extra stage to boost the missile into terminal range. As for SAMs... The existence of powerful laser batteries mounted on warships and Railgun rounds fused for shrapnel/flak make any aircraft in the LOS of a warship dead meat. Aviation that wishes to operate within this Death Zone must fly really close to sea level. The effectiveness of laser & rail-based AA makes conventional SAM obsolete. Manned helos in the ASW role are likely to be replaced by UCAVs with extreme loiter times. Perhaps the entire fleet will evolve into submersible warships, complete with supercavitating torpedo tubes and shape optimization for subsurface travel, rapid ascent and surfacing, and crash diving when faced with threats PD cannot safely handle. Its the ever lasting competition between offensive and defensive weapon, or weapon and its counter. It was already found in the 40s that no matter how many guns and ships a fleet has, even with rangefinders and proximity fuses, some aircraft will get through (diminishing returns), so fighter CAP is needed. Then it turned out that CAP too has diminishing returns after about 1,000 fighters in CAP rotation, and even with very competitive ground control and radar-equipped picket ships beyond horizon, planes still leaked through at Okinawa and then leaked more through ship AAA. This vulnerability has continued in the few occurred real life conflicts as well as wargames through the missile age, so I doubt it will change in future. Laser does have a problem for a surface navy: the atmosphere. It seriously hampers laser's effectiveness at range. I wouldnt wonder if a laser vessel able to kill everything it sees wouldnt be just a million times overpriced juicy fat target for subs or still vulnerable to masses of missiles(from subs or aircraft) because it couldnt fire often enough because of reason or another. Similarly, railgun needs to be reloaded and cooled between shots and also needs massive capacitor powerbanks, so I doubt it'll be replacing revolver cannon CWIS and SAM/AMMs for a while, if ever. Shells can change direction in flight a bit, but not as much as missiles that can also choose between many flight profiles to extend range. However I think those two systems do have uses and they can be used to supplement AMM and CWIS in A2/AD, and they're actually already developing a anti-missile laser pod for aircraft to carry. It could have power for several shots even. They both could reach very low price per shot too.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 11, 2016 21:39:05 GMT
... you missed my point entirely. Why bother building a whole fighter to launch missiles when a missile stage is cheaper, more efficient and more effective? If I launch 10kt of staged missiles and you launch 10kt of fighters with missiles... Guess what, I win. Similarily, effectiveness of future AA (long/medium range specialist railgun shells, medium/close range lasers) are exponentially more effective than 1940s AA systems. Yes, enough aviation can get through by saturation... But doing that with missiles is far cheaper and more effective.
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Post by Pttg on Dec 11, 2016 21:47:30 GMT
... you missed my point entirely. Why bother building a whole fighter to launch missiles when a missile stage is cheaper, more efficient and more effective? If I launch 10kt of staged missiles and you launch 10kt of fighters with missiles... Guess what, I win. Similarily, effectiveness of future AA (long/medium range specialist railgun shells, medium/close range lasers) are exponentially more effective than 1940s AA systems. Yes, enough aviation can get through by saturation... But doing that with missiles is far cheaper and more effective. You win the battle. The war is a different story. If I launch 10kt of fighters/drones, I can get 9kt of fighters/drones back. If you launch 10kt of missiles, you get 0t of missiles back.
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erik
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Post by erik on Dec 11, 2016 22:07:08 GMT
... you missed my point entirely. Why bother building a whole fighter to launch missiles when a missile stage is cheaper, more efficient and more effective? If I launch 10kt of staged missiles and you launch 10kt of fighters with missiles... Guess what, I win. Similarily, effectiveness of future AA (long/medium range specialist railgun shells, medium/close range lasers) are exponentially more effective than 1940s AA systems. Yes, enough aviation can get through by saturation... But doing that with missiles is far cheaper and more effective. I did not talk about space battles. Both aircraft and missiles and counters to the two have developed since 40s, of course. An aircraft, manned or drone, will always have inherent advantage over a missile of being able to return to base. I think right now a typical modern air-to-air missile costs approximately 1/100 or of the aircraft(no maintenance costs taken into account) but then again long range missiles such as stratosphere-reaching SAMs, the Meteor or such are significantly more expensive. Probability of kill is also a thing, not every shot results in a kill even if shot well within good parameters for a kill. In atmosphere, staged missiles are not used because of atmospheric drag and need to maneuver. Since the 1970s even aircraft haven't had to get within visual range, they can fire missiles of their own beyond visual range or over the horizon if target info is provided to the launching platforms or even weapons themselves after they've been fired, by datalink. However good missiles become they'll always need a launching platform, be it submerged, surface or airborne.
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Post by ross128 on Dec 11, 2016 22:43:33 GMT
A modern fighter, when equipped for missile launching at least, can be thought of as effectively a re-usable first stage for a staged multi-warhead missile with a very smart first-stage guidance package, which sometimes allows it to get away with little or no terminal guidance on the expendable warhead.
That role is likely to eventually be replaced by drones, mostly to protect human pilots from harm and shrink the size of the guidance system. Though fundamentally the idea will be the same. You're putting a lot of power and brains into a re-usable first stage so that you can go cheap on the terminal stage.
Whether the fighter/drone is worth launching will depend heavily on mission parameters. In situations where the guidance package and first stage are likely to return in one piece, it can be worthwhile so you can use cheaper munitions and spend less repairing/refueling than you would replacing. It can also be worthwhile against a target that is primarily defended by passive or soft-kill defenses (ie EWAR, decoys), if the sophisticated guidance of the drone/fighter can see through it when a cheap missile would not.
In other situations, where the first stage is unlikely to be capable of returning or the target is primarily defended by hard-kill defenses (ie guns, counter-missiles, lasers), it would be a better idea to spam cheap, expendable missiles because you're going to lose them anyway.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 11, 2016 23:14:52 GMT
erik ross explained it. Reusable "delivery" stages will be far less cost and mass effective as lethality and effectiveness of defense systems rise.
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 12, 2016 1:13:21 GMT
Guys, this is armor post. If you want to talk about missiles/planes/railguns/whatever, make a new topic plz.
Amimai's armor works well.
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Post by shurugal on Dec 12, 2016 12:50:17 GMT
for a given value of "well". It seems to stop your sub-100 kg hypervelocity slugs just fine.
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 12, 2016 14:09:35 GMT
for a given value of "well". It seems to stop your sub-100 kg hypervelocity slugs just fine. At least it buy my ships more time against those damned hypervelocity sub-1 kg railgun projectiles. Also, they block 1 kg stuffs for a long time, too.
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