The Military Thread

It really depends. Stealth isn’t just a spectrum but a set of techniques as well, and one of those techniques is as simple as (and as complicated as) flying where your enemy isn’t looking. If the carrier had an idea of the inbound vector of the aircraft and was actively searching that area at high alert for contacts they might find it, if they were at peacetime sailing through friendly territory they might not.

The more important question is, why is the Stealth Bomber trying to fly directly over an Aegis cruiser? The only real reason I can think of is bragging rights. In any kind of shooting fight, the bomber is going to spam cruise missiles from a safe distance and be a memory on the lips of old sailors long before any Anti-Air missiles reach them.

Of course, then the question becomes whether the missiles can get to the ships before they get flagged and tagged by the air defense crews. Stealthy cruise missiles throw additional "interesting" variables into the equation.

Edited by AFP on Feb 14th 2020 at 4:37:10 AM

I would put the argument that over each individual ship its not that much of a stretch to assume a stealth aircraft would make it by, but over a whole carrier group it is, there is a significant amount of ships in those things, and each one compounds the chance of failure.

Its kind of like those cases where people argue alternate history by assuming that another side could have won specific battles and therefor have won the war, is it reasonable to assume if the cards had been played diffrently the IJN could have been the midway victors? I gues, but your ingnoring 3 years of conflict for a single battle in that case, and you begin to strech it if things KEEP having to go right for you every single time.

Same thing applies here, only a single ship in the group has to detect you, where as you have to avoid every single one of them, there is too many points of failure to assume it goes perfect... Especialy since its not like a carrier group bundles up in one nice easy to pass over bundle, they form a net of covrage.... even if you manage to avoid the radars some how, some one is going to see you with the mark 1 eyeball given that there is 150 people to spot you on the smallest ships alone, and thousands on the biggest ships in that group... and all it takes is one.

The thing is the ships have to know something is even going to be flying over them and have a good idea of where to start looking to have a chance to even find it. Stealth designs so far favor the large craft like the B-2 because of some quirks of physics and the interaction of radar with their coatings. The radar that might detect a stealth craft is qued by a broader and longer-ranged detection radar which is what stealth craft work best against. Aegis is pretty good but even it has limitations.

A B-2 they never knew to look for could fly overhead without them even knowing it was there. If the entire carrier group knew to look for a possible incoming stealth bomber and from what direction and effectively flooded the area with a search via radar systems there is a fair chance they could find it. Even they might have an idea something is there but not what it is.

I keep forgetting that B-52s and B-2s can carry cruise missiles lol.

Now if only they made stealth versions of their entire payload...

They almost exclusively carry cruise missiles these days.

They've had stealthy cruise missiles for a while. The Air Force actually just retired one of them, according to Wiki, so maybe they have a stealthier one.

The Russians are putting pressure on US forces in Northern Syria through armed clashes, usually through proxy units.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Feb 14th 2020 at 7:52:16 AM

Speaking of stealth stuff, one of the things that surprised me when I saw B-2's and F-117's flying over is just how quiet they are. Something like a Hornet you can often hear well before they're passing over but in comparison you'd barely hear either of the stealth planes until they're almost on top of your head. The one time I saw a B-2 I just happened to look up while hearing a vague whoosh like a really distant passenger jet, and the F-117 was at an airshow and even from the front row by the runway is was miles quieter than anything else there.

Pretty sure that was the very first thing they thought of when trying to make a stealth aircraft. How to quiet the engines

So here's a question. A stupid one, but I'll ask anyhow.

How many missiles can a Destroyer carry? Like the Zumwalt-class, for example? Or the Arleigh Burke-class? And in the (probably unlikely) event that they run out of missiles, what would they rely on for armament?

Edited by TechPriest90 on Feb 14th 2020 at 1:34:41 PM

You’ll have to define a class, a missile and conditions of use to get an answer to that.

Each class of destroyer will carry different weapons generally, possibly multiple types of missiles and use its weapons in a variety of situations.

So the Zumwalt-class only carry point-defence missiles, so they’d probably use their naval guns for anything else, or more likely they’d have another ship do it for them.

Edited by Silasw on Feb 14th 2020 at 8:31:37 PM

It's not the answer you want but the answer is it depends.

Missile mounts are universal but not all missiles are the same size, mounting long range cruise missiles for instance takes 4 cells while a standard missile (the weapon is called standard missile, not this is the general size) only takes 1.

So depending on the mix of missiles your carrying you are going to carry diffrent amounts.

As for resupply, there are ships in a fleet who's whole job is to carry fuel and munitions, and while there job has no glory it is arguably the most important one.

Edited by Imca on Feb 14th 2020 at 12:43:15 PM

A modern Arleigh Burke has 96 Mark 41 cells. Each cell can hold one large missile, either a Standard, Tomahawk or VL-ASROC, or 4 ESSMs. Older Arleigh Burkes only have a 90 cell capacity because 6 cells are taken up by a crane module that would allow the crew to reload the cells while underway, but this process was seen as so dangerous it was scrapped on later models. So basically, the total capacity is going to be somewhere between 96 and 384 missiles.

The Zumwalt has 80 Mark 57 cells, which are slightly larger than Mark 41 cells but still hold either one large missile or 4 ESSMs, so its total capacity will be between 80 and 320.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 14th 2020 at 1:34:37 AM

Basically, a modern warship running out of missiles is extremely unlikely. Simply because whatever the target is, will be very very dead before you even get a tenth of the way there.

Yeah, was gonna say, the newest Standards can buddy-up with four in a single cell. I want to say the big change was that the fins fold up until they clear the tube but they might also be skinnier too. They also announced a year or few back that they had been upgraded to allow them to be used as anti-ship missiles. Not as much explosive punch as a harpoon, but a 40-pound warhead traveling Mach 5 is going to hurt if it manages to land a hit, and it will also definitely give the enemy's air defense folks a few more things to worry about.

EDIT: I got my missiles mixed up. The ESSM, or the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile, is the one that can quad-pack into the tube. The SM-6 Standard ERAM is an extended-range version of the Standard with the seeker-head from the AIM-120 AMRAAM that is designed to splash a variety of anti-ship missiles or plow into an enemy ship with a supersonic warhead about the same mass as that of a brand new Ensign Newbie.

EDIT^2: Wiki claims the SM-6 is also being upgraded with GPS guidance so it can be used to hit stationary land-based targets because nothing says "fuck you" like using a five-million dollar supersonic missile designed to shoot down ballistic missiles to crater someone's barracks. It's more expensive than a Tomahawk so it's more likely to be "another tool in the Captain's toolbox" than his Plan A.

Edited by AFP on Feb 15th 2020 at 5:03:54 AM

Unless it's 1943, aircraft are not going to fly over a warship if they can help it.

Stealth works by minimizing the Radar returns. PATRIOT and other phased array radars can track stealth - for a few seconds, they they lose the much more faint returns in the clutter. The F117 had a program they used to predict the safe course around radars - avoiding overexposure to RF energy.

A B-2 (or more realistically a SU-57,FC-31 or J-20) would use a "standoff" weapon against an AEGIS-type cruiser. By the time they see it, it would be too late.

DOD proposes stripping Stars and Stripes' funding in 2021 budget request

The DOD always wants to cut Stars And Stripes because they can't be a propaganda machine for the brass.

Under Trump I think the petty brass at the E-Ring think they have their chance. Congress won't stand for it (I hope).

Edited by TairaMai on Feb 16th 2020 at 3:58:43 AM

That "well, hardcopy is, like, so last century" argument is particularly flimsy, given that Stars and Stripes has been digital for ages.

And, there are times when units are denied internet. So.... paper. Unless you want bored squaddies getting up to make-your-own-entertainment mischief instead of having a place to "mischief" and blow off steam.

How expensive could denying them that possibly get?

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 15th 2020 at 10:53:15 AM

Thanks for your updates, guys!

I should have clarified - I meant Anti-Ship Missiles. But that seems fairly clear now, given your explanations.

I suppose I'm still stuck in the mold of "Need Big Guns." Missiles work much better (of course), but they're not exactly as intimidating as whole stacks of shells being fired at you, the air suffused with the roar of the big guns.

For sheer intimidation factor, nothing quite beats a gun line - shells don't ask for your name and address, while the Missile does. But that's just me, I suppose.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Feb 15th 2020 at 1:53:44 PM

I don't know, missiles have the intimidation factor in that if you REALY wanted to, you could dump all hundred plus of them in a couple seconds.

Guns cant match that.

Given that many modern anti-ship missiles are supersonic, a lot of the intimidation is that you don't hear anything about them until the alarms start going off. If you're lucky. If not, you don't hear anything about them until the first one hits.

For that added degree of fun, many of these missiles can also be launched from submarines. Clear horizons in all directions and moments later you have incoming as some cheeky SSGN spams a few dozen Tomahawks at you from a few hundred miles away.

Tomahawk and Standard both have anti-ship capabilities, so the maximum anti-ship capacity of an Arleigh Burke is 96 missiles.

Guns are essentially irrelevant in modern peer-state surface warfare. A destroyer is never going to be able to get close enough to effectively employ one against an equivalent combatant, and even if they could modern damage control techniques would make it very difficult to sink anyone that way. They’re really only used for things like warning shots or irregular warfare such as combatting small boats.

Honestly this discussion makes me wonder something, with how quick missiles can be launched in sucession.

....

How is it decided how many and how fast to launch them?

If you do too few, you give the point defenses of a target an easy victory and the target now knows your a threat and can retaliate, too much is overkill and you can deplete your reserves and not be able to make a follow up.

Its not like guns where you just fire them when ready, since you can dump out all your missiles before the first ones impact in theroy.

Edited by Imca on Feb 16th 2020 at 12:14:44 PM

They can fire pretty rapidly. I don’t believe the exact rate is publicly available, but it’s pretty quick.