Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII

[AgentPaper]

I wonder what a fight between two carrier battle groups would look like? Assuming both are very similar to what the US Navy has, what sort of tactics and results could be expected, and how would the battle appear to an observer?

Probably your best bet would be to look at the fights between the US and Japanese forces during WW2. There were quite a few carrier engagements, and they mostly consisted of planes shooting at each other, and ships shooting at the enemy planes. Surprise attacks were common, and potentially devastating, and most of the time each side's ships were very far apart and never really engaged directly or even got withing sight of each other, instead preferring to send their planes over to engage.

With modern planes, I'd expect similar tactics, only with even longer ranges between the battle groups, and with a good amount of guided missile fire thrown in as well, both at enemy aircraft and enemy ships, as each side tries to overwhelm the other's defenses.

To an observer, it would probably look like a lot of nothing interspersed with brief interludes of tremendous gunfire and explosions.

[Roxxy]

Aren't SAM's more effective than any AA weapon we've used before? If so would that effect the tactics used? What about the long range of ship and plane borne anti-ship missiles and the existence of phalanx to engage such missiles? WW2 just doesn't seem to fit.

[Roxxy]

As an addition to this question, how does a warship react to being struck by a
missile, and how do different tropes of vessel fare against missile strikes? What does a stoke to the top deck do? Amidship? Near the water line? What would the crew be doing?

What would the general quarters call look like?

[Brother Oni]

Aren't SAM's more effective than any AA weapon we've used before? If so would that effect the tactics used? What about the long range of ship and plane borne anti-ship missiles and the existence of phalanx to engage such missiles? WW2 just doesn't seem to fit.

Given that two carrier groups haven't engaged each other in anger since WW2, pretty much everything is speculation.

I suspect that you're going to have to go into a more specialised forum with serving or former Navy blokes to get your questions answered, assuming they don't break some sort of OPSEC.

About the best I can offer is speculation on a possible clash between the Chinese and US navies: link.

Edit: Reddit might be a good site for your questions, particulary the r/Military or r/War sub-reddits.
There's a post on r/Militaryporn which discusses current carrier group tactics and deployment hidden among the comments (link may not display properly here).

As an addition to this question, how does a warship react to being struck by a
missile, and how do different tropes of vessel fare against missile strikes? What does a stoke to the top deck do? Amidship? Near the water line? What would the crew be doing?

Warship being struck by a missile is far too vague a scenario. What size of warship? What type of missile? Where does it strike?

Assuming that a missile strike does not penetrate the hull and doesn't hit anything vital, then the ship will carry on minus whatever was damaged.

A penetrating hit puts a big hole in the ship, which can be dangerous if it damages something explosive. For amidships, it depends where it hits - looking up some plans for the warships you're interested in may be useful for judging what could be potentially damaged.

Obviously if there's a hole below the waterline, the ship is going to take on water. If it takes on enough water, it'll sink and this is dependent on how many compartments have been breached. Ships have seal-able bulkheads to contain water in the event of hull breaches, which is probably what the crew will be doing (alternately they could be evacuating to safe areas, putting out fires, attending to their duties or busy dying).

[Raum]

I wonder what a fight between two carrier battle groups would look like? Assuming both are very similar to what the US Navy has, what sort of tactics and results could be expected, and how would the battle appear to an observer?

An observer isn't going to see much - at least not unless a ship within sight gets hit.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea (Great Marianas Turkey Shoot) was fought by fleets closing from about 150 miles apart. The Grumman Avenger, one of the US planes involved, had a range of 1000 miles and could carry 2000 lbs of ordinance. Since WWII, speeds and ranges have made significant improvements. Expect a modern carrier battle to cover a very large area.

Of course range and speed aren't the only changes, the ordinance carried is far more capable today. Fighter missiles hit from miles away while cruise missiles and ship to ship missiles hit from hundreds of miles away. The Argentinian plane firing the Exocet missile which sunk HMS Sheffield was spotted on radar 180 miles (and 19 minutes) away. The missiles were fired from 12 miles out. Here is what was seen when it hit. An Aegis equipped destroyer would almost certainly stop a single missile these days...but modern naval groups wouldn't be launching only one or two at a time.

As different as those changes make modern naval warfare, ubiquitous satellites and drones have a far greater affect. Surprise is much more difficult - it becomes more a matter of disguising intention rather than hiding.

None of this accounts for anything land based either. You'll need to add land based aircraft and missiles to the mix and, in some areas, fast speed boats.

[AgentPaper]

Yeah, that's basically what I thought it'd be. Each side will fire missiles at each other from miles away, most likely in salvos to try and overwhelm enemy defenses such as CIWS. So, you'll have a lot of nothing happening, and then suddenly a huge salvo of missiles coming in and the CIWS going active, giving you tons of gunfire and explosions. The CIWS will either shoot down all of the missiles in rapid succession or fail to get all of them and get blown up with the rest of the ship. Either way, the barrage won't last long, returning to silence again until the next attack comes.

In other words, a lot of nothing interspersed with brief interludes of tremendous gunfire and explosions.

[Fortinbras]

In other words, a lot of nothing interspersed with brief interludes of tremendous gunfire and explosions.

Which, it is often said, is a pretty apt description of warfare in general. At least warfare involving firearms.

[Brother Oni]

Which, it is often said, is a pretty apt description of warfare in general. At least warfare involving firearms.

Siege warfare from any era is particularly sporadic. Long stretches of mind numbing tedium interspersed with some of the most frantic, vicious, close range fighting you could possibly imagine.

[JustSomeGuy]

To take it back to the archer vs. man-at-arms a moment:

The human body adapts to forces applied to the anatomy of the whole kinetic chain relatviely to the loads subjected to during any particular stressor... this means that whatever body parts are used during a movement will adapt to it and become stronger, given adequate rest and food etc.

Because the bowman is only using one specific action (other than his assumed fairly active lifestyle, but' we'll ignore that here), he will adapt to that action only - hence one arm overdeveloped in comparrison to the other, presumably nothing notable in the legs/hips/torso etc. whereas the man-at-arms will have to deal with many different actions with a wide variety of movements and suchlike, so he will adapt broadly to many different stresses - running in armour, two handed strikes, fast one-handed lunges, i'm no expert and you guys can probably list way more stuff he'll do, but the point is his body will adapt to deal with plenty of stuff so he'll develop a generally robust frame of bones, muscle and connective tissue to handle it all.

To summarise, it is not that the bowman is overdeveloped in any particular way, but instead relatively underdeveloped in his anatomical structure that is not directly used in archery, meanwhile the melee guy will not have any 'physical weak links' as such as he has to be ready for (and will have adapted to) a wide range of actions.

[Autolykos]

As an addition to this question, how does a warship react to being struck by a missile, and how do different tropes of vessel fare against missile strikes? What does a stoke to the top deck do? Amidship? Near the water line? What would the crew be doing?

It's a pretty generic question, so you'll get a generic answer. Usually, the point of anti-ship missiles is not to sink the other ship. That would require an excessive amount of explosives and make the missile slow, heavy and expensive. They "just" knock out the bridge. A modern ship without sensors, radio and fire control is basically a swimming hunk of metal. It won't be of much use anymore until it's hauled back to port and rebuilt, and can be sunk/boarded after the battle at your leisure, should you desire to do so.

[JustSomeGuy]

I think i read somewhere that naval warfare is going to change somewhat, if not dramatically, because of an advancement in weapons' technology designed to specifically target ships at sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-sh...listic_missile

[Brother Oni]

I think i read somewhere that naval warfare is going to change somewhat, if not dramatically, because of an advancement in weapons' technology designed to specifically target ships at sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-sh...listic_missile

Not just weapons technology, but other technologies as well.

You don't even have to invest into fancy stealth ships as proved by the submarine HSwMS Gotland, which snuck into an entire carrier group, 'sunk' the carrier USS Ronald Regan then got out again: link.

Apparently the exercise resulted in major changes to US Navy anti-submarine doctrine and tactics, so another development that could have significant effects is not too far fetched.

[Autolykos]

You don't even have to invest into fancy stealth ships as proved by the submarine HSwMS Gotland, which snuck into an entire carrier group, 'sunk' the carrier USS Ronald Regan then got out again: link.

Apparently the exercise resulted in major changes to US Navy anti-submarine doctrine and tactics, so another development that could have significant effects is not too far fetched.

Yup, non-nuclear submarines can be scary quiet. Nuclear subs may have longer range, but they'll always make some noise because you can't really switch off the coolant pumps - if you did, you might soon have a much less pleasant source of noise on board...
Of course, a sub with pretty much all systems switched off is practically blind and unable to maneuver - but it can get lucky. And subs are way cheaper than carriers.

[Incanur]

To summarise, it is not that the bowman is overdeveloped in any particular way, but instead relatively underdeveloped in his anatomical structure that is not directly used in archery, meanwhile the melee guy will not have any 'physical weak links' as such as he has to be ready for (and will have adapted to) a wide range of actions.

Again, this assumes that archers didn't practice with melee weapons and men-at-arms didn't practice archery. But we know that archers wielded swords, polearms, and daggers as well as that various men-at-arms loved to hunt with the bow.

[JustSomeGuy]

Which might muddy the waters a tad, but they still primarily trained the one aspect and will have adapted accordingly.

[Galloglaich]

I used to play 'harpoon' back in the 80's into the early 90's, and through competition those of us involved used to read up a lot on the technology of the day - back then you could get Janes Defense Weekly on a newsstand. We also paid very close attention to the Falkland Islands War which was an interesting though small naval conflict of our day. I learned quite a bit about naval warfare from that era, which is very different from naval warfare in WW II and probably yet again from naval warfare in 2013.

But these were the key things I remember, in order of importance:

Missiles shoot down missiles

This is one of the most important things. Though it looks really cool in action, point defense / CIWS / Phalanx are really not the main defense for a ship. They can only shoot down one or two targets at a time (depending on the speed of the target) but cruise missiles can come 20 or 30 or more at a time. The real defense is from the SAM missiles and, in the case of the Americans, missiles fired by the combat air patrol of their aircraft carriers.

The US has an advantage here on two fronts, first their AEGIS systems, which are complex, integrated radar systems originally designed for the AEGIS cruisers, then also implemented on their Arleigh Burke class of Destroyers (huge destroyers which are really also cruisers, not sure why they classified them as destroyers actually) and now other ships like Amphibious landing ships (LSD etc.)

These allow deployment of the excellent 'Standard' Surface to Air Missile, in huge numbers if necessary, all controlled by the massive radar on the ships and computer systems that allow them to integrate with the radar of the other ships. Standard missiles are extremely effective, fast, accurate, reliable, long ranged; and are used by the navies of many countries around the world that the US is closely allied with. They can shoot down cruise missiles, they even have a version with some anti ballistic missile capability (which the navy used to shoot down a satellite as a sort of test / threat a while back)

The Russians also have sophisticated air defense systems with very fast SAM's fired by VLS type launchers that could shoot dozens at a time, and powerful radars to guide them. But they only had a few of the much more modern type ships, like this Sovremenny class, which is apparently still being used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovrem...lass_destroyer

But the radar horizon is limited
The limitation of this is the horizon. Which is only 26 miles in most cases, the radar horizon is a bit further from a mast high up on a ship, but not much (depending on the speed of the missiles that are coming). This is why cruise missiles fly low to the ground, not to 'fly under the radar' exactly, but to fly so low that they can't be seen (there is no line of sight) until they are too close to do much about them. The AEGIS system further extends the effective radar horizon by allowing the radars of multiple ships to integrate in guiding the missiles, (so if you have a formation of ships several miles apart they can provide a screen for the most important ones, like the carriers) but this still is pretty limited. Which is why the US navy also uses large aircraft carriers, because...

Carrier based aircraft can also shoot down missiles

It was the belief anyway, back in the day, that the Phoenix missile on the F-14 Tomcat, thanks to 'look-down / shoot-down' radar and a bunch of other features, could shoot down cruise missiles. Patrolling aircraft, aided by aircraft such as the E-2 hawkeye, can detect missiles very far away, hundreds of miles, which vastly extends the effective range of the air defense shield, and thus the time that they can try to shoot down incoming threats. From what I understand, the AAMRAM and possibly other missiles carrier by the F-18's which provide the CAP today have even more of this capability. But it's still also limited by how many missiles each aircraft can carry (I think the F-14 carried 6 phoenix missiles, which was a lot, and the F-18 probably carries around 8 or 10 AAMRAM)

Cruise missiles - effective but not invincible

Most attacks above the surface against a ship will come from cruise missiles, that is to say, missiles which skim the water so as to be undetected by radar until they are very close (within 25 or 30 miles). In my day the most famous cruise missile was the French exocet, used to sink several ships during the falklands conflict. But the truth was, if you looked at that war in detail, the exocet didn't always work, mainly because their warhead wasn't powerful enough to sink the ships they hit. US Cruise missiles are the now outdated Harpoon, and the Tomahawk. Harpoon was accurate but had a limited range of about 50 or 60 miles, if I remember correctly, and a pretty small warhead, something a WW II era ship would sort of shrug off pretty easily I think, though modern warships have much less armor (though more today than they did in the 60's and 70's).

Tomahawk is scary accurate (thanks to satellite navigation, among other guidance systems), has a much better range, 300 miles or more, (maybe much more by now) and a bit bigger warhead, but not too big. Exocet was even smaller and shorter ranged than the Harpoon, with a warhead of a couple of hundred pounds (compare this to WW II when torpedoes and bombs used against naval targets had warheads between 500 lbs and 2000 lbs, usually more toward the latter). Tomahawks can also be launched from Submarines, which is a big deal (more on that in a second).

All three of these missiles have another major flaw which is that they are slow, they fly at sub-sonic speeds, around 500 - 600 mph. Which sounds fast but gives a good air defense system a decent amount of time to shoot them down.

Russian Cruise Missiles are much faster

The Russians figured out supersonic cruise missiles back in the 80's. Some of these, even back then, went mach 3. According to the wiki I just read on one of the Russian missiles, while defenders have 2 or 3 minutes to react to a Tomahawk or a Harpoon, they have only 20 or 30 seconds to respond to one of the faster Russian missiles (also used by the Chinese). Much harder to detect in time and shoot down! They also, from what I remember had much bigger warheads. Russians like a big boom. During the Cold War the Soviet doctrine was to pack tons of these missiles into ships, but also to supplement that by arming large fleets of stand-off bombers, and even shore based positions*, and submarines, with huge numbers of these powerful cruise missiles, like this one:

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

though they have many other variants.

But at close range, SAMs are the most lethal weapon of all
One of the things we figured out in playing Harpoon, and later learned was doctrine, that in the event that enemy ships actually come within radar horizon range of each other, the most deadly weapon they have are their SAM missiles, especially on those ships like the AEGIS class cruisers and destroyers, the Russian Sovremenny class and probably whatever the top Chinese and European warships are, (Japan also uses AEGIS class) which have vertical launch systems that can shoot hundreds of missiles in a matter of a minute or two. The SAMS have small warheads but they go so fast (some as fast as Mach 6), and modern ships are so lightly armored, that they can devastate an enemy ship before it could launch heavier cruise missiles let alone fire guns.

Submarines launch Cruise missiles too
Submarines also rely on missiles a great deal, more than they do torpedoes these days (though the Russians have also developed some very fast torpedoes). A sub can obviously get much closer before firing which is another major threat.

So can smaller vessels
Smaller coastal vessels and fast patrol boats, such as are used by the North Koreans and also by the various nations (China, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines and Japan) currently arguing about the islands in between them, can also carry cruise missiles, and thus pose a threat to naval assets operating near coastal areas.

So what would it actually look like?
In summary, yes a big flash of missiles, shooting at each other, flying from far away, launched by aircraft, by submarines, and by other vessels, then some which get through the SAMS and the electronic countermeasures, will strike, cripple and sink ships. I think it would all be over pretty quickly. Most of the naval battles we tried out in Harpoon were very one-sided and lasted no more than 10 or 20 minutes of game time, some as little as 2 or 3 minutes.

What is new today?

Since that era, there are lasers used for point defense, (probably at a much longer range than the Phalanx), there is stealth which limits how far ships can be seen, and there are drones, both the flying type and the (to me) even creepier swimming type. Plus much more sophisticated electronic warfare. An enemy fleet might be crippled by a virus before it even fires a shot. But I am not really up to speed on the current technologies (these days you have to pay a $3000 per year subscription to read Janes any more)


G

*I think the shore based positions are one of the big worries they have about Iran, since they probably have some fast Russian cruise missiles that they could launch at Tankers in the Persian Gulf from any number of hardened land sites along their very long coastline, and wipe out any shipping going through that vital commerce route.

[Raum]

The Strait of Hormuz is only 21 nautical miles wide. So it's not only shore based missiles, it's also fast attack craft. They'd be one way trips for the most part but, if you don't care about the losses, they're also cheap.

You are right to point out the shore based missiles in particular though - they can be maintained in hardened bunkers or on mobile trucks. Either is going to complicate interdiction. This is Iran's ultimate deterrant, the near certainty they can (at least temporarily) stop a large percentage of the world's oil shipments.

[Galloglaich]

Wow... apparently Harpoon is still around but is no longer a game as such, but a hard core military simulation sold "on a case by case basis to friendly governments"

http://www.h3milsim.net/

What a different world we live in today.

G

[Incanur]

Which might muddy the waters a tad, but they still primarily trained the one aspect and will have adapted accordingly.

They did? I'm skeptical. While it possibly applies in Western Europe, the purported difference between archery and melee specialization fails completely if you travel east. From Egypt to Japan, cavalry - including heavily armored cavalry - used bows. Good horsemen also fought masterfully with swords, maces, and lances. There's no indication shooting well made such cavalry soldiers any worse up close. To the contrary, bushi, Mamluks, and Manchus had a fearsome reputation at hand strokes.

You see a similar dynamic with swords and daggers in sixteenth-century Europe. Every soldier carried these weapons regardless of whatever else they carried. Any quality soldiers was expected to be at least a decent swordsman.

[Brother Oni]

They did? I'm skeptical. While it possibly applies in Western Europe, the purported difference between archery and melee specialization fails completely if you travel east.

I think in most cases, it's a relative difference rather than an absolute one.
Just because an archer would be better adapted at shooting with a high poundage bow than swinging a sword, doesn't mean he's actually bad at using swords.

A combat medic isn't any less of a soldier than his compatriots (Ranger Medics for example), he just has additional training that makes him better at a particular role.

[JustSomeGuy]

Mate, come on - the original question 2) was comparing the average longbowman against the average man at arms; i'm sure by that he meant to take each to an extreme where a comparrison would be worthwhile, not comparing two sets of people who did both activities in similar amounts, which would be a kind of silly thing to compare. I was trying to explain further why the illustrated physical differences would occur, beyond what had been said already.

[fusilier]

Not just weapons technology, but other technologies as well.

You don't even have to invest into fancy stealth ships as proved by the submarine HSwMS Gotland, which snuck into an entire carrier group, 'sunk' the carrier USS Ronald Regan then got out again: link.

Apparently the exercise resulted in major changes to US Navy anti-submarine doctrine and tactics, so another development that could have significant effects is not too far fetched.

I had an uncle who served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. Whenever they decided to do a mock battle with a submarine, the sub would have a firing solution within a few hours . . . and this was an anti-submarine aircraft carrier!

[Incanur]

I of course raise the issue with a theoretical axe to grind. Note that various masters including Giacomo di Grassi, George Silver, and Miyamoto Musashi argued against specialization. Di Grassi put it as follows:

[T]he soldier differeth from other men, not because he is more skilful in handling the sword or javelyn, but for that he is expert in everie occasion to know the best advantage & with judgement both to defend himself with anie thing whatsoever, and therewithal saflie to offend the enemie : In which & no other thing consisteth true skirmishing.

[fusilier]

Yup, non-nuclear submarines can be scary quiet. . . .

When running on their batteries! When those diesel engines are going it's a different story. ;-)

But yeah, at least up to the 1990s there were reports that older Diesel-electric subs were being used for spying (for example sneaking into a port), because they were so quiet.

Of course sonar (i.e. active sonar) is a different story -- it requires certain stealth technologies to circumvent.

[AgentPaper]

I of course raise the issue with a theoretical axe to grind. Note that various masters including Giacomo di Grassi, George Silver, and Miyamoto Musashi argued against specialization. Di Grassi put it as follows:

Sure, but the question wasn't whether soldiers had physical deformities, but whether archers did. And when you talk about an archer, it's assumed that archery is the main, if not only, thing they do.

[Straybow]

Throat slitting-wise, reading non-fiction by the ex-SAS soldier Andy McNabb (who is not without controversy as a factual source), I get the impression commandos are encouraged to use a brutally enthusiastic sawing motion and not stop until the enemy is semi-decpitated rather quickly slicing once across the neck.

Anybody ever seen the movie The Hunted with Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro? Jones is a civilian combat expert employed by USDOD for special forces training, supposedly based on a real dude. They use a kukhri-like knife-axe hybrid.

From behind they begin with a slash to the forearm near the inside of the elbow to disable the trigger hand. Then they move to the front (or on top if they've tripped him) and perform five fast slashes with the off hand pressed on the back of the blade: to each side of the base of the neck, to each side of the groin to get the femoral arteries, and once down the sternum and belly. Not necessarily in that order. There might've been a stab to the neck before moving to the front, can't recall. The opening move when surprising a sentry from the front was different, can't recall.

The intent is massive blood loss and shock to make a quick, sure, and quiet (not silent) kill.

As somebody has said, overkill is not a bad thing.

[Avilan the Grey]

...We could just ask Christopher Lee about the whole backstabbing / throatslitting thing.

[JustSomeGuy]

I of course raise the issue with a theoretical axe to grind. Note that various masters including Giacomo di Grassi, George Silver, and Miyamoto Musashi argued against specialization. Di Grassi put it as follows:

On that, if you know, it has been posted here multiple times before about the various rates of pay for different combat roles during battles... if someone could operate equally well in either role, howdoes this reflect upon the 'makeup' of the fighting force? Did people chose which role they would fight in, was it assigned according to their commanders' needs, did they weigh up the risks against the pay on offer against how many of each soldier type they had/required (in effect paying more for skills shortages or anything)?

Also, given the prestige difference between bowmen and knights, where did men-at-arms fit in to it - level with the bowmen, or closer to the knights they would be serving/fighting?

It strikes me as an odd situation for large-scale fighting forces (although scouts and outriders and the like it makes good sense to be versed in a variety of techniques)

I'm imagining the 'classic english' fieldhand archer in a massed unit with some form of improvised spear/pike defence readied against a mounted charge, perhaps with simple melee weapons to hand should they be required in this situation moreso than a true jack-of-all-trades sort, because i don't imagine many men in an army could or would divide their time learning many different combat roles, although 1) obviously those archers i mentioned earlier would've wrestled and such for fun and prestige back home i imagine, and 2)i am really pulling this out of nowhere other than popular imagery and media representrations

[Matthew]

Exactly so. Men can fulfil multiple roles as soldiers, but there were roles they were better prepared for and paid accordingly to do. The ideal soldier, of course, is able to function equally brilliantly in all roles, but that is an ideal and not the reality.

[AgentPaper]

Becoming really good at something takes a really long time. It seems likely that most soldiers were proficient in many areas, but if you want to be the best swordsman you can be, or the best bowman, or the best light cavalryman, or whatever, then you really need to spend a lot of time doing just that one thing to hone your skills to an exceptional level.

Sure a bowman could pick up a sword and be a passable man-at-arms, but he's not going to last long against the guy who has spent ten thousand hours practicing with his sword. Conversely, a swordsman can pick up a bow and probably hit a target at ten paces reliably, but he's not going to be able to put it dead center at 100 paces while standing on one leg like the guy who grew up with a bow in his hands can.