Destroyers are too small for what they need to do

The logical size for a BMD destroyer is large enough to carry a radar that is in turn large enough to track ICBMs at the maximum range. The maximum range is when an ICBM at apogee (1200kms altitude) appears on the horizon, at which point it will be ~4200kms away from the detecting radar (+/-100kms depending on the height of the radar). For this you need a radar thats about 37m across, in the X-band, which will be able to differentiate between an actual reentry vehicle and a decoy balloon.

Incidentally this is the radar that will eventually be installed on the SBX-1. But you don't just need one of these, you need four for all around visions, inclined at 30 degrees, and placed at right angles to each other, which is then turned 45degrees to the centerline of the ship in a diamond pattern. Such a device is just shy of 60m across.

Which means you need a ship of at least 60m beam to carry it without capsizing.

A length to beam ratio 8:1 gives it a length of 480m.
A beam to depth ratio of 2.25:1 gives it a draft of 26.7m
A streamlined hull has a volumetric ratio of ~0.5
That gives a full load displacement of 384,480tonnes.

That is the minimum size of a future destroyer with the capability it actually need to have, that's just a hull, the radar, and a couple hundred thousand tonnes of ballast. BASIC functionality.
Prove me wrong.

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    networked theater-wide phased array radars are the future

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The trouble with synthetic aperture radar is they need to be stationary. Stationary targets are too vulnerable. A ship at sea is virtually impossible to hit at long range even assuming you can track it. And if it's a BMD ship you're going to have trouble tracking it because it can shoot down satellites.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They don't need to be stationary, computers can calculate the dynamic differences continually.

        Everything is stationary at an instant in time.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I'll take your word for it, studying radar confuses and angers me, but it's my understanding that the precision required is measured in micrometers which is simply impossible using two ships at sea.
          The entire array needs to be located on one ship thus, relative to itself, completely stationary.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The trouble with synthetic aperture radar is they need to be stationary. Stationary targets are too vulnerable. A ship at sea is virtually impossible to hit at long range even assuming you can track it. And if it's a BMD ship you're going to have trouble tracking it because it can shoot down satellites.

            They don't need to be stationary, computers can calculate the dynamic differences continually.

            Everything is stationary at an instant in time.

            well, it's more like they SHOULD have constant acceleration or shit gets tricky.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      They don't need to be stationary, computers can calculate the dynamic differences continually.

      Everything is stationary at an instant in time.

      You don't even need to combine the radars, right? Interferometry is only needed for multiple antennae fusing the same target, but if each ship is assigned one section of the sky, this doesn't apply, no?

      https://i.imgur.com/9QK141m.png

      The logical size for a BMD destroyer is large enough to carry a radar that is in turn large enough to track ICBMs at the maximum range. The maximum range is when an ICBM at apogee (1200kms altitude) appears on the horizon, at which point it will be ~4200kms away from the detecting radar (+/-100kms depending on the height of the radar). For this you need a radar thats about 37m across, in the X-band, which will be able to differentiate between an actual reentry vehicle and a decoy balloon.

      Incidentally this is the radar that will eventually be installed on the SBX-1. But you don't just need one of these, you need four for all around visions, inclined at 30 degrees, and placed at right angles to each other, which is then turned 45degrees to the centerline of the ship in a diamond pattern. Such a device is just shy of 60m across.

      Which means you need a ship of at least 60m beam to carry it without capsizing.

      A length to beam ratio 8:1 gives it a length of 480m.
      A beam to depth ratio of 2.25:1 gives it a draft of 26.7m
      A streamlined hull has a volumetric ratio of ~0.5
      That gives a full load displacement of 384,480tonnes.

      That is the minimum size of a future destroyer with the capability it actually need to have, that's just a hull, the radar, and a couple hundred thousand tonnes of ballast. BASIC functionality.
      Prove me wrong.

      Where do you get these numbers from? Even if you are off by 10% in any one of your numbers it dramatically affects your final calculation.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Where do you get these numbers from?
        Which numbers? I walked you through most of the math.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >For this you need a radar thats about 37m across, in the X-band, which will be able to differentiate between an actual reentry vehicle and a decoy balloon.

          Where does 37 meters come from?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            So that math was actually explained to me by someone who understands it, but I just took the dimensions of the SBX-1 radar which I have on good authority is "the minimum size" for this job.
            The dimensions aren't accidental, something something range is something something aperture something something wavelength.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              OK, assuming that number is correct, which seems kind of arbitrary to me because obviously you could make a smaller XBand radar that still functions with less capability, but I digress, then I still think you are incorrect in your assumptions.

              Why are 4 needed? Why doesn't just one work.

              Why not a smaller length to beam ratio?

              Why can't the radar extend farther than the beam?

              You make a lot of assumptions that don't seem too sound. But probably the simplest reason to disagree is that there is no reason they *need* to choose a radar just like the one on the SBX-1.

              Also one more thing, there is the possibility of mounting multiple small radars on the same ship and fusing the signals, and reducing the diameter on each individual section.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Now these are questions I can answer
                >Why are 4 needed? Why doesn't just one work.
                360 degree vision. When you're talking about fighting at these sort or ranges we're shooting around the planet which is a sphere. You need to see in all directions at all times.
                You could in theory just have one and rotate it, but that's strictly inferior to four, and if you're going to develop a new class of ship anyway why would you choose the inferior version when it's not actually going to save you that much money?

                >Why not a smaller length to beam ratio?
                So slow ships are 6:1, fast ships are 8:1, all ships are, generally speaking somewhere in between, but generally we like warships to be fast.

                >Why can't the radar extend farther than the beam?
                Stability. The ship would capsize. Even with this beam the stability of the ship is questionable depending on how high up the radar is mounted (it weighs more than 30,000 tonnes alone).
                > But probably the simplest reason to disagree is that there is no reason they *need* to choose a radar just like the one on the SBX-1.
                Read the thread, that's what we've been discussing.

                Thousand-satellite constellations are now feasible. It's just a matter of figuring out how to mass-produce them cheaply enough. The nice thing about the bottom end of LEO is that it's self-cleaning, so as long as you can cheaply replace your birds every few years, any debris won't be a problem for long.

                They're all easier to shoot down than ICBMs.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >it's not actually going to save you that much money?
                It actually is, if the alternative is building one 10-billion-dollar ship instead of one 40-billion-dollar ship, because your ship dimension calculations are contingent on that, remember?

                What is the operational difference between one such radar rotated, and four such radars?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Let me get this straight. You want them to:
                1) Shoot down a thousand satellites, in order to clear the way for the ICBMs
                2) Launch the ICBMs, because now nothing can stop them!

                You do realize that when they start shooting down satellites, the US is going to launch on their ICBM silos? Their missiles will get nuked waiting for the satellites to get shot down so that they can launch safely without the satellites transmitting targeting data to the BMD platforms.

                There are ways to degrade satellite constellations, ways to look for weak points like communications links, and so forth, but "satellites are easier to shoot down than ICBMs" is not a very good argument for building a fleet of 500-meter, 400,000-ton ships for carrying "optimized" X-band radars.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >So that math was actually explained to me by someone who understands it,

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >You don't even need to combine the radars, right?
        theoretically you could fuse multiple radars watching the same piece of the sky into one, like the astronomers do to take extremely good photographs of the sky with just a few telescopes scattered across the planet

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You are moronic and know it. Good job wasting time typing all that shit up to not get bumped.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >The logical size for a BMD destroyer is large enough to carry a radar that is in turn large enough to track ICBMs at the maximum range.
    Is it though?
    Why does a BMD ship need to track an ICBM at maximum range?
    What data do you have that suggests current Ageis set ups inadequate for intercepting ICBMs?
    What practical improvements would a BMD larger than the carrier its supposed to be protecting bring, compared to current BMD destroyer/cruiser hulls?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Why does a BMD ship need to track an ICBM at maximum range?
      In case China or North Korea decide to blow up the world.
      >What data do you have that suggests current Ageis set ups inadequate for intercepting ICBMs?
      The SPY-6 Radar, which is not sufficient either, does not fit on current destroyers. For the full SPY-6 it looks like you need a ~32,000 tonne hull. The Flight III Burkes are too small.

      Which lead me to ask, what ship isn't too small?
      >What practical improvements would a BMD larger than the carrier its supposed to be protecting bring, compared to current BMD destroyer/cruiser hulls?
      BMDs aren't for protecting CVBGs, they're protecting countries/continents/hemispheres. That said they're perfectly capable of protecting a CVBG so why would you bother with both?

      >Is it though?
      Yeah.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >In case China or North Korea decide to blow up the world.
        Wouldn't terrestrial systems be a lot more useful against a nuclear first strike by an enemy?

        >The SPY-6 Radar, which is not sufficient either, does not fit on current destroyers.
        Which SPY-6 radar version exactly? Because most SPY-6 versions are already fitted to destroyer hulls or will be fitted to destroyer hulls in the near future.

        >BMDs aren't for protecting CVBGs
        Ballistic missile defense ships are for protecting carrier groups against short range and mid range ballistic missiles (and ICBMs if anyone was desperate enough to attempt shooting one at a CVBG). Using ship based BMDs to protect terrestrial targets would be a trifecta of impractical, wasteful and inferior.
        I'm not sure you really understand how ICBM defense works.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Wouldn't terrestrial systems be a lot more useful against a nuclear first strike by an enemy?
          Terrestrial systems are stationary and therefore vulnerable. A ship at sea is virtually impossible to hit at long range, even assuming you can track, and tracking a BMD ship is exceptionally difficult because it can shoot down satellites.
          This is the reasoning behind Japan abandoning it's AEGIS ashore program to focus on a large destroyer program.

          >Which SPY-6 radar version exactly?
          Most Destroyers have the SPY-1D. The SPY-6 has been cut down, dramatically reducing it's functionality, to fit on the flight III Burke which isn't in service yet AFAIK.

          >Ballistic missile defense ships are for protecting carrier groups against short range and mid range ballistic missiles
          No the current version of BMD is theater missile defense. Which is fine if you're Japan and you're in the same theater as North Korea, but they have essentially no capability against ICBMs.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >and therefore vulnerable
            Stationary BMD are vulnerable to what exactly? Missiles?

            >This is the reasoning behind Japan abandoning it's AEGIS ashore program to focus on a large destroyer program.
            Except that China and NK can both hit japan with medium range ballistic missiles, making their alleged desire for a littoral BMD force against ICBMs unlikely.
            Even more unlikely is the idea that Japs want these ships because they can't be tracked or hit by their enemies, given China possesses an implessive naval forces compared to japan and could easily track and destroy these ships.
            In reality, Japan's actual reasons for cancelling the aegis ashore program are a tangle of political maneuvering and have nothing to do with a coherent defensive strategy.

            >The SPY-6 has been cut down, dramatically reducing it's functionality
            Cool story, let's see some proof.

            >the flight III Burke which isn't in service yet AFAIK.
            There's more than one version of the SPY-6, friend. The V2 is already being fitted JFK at the moment.

            >No the current version of BMD is theater missile defense.
            Littoral BMDs are intended for theater missile defense because ICBMs are not a practical weapon against carrier groups.
            Terrestrial defenses are designed to be used against ICBMs due their inherent superiority of being able to be significantly larger, more powerful, better distributed, better positioned, better protected and cheaper compared to trying to string together an interception envelope with littoral fleets.

            Either way, let's remember that in your opinion a BMD destroyer allegedly needs a displacement 4 x larger than a Nimitz class, which would be laughably wasteful and impractical given that it's only advantage compared to existing BMD destroyers is intercept ICBMs, which will not be fired at a CVG. More so, if you imagine it as defense for terrestrial targets, it becomes even more laughable, given how many of these things you would need to create defense screen.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >Stationary BMD are vulnerable to what exactly? Missiles?
              Everything. If you know where it is then there are any number of ways to destroy, disable, or suppress it even without active tracking. In fact you can design weapons or counters exclusively for that specific installation for much less than the cost of the installation. It's a fool's game.

              >making their alleged desire for a littoral BMD force against ICBMs unlikely.
              Which is why that's not what they're doing. They're going for theater ballistic missile defence. But that's Japan. For a country like the United States or Australia we NEED intercontinental ballistic missile defence which needs a much bigger radar (and bigger interceptors too but that's not a design limitation on the ship).

              >Cool story, let's see some proof.
              Here, pretty sure this has most of the details more or less correctly.

              >There's more than one version of the SPY-6, friend.
              The wiki page isn't that useful here.

              >Littoral BMD
              What's littoral BMD? What a dumb concept, you don't need BMD for rivers and reefs.
              >Terrestrial defenses are designed to be used against ICBMs due their inherent superiority of being able to be significantly larger, more powerful, better distributed, better positioned, better protected and cheaper compared to trying to string together an interception envelope with littoral fleets.
              Except that's not true. And I don't think you know what littoral means.

              > a displacement 4 x larger than a Nimitz class, which would be laughably wasteful and impractical
              Why? Steel is cheap, air is free. The cost of a ship is not in it's hull, it's in the systems and crew.

              Picrel is such a radar, only it doesn't work properly and it's mounted on a stupid hull.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >you don't need BMD for rivers and reefs.
                Whoof.

                Look, littoral BMD means that you put ships with interceptors near the coastline of either the attacker (BPI) or the target (mid-course or point-defense, depending on how far inland the targets are). You basically use them as mobile interceptor launch sites.

                You seem to be forgetting that interceptors aren't SARH. You need to get them close enough to make the final target selection and attack on their own. The advantage of a big X-band radar is the ability to be extra-precise, both in telemetry and in discrimination. That tells you where and when to put the interceptors. If you can manage that part, they'll do the rest on their own.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >You basically use them as mobile interceptor launch sites.
                Which is completely independent of any concept of littoral warfare. Whether they're in port or in the middle of the north pacific, they're doing the same thing.

                >You need to get them close enough to make the final target selection and attack on their own.
                Yeah and it's a big sky. So you need a big radar to look at as much of it as possible at once, and still be able to tell the difference between very small things. A megaton yield plutonium bomb is about the size of a basketball travelling at 20,000kph.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >A ship at sea is virtually impossible to hit at long range

            https://i.imgur.com/EoyWzQH.jpg

            >and therefore vulnerable
            Stationary BMD are vulnerable to what exactly? Missiles?

            >This is the reasoning behind Japan abandoning it's AEGIS ashore program to focus on a large destroyer program.
            Except that China and NK can both hit japan with medium range ballistic missiles, making their alleged desire for a littoral BMD force against ICBMs unlikely.
            Even more unlikely is the idea that Japs want these ships because they can't be tracked or hit by their enemies, given China possesses an implessive naval forces compared to japan and could easily track and destroy these ships.
            In reality, Japan's actual reasons for cancelling the aegis ashore program are a tangle of political maneuvering and have nothing to do with a coherent defensive strategy.

            >The SPY-6 has been cut down, dramatically reducing it's functionality
            Cool story, let's see some proof.

            >the flight III Burke which isn't in service yet AFAIK.
            There's more than one version of the SPY-6, friend. The V2 is already being fitted JFK at the moment.

            >No the current version of BMD is theater missile defense.
            Littoral BMDs are intended for theater missile defense because ICBMs are not a practical weapon against carrier groups.
            Terrestrial defenses are designed to be used against ICBMs due their inherent superiority of being able to be significantly larger, more powerful, better distributed, better positioned, better protected and cheaper compared to trying to string together an interception envelope with littoral fleets.

            Either way, let's remember that in your opinion a BMD destroyer allegedly needs a displacement 4 x larger than a Nimitz class, which would be laughably wasteful and impractical given that it's only advantage compared to existing BMD destroyers is intercept ICBMs, which will not be fired at a CVG. More so, if you imagine it as defense for terrestrial targets, it becomes even more laughable, given how many of these things you would need to create defense screen.

            >ICBMs are not a practical weapon against carrier groups
            Why? The Chinks seem fairly confident in their DF-2x antiship ballistic missiles

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Because they move around. You have to find them first, and then have a pretty good guess at where they're going to be when the missile finally gets there.
              And that's ASSUMING you've got satellites to do that, and BMD ships shoot down satellites, that's what they're for.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >Why? The Chinks seem fairly confident in their DF-2x antiship ballistic missiles

              DF-2xes are not ICBMs but SRBM. I think you use "ICBM" as a synonym to "ballistic missile" which is wrong.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >What practical improvements would a BMD larger than the carrier its supposed to be protecting bring, compared to current BMD destroyer/cruiser hulls?

      It'd be awesome.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      > Why does a BMD ship need to track an ICBM at maximum range?

      They don't, he's an idiot.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Says the guy replying to a 14 hour old post but saying nothing at all.
        thanks for bumping the thread I guess.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The Earth, is fricking round.

          A missile defense system needs to be built around detecting the launch and if possible intercepting the guidance vehicle before apogee.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >The Earth, is fricking round.
            You don't say. And yet you seem to think Radar can see around corners.
            >A missile defense system needs to be built around detecting the launch and if possible intercepting the guidance vehicle before apogee.
            And if that doesn't work, then what? We all just die I guess.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              > And if that doesn't work, then what?

              Even terminal interception by counter missiles needs satellite detection to get the interceptor missiles into position to try for an interception.

              If you're relying on ground radar for everything, then your interceptor has to be unreasonably fast.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                You know what a relatively slow interceptor is good for? Shooting down enemy missile detection satellites so they can't provide targeting data to terminal interceptors.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                If you wait until reentry to detect then you're back to the decoy problem and need an unreasonable amount of unreasonably fast interceptors, most of which will be expended hitting non-threats.

                You intercept in ascent or at apogee or you don't bother and just lean all in on MAD.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                You
                >at apogee
                also you

                The Earth, is fricking round.

                A missile defense system needs to be built around detecting the launch and if possible intercepting the guidance vehicle before apogee.

                The plan is to fire blindly into the sky is it?

                https://i.imgur.com/gmn9xsp.jpg

                Now, if we REALLY want to disrupt the balance of power, what we ought to field is stealth nuclear cruise missiles instead of traditional SLBMs.

                Stealth is kind of a meme. Low RCS is a good idea, don't get me wrong, but it's not the cloak of invisibility it was 30 years ago.

                You can also talk about sea-skimming hypersonics, strategic range cruise torpedoes, and missiles with reactive armor and active defenses. That's why I think lasers are a meme, really expensive to develop, really easy to counter. So what you want in your missile defense is something future proof. Something that as new technology becomes available it's got the space, it's got the power, it's good to go plug and play.

                So we ask the question - what's the maximum size of a radar beyond which a bigger radar is not better. And that's the guiding principle of the SBX-1, if you build a better radar than that it's not actually going to see anything that the SBX-1 can't. Therefore we might conceivably need that, so we should build a ship that can handle that, and in so doing guarantee that we won't suddenly find our ships unable to provide a capability at a critical moment.

                The alternative is we don't do that, at which point the enemy can clearly see an exploitable weakness, guaranteeing that we will in fact need that capability the minute an enemy decides to get serious against us, and there are now a few candidates.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                You know what enemy missile detection satellites are good for? Detecting the launch of slow anti-satellite interceptors and relaying the command to launch all available nuclear weapons.

                Your argument makes no sense. Either the enemy is targeting satellites relaying data to interceptors, in which case congratulations, you've just won nuclear war, because you get to destroy all of your opponent's missiles in their silos while they're busy destroying thousands of satellites and the thousands of backups to those thousands of satellites. Or the enemy isn't targeting satellites and is just full sending their nukes, in which case you don't need 400,000 ton radar ships because all of your targeting data will be coming from satellites.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    AWACS
    W
    A
    C
    S

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      AWACS actually make the problem worse because the radar being high up means it needs an even LONGER range to discriminate between RVs and and Decoys at apogee. It's not a huge difference when you're talking about 10kms altitude of the AWACS versus 1200kms altitude of the ICBM, but the radar array is still way to bulky to put on a plane. Never mind the power requirements.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >differentiate between an actual reentry vehicle and a decoy balloon
    doppler

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >...a BMD destroyer... need a radar thats about 37m across, in the X-band, ... you need four for all around visions, inclined at 30 degrees, and placed at right angles to each othear, which is then turned 45degrees to the centerline of the ship in a diamond pattern. Such a device is just shy of 60m across.

    The frick are you smoking?

    First of all, there is no existing definition what-so-ever that a ship with a 37m or more beam would be categorized as a "destroyer".

    Secondly, if the ICBM is at its apogee, it is already too late to START trying to shoot it down because your missile will not reach it before its terminal phase because you are too far away. Note that this is assuming it doesn't have MIRVs that deploy before the terminal phase which is probably an optimistic assumption. You seem to be confusing reentry vehicle interception with ICBM interception which are completely different subject.

    Thirdly, you don't need X-band to DETECT an ICBM.
    You need X-band (if you are going to dream, then you would be better off with the lower K-band) to develop a high precision targeting solution and put fires in the path of the ICBM.

    Alternatively, you are trying to target reentry vehicles that are moving at perhaps Mach 25 and need to travel some 1200 km or perhaps less. However, you would be using missiles that are maybe moving at Mach 10 from 4200 km away. Meaning you have already lost.

    Now, I applaud you for bringing the topic up, but you HAVE to do more legwork before you post a topic.

    Please, don't be an idiot and rush things like this.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >there is no existing definition
      of a destroyer. At all. The "class" of a ship is at the discretion of the navy which commissions her.

      > it is already too late to START trying to shoot it down
      You've got no idea what you're talking about.

      >then you would be better off with the lower K-band
      K-band doesn't have the resolution.

      >moving at perhaps Mach 25 and need to travel some 1200 km or perhaps less. However, you would be using missiles that are maybe moving at Mach 10 from 4200 km away.
      Again this is just dumb. You don't know what you're talking about. This is not the math.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Precise answer to this schizo post

      Honestly so many kids half understand the theoretical problems and just start shitting it up, the current events have only made it much much worse

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Honestly so many kids half understand the theoretical problems and just start shitting it up, the current events have only made it much much worse

        Its not just kids, its adults too and these morons are setting policy.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    picrel: source

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Couple issues, here.
    1) You're forgetting the even shorter wavelengths, i.e., IR. SBIRS can detect launches and track at least until motor burnout. That gives you launch warning and initial trajectory, which gives your radars cuing for where and when to look.
    2) The target can be attacked at any point in its flight, although doing so requires different weapons optimized for interception at a given stage of flight, and different positioning in order to give the interceptor a chance to catch the target. This is why BPI has been so popular on paper in recent decades; it's the easiest to detect (multiple stages still attached, with a nice big IR datum at the aft end) and attack, but it requires you to be relatively close to the launch point.
    3) Lasers are still coming along, if slowly. LIDAR, especially space-based, offers the possibility of high-confidence tracking and discrimination throughout the scenario, and eventually laser cannons will reduce interception math to something fairly trivial. Probably still a decade or two off, though, especially for the cannons.

    Ships with large radars are an intermediate step, one that's needed right now, up through the next few decades. They don't have to be optimized to carry the SBX's radar, though.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      1) Sure. The trouble is there's a planet in the way.
      2) This is really just concerned with midcourse tracking and interception. Boost phase interception is of course preferable, but increasingly not possible.
      3) Sci-fi magic should not be relied upon. The ship I'm describing is essentially a no risk solution.
      Furthermore, lidar satellite tracking is only useful if nobody is shooting down your satellites, and that ship has sailed everyone either has or is working on anti-satellite weapons, Navies need the capability to engage orbital targets with impunity, and that all comes under the heading of BMD anyway.

      >Ships with large radars are an intermediate step, one that's needed right now, up through the next few decades.
      Disagree. A large hull is future proof where a small hull just isn't. The 400,000 tonne ship I'm describing DEFINITELY has the capability to do what it needs to do, and will never be obsolete, it will eventually be too old but it will never be superseded by a better design.
      You MIGHT, EVENTUALLY, come up with a way to do the same thing will a smaller vessel.
      You WILL NEVER, come up with a vessel that does something the vessel I'm describing can't do.

      Which leads to an interesting cost-benefit situation in that you can build these ships to last. With a continuous build program you'd could put one in the water every two years with each ship getting a SLEP every ten years. If the service life of the hull is 60 or more years, which is easily achievable with that sort of mainenance program, you eventually get a fleet of 30 such ships at minimal cost. Without the possibility of obsolescence you can design the program to do this particular ship as efficiently as possible.

      The old Tillman maximum battleship proposals, the Iowa class battleships, and a modern Burke class destroyer all cost the same amount when adjusted for inflation. But new designs cost a fortune to develop. My way you only have to do it once.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        m8 a CVN weighs 100k tons and costs 13 billion. Even if your SuperDestroyer was just a missile boat with a big radar, what makes you think it'd be more cost effective than a fleet of networked ships?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >m8 a CVN weighs 100k tons and costs 13 billion.
          The hull doesn't cost 13bilion. Just buying the steel and welding it into the right is not where the cost comes from. The majority of the cost of a carrier is the planes on it. And that's getting much worse, on average each generation of fighter costs three times as much in real terms as the previous generation. Where as I pointed out major surface combatants, once you've factored out R&D, have had a stable price for more than a hundred years.

          It's the R&D that kills you. So if you build a ship that's too small, you'll eventually have to build the big ship anyway, so you're just paying all the R&D twice. Where if you just focus on that one class of ship, as the USN did with the Burke class, they eventually cost less for something that's much better than "the cheaper option".

          Why build two classes of ships, when one will do?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Which leads to an interesting cost-benefit situation in that you can build these ships to last.

        You need to use high chromium steel or your ship will be a pile of rust. SLEP programs involves removing copious amounts of rusted plate and they are not cheap.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Dude the USS Texas is just now, more than 100 years after it was launched, discussing removing the torpeedo bulges because they're rusting from the inside. The ships still floats, and still as tough as nails. You could, in theory, replace it's machinery, put some new weapons on it, and send it to war.

          It turns out steel ships, when built properly (and lets face it we can do a way better job today than we could in 1914 when it was still riveted construction) fricking last.

          Question, why not just have this radar on some sort of AWACS type plane?

          Because it's too big, and not by a little bit.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Thousand-satellite constellations are now feasible. It's just a matter of figuring out how to mass-produce them cheaply enough. The nice thing about the bottom end of LEO is that it's self-cleaning, so as long as you can cheaply replace your birds every few years, any debris won't be a problem for long.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Prove me wrong.

    C A T A M A R AN
    T R I M A R A N

    Common solution when extreme beam is needed.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Question, why not just have this radar on some sort of AWACS type plane?

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >That gives a full load displacement of 384,480tonnes
    You're talking about the equivalent of four full-size nuclear carriers then, and it would cost perhaps 2/3rds of the four, considering that you'd need it to achieve the same combat speeds and survivability, and that contributes significantly to the cost of a warship over a Valemax.

    That would be 40 billion dollars a ship, and that's before the cost of the radar and interceptors.

    It's beginning to sound like it might be cheaper to invest in more ground-based BMD in more locations.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      That's not how it works.
      An aircraft carrier displaces ten times as much as a burke class destoyer, it does not cost ten times as much.
      100,000 tonnes of steel 150 million dollars, out of 13bil.
      10,000 tonnes of steel is 15 million dollars out of 2bil

      Which answers this post too

      >it's not actually going to save you that much money?
      It actually is, if the alternative is building one 10-billion-dollar ship instead of one 40-billion-dollar ship, because your ship dimension calculations are contingent on that, remember?

      What is the operational difference between one such radar rotated, and four such radars?

      Steel is cheap. Air is free. Ships are not priced per tonne of displacement.

      Also 400,000 tonnes is no 4x a Nimitz. The Nimitz is 317 meters, this 480 meters long. So it's about 1.5 times the size.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Steel is cheap. Air is free
        but warships are not Valemax ships. You aren't buying a big load of air, unlike a bulk carrier. You're buying a warship, which is filled with combat systems, defensive systems, propulsion systems at twice the speed of a bulk carrier, and damage control systems. Because a ship that big needs nuclear engines, very powerful nuclear engines, lots of them; and contrary to popular belief, a warship does actually need to be able to take a certain degree of damage. And a ship that big and that important is going to be a target, so it needs at least the defensive fit of a Burke or two.

        >So it's about 1.5 times the size
        Irrelevant.
        An aircraft carrier is twice the length of a Constellation-class frigate, over 10 times the displacement, and over 10 times the cost. That suggests strongly that for warships, cost scales with displacement, not length. This lends credence to the supposition (in lieu of open source information) that damage-control systems make up a significant amount of a warship's cost premium over a civilian ship.
        Now, reportedly about 30-50% of a carrier's cost is due to aircraft handling facilities. Fine; even if we knock that off, a 400,000-ton ship is still likely to cost a cool 25-40 billion.

        Again: would it really kill you just to have one such radar instead of four? What's the operational difference for the BMD mission?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >which is filled with combat systems, defensive systems, propulsion systems at twice the speed of a bulk carrier, and damage control systems.
          Yes, and those aren't sold by the tonne either.
          Warships are expensive, it's true, but that's independent of their size. The Type 055, displaces 50% more than a Burke but only costs half as much because it's made in China where everything is cheaper.

          A Canberra class LHD weighs three times as much as a Hobart class destroyer for half the price.

          >And a ship that big and that important is going to be a target, so it needs at least the defensive fit of a Burke or two.
          Lolno. This is the Burke replacement.

          >What's the operational difference for the BMD mission?
          I've already answered that, 360degree coverage.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >because it's made in China
            Irrelevant.
            Compare like with like, built in US with US, not built in China with built in China. You can't make any inferences to scale comparing US with China ships.

            >A Canberra class LHD weighs three times as much as a Hobart class destroyer for half the price
            The Hobarts have much more sophisticated sensors and weapons. Again, we're talking about a Burke replacement here, not an LHD.

            >This is the Burke replacement.
            So, again, it will need the defensive fit of at least a Burke, with all its associated systems. But given that it's now a much much more important target than a Burke, representing a much higher chunk of defence budget and more crew, it is likely going to need more defences. All contributing to expense.

            >I've already answered that, 360degree coverage
            Your proposal is for four radars to enable constant all-round coverage, in lieu of one radar, rotated.

            Now these are questions I can answer
            >Why are 4 needed? Why doesn't just one work.
            360 degree vision. When you're talking about fighting at these sort or ranges we're shooting around the planet which is a sphere. You need to see in all directions at all times.
            You could in theory just have one and rotate it, but that's strictly inferior to four, and if you're going to develop a new class of ship anyway why would you choose the inferior version when it's not actually going to save you that much money?

            >Why not a smaller length to beam ratio?
            So slow ships are 6:1, fast ships are 8:1, all ships are, generally speaking somewhere in between, but generally we like warships to be fast.

            >Why can't the radar extend farther than the beam?
            Stability. The ship would capsize. Even with this beam the stability of the ship is questionable depending on how high up the radar is mounted (it weighs more than 30,000 tonnes alone).
            > But probably the simplest reason to disagree is that there is no reason they *need* to choose a radar just like the one on the SBX-1.
            Read the thread, that's what we've been discussing.

            [...]
            They're all easier to shoot down than ICBMs.

            >You could in theory just have one and rotate it, but that's strictly inferior
            Yes, I know it's inferior, but how inferior are we talking? What is the difference in terms of say scanning, response and engagement time?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >The Hobarts have much more sophisticated sensors and weapons.
              That's my point Black person. Tonnage doesn't matter. What matters is the systems and crew on board the ship, and those cost what they cost regardless of the size of the ship.
              If you took the weapons, sensors etc of the Hobart class and put them on a 400,000 tonne hull, they've gone from 3 to maybe 4 billion from the extra steel and welding. A 50 fold increase in tonnage for a 33% increase in price per unit.

              >But given that it's now a much much more important target than a Burke, representing a much higher chunk of defence budget and more crew, it is likely going to need more defences.
              But it's not, it IS the defense. You don't need to buy extra guns to defend you gun collection, it's a warship, it's designed for war.

              >Your proposal is for four radars to enable constant all-round coverage, in lieu of one radar, rotated.
              That's correct. But lets be clear here, we're not talking about a rotating dish as much as we are talking about rotatable array.
              With the one array proposal you're talking about, which probably won't actually be significantly cheaper in the long run, the ship now has to pick a direction in which to look as opposed to just looking in all directions at the same time, so if it's not looking in the right direction at the right then response time is infinite because it's completely blind.

              Now in terms I don't think a per unit cost is the right way to think about it anyway. I think annual budget for capability is the right way to look at it. But I believe that an annual budget of somewhere between 5 and 10 billion in real terms annually for the whole program would deliver a consistantly growing capability that would be sufficient for centuries, with the first ship delivered in 10 years, with the 31st ship delivered in 70 years. With 2.5 ships per station that would allow for 24/7/52 operation of 12 stations. That's all inclusive, cradle to grave.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >the ship now has to pick a direction in which to look as opposed to just looking in all directions at the same time, so if it's not looking in the right direction at the right then response time is infinite because it's completely blind
                >response time is infinite
                >completely blind
                Does this gif mean anything to you?

                I'm done here, you don't know jack shit

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah dude, that's a navigational radar. The radar we're talking about is 8.5 tonnes. You can't just put that at the top of a mast and spin it.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Yeah dude, that's a navigational radar
                Like I said - jack shit.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah you definitely said it. You've also never seen one.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    What even is the role of a destroyer supposed to be? I just don't understand why it needs the capability to track ICBMs and why that capacity shouldn't be allocated to a smaller purpose built ship, given the equipment requirements.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    https://deltarune.com/egg/

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      LOOK

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Wow you typed up a whole lot of shit and got none of it fricking right. Good job buddy.

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The answer is swath.

    >tfw no qt swath destroyers

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Possibly. The SBX-1 is basically a big SWATH. But I actually did a sketch of it just to play around with the idea, I don't have it handy but as I recall in order to get the hull depth for the VLS and the required shape for the pontoons they had to be 15m or something stupid in diameter. That plus the inevitable metal fatigue problems from pacific voyages makes turns me off them for this project.

      That said, I haven't written the idea off completely.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Also just thinking about it now, but with a SWATH you could actually exhaust the missile plume from a VLS in between, it's not perfect but it's better than the mk48, and would allow for larger rockets.

      I might actually have a bit more of a think about that.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      That's roughly the size we're talking about, (488m long) but it's a displacement hull instead of a semi-planing hull meaning it's displacement it almost twice what the equivalent warship would be.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why jam your super radar onto a huge destroyer? Just make a new type of ship, the radar ship, and have the destroyers stay specialised at what they are good at

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Because this would be very very good at the things destroyers are good at.
      Faster
      Longer range and endurance
      Better sensors
      More weapons.
      More helicopters

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >MoRe HeLiCoPtErS

        Just let it be a surface combatant. God damn why dose everything need to morph into a helicopter carrier now.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Because you need helicopters to fight submarines.

          Let me get this straight. You want them to:
          1) Shoot down a thousand satellites, in order to clear the way for the ICBMs
          2) Launch the ICBMs, because now nothing can stop them!

          You do realize that when they start shooting down satellites, the US is going to launch on their ICBM silos? Their missiles will get nuked waiting for the satellites to get shot down so that they can launch safely without the satellites transmitting targeting data to the BMD platforms.

          There are ways to degrade satellite constellations, ways to look for weak points like communications links, and so forth, but "satellites are easier to shoot down than ICBMs" is not a very good argument for building a fleet of 500-meter, 400,000-ton ships for carrying "optimized" X-band radars.

          What? No. That's dumb. How the frick did you come to that conclusion?

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    At least it's not the rivet schizo this time.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      That sounds like a story.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Now, if we REALLY want to disrupt the balance of power, what we ought to field is stealth nuclear cruise missiles instead of traditional SLBMs.

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    can this pig fat ship operate in the north sea ?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Probably not. The North Sea is quite shallow in some places.
      The again, the North Sea is too small for modern navies to do much in.

      You know what enemy missile detection satellites are good for? Detecting the launch of slow anti-satellite interceptors and relaying the command to launch all available nuclear weapons.

      Your argument makes no sense. Either the enemy is targeting satellites relaying data to interceptors, in which case congratulations, you've just won nuclear war, because you get to destroy all of your opponent's missiles in their silos while they're busy destroying thousands of satellites and the thousands of backups to those thousands of satellites. Or the enemy isn't targeting satellites and is just full sending their nukes, in which case you don't need 400,000 ton radar ships because all of your targeting data will be coming from satellites.

      Or they do both at the same time, while maintaining their own interception capability because you were a stick in the mud and wouldn't let me have my super destroyer.

      Never mind the 99.9% of things that a navy needs to do that don't involve the ol' Nuclear tic tac toe. That's why it's called full spectrum dominance, because there is a spectrum of war, the very far end of which is all you're considering, even though Navies have all sorts of things to do at every intensity lower than that.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They can't do both at the same time. The moment they launch, interceptions are already plotted, and interceptors on the way. Especially if the anti-satellite weapons are slow relatively speaking, the ICBMs will already be intercepted before the satellite network can be totally brought down. That's why Russia and China invested in HGVs, which sidestep both the satellites AND your bullshit impractical super-radar, instead of continuing to develop already-proven anti sat technology. Even the US hasn't mass-deployed anti sat weapons, and the US tends to deploy things just to show they can.

        The Navy doesn't need radar that can detect ICBM launches from the ocean surface unless it's dealing with nuclear weapons. And if it ever is dealing with nuclear weapons, it will have satellite guidance to rely on. Failing that, there is an array of ground-based radar stretching from San Francisco to Shenzhen, and AWACS to plug what few gaps remain. All that money you want to spend on impractically large destroyers (which is frankly impressive considering destroyers are already a few thousand tons too large) would be much better spent on developing satellites that can maintain the same capabilities as existing satellites but from a much higher orbit.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *