Question on real ASuW doctrine

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Question on real ASuW doctrine - 9/12/2015 10:55:32 PM

pjcoia

Posts: 30
Joined: 12/29/2014
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So, in the missile age, we have surface groups bristling with anti-ship missiles and engagement ranges in the tens to hundreds of kilometres. What would have been the doctrine once missiles had been expended?

I can understand that in some theatres, say the North Sea or The Med, that aircraft would play a big factor, but would the groups have closed to gun range, or would they have retired to fight another day? Were ASMs essentially about exerting a zone of control, or were there expectations of eliminating surface groups for sea control in the modern age (70s onwards)?

In the game, vessels will close to gun range, and well, they all have guns, so why not? But sometimes it appears suicidal when one side had weapons outranging the other (as often the USSR did) and therefore would expend their ammo in the initial exchange. In "real life" would we expect the Soviet Groups to launch and retire to fight another day, or to close within Exocet and Harpoon range?

It is genuinely hard to find historical precedents so perhaps this is just a theoretical question. In the gun era, especially the dreadnought arms race of WW1, ships were very cautious about engaging only on favourable terms, even at the expense of accuracy, so as to preserve ships to fight another day (esp. Sturdee at the Falklands). Plainly ammo is easier to replace then a vessel.

As a player, there are often no penalties for losing vessels, so I do tend to go "all in", and maybe that's a scenario gap, but it would be interesting to hear about real world doctrine.

Post #: 1

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 9/13/2015 1:12:27 AM

Dysta

Posts: 1909
Joined: 8/8/2015
Status: offline

If you understand the 1/3 rule and the purpose of constant naval presence, you will see why sending all the ships to one point is definitely no-go.

It is usually separated into 3 smaller groups in a fleet (not entire navy), 1/3 for combat engagement, another 1/3 for stationary incase of backup (away from the hostile's detection if possible), and the last 1/3 is for port defense when one of the group return and take their place.

Cycling this, and you get the near-permanent naval control.

As the ASuM's attack and/or shell exchange within in shorter range of engagement, two reasons behind it:
- To time all the different arsenal of missiles and joint group correctly, for the maximum effect of saturation attack.
- To push the control of sea to avoid being passive on hostile invasion.

It's not always about the longest range of weapon proves its superiority, but rather the controllability of the sea area to maintain your fleet's presence (such as guarding unarmed merchant ship, or having firmer evidence for political standpoint for post-war tribulation). The all-in case I believe, would only happens at the turning point when being overwhelmed severely.

< Message edited by Dysta -- 9/13/2015 2:14:57 AM >

(in reply to pjcoia)

Post #: 2

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 9/13/2015 2:31:24 AM

SeaQueen

Posts: 1451
Joined: 4/14/2007
From: Washington D.C.
Status: offline

The answer is, "it depends." For an extensive discussion of this kind of thing, read Wayne Hughes' Fleet Tactics.

ASCMs are very definitely about sinking ships. The fundamental question is how many offensive missiles do I have to shoot versus how many defensive missiles do you have to shoot them down? If I unleashed a salvo of ASCMs and whether or not they hit anything, I might continue to close and fight a gun battle if I felt like I had sufficient defensive SAMs, point defenses and electronic warfare capabilities to survive the enemy's counter attack with enough firepower that I could destroy the enemy and survive his fire.

If I didn't think I could do that, then I'd fire a salvo at maximum range and then withdraw. The goal in that case would be to attrite the enemy (thus draining his offensive firepower) and force him to expend defensive weapons against my salvo so that in the event of a future engagement I might be able to destroy him and possibly close into a gun battle.

In the Soviet case you mentioned, I suspect they'd most likely shoot and withdraw. Guns would only come into play against relatively weak or undefended targets, for naval gun fire support, of if they felt like they had sufficient defenses against the enemy's Exocets or Harpoons that they could close to gun range without being struck by one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pjcoia

So, in the missile age, we have surface groups bristling with anti-ship missiles and engagement ranges in the tens to hundreds of kilometres. What would have been the doctrine once missiles had been expended?

I can understand that in some theatres, say the North Sea or The Med, that aircraft would play a big factor, but would the groups have closed to gun range, or would they have retired to fight another day? Were ASMs essentially about exerting a zone of control, or were there expectations of eliminating surface groups for sea control in the modern age (70s onwards)?

In the game, vessels will close to gun range, and well, they all have guns, so why not? But sometimes it appears suicidal when one side had weapons outranging the other (as often the USSR did) and therefore would expend their ammo in the initial exchange. In "real life" would we expect the Soviet Groups to launch and retire to fight another day, or to close within Exocet and Harpoon range?

It is genuinely hard to find historical precedents so perhaps this is just a theoretical question. In the gun era, especially the dreadnought arms race of WW1, ships were very cautious about engaging only on favourable terms, even at the expense of accuracy, so as to preserve ships to fight another day (esp. Sturdee at the Falklands). Plainly ammo is easier to replace then a vessel.

As a player, there are often no penalties for losing vessels, so I do tend to go "all in", and maybe that's a scenario gap, but it would be interesting to hear about real world doctrine.

(in reply to pjcoia)

Post #: 3

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 9/13/2015 12:11:50 PM

pjcoia

Posts: 30
Joined: 12/29/2014
Status: offline

Hello,

Fascinating discussion, thanks for taking the time to contribute!

I thought about one real life conflict which might give insight. The Falklands conflict, especially since it did not involve the US Navy (who had a wealth of airborne Anti-Ship power), posed some interesting questions. In particular, the "Pincer attack" by the Argentine Navy. The southern force was centred on the General Belgrano, with a primary gun armament of 6"/47 cal. How would such a force have been used in an attack - close to gun range against a force containing ASMs? It seems hard to fathom that was the tactics as late as 1982, but it seems to be the case.

(in reply to SeaQueen)

Post #: 4

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 9/13/2015 7:37:50 PM

mikmykWS

Posts: 11524
Joined: 3/22/2005
Status: offline

Two important points in regards to this in regards to Command.

1)Maintain Standoff to Target ROE. This RoE setting allows players to take advantage of the weapons range advantage particular platform may have against known adversaries. It does this by staying inside its weapon range but outside the target�s weapon range until ammo has been expended. In general this tactical ROE was implemented to prevent units from rushing into the weapons range of a known adversary where a range advantage is known. This currently only works for surface ships as they're the only one's to use it. Aircraft due do things differently.

2) Lua. There are a number of ways to add and subtract units from missions or tasks using this. This might be the way to signal a retreat in light of losses or lighter weapons load. In general Lua should be used to get some of the customized AI behaviors you'd like. We're pretty open to adding lua things for this reason. That being said our brilliant scenario editors are starting to learn and play with this and they progress you will see better and different AI behaviors appear.

Mike

< Message edited by mikmyk -- 9/13/2015 8:39:07 PM >

_____________________________

(in reply to pjcoia)

Post #: 5

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 9/14/2015 4:21:03 PM

SeaQueen

Posts: 1451
Joined: 4/14/2007
From: Washington D.C.
Status: offline

If it was up to me, I wouldn't use the General Belgrano to attack a force armed with ASCMs at all. I'd use it to provide naval gun fire support to the Argentine ground forces on the islands.

The ASCM armed force would most likely out-range the General Belgrano and massed guns might be able to shoot down some of the missiles, but not all of them. Her armor would help her some, but not that much when you're struck multiple times. Whether or not she gets sunk is irrelevant. A mission kill is good enough to send her back to port where she'd spend a year being repaired if not scrapped. The General Belgrano was really out-classed and obsolete. None of her escorts really brought any meaningful firepower to the fight either.

The only chance a ship like that had, would have been to avoid detection for as long as possible, hoping that it might get lucky and remain undiscovered long enough for them to get close and open up with those big guns. I don't think that's likely though, as the submarine who sunk her demonstrated.

I also suspect there was a lot of reasonable skepticism that ASCMs would be as effective as advertised in 1982. There's a lot of moving pieces to executing an ASCM attack over the horizon. Given all the coordination issues in effectively executing one, one might reasonably ask, "How much of that 100+ NM range is real?"

Now a days, in a world of massively networked forces, vastly increased automation and datalinks, I think a lot of the doubt which was reasonable in 1982 has gone away.

quote:

I thought about one real life conflict which might give insight. The Falklands conflict, especially since it did not involve the US Navy (who had a wealth of airborne Anti-Ship power), posed some interesting questions. In particular, the "Pincer attack" by the Argentine Navy. The southern force was centred on the General Belgrano, with a primary gun armament of 6"/47 cal. How would such a force have been used in an attack - close to gun range against a force containing ASMs? It seems hard to fathom that was the tactics as late as 1982, but it seems to be the case.

(in reply to pjcoia)

Post #: 6

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 2/5/2016 9:44:04 PM

PaulCharl

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Joined: 1/22/2016
Status: offline

The thing to remember about the whole Belgrano affair is that the Royal Navy were operating far from home at the end of a very long and thin supply chain. The carriers were paramount to the operation. Any loss would throw a real spanner in the RN's works and even minor damage to a carrier would spell the end of the operation. Having the Belgrano close to the Islands made it a "fleet in being" a threat that had to be taken seriously. The carriers could not close on the islands to provide air cover for the amphibious landings while there was even a tiny chance that the Argie cruiser could get within gun range. The South Atlantic in late autumn with winter approaching is no place to sustain operations: surface search radar would be degraded and things would eventually break down. I believe the Belgrano was playing a long game, intending to keep the carriers out of range (rather than actually try to engage them) until the RN gave up and went home.

How would she have coped with Exocet MM38 (the only SSM the Royal Navy was equipped with at the time)? The Exocet had a devastating effect on HMS Sheffield more by luck than anything. The light aluminium construction could not soak up explosive damage well but most importantly the missile struck with quite an amount of its unburnt fuel still onboard. The fuel did the most damage, burning hot enough for long enough to set the aluminium alight. With the Atlantic Conveyor it was a merchant ship built to merchant rather than combat standards and again I believe the missile set inflammable supplies alight and possibly ammunition. Again it was fire rather than the missile's initial explosion that "did for" the ship. Against a (relatively, compared to modern warships)heavily built American light cruiser from WW II a salvo of Exocets would have hurt her but probably not put her out of action (think HMS Exeter at the River Plate) and if she had gotten close enough to bring the carriers under fire think Scharnhorst and Geisenau versus Glorious in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Not really what you were asking at the start but interesting to consider for Cold War scenarios given that the Soviet Sverdlov class gun cruisers were in commission right through to the late 80s.

(in reply to SeaQueen)

Post #: 7

RE: Question on real ASuW doctrine - 2/5/2016 10:23:02 PM

Rory Noonan

Posts: 2816
Joined: 12/18/2014
From: Brooklyn, NY
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: pjcoia

Hello,

Fascinating discussion, thanks for taking the time to contribute!

I thought about one real life conflict which might give insight. The Falklands conflict, especially since it did not involve the US Navy (who had a wealth of airborne Anti-Ship power), posed some interesting questions. In particular, the "Pincer attack" by the Argentine Navy. The southern force was centred on the General Belgrano, with a primary gun armament of 6"/47 cal. How would such a force have been used in an attack - close to gun range against a force containing ASMs? It seems hard to fathom that was the tactics as late as 1982, but it seems to be the case.

I think that the Belgrano was probably being used as both a command ship and a (mediocre at best) AAW asset for the other ships in TF79.3. What I think people forget is that the two warships sailing in company with Belgrano, the ARA Bouchard and ARA Piedrabuena were ex-Alan D Sumner class destroyers, which had each been outfitted with 4 x MM38 Exocets. They were also equipped with AN/SPS-37 air search radars, which were nearly as capable as the AN/TPS-43 and -44 deployed at Stanley. These two capabilities (SSMs and decent EWR) made them more of a threat to the RN than the Belgrano, yet because they weren't sunk they tend to get forgotten about.

If the Belgrano had survived and the Argentine fleet remained in play, I would expect to have seen the Belgrano stick pretty close to the Bouchard and Piedrabuena; perhaps carrying out naval gunfire support or raids against the STUFT support vessels. I don't think the Argentine's would risk it against a modern frigate or destroyer without plenty of support.

(in reply to pjcoia)

Post #: 8