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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: OT Admiral Vinogradov (7/5/2013 6:02:13 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sandman455
The issues of hitting surface ships with missiles over the horizon is much more challenging than one would think. Without giving away too much, you should try to ponder how such missiles would be targetted both initially, mid course and finally on terminal phase. Once you get that sorted out, you are ready to proceed to the many methods of defeating them - besides just being lazy and shooting them down. Of course I can't think of anything easier than simply destroying the platform from which they are launched. It's hard being a CARGRU commander - so many options and command decisions to be made.
You're right that talking about this in open media is often a no-no. From your sig line you know a lot about it.
Folks who haven't studied Soviet design philosophy much often become enamored by bigger=better. In truth the Soviets were very good at making big things go fast. Foxbat, Alfa, many cruise missiles, etc. But a reason they did that was because they were so lacking in the real currency of modern naval warfare--data collection, processing, and battlefield distribution of same. Their cruise missiles were big because they were crude. The mid-course guidance problem was always going to be dicey because Bear Ds shoot down real good, and the missiles' terminal homing hardware and software was a generation or more behind NATO all the way through. Their missiles were big in order to carry big warheads because they knew they'd miss a lot. They designed for the miss. A 2000lb warhead moving at Mach 2 can miss by a fair bit and still mess up a REFORGER RO-RO. If they'd have had decent computing power they could have designed the Exocet or the Harpoon. Small, agile, mission-killers. Small gets you reloads, and a mission kill will do in a 30-60 day war. The USN tried naval Tomahawks too, but settled on them being fine land-attack weapons. Major SAM sites don't up and move like ships do.
A big missile has a huge radar cross-section, and it eats up deck space. Soviet skimmers were mostly one-shot weapons in the Cold War. And liquid fuel? Arrgh. Japanese players in AE know how well that worked out for the Long Lance.
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