CV32

😁

Well, not quite "off the coast". Remember this submarine was attacked with Storm Shadow and/or SCALP last September while in dry dock. She had reportedly been patched up and was at anchor at the time of the most recent strike.

Manfred Meyer (edited by Larry Bond and Chris Carlson), Modern Chinese Maritime Forces, Second Edition (Admiralty Trilogy Group, 1 July 2024).

Unlikely, as all of the Adelaides have been gone from the RAN since 2019. 😉

China’s purported ‘drone carrier’ could be used for testing, shows PLA ‘learning’ mindset: Analysts (Breaking Defense, 17 May)

The onset and growth of Chinese naval airpower has always been exactly that. ☺️ China is also now building drone carriers, roughly the size of WWII era escort carriers.

US Navy removes first 155mm AGS from USS Zumwalt at Ingalls Shipbuilding (Naval News) A shame, but perhaps an affinity for the concept of naval gun fire support is just nostalgia?

I had no trouble finding reports of the use of the Arrow BMD system.

All of the subsurface contacts in the sim were originally submarines, so no surprise that the code assumes they are subject to magnetic detection.

9 Lessons from Iranian and Houthi Attacks on Ships in the Red Sea (Naval News, 22 January) The ASBMs have been a particularly interesting development.

Ideally, we'd have both. Some electronic warfare systems are intrinsic to the airframe (this being more popularly the case as time goes on) while others are carried in pods.

I doubt all of the Kh-22s that have been employed in the war in Ukraine have been converted to Kh-32 standard. I have been watching this issue with some interest, and the claim that Kh-22/-32 has thus far evaded intercept appears pretty consistent. There's no doubt whatsoever that it is a very challenging target, but I certainly think PAC-3 CRI, PAC-3 MSE and SAMP/T can do the job. I think the most likely explanation is that Kh-22/-32 is being primarily employed against Ukrainian targets beyond the reach of where the most capable Western supplied SAM systems are being deployed. Patriot batteries, for example, appear to be present to defend Kyiv, Lviv and Kherson but cannot offer coverage everywhere else. In other words, Russia has been shooting them into areas where the best SAMs are absent, in places like Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Odesa. For example, many launches of Kh-22/-32 appear to be made in a north to south direction, e.g. from the Kursk and Belgorod directions south into Ukraine. This would make their interception by SAM batteries located in places like Kyiv simply impossible. Russia’s Kh-22 – the Missile Ukraine Has Yet to Shoot Down (Kyiv Post, 29 Dec 2023)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Sonobuoys typically transmit via VHF, so there is a practical range of about 20 km. Much of the fundamentals of ASW is covered by my Tactics 101 piece on the subject.

51 years ago, twelve F-4s, from the 8th TFW, released Paveway “smart” bombs, to finally knock down the Thanh Hóa (Dragon's Jaw) Bridge in N.Vietnam (April 27, 1972). Previously, 871 conventional bombing sorties had only succeeded in scratching the bridge. Air Power

Warship vulnerability: lessons from the Moskva sinking (Tom Sharpe OBE)

Pretty sure the Mk 54 has been in the DB for years.

Yes, still the case. The annex limits are largely to blame. Unfortunately this includes dedicating any time to fixing errors for the moment.

Being released on Steam today : Nuclear War Simulator

Thanks, Enrique. I see you tried a mix of weapons, and S-300V was more or less capable of intercepting all of them.

I ran a test scenario in Command. A single Kh-22NA (NATO AS-4 Kitchen B Mod 3) was launched from a Tu-22M3 (NATO Backfire C) at near maximum range. The target was an industrial plant in Dnipro, Ukraine. A single Ukrainian S-300V1 (NATO SA-12) SAM battery was set up near the target. The S-300V1 began engagement (with 2x 9M83 missiles) when the Kh-22NA was at about 16 nm from the target, and descending below about 28,000 feet. The Kh-22NA was intercepted with 1x 9M83 SAM at about 9.7 nm from the target, while moving at 1499 kt and at 17,330 feet. I thought the scenario was interesting given the recent tragic Kh-22 strike in Dnipro and the widespread claims (by Ukraine and others) that Ukraine has no capability to defend against Kh-22. I didn't think that sounded technically correct, given that Ukraine does possess the S-300V1 and it was designed to defend against such weapons as Lance, Pershing and SRAM. The Kh-22 is certainly a challenging target, but the S-300V1 is at least technically capable of defending against it. (On "paper" or in a sim like this, of course. Caveats apply.) Still interested in what you might find in HCE.

I wonder if someone might do me a favour and set up a test scenario that pits S-300V (SA-12) against the Kh-22 (AS-4). Run it a few times and let me know how often the S-300V is successful in shooting down the Kh-22.

How A British Submarine Spent Hours Under A Russian Aircraft Carrier (The War Zone, 11 January 2023)

The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan (CSIS, 9 January)

Hi John, Add SAM sites just like any other unit. They are organized in the DB under Intl (international) by origin and with the prefix 'SAM' by name. The entries typically reflect a complete battery (launchers and associated radars) but in some cases you could add higher level radars to the mix. You can emplace the SAM sites individually on the map or add them to formations. I hope this helps.