Does Ballistic Missile Can Attack Aircraft Carrier Successfully?

Somedays ago, I read some materiels was made out of pentagon,which said that there are some possibilities and feasibilities of using ballistic missile to attack aircraft carrier existance. But because the materiels was translated to Chinese already,so I have no way to verify the report is true or not.
Then I have done a lot of search in liberary in web and so on, but there was few of few materiels about this thesis. Almost all of information about ballistic missile can be used to attack aircraft carrier, which are come from some militery discussion doard with some theory looks like scientific, but has no more prove.
Although I knew that ballistic missile was designed to attack stable target, but I also have no ideal against that opnion that presist can attack carriers.
Anyway. I think that is a huge risk to carrier fighting group, as aircraft take off from carrier, the navigational direction of carrier must be stable, and compaire with missile the moving carrier almost is stable, whereas the ballistic missile speed almost reach Mach 10! No one will believe S2A missile such as Standard III really can intercept ballistic missile,esp for if the attack from missile is saturated.
So the last hope is that ballistic missile couldn't hits carrier after it couldn't search the carrier. Now my question for you is how the ballistic missile can search a moving target as a carrier, and whether the missile can hits carrier with how much precentage proximately?

Well a carrier does about 30 knots, lets say for arguments sake that a ballistic misile will take 20 minutes to get there ( if the carrier is reasonably close to the hostile BM launcher ). That means that by the time the ballistic missile arrives at the carriers postition 20 minutes ago, the carrier has travelled 10 nautical miles or almost 20 km. Now that is far enough away even for a large nuclear warhead. You could talk about a saturation attack, but that would require many missiles which would be wasteful and not guaranteed of success.

IRBM's and ICBM's ( which I assume you're talking about ) do not have terminal guidance as far as I know. If the Russians and Americans cannot guide long range ballistic missiles I seriously doubt China's capacity to do so.

With reagrds to the SM-III naval SAM, there is a version undergoing testing now called the SM-III LEAP ( Lightweight Exo Atmospheric Projectile ) which can shoot down ballsitic missiles. It has been more succcessful during testing ( 6 out of 7 successful tests ) than the US land based component of NMD. Here's a previous ATS thread on the SM-III LEAP : www.abovetopsecret.com...

20 minutes! You must cheating yourself! DF-21 launched from China provence by the sea to hit US carrier would just take 3-5 minutes!

You cannot really trick an ICBM to be an MRBM. It really needs to go all of the way up before it comes back down. It would require a re-write of the guidance software, not to mention a change in fuel levels. You really need to attack a carrier with a theater weapon, such as ALCM, SLCM, etc. Otherwise time is too much of a factor.

At least that is my understanding.

Originally posted by emile
20 minutes! You must cheating yourself! DF-21 launched from China provence by the sea to hit US carrier would just take 3-5 minutes!

LOL, what so the carrier is off the Chinese coast ? A chinese missile launched into the central Pacific would take about 15-20 minutes. I think you're kidding yourself there.

Besides it wouldn't really matter, a nuclear attack such as that would mean the obliteration of the CHinese military, by US nuclear forces. Not to mention as has been said previously the US SM-III missile can take down any ballistic missile the Chinese have.

So, the scenario wouldn't work.
PS. Per your original post, the CHinese have absolutely no ability to guide a reentry vehicle in the terminal phase.

[edit on 31-1-2006 by mad scientist]

No nononono........
I mean PLA won't fighting with US navy in parcific ocean whereas US NAVY's carrier will face such a risk just in a time when they protect TAIWAN from mainland invade.
I don't know if carrier is faraway from Taiwan channel more than 500-600 kilometer, how can they take off fighter to protect Taiwan?

Operation Chop Suey happens before carrier groups move in.

Subs will launch several hundred polaris nuclear tipped missles and carriers will get into sorty position after the smoke clears in order to pick off the remainders.

All kidding aside, if a nation is stupid enough to launch ICBMs at moving sea targets they already lost the war and their generals are drunks.



[edit on 31-1-2006 by Regenmacher]

The point is Chinese ballistic missiles aren't even close to being accurate enough to hit a carrier with a conventional warhead, even if they could, there warheads are tiny. Therefore in your scenario it would have to be a nuclear warhead, which means Chinese military facilities would be obliterated.

I love the grammar on this thread!

All your base are belong to us!

If the US goes ahead with plans to rearm Trident D5s for precision conventional strike, then the technology will exist and it will become politically acceptable to use ballistic missiles for this type of mission.
The only question is how long it would take the Chinese to catch up.
Maybe a decade or two, which would be about right for their strategic plans

A US destroyer, during the Chinese missile excercises conducted around the time of the Taiwanese elections, observed Chinese MRBM's consistently hitting their targets with a 3-4 meter CEP - more than enough to guarantee a hit on a CVN, which makes for a rather large target. Apparently the Chinese have created a guidance system that uses both Russian and our own GPS signals to get unprecedented accuracy from ballistic missiles. Note that these would probably be convential warheads, not nukes.

Hence the rush to get SM-3 (with ABM capability) into sevice. I will see if I can find some documentation, I think I saw it in print (Proceedings).

[edit on 1/31/06 by xmotex]

Originally posted by Ralph_The_Wonder_Llama
I love the grammar on this thread!

All your base are belong to us!

Alrighty then, lets lay off the grammer shall we. ATS is an International community and for many of its members English is a second language. How many of us could converse in say Cambodian? Enough said.

In regards to the threads question.

An ICBM's reentry vehicle at this point cannot be targeted on a moving object like say a Paveway bomb can be. While modern MIRVS are fairly accurate (CEP measured in feet) that is against a stationary target and the blast of the nuclear weapon, even if it is a small yeild is accurate enough for most targets.

A ship is another manner. moving at 30+ knots, the CBG could get out of the lethal blast range of the warhead. While them may still experience some effects, the CBG should survive is they are on the move so to speak.

Now if you want to make things more interesting. Airburst the device at high altitude over the general area the CBG is operating and see what you can EMP.

Originally posted by FredT
How many of us could converse in say Cambodian?

I could, but only to the extent of what I learned watching Platoon.

As for the subject at hand, wouldn't they know way beforehand that a ballistic missle was targeting one of their carriers giving them plenty of time to send a few jets up there to blow it out of the sky after re-entry?

Peace

They're not ICBM's but MRBM's.

And yes, it's entirely possible to apply terminal guidance and manouvering to a ballistic missile warhead, the Pershing II had terminal radar guidance back in the 1980's. China appears to have equipped it's M-11 and DF-21X missiles with some form of terminal guidance, possibly based on a system that uses combined GLONASS/GPS with a radar seeker.

I am still looking for that article by the US destroyer captain. It may not be available online.

As for the subject at hand, wouldn't they know way beforehand that a ballistic missle was targeting one of their carriers giving them plenty of time to send a few jets up there to blow it out of the sky after re-entry?

If you can find a fighter that can intercept a target reentering the atmosphere at mach 10-20, I'm all for it. Good luck with pulling that trick off

The new SM-3 SAM might be able to take one out, but then again I doubt they'd just launch one...

[edit on 1/31/06 by xmotex]

Originally posted by Dr Love
ballistic missle was targeting one of their carriers giving them plenty of time to send a few jets up there to blow it out of the sky after re-entry?

The terminal velocity of a reentry vehicle is so much greater in an ICBM then say a SCUD, that a defence missile such as a Standard / Patriot Block III, or even a THAAD would have a hard time intercepting it. While it does slow down it would be travaling at almost a mile ever 2 seconds. Thats pretty fast hence the interest in laser weapons. I doubt the aircraft would even get close, let alone be able to hit it with a AMRAAM.

Also, if they lob them at ships in the SOuth China sea, the warning time till impact would be pretty short. Certainly not the 20 minutes it would take to hit targets in the CONUS.

An ICBM RV reenters at speeds of 7km/s whilst and IRBM is only 3.5km/s. As for a Glonass/GPS system, this seems a bit far fetched that it can achieve accuracies of 3-4m for and IRBM. The US uses GPS on their latest Miunuteman warheads and can't achieve an accuracy close to that. The US military GPS is far more accurate than what the Chinese would be using, which would be the commercial version, combine this with the US ability to detune GPS over certain areas and Chinese missile accuracy would be woeful.
As for GLONASS, it has very limited coverage and is far less accurate than GPS.

Originally posted by mad scientist
The point is Chinese ballistic missiles aren't even close to being accurate enough to hit a carrier with a conventional warhead, even if they could, there warheads are tiny. Therefore in your scenario it would have to be a nuclear warhead, which means Chinese military facilities would be obliterated.

The grammar ain't the best part about this thread.
While the above quoted post makes more sense in terms of accuracy at least,the bit about the SM-III ..ahem..

Why don't we talk about accuracies of ballistic missiles around the world?
And any, sources on terminal guidance systems on ballistic missiles?
Because as far as I know, all balllistic missiles use a mechanical Inertial guidance system, which makes them difficult to detect and immune to ECM and EW.Only detection mehtods are sensing a launch and then the subsequent re-entry heat signatures. I thought all ABM work this way.
Infact the I think the word "ballistics" itself means "unguided projectile flight", right from catapults to trebuchets to artillery to these missiles.

Talk about grammar being wrong!!

[edit on 31-1-2006 by Daedalus3]

Well I am fairly certain the Chinese are aware of that too.

Perhaps i'ts a combination of GPS/Glonass with radar terminal guidance - I don't know. But the report about the Chinese IRBM's reported a very small CEP, with warheads impacting exactly in the center of their targets, so it seems like they have come up with something. I don't think it's inconceivable that the Chinese have been able to exceed the accuracy of the 1970's Minuteman, especially if they've been working on manuevarable reentry vehicles. I'm not actually sure if the new NS-50 guidance system for the Minuteman III uses GPS actually, from what I can see its a warmed-over version of the MX's inertial system.

And like I said, Pershing II got a CEP of ~50M 20 years ago with radar guidance, I don't see why it's so unlikely the Chinese might be able to improve on that signifigantly.

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Originally posted by mad scientist
The point is Chinese ballistic missiles aren't even close to being accurate enough to hit a carrier with a conventional warhead, even if they could, there warheads are tiny. Therefore in your scenario it would have to be a nuclear warhead, which means Chinese military facilities would be obliterated.

The grammar ain't the best part about this thread.
While the above quoted post makes more sense in terms of accuracy at least,the bit about the SM-III ..ahem..

Why don't we talk about accuracies of ballistic missiles around the world?
And any, sources on terminal guidance systems on ballistic missiles?
Because as far as I know, all balllistic missiles use a mechanical Inertial guidance system, which makes them difficult to detect and immune to ECM and EW.Only detection mehtods are sensing a launch and then the subsequent re-entry heat signatures. I thought all ABM work this way.
Infact the I think the word "ballistics" itself means "unguided projectile flight", right from catapults to trebuchets to artillery to these missiles.

Talk about grammar being wrong!!

Firstly, what's your problem with my grammar ? I believe it's better than yours

Why would using mechanical systems make them difficult to detect ? amkes no sense. The new Minuteman warheads use GPS, which doesn't emit any signals.
Ppowerful radars also scan the skies and can quite easily pick up ICBM's thousands of km's away.

I meant no electronics onboard. To use GPS you need passive listeners. And those radars can only detect re-entry and/or launch signatures.
How can you detect a free falling object??