Red Banner Pacific Fleet vs US 7th Fleet

[dharma6]

Red Banner Pacific Fleet vs US 7th Fleet

Ok Naval Grognards, The Red Banner Pacific Fleet sorties in a show of force and is soon confronted by CVBG 5 of the US 7th Fleet out of Yokasuka, Japan. The Russian fleet is centered on a new upgraded Kirov class battlecruiser accompanied by the Slava class cruiser Varyag, new Destroyer Orlan, new Frigate Admiral Golovko, and four older Udaloy class ASW destroyers. The Russians have some very capable long range SAMs on Kirov (S-400 Triumf system) and on Varyag (S-300 System). The Americans have CVN Washington with the Aegis Cruiser Shiloh and five Arleigh Burke Class destroyers, though two are Flight IIA ships with no Harpoons.

The US believes it has the advantage of range and the option to strike first with the four squadrons of twelve planes each aboard CVN Washington flying FA-18 C/D Superbugs carrying 4 Harpoons on the designated strike planes. They also get assistance from two squadrons of twelve F-16s each out of Misawa, Japan to fly the TARCAP missions and free up more of the F-18s for strike roles. The US therefore puts 72 planes in the air, though some are flying TARCAP, SEAD and EW missions.

To make it interesting, the Russians bring a squadron of TU-22M3s carrying KH-32 long range hypersonic cruise missiles (1000km) and a SGN bastion with two Oscars firing the older P-700 Granit “Shipwrecks” (SS-N-19) with a range of 625 km and the new SGN Yasen firing the P-900s (SS-N-27), with a range of 400km, and both undersea assets are close enough to fire. The Russians also have air defense at sea provided by 28 x Mig-29Ks of the Admiral Kuznetsov, and 14 x SU-33s, which is a pretty formidable air defense.

Who wins this fight?

Key questions here:
Should the US attack or are the assets on a single CVBG insufficient to promise success.
Who gets in the first blow, the Russians with their Backfires & subs or the US Carrier strike wing?
Can the Aegis air defense system stop those KH-32s using Standard Missile 3? (Kh-32 is a new upgrade to the older Kh-22 "Kitchen" ASM)
Can the Russian Migs stop the US strike wing or hinder it sufficiently to allow the Russian ships to get within SSM missile range?

A fictionalized version of this battle was depicted in the novel 9 Days Falling, Book V in the popular naval fiction “Kirov Series.”
http://www.writingshop.ws/html/9_days_falling-i.html

[Ersatz Yorck]

The popular series written by... dharma6?

[ElBanditoVerde]

Could you clarify what you mean by a "new upgraded Kirov"; are you speaking in reference to one of the three Kirov's scheduled to undergo modernization which is slated to be completed around 2017 (~2020 knowing the Russians) or some sort of fictional Kirov? If the latter is the case could you specify what has been upgraded?

The Russians have some very capable long range SAMs on Kirov (S-400 Triumf system) and on Varyag (S-300 System).

The S-400 is a ground based air defense system, I don't believe there to be a navalized version of it yet; Russia's one working Kirov, Peter the great, uses an S-300 derivative (S-300FM, I believe the only difference is an improved missile); note, I believe that these S-300 systems are independent in nature, ie not networked together, preventing them from having the "cooperative engagement capability" that the US navy's aegis system touts, though I'm not entirely certain as to this being fact

The Russians also have air defense at sea provided by 28 x Mig-29Ks of the Admiral Kuznetsov, and 14 x SU-33s, which is a pretty formidable air defense.

The Kuznetsov doesn't carry that many fixed wing aircraft, the Mig-29Ks are scheduled to replace the odd 12 or so SU-33s that the Kuzntsov currently carries not supplement them

Now let's get down to your questions

Should the US attack or are the assets on a single CVBG insufficient to promise success.
Who gets in the first blow, the Russians with their Backfires & subs or the US Carrier strike wing?

The US has complete control over this engagement due to the presence of their E-2 hawkeyes serving in an AWACS capacity, these planes pretty much guarantee that the US will be the first to detect, track, and target their foes; additionally, the control over the battle space that these types of planes give dramatically increases the effectiveness of air interception one need only look at the numerous air to air engagements which occurred during the most recent gulf war, many of which would not have even been possible without the direction of hawkeyes and sentries; the chances of the backfires getting in range and successfully targeting the battle group are slim to none
A carrier's air wing should be sufficient for the destruction of the Kuzntsov's air wing and the backfires which would be the primary threat, once they are dealt with the carrier would probably use the land based reinforcements in conjunction with her own to strike the surface ships themselves.
The two oscar subs however present a serious problem for the US navy; in exercises subs often get inside battle groups and sink the carrier which indicates that the oscars should they elect to use torpedoes stand a very good chance of sinking the carrier. If the oscars use their shipwrecks as you propose however they place themselves at serious risk of detection during launch, with the missile's origins traceable by the Hawkeyes in the air and the noise of the launch itself attracting the attention every American submarine in the area.

Can the Aegis air defense system stop those KH-32s using Standard Missile 3? (Kh-32 is a new upgrade to the older Kh-22 "Kitchen" ASM)

First I'd like to clarify that the SM-3 is used solely for ballistic missile defense, it is a three stage missile with a kinetic warhead designed to hit ballistic missiles at high altitude, not knock out low flying cruise missiles; either the SM-2 or SM-6 depending on the time frame of this battle would be used in conjunction with the RIM-116 RAM and CIWS for terminal defense; it is difficult to say how well aegis will perform against a slew of KH-32s given the lack of any real battles to base conclusions on; on paper at least it should be able to handle the attack with a fair bit of success, the networking of all the ship's and plane's radar and targeting system should allow for the very quick detection and ever important tracking of targets and I see no reason to doubt the capabilities of the SM missile family, that satellite shoot from a few years ago was very impressive; without serious operational experience however it is difficult to say for certain how well the system holds up.

Can the Russian Migs stop the US strike wing or hinder it sufficiently to allow the Russian ships to get within SSM missile range?

I don't think so, again with the E-2 in the area and the US air wing not flying any sort of weird compromised fighter like a harrier the US again has control over the battle, the US will be the one plotting the intercept which likely means the fight would start with the superhornets in the superior position, again one only need look at the most recent gulf war to get an indication of this (I believe there was only one confirmed downing due to an enemy aircraft, all other casualties during the air war were from ground fire) additionally AWACS lets you do all sorts of neat little things like turn off your radar and sneak up behind the enemy and fire before they know you're there; suffice it to say while the Migs would provide a problem, they wouldn't be a significant enough hindrance as to allow the russians to sneak by, find and target the battlegroup.

When all is said and done I think the russians would walk away the losers unless the subs come into play and torpedo instead of shipwreck the carrier in which case both teams walk away losers because the carrier's air wing with the land based reinforcements would still clean the Russian's clock. I personally have never understood their missile strategy and have always thought they should have focused more on using submarines. What's the point of having a missile that can fly 600km when you can only detect and target things <400km away? Why are you making submarines pull their pants down and fire missiles?

[dharma7]

Great reply and analysis of this hypothetical battle. Your grasp of the fundamentals and capabilities of the weapons involved is apparent. I have a few comments.
First off, the Kirov described is a fictional upgrade to an existing Kirov class ship, though the Russians are presently planning this, the action takes place in 2021. Kirov has the S-400, and also has replaced its "Shipwrecks" with an improved variant of the Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn) with very similar stats, and also carries the P-900. So that's where the fudge is, as this is a fictionalized battle. (But fun to write!) Trying to make it as realistic as possible...so I though I would see what other educated naval minds think here.

There is a naval version of the S-400 system presently under development and should be deployed well before 2021. In fact it is also to be installed on the new Russian Destroyer (Project 21956) which will have the 9M96Ex 192, a pretty awesome air defense suite.

While I agree with your assessment that the US will strike first, the Russians do have some good situational awareness from overhead satellite coverage of the area and also from a pair of A-50U Shmel long range radar planes. So they have the location of the CVBG pegged and the KH-32 missiles on the Backfires have the range to fire while the bombers are still well behind the protective screen of fighters from Kuznetsov and land based fields.

BTW: Admiral Kuznetsov
Aircraft carried: 41-52
Fixed Wing;
14 × Su-33 fighters (current)
28 × MiG-29K fighters (planned after refit and presumed operational by 2021)
4 × Sukhoi Su-25UTG/UBP aircraft
Rotary Wing;
4 × Kamov Ka-27LD32 helicopters
11 × Kamov Ka-27PLO helicopters
2 × Kamov Ka-27S helicopters

So my assumption is that 28 Mig-29Ks would be a fairly formidable defensive shield. (The M-29K is no slouch!) Remember, the US Carrier has to assign its planes to fly strike, SEAD, TARCAP, Tanker and EW roles, so it won't have all its Superbugs on air-to air assignments. The Russians can support those Mig-29s with some ground based fighters as well.

For this reason My thought was that the Russian fighters could provide sufficient cover to allow the Backfires to get off their shot with the KH-32s. The range of the KH-32 makes this more likely (1000 Kilometers!), so that a considerable standoff capability. My guess is that the Russians successfully protect the Backfires and they get off their shot, as the US planes will have to get very close to get those Backfires and duel it out with those Migs the whole way in. 28 Mig-29Ks are not going to be easy to get through.

If the Russians do protect those Backfires, then after firing, the KH-32 ascends to an altitude of 44,000 meters, (almost to the edge of space) to acquire its target, and can be programmed to then make a plunging attack, (it is not sea skimming here). This trajectory is very much like a that of a ballistic missile, hence my selection of the SM-3 to try and get the KH-32s as they tip over to make the attack descent. The KH-32s will also be at Mach 5 as they come in, so the US won't have many shots.

As to your analysis of the Russian sub threat, I agree entirely. The Oscars would be better off trying to penetrate to torpedo range, but in this scenario, they fire their Shipwrecks, (and pay a price for that later). What the Russians are attempting to do while the US strike package is inbound is get off a saturation barrage comprised of: 30x Kh-32, 24xP-700 Shipwrecks, 20xP-900 Sizzlers off the SSGN Kazan, or a total of 74 missiles inbound on the US CVBG. This is going to make for a very busy day aboard Shiloh and the Arleigh Burkes as they engage this barrage.

As the US planes approach their target, remember they are relying on the Harpoon missile (AGM-84) as their primary strike asset. There are a number of variants of that missile, with the AGM 84-F having the best range at 315km. (Yet even with this longest range version, the US is still going to have to fly through the S-400s for about 100 kilometers to get into firing range. My guess is that the S-400s pose a severe threat. They have a 400km range and can engage the Superbugs before they can get in range to launch the Harpoons. (If they mount AGM-84D or AGM-84E then they must penetrate that SAM envelope deeper before they can fire the Harpoons.

BTW... This is the strike package I theorize the US will send:

Two groups of four fighters would be equipped for target combat air patrol, (TARCAP) and fighter escort duty. At least one or two planes would be standoff jammers flying the FA-18G Growler, and two F/A-18E/Fs would be equipped for mid air refueling operations. Two groups of 4 strike aircraft each would be equipped for SEAD duty, the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. These would carry HARM anti-radiation missiles to seek out the Russian radars and hopefully get some hits. These twenty planes were just the strike asset support group. The meat of the package would come in three groups of four F/A-18's equipped for long range ASUW, Anti Surface Warfare duty. They would carry at least two 360 gallon external fuel tanks and a weapons load out of 2 x AIM-9 Sidewinders, 2 x AIM-120s and 4 x AGM-84 Harpoons. These twelve planes and their 48 Harpoons are the US threat, but they have to get through those S-400s first. The S-400s are good, but they don't know which planes carry the Harpoons. So the Russians use their Migs and SAMs to defend against this package, and my guess is that the US gets off a salvo of at least 24 Harpoons...possibly more. Sound reasonable?

Thanks for your analysis!

[ElBanditoVerde]

May I ask how exactly submarines fit into your plan? My reading of the scenario is that you really want to force the surface combatants to go at it through your poetic license; I however, find it very difficult to believe that the US pacific fleet wouldn't have sent submarines (from guam I think?) to shadow the fleet out of due diligence (the presence of the russian oscars especially to my mind at least begs the question of where the US submarines are).

With respect to the KH-32, both sides by using fleets demonstrate a desire to conduct a conventional war; this desire would impose a severe limitation on the KH-32 missiles. By adopting the attack profile you describe, which is necessary for long range independent targeting of the fleet, the US would assume an ICBM launch and as you correctly hypothesized respond with SM3's. The problem with this is if the US does not see the launch of the missiles clearly there is a distinct possibility of nuclear retaliation which kind of screws the whole strictly conventional war thing up (the avoidance of such mistakes is one of the reasons we build cruise missiles in the first place and refuse to build conventionally armed weapon systems similar to SCUDs). Not knowing the political situation though I can't say for certain how this problem might resolve itself but it does pose an interesting dilemma.

There is a naval version of the S-400 system presently under development and should be deployed well before 2021. In fact it is also to be installed on the new Russian Destroyer (Project 21956) which will have the 9M96Ex 192, a pretty awesome air defense suite.

The system you describe would not be capable of creating a 400km air defense bubble. The S-400 as I said before is an air defense system and contains multiple missiles for dealing with different threats at different ranges. The 400km missile, the 40N6, is intended for the suppression of AWACS and is not being deployed on ships. Severnoye's site http://www.severnoe.com/en/news/publica ... _february/ quotes the air defense as being compromised of "six [VLS] turrets, each designed for eight 48N6-2 type missiles with a strike range of up to 150 km, or for 32 9-96 type missiles with a strike range of 40 km (a packet of four 9-96 missiles is loaded instead of one 48N6-2 missile)". This suggests that your kirov will be loaded with a combination of 48N6E2 and some of the 9M96E's you mentioned giving its air defense envelope a maximum radius of 150 km, not 400 km; additionally, not being familiar with russian targeting practices, I have no idea how the system differentiates and prioritizes targets, or how many missiles it likes to fire at specific targets (e.g. its standard practice for patriot batteries to fire 2 missiles at every incoming projectile) and as such have no real idea on how hard it is to saturate the S-400 (if you have any information on this subject sharing would be much appreciated). However based on the US strike package you describe it sounds like the russian bombers & fighters will be meeting the US air wing "atop" of the russian fleet...intercepting 74 missiles with a tightly networked air defense system is one thing; intercepting 48 harpoons the fighters that dropped them in airspace crowded by one's own airforce is something else entirely, even with a fully networked and aware air defense system it just sounds like an absolute bloody nightmare which is probably one of the things the americans count on (also let's be honest for a second, while the inverse ninja law must be observed in all fiction you're kidding yourself if you think in the real world less than 2 CVNs show up to this party, why else would the americans have 11 steaming around in the first place?)

Your theoretical initial strike package looks good but for a first strike you might want to consider loosing some harpoons in favor of some AMRAAMs or extra sidewinders. By adding the A-50s you have significantly evened the playing field in the air and one must remember that the air wing is also the first line of defense against missiles so I would imagine the initial air wave's focus would lean more towards neutralizing the missile threat and air dominance; the americans can always re-arm for a second strike, the russians can't especially if their bombers are knocked out.

Also note that by 2021 the US might start using the Naval Strike Missile in addition to the harpoon, I personally don't know much about this missile other than it's been tacked on to that abomination we call the JSF; apparently it's a derivative of some european missile and the only anti-ship missile that can fit in the F-35's internal bays, so its something to look into at least.

Just out of curiosity, is the book referred to in the first post written by you? or are you just re-writing the battle found in the book?

[Rick Rather]

May I ask how exactly submarines fit into your plan? My reading of the scenario is that you really want to force the surface combatants to go at it through your poetic license; I however, find it very difficult to believe that the US pacific fleet wouldn't have sent submarines (from guam I think?) to shadow the fleet out of due diligence (the presence of the russian oscars especially to my mind at least begs the question of where the US submarines are).

This. If the entire Russian surface group faced a 30-year old Los Angeles-class boat, I would put my money on the Yank.

Incidentally, I can't find a reference to the destroyer Orlan in the OP. Anyone have a link?

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
It sounds like an updated version of 'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy!