What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

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lwd
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by lwd »

Absurd answer for absurd question.

Although it wouldn't take a trip to the astroid belt. Monitoring of objects making near Earth passes is rather spotty right now. Wouldn't have to be China by the way.

A lot of this boils down to why? In most cases one would be better off targeting other features or if the task force is a real problem just try to put the CVN out of action. In a conventional war China, Russia, Britain, and France would all have a decent chance of puting a CVN out of commision as would terrorist. Sinking an entire task force on the other hand is very problematic. Also rather counter productive for any national force to do as targeting a CVN group invites a nuclear response. The terrorist has a much lower probability of success and if I could think of good ways for one to do this I wouldn't list them.
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Bgile »

Agree.

Any damage of any significance to a CVN will probably send it home and it will take a while to replace it on station and it would be a big news item. It would be hard to do though, and I think they'd have done it by now if it weren't terribly difficult.
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by als_pug »

China is attempting to get it's first CVBG . it is going to take another 10 years for them to achieve Initial Operating Capability. Their is just so much to learn they could not do it any quicker. Say for example the RAN decides to embark a squadron of f-35 vstol on our new amphibious ships. it's going to take a few years to get the ships modified properly then it's going to take several years to get the Aircrew to the desired operational capability. ( Yes i am taking into consideration the fact that Australia was operating a carrier up till the 80's . i am also considering the fact that the USN would provide a heap of training for us as would the RN ) Then our warship commanders would have to learn how to use said airpower correctly. .

Their is no way short of an attack on the CVBG while in port that is going to give a decent chance of success . an attack in port is also really going to hard. your best bet would be to place large 2/5 ton command detonated mines under a bearth in a foriegn port . and i'm not to sure if this would be all that feasible either.
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Legend »

I believe earlier it was unknown what the TDS of the Nimitz CVN's were? I found this a minute ago and was thinking it might help...

Image

It appears to be a... Volume, Liquid (water or fuel), Volume... setup. Nowhere as thick as any battleship or as heavy... with no armor (atleast in the diagram).
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hammy
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by hammy »

It would be difficult to do , extremely difficult in the situation where you were actually at war with the US , because the task force is designed to defend itself against all likely risks over a sustained period .

The problem would come in a situation where war hostilities had not commenced , but there was a tense "stand-off" .
In the most likely current scenario , an "Arab" navy trying to hit a US Indian ocean Task Force , I would firstly get my fleet out to sea as part of "A major exercise of our glorious armed forces at this time of Imperialist Aggression ----- etc " . You know the sort of thing .
Most of this lot would operate well away from the actual target , and I would ensure that it would be as big a shambles as you could possibly arrange , confusion and chaos ruling , accidents , collisions , cock-ups , to jam the airwaves with people screaming at each other , complaints , queries , all the naval guys constantly on the radios , every signal station sending long streams of code , querying it , then sending another text entirely in clear purporting to be a clarification of the first .

My neighbour nations would be asked to either hold their own exercises as demonstrating that "we are all one nation to stand against the aggressor", Or to announce that they are mobilising their own forces to defend themselves from me , their reckless neighbour and threat to regional stability .
Anything that generates movement and traffic and activity .
I would arrange for "reports coming in of border clashes at xxxx ! " in lots of places , and have some of my air-force Jets to go screaming low over where the foreign journalists can see and hear them and spill their morning coffe in their laps .

This would go on for about 2 to 3 days . Object --> Soak up the entire sigs-int , satellite surveillance , overt and covert intelligence gathering , diplomatic , political and journalistic attention in the area .
I would also stage a faked prominent civil air crash at sea in the area , (something like a far eastern medical mission on its way to poor Africa would be good ),
And a new dramatic Pirate attack on a merchant ship in some other unexpected spot in the Indian Ocean , And a Tanker Fire at sea somewhere yet further away , all to add to the commotion and help clog things up generally , and give the US Admiral and his staff plenty of distractions and changes of objectives .

Back where my Naval exercise is going on , day 3 would see me making strong International complaints that unidentified submarines were interfering with my operations and warning that any submarine found in the area of my exercises would be liable to be attacked without further warning .
My Maritime patrol aircraft would probe out towards the US task force , but gently turn away while still outside the TFs air defence screen area , reporting every whale and dolphin that they sight as a submarine , and calling one of my jet fighterbomber flights to scream over to that position , bristling with weapons , and spend half an hour not finding it , and complaining over the radio .
My surface ships also make perturbing movements on the edge of the US TFs secure area , dropping an occasional depth charge , and occasionally pinging their sonars on maximum WAAAAANG to deafen the humans and the machines that are listening to the faint sounds of the ocean .

During the night after day 3 , I announce , at 3.30 am , to CNN , that our glorious air force has attacked an unidentified submerged submarine and that my surface ships are heading to the scene . At 4.30 I light up the sky with an impressive display of flares , fill the deep with the thunder of depth charges , and the airwaves with more traffic . An old barge full of old and petrol soaked mattresses would be set adrift and alight 100 miles away to light up the night .

At dawn on day 4 , my best two submarines , with the best captains and the cream of the submarine crews , lie in waiting positions on the upwind side of the US Task force , having spent three days creeping as silently as possible into place . As the carriers turn up into the wind to launch the first missions of what is clearly going to be another Hell of a day , maybe , just maybe , my submarines will be in a good enough position to launch a fan of torpedoes .

Alternatively , If I actually did have a working atomic weapon , then I would put it on a merchant ship full of relief supplies for starving Africa , paint the ship all over with humanitarian logos , publicise the mercy mission like mad , and then try to get as close in to the carrier(s) as I could before detonating it .

Spooky , huh ?
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Bgile »

I think a submarine attack against a US task force is possible, and much more so if it's done out of the blue in peacetime.

I do think that all of your demonstrations in your hypothesis might be counterproductive because it would increase the US fleet's state of readiness and might cause them to move several hundred miles further out to sea, making your stealthy submarine attack much more problematic. Also, predicting the exact location of the US CVN when she turns into the wind (if she even needs to do that on that particular morning ... not always necessary) is pretty much impossible.

Any time someone wants to blow up a nuclear weapon in a major port somewhere I think is quite possible and I'm a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet. Stay tuned. It would be harder to do it near a CVN just because they move around a lot and your intentions might become suspicious pretty quickly. It would be easier to do it in Norfolk VA, where you might get three CVNs if your timing was good.
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hammy
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by hammy »

Well , we're just playing .
I was trying to achieve a situation where alert follows alert , emergency messages and situations are coming in thick and fast , and ALL the departments in your task force are getting standbys and heads-ups , even your small marine air portable unit , and the search+rescue guys . In the given situation your Air group would be launching round the clock , and even the hangar crews and weapons guys are going to be very busy as the priorities shift from air threat to strike land targets to ASW to surface ships . The positioning of all the surrounding ships in the TF should be changing as well as all the mis-information comes in . After 3 days of what the R N used to call " Musical F******g Chairs" I ended it with a night full of "alarums and excursions" followed by the knife going in for real in the dawns early light , when everybody should be tired and thoroughly fed up .

I think you are right that the force commander might want to get a bit more sea-room under his lee , as it were , but I tried to cook up sufficient mayhem going on ashore so that the high command might not let him . Hence not getting into the TFs security zone .
I love all that deceit /deception/distraction stuff , because , played properly , your opponents end up sprinting about like headless chickens , or just sit there going "wibble , wibble " at each other .

But then , as the clandestine ops director for Al Quaida , you'd expect me to be a devious psychopath , wouldnt you ? .................Ermmmm ....
.... gotta go now !
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Legend
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Legend »

Very Funny. I do admit though... that the idea of flooding the Carrier's defences with activity is a good way to sneak in a sub or two... as long as the USN commander is dumb enough to not move his forces out. The question I believe we were trying to answer before is not IF a submarine could sneak it's way into the defences... but if the torpedoes involved would be powerful enough to sink the CVN... and if said Nimitz class CVN would have a TDS thick enough to weather such an assault.

Now, I can only assume from locig, that the USN put the best possible TDS they could fit into the Nimitz hulls without making it insanely expensive (Battleship armor!) or thick (More than twenty feet). The above diagram (unless I started a new page again) shows a reliable system that surrounds basic TDS needs:

1. Space for the explosion to overpressure and expand.
2. Fluid or something to absorb the explosion from entering the vital spaces.
3. More space to accept the bulging outer TDS and to catch any shrapnel flying inwards.

Normally Battleships and other Capitol Ships with "Modern" TDS would have a number 4: Armor plating hard and thick enough to absorb the shrapnel and explosion from the outer viod spaces, but soft enough to not shatter upon impact of another torpedo (or a really big one) and therefore creating more shrapnel to fly inward (not mentioning the BIG hole in the side of the ship that would make).

Now... as far as I know it is obvious the Nimitz Class has no armor inside or outside of the TDS. They have armored decks... but that is about it as far as good old armor goes. The TDS with void-liquid-void shows to be aproximately fifteen feet wide... with no space to expand upward safely (with the recent posting of PoW's sinking showing the importance of this). The question is how powerful a torpedo and how many of them is a Nimitz Class CVN capable of taking?
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Bgile »

TDS in a modern sense is pretty much obsolete, because modern torpedoes blow up under the keel. I think these days it's pretty much up to the ability of the ship to absorb the damage through structural strength and compartmentation.
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hammy
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by hammy »

Hi Legend ,
I think that the cross section is not an accurate plan , but rather just indicative of what is in the hull , a sort of "Ship Anatomy educational explanatory view ".

What it DOES show very well is the constraint that continues to be placed on hull width dimensions by the need to pass these giants through the Panama canal locks , so you have an awful lot stacked on top and overhanging . I would guess that the torpedo protection scheme is a worked-up development from the Essex-->Midway-->and all subsequent designs , as all were/are faced with the same constraint .

If you cant armour , then you are best to subdivide , and provided that this Internal bulge/liquid load layer system has plenty of Water tight bulkheads from fore to aft then single torpedo hits (21inch standard type warhead) should be contained . You would get quite a list though due to all the top-weight . I would guess that three hits spaced , say 100 feet apart , somewhere in the middle half of the ship , would certainly render her "hors-de-combat" , dead in the water .

The Soviet navy did study the problem of developing a system to penetrate the screens around the USN carriers , and came up with a submarine which could sit well outside the screen and throw heavy anti-ship missiles into the centre . Cue much scuttling about and the provision of a much bigger and more capable screen , at which point a much bigger and better submarine appeared with much more capable missiles , and so on it went until the mid 1990s when the Cold war ended .
That solution , submarine launched long range big capable missile attack , probably remains the "best" option today , but , paranoia apart , I dont see The Bear wanting to take on Uncle Sam again any time soon .
The Russian state is smaller today than it was in the time of Bonaparte , and I can see no sign of a new Imperialism ( to re-establish the old Soviet empire state geographically ) . I think that , posturing aside , the last thing Mr Putin wants to do is to spend all that lovely new oil+gas income on yet another Great Navy , and while the core of the best submarines are still extant , the "Kursk" incident showed to what level the Russian Navy had fallen --- AT THAT TIME .

The economic chaos and kleptocracy which ensued with Mr Yeltsin appears to be coming under control again now , and so the Russian armed forces will be better off in terms of spending on new warships as well as being able to maintain and repair the existing ones .

It will be interesting to see if anyone in Russia starts to ask "What is the fleet actually FOR ?" -------- given that Russia is a self sustaining country with few import requirements and a restricted access to the sea .
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Bgile »

hammy wrote:What it DOES show very well is the constraint that continues to be placed on hull width dimensions by the need to pass these giants through the Panama canal locks , so you have an awful lot stacked on top and overhanging . I would guess that the torpedo protection scheme is a worked-up development from the Essex-->Midway-->and all subsequent designs , as all were/are faced with the same constraint .
No, CVN's do not have that design restriction. They can't go through the Panama canal, and as far as I know their GM isn't out of line with other warships. At least, I wouldn't expect it to be.
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by lwd »

hammy wrote:...During the night after day 3 , I announce , at 3.30 am , to CNN , that our glorious air force has attacked an unidentified submerged submarine and that my surface ships are heading to the scene . At 4.30 I light up the sky with an impressive display of flares , fill the deep with the thunder of depth charges , and the airwaves with more traffic . An old barge full of old and petrol soaked mattresses would be set adrift and alight 100 miles away to light up the night .
I would think all the lead up would mean a very good chance that this deception would be seen for exactly what it is.
At dawn on day 4 , my best two submarines , with the best captains and the cream of the submarine crews , lie in waiting positions on the upwind side of the US Task force , having spent three days creeping as silently as possible into place .
Problem here is that CV task forces don't stay still. Indeed if your subs are creaping you are going to have to guess correctly where the CVs are going to be. I also suspect that dawn patrols are already in the air at dawn.
.

Alternatively , If I actually did have a working atomic weapon , then I would put it on a merchant ship full of relief supplies for starving Africa , paint the ship all over with humanitarian logos , publicise the mercy mission like mad , and then try to get as close in to the carrier(s) as I could before detonating it .
Unless you can catch them doing a port visit not likely to get close enough to do any good. In any case the response would render this route rather problematic.
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hammy
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by hammy »

Well lwd , I was trying to imagine a "gameplan" that would enable a third world navy with a couple of reasonably efficient diesel/electric submarines to penetrate the screens around a typical Indian Ocean US TF , and give one of the big carriers a surprise from behind .

Part of the standard US TF is two nuclear powered attack submarines . Obviously , I would want to be able to predict where these are NOT at the point where my own two boats are going to try to seak in .
That is what all the guff about "unidentified submarines interfering with my exercises is all about " .
As the US TF commander , I would want my N boats stationed and patrolling to cover the direction of where a threat is likely to come from , but not getting into trouble doing that . They arent likely to be around a group of unpredictable and apparently inefficient ships that are broadcasting unexplained threats and scattering depth charges about , because they would be both hampered in their listening and possibly at risk . The announcement that somebodies sub HAS been attacked and The barge-full of old petrol soaked mattresses set ablaze elsewhere is just to keep the US TF commander awake and worrying and wondering , and tie up resources in checking it all out .
I think that Captain Walker , the WW2 Royal Navy U-Boat hunter used to do something similar in the Iceland--Faroes--Shetland gaps using a tar barrel on a raft , to try to get U-boats to come and investigate an apparent "ship on fire" in the night , and these were seen and independently reported by allied Air reconnaisance .

The scenario I gave involved a lot of Middle Eastern Uproar ashore , in an attempt to "fix" the TF relatively in place in a standby position to intervene , so I dont think that the Pentagon would allow the TF commander to head far south into the open ocean .
That is why the attacker is ensuring his ships and planes do nothing more than show up on the very edge of the TFs screens .
When asked "are you under threat ?" I want the US TF commander to say "Well ................No , we do not appear to be at this time"

Tied to a standby position within reasonably easy striking distance of , say , the Persian Gulf , It might be possible for an attacker to get at the TF . The point about "Up-wind" is that the wind patterns of the north Indian Ocean are very predictable seasonally , AND that a carrier engaged in constantly launching and recovering Aircraft -- in this scenario they have been at it for three days or so -- will usually turn into the wind to launch or recover planes , and so the force will Tend to move "upwind" , over time , on the chart . A submarine skipper can use that tendency to give himself a bit of an "edge" . ( Thats not me talking , thats Soviet era naval staff comment that I saw on the TV once ).

As for suspecting that all the activity is just a "wicked plot" , you might , as TF commander , suspect that . But after three days of alert-followed-by-standown your subordinates are going to be rather fed up with the constant false alarms and you will be beginning to doubt your own misgivings -- I hope !

As I said before , we are just playing with this . I suppose the only way to test it would be on a full War-Game basis , or as an actual Fleet exercise -- difficult to do that and get it "real" though .
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by Bgile »

I was once involved in a US exercise where a CVS was required to limit it's movements to a box about 50 miles by 100 miles while conducting flight ops. Our diesel submarine was supposed to attack it. It was hopeless. The CVS was running around on various courses at 20 kts or more and we couldn't go but a fraction of that speed, and we were never able to get close enough for an attack.

The other guy doesn't know where the US submarines are. If his submarines get close enough to be detected by one of them, you can forget your anti CVN op.

If you drop a depth charge in the vicinity of one of the US submarines ... remember you don't know where they are ... you have just given the TF commander an excuse to solve the whole problem by sinking all of your ships.

If you do get close enough to launch torpedoes, they will almost certainly be detected and the CVN will take steps to evade them and/or fox them.

There will be ASW helicopters patrolling in front of the CVN. You can't keep track of them very well so you don't know when one of them is near you. If you raise your periscope when one of them is close enough to pick it up on their radar, which is specifically designed to do that, game over. If it happens to dip a sonar close enough to get a return off of your hull, game over.

Again, I think this kind of an attack is possible. It would require some luck and possibly some incompetence on the part of the US ships involved.
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Re: What is needed to sink a US Navy task force?

Post by hammy »

Thats a pretty fair summary Bgile . With regard to "incompetence" , I would also suggest ..... just pretty tired , and making mistakes .
Interesting that you've seen this modelled for real , and it not working . Let me have another chat with Osama and we'll see if we cant come up with.........................Oh dear! ! !
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