What this blogpost does, is start with the base assumptions of "Command Modern Operations", a military-simulator from MatrixGames, as well as the assumption of 2x Neptunes fired + 1x Drone nearby the ship.
With the base assumptions, the Moskva detects both missiles and destroys them long before they're anywhere close to a threat. Of course, this isn't what happened in reality....
From there, the blogpost doubles the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, making the ship's crew less-and-less competent until the missiles hit. The OODA-loop originally assumes a response time of 15-seconds. But what if it was 30-seconds? 60-seconds? 120-seconds? How long do we give the "crew" to not see the missiles?
A second experiment is then run: what if the RADAR is off? It looks like the CWIS detects the missiles, but its too late: the CWIS can only disable one missile before the second one strikes the ship.
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Of course, just playing around with assumptions probably won't get us to the truth of the matter. But maybe it gives us at least an idea of what the crew was thinking and/or not thinking.
Personally speaking, I would have increased the number of Neptune missiles until two missiles struck the ship in the simulation. There's just a lot of unknown variables here...
History tells us a lot. Exocets punished the UK in the Falklands. The USS Stark got nailed by Iraqi Exocets. The Georgians actually scored a missile hit on the very same Moskva in 2008. Apparently naval defensive systems -- even with the depth of Moskva, which was festooned with anti-missile defenses -- are not capable of protecting vessels under all conditions.
Every case can be endlessly Monday morning quarterbacked, but it appears to me that if your navies defensive systems are not fully automated, continuously available or compromised by tracking limitations, including those induced by tunnel vision-ed crews, weather or any other conceivable condition, then you risk having your capital ships blown apart by a relatively inexpensive bit of ordinance that can be launched from hundreds of kilometers away using a variety of platforms.
The missiles involved weren't even all that extraordinary. They're based on an old Soviet design (Kh-35). Not especially stealthy. Not hypersonic. Yet here we are.
What is the actual feasibility of protecting surface ships? An important question because everyone has sea skimming anti-ship missiles.
> The missiles involved weren't even all that extraordinary. They're based on an old Soviet design (Kh-35). Not especially stealthy. Not hypersonic. Yet here we are.
I mean, that's what I've generally heard about "hypersonic" missiles.
Sure, they're harder to shoot down. But regular-ol' cruise missiles are already hard to shoot down. Its probably more worthwhile to just fire 20x simultaneous cruise missiles rather than to develop 1x hypersonic missile.
Seeking arguments against hypersonic weapons is as futile as arguing against every other leg of the perpetual arms race. The advantages are clear; the speed of hypersonic missiles makes all current anti-missile systems (limited as they already are,) obsolete. The first iterations of hypersonic missiles are already in service with two major powers and a third will join soon. Everyone else will follow.
> The advantages are clear; the speed of hypersonic missiles makes all current anti-missile systems (limited as they already are,) obsolete
But if two Neptune cruise missiles are all that was needed to destroy one of Russia's cruisers (with some of Russia's latest anti-missile CRAMs / anti-missile RADARs), why should the USA develop hypersonic missiles?
That's the thing. Ukraine just showed that regular ol' cruise missiles are still sufficient to destroy Russian warships. There's no point making an "unbeatable hypersonic missile" if the Russian equipment/training can't even beat a regular-ol cruise missile.
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In contrast, Russia / China *MUST* create hypersonic missiles, because USA's CRAMs and USA's defense systems have proven to defeat subsonic and even supersonic missiles.
USA should have hypersonic missiles ready just in case Russia/China suddenly shows off world-class missile defense systems. But... under the current estimations, regular old cruise missiles / Tomahawks / Harpoons remain an efficient weapon, and aren't obsolete yet.
I'm sure that Russia / China will eventually develop adequate missile-defense systems. But this Moskva sinking event (especially a Flagship / cruiser) proves that the Russians don't have an adequate defense yet vs a cruise missile, let alone a cruise missile salvo.
> Ukraine just showed that regular ol' cruise missiles are still sufficient
The attack on Moskva wasn't simply a pair of R-360 missiles. It was a coordinated attack using drone threats to distract the target combined with poor weather conditions and the naivety and perhaps (in)competence of the Russian Navy. A hypersonic weapon, at least while they remain unstoppable, could forego these sort of preconditions.
A cruise missile salvo requires a salvo launching platform. A large ship with many launchers and a large magazine, for example. A hypersonic weapon could forego that as well; a small, agile and far lower cost platform such as a single aircraft or frigate class ship could deliver the same result.
The high probability of destruction means a stealthy long range aircraft such as B2 armed with air launched hypersonic missiles could deny entire oceans to enemy ships. That is far too compelling and ensures the pursuit of this capability.
Like it or not this arms race is already under way. The argument is already settled.
And modern AIs can coordinate those attacks for us automatically. Not even a "deep learning" AI either, we're talking about old-school flocking behaviors that's well studied and understood.
It will be cheaper to write an AI to coordinate those attacks, rather than building larger engines to break the hypersonic barrier. Defeating the enemy air-defenses with cheap computers automatically swarming the enemy at 500mph is a lot cheaper than trying to build a 3000mph rocket.
> It will be cheaper to write an AI to coordinate those attacks, rather than building larger engines to break the hypersonic barrier.
'Cheaper' has to factor in all costs, including salvo launching platforms and logistics. Not everyone has (as you speculated on in another reply) an abundance of aircraft carriers and their F-35 squadrons and those that do will still place a high value on having the choice. This is why those than can are all developing hypersonic weapons and no amount of arm chair theorizing will stop it.
In any case, my original question, prompted by our brand new Moskva data point, was can surface ships be protected? They've already proved vulnerable to existing anti-ship missiles and the future will inevitably include hypersonics and flocks of AI missiles and anything else we here can dream up to make already poor defense even less viable. The implication being that they can't, and that this is the important question. If one seeks a clever way to save money perhaps the costly floating targets that are large surface ships should be at issue.
I think the idea is to have hypersonic missile capability if it is needed, but keep the loadout stocked with cheaper regular missiles that have proven themselves capable of taking out Russian/Chinese warships.
There's also the option of developing subsonic cruise missiles further: ex... random movement patterns, or "cruise missile swarms" (intelligent cruise missiles that communicate with each other to maximize the chance that at least one hits the target), etc. etc.
Hypersonic is the brute force and "obvious" approach to defeating enemy defense systems. But its important to not let the hype get carried away.
> (intelligent cruise missiles that communicate with each other to maximize the chance that at least one hits the target)
The Moskva was designed to launch exactly that system. The P-500 Bazalt/P-1000 Vulkan missiles that are launched from the huge battery of launchers that dominate the deck of the Moskva class coordinate among themselves in flight to minimize the attack profile and prioritize targets. The thing you're thinking of is already old hat.
Hypersonic weapons seek to deliver equivalent power in a far smaller, lower cost and more agile platform.
But you can always decrease the costs of such systems, improve their mass-production, and maximize their smarts.
The "Gray Wolf" cruise missile system that USAF is investing into (or maybe more accurately: experimenting with) is one such "cruise missile swarm" that's quite modern, for example, and is competing against Hypersonic missiles for development. The Gray Wolves seem like they're small enough to be deployed on common fighter-aircraft, like F16 or F35.
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Lets say you only need 8 Gray Wolves to reliably hit and kill an enemy cruiser. That's only 2x F35 fighters that need to be deployed to launch those 8x Gray Wolves.
It might be easier logistically speaking, to launch 2x or 3x F35B or F35C fighters off a US Navy Carrier / US Marine Assault Ship to launch 8x missiles, rather than figuring out how to launch a larger bomber who can carry the larger Hypersonic missile.
No one really knows how the next war is going to face. Even though we're getting more information in this Ukrainian/Russian conflict, we're not really seeing major naval battles (Ukraine after all, doesn't have a Navy). Therefore, we don't really have much insight at all to how carriers / destroyers / frigate missile platforms vs airplane systems work.
> Hypersonic weapons seek to deliver equivalent power in a far smaller, lower cost and more agile platform.
But the Hypersonic missiles themselves need to be much larger and full of propellant to break not only the sound-barrier, but the hypersonic barrier. That's a lot of drag to breakthrough.
Can those systems be shrunk to a small enough size to fit onto an F35 or F16? If you can only "shrink" those missiles to B52 size, that limits their deployment. Its not like you can launch a B52 from a carrier. And even if you could, B52 doesn't have any stealth capabilities like the F35, so you wouldn't want to use it in anything resembling a contested airspace.
Subsonic weapons are naturally going to be smaller than hypersonic weapons. Subsonic weapons always have exponentially less drag, since they're flying at far slower speeds. Less drag means more range with less propellant, and smaller weapons yet yielding more payload (bigger explosives, since you're spending less precious "weight" on propellant).
EDIT: Case in point, the USA's HAWC project has no explosives at all, and is purely a kinetic-energy projectile.
I have seen an ex-military comment on the recent pics of the Moskva and it somewhat corroborates the hypothesis that the ship didn't engage the defenses.
The person said that the AA radar was in the inactive position and the AA launchers were down in the wells. Obviously it is possible that they were retracted after the attack so it's not a hundred percent proof.
> AA radar was in the inactive position and the AA launchers were down in the wells
That is confusingly incompetent for a vessel at war, off the enemy’s coast, an enemy which manufactures anti-ship missiles and has been potting your side’s planes for weeks. I’m more liable to believe the radars were broken. It fits the pattern of logistical and maintenance issues across the Russian military.
Maybe they were. Anyway this starts to look like the Ukrainians did not overwhelm or disable the AA defenses. The more realistic explanation is that they had good intelligence and just knew the missiles have a good chance of landing (either due to incompetence or poor maintenance of the AA systems).
Maybe Ukraine felt like "trying to get lucky" and... lo and behold, they got lucky?
Not everything is necessarily down to intelligence. If Ukraine saw a chance to fire upon the ship, maybe they were like "Lets test out their missile-defense systems and see if they're as good as they claim..."
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If you have an intelligence-advantage against the opponent, you can fish for lucky chances more often, knowing that the opponent doesn't really have a good counter-response.
I believe these missiles cost a crapload of money, are slow to make and Ukraine has a small number of these. It would be irrational for them to use not one but at least two of them (some sources say there even were 3 hits) without a decent chance of a hit.
1. UK promises to ship anti-ship Harpoon missiles to Ukraine.
2. Ukraine was holding these Neptune missiles as the "ace in the hole" if the Odessa amphibious landing was ever to occur. After all, destroying enemy ships would kill most amphibious landing plans.
3. Since "Harpoons" are promised, Ukraine was suddenly in a position where it could use some weapons "recklessly", fishing to get lucky. As long as the UK's Harpoons arrive in time to defend Odessa in time, then the use of the Neptune missiles would be worth the tradeoff (even if there was a high chance of failure).
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On the other hand, Ukraine built the Moskva (in the Mykolayiv Shipyard). The 1990s refit of the Moskva was also handed by the Mykoalyiv shipyard (IE: Ukrainians not only built the original ship, but also handled one of the upgrades). It is quite possible that Ukraine had deep knowledge about the capabilities of the Moskva, and this was "less luck" than any of us can see.
Us in the USA may have overestimated the capabilities of the Moskva, while the Ukrainians knew more details about how / when to attack it for maximum chance of effectiveness. What they needed was a plan to defend Odessa however once those missiles were used up. UK providing a "backfill" of Harpoon missiles was therefore all Ukraine needed to go with the "lets try to get lucky" plan.
Perhaps the Russians got convinced by the internal logic if their own propaganda where they are engaged in a "special operation". By that logic it is ok to be relaxed about readines as well as have conscripts on board.
Site's down atm but he does mention towards the end 28+ missiles would've been necessary to start overwhelming the Moskva's defenses. I think it's unlikely they had that many in place to fire at it simultaneously. The launchers for it aren't exactly small and can only carry 4 each AFAIK.
It wouldn't be that surprising if the navy was corrupt and inept as well. The weather conditions, the command structure, and the fact that it was night time could have also played into it. If the people on watch were tired, it could have slowed reaction times. If they weren't allowed to launch counter measures without the captain and the captain was sleeping, it could have slowed reaction times.
I would assume it's a combination of poor readiness, poor training, poor leadership and a high pressure/stress environment due to the drone harassment.
> Never seen it discussed, but maybe the drone landed a bomb on the superstructure which knocked out their radar or other detection systems.
But that's also ridiculous: a cruiser, with full anti-air capabilities, would be disabled from an aerial bomb?
Missile-defense is harder than anti-air (especially vs slow, non-stealthy aerial drones). It makes far more sense that Moskva failed against the sea-skimming missiles, rather than the obvious drone in the vicinity.
Then again: the Moskva *should* have been able to disable the missiles.
Missile defense is hard, even if everything goes according to plan. A small sea skimming object travelling at near wave height means very little reaction time for even the likes of an AEGIS system.
Now that you said it, maybe the weapon height of 30ft above sea level was a tad bit too high, given the report of sea state 3.
Still, it seems unlikely that the missile would have been that much lower, and that the Moskva "should've" detected it at 10nm out. Which does make you wonder, if the drones had been carrying out electronic warfare, faking radar locks, then that makes things complicated for the Moskva.
>>>I would say these are all games and have little value but what do I know.
The US and UK militaries use the licensed version of Command: Modern Operations to do wargaming / modeling & simulation. For ~$20,000/copy it mostly lets the end user edit/update the database (probably to incorporate classified capabilities/performance envelopes). The game has a ton of references for its radar/EMS and physics models. It's probably the best and most accessible military simulation on the open market.
I have some ideas about writing adversarial AIs for it to sell to the military but I'm too swamped with other stuff.
With the base assumptions, the Moskva detects both missiles and destroys them long before they're anywhere close to a threat. Of course, this isn't what happened in reality....
From there, the blogpost doubles the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, making the ship's crew less-and-less competent until the missiles hit. The OODA-loop originally assumes a response time of 15-seconds. But what if it was 30-seconds? 60-seconds? 120-seconds? How long do we give the "crew" to not see the missiles?
A second experiment is then run: what if the RADAR is off? It looks like the CWIS detects the missiles, but its too late: the CWIS can only disable one missile before the second one strikes the ship.
-------
Of course, just playing around with assumptions probably won't get us to the truth of the matter. But maybe it gives us at least an idea of what the crew was thinking and/or not thinking.
Personally speaking, I would have increased the number of Neptune missiles until two missiles struck the ship in the simulation. There's just a lot of unknown variables here...