Air-Launched decoys require constant air-power presence and a guarantee that such support will be available anytime you have a naval vessel that needs to launch a missile. So yes, if you can guarantee that ability, all the time, then you can do away with lower-cost, higher-flexibility weapons and just rely on air-power to come in and provide the saturation.george wrote:Did I say VLS?
Decoys to fool air defense is not something new. The delivery platforms can be anything. My argument was that using TLAMs for anti ship roles does not make sense cause its slow. You countered that they will be used for saturation attacks. I countered that saying, it makes more sense to use missile decoys.
Unfortunately, few if any navies, take that for granted. Hence why you see a broad portfolio of anti-ship weapons across the performance and cost spectrum. When you have to pack VLS cells you make trades based on performance, and the ability of your threat (measured in survivability and lethality of your weapon choices as they relate to your assessment of your enemies air defense capabilities) to overcome what you can put out both in terms of quality and quantity. When your ships leave their VLS footprint is nearly set in stone (at sea VLS replenishment, even if it comes back is still not a sustainable strategy at scale) and it means that within that portfolio they must be able to respond to the wide spectrum of roles and missions where they may be called upon to perform. Hence you see navies around the world maintain, and even modernize their subsonic AshM weapon portfolio while fielding or working on supersonic or even hypersonic AshM or dual-role weapons.
The Va TLAM is a great saturation weapon because at that range, and with the ability to attack both land and sea targets you get an extremely cost effective weapon that is flexible enough to meet multiple needs. A brand new Va would cost under $2 MM and a Block IV to Va conversion probably sub $300K (that's what the USN is doing instead of buying new weapons). The LRASM goes for $3.2 Million and the Mach 5+ SM-6 1B will likely be around $5 Million. So you can see the various combinations of cost, performance and the ability to saturation play out. I suspect, it would be the very same thing with the Brahmos and Nirbhay combination in the IN. The former will be the higher cost lower volume option while the latter will be the lower cost higher volume option. Both have their place and both present challenges to any naval force confronting them.
You claimed that a "1000 km anything can house a dozen decoys" so I assume you've cracked how to squeeze in a dozen decoys in the same space that a Block Va TLAM would take up. If so, I'd like to see your solution. I don't know where the "radar footprint" comes from.george wrote:Coming to 'squeezing' 12 decoys. You do realize that radar footprint is a function of shape and not size right?
LRASM and Block Va are different. The former uses passive RF, passive IIR and a combination of LOS and NLOS networking. The Block Va is more simpler AESA (RF-active) seeker upgrade to the TLAM with a passive targeting interim capability fielded while the seeker goes through its paces for mid 2020's IOC. For long range subsonic targeting you need excellent ISR so at those extreme ranges you will have to have it order to get those ranges. But since these are dual-role weapons (TLAM) all you are talking about is adding an additional seeker capability while retaining everything else so at best you have a long range attack option when you have good ISR, and at worst you have the same TLAM land attack capability that you need anyways. When you have limited real-estate on ships having weapons that can do more than one mission looks a very attractive proposition and are therefore desirable.Chinmay wrote:USN is already on that path. All Tomahawks will have a moving target capability, with some hardware (active radar seeker) and software upgrades (datalinks?). The LRASM already can do that, so it isnt a massive technical challengeCain Marko wrote: How does a long ranged subsonic like nirbhay work for anti ship duties? Target tracking would be a pita.