Iran most certainly does have the Sunburn missile. The Russians sold it to the Iranians in late 2001. The "Moskit" (as the Russians call it) can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, OR a 750-pound conventional warhead. Iran has the conventional sort.

And AEGIS cannot defeat it. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the AEGIS defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution, not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder "just in time."

 

We are doomed! Doomed I tell you!

Whatever

Russia is just tired of being Jan Brady.

 

We got plenty of sunscreen, nothing to worry about from the motherland.

Phalanx is out of date anyway, its not 1990 anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Airframe_Missile

The new system is completely integrated into the entire battlegroup. It is centralized and determines what ship fires at what threat automatically without the need for the closest ship to make the decision. The 'threat' of anything they have is only to get money for exponentially superior equipment. We got it covered. Just like the 117 with its full production run completed long before any civilian even knew about it. If there is one thing our government does well, it's knowing how to blow up stuff.

The new toys are stealth littoral warfare ships, we have the oceans covered. The Burke class is far, far ahead of any other nation's naval technology, and its replacement is already in the works. The next decade of upcoming US Naval technology is going to blow everybodys mind.

Check out Hazegrey's site that covers most of Russia's known navy vessels. Check out the cruiser/destroyer sections. Sovremenny and Kirov classes were to be the end-all-be-all, but most are gone and only a fraction of the runs were built. I think we are building over 50 Burke class ships, which handle all the Sovremenny/Kirov roles although with modern and evolving technology. Interesting to note how many ships built after 1989 are already retired if not completely scrapped.

http://www.hazegray.org/features/russia/

Then stop at navysite's list of US warships, its hillarious

http://www.navysite.de/ships.htm

The main support players in the US fleet ore FFG frigates OHP class/CG Missile cruisers Ticonderoga class/ and and guided missile destroyers DDG Burke flight I/II class(DDG 51-112-so far). DDG's will replace the FFG's and CG's.

 

Which is what I said, though I was admittedly wrong about the Shipwreck designation. And frankly, the nuclear version is why Sunburn is so worrisome in the first place. Because then it only takes one getting through to send a Nimitz to the bottom. With the conventional version it still takes half-a-dozen just to render one inoperational, IIRC.

Well Phalanx is an outdated joke, so no surprise there. As for AEGIS, that's not such a simple declaration to make, as it's a fluid system that's constantly being upgraded and improved. Recently we've added the SM-3 Mod 1B and ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow) to the Burke class. But the biggest advantage is the data-linking. As long as one ship sees it, every ship in the battlegroup sees it. And then there's SeaRAM (uses the missile kevinb mentioned, with dual IR and radar guidance), a drop-in replacement for the Phalanx. Actually, it is Phalanx, just with the 20mm Vulcan cannon replaced with a launcher with 11 missiles, better range, better accuracy and in-flight maneuverability.

Even the Russians weren't as confident in Sunburns ability to penetrate AEGIS as you seem to be. Their doctrine called for multiple launches from multiple ships, aka missile spam. They're dangerous, for sure, but it's simply ridiculous to imply a US CVBG is defenseless against them.

It's all academic anyway, it's not like we'll be getting into a shooting war with Russia anytime soon. I think AFBLUE is fundamentally correct, this is pretty much Russia just coming out and shouting "Hey, we're still internationally relevant, don't go forgetting about us".

 

That's the problem...you can't. At 2.5 times the speed of sound only a few feet from the surface of the water with violent end maneuvers to throw off countermeasures, it's virtually undetectable until it's too late. It's likely this is the system the Iranians were boasting about several months back during their war games.

The battle group is currently defenseless against them. That's the whole point.

My concern wasn't Russia. My concern was Iran...a country you may get into a shooting war with, if the current administration gets its way.

 

Let me be blunt. You don't know what the **** you are talking about.

 

hollywood, what do you do for a living? just wondering

 

We've been down this road before. After all the great boogeymen from the East we dealt with during the days of the Soviet empire I would think people would take stuff like this with a grain of salt, and a rather large one at that.

There are several problems with this weapons sytem.

First, it has never been tested in combat. In other words we have no idea what it will do in the real world and considering the ridiculous levels to which the Soviets/Russians beat their chests regarding their weaponry in the past without this or extensive knowledge of Western testing and findings of the weapons systems effectiveness you can safely say we know next to nothing about how good or bad this system is.

In the seventies the MiG25 was going to render our air power obsolete, and then supersonic mid and long range Soviet bombers were the problem...now this. The one near constant has been that more hyperbole has surrounded the machinery in question than actual fact. The MiG 25 was a ridiculously one-dimensional aircraft built to face a threat which never materialized, the mid range Soviet bombers in question were nothing like as capable as the West intially feared and the long range bombers so dreaded were in one case just an over-hyped theatre bomber and on the other an over-priced albatross even US couldn't have funded and which under-performed in the end anyway.

The list literally goes on and one. Feel free to pick the ridiculously over rated Soviet tank threat or the ambitious but nearly uselss Alpha class subs which looked great on paper but managed to stay in service less than twenty years. (actually funstional service life was less than 10 and many argue that they were never a genuine, deployable threat)

On ocassion the Russians crank out a winner, like the MiG15, Hind gunship, or Su27 family of fighters. But ultimately the best these have ever done is to give the Russians parity on some levels. So far what we know about the Sunburn is that the Chinese can make it hit a big red X on a defenseless target ship and what the spec sheets say..and if the Russians are holding true to form they probably have ten sets of specs for the exact same variant so even if you believe the specs you will have to choose which set you believe.

I am far more concerned with silly decisions made by our own goverment regarding our military hardware...like the ridiculous decisions to purchase the Super Hornet over a new varaint of the Tomcat and the ridiculously political effort to replace the M4 and M16 rifles.

 

Hey i saw a documentary on the super hornet and its pretty nice i must admit. what did they change about the F-14?

Yea the M4 is a very very good CQB weapon, i have an airsoft version just like it. the only thing the M-16 really lacks is reliability.

 

Forgive the awkward formatting, I started typing this last night and saved it in notepad to finish today.


You seem awfully convinced of Sunburns ability to defeat AEGIS based on
a report (that you've conveniently forgot to name or link to) of the
window of engagement a horribly outdated and ineffective system has
against it. Ignoring, of course, that AEGIS is light-years beyond said
outdated and ineffective system. According to you, Phalanx would have
a engagement envelope of 2.5 seconds. AEGIS would have an engagement
envelope (against Sunburn) of at least 10x that. I don't know what the
engagement envelope of SeaRAM-Phalanx is, but given the switch from a
gun to a Mach 2 missile, reduced need to lead the target due to the use
of a missile, and improved sensor suite logic dictates it will be much
improved.

The idea that AEGIS can't even detect Sunburn is patently false.
Sunburn uses an active radar guidance system. That's pretty much a giant flashing beacon shouting "Please shoot me down".
Even if they don't get a return off the missile
fuselage, they'll get a threat warning guaranteed during the final
flight stage. And datalinking between missile, which Sunburn does, only
makes detection that much easier. And anyway, flying as low as possible
is not a guarantee of avoiding detection, this isn't 1973, radar has
advanced a bit in the past few decades. Sunburns low-altitude approach
can only help it so much, actually, as due to its use of active radar
guidance it has to pop back up to reacquire its target. And lets not
forget the fact that AEGIS can datalink with the very capable "look-down" radar in the E-2C AWACS aircraft.
AEGIS itself uses a phased-array radar system that is very difficult to jam and extremely capable. You harp on the idea that it was designed to defeat AEGIS, you never seem to apply any actual thought into how capable it is of doing so. Here's a hint, just because it's designed to defeat AEGIS does not in fact mean that AEGIS is useless against it. Of course, I feel compelled to point out that AEGIS is a system specially designed to counter Russian anti-ship missile spam during the Cold War. A system designed to track, engage, and destroy over 100 targets simultaneously.

Keep in mind, I'm not stating that Sunburn poses no threat. That would be every bit as ridiculous as what you're saying. It is a serious, and real threat, and not to be taken lightly. However, it's also not some magical, undefeatable missile either.

Every Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is equipped with Mk 41 VLS tubes,
for a total of 90 missiles(96 in Flight IIa ships) in it's VLS cells per
ship , with multiple Burke class ships per CVBG. These 90/96 missiles are
split between Tomahawk (useless in this case), ASROC (also useless in
this case), SM-2/3 (capable of intercepting an incoming MIRV, which is
much faster than SS-N-22), and ESSM missiles. I've yet to take into
account our 22 remaining Ticons, which have an even more capable
version of AEGIS and carry even more VLS cells (120).

The question isn't if AEGIS can down a Sunburn, even the Russians wouldn't make such a claim. The real questions are, how many SM-2/ESSMs will it take to down a single Sunburn? And how many Sunburns will it then take
to crack AEGIS?

I wouldn't be too worried about Irans Sunburns, actually. In fact,
even taking into consideration the unlikeliness of a shooting war with
them, I'd still be more worried about Russias missiles. For Iran to
effectively use these, they have to be able to deploy them in numbers
adequate to overwhelm a CVBGs multi-layered fleet defense (Super
Hornet, AEGIS, SeaRAM, Phalanx). They have a dozen Sunburns, the two
Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruiser in a basic CVBG
wouldn't even break a sweat downing a dozen Sunburns. And they only
have two viable platforms from which to launch Sunburn, discounting a
jury-rigged fishing boat or something of that nature. The
Tarantul-class corvette and Su-24 'Fitter' bomber aircraft. And the
Su-24 would have to be modified to carry the air-launched version of
Sunburn, which Iran may not even have in the first place.

The Super Hornet is very good at being very mediocre, that's about it. As for changes on the F-14, I assume you mean the new variants jsaylor mentioned. There were actually a few different versions, you can read up on them here, http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0132.shtml

 

now that is what I call a 5-star post

 

I know he doesn't do what I do.
I am not worried about Iran at all.
I know how well our troops are protected against these things.
You don't know what we have and I can't tell you.

 

Let me be equally blunt: How you figure that? You think Bush and Cheney are going to allow Iran to have a nuke, or that they aren't planning to take out Iran's nuclear capability?

You think the Iranians can be talked/bargained/cajoled/negotiated out of building one? There no signs that Iran is about to give up its nuclear program. On the contrary, Tehran is trying to send three messages to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. Security council: first, Iran has already crossed the threshold and is now a member of the nuclear club. Second, sanctions won't work and Iran is continuing full steam ahead. Third, anyone who tries to confront Iran will pay a very high price because Iran has both military deterrence and terror at its disposal. Even the Europeans are preparing for a worst case scenario if Iran refuses to respond to negotiations or sanctions (which they won't).

Do you honestly think Israel will stand by and allow Iran to have a bomb(s)? Perhaps you underestimate the significance of the Jewish phrase, "Never Again." It's not just a slogan, it's practically their raison d'être.

Do you think U.S. Forces - who are going to be in Iraq for a LONG time to come - are going to continue to tolerate Iranian interference inside Iraq?

 

how do you come up with this stuff hollywood?

you must spend hours a day reading all this political crap.

i am in the armed forces and i dont dare begin to understand the choices or actions of a nation as a whole...

not my job. i would hate to be in the shoes of our leaders these days.

I am an american. I love this country, what it offers, and the style and quality of life its given me and my family.

bottom line: where is all this typing really going to get us?

none of us are politicians, that i know of. so whats it really matter?

this has become a big "who knows more than who" ****ing match.

and its actually who THINKS they know more than the other.


think about whats gone on behind the curtains and how much the media really knows about our current military achievements.

read all you want. keep your opinions and spare the arguing.

just my opinion

 

If the conversation gives you a headache, then don't participate.

On the other hand, perhaps if more people took the time to read and educate themselves properly about the issues - sans politics - Iraq never would have happened in the first place.

And by the way, we're not talking about politics, per se - at least I'm not - we're talking about foreign policy, international relations and military technology.

 

sorry if i didnt break it all out into subcategories for you.

that was not the point. all i was trying to say was

where is all this talk getting us? especially if it ends with people arguing.

 

I don't see them doing anything about North Korea and India. And we all know they have nuclear weapons.

 

Well, India is giving the U.S. mangos in exchange for nukes.

And North Korea has agreed to suspend its enrichment program, or have you not been keeping up with current events?

 

Or maybe they just don't have oil that Iraq have.

 

I'm saying that more people should have been having this debate before the Iraq war. Historically it's a lot easier to get into a war than to get out of one.