Phalanx for Base Defense?
- Thread starter NavyShooter
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Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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It's my understanding that the USN is also upgrading to a bigger version and they have quite a few of these around, would be good against UAV's also.
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It's my understanding that the upgrade uses the same gun, chassis, radar and electronics cabinets....
Not a bad little video....I like the "firecracker" sound of the rounds doing the Self Detonation at the end of their trace...pretty cool.
NS
Not a bad little video....I like the "firecracker" sound of the rounds doing the Self Detonation at the end of their trace...pretty cool.
NS
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Looks like they have some sort of RWS thermal-optical sight on the port side of the mount.
How would our guys love to take a shot at a Sperwer with that!!
How would our guys love to take a shot at a Sperwer with that!!
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I read about this in the Vancouver Sun. I believe that this is quite possibly one of the stupidest ideas that I ever heard. The CIWS is used to shoot down Missiles and close-in Aircraft. The Targets are much bigger, and are tracked on RADAR for miles before being handed over to CIWS.
Mortars and Artillery rounds are too small and only stay in the air for seconds. The Phalanx may be able to acquire under optimum conditions, and if they knew exactly when and where the rounds were coming from.
I believe the Phalanx could be effectively employed for ground engagements, although it's a pretty ridiculous amount of firepower for what it would be engaging.
It's too valuable of a resource for the Navy to stripped from Ships and used like this.
Mortars and Artillery rounds are too small and only stay in the air for seconds. The Phalanx may be able to acquire under optimum conditions, and if they knew exactly when and where the rounds were coming from.
I believe the Phalanx could be effectively employed for ground engagements, although it's a pretty ridiculous amount of firepower for what it would be engaging.
It's too valuable of a resource for the Navy to stripped from Ships and used like this.
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von Garvin said:
We could throw that comment back when it came to tanks and the M109s yet we never did. In fact most sailors I know in the past approved of having tanks, even the slowest Bosn could grasp an army without tanks was dumb. Yet the boys in green still have no concept of what we do and what we need and your post clearly illustrates this!
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OK, I was indeed being very sarcastic, but my point was that there are ships that are no longer used, no? Do they not have Phalanx on them? (This is a real question, not rhetorical, I honestly don't know...) I would NEVER agree that it would be a good idea to rid the ships of them. In this case, since we aren't buying any Phalanxes, put them to good use somewhere. Having said that, perhaps buying new Phalanxes would be the preferred solution?
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von Garvin said:
The only ship I know that no longer uses her CIWS is Huron and I have no doubts the West Coast boys have already put it to good use as for spares or as for training. Buying addition would be the preferred option rather then robbing peter to pay paul.
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I wonder if an option could not be to adopt the Oerlikon 35mm (if any are still around) and combine them with a CIWS radar.....
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While many have said we need a system to knock down mortar shells and rockets from falling onto our base camps.... do we really need such a beastie? From those friends I have that have gone thru Kabul and Kandahar, the odds of being hit by anything shot in the general direction of the camp are somewhere between slim and none.....
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Ex-Dragoon said:
I believe the idea behind a 'Base Defence' system is to get as many rounds as possible in the air in the shortest possible time resulting in a 'wall of lead' and the 35mm does not have a sufficient rate of fire to do that, 1100 rds/min vs 4500 rds/min but then again the US is also looking at a 35mm Skyshield to counter the threat too (not just against mortars) and have 'borrowed' a couple of 35mm guns from us. In the end Canada will probably buy some of the C-RAM systems (2 or 3).
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geo said:
The ones I have been talking to say that rocket and mortar attacks are very real and deadly threat in Kandahar. The amount of attacks reported in the news and the amount of actual attacks vary by a great deal. The attacks are such a regular event that many atakcs don't even get reported. So if I was in Kandahar and freaking rockets and/or mortars were regularly falling on my camp then I would want some kind of defence system to counter that threat and fuck the goats that may be grazing downrange.
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Kincanucks......
You're telling me that there are tons of rocket and mortar attacks - so many in fact that a large number never get reported. That they are so commonplace that they get ignored.
You tell me that the threat is real and deadly... can you tell me, in the last 12 months, how many mortar/rocket attacks have managed to draw blood - of any nationality?
Here is how my friend put it:
"The airfield is roughly 5 km long and 2 km wide. That gives an area, very roughly, of 10,000,000 m2. If the lethal radius of the rockets in use is 12.5 m (the figure from Janes Ammunition Handbook, if it matters), that gives a danger area of about 490 m2 per rocket. Round that up to 500 m2 for ease of calculation and it becomes apparent that it would take about 20,000 rockets to cover the whole base. At the present rate of them actually landing on the base (three in the past two months), it would take 1,111 years for everything on base to get hit. The impact points are however totally random, but you would have to spend over 500 years here before the odds turned against you. You're safer here than trying to cross Yonge Street in Toronto on a Friday evening."
You're telling me that there are tons of rocket and mortar attacks - so many in fact that a large number never get reported. That they are so commonplace that they get ignored.
You tell me that the threat is real and deadly... can you tell me, in the last 12 months, how many mortar/rocket attacks have managed to draw blood - of any nationality?
Here is how my friend put it:
"The airfield is roughly 5 km long and 2 km wide. That gives an area, very roughly, of 10,000,000 m2. If the lethal radius of the rockets in use is 12.5 m (the figure from Janes Ammunition Handbook, if it matters), that gives a danger area of about 490 m2 per rocket. Round that up to 500 m2 for ease of calculation and it becomes apparent that it would take about 20,000 rockets to cover the whole base. At the present rate of them actually landing on the base (three in the past two months), it would take 1,111 years for everything on base to get hit. The impact points are however totally random, but you would have to spend over 500 years here before the odds turned against you. You're safer here than trying to cross Yonge Street in Toronto on a Friday evening."
Ex-Dragoon said:
This using the "old" twin 35 was looked at earlier this year, it was quite a scramble to find people that were relatively current to operate the system effectively. Goes to show what a fast skill fade there is associated with many of our modern fighting tools.
As for Geo's comments that it doesn't seem like the mortar/rocket attacks are that significant a threat, I would say CRAM is "an ounce of prevention" maybe?
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Petard..... still, no one has answered me on an earlier question about, what do you do with that wall of lead heading downrange when downrange happens to be downtown Kandahar?
Pert tough winning over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people when they are ducking all our ammo....
But that's just a personal opinion.
Pert tough winning over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people when they are ducking all our ammo....
But that's just a personal opinion.
This looks like one of those risk assessment problems they'll probably be looking at for years.
In the case of the Land Based Phalanx, the ammunition's self destruct is highly reliable, but I understand your point, it wouldn't take many failed self-destruct rounds to change the locals opinion of the defence they're getting from the system. This would have to be balanced against the real danger that the enemy might get lucky and hit a high payoff target located on the base. It wouldn't take too many successful rocket attacks for the opinions of the deployed force to change about the need for this type of capability
For the Americans it is evident they see the need for the capability, and I don't think they're doing it for the sake of pursuing technology or just to keep a contract going. Considering it takes so long to get the "bugs" worked out, in particular air space coordination, I think now is a good time to develop this system. These free flight rockets are a low risk and low tech investment for the enemy with the potential for considerable return. Considering what happened this past summer in the Lebanon, I see the possibility of this rocket/mortar threat growing, unless there's something available, quickly, to counter it.
In the case of the Land Based Phalanx, the ammunition's self destruct is highly reliable, but I understand your point, it wouldn't take many failed self-destruct rounds to change the locals opinion of the defence they're getting from the system. This would have to be balanced against the real danger that the enemy might get lucky and hit a high payoff target located on the base. It wouldn't take too many successful rocket attacks for the opinions of the deployed force to change about the need for this type of capability
For the Americans it is evident they see the need for the capability, and I don't think they're doing it for the sake of pursuing technology or just to keep a contract going. Considering it takes so long to get the "bugs" worked out, in particular air space coordination, I think now is a good time to develop this system. These free flight rockets are a low risk and low tech investment for the enemy with the potential for considerable return. Considering what happened this past summer in the Lebanon, I see the possibility of this rocket/mortar threat growing, unless there's something available, quickly, to counter it.
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American efforts are presently based on their experience in Iraq - not Kandahar/Bagram. Many will say that they have taken a "troops 1st" with respect to winning "hearts & minds". Airstrikes on suspected convoys & villages are regularly reported by the media. Selfdestructing munitions.... don't. If you look at news broadcasts from Lebanon right now, there are all sorts of stories about submunitions being found everywhere, making large swaths of southern Lebanon inhabitable by the displaced population.....
Once they get the bugs out, we can talk about this again.....
Once they get the bugs out, we can talk about this again.....
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On the other hand geo, doesn't Petard make a useful point? Right now the threat from mortars and rockets might be manageable in Afghanistan so that this Phalanx/C-RAM system might be over-kill.
But, as has been demontrated with Tamil suicide vests, RPGs, IEDs and dug in defenses (not to mention ATGMs) once something is found to work then people tend to copy a successful play.
While the military verdict is still out on the effectiveness of all those missiles into Israel, the political effectiveness can't be argued. The positively impacted Hezbollah/Shiite morale and negatively impacted the morale of the fence-sitters. Interestingly they seem to have had a negative economic effect on Israel but perversely a positive morale effect. The Israeli government didn't give up the fight because of domestic pressure. It gave up because of pressure from the international fence-sitters. This doesn't take into account the Qana effect of shielding these missiles with civilians and "forcing" the Israelis to target civilians as collateral damage in order to counter the threat leading to all these claims of disproportionality. All-in-all "katyushas" (107s and 122s) were a successful play.
If something like C-RAM can be used to negate the Katyushas without having to blow up apartment buildings a villages then that would be a plus I would think.
During the Cold War it was considered an acceptable risk to have shrapnel and unexploded nukes fall in the Canadian Arctic because of the low population densities. Better to have shrapnel and unexploded rounds contaminate a patch of open ground, putting the occasional passer-by at risk, than to have the surety that the only way to engage a threat is to kill collocated civilians.
Now might be the time to get the bugs out, even if it isn't appropriate for Afghanistan.
But, as has been demontrated with Tamil suicide vests, RPGs, IEDs and dug in defenses (not to mention ATGMs) once something is found to work then people tend to copy a successful play.
While the military verdict is still out on the effectiveness of all those missiles into Israel, the political effectiveness can't be argued. The positively impacted Hezbollah/Shiite morale and negatively impacted the morale of the fence-sitters. Interestingly they seem to have had a negative economic effect on Israel but perversely a positive morale effect. The Israeli government didn't give up the fight because of domestic pressure. It gave up because of pressure from the international fence-sitters. This doesn't take into account the Qana effect of shielding these missiles with civilians and "forcing" the Israelis to target civilians as collateral damage in order to counter the threat leading to all these claims of disproportionality. All-in-all "katyushas" (107s and 122s) were a successful play.
If something like C-RAM can be used to negate the Katyushas without having to blow up apartment buildings a villages then that would be a plus I would think.
During the Cold War it was considered an acceptable risk to have shrapnel and unexploded nukes fall in the Canadian Arctic because of the low population densities. Better to have shrapnel and unexploded rounds contaminate a patch of open ground, putting the occasional passer-by at risk, than to have the surety that the only way to engage a threat is to kill collocated civilians.
Now might be the time to get the bugs out, even if it isn't appropriate for Afghanistan.
