Phalanx for Base Defense?

[Jantor]

geo

There was an rocket attack in KAF that wounded ten people in June.

I had posted some questions on this subject in the AD thoughts thread back in April.


This the link to the thread that deals with the attack.

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/46582.0.html

 

[geo]

I still look back on the commentary provided by a friend of mine who recently returned.

One of the young corporals here was expressing some nervousness after one of the rocket attacks some time ago.  I shared a thought with her that I'd developed whilst lying on my belly in my tent one morning (as either Willy or Joe said many years ago, I couldn't get no lower - me buttons were in the way):

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.

The rockets they use for their attacks are simply leant against a rock or board (as a ramp) and then fired off in the base's general direction.  Then, given the approximate age of these soviet era rockets, they are prolly more of a danger to the shooter than they are to us.

 

[Jaydub]

I agree, because those ships alongside in Halifax and/or Victoria face a daily threat of sea-skimming missiles coming along.

That's very witty!  

I don't know about the East Coasters, but most of our West Coast Fleet is at Sea right now.

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).

All lot of people tend to think of the Phalanx as a magical wall of lead that will stop anything.  It's an extremely effective Weapon against Missiles and low-flying Aircraft, but it was never meant to be used against Artillery Shells.  If that were the case Ship's would try to use it to shoot down incoming rounds from other Warships.  It would not work.

The Phalanx is simply the wrong tool for the job.

 

[kincanucks]

That's very witty!  

I don't know about the East Coasters, but most of our West Coast Fleet is at Sea right now.


All lot of people tend to think of the Phalanx as a magical wall of lead that will stop anything.  It's an extremely effective Weapon against Missiles and low-flying Aircraft, but it was never mmeantto be used against Artillery Shells.  If that were the case Ship's would try to use it to shoot down incoming rounds from other Ships.  It would not work.

The Phalanx is simply the wrong tool for the job.

The C-RAM works and we are not talking about using the CIWS as it is.  Read up on the C-RAM first.

 

[NavyShooter]

Agreed, C-RAM is not CIWS as is found on ships in the fleet.

The system IS close enough to be remarkably similar though.

One of the interesting parts when I read some of the C-RAM info I've seen on the web was that the estimated reduction in casualties simply due to the detect and warn phases of the engagement was something around 15%.

That means a 15% reduction in casualties even before a round is fired in defence....

I would think that to be worthwhile in and of itself.

NS

 

[a_majoor]

The key would be to improve our 3D surveillance to track rockets and mortars to the source, and respond with effective counter battery fire. Rather than deal with the problem of spent rounds, perhaps we need to press forward twith this: Attack at the Speed of Light http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/a4ce42fd3f98a010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd/2.html

Laser weaponry is moving into the realm of engineering rather than basic physics. As a BTW, a laser defence system should be on an airborn platform for the following reasons:

a. There is a wider field of view for the sensors
b. Direct line of sight, even to the point of being able to engage the shooters directly (Imagine a rocket or mortar shell exploding in the tube)
c. Aircraft have much more available power. A V-22 has over 4,500 kW of engine power, and isn't using it all in cruise. A Leopard tank has @ 600 kW, and a LAV III has @ 260 kW, so any on board laser weapon has a much smaller power supply.
d. Aircraft have crews of highly skilled maintainers. An advanced device like a laser weapon will have the care it needs to remain effective.

 

[midget-boyd91]

My personal thoughts on the Phanlax going to Afghanistan is that we are in a warzone. When you are in a warzone it is inevitable that people are going to try to attack you. The warzone we are in right now is one where we also have to wil hearts-and-minds as well as battles, but winning the peoples hearts-and-minds is not going to be accomplished by sending tens of thousands of stray rounds falling on their heads.

Even with the self destructing rounds there would still be duds, and with a gun the fires that many rounds a second (75) there will be an awful lot of duds falling on the citizens we are there to protect.

So one of the questions would be: "Is stopping a few random mortar rounds that 95% of the time doesnt hit anything worth risking losing the hearts-and-minds of the people, and putting THEM at risk of OUR rounds?"

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Why are we thinking that this thing will be fired into a city?  I don't know the lay of the land, but common sense would dictate that a mortar attack would come from the hills surrounding the area, not a built up one.  So if there is some fallout on the hillside from the direction that the round came from, what is the issue? 
Geo, your argument that "it's a big area, you probably won't get hit" isn't the kind that is going to make anyone feel too great.  Eventually the bad guys are going to get lucky, and I for one don't want to see that happen. 

Anyone know if the unit has a secondary targeting capability, to extrapolate the trajectory and engage the point of origin in a counter battery capacity?  Especially if the rounds were explosive, it might have a decent beaten zone or area saturation effect.

 

[Petard]

I have not seen anything yet that backs up the assumption that there is a dud rate that is significant enough that thousands, or even hundreds, of rounds will fall into a no-fire area. There are ways to mitigate the possibility of duds, whatever number they may be, such as angles of engagement.
The other assumption I often hear is that the system works in isolation, that it gets flicked on and automatically shoots anything flying within it's arcs, it doesn't.
Phalanx needs something to cue it to what to look for, and to what to leave alone.
Paired to a system, like this one
http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/surveillance/ericsson/
that can do weapon locating, as well as air surveillance, I think would go a long way in building an even more effective countermeasure

 

[Old Sweat]

I agree with Petard. The chances of a round failing to self-destruct are very remote. I do not know how the 20mm works, but other rounds such as the 40mm that blew themselves up did so by using the tracer element in the base to initiate the explosive train at a fixed time after firing.

The difficult part of what we used to call counter battery is locating the weapon and responding quickly enough to destroy it before it can move. That is a function of a marriage of the locating devices used, the command and control system and the means of retaliation. All must work smoothly and seamlessly or we might as well be back in the Second World War doing manual collection and collation with the dread SCATS and HBHS and the rest. (SCAT = Shelling Connection Activity Trace, HBHS = Hostile Battery History Sheet)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Even if the rounds self-destruct in the air, you will still have debris falling on to people.

 

[Old Sweat]

Yes indeed, that is if people are underneath the rounds when they self-destruct. This sort of thing used to happen to civilians during bombing raids by both sides in the Second World War, without significant casualties resulting from a much larger weight of rounds fired.

In my opinion there are greater technical issues to be solved that may be show stoppers, not the least of which is the use of a point defence (that is a ship) weapon system to defend an area target (in terms of the range of the 20mm). Maybe what we have here in microterms is something similar to the problems of the American ballistic missile defence system, that is to locate, identify, engage and destroy a beer bottle sized target, well okay a quart, in under half a minute.

The estimate would make fascinating reading, at least for gunners, who were described in the seventeenth or eighteenth century as having curious minds. I guess somethings never change.

 

[Kirkhill]

...gunners, who were described in the seventeenth or eighteenth century as having curious minds....

"curious" as in investigative or "curious" as in peculiar?  ;D

If I remember rightly your fellow ordnancers in the engineering department were defined as being either "mad, Methodist or married".

 

[midget-boyd91]

The chances of a round failing to self-destruct are very remote.

A 95% reliability rate would be a reasonable one for rounds to self destruct. But at 75 rounds per second firing for 10 seconds would still mean about 40 rounds (37.5 exactly) which are explosive falling into areas which could very well be populated.. especially if they are stationed at KAF.

But whatever happens is something yet to be seen, and hopefully the right decision will be made... whatever it is.

 

[Petard]

A 95% reliability rate would be a reasonable one for rounds to self destruct.

That figure 95% is based on what? It looks suspiciously SWAG'd to me.
In any case don't overlook the point that the weapon systems can be situated so they have engagement arcs in the vertical as well as horizontal plane to avoid firing towards civilian occupied areas, although it might very well mean potential engagements can happen close to areas that are occupied by military forces.

 

[midget-boyd91]

That figure 95% is based on what? It looks suspiciously SWAG'd to me.

I got that figure from a facts/figures site after googling. Not exactly "swag'd."
But like I said before, Its still a lot of rounds that could potentially land in populated areas, so lets just hope the right decision is made. Im not saying what the right decision is, because I dont know what it is.

 

[Petard]

I got that figure from a facts/figures site after googling. Not exactly "swag'd."

How about posting a link to this facts/figures site then?

 

[FireMission]

Too bad the twin 35mm and Skyguards are not being considered to be deployed.  A troop of 8 guns and 4 Skygd Mk IIs could provide oustanding coverage, with the CIWS filling in the Gaps.

The Twin 35s also use HEITP and have a range of 4Km, vice the 2KM.  The Mk II Skyguards have an excellent sensor surveillance system as well,

I was the last Tp Comd of 129 Bty, 4 AD Regt, Lahr Germany, so I do know of what I speak.  Unfortunately, they are all parked now.  A real shame.  Not the perfect system - but then any time you have an 80% solution is a good day. 

 

[midget-boyd91]

Some good facts about the land based Phalanx (including percentage of successfully self-destructing rouds) can be found on the attached link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Land_based_version

The land based system section is near or at the bottom of the page.

 

[Petard]

wikipedia?
oh well, in that case it can't be wrong :

I'll do some checking with some more reliable sources than that and get back