Matrix Games Forums

So far in the coverage of the Yemen crisis, I have seen no discussion of what seems to me to be the largest and most obvious implication: that the same weapons can be used by China to enforce its blockade, with no apparent counter available to allied forces at this time. If there is no good counter, then the implications of successful ASBM launches seem minor by comparison, because Shaheed type drones seem to be a vastly more cost-effective sea denial weapon.

Obviously, countering these weapons with SAMs is a total non - starter due to the cost differential; that leaves HE guns and CIWS. Assuming that the Shaheed flies at 100 knots and the gun can engage at a range of 10nm, the window to shoot down the drones is six minutes. A Burke class DDG costs $2 billion; a conservative estimate for the Shaheed is $50,000. Therefore, assuming that the destroyer's HE shells cost nothing, an attacker could afford to fire 20,000 Shaheed style drones at the DDG and still trade at a rate of 2 - 1; the DDG's single gun would need to intercept these drones within six minutes to defend the ship. By comparison, only about 50 ASBMs could be fired to trade with the destroyer at the same rate, assuming the ASBM costs $20 million, and assuming again that the SAMs cost nothing. While it is feasible for surface combatants to shoot down that many ASBMs so long as mid course interception is possible, the ROF of a 5 inch gun is 20 rounds per minute; it could therefore destroy up to 120 out of 20,000 incoming drones.

Shooting the archer is not an option because they can be launched from trucks. Avoiding detection is not a viable solution when you're talking about running a blockade for months on end. It seems to me that if no better counter exists (presumably, jamming) and is readily available, (that is, already on most allied warships and fully operational,) surface naval warfare is dead until such a counter can be developed and fielded en masse; sea denial will completely dominate. Surface naval warfare up to this time has been based on the premise that the cost of AAMs and SAMs for defence is comparable to the cost of offensive SSMs.

EDIT: I have read one proposed solution - covering ships with nets fine enough to catch the propeller. Is this feasible?

You've made some really hand-wavy assumptions about what you can/can't target. Why can't you target the launchers? Why can't you target the munitions stores, or manufacturing locations? Why can't you evade detection? Why can't you target the sensors or kill chain supporting the launchers? At 200kts that's several HOURS of fly-out to any reasonable standoff range which gives the defenders lots of options.

I'd also challenge the assumption that you need things to be "cost effective" - warfare is not about costs trades - it's about achieving desired effects with available resources. You can achieve a very wide variety of effects with a several thousand ton warship - slightly fewer with SOW or OWA UAS. When it comes to munitions stockpile - does it make sense to buy huge quantities of drones for every DDG you want to deal with - and then have them sit around and do nothing until needed?

ExNusquam wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 9:47 pm You've made some really hand-wavy assumptions about what you can/can't target. Why can't you target the launchers? Why can't you target the munitions stores, or manufacturing locations? Why can't you evade detection? Why can't you target the sensors or kill chain supporting the launchers? At 200kts that's several HOURS of fly-out to any reasonable standoff range which gives the defenders lots of options.

1. You can't target the launchers because they are worthless trucks, so destroying them is even less efficient than destroying drones.
2. Of course you can target munitions stores; but these can be hardened, dispersed, and concealed to the point that they are no more a point of failure than they are for any other type of weapon.
3. You can evade detection for a short time. However, it is totally unrealistic to expect that every convoy, moving at slow speed along a predictable route ending perhaps as far West as the Western ports of Taiwan will consistently evade detection. If the offensive weapons are so cost - efficient that every time you are detected, you are destroyed, then it is a matter of time until attrition takes its toll.
4. The problem with a long flight time is that it gives the enemy a long time to either evade or intercept the attacker. This is much less a problem for targeting a slow convoy (or independent shipping) than it is for targeting fast surface groups; the convoy has no choice but to get close to the launch point, and can't manoeuvre very fast to get away. Furthermore, given the vast cost - surplus (20,000 drones to trade 2:1 with a destroyer) only a very small percentage of drones need to ever find their target; they can therefore be fired in a wide pattern.

ExNusquam wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 9:47 pm I'd also challenge the assumption that you need things to be "cost effective" - warfare is not about costs trades - it's about achieving desired effects with available resources. You can achieve a very wide variety of effects with a several thousand ton warship - slightly fewer with SOW or OWA UAS. When it comes to munitions stockpile - does it make sense to buy huge quantities of drones for every DDG you want to deal with - and then have them sit around and do nothing until needed?

In a blockade scenario, the whole objective is to destroy shipping or drive it away; doing so will starve out the First Island Chain and win the war. This can be facilitated by either stripping away the escorts and then destroying merchantmen, or by attacking merchantmen directly. Cheap drones can do both. Of course, I am not saying that China should replace its entire military with drone swarms. What I am saying is that, no matter how many merchantmen you build or how many surface combatants you build to protect them, they can be easily overwhelmed by drone swarms, unless there is some problem with targeting them against moving ships, or some very effective counter, which have not been apparent in the present conflict.

Moreover, as we have seen in Ukraine, Shaheed type drones are not limited to attacking shipping - far from it.