Post-World War II Aircraft vs. Ships?

Delta Force

Banned
World War II showed how vulnerable warships can be to air attack. Following the war, air defense technologies and procedures significantly improved, but so did anti-ship weapons carried by aircraft. The Falklands Conflict and attacks on tankers during the Iran-Iraq War further showed the havoc relatively simple anti-ship weapons could wreck on ships, but those conflicts were relatively limited in scope, as the air forces knew approximately where the enemy ships were. In a larger conflict or one with more uncertainty, how effective would aircraft be in attacking military and commercial shipping?
 
Aircraft have significantly improved standoff attack capability compared to their WW2 ancestors

Most modern fighter bombers can carry 2 - 4 Anti ship missiles of the Harpoon / Exocet / Sea Eagle type and generally a single hit from one of these weapons will "mission kill" most Frigate / Destroyer sized warships.

Vs unescorted merchant shipping laser guided bombs (again modern jets can carry 2 - 4) would enable most targets to be attacked accurately and with total impunity.

However modern CIWS and 'close range' missile systems are getting better and better (ie CAMM) while the anti ship missile cannot realistically get much smaller due to the need for an effective warhead.
 
lets just say its no coincidence these days that the most important surface ship carries 80+ aircarft and the role of most other surface ships is to defend against air/sub attack.

the falklands war showed what a fairly small air force could do to one of the worlds better navies. It takes a full fleet or super carrier with escorts, combat aircraft and early warning to do well in a modern battlefield.
 
With the advent of guided missiles, airpower took another leap over naval power. As CryHavoc mentioned, most tactical and strategic aircraft can carry a decent amount of anti-ship weaponry, and a single hit can do more relative damage today than in WW2. However, the only real development of AShM and their SAM counterparts was between NATO and the Soviet Union, and for the most part that remains true (China notwithstanding). With that in mind, any nation not belonging to those groups taking on one of those nations will likely be stomped (even the Argentinians, with purchased modern AShMs, were unable to stop the relatively weakly SAM-defended RN). The US, in particular, has the greatest investment in protecting its ships and sinking opposing ones with airpower. The other big consideration is that it will be very difficult to hide ships from modern sensors.

Commercial shipping in a warzone would become a lot of flaming wrecks in a short time.

At this point, I'd wager on AEGIS and similar systems, along with defensive airpower, to successfully defend naval vessels. The only opposing nation with the capability to locally overwhelm those systems is Russia. However, with the advent of hypersonic missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles, that could change very quickly.
 
The greatest weakness of antiship missiles has always been their targeting systems. Tupolev Tu-22Ms can kill capital ships like nobody's business but they are blinding without specialized airborne radar craft that are much easier to shoot down. If your targeting radar is land based either it needs to be mobile or you'd had better have good maskirova because it will be eating cruise or ballistic missiles soon after you launch. Hypersonic cruise and ballistic missiles are the best bet because you can fire using a single fix and rely on speed and terminal guidance to do the rest.
 
There are quite a few bolt on automatic defence systems (guns, missiles and passive chaff type) available these days that need only a power cable, data link and a clear section of deck. Missile and passive systems dont even need the deck to be particulay strong they can be on a container sized base and bolted into place. Guns need a lot more work.

A big container vessel would be quite hard to sink with one or two hits unless the bomb or missile caused a massive fire, so a ship with a decent amount of self defence wouldnt be the sitting duck some think.
 
Unless there ships are within close range of the coast the short range of tactical aircraft post WW2 is going to be a problem. The Canberra had good range and with 2 crew a good chance of operating successfully over the open water, as does the Phantom. The Falklands showed how hard it is for your averages 60s attack aircraft to operate at a range of about 400 miles, these aircraft only carried very small bombloads and still didn't have enough fuel to make multiple passes at their targets or even make defensive manoeuvres when attacked.
 
If it's true there are "bolt on" defensive measures, the most vulnerable targets, the supertankers, are going to be hard kills, indeed.:eek: To begin with, they're just so damn large, they offer enormous deck space for defensive systems (including aircraft!). They don't like to sink (there's a famous case, name of the ship I can't recall,:eek: which had the crap bombed out of it & burned but wouldn't sink:eek:). And because they're so big, one hit won't do it.

That said, if a/c need to get "deadlier" weapons, what's to prevent the introduction of more powerful explosives (leaving off nukes)?

Failing that, and absent hypersonics (which IMO are an expensive solution looking for a problem), what about a new approach? Like kamikaze RPVs...?
 

Delta Force

Banned
If it's true there are "bolt on" defensive measures, the most vulnerable targets, the supertankers, are going to be hard kills, indeed.:eek: To begin with, they're just so damn large, they offer enormous deck space for defensive systems (including aircraft!). They don't like to sink (there's a famous case, name of the ship I can't recall,:eek: which had the crap bombed out of it & burned but wouldn't sink:eek:). And because they're so big, one hit won't do it.

Was it the Seawise Giant? It sank, but the Persian Gulf is rather shallow so it was easily salvaged and returned to service, especially because it couldn't sink that deep due to its sheer size.
 
If it's true there are "bolt on" defensive measures, the most vulnerable targets, the supertankers, are going to be hard kills, indeed.:eek: To begin with, they're just so damn large, they offer enormous deck space for defensive systems (including aircraft!). They don't like to sink (there's a famous case, name of the ship I can't recall,:eek: which had the crap bombed out of it & burned but wouldn't sink:eek:). And because they're so big, one hit won't do it.

Torrey Canyon?

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

On 28 March 1967 the Fleet Air Arm sent Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft from RNAS Lossiemouth to drop forty-two 1,000 lb bombs on the ship. Then, the Royal Air Force sent Hawker Hunter jets from RAF Chivenor to drop cans of aviation fuel to make the oil blaze.[3] However, exceptionally high tides put the fire out[clarification needed] and it took further effort by Fleet Air Arm de Havilland Sea Vixens from RNAS Yeovilton and Buccaneers from the Naval Air Station at Brawdy, as well as more RAF Hunters with liquified petroleum jelly
 
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