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Bargain-Hunting in Russia
Late this summer, the U.S. Navy was planning to buy Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles to fulfill its supersonic sea- skimming target requirement. Earlier, Martin Marietta had failed in its efforts with a blended rocket-ramjet missile—its supersonic low-altitude target (SLAT). Competitors for the replacement naval target contract included Aerospatiale, which planned to use its Anti-Navire Supersonique (ANS) [supersonic antiship missile]. The Navy is now letting contracts to determine if the Russian missile can be integrated into U.S. ships. In the case of the failed SLAT, there was always a strong possibility that the target would ultimately be adopted as a weapon (sometimes called Harpoon II). That surely also applies to the SS-N-22, which is a weapon. The British are considering buying it to arm modernized Type 22 frigates.
The U.S. program would buy 1,000 missiles over ten years at a unit price of $600,000. Presumably the number is high because missiles will be expended on each shot, rather than recovered and refurbished (as SLAT and its successor Western programs had envisaged). The unit cost is almost low by Western standards; a Harpoon costs about twice as much.
There are some delicious ironies here. The impetus to buy a supersonic low-altitude target in the first place was the appearance of the SS-N-22 itself on board the Sovremennyy-class destroyers from 1981 on. The same missile inspired the requirement for what became the abortive NATO antiair warfare system (NAAWS), and presumably also for the European PAAMS (formerly SAAM or FAMS) missile. Thus Martin Marietta lost its contract because it could not produce a usable equivalent to the Soviet missile (or, more likely, to the Western image of the missile, which may have somewhat exceeded its true performance); presumably a real SS-N-22 will be far better.
Certainly the Mach 2.5 Sunburn is an impressive beast; although not a true sea-skimmer, it can get down to about 20-25 feet. As it approaches its target, it flies a gently curved S-path, sometimes (incorrectly) described as an evasive maneuver to overcome Gatling-gun terminal defenses such as Phalanx and Goalkeeper. In fact, it is something very different. The Soviet problem was always to assign missiles to the right targets within formations of ships, a problem the U.S. Navy tried to complicate by using deceptive devices such as blip-enhancers. The SS-N-22 apparently maneuvers to examine the ships in a formation one by one, sending back its radar seeker signals to its launch ship, where the signals are compiled into ship images that are compared with inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images in the ship’s electronic library. The missile is either automatically locked onto the right target, or it picks another by default.
This type of positive identification system could have an important application for Western navies. Future conflict in the Third World will often involve neutral and civilian shipping. Accidental attacks on such targets, relatively unimportant in a world war, would have enormous political implications in a minor local conflict. Some means of positive ship identification could help avoid it.
In the Russian weapon, that entails a data link, probably be' cause the missile cannot carry a sufficiently powerful compute' to form ISAR images on board, or to compare them with a If brary of stored images. Western computers, however, may offe[ just that type of capability. For example, one guidance optic2 for the cancelled Excalibur long-range conventional standof1 weapon was an onboard synthetic aperture radar that compared a ground scene to images stored on board. At the least, it migb1 be possible to set a missile to avoid merchant ships (although it would then also avoid naval auxiliaries).
The SS-N-22 outperforms Western antiship missiles becausf it was designed for a radically different environment. For the major Western navies, attacks on surface ships were generally secondary to the vital missions, air defense and antisubmarine warfare. Missiles had to fit on board ships that had already bed1 designed for those other missions; ideally they had to fit exist'
ing launchers. Hence the limited dimensions of Harpoon (I0 fit Standard Missile and ASROC launchers, although typical!) it is deployed in separate canisters) and Tomahawk (to fit sub' marine torpedo tubes). On limited dimensions and weights designers could achieve useful ranges only by accepting sub' sonic performance. They relied on stealth (e.g., a sea-skimrniA2 profile to confuse radar, and a small physical cross-section)10 penetrate terminal defenses.
For the Soviets, the antiship mission was central. Ships wd1’ designed around big missiles that combined large warheads wi1*1 sufficient power and fuel to achieve substantial range at higb speed. The eight big external missile tubes on the Sovreme11' nyys symbolize this approach. Satisfied customers, such as tbe Indians, sometimes point out that Soviet-designed missiles, ev^ the small-combatant Styx, are so big that they can break upi destroyer merely by their kinetic energy. By way of contras1' Western antiship missiles are generally credited only with the ability to put a ship out of action; single hits will almost cer" tainly fail to sink their targets.
The post-Cold War world may favor increased Western >n' terest in more lethal antiship weapons, which at present wouh probably mean those the Russians are offering. As operatic11'' in the Persian Gulf and in the Mediterranean off Libya havl’ shown, it is often very important to put attacking Third Wen ships out of action. Although in theory one or two Harpoons Standard Missiles may do that, it is almost impossible to be sufl' that the target ship has really been neutralized. Neither an up parent loss of electrical power (observed as radar silence) or $ apparent loss of motive power may mean much; a really co° headed commander may elect to turn switches off and m^e smoke rather than suffer further attacks. Torch decays may s'111 ulate on board fires. Commanders may therefore keep firing e* pensive munitions, which are not available in really large nuA bers, into these targets until they have very clearly been cripp^ During the 1987 Operation Praying Mantis in the Persia1' Gulf, for example, U.S. Navy forces concentrated very larc numbers of weapons against a single Iranian corvette.
One might conclude that the only reliable form of battle dab1 age assessment is to watch the target sink, and therefore $ the most economical missile is really one that packs enoUr
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Proceedings / October
19»-1
arlie Il-class submarines. The Paris placard implies that the ssians hope to field a new generation of this type about the ■Urn of the century. The alternative to the P-80 is probably a
b,
and some of the reports of possible U.S. purchase of SS
se Styx, it has the same range—43 nautical miles—and a P'Rar active radar seeker; unlike the Styx, it is too hot to use
Power to sink the target, even if it is so massive that only a few Can be accommodated.
The Russian approach is not necessarily the only one. For Sample, a missile exploding under the keel of the target— 'ike a torpedo—would quite possibly snap it in half; it has long ^een known that a standoff explosion of this type is the most efficient way to use a given weight of explosive against a sur- k>ce ship. Unfortunately, such a burst is not easy to arrange, 'yhich is one reason Western missiles do not offer such an op- |i°n. (The Russians apparently tried and failed to do as much ln their first antiship missile, the SS-N-1, and seem not to have tried again.)
In the West, the mere problems of producing an efficient and ^liable antiship missile were so daunting that relatively simple 'v«trhead and fuzing options were chosen. Now that the basic fissile technology works well, it may be time to return to more efficient kinds of warheads, such as those which explode under a ship’s keel.
The emergence of the big Russian antiship missiles on the ®*Port market dramatizes the contrast between Russian and y'estern priorities in missile design. If the British actually adopt jhe SS-N-22, other Western navies may find themselves fol- °Wing suit. If the missile fits the standard Mk 41 vertical launch- lng cell (as some Russians have claimed), the U.S. Navy may c°me to see it as a useful complement to Tomahawk, which fits tae same cell.
The Russians have not yet displayed this missile, which was designed by the Chelomei (Mashinostroenyi) design bureau 'hat was also responsible for designing the SS-N-3, -9, -12, and ''9). At Moscow last year the Chelomei organization displayed a Poster associating SS-N-22 with the Sovremennyy-class delayer, with an attack submarine, and with a shore launcher. ^ePorts associate a version of the missile (the P-100) with the ''■centimeter (25.6 inch) torpedo tubes and Rim Hat electronic SuPport measures and radar arrays of modern Russian sub- nJarines. At the Paris Air Show this June the design bureau displayed a poster showing photographs of some of its past achievements, including the SS-N-3 and the submarine-launched version of the SS-N-9, and the SS-N-22 (P-80), a rocket broadly re- Settibling an overgrown Sparrow. This time the missile was associated with a rearmed Nanuchka-class missile corvette (one per side), a submarine, and a shore launcher. The same I1 acard showed a modified version, with a ventral air scoop, Proclaiming it the missile of the future. At the Abu Dhabi show, ae Russians offered a modified Sovremennyy-class destroyer carrying 24 such missiles in vertical launch tubes.
The P-80/P-100 version was apparently developed to replace .‘le earlier SS-N-9 Sirens, which arm Russian Nanuchkas and
Ml, ,Qosted version of the big Kh-41 Moskit air-to-surface missile, unding for which the Russians are currently seeking. It will l^bably approach its target at Mach 3.5. The Russians already paVe a smaller Mach 3.5 antiship missile, the 3M80 (possibly n'PPO), in service on board Tarantul III missile boats; it replaces e °ld subsonic SS-N-2 Styx. The subject has become more ^er>t with a report that Iran has bought a few 3M80s. The Was developed by the Raduga (Berezhniak) design bu-
P2 refer to Raduga.
^This weapon, which also has been designated SS-N-22 in the t|iest- is much simpler than P-80. As a direct replacement for an infra-red (IR) seeker. It lacks the sophisticated data link and radar of P-80, and its only major maneuvering capability is a 60° turn after launch (the Styx flies straight ahead).
The Russian supersonic missiles and their air-launched cousins, such as the Kh-31, are important because they impose particularly harsh requirements on ship defenses. Earlier supersonic weapons, such as the air-launched AS-4 and the ship- and submarine-launched SS-N-19, flew at relatively high altitudes, and could often be detected and engaged at considerable ranges.
The new weapons attack from low level. Like Western sea skimmers, they often may be undetectable by radar before they cross the radar horizon. The epitome of such a threat would be the reported submarine-launched pop-up version of SS-N- 22, which cannot be detected at all until it emerges from the water. The subsonic pop-up SS-N-9 was bad enough, because when it appeared in the mid-1970s existing radars and their associated weapons often could not react quickly enough. The appearance of SS-N-9 led to the development of automated defensive systems such as the NATO Sea Sparrow and the Mk 92 Standard Missile combination—which were just fast enough. Fortunately, the submarine-launched P-100 cannot be exported at present because it does not fit the standard 21-inch torpedo tube (it requires 25.6-inch tube that is carried only by Russian submarines, which is also much longer than Western or old Russian tubes).
The new supersonic weapons make matters far worse for the defender, because they compress the defensive time line so drastically. For a sea skimmer detected by radar, the clock begins to tick when the missile crosses the radar horizon, perhaps 10 to 15 nautical miles from the target. A weapon system has about 1 to 1.5 minutes to react to a subsonic missile. A low-flying supersonic weapon like SS-N-22 may be detectable at slightly greater range, but the time shrinks to something like 20 to 30 seconds. Hence the current pressure for new and more highly integrated defensive weapon systems, and the need for a supersonic target to test such systems.
The other hope is for some kind of over-the-horizon detector, most likely based on the immense heat the missile must generate to achieve its high speed. U.S. progress in developing an infrared search and track (IRST) device has been spotty; now the Navy is once again seeking one. In theory an IRST can detect the IR plume the missile exhaust creates. Although its detection would probably not be precise enough for fire control, it could alert and cue the system, so that the missile would be engaged as soon as it popped over the horizon. Infrared search-and-track integration is part of the new series of ship self-defense systems.
These factors make supersonic antiship weapons extremely attractive to potential buyers. Until very recently, though, the Russians have not put them on the market. Although they installed the Mach 3.5 3M80 in their own Tarantuls, they fitted subsonic Styxes when they exported the boats, even within the old Warsaw Pact. Perhaps they feared that the weapons would be used against them. Then the world changed, and they promoted the 3M80 extensively at Abu Dhabi. It deserved the intense interest it received, and it will probably sell well.
Upgrades to U.S. defensive missiles and systems have suddenly become urgent, because Russian exports will place supersonic weapons in the hands of those who may be quite willing to use them. Ironically, as long as the Russians were their only operators, it could be argued that overall nuclear deterrence would limit their enthusiasm to start a naval war.
Full details of the Russian missiles appear in the 1993-1994 Supplement to The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems, which will be published this year.
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*edings / October 1993
109