18 Replies to “Honey, I Finished The Internet”

  1. All pretty obvious points, few things worth adding:
    1. Anything worth targeting will be targeted by multiple missiles, often of multiple types.
    2. You don’t need a direct hit to make your target battle dead. An explosion close enough, say due to an interception, will shower all the soft bits (like radars) with debris that will impact the target’s ability to defend from subsequent attacks. Hence the whole discussion about hitting a specific part of the target is a moot point.
    3. There are very few parts of the warship that the warship does not need. So hitting anywhere tends to have results.

    1. The people who sold the old Phalanx CIWS had a saying. If it flies it dies. The only time I ever heard of a missile getting past it on a ship was when Iraq fired a couple of Exocet missiles and the Phalanx were on standby mode.

      “On 30 January 2024, Houthis fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward the Red Sea. The missile came within a mile of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Gravely. The Phalanx CIWS aboard Gravely was used to shoot down the missile. This was the first time the Phalanx CIWS was used to down a Houthi-fired missile.[27] No damage or injuries were reported”

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

      1. Was it a missile or a drone? A mile is awfully close when something is coming at you at transonic speed.

        1. “Awfully close” is very much a part of the Phalanx system’s business.

          1. Tooner – agreed, hence the name “Close” In Weapon System (CIWS) also pronounced C-Wiz.

          2. Yes I am aware of that. Phalanx is a last ditch defense weapon. So we have two possible scenarios. 1. Something got through the massive missile defense wall and phalanx had to be used. 2. The target was so low threat that it wasn’t worth the missile and phalanx was used instead. Hence my question, was it a drone or a missile?

  2. Martyanov wrote a thesis on this. Pretty straightforward and the differential equations for the needed probability density functions are pretty much known. All that is missing is parameter calbration.

    Russia and Iran are going to massively upgrade the Houthis ship-killing capabilities now.

      1. Need line of sight for a laser. How did that work with a howitzer? Drone and guided shells?

        1. Thanks Bunny!
          I learned something new and that you needed the Lazer to generate a heat signature to follow which is easy for stationary targets and not so much for a moving target.

          We were firing more of a modified cruise missile back in the middle of 1980’s.
          Still carrying those heavy radios full of batteries for communication.

        2. Check out M712 Copperhead.

          You illuminate the target (could be by a drone, could be by a SF team, could be anything else that can pain it) and when the incoming round sees the illuminated target it homes in on it. It does not not need to see the target until the terminal phase. Before that it flies in the general direction of the target.

    2. A good rule of thumb for ships is hitting below the waterline. There is this “system” called a “ship” that relies on “buoyancy”.

    3. The Soviet military looked a it and said screw it, we just put bigger warhead. Cheaper. We make more.

      1. Not cheaper at all. When you factor in the size of the hull or the airframe that needs to carry them.

    4. Sure, sure, more ork wunderwaffe is just around the corner, Nu, pogodi!

    1. Mecheng, when I switched to the Brave browser, I was able to see Twitter threads.

    2. I didn’t switch anything and they just started working for some strange reason. The gods of the computer I guess.

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