dand%tekigm2.men.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Dan C Duval) (01/26/89)
From: Dan C Duval <dand%tekigm2.men.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET> > With all this discussion of carrier survivability, I'm surprised >nobody has mentioned the chapter in Tom Clancy's book "Red Storm Rising" >that chronicles a Soviet ASM attack on a carrier task force. (I believe >the title of the chapter was "Day of the Vampires," as 'vampire' is >apparently the Navy term for an anti-ship missile.) The end result of the >attack was a fairly damaged task force, due to a combination of Russian >ECM, the size of the incoming missile raid, and ammunition limitations of >the Aegis cruisers. > Before anybody starts complaining that this was all in Clancy's >imagination, let me point out that the co-author of the book was Larry >Bond, developer of the game "Harpoon," and that many of the battles >described in "Red Storm Rising" were gamed using the "Harpoon" rules. > So, just to keep this discussion interesting, does anybody want to >comment on the validity (or the lack thereof) of the scenario described in >Clancy's book? What, if anything, did he not account for that would result >in the task force not getting hurt as badly as it did? >Warren J. Madden Actually, I don't think that Clancy's scenario is necessarily bad or wrong. All in all, it was a very clever tactic, using the US Navy's tactical doctrine to give the Soviet naval aircraft their best chance at destroying a carrier. On the other hand, one thing that should be noted is that this attack upon a single carrier battle group cost the Soviets about half of their naval air assets (destroyed or damaged) while only damaging one carrier. I would expect that in the real world the Soviets would try to follow up this attack by trying to get in both surface and submarine attacks on the now-damaged carrier group (since it is now lacking any air cover) rather than expending their surface ships attacking a fully armed and waiting air group. As it is, after that attack, there are still the other operating carrier battle groups, at least two of which are at most a few days away from the North Atlantic. Another "victory" like that and the Soviets would have no naval air assets left, while the NATO forces, though damaged, won't notice the effect much until the time comes when all the carriers are under repair or in for normal refit and replenishment. Another thing that Clancy didn't bother to note is that the commercial air routes over the Atlantic apparently became free-fire zones even before the first shots were fired or there would be a herd of aircraft trying to come in attempting to look like airliners and a number of fighters would be off chasing targets trying to get a visual confirmation as combat plane or not. If the world suddenly went to war as Clancy has it happen, then either the rules of engagement would require a visual identification on the aircraft flying at the time (tying up a lot of planes) or a lot of airliners would be getting trashed, passengers and all. This problem would exist in the North Atlantic, but much more in the air corridors over Western Europe. During a surprise attack, I'd be doing my best to get as many of my naval strike bombers identified as civilian airliners as I could. Yet, Clancy mentions nothing about the "attrocities" of downed airliners by either side. ----- Dan C Duval Measurement Systems Division Tektronix, Inc. dand@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM or tektronix!tekigm2!dand