How do you know when you've sunk a ship in modern sea combat?

>>34587831
You don't see it anymore

There's nothing left but a burning puddle of fuel oil.

Since sea combat in the modern age happens at very long ranges, how do you know when you've actually achieved your aim and damaged/destroyed an opposing ship? Since AShMs are a finite resource, you don't want to go lobbing them at an already dead target, but at the same time, given you've only got a radar picture, how do you know if your missiles actually hit and weren't brought down by CIWS?

>>34587831
They call you on the radio and say "You sunk my ___" after you got the final hit. They're also supposed to tell you after each hit.

>>34587831

You look for the oil spill.

>>34587885
Good to know that there is such solid cooperation amongst the world's navies. Gives one hope

>>34587870
What are satellites and radars and sonar and spotter aircraft

>>34587885
came here to post this

>>34587914
Satellites would have a delay, no? Radar I can see but i wanted to know if any anons had knowledge on what it appears like to signify a hit. Sonar seems like it might lack the range, and spotter aircraft would likely be working in a pretty dangerous airspace

>>34587870
first off, you get track to track collision followed by a debris field on radar. now given, that's not gonna give you a 100% kill confirmation, but it's a start. then you take into account 2 additional things; sudden change in speed of the track, and sudden change in radar return on the track. so if its going 20kn and then speed abruptly slows to 5kn directly following a "hit" something is wrong on the enemy end. if the radar return suddenly starts shrinking, it could be countermeasures or it could be the ship going down. third and most obvious thing to take into account is if the enemy ship starts shooting back. if it does, it isn't sunk.

however; even taking all the details into account based on radar picture can't give you 100% certainty. you need visual confirmation to do that. so launch a helo or fixed wing and check it out.

also:

> Since AShMs are a finite resource, you don't want to go lobbing them at an already dead target

if you're in a position where you're attacking another ship with zero way to verify the kill, the fact that you may run out of AShMs probably doesn't matter that much to you.

>>34587952
>Satellites would have a delay, no?

not much of one.

>what it appears like to signify a hit.

debris field.

>Sonar seems like it might lack the range

it does. sonar is worthless for OTH.

>spotter aircraft would likely be working in a pretty dangerous airspace

most spotter aircraft in this situation would be attached to the ship, so it's dangerous either way. at least in the air they have some level of control over their lives.

>>34588067
Cheers mate. Things like that were definitely where my thinking was going, which led me to thoughts about whether a ship could spoof being killed by stopping/slowing after a near miss and use that to avoid further attack while its own missiles close in. But I didn't consider debris tracking. Also how obvious are AShM launches on the radar track?

>>34587831
>be out seafaring
>o fug deres a enemy boat!
>attack missile!
>boat disappear in water
>win we sink it lets hab beers

>>34588124
>which led me to thoughts about whether a ship could spoof being killed by stopping/slowing after a near miss and use that to avoid further attack while its own missiles close in.

yup, they can do that. they can even fake a debris field, both in the ocean and on radar. it's part of the reason we use spotter aircraft for battle damage assessment.

>But I didn't consider debris tracking.

well, you still get a debris field so long as the missile explodes, it's just a matter of figuring out if it was from an impact of a near miss.

>Also how obvious are AShM launches on the radar track?

depends on a ton of things; what missile is it? what radar are you using? what's your geological location? did you receive intel that ship might launch on you? how far away is the ship? how cloudy is it? how humid is it? what's the air temperature? what's the sea temperature?

>>34588278
Thanks for the info. Ah 4Chan, both full of useless crap and also full of people who know stuff. I guess It does just confirm that like many things, knowing whether you have sunk their battleship is less simple than it initially appears.

Ok, with my question largely resolved (until someone comes in with exactly the opposite opinions) I guess the thread just uses up space until it fades into oblivion

>>34588111
Dude SOSUS was listening to ships at port in Murmansk from Barbados in the 70s you are out of the realm of reality.

>>34587841
>You don't see it anymore
unreliable, no matter how you "see" it, radar included
>>34587888
>You look for the oil spill.
unreliable, it could be damaged but escaping

>How do you know when you've sunk a ship in modern sea combat?
After the war when you can read the enemy's loss records. Kill claims in war are worth dogshit. They're dogshit in every nation, every war, every historical age.

>>34587831
You know you sunk it when you it is no longer on radar, it stops firing, and you hear the sounds of the their bulkheads collapsing at depth.

>>34587831
>ping
>pong
>bang
>blub
>silence

>>34588111
You are retarded. Sound travels thousands of miles under water.

When your cousin flips his game board

>>34588538
>Dude SOSUS was listening to ships at port in Murmansk

1.you have a link to back that up? because I'm fairly sure that SOSUS was just monitoring the GIUK gap for activity, and the "ships in port at Murmansk" thing sounds like a load of bullshit.

2. yeah a complex system of underwater sonobuoys and listening posts literal all over american territory is exactly the same as the sonar system employed on your average warship.

How exactly are you supposed to sink a ship you can't see?

>>34588592
>>>34587841
> >You don't see it anymore
> unreliable, no matter how you "see" it, radar included
Radar is not a perfect method but it is a valid one. As is sending a drone to look for it with a camera.


> >How do you know when you've sunk a ship in modern sea combat?
> After the war when you can read the enemy's loss records. Kill claims in war are worth dogshit. They're dogshit in every nation, every war, every historical age.

A "loss" might then include ships that were considered damaged beyond the effort worthwhile to repair.

Most people would not consider it a "lost" ship, just a badly damaged one.

>>34588680
no. it does not. sound CAN travel for thousands of miles underwater, but that doesn't mean it WILL.

if you walk into the ocean and bang 2 pipes together, a scuba diver 5 miles off the coast isn't going to be able to hear you. temperature variations make sound loss worse, and a loud sonar environment makes it harder to make out specific noise.

Seems my report of the thread's death was premature.

The sound travelling long distances is a fair point, for some reason I was thinking of active sonar, whereas I guess you're really listening for transients consistent with an impact/explosions on passive. But as a man above me has stated, sound travel underwater is a pretty complex beast

>>34588742
>How exactly are you supposed to sink a ship you can't see?

sigint, sat data, radar, elint, determine your target, fire missile, hopefully kill on first shot. the world's been doing that for years.

>>34587831
When your autistic cousin smashes the game from the table and screeches for his mom

>>34587831
Nobody knows. There hasn't been any modern sea combat.

We're in the longest period in human history without a major naval battle. Not one officer commanding a warship has fought in a naval battle, and technology has changed so much since the last one was fought that the lessons of the past are basically useless.

Expect a confusing clusterfuck like Hampton Roads or Lissa next time there's a naval engagement as everyone's trying to figure out how their weapons actually work under real battlefield conditions.

>>34587911
Never play with North Korea, they fucking cheat.

>>34588861
I did consider that. Beyond Yom Kippur I couldn't really think of a naval engagement using mostly modern methods (e.g. lobbing cruise missiles at one another). But my knowledge of military history is sketchy at best.

Presumably the issue has been given some consideration as tech has developed, so it could be interesting to see how it pans out if ships get shirty with each other in the future. Unfortunately it would involve the death of a whole bunch of people which seems a bit of a steep price for an experiment in kill confirmation.

>>34588111
>not much of one.
Could be as much as 45 minutes. That's how long it takes a satellite in LEO to make half an orbit.

>>34588278
if you're still here, can you answer a question?

how does ELINT fit into this? is any traffic analysis or something of that sort done and fit into the decisions made by a captain?

>>34588345
i'm 95% sure i've talked to someone who works on SOSUS here before. there are a lot of experts here.

>>34588934
it could be more, remember to account for orbital inclination

>>34588934
Satellites do seem like they'd be unreliable, but super handy if they happened to be over the target area

>put a bunch of oil and clothes and shit into a torpedo tube and launch it
>oh look at that looks like we sunk em

>>34588946
>is any traffic analysis or something of that sort done and fit into the decisions made by a captain?

eh, yes and no. usually it's just an added measure in determining the identity of the enemy vessel. but in some cases it's used to determine the intent of the vessel, it's weapons loadout, or if there are additional unknown forces in the area. this is all entirely dependent on your forces being able to intercept, decrypt, and translate their comms though. more often than not it's done by offship entities.

So spoofing seems like it would have to be a pretty involved effort. Something to simulate debris on radar (chaff?), some explosions or similar to mimic a hit on passive sonar and a big drop in speed. Doable, but given you've already got to be nearly hit with an AShM, maybe not a tactic that would be likely to pop up often

>>34587831
it's underwater :~)

>>34589022
>usually it's just an added measure in determining the identity of the enemy vessel.
do ships ever attempt to hide their identities? say, through giving off fake transmissions to make them look like civilian vessels?

>>34588946
>remember to account for orbital inclination
In that case it could be even longer; spy satellites aren't necessarily in LEO and the higher you are the longer an orbit takes.

>>34589062
>do ships ever attempt to hide their identities?

yup. for various reasons. but never for very long, as their cover gets blown the instance anyone actually puts eyes on them.

>say, through giving off fake transmissions to make them look like civilian vessels?

yeah. for most military vessels it's just a matter of turning off various pieces of comms gear and radars. you're partially blinded but you look like a tanker/fishing boat/yacht.

>>34587831
Use satellite to close into where you hit the ship.

>>34588861
The Falklands and most modern naval incidents including the Cole and Fitzgerald are all pointing at destroyers being inadequate at their jobs as frontline combatants, so I would not want to be on a Burke whenever the next engagment begins.

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>>34589336

>>34589336
>destroyers being inadequate at their jobs as frontline combatants

how exactly do you get that out of an incident involving an outdated British destroyer, a terrorist attack, and an act of maritime negligence?

also, and I feel like i'm gonna regret asking this, what type of ship would you describe as "adequate" at being a frontline combatant?