Anti-ship Missile - Threat Posed

Threat Posed

Antiship missiles are an existential threat to surface ships, which have large radar, radio, and thermal signatures that are difficult to suppress. Once acquired, a ship cannot outrun or outturn a missile, the warhead of which can inflict significant damage. To counter the threat posed, the modern surface combatant has to either avoid being detected, destroy the missile launch platform before it fires its missiles, or decoy and/or destroy all of the incoming missiles.

Modern navies have spent much time and effort developing counters to the threat of antiship missiles since World War II. Antiship missiles have been the driving force behind many aspects of modern ship design, especially in navies that operate aircraft carriers.

The first layer of antimissile defense by a modern, fully equipped aircraft carrier task force is always the long-range missile-carrying fighter planes of the aircraft carrier itself. Several fighters are kept on combat air patrol (CAP) 24 hours a day, seven days a week when at sea, and many more are put aloft when the situation warrants, such as during wartime or when a threat to the task force is detected.

These fighters patrol up to hundreds of miles away from the Aircraft Carrier Task Force and they are equipped with excellent airborne radar systems. When spotting an approaching aircraft on a threatening flight profile, it is the responsibility of the CAP to intercept it before any missile is launched. If this cannot be achieved in time, the missiles themselves can be targeted by the fighters's own weapons systems, usually their air-to-air missiles, but in extremis, by their rapid-fire cannon.

However, some AShM's might "leak" past the Carrier Task Force's fighter defenses. In addition, many modern warships operate independently of carrier-based air protection and they must provide their own defenses againsts missiles and aircraft. Under these circumstances, the ships itself must utilize multilayered defenses which have been built into them.

For example, some warships, such as the U.S. Navy's Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers, the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, and the Royal Navy's Type 45 guided missile destroyer, use a combination of powerful and agile radar systems, integrated computer fire-control systems, and agile surface-to-air missiles to simultaneously track, engage, and destroy several incoming antiship missiles and/or hostile warplanes at a time.

The top American defensive system, called the Aegis Combat System, is also used by the navies of Japan, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, and South Korea. Aegis is also being built into three new guided-missile destroyers for the Royal Australian Navy, either under construction or in the planning stages. The Aegis system has been designed to defend against mass attacks by hostile antiship missiles and/or warplanes.

Any missiles that can elude the interception by medium-ranges SAM missiles can then be either deceived with electronic countermeasures or decoys; shot down by short-range missiles such as the Sea Sparrow or the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM); engaged by the warship's main gun armament (if present); or, as a last resort, blown to bits by a close-in weapon system (CIWS), such as the American Phalanx CIWS or the European Goalkeeper CIWS.

The Russian Navy, and its former allies, some European navies, and the Chinese Navy have attempted to develop and deploy missile defense systems, but as always, the lag behind the Americans and the Japanese in electronics, radar, and digital computer technology.