X-36 drone - Weapons Systems - Offense/Defense

kbd512 · 2025-01-02 23:14:22

Track Record:
* It’s a very new technology in the realm of commercial power plants.
* Doesn’t provide major efficiency benefits at lower temperatures and pressures.
* Little comparative data exists to evaluate performance vs cost.
* Natural gas and coal are the only fuels extensively used in testing and actual power plants.
* sCO2 tech is most closely comparable to nuclear thermal rocket engine tech. Volumetric power density of sCO2 power turbines starts at 10MW/L. NERVA XE Prime’s core power density was 3-5MW/L. SpaceX’s Raptor-3 has a 350bar chamber pressure. A 1,200C sCO2 system would run at 1,000bar. Overall power density is lower than a fission reactor, but we’re talking about 3-5m^3 of total system volume to power 1 shaft of an aircraft carrier. No other power and propulsion tech can do that in a practical way.

Extreme Power Density Results in Extreme Material Property and Fabrication Requirements:
* 700C to 800C requires superalloys and stainless with aerospace coatings (~100K base material cost; ~$10M total cost per engine to power a carrier; $40M in total)
* 1,200C requires ceramic matrix composites; Silicon and Carbon are incredibly abundant, but the energy input to go from natural resources to materials to components is astronomical (~$1M/MW base material cost; ~$75M per engine; $300M in total)

Power turbines and recompression turbines tend to be similar in size / mass. Dresser-Rand’s groundbreaking RamGen supersonic inlet CO2 compressors could be used to recompress the CO2 for less material and weight, but they’re also expensive. RamGen is another new-ish gas turbine tech that uses the shock waves from Mach 2 to Mach 3 flow velocity at the inlet to help recompress the CO2, rather than generating massive wave drag. This could eliminate the LTR turbine stage and recuperator for heat re-injection.

I can’t give a good estimates on fabrication costs because local energy prices and machining rates are major determining factors. They typically farm fabrication out to local specialty job shops with expertise, which you will pay dearly for. The heat exchangers, not the turbines, are the “weak link” in this tech, for technical design, fabrication, and operational problems. sCO2 power turbines have proven relatively trouble-free in operation. PCHEs are the only component of the entire system that really concerns me, because they are fundamentally “new” for this application, but they also enable the high ramp rates and are far less delicate than tube-and-shell heat exchangers.

Safety:
A rupture of any component is a non-survivable event for everyone inside the engine compartment, from the moment the system is “charged” with cold CO2. The best way to prevent casualties is following operating procedures to the letter and maintaining unyielding QC requirements.

Bottom Line:
The eye-watering material and fabrication costs will be swiftly recovered in the form of reduced fuel consumption and freed-up hull volume benefits. The safety issues are deadly serious, but manageable. Steam turbines were first invented in 1884. By 1888, at least 200 ships used steam turbines for electrical power. By 1894, HMS Turbinia was powered by a steam turbine. We have 300MWe power plants coming online now. It’s time to apply this tech to ships.

kbd512 · 2025-01-02 23:15:12

1. Efforts towards using sCO2 for shipboard power and propulsion:
Design considerations of the supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle of small modular molten salt reactor for ship propulsion
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 7023002706

The South Koreans and Chinese are evaluating sCO2 for use with MSRs for shipboard propulsion to increase reactor fuel economy. MSRs use slurry fuels (Uranium fuel particles mixed into a molten salt) and run at higher temperatures than PWRs, making them more suitable for sCO2 as a working fluid / coolant. Instead of refueling a reactor every 12 to 18 months (commercial electric power reactors) or 10 to 25 years (ship / truck / train mobile reactors), or reprocessing cracked fuel rods into fresh fuel rods as France does and we once did, there’s a continuous process of adding a pinch of fresh Uranium to the molten salt and removing a pinch of fission products / neutron poisons that would otherwise stop the chain reaction, while the reactor is up and running.

There are a couple of other research papers within the scientific literature written by Chinese authors. The Chinese also intend to use sCO2 power turbines and MSRs for marine propulsion. China built and tested a semi-functional small commercial MSR demonstrator. I don’t think it used sCO2 for generating power and MSR tech is not quite ready for prime time.

There’s also a paper about using sCO2 gas turbines for aircraft propulsion:
Design and modeling of a multiscale porous ceramic heat exchanger for high temperature applications with ultrahigh power density
https://www.triceceramics.com/uploads/9 … _paper.pdf

Using air cooling and 3C-SiC (a polymorph of SiC, not a Sylramic-reinforced CMC), they think they can get the heat exchanger power density as high as 717MW/m^3 and 300kW/kg with a 2.5X factor of safety against rupture. ASME BPVC would require 3.5X to 5X factor of safety. That’s entirely theoretical because hardware hasn’t been built and demonstrated. Power density is a function of heat transfer circuit surface area per unit volume. The overall design goal is to maximize surface area and minimize heat exchanger volume and mass, because that maximizes thermal power transfer efficiency. PCHEs are 1,000m^2 to 2,000m^3 per 1m^3. Their MCHEs are 7,000m^2+ per 1m^3.

2. Is the intrinsic danger of extreme pressure and temperature cause to reconsider using sCO2 for marine power and propulsion?:
A sCO2 power system is made from highly resilient materials capable of long-term survival in its intended operating regime. The startup and shutdown sequences, arguably the most dangerous phases of operation, are computer-controlled because they happen so fast. I would focus plant safety efforts on containment of damage following a rupture and keeping sailors out of the compartment unless it’s powered down and the CO2 safely discharged overboard or pumped back into liquid CO2 storage tanks.

3. Natural Gas and Coal Safety Issues Aboard Ship:
I would not use Methane as a fuel for warships, even though it’s the cheapest, cleanest, and most abundant of all fuel options. Methane’s flammability range is simply too wide. Coal dust is dangerous, but Coal-Water Slurry (CWS) requires ignition temperatures about 600C higher than diesel or kerosene. It’s a liquid in which the coal dust remains in suspension for a considerable period of time. I proposed using CWS to avoid accidental fires and explosions. The primary hazards to shipboard personnel exposed to CWS are poisoning-related. Coal can contain high levels of Arsenic, Mercury, Lead, and Radon gas, although the Radon should mostly be dispersed during the grinding of the coal dust / powder. With CWS, you’re deliberately mixing water into your fuel supply. The end result is that you get a desirable combustion temperature that certain superalloys, SiC, and CMCs can operate at.

kbd512 · 2025-01-02 23:16:25

The idea behind this propulsion concept is to enable construction of larger ships with greater hull volume, compartmentalization, and armor. If we have much more efficient propulsion on the near-horizon and a nominal cost fuel to work with, that shifts the cost center to ship design and what each ship is equipped with. I want to combine sCO2 power / propulsion tech with Sharrow’s propeller tech, which has been proven to reduce fuel burn rates at all engine speeds, significantly at 20 and 25 knots, due to greater propulsive efficiency over conventional props. Using CWS as fuel for sCO2 turbines and Sharrow propellers, carrier CWS burn rate at 20 knots is ~2,437gph for a cruising range of 37,751 statute miles.

If every ship in our fleet was built on the hull (not a direct design copy) of a Forrestal class aircraft carrier (36X 60,000t) or North Carolina class battleship (252X 35,000t), and we had a 288 ship battle fleet, then our tonnage is ~11Mt vs ~4.5Mt. I’m not asserting that every ship should be equipped like a traditional aircraft carrier or battleship. We’d build a mix of traditional aircraft carriers, amphibious landing / shore logistics carriers, missile cruisers, battleships, and sub hunters / special mission ships.

https://www.dla.mil/Portals/104/Documen … 230929.pdf

$/Gallon of DFM / F-76: $3.54

Each Carrier Hull: ~4M gallons of CWS fuel, 3M gallons of that fuel volume is actually coal
Each Battleship Hull: ~2.175M gallons of CWS fuel, 1.63125M gallons of coal
1 US Liquid Gallon = 0.133681ft^3
Bituminous Coal Bulk Density: ~52lbs/ft^3
US Appalachian Coal Price (December 2024): $76.25/2,000lbs

36 Carrier Hulls: 14,437,500ft^3 of coal
252 Battleship Hulls: 54,952,734.375ft^3 of coal
288 Ship Battle Fleet: 69,390,234.375ft^3 / 3,608,292,187.5lbs / 1,804,146.09375 short tons of coal; 173,025,000 gallons of deionized water
TTL Gallons CWS: 692,100,000 gallons
TTL Coal Cost: $137,566,139.65
TTL Deionized Water Cost ($0.50/gallon): $86,512,500
TTL CWS Materials Cost: $224,078,639.65
Materials $/Gallon CWS: $0.33
Grinding and Mixing $/Gallon CWS: $0.10

Miles from Appalachia to San Diego, CA: 2,377.2 miles

Rail Transport
Cost/Ton-Mile (2023): $0.196
TTL Rail Cost to Ship 1,804,146t of Coal to San Diego, CA: $840,607,910.76
TTL Rail Transport $/Gallon CWS: $1.21
$/Gallon CWS: $1.64 (final delivered cost)

Pipeline Transport
Cost/Ton-Mile (2023): $0.01 to $0.05
Cost 692,100,000 Gallons CWS to San Diego, CA: $300,199,988.46 (at $0.05)
$/Gallon CWS: $0.86 (final delivered cost)

Per Carrier Refueling Cost: #3.44M, $91.12/mile (CWS by pipeline); $6.56M, $173.77/mile (CWS by rail car); $14.16M, $169.42/mile (DFM/F-76)

Refueling the Atlantic Fleet will be much cheaper than the Pacific Fleet, but I presume most fuel is headed to the Pacific to counteract China.

tahanson43206 · 2025-01-03 09:02:21

For kbd512 re #50+ series ....

I appreciated your warning about the danger of the CO2 turbine to personnel.

It seems to me possible that the advances you've described are likely to occur somewhere, because the technology is now available and your presentation shows it would have some advantages, along with plenty of downsides to match.

I went back and re-read the original article about Don Kirlin.

It seemed to me that in your original response to the post about Kirlin's purchase of the entire Australian air force wing, you seemed to dismiss the entire adversary air business with a few words about "modern"

Upon rereading the article I got the impression that older airframes stack up just fine when equipped with modern electronic packages.

The mission of the adversary force is ** not ** to defeat the US pilots.... it ** is ** to give those US pilots experience at a cost that is substantially less than the cost of flying combat ready aircraft. I get the impression that the adversary force is intending to give the US pilots a good challenge, and to reveal any weaknesses that must exist, as each pilot gains experience.

However, I noted that there is an aspect of the adversary force that is not in the air. The air combat controllers need live experience to learn the complex skills they need to manage an air campaign, and it appears that cost to the US taxpayer is a driver. The article described a civilian aircraft adapted for the role, and showed that it can help train controllers just fine, at a tiny fraction of the cost of a $20,000 per hour jet.

I would like to see an update on the Kirlin purchase of all those Australian jets. The purchase involved flying some planes, shipping others, and waiting for a few to be certified after maintenance.

(th)

kbd512 · 2025-01-03 13:55:14

tahanson43206,

Once upon a time we can and did "acquire" MiGs and then used them for realistic training purposes. We can no longer do that. For starters, China is now producing their own domestic military aircraft designs. More succinctly, everyone has their own custom-tailored air power solution these days. They're no longer applying a cookie-cutter variant of US or Soviet air combat doctrine. China hasn't sold aircraft to many other nations, because they swiftly make adversaries out of the nations their aircraft might be sold to. Thus, our opportunities to acquire second-hand Chinese Shenyangs and Chengdus for evaluation and dissimilar training purposes have been virtually non-existent.

The mission of this adversary force provided by Draken International absolutely should be to defeat the American pilots. If it isn't, then the training provided isn't realistic at all. A real shooting war with a peer-level or near-peer adversary involves at least one side trying to dominate the other through the use of air power and other military assets such as missiles / ships / tanks / artillery / drones. If it doesn't involve that, then it's just another pointless attrition contest. There are no participation trophies in combat, and no points awarded for "almost" defeating a threat.

I don't dismiss the value of flying against a human adversary to keep you thinking and evolving combat tactics, but all of the fighters that Draken International is flying are aging or obsolete aircraft that American pilots probably won't be facing in a war against Russia or China or Iran. They might be a decent proxy for flying against North Korean pilots. China is now building stealth fighters and bombers / strike aircraft.

What could flying a Super Hornet against a Hornet or F-16 teach you about how to counter even more modern aircraft?

My guess is, "not very much". I will grant you that during the next war there will still be a significant number of non-stealthy airframes flown by China / Russia / Iran and America, because stealth fighters are so expensive that only limited numbers can be built per year. The issue is that most of those 4th generation carry-over airframes have up-to-date computer and sensor systems. For example, China's J-20 build rate doesn't appear to match the build rate of F-22s and F-35s. If a real shooting war starts and similarly stealthy fighters are flown against each other, my guess is that we devolve back to Viet Nam War style close-range dogfights. That's a setup for an attritional war, but this time we can't build and deploy thousands of airframes per year, because they cost so much.

Do the aircraft flown by Draken International contain modern avionics and sensor systems?

If so, then I would remove my objection. If not, then my point about realistic training still stands. We already know that our aircraft and tactics are sufficient to counter any local or small regional power. That is not a useful measurement of overall combat capability against Russia and China.

Air combat control is largely a matter of having sophisticated long range sensors capable of detecting and tracking the movements of aircraft in real-time, plus software and data links to distribute that information. We need automated software to do that more than lower cost planes or personnel or training tools. If we're able to do that against stealthy aircraft and missiles at the outset of a war when it's most critical, then for starters it means the incredible investment into these stealthy aircraft was only effective at reducing the number which would be shot down per mission due to partially degrading target track quality and/or disrupting the weapon homing aspect of the kill chain. Secondly, it re-emphasizes the point that having more capable sensors and target data sharing was / is the real competitive advantage, more important than stealth against X-band radars. Thirdly, it tells us that what we actually need is highly effective real time "big picture" air warfare data collection / aggregation / distribution system to feed target data to all of our airborne assets and any ground or ship assets involved in air warfare.

If you gave me the option of having another 1,000 F-35s or a true real-time Air Warfare Management System (AWMS) capable of timely distribution of target data to all of my sensor-shooter platforms, I would choose the AWMS every day of the week. If I have a rock solid AWMS, then China can have as many stealthy J-20s as they can afford, but I'm still going to win that fight if the Chinese don't have a similar system to provide threat / target awareness to their pilots.

China now has 300 to 400 J-20s. J-20 kinematics should be very close to what a F-22 is capable of, but they carry significantly more internal fuel, have a significantly smaller wing surface area so may not perform quite as well at higher altitudes, yet slightly better at mid to low altitudes. Their thrust-to-weight is either markedly inferior with the engines used prior to the WS-15 or markedly superior with the WS-15 engines, but only in afterburner. Most significantly, WS-15's dry thrust is markedly inferior to the F-119, which means it makes up for it in afterburner, and hence, requires more internal fuel. It's top speed is markedly lower than the F-22, because it's a much larger / "draggier" airframe. However, the empty weight of the F-22 is significantly greater than the Chengdu J-20, which means they either used more CFRP, or they compromised on long term structural integrity. From seeing how Russian Sukhoi fighters are built, they're structurally compromised when compared to western fighters. The structure is in fact adequate for a greatly reduced airframe service life, but it probably won't be operated for 25+ years the way ours are. There's a cost-benefit associated with doing this. Russia and China emphasize mass production over longevity in operation. Since the MiG-29 and Su-27, western aircraft have always been more conservatively designed when it comes to structural margins vs practical kinematic performance. There are no Su-27s that made it back to base after losing an entire wing. The F-15, on the other hand, was proven capable of doing that following a mid-air collision. Basically, we follow the "Grumman Iron Works" airframe design philosophy and the Russians / Chinese follow the "as strong as necessary, but no stronger" philosophy. It's hard to say for certain that one is better than the other, because it's situationally-dependent, and they can use inferior engines to achieve very similar or frequently superior kinematics, with the understanding that none of their airframes are going to live to see 10,000hrs+.

Production of the Shenyang J-35 supposedly began in 2021, although we've yet to see some new or existing unit equipped with a squadron of these planes. It's effectively a low-spec F-35A, 9,582lbs heavier in terms of empty weight, so it might be every bit as robust as the F-35C model, carries less internal fuel, and has a total thrust from two engines less than the thrust from the F-35's single engine. Size-wise / weight-wise / shape-wise, it's otherwise similar enough to our F-35 to be seen as a direct competitor. Broadly speaking, if the J-35's avionics / electronics are similar to our F-35, which they should be since they engaged in espionage to steal the blueprints, then I would expect it to be a fairly even match for our F-35, but that has yet to be proven in combat. No public information exists on the J-35s sensor fusion capabilities or lack thereof, and I don't think the Chinese got their hands on that software, so I would think their airframe and engine tech is now on-par with ours, but probably not their electronics. I think they temporarily gave up on producing a F-135 clone after seeing how hideously expensive that engine was to develop and produce, instead preferring the "engine out" capability of the smaller pair of engines in our Hornet / Super Hornet / Rafale / Eurofighter. That was probably a wise choice, even if it increased the dry weight of the fighter and decreased performance somewhat. The upside is that more pilots make it back to base after sustaining some battle damage.

That brings us to the Chengdu J-36, which looks like the FB-22 concept with 3 engines vs 2 engines. The FB-22 was to be a replacement for the F-111. It also greatly resembles Boeing's F/A-XX and the USAF NGAD, but I don't think that monster is going to turn like a F-22 or J-20, so my assumption is that it's a stealthy F-111 created to conduct long range penetration attacks against our bases and ships. Weight-wise, my guess is that it's about equal to the F-111, and will be used for the kinds of missions that F-111s were used for. A separate tailless twin engine aircraft prototype, which looks a bit more like our NGAD, is also in the works. My guess is that that plane is their direct competitor to the USAF NGAD / USN F/A-XX. Why build both? Their Xi'an H-6 bombers require a replacement / supplement to survive missions against US aircraft carriers and air bases in the Pacific. I think their H-6 will then be relegated to the same role as our B-52s.

They don't actually know what right looks like for "Chinese air warfare doctrine", so they're creating facsimiles of every major component of "American air warfare doctrine". They've done the same thing with their naval forces, largely for the same reasons. When you don't need to reinvent the wheel, or someone else has already successfully done what you're trying to do, then you observe what they're doing, emulate it, and try to improve upon it. China has the raw resources, intellectual / capital / material / fabrication / operational staffing and doctrine to actually do this, potentially better than we can, given enough time. They certainly have more production capacity than we do.

That pretty much sums up what they're building, within the realm of combat aircraft they intend to deploy to attack Taiwan and the US, when we get involved, as well as why they're building it. I think we'll inevitably become involved at some point because I don't think they intend to stop at Taiwan. All of their public posturing and geopolitical theses indicates they're going to start invading the territory of other sovereign nations, since the Chinese have already claimed territory which was never historically associated with China, as Chinese territory. Japan did the same thing before WWII started. We've seen this all before, been there, done that, and bought the stupid T-shirt. Anyone who believes otherwise is ignoring all the messaging coming out of Beijing, because they don't like what it means. Unfortunately, that won't change how the Chinese government behaves towards their neighbors. They're America's (what "The West" stands for) adversary because they say they are and their ideological dogma demands that they are. They don't want peaceful coexistence, according to them. They want empire and domination. There will be no long-term appeasement, because we have nothing to offer to them that they actually want.

My next post will cover my proposed asymmetric counter to what they're in the process of doing. Some of it will be political, some of it will be how we treat other nations, and some of it will involve military power, not because I think any military has ever deterred an aggressor, but to create a credible defense against Chinese attempts at empire and domination.

kbd512 · 2025-01-04 02:29:33

A central part of Chinese air warfare and naval strategy for domination in the Pacific near the first island chain involves the deployment of great numbers of stealthy combat aircraft, ships, and guided missiles, which include a mix of subsonic / supersonic / hypersonic (ballistic) varieties. That's the right way to fight a similarly capable opponent, but capabilities are never precisely the same, and that is what we must exploit to our advantage. At the present time, China definitely has a greater capacity to produce high tech military weapons at a faster rate than America and her allies. What they cannot do, or at least have never proven capable of doing thus far, is countering asymmetric threats to their military assets that overwhelm their defenses with pure numbers.

If American pilots flew against the PLAAF in late WWII era Bearcats equipped with 20mm cannons plus AIM-9s, but with radar warning receivers / navigational aids / data links, in the same numbers as what we fielded against the Japanese in terms of Wildcats and Hellcats during WWII, after the first month of fighting, despite suffering horrendous casualties from stealthy Chinese fighters and air defense missiles, there is only one possible result, which doesn't favor the Chinese. All of those big expensive Chinese jets have to land somewhere, eventually. None of them have substantially greater range than a Bearcat, especially if those Bearcats were made from stronger composite materials and carrying perhaps 50 extra gallons of internal fuel as a result. None of those stealthy Chinese fighters can out-run or out-maneuver a Sidewinder. No supersonic fighter jet made has a prayer if it comes to out-turning a Bearcat. Over-confident F-15 and F-16 pilots have learned the hard way that fighting a turning engagement against the A-10 (no faster than a Bearcat) only results in their plane being turned into confetti following a 1-circle fight. The J-20s and J-35s can certainly use their speed and stealth, and obviously will, but no fighter equipped with a giant pair of afterburning turbofans is "stealthy" against a heat seeking missile. If I'm fielding 20 Bearcats for every J-20 or J-35 fielded by the Chinese, then just as the Germans discovered that their "superior" Me-262s were "too little, too late", so too will be the case for the Chinese. They can fire their radar guided missiles from a distance and head home, but while fleeing whatever remains of our Bearcat formation arrayed against them will down them with Sidewinders if they foolishly press the attack, or chew them up on the ground while they attempt to refuel and rearm. A single J-20 consumes as much fuel to reach its max range as 20 Bearcats, and probably requires as many maintenance hours per flight hour as all 20 Bearcats require. All great power conflict is attritional by its very nature. There was no singular battle which determined the ultimate outcome of WWII, nor even the results of a greater number of large set piece battles.

The communist Chinese PLAAF has 3,500 aircraft of every description.

During WWII, America built a total of 57,960 single-engine naval combat aircraft, which were largely deployed to the Pacific theater of war to fight the Imperial Japanese forces arrayed against America. If we built that number of Bearcats to fight against the Chinese, the Chinese would lose decisively if every one of those 3,500 aircraft was a stealthy J-20 or J-35. At a certain point, technological superiority ceases to have any meaning. The Germans were technically superior to the Soviet Red Army in every way but the one way which cost Germany the war. Numbers still matter when the numerical force disparity ranges between 10:1 and 20:1. You don't win those battles. Ask the Wehrmacht or the Luftwaffe or the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. They started the war with superior machines and training. The war ended with all of those forces completely shattered by superior numbers and nothing else. That said, I would not casually expend the lives of 50,000 good men flying Bearcats against Chinese air defenses.

7,885 Grumman F4F Wildcats (fighters)
12,275 Grumman F6F Hellcats (fighters)
12,571 Vought F4U Corsairs (fighters)
9,839 Grumman TBF/TBM Avengers (torpedo bombers)
5,936 SBD Dauntless (dive-bomber)
7,140 Curtiss SB2C Helldivers (dive-bomber)
1,519 Vought OS2U Kingfishers (observation floatplanes)
795 Curtiss SO3C Seamews (observation floatplanes)

So, what kind of weapon do we need to counter China's air defense missiles, aircraft, air bases, and ships?

I think a very inexpensive kind of weapon, one which can be built by the tens of thousands, is what we will require. An ideal weapon would have a very long range, be optionally carrier-based, posses a moderate subsonic cruising speed of perhaps 400mph at most, since range is far more important than pure speed for this application, a high precision sensor / guidance system capable of detecting targets in all weather conditions, and the use of pure kinetic energy, rather than expensive and potentially dangerous high explosives, for terminal effect on target.

For that no-so-insignificant "trick", I present the sCO2 Turbine Powered Tallboy "flying bomb":

Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command%2C_1942-1945._CH15363.jpg

Weight: 12,000lbs / 5,443kg
Torpex Explosive Filler Weight: 5,200lbs / 2,358.683kg
Note: the explosive will be removed and replaced with fuel oil for powered flight

Torpex Explosive Density: 1.89224g/cm^3 = 1,822.49g/L
2,358,683.129g of Torpex / 1,822.49g/L = 1,294.2L of internal bomb casing volume (plus a little extra to account for the detonators)
1,822.49g/L of Navy Special Fuel Oil (NSFO) / Residual Fuel Oil No. 5: 0.998kg/L at 15C
1,294.2L * 0.998kg/L = 1,291.62kg

NSFO Energy Content: 30MJ/L
1294.2L of NSFO: 49,081,560,000J = 13,633,767Wh = 18,283hp-hr
Cruise Speed: 375mph (near-ideal for a prop-driven aircraft)
Anticipated Cruise Power: 550hp (1,100hp-hr for a 50% thermally efficient sCO2 turbine engine)
Anticipated Cruise Range: 6,232 miles

In a Mach 1 / 343m/s terminal dive, the empty bomb casing can penetrate approximately 262mm of RHA using the Krupp method of evaluating the projectile's armor penetration capability. The structural steel which virtually all ships use will offer far less resistance than what we consider to be "rolled homogenous armor steel" (a steel with a Brinell hardness in the 350 range). For a ship such as a modern destroyer or cruiser, the combined thicknesses of all plates, from the main deck to the keel, probably won't add up to at least 10 inches (254mm). Deck plates can vary between 5mm to 25mm thick, but 5mm to 10mm would be typical for a destroyer or cruiser built after the 1950s, and that applies to virtually anyone's destroyer or cruiser. The main deck / strength deck, might be 25mm, and the keel plating might be 2 layers around 15mm thick in some places. That means the bomb casing will exit through the bottom of the ship in many instances, even if it's deflected by various structural members reinforcing the hull plating. Anything in its flight path is probably getting crushed. If the bomb were to fly horizontally and hit the hull somewhere amidships, even at cruise velocity it's going right through both sides of the ship, because there's probably not at least 128mm of steel in its flight path.

Obviously some time and additional energy must be expended climbing to 30,000ft or so, following a catapult launch from a carrier. I don't expect such weapons to be launched from Hawaii or Guam, even though they could be. I do expect that our aircraft carriers, sailing a bit closer to their targets, can launch waves of these "kamikaze drones" by the hundreds. I intend for the bomb casing to be cast from ordinary steel, an appropriate heat treatment applied to give it greater penetrating power, with wings / empennage / propellers made from flax and bamboo natural fibers, since those fibers are strong enough (at least 2X stronger than Aluminum per unit weight), cheap, and renewable.

The 1,067kg mass differential between the historical Tallboy's Torpex explosive filler and the modernized sCO2 powered Tallboy will be consumed by the sCO2 turbine, heat exchanger, propeller, wings, empennage, landing gear, tail hook, and guidance system. Basically, the bomb casing becomes a giant gas tank vs a giant explosive charge. When the bomb is over the target, its wings and landing gear will be detached so that it can rapidly gain speed in a swan dive.

I'm not suggesting that we go out and build an exact replica of a Tallboy bomb without its explosive filler, merely with an engine and set of wings attached. Rather, I actually intend to suggest that the basic operating concept behind the Tallboy was that of extreme kinetic energy driving a truly massive weapon through a target. The weapon would enter a near-vertical dive at the target to increase its kinetic energy to the point that it could and did penetrate all the way through the Battleship Tirpitz in one instance, without even exploding. That bomb obviously malfunctioned, because it was supposed to penetrate through the "bomb deck" of the battleship and then explode. Instead, it exited through the bottom of the hull, whereupon the ship started taking on water. This was a glancing hit, meaning it was not through the part of the ship containing the most steel, but is illustrative as to how even a well-protected battleship is not invulnerable to such a weapon. Despite malfunctioning, that non-explosive hit did enough damage from the water it allowed to rush into Tirpitz's hull, and the hull of the cruiser Lützow, which was moored pier-side in a shallow harbor in that instance, that it significantly contributed to the sinking of both ships.

The actual weapon might look similar to the French "Spice" bomb depicted below, but with real wings, larger control surfaces, and a sCO2-driven propeller for propulsion:

The most economical way to sink a well armored ship, as it turned out, was not to use ever-greater quantities of high explosive to "blow it up", even though that obviously could and did work many times during WWII. Rather, it was instead to punch a hole clean through the target ship, so that great volumes of water started rushing into the hull. That is the most time-tested way to sink any ship. The Titanic is another instructive example. An inert Talos missile that we fired at one of our own ships during a Sinkex (sinking exercise), contained no high explosive warhead, merely a mass of substitute inert material to keep the weight and CG of the warhead-equipped missile. It punched a ragged hole clean through the ship in a steep dive, from funnel to keel, leaving a mangled wreck of a ship, which sunk shortly thereafter. A warhead probably could've done even more damage, but she still went straight to the bottom, and that was that. Big chunks of steel moving between Mach 1 (Tallboy) and Mach 3 (Talos) tend to have that effect.

This is a minor variation on the "Rods From God" concept, but it clearly works, and it costs a lot less than "dropping" the projectile from orbit. Our Mk84 iron bomb can penetrate up to 15 inches of ordinary structural steel near their terminal velocity. If the Mk84 had about 6X greater mass, as the Tallboy does, then it would either penetrate deeper or do more damage to whatever it hits. Modern guided weapons, specifically our guided weapons, now have CEPs of around 1m^2, which means they hit almost exactly where they're aimed at. For a weapon that will most likely be downed by enemy air defenses, by the hundreds, I would rather punch giant holes in their ships and structures or parked aircraft, and potentially start fires, than worry about trying to obliterate those targets with HE. Dead is dead. Throwing fragments a bit further doesn't make the target any less dead. If one of these weapons cost around $100K, then using them to kill tanks, armored vehicles, and fuel trucks is a perfectly legitimate use case if there are no better targets present. If aimed at the turret of a main battle tank, a weapon in this tonnage class would go straight through the entire tank, from top to bottom. It's not very "flashy", and there may not be any explosion at all if no ammo is set off, but the tank is still very dead, as are any crew inside the turret. Any modern warship the size of a cruiser or smaller, a main battle tank, an aircraft parked under 10 feet of steel reinforced concrete- all those targets may as well be made from paper against a weapon such as this. A big explosion or fire at the end is kinda superfluous to the fact that you can see through the target after it hits. It's nice to have, but strictly speaking it's a waste of explosives.

Explosives cost a lot of money, and even the modern highly insensitive variants, which won't accidentally explode, still pose a fire hazard to your own ships and people. Steel, natural fibers, and fuel oil, on the other hand, are comparatively benign and available in enormous quantities. If the Chinese want to spend the sums of money and energy required to knock nominal cost steel castings out of the sky, then it won't be available for other weapons manufacturing. Ultimately, we're going to win that game because our weapons will cost a lot less and we have an edge over them when it comes to manufacturing guidance electronics for sophisticated interceptor weapons. Every time we capture a copy of a new weapon from Russia or China, we learn the same lesson over again. They clearly work well enough at a functional level, but are not as capable as our weapons and they're made from similar materials, which means they have an inescapable energy cost, even if their labor input is free.

America has a long history of taking discarded materials and turning them into functional weapons. The steel we use in our 155mm artillery shells is sourced from scrap steel, for example. Sometimes the correct solution is to use the most inexpensive materials possible, especially when they will be rendered unusable shortly after being launched.

kbd512 · 2025-01-04 20:07:35

The next obvious question is how to shoehorn a sufficiently powerful propulsion system into this rather large and heavy kamikaze drone.

It just so happens that there's a research paper (linked in my Post #52 in this thread) related to creating a Silicon Carbide heat exchanger for an air-cooled flying sCO2 gas turbine, capable of delivering a thermal power transfer density of 717MW/m^3 and 300kW/kg using 3C-SiC (a polymorph of Silicon Carbide, not a CMC). That means a suitable heat exchanger providing 410,135Wth of power transfer capability would only be 572cm^3 in total volume. If the weapon requires 1,100hp for adequate climb performance, then 1,144cm^3, or 105mm by 105mm by 105mm, about 2.75kg, and $1,375 in terms of raw materials cost, at $500/kg for high purity SiC. An 820.27kW sCO2 gas turbine is barely larger than the US Silver Dollar. The power turbine and casing could be made from SiC as well, but a superalloy is probably cheaper. A suitable gearbox to drive the prop will be the largest / heaviest / most expensive part of the propulsion system, apart from the propeller itself. Based upon the weight of a similar model installed in the 1,220shp PT6A-67R, I'm going to guesstimate the weight of the gearbox at 78kg. I would estimate the weight of the entire propulsion system at around 100kg. The PT6A-67R weighs in at 233.6kg for comparison purposes, so the dramatic reduction in weight comes from the sCO2 turbine's much lighter and more compact "hot section". The gearbox weight, which accounts for a substantial portion of total system weight, is required to reduce RPM to acceptable prop speeds.

For comparison purposes, the Teledyne CAE J402 turbojet engine that powers the Harpoon and JASSM (not the JASSM-ER model which uses a turbofan for increased fuel economy), and MQM-107 drone, weighs in at about 45kg to 46kg. A turbojet engine can be lighter than a sCO2 gas turbine, but only at the cost of greatly increased fuel consumption, so much so that if flight times exceed one hour or so, then the weight differential from that heavy gearbox has been more than offset by a turbojet's increased fuel consumption. Small turbofans, such as the Williams F122 that powers the JASSM-ER, can and do improve significantly over turbojets at moderate to high subsonic flight speeds, but they still fall short of what a sCO2 gas turbine provides in terms of fuel economy. This is less true of giant turbofan engines, which can and do approach 50% thermodynamic efficiency, but very small turbojet and turbofan engines are universally gas guzzlers. GW can explain why that must always be so. I believe it's related to lower overall pressure ratios in smaller / simpler engines with fewer stages, combined with achievable Reynolds numbers with very small and fast rotating fan blades. I would guess that friction plays a role (cube-square). However, I'm not any kind of an expert on this. Fundamentally, the hot exhaust is also being accelerated much faster than the speeds that these turbofans and turbojets typically operate at, which is high subsonic for most cruise missiles, which means a lot of potential thrust energy is being lost without pushing the missile through the air any faster.

Going much faster than Mach 0.9, until you hit Mach 3 to Mach 3.5, requires far more input energy. Around Mach 3.5, your energy input to maintain that speed is similar to Mach 0.9. The issue, of course, is that acceleration to Mach 3.5 from a dead stop requires far more thrust to achieve, which implies more engine power and thus engine weight, in addition to more fuel to accelerate. If you're going to cruise at 375mph, then 1lbf equals 1hp, or 1,491.4W of energy input from the onboard fuel supply consumed by an engine achieving 50% overall thermodynamic efficiency. This is where small turbojets and turbofans don't work so well. 30% overall thermodynamic efficiency would be spectacular. The European Microturbo TRI-60-30, for example, consumes 1lb/lbf/hr. If the fuel is diesel, it's consuming 51.675MWth in fuel energy to produce 1,300lbf. If the vehicle it's powering can achieve 600mph (most cruise missiles don't, and something this large / heavy certainly wouldn't), then mechanical horsepower output is 2,080hp, or 1,551,056W. That means the engine is 3% efficient at converting fuel into thrust. The resultant flight time for the weapon I envisioned is reduced to 2 hours 11 minutes 40 seconds, so the weapon can cover 1,200 statute miles at most. That's a dramatic range penalty to provide that extra 225mph of flight speed. The weapon will be more difficult to intercept, but not by much, especially when it comes to modern radar guided missiles.

In terms of thermal output, an increased number of units of thermal power input, and thus thermal power output, per unit of mechanical work output driving the aircraft forward, can only mean that these engines also create greater IR signatures for enemy air defense sensors and weapons to acquire at greater ranges. Radar and IR signatures are the primary methods used for both threat detection and air intercept guidance. There are vanishingly few optical systems used to track missiles and aircraft, and virtually none used to guide weapons to shoot them down. Small drone detection systems might be the only exception. I think the Maverick missile used to kill tanks and armored vehicles is one of the last major applications of optical missile guidance, but most models now use imaging IR guidance.

Exceptions to the pure optical guidance rule include the fiber-optic guided FOGM/EFOGM (the "NLOS" US Army missile systems intended to kill tanks and vehicles; ~51kg, so about like a Hellfire), Polyphem (longer range French/German missile intended to prosecute the same target set as FOGM and EFOGM; 140kg w/20kg warhead, so a much bigger weapon), and I think the Israeli Python-5 may also be able to intercept air targets using fiber-optic (normal human visual spectrum type wavelengths, so it "sees" the target the same way a human would, meaning you can launch as many flares as you like, but short of visually obstructing your entire plane, the missile still won't get distracted by them) guidance vs IR. The FOGM/EFOGM and Polyphem missiles literally trailed a fiber optic cable many kilometers in length, all the way back to the launcher. Python-5, so far as I'm aware, performs onboard automated target tracking, meaning no ridiculously long fiber optic cable is attached to the launching aircraft. EFOGM and Polyphem were both powered by miniature turbojet engines after initial launch using a solid rocket motor. It did work, but the electronics tech of the 1970s to early 2000s, when the US Army finally pulled the plug on funding for NLOS and the entire vehicle family related to their larger "light fighter" program (I forget what they called it, but IIRC, Gen Shinseki was the one who initiated it), was simply too large and clunky. EFOGM was to be carried by upgraded Hummers, and paired with ADATS for short range air defense. I know virtually nothing about Polyphem or Python-5, but I followed NLOS progress until it became clear it was going nowhere.

You can read about these "exceptions to the rule" here:
https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2023/05/ … nd-others/

I think optical tech has great merit as a target search and guidance system, especially when the system is aboard a satellite or "near-satellite" (high altitude drone) which can "look down" at the entire battlespace below, but only after optical computers come into their own.

Until then, I'm specifying one of the new generation of very light / small X-band imaging radars, capable of inexpensively tracking targets as small as a compact car at ranges of up to 30km. Ships, trains, parked aircraft, infrastructure such as refineries, etc, are all much larger targets, so I expect routine acquisition of these targets at max range. These are expected to cost around $10K and the synthetic image quality they provide is nothing short of spectacular. Therefore, an inertial guidance system with GPS assistance will guide these long range weapons into the general target area, same as a Tomahawk or Harpoon or JASSM, whereupon the radar will be turned on, and the most suitable target acquired and tracked to impact.

The defenders will shoot down many of these relatively slow weapons, but the ones that make it through enemy air defenses will punch neat holes through their targets with raw kinetic energy, little different than a giant bullet or solid shot armor piercing shell. They have very thick bodies / casings of hardened steel, so even if you manage to hit one, if it's in its terminal phase of flight, that might not be sufficient to prevent speed and kinetic energy from raining down damaging heavy chunks of steel on the target. For attacking a guided missile cruiser, I would send around 300 weapons after it. This is similar in cost to 7.5 stealthy LRASMs. If it turns out that fewer weapons are required, then so be it, but the goal here is to sink the ship by punching big holes right through it, from funnel-to-keel. We'll try 300 weapons first, then 200, then 100, until we figure out exactly how many hole punchers it takes to transport each of their ships to Davy Jones' locker. If stealthy missile and aircraft technology turns out not to be as effective as we thought, when pitted against networked Chinese radars operating in lower frequency bands, then we still have an economical way to eliminate the offensive weapons they have aimed at their neighbors, such as Taiwan. The Chinese can build as many ships as they like, but their ships will never be cheaper than these weapons.

For taking out their tanks and other armored vehicles, one weapon is probably entirely sufficient. The armor on the top of a tank will offer little resistance to a 5t hardened steel penetrator falling from the sky at Mach 1. It would have to be armored like a battleship, which would make it pillbox, rather than a tank. Pillboxes offered little protection from battleship grade naval shells fired at them during WWII, if only because their shells were capable of large scale landscaping. When the total weapon cost is little different from a Hellfire, there's little discernible advantage to closing to within spitting distance to launch a Hellfire from a ponderously slow helicopter.

Beyond that, I want to evaluate how well Chinese jets can fly without fuel. About 75% of their oil refining and shipping capacity is located very close to their coastline. If they proceed with an attack on Taiwan, then Taiwan should attack their oil refineries and transport infrastructure. I'll wager that very few of their ships or aircraft are capable of operating effectively without kerosene and diesel fuels. Some of their soldiers might be capable of swimming all the way to Taiwan, but I'll wager that their combat effectiveness after they arrive will be quite limited.

The proper way to fight a nation like China is not to engage in a pointless tit-for-tat campaign, it's to knock out all the infrastructure that makes large scale war feasible. No fuel, no power, no safe place to land an aircraft near their military objectives, and no ships to transport men and materiel means their invasion force will have a rough go of it during their attempt at an amphibious assault.

tahanson43206 · 2025-01-05 07:33:12

for kbd512 re Taiwan defense strategy....

Please develop your ideas further, by extending the use case to Taiwan's situation. The defense your are discussing is a variation on MAD, because Taiwan will be obliterated if China decides to attack. My guess is the issue for Chairman Xi is the existence of a group of Chinese who do not agree with his Communist Dictatorship, and not the land itself. I doubt he would be concerned if everyone on Taiwan were put to death, as long as the persistent opposition to his dictatorship is ended.

Thus, it makes sense for Taiwan to place it's defense capability offshore in containers under the surface, ready for deployment at a signal.

The Taiwanese would need to build and deploy and maintain millions of these systems.

The energy to build this establishment would have to come from nuclear power. The materials might well be available from the nearby sea bed. This is a massive undertaking, and the sooner the Taiwanese start the better. I have seen hints that Chairman Xi has a specific number of years in mind to carry out this venture.

If defense is to have any deterrence effect at all, that defense needs to be in place soon.

If you can design a system that can be built and deployed by Taiwanese without importing anything (other than fission fuel) that would be helpful.

(th)

kbd512 · 2025-01-05 14:27:19

tahanson43206,

I don't see the point in placing these devices under the ocean. Unless each launcher is defended, then Chinese ships could come along and pilfer or disable them. We're going to base these weapons at Guam and Diego Garcia, because that is US territory. If the Taiwanese wish to build their own copies of the weapons, then we can supply the blueprints. They already have the industrial capacity and materials, and they could make their own versions of the weapons, just as they already make their own versions of other US weapons like the Harpoon anti-ship missiles. These weapons are effectively simplified cruise missiles with a less costly bill of materials, and they contain no high explosives or solid rocket motors, so they're effectively "inert" until they're fueled and in-flight. Fission reactors are not required to build and deploy these weapons, so I don't see any point to diverting resources to do that, unless you can articulate why it's necessary.

This is about more than just Taiwan. Taiwan may be a lightning rod, but Chinese sailors have been harassing and bullying virtually all of their neighbors. Lately, they've been ramping-up their belligerence. The Chinese military won't stop at Taiwan, and that is the real underlying problem we must ultimately face.

The reason the US Navy is still forward deployed in the Pacific, 80 years after WWII ended, is related to preventing territorial disputes from spiraling to larger wars and containing the worst effects of local / regional dictatorships. We've already proven that military might doesn't deter anyone from doing anything. It didn't deter Iraq, hasn't deterred Russia, and it won't deter China, either. As an aside, we're not the least bit interested in telling the Japanese or South Koreans how to conduct their affairs, because that's their business, until they make it our business.

Our Admirals have all but begged Congress and various Presidents to leave Japan, to hand US bases over to the Japanese, but every time the Japanese government votes that American forces will remain in Japan. They have a mutual defense treaty that we signed with them, so we're obligated to remain in place, which is what we do. We made a good faith agreement with the Japanese government / people, they have honored their end of the bargain, and so we must honor our end. The Japanese government can tell us to leave at any time they so choose, and we will honor their wishes, but thus far they have refrained from doing so.

We once fought a war in Viet Nam as well, but now American warships are operating near and going into port in Viet Nam, at the behest of the Vietnamese government, because the threats and harassment coming from Beijing are endless. China's government is effectively claiming that any sovereign nation or their territorial waters, which through happenstance are adjacent to China, sometimes not even adjacent to China, now belong to China, or are somehow subject to whims and desires of the Chinese government. Last year, my first ship, USS Blue Ridge, the 7th Fleet Flagship, made a port visit to Cam Ranh Bay. USS Ronald Reagan visited Da Nang the year prior. We were never there, nor anywhere near there, for a very long time, but now we're back in Viet Nam, because China is threatening Viet Nam and their ships.

India, which wishes to remain independent of both America and China, and good for them, has also been on the receiving end, but is finally ramping up efforts to curb the criminality of various terrorists, pirates, and these Chinese "Coast Guard" ships, which have taken to using water cannons against ships, boarding ships, threatening and assaulting their crews, and various other unlawful acts.

I reject the idea that this "all about Taiwan", or the US entering into a territorial dispute with China over an island that was historically part of China. Virtually every other nation in what is called "the first island chain", was NOT historically a part of China, yet Chinese leadership clearly thinks that doesn't matter, and that they can lay claim to anyone's sovereign nation or territorial waters, and to harass and threaten them in their own country. I got news for them. They're not the only people who live in Asia, and they don't own that half of the world merely because they claim they do. That was how WWII started for America, after Imperial Japan made the same claims, and conducted a sneak attack against Pearl Harbor.

Given the opportunity, China will try to take over every nation in the Pacific. That is what they stated they will do, and now they're acting on that statement, so it's time to take that threat seriously and respond in the one way that all dictators seem to understand- pure unambiguous military might. Dictators don't respond to this "deterrence" concept. They only care about demonstrable combat power. Since we're not going to build ships or aircraft fast enough, we need a lot more weapons than we presently have deployed, and soon, as you pointed out. Anything that doesn't contribute to that goal is not "part of the program".

kbd512 · 2025-03-20 03:05:26

Aircraft Carrier Hull Design
Forrestal's hull dimensions and displacement remains the minimum size for an effective mobile air base capable of 45 day minimally supported contingency deployments. Smaller hulls force too many capability compromises. Larger hulls help with longer deployments, but only to a point. You still need to replenish the jet fuel at least once per week, especially if you insist on using heavy fighters. We have deeper onboard reserves than that, but replenishment at sea is not like shopping at a store that magically appears whenever you need it to. There was rarely a week that went by during OEF without an UNREP event scheduled, unless it was a transit period with little to no flying. That's why the argument for using nuclear power seems so ludicrous to me. A fast fleet replenishment ship that's already supplying food, ordnance, and jet fuel, may as well deliver ship's fuel for the carrier at the same time, which it's already supplying to all other ships in the battle group. You keep everything topped-up in case there's a resupply problem.

The Heavy Fighter Resource Trap
The physical size / weight of modern "heavy fighter" naval aircraft and their associated fuel consumption rates are far too high. The complexity and frequency of airframe maintenance activities is well in excess of what can be tolerated while under real threat of air attack. The confluence of these factors limits the total number of aircraft carried and the total number of sorties generated per day, thus the total number of aircraft an adversary has to defend against. Regardless of what is theoretically possible, real naval aircraft are normally "broken" in some material way after each sortie, repaired overnight, and then returned to mission capable status the following morning. This is why it doesn't seem to matter how fast you can theoretically shoot aircraft off the end using fancier electromagnetic catapults. After they land, the pilot will have a list of squawks for the maintainers to fix. Beyond that, aircrew have mandatory rest periods, they have bodily functions like everyone else, and they need time to plan / brief / de-brief missions. Asking them to fly more than once per day is little different than asking them to squeeze extra hours into the day. If you want more sorties, then you need more planes and pilots, period.

No Living Memory Carrier Warfare Experience
No two nations equipped with carrier-based combat planes have ever fought each other in a modern air war. American aircraft carriers haven't fought a competent land-based aviation threat, either. To my knowledge, the North Korean, North Vietnamese, and Iraqi Air Forces were never able to mount a competent attack against our carriers. The results of two modern carrier battle groups fighting each other is likely to be very messy and expensive. If one side has twice as many air assets available to throw into a battle, then despite one side or the other fielding literal handfuls of hyper-capable stealthy heavy fighters, it won't matter if the other overwhelms the other with sheer numbers. Your heavy fighter can only be in one place at one time, it can only carry so many missiles. If that heavy fighter also spends most of its time in a hangar for repairs, then it still contributes less to the battle's result.

Inevitable Battle Damage Consequences
If the Soviet Union ever decided to launch a maximum effort cruise missile attack against an American carrier battle group during the Cold War, at the very least our air defenses would've been overwhelmed, with the likely end result of at least one missile hit. The fire damage caused to USS Forrestal from about a dozen accidental bomb / rocket / missile warhead detonations on her flight deck aptly illustrated what would happen to a carrier if a salvo of heavy cruise missile warheads found their mark. Forrestal was in no danger of sinking, but she was out of action for about 6 months while repairs were effected. A 24/7 war emergency repair effort probably could've put her back together in 3 months, but likely not much faster than that. BTW, I consider "heavy cruise missiles" to be ones with 1,000lb / 500kg class warheads, such as the BGM-109 Tomahawk, Russian 3M54 Kalibr, and Chinese Shangyou (Silkworm). Even if literal handfuls of personnel are killed, we can't replace them or repair their ships fast enough.

Air Wing Composition
We need significant numbers of small agile single engine fighters, not to do battle with the enemy's heavy fighters, but to locate drone and cruise missile threats inbound to our carriers, and to begin dispatching them. We need a small number of stealthy special mission aircraft that perform recon missions- essentially hunting for enemy ships. We need very significant numbers of drone / cruise missile / long range sensor carrier hybrids that can be configured as expendable low-cost munitions capable of inflicting serious damage. We're not going to intentionally send our fighters or special mission aircraft against heavily defended targets. Why would we? Why would we play stupid games with Integrated Air Defense Systems- deliberately designed to detect / track / kill anything that flies.

Defensive Armaments
A MVP carrier should heavily prioritize point defenses against drones and cruise missiles over longer-range systems designed to shoot down ballistic missiles or heavy fighters, which ought to remain aboard the escorting air warfare destroyers / cruisers. For example, I don't think there's much point to having a literal handful of ESSM aboard a carrier. It costs a lot of money to maintain the specialized weapons mount, you need dedicated support personnel for that specific system, you create pointless resupply logistical challenges, and the idea that each carrier needs 8X ESSM to fire at targets dozens of miles from the carrier, which the aircraft and all escorts somehow missed, but the carrier did not... is rather curious. I think smaller caliber guns, perhaps 76mm, equipped with these newer self-guided projectiles, should be evaluated for their capabilities against incoming sea-skimmers moving at up to Mach 3. If they do well, then we equip the carrier with perhaps 12 such guns. Maybe a mix of guns and missiles works best. Some realistic testing is required here, rather than the highly-scripted scenarios used in typical weapons testing.

Defensive Sensors
EMCON is going to be pretty important for staying alive and not advertising your position to everyone within several hundred miles. Rather than radars designed to range out to several hundred miles, highly precise maps of everything to the visible horizon should be prioritized, which greatly aids situational awareness within the critical defensive zone around the ship. As I stated previously, the primary major threats are going to be low-flying stealthy drones and missiles. Any missiles moving at fantastic speed and heights are going to get noticed rather quickly and from relatively far away. Whether the missile is moving at Mach 6 but gets detected 100 miles away, or is detected only after the visible horizon is breached, your reaction time is likely roughly the same and your options are equally limited. You're not going to launch a SM-6 against a cruise missile 10 miles away, in much the same way that you're not shooting down a hypersonic ballistic warhead with an over-glorified Sidewinder. Maybe you theoretically can, but it's a waste of valuable air defense missiles in both cases.

Carrier and Air Wing Design Concept of Operation Rationalization
The net net of those plainly observable facts is that we need many more carriers with more fighters, not far fewer larger nuclear powered carriers equipped with perhaps 3 squadrons of heavy fighters at most. We need to field far more aicraft if we're operating within several hundred miles of land air bases, not ever-larger and ever-more-capable aircraft which, through dint-of-fact that each pilot or AI only receives so many training flight hours per year, is only marginally trained for any given mission / target set. Even an AI requires realistic mission-tailored-training. For example, training a refueling drone to perform pentration strikes is rather silly. Adding the capability costs real money, assuming the capability is real, but no usable capability is acquired by doing so. The latest info on drone operation vs piloted aicraft operation, in terms of availability rates / cost / maintenance schedules, indicates that there is no real cost or time advantage conferred by using highly capable combat drones. Nobody's mother and father will lose their son or daughter if the drone accidentally crashes or gets shot down, but when that happens whatever capability it provided is still lost to error or enemy action.

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