NS is learning...

[Wikipedia & Universe]

So, I've heard a lot about NS and "NSfags" who don't know anything about naval warfare, and we've seen our fair share of impractical ship designs and mentions of "missilespam" in Roleplays, which often causes many Shipbucketers, even those from NS, like me, to cringe. However, someone (Questers) has created a "Basic Primer to Naval Warfare", which gives realistic viewpoints on modern naval war and how it should be fought. Seeing this is Shipbucket, I've linked to this guide to see what people think of it. Assuming North Pt. on NS is Colosseum on here, I do believe Colo has endorsed it.

Basic Primer to Naval Warfare

While I can't exactly say this will snuff out the warwanking on NS, I believe it will give people who take pride in realistic roleplaying a place to go. I figured SBers could give some feedback on his guide. As an SBer who takes avid interest in naval warfare and in designs takes any feedback, even negative feedback, I believe this would make an excellent General discussion.

[Colosseum]

Questers is Matt Labunda who has occasionally draw for Shipbucket. I believe he had a Ceylon AU going for a while.

And yes, that got my endorsement as North Pt / North Point.

[didibii]

What is NS? What is north point?

NS as in naval system?
But i really dont get what north point is...

[Wikipedia & Universe]

What is NS? What is north point?

NS as in naval system?
But i really dont get what north point is...

NS is short for Nationstates, an online simulation game which accounts for a large portion of AU drawings on here.

North Point is a Nationstates nation, specifically the one Colosseum uses.

Hope this helps.

[Canadai]

North Point is a fictional country created by Colosseum, NS is Nationstates, a role-playing based nation simulator.

[Colosseum]

See the link in my signature.

[didibii]

See the link in my signature.

wow dude that must of taken some time but it is awsome.

[TimothyC]

Few problems with it:

If you took two AWACS, broadly speaking, one on passive and one on active, the active one would pick up the passive one because it is looking for it, and the passive one would pick up the active one because it is broadcasting its radar. So you need a balance. Plus AWACS can turn their radars on and off very quickly, which will give them a bit of both aspects.

Once you turn your AEW radar off and on, you need to rebuild the picture of the battlespace, which takes time. Lots of time, on the order of tens of minutes

Radar satellites: Commonly known as RORSATs; Radar Ocean Reconaissance Satellite, these are satellites in low earth orbit that use a radar to scan the ocean from space. Unfortunately, their resolution is very low, to the point where, like OTH radars, they may not be able to distinguish a cruiser from a tanker. Radar satellite technology is improving, but I don't rate its resolution or its reliability. It is certainly not what most RPers use it as, i.e. "Oh I found you with my satellites." Radar sats are definetly better than optical sats for doing this, but they're still not perfect, because there's no real way to distinguish what it is that you're looking at (contacts come up as pixels on a radar screen; on a high-resolution radar, an aircraft carrier could be 1000 pixels and a destroyer 100, but on a low-resolution radar, they both might be even 1 pixel) or even what nation's flag its flying under. They're also pretty much defenceless and can be shot down with ASATs within the opening days of a war.

Technically correct, but ignores that satellites can be tracked, and are on mostly fixed paths, and thus can be avoided if there are only one or two.

Using EW equipment to scramble the lock of a missile. An anti-ship missile with an active radar that has a lock on your ship can be scrambled and so is likely to miss. Largely useless against missiles with inertial or IR terminal guidance

And while your frigate now looks like a carrier to the missile, your frigate is in the dead center of the radar return, right where the missile is headed.

Chaff. Designed to spoof radars into believing there are hundreds of targets in the air so it locks on to one of them instead of the ship. Largely useless against missiles with inertial or IR terminal guidance.

Stuart Slade likes to point out how modern radar sets in missiles notice when something isn't behaving like a ship should (and Chaff clouds don't).

2. Protection; The battleship is well protected with a lot of armour. It takes a large and powerful missile to penetrate the belt or deck armour of a well defended battleship.

No it doesn't. The rule of thumb is that a well designed penitrator can punch through 6 times its diameter. For a small 12" warhead, that's 6 feet of steel. When I'm done that battleship will be swiss cheese.

Carriers on the other hand, are usually unarmoured, and for good reasons (it detracts too much from hangar space, and damage takes much longer to repair). A hit with a missile might just bounce off a battleship but might severely damage a carriers deck. While this seems crucial, its meaningless. The carriers deck is vulnerable. The battleship's sensor suites, its radar and targeting systems, are also vulnerable. They cannot be protected because you can't shield radar behind inches of steel. One missile hit to the superstructure might knock out the radar permanently and force the ship to withdraw or else go blind. So all that armour is absolutely wasted.

Wonderful - this is very good, and is the vulnerability of battleships.


All in all, the guy did a good job for his audience, but some things should be corrected and cleaned up. "Passive AEW" planes is a big one.

[TurretHead]

Once you turn your AEW radar off and on, you need to rebuild the picture of the battlespace, which takes time. Lots of time, on the order of tens of minutes

I’ve done an engineering internship at a place where one learns a lot about AEW. And in the case of an E-3 Sentry or early Hawkeye this is what happens but with Wedgetail and the later Hawkeyes they rebuild the radar picture in seconds.

The passive stuff is a bit over blown. What’s the point of a passive AWACS? They are heavily defended and stand off a long way from the enemy so can keep the radar going unless they are directly threatened.

Technically correct, but ignores that satellites can be tracked, and are on mostly fixed paths, and thus can be avoided if there are only one or two.

Low earth satellites are orbiting the word in around half and hour and there is no way a ship can manoeuvre to avoid detection on the next pass. But it does take some time to change the orbit without a major fuel burn so the radar satellite might not be covering the area where the action is. Typical radar footprint is a few hundred kilometres wide.

Stuart Slade likes to point out how modern radar sets in missiles notice when something isn't behaving like a ship should (and Chaff clouds don't).

It depends on the missile. A target behaviour recognition algorithm is only common on modern post cold war missiles. Missiles like Falklands War Exocet are very simple in their guidance logic.

No it doesn't. The rule of thumb is that a well designed penitrator can punch through 6 times its diameter. For a small 12" warhead, that's 6 feet of steel. When I'm done that battleship will be swiss cheese.

Only if the missile has a shaped charge warhead optimised for armour penetration and most don’t. Even then the battleships compartmentalisation is going to contain the damage of the molten jet. So you might punch holes in the ship and cause havoc in the compartment on the other side of the armour but that’s it. The holes are going to be too small to let in much water as well.

Sorry to nitpick but just applying my engineering hat.

[erik_t]

The battleship surely does not have much to fear from modern (Western) AShMs from a hull-integrity point of view, but that's not the point in the modern world. Electronics are effectively un-armor-able, and will be torn up nicely by the warhead on a modern AShM - that's what they're for, after all. A lucky battleship after such a strike will be floating, but blind and deaf (a less lucky one will also have some seriously unpleasant jet/rocket-fuel fires with which to contend). At that point it's a prime LGB target for whoever has the interest to actually sink the hull, and the LGB is a prime hull-sinker no matter who's asking. It doesn't have any combat value, either - best-case is a long expensive refit in a shipyard back home, which will be completed long after the major hostilities are likely to be over.