NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/20060829.aspx

This is a pretty short and interesting read. The Israeli ship in question is not a very large warship. At 1,300 tons, she is 1/3 the size of the largest major warships in the US Navy's arsenal (our 3,800 ton Perry FFG). This article also answers the question on why the Israeli defense system was turned off.

I saw pictures of the ship that was hit in July. Before I read about the warhead, I suspected that this was the case. SHe looked like she had very little damage. There was very little noticeable when looking at her. This is especially true when you compare the Israeli corvette to pictures of the USS Stark.

As for the missile doing damage despite no detonation, the HMS Sheffield was struck by a missile who's warhead failed to explode in 1982. She went down.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/20060829.aspx

This is a pretty short and interesting read. The Israeli ship in question is not a very large warship. At 1,300 tons, she is 1/3 the size of the largest major warships in the US Navy's arsenal (our 3,800 ton Perry FFG). This article also answers the question on why the Israeli defense system was turned off.

I saw pictures of the ship that was hit in July. Before I read about the warhead, I suspected that this was the case. SHe looked like she had very little damage. There was very little noticeable when looking at her. This is especially true when you compare the Israeli corvette to pictures of the USS Stark.

As for the missile doing damage despite no detonation, the HMS Sheffield was struck by a missile who's warhead failed to explode in 1982. She went down.
my bro-in-law was career navy man(Ships Comander) Sheffield went down he says because of a design flaw, using materials that were lightweight but flamable, Sheffield sank because of an uncontrolable fire caused by the Exocet missle.

He says most modern navy ships are extremely hard to sink, they are so compartmentalized that theoretical warships can break in two and still not. sink.

So there were two missiles fired, neither of which detonated but one of which did little damage to an Israeli ship but sank a presumably larger Egyptian ship?


Feel free to clarify (I have ADD and couldn't really get it), but for some reason, I smell a Godmod. :eek:

So there were two missiles fired, neither of which detonated but one of which did little damage to an Israeli ship but sank a presumably larger Egyptian ship?


Feel free to clarify (I have ADD and couldn't really get it), but for some reason, I smell a Godmod. :eek:

In a situation where 2 identical missiles strike a warship and a huge freighter, the freighters is more likely to sink. The warship is compartmentalized and has a crew that is expecting this sort of situation so they are less likely to go down.

The freighter on the other hand has a smaller crew, a less trained crew, and is less compartmentalized.

my bro-in-law was career navy man(Ships Comander) Sheffield went down he says because of a design flaw, using materials that were lightweight but flamable, Sheffield sank because of an uncontrolable fire caused by the Exocet missle.

He says most modern navy ships are extremely hard to sink, they are so compartmentalized that theoretical warships can break in two and still not. sink.

The Sheffield did sink as a result of that. Her superstructure was made of Al instead of steel. Al melts are much lower temperatures than steel (throw a pop can into a fire pit to prove this yourself if you wish).

US ships used to be built this way too. If you have ever seen pictures of the USS Belknap after her 1975 fire, you would see that her entire superstructure had basically melted. The ship was miraculously repaired and returned to service though.:eek:

As for splitting a ship in half, check out what a MK-48 ADCAP can do.

http://raydenuni.com/gallery/d/109-2/Mark_48_Torpedo_testing.jpg

My guess is that her bow would sink eventually. Shock damage would likely have compromised many watertight bulkheads throughout the ship. They would allow her to float long enough to get as many survivors off though.

In a situation where 2 identical missiles strike a warship and a huge freighter, the freighters is more likely to sink.
And besides, the article says that the second missile did explode like it's supposed to.
The fire on the Israeli ship was caused by the half a ton of missile crashing into it, and unburned rocket fuel. The other C-802 fired, homed in on a nearby Egyptian ship, and sank it (the warhead on that one did detonate).

And FAS (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/c-802.htm) doesn't seem to share Neocon.com's enthusiasm with which they dismiss the C-802 as 30 year old crap.

So they basically got lucky with a dud, especially as they were bare-ass naked at the time.

Sometimes, it happens.

In a situation where 2 identical missiles strike a warship and a huge freighter, the freighters is more likely to sink. The warship is compartmentalized and has a crew that is expecting this sort of situation so they are less likely to go down.

The freighter on the other hand has a smaller crew, a less trained crew, and is less compartmentalized.

So the Egyptian ship was a freighter then? The article didn't say that, did it?

But yeah, I get it now.

The Sheffield did sink as a result of that. Her superstructure was made of Al instead of steel. Al melts are much lower temperatures than steel (throw a pop can into a fire pit to prove this yourself if you wish).

US ships used to be built this way too. If you have ever seen pictures of the USS Belknap after her 1975 fire, you would see that her entire superstructure had basically melted. The ship was miraculously repaired and returned to service though.:eek:

As for splitting a ship in half, check out what a MK-48 ADCAP can do.

http://raydenuni.com/gallery/d/109-2/Mark_48_Torpedo_testing.jpg

My guess is that her bow would sink eventually. Shock damage would likely have compromised many watertight bulkheads throughout the ship. They would allow her to float long enough to get as many survivors off though.my bro-in-law said that the sheffields crew retreated to below the water line to escape the fire, aluminum saved weight, faster ship, lless fuel, seemed like a good idea at the time.

And besides, the article says that the second missile did explode like it's supposed to.
I did catch that. If you study Naval Warfare, you will find that more ships are lost in combat to fire than any other cause (including flooding). Had the missile detonated, I still think the Israeli ship would've survived. 165 kg of HE is not that much against a warship. That is relatively weak, especially when you compare that missile's size to other effective anti-ship cruise missiles like the Sunburn, Shipwreck, and TASM.


And FAS (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/c-802.htm) doesn't seem to share Neocon.com's enthusiasm with which they dismiss the C-802 as 30 year old crap.

I agree with strategypage.com's assessment. The C-802 is slightly less capable than our Harpoon SSM, which is itself a 30 year old piece of crap.

Oh, and as much as I like FAS, that article you linked to me is crap. I laughed and stopped reading when I read that "[the C-802] is considered along with the US "Harpoon" as among the best anti-ship missiles of the present-day world." LOL at that one. The Harpoon is really a piece of crap. I'd expect more accurate info from FAS, but I guess they can't really be right all of the time.

my bro-in-law said that the sheffields crew retreated to below the water line to escape the fire, aluminum saved weight, faster ship, lless fuel, seemed like a good idea at the time.

Not a bad idea actually. Most of the smoke and heat would've traveled to the upper decks. The Sheffield herself stayed afloat for several days IIRC.

The Brits weren't the only ones to **** up on Al. The US did too. The Belknap disaster though convinced the US to abandon that idea and go with an all steel ship.

So they basically got lucky with a dud, especially as they were bare-ass naked at the time.

Sometimes, it happens.

You'd be surprised about how many SSMs turn out to be duds. One of the 2 that struck the Stark was a dud. Probably half of the bombs and missiles that hit RN ships in the Falklands War were duds. Heck, the missile that sunk the HMS Sheffield as in fact a dud.

I don't even want to guess the success rates on some of the SSMs that came out of the Soviet Union. Their SSMs tended to be more advanced than ours, but that also means more things could potentially go wrong. Then again, they may have worked out some good solutions. Let's just say I'm glad we haven't had to figure that one out yet.

You'd be surprised about how many SSMs turn out to be duds. One of the 2 that struck the Stark was a dud. Probably half of the bombs and missiles that hit RN ships in the Falklands War were duds. Heck, the missile that sunk the HMS Sheffield as in fact a dud.
Not as such - investigations at the time suggested that Argentine pilots were making systematic errors. Because of the dangers of AA fire, they were releasing their free-fall bombs at too low an altitude, so the duration of the bombs' fall was insufficiently long for the fuses to fully unscrew. Hence the dumb bomb hits just created craters, but the bombs could have remained viable. It was never a fair test of munition reliability.

The Exocets though, I must admit did perform in a somewhat disappointing fashion.

I don't even want to guess the success rates on some of the SSMs that came out of the Soviet Union. Their SSMs tended to be more advanced than ours, but that also means more things could potentially go wrong. Then again, they may have worked out some good solutions. Let's just say I'm glad we haven't had to figure that one out yet.
Probably low, but Soviet ship designs tended to favour missile-spamming to saturate anti-missile defences anyway. They never intended to fire only two at a target.

Not as such - investigations at the time suggested that Argentine pilots were making systematic errors. Because of the dangers of AA fire, they were releasing their free-fall bombs at too low an altitude, so the duration of the bombs' fall was insufficiently long for the fuses to fully unscrew. Hence the dumb bomb hits just created craters, but the bombs could have remained viable. It was never a fair test of munition reliability.

The Exocets though, I must admit did perform in a somewhat disappointing fashion.That is actually true on the bombs. I did more reading on the subject and just saw that. The Exocet doesn't seem to be the only missile to fail though. It looks like the C-802 has the same issue. They are quite similar missiles so I shouldn't be surprised.


Probably low, but Soviet ship designs tended to favour missile-spamming to saturate anti-missile defences anyway. They never intended to fire only two at a target.

Missile spamming is exactly what they planned on doing. Had WWIII developed and ended up being fought conventionally in the 1980s, the Soviets would've launched massive Backfire raids on US CVBGs. I'm just glad we never had to find out first hand how effective that the Kingfishes carried by the Tu-22 Backfires were. The US actually developed Aegis in response to this Soviet strategy.

I have a feeling a lot of Soviet missiles would've failed, but it wouldn't matter because even at a 50% failure rate, they could do a ton of damage. Their missiles had much larger warheads than anything produced in the West.

bump for more comments

So there were two missiles fired, neither of which detonated but one of which did little damage to an Israeli ship but sank a presumably larger Egyptian ship?


Feel free to clarify (I have ADD and couldn't really get it), but for some reason, I smell a Godmod. :eek:
The one that hit the Egyptian ship did explode.

The one that hit the Egyptian ship did explode.

I still bet she would've sunk even if it didn't detonate. A major fire aboard a freighter would've likely been fatal anyways.