Topic: Phalanx CIWS: The Last Defense, On Ship and Ashore

[GAP]

Phalanx CIWS: The Last Defense, On Ship and Ashore
26-Sep-2007 04:50
 Article Link

The radar-guided, rapid-firing Mk. 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS, pron. "see-whiz") can fire between 3,000-4,500 20mm rounds per minute, either autonomously or under manual command, as a last-ditch defense against incoming missiles and other targets. Phalanx uses closed-loop spotting with advanced radar and computer technology to locate, identify and direct a stream of armor piercing projectiles toward the target

As of Feb 28/07, More than 895 Phalanx systems have been built and deployed in the navies of 22 nations. The latest development is C-RAM/Centurion, a land-based system designed to defend against incoming artillery and mortars.

This is DID's FOCUS Article with respect to the Phalanx CIWS. Recent developments include the possibility of a laser Phalanx in our future, and a recent purchase of higher-lethality ammunition…

The Phalanx Platform: Updates & Developments

Upgraded Block 1B versions can now also used against small gunboats, standard and guided artillery; helicopters, et. al. Paul Gilligan, head of platform integration for Raytheon's UK subsidiary, was quoted saying that

"This upgrade is vitally important, especially in the context of the evolving threats worldwide… It provides protection to ships and their crews against an increased number of threats including small, fast gunboats; standard and guided artillery; helicopters; mines and a variety of shore-launched, anti-ship missiles."

MK 15 Phalanx Block 1B will also be the base platform for the new SeaRAM short range anti-air missile system, in use by the USA, Germany, Korea, and others.

Land-Based Phalanx: C-RAM

Back in June 2005, "Phalanx R2D2s to Counter Land Mortars" drew attention to the US Army's land-based version, imaginatively known as the "Land-based Phalanx Weapon System" and also known as C-RAM or Centurion. Unofficially, many refer to them as "R2D2s," after the Star Wars robot they resemble. Originally developed to defend US bases against mortar attack, these adapted weapons could also provide defensive options against the kinds of rocket attacks encountered in Round 1 of Israel's recent war with Hezbollah, Iran & Syria. This appears to be a spiral development contract, with fielding of interim solutions as development progresses.
More on link

[S.M.A.]

An update for the laser phalanx development:

A Laser Phalanx?
23-Apr-2009 13:20 EDT

The Mk15 Phalanx system was originally developed as a ship’s final hope against incoming missiles: a radar-guided 20mm gatling gun would would fire up to 6,000 rounds per minute, throwing up a last-ditch wall of lead. Phalanx has become a popular naval weapon that’s also effective against helicopters, UAVs, and even small boats. It has even migrated onto land, where its “Centurion” version can protect a 1.2 km square area against incoming mortars and rockets.

In September 2007, Jane’s reported from the British DSEi exhibition that Raytheon is working on a Phalanx variant that can fire lasers. Kevin Peppe, Raytheon’s Phalanx program director, said that:

“The Centurion system has provided a near-term C-RAM (Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortars) solution for our deployed forces. But we know that our customers would like a larger defended footprint beyond the kinematics of a gunbased system. A missile is too expensive, so we are looking instead at a solution based on the adaptation of a robust but relatively lowpower, low beam-quality commercial laser…. By using clever optics to focus the laser beam at range, we demonstrated that we could achieve sufficient energy on target to deflagrate a 60mm mortar round.”

The concept has promise – but it also has substantial obstacles to overcome before it can become militarily useful…

Laser Phalanx: Obstacles and Issues

According to Peppe, a Laser Phalanx solution would offer an effective range about 3 times that of the existing M61A1 20mm gun, along with lower life-cycle costs.

A laser-based Phalanx system certainly sounds interesting. Nevertheless, there are a number of hurdles to cross and tests to pass before it can be considered a true advance over the current set of slug-throwing “last chance” systems out there.

The first obstacle is the requirement for more powerful solid-state lasers, which can fit into a similar “footprint” as existing Phalanx weapons, and are rugged enough to survive the abuse dished out by salt spray, sand, and other inherent hazards of military existence. Most mortar rounds are larger than the 60mm bombs used in the tests, as are the rockets that featured so prominently in the 2006 Lebanon proxy war.

The second obstacle is the environment, which does more than just dish out maintenance-related abuse. Naval deployment would be affected by atmospheric humidity and fog, for instance, or by rain. They weaken lasers, but have very little effect on radar-guided cannon.

The third obstacle is uniquely naval: the growing reality of supersonic ship-killer missiles. Their speed, and ability to perform evasive maneuvers on final approach, gives them added advantages against any weapon that must be held on target for a period of time in order to work. Worse, even pieces of supersonic missile pieces have enough kinetic energy to cause a lot of damage to a ship, unless the incoming object is slowed or deflected by an opposing kinetic force. A naval defense laser, therefore, would require enough power to burn through enemy missiles almost immediately. It would also have to work in such a way that large supersonic missiles either fragment into relatively small pieces when hit, or can be killed far enough away thanks to timely engagement, extra range, and sufficient burn power at range. Even in adverse weather conditions.

A 4th obstacle applies more strongly to land-based lasers. A 20mm cannon shell has a finite range, and can be designed to detonate after a prescribed distance for safety. This protects people on the ground under the shell’s flight path, and also provides a margin of safety to aircraft flying near protected bases. A laser doesn’t have that option, and the same power requirement that ensures fast-enough kills on incoming rockets, also gives a laser more effective range. Maintaining the safety of friendly forces and civilian air traffic in areas protected by laser weapons will be a challenge.

Laser Phalanx: Updates and Developments

Jan 30/09: White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico state continues to test a solid-state laser version of the Phalanx weapons system. The laser has proven capable of “rapidly” penetrating armor plating even when not at full power, and the next step is to test the system on mortar rounds.

The exact time required for burn-through or detonation of incoming rounds is a very important number. The longer an exact focus must be maintained on a rocket or mortar round, the less effective the system will be. US Army release.
July 14/08: Aviation Week writes:

“Two years ago, Raytheon performed a ground test in which two 60 mm mortar rounds were destroyed at 500 m range using an off-the-shelf commercial fiber laser – a 20 kW unit of the type used for welding and other industrial processes. This has now led to the prototype Laser Air Defense System (LADS), combining a 50 kW fiber laser and a beam director attached to a Phalanx gun mount. “

Sept 11/07: Jane’s reports from the British DSEi exhibition that Raytheon is working on a Phalanx variant that can fire lasers.

Sept 1/07: Raytheon announces successful tests of a prototype Laser Area Defense System (LADS) combining the Phalanx radar guided gun system with a solid-state laser. The LADS demonstration used a proven, existing, off-the-shelf solid-state laser, coupled with commercially available optics technology.

During 3 tests performed over the past 6 months, the prototype system successfully detonated 60mm mortars at a range greater than 550 yards. The release does not mention whether the mortars were stationary or in flight.

[sdpauoiuapdsf]

Not that this would have a lot of effect on operational considerations for the Asymmetrical Warrior, so to speak, but a shiny, mirror finish defeats laser weapons. While not really practical for body armor, this would be simple enough to apply to mortar rounds, thus defeating any laser anti-mortar-round-in-flight laser system.

Ironically, the very type of finish that makes something less reflective of radar makes it an ideal target for an EMR weapon, and vice versa.

[Thucydides]

The physics of laser energy deposition is pretty complex, but the short answer is any mirror finish that can effectively defeat a High Energy Laser (HEL) would be too freaking expensive to apply to mortar rounds.

We are talking almost optically perfect mirrors like the ones used in telescopes, coupled to materials which can effectively resist thermal shocks when that 1% of the beam energy enters the mirror material. Ablative coatings are not much better; unless you used improbably large mortars to deliver very small rounds, any practical coating will vapourize quickly and the round burned through (if it wasnt tumbling wildly through the air after having asymmetric chunks burned off the sides).

Lasers are not perfect weapons by any means, and if I were the "bad guy", I'd be planning on overwhelming the laser with hundreds of rounds, but that also makes it harder to attack other targets and exposes me (the bad guy) to logistical complications and other modes of detection and attack.

[NavyShooter]

I would think also that the same "afflictions" that might affect the laser propagation may also affect the projectile that's being defeated by the laser.

Let's take that mirror finish, and put some fog on the surface, or soot residue from firing....the laser will heat those points quickly, damaging that portion of the surface of the mirror finish, allowing burn-through. 

(Or at least, that's my take on it....from a not-so-technical point of view.)

Concur with the ineffectiveness of an ablative coating.  The added weight of such a coating would reduce the payload considerably, and even so, if it was a ballistic projectile, damaging the ablative coating may unbalance it and result in it's misdirection.  A miss by 50 feet is still a miss, and with reduced payload to add the ablative, well, it's not going to be an effective return I wouldn't think.

Now, on the other hand, overwhelming the laser system is entirely possible.  The CIWS is designed to be a point defense, last ditch sort of protection, a part of a layered defense.

Engage with missiles at 20 miles.

Engage with gun at 5 miles.

Engage whatever gets past the missile and gun at 1 mile with CIWS.

(Numbers used as examples, not reflecting real engagement ranges.)

This is in the "Naval" field of use.

In the "Army" field of use, the C-RAM is a last-ditch, and, really, about the only option, unless you create some sort of integrated counter-battery system that'll let you start shooting back. 

Personally, I'd suggest adding a pair of turretted howitzers into your C-RAM system, slaved to a fire-finder counter-battery system, so that when rounds are detected as "incoming", the howitzers can engage the weapon doing the firing, and the C-RAM shoots down the incoming rounds. 

If you paired them together, the outgoing rounds could destroy the firing platform, that way the number of incoming rounds that the C-RAM has to handle are reduced to those that can be in the air between first detection, and splash of counterbattery.

Just my thoughts.....I could be outta my lane, but an integrated system makes sense to me.

NS

[Old Sweat]

Navy Shooter, thanks for your input. It is both valuable and appreciated, at least by this very old and beat up soldier.

The difficulty with slaving turreted howitzers to the system is that they have to be available to do other things when not engaging gun/mortar/rocket positions. They don't really have to be part of the defensive system as such as long as they are available to be used in a counter battery role from time to time. I won't get into details, but there is an effective counter battery organization in theatre. The enemy are all too aware of that, but we need not discuss details here.

[Kirkhill]

Navy Shooter, thanks for your input. It is both valuable and appreciated, at least by this very old and beat up soldier.

The difficulty with slaving turreted howitzers to the system is that they have to be available to do other things when not engaging gun/mortar/rocket positions. .....

As an interested civilian with a soft spot for Navy Shooter's position I wonder if it is completely appropriate to argue that any asset HAS to be available to do other things.   Surely if the threat level demanded it then the local CRA could end up deeming certain assets to be task restricted? Designated for one job and one job only unless and until he/she personally released them if threat levels changed?

[Old Sweat]

The challenge in your hypothetical case is that if the situation has deteriorated that badly, there may well be lots of other tasks for these guns as well. It still is quite unlikely that the enemy would be able to shell/mortar/rocket our position continually unless we were in a Khe San (?) or Dien Bien Phu type of situation. Even then, our guns could very well be taken off this task to engagem say, an enemy ground attack.

In the circumstances in theatre, the incoming stuff is not continual, so the guns are available for other tasks. It may well be that the local commander on the advice of his gunner might put the guns on a counter-battery task if indications were that the position was about to come under indirect fire. As a gunner, I would hope that this did not become a common practice because it means the guns are not being used to support our operationns, but are being used defensively.

Now, I am way out of date, but to my way of thinking, people don't win wars by acting defensively except as a pause between offensives. And that can apply in COIN as well, just the application differs.

[NavyShooter]

I didn't mean to make it sound as though the guns couldn't be used for something else while not employed with potential counterbattery missions.

However, knowing the (limited) ammo capacity on a regular CIWS, and knowing the time it takes to conduct an upload on them (done a few) if you've got a lot of rounds in the air on their way to you without interdicting the firing platform, you're C-RAM is quickly going to run out of bullets.

I don't know how the laser will work on that, but there's probably also a cooling down phase required, or a limited number of shots per minute or such other limitation.

If you were able to interdict with counterbattery fired within the first minute of incomings, I would think that the C-RAM would not be as likely to run out of ammo before it ran out of targets.


Just my thoughts.....

NS

[Old Sweat]

Good points. Now the average defended locality, FOB, etc isn't a ship, so there is a lot more empty than occupied space for the enemy to hit. Furthermore, the various bits and pieces are not system integrated to the extent one would find on a ship where the operations room is able to control all sorts of stuff.

Having said that, a mortar can get off quite a few rounds in a very short time and it will cause some sort of damage. (A rocket launcher probably will fire only one round.) Now, the enemy's aim may be to harass, but necessarily cause casualties, so the number of rounds fired may be limited. The first round will be picked up by a locating device, which will compute the firing position and send it to the STA HQ/guns. The first rounds back could be in the air in very short order, especially if special arrangements for retaliation have been made, and given the short time of flight from the guns to the target (mortars are after all a short range weapon and rockets not quite as short but more inaccurate so they may be in close), the enemy is apt to get a very lethal surprise before they can clear the position.

[NavyShooter]

Being a techie type, I tend to think about systems talking to systems.  Most of my job revolves around that on a ship.  (Being at the school now, I'm tryin to make that point to students....the head gets mushy sometimes from bouncing it off the wall....)

The whole layered defence that we enjoy on a ship just isn't going to work in this situation.

NS

[Thucydides]

Having a counter battery capability isn't as necessary in current COIN ops, since the enemy often use remote controlled devices, or sometimes none at all (a rocket "leaned up" against a wall or ditch facing the right direction). The IRA pioneered these sorts of tactics in the 1970's with home made mortars placed in trucks abandoned in parking lots or along roads.

Weapons like CIWS or hypothetical laser weapons make sense defending high value targets like ships which are densly packed with equipment and manpower, and similar high value targets on land would also benefit. In the early 1980's, there was one idea floated ("High Frontier") suggesting the 30mm gatling gun from an A-10 on a suitable mount be used to engage oncoming ICBM warheads as they approached US missile silos. Being downrange of that would be very stressful.....

The main problem with guns is the rounds will come down sooner or later, and the potential for colateral damage could outweigh any short term benefits of shooting down incoming missiles. A laser weapon would probably have different issues due to the huge "template", frying a civilian airliner 30 miles downrange would not make your force very popular.

I might suggest the real answer is to take to the air. Airborne sensor platforms would be able to "see" much farther and provide advance warning, while in the future, some sort of weapons system mounted on the airborne platform would also have the ability to see, track and engage earlier than anything else, and have the potential to see the actual emplacement of the launcher.

[Kirkhill]

Sorry for posting and running -

I believe that Old Sweat's comment about an FOB not being a ship really is an important one.

I am on thin ice here but I believe that the principal difference  between naval gunnery and army gunnery comes down to the likelihood of your "hootch" being directly engaged.

For the the army gunner there seems always to be another firing point allowing firing to happen away from the bunk and allowing for rapid relocation.  As well multiple firing points means that guns can be "scattered" to create an umbrella of mutual support under which troops can manoeuver.

For the navy, it seems to me, finding secure firing points is a problem.  They have to invest 250,000,000 CAD to engineer a firing point and then take it with them when they "shoot and scoot".  That price tends to limit the number of firing points available.   In the new/old world of constabulary duties it seems to me that the ships are more likely to be independently tasked than they were in the cold war where they were grouped (just as the RN after 1815 needed more frigates and laid up its 40 year old ships of the line to man them).  This tendency would seem to force on the navy types both a demand to be self sufficient in their own defence and, given that, a degree of comfort working in the absence of “mutual support” that is a prime prerequisite for any army operation  (IIRC).
However, given the high cost of recruiting, equipping and training troops these days, and the increasing demand for an ever decreasing resource is it possible that the army could learn to operate with less “mutual support” and create organizations that are more self sufficient allowing FOBs to be manned by fewer personnel and spread over a wider area?

I don’t think this type of organization would be appropriate for a high intensity conflict against a concentrated threat, where success comes from manoeuvring to employ your limited resource to greatest effect. 
 
However, in a war of position against a diffuse threat, as I understand constabulary wars to be, where the outcome is decided by the last man in  the field simply being the one that can hold his ground longest, I continue to think that there are some aspects of the navy way of doing things that could transfer to the army.

The navy creates mutually supporting umbrellas from its firing platforms when circumstances require and resources permit.  But equally they seem much better fitted to disperse their forces and operate independently.

 2 cents from a civvy playing an old tune on a well worn drum.

[sdpauoiuapdsf]

I don't know how the laser will work on that, but there's probably also a cooling down phase required, or a limited number of shots per minute or such other limitation.

I think that a laser can be designed with a very high cooling capacity so it can fire continually. The old ruby rod laser, being a solid, was very hard to cool if not just used for a very, very brief (as in microseconds or milliseconds) burst.

But modern semiconductor and gas lasers would be fare more capable of being adequately cooled, the gas laser because the actual gas that is the medium of light production could be circulated and cooled before being reintroduced to the light-making chamber, and the semiconductor laser because it is just a few microns-thick layer of semiconductor, as opposed to a thick rod that has a relatively long distance between the center and the cooled exterior.

However, I don't know just what the actual numbers are for how many kW can be put through a given laser (as in, useful threshold of energy crossed) compared to what would be required to cool it.

One thing I wonder about, for a laser, is how would the targeting system decide that one thing is a threatening piece of ordnance, the other is a bird, the other is a fragment of an already-laser-destroyed incoming piece of ordnance?

[NavyShooter]

That gets into target discrimination, and that's not something to discuss in an open forum.

NS

[Thucydides]

Megawatt class Free Electron Lasers are now within reach, and this paper describes a conceptual device that would fit inside a Boeing 747. One of these orbiting overhead would provide protection vs threats over a very wide arc when linked to proper sensors, and FEL's have much lower heat rejection issues than other types of laser weapons.

A static ground mount would be more difficult since the conceptual weapon is powered by the four turbojet engines of the airplane. A ship mounted version would be able to take advantage of the ships engines, however.

[Thucydides]

And Boeing comes through with the shipborne prototype:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/boeing-completes-design-of-shipboard-super-laser/

Boeing Completes Design of Shipboard Superlaser

    * By Nathan Hodge Email Author
    * March 18, 2010  |
    * 4:47 pm  |
    * Categories: Lasers and Ray Guns
    *

The U.S. military is bankrolling all kinds of projects to harness the power of directed energy, from laser-equipped aircraft that can shoot down ballistic missiles to smaller beam weapons mounted on Humvees that could zap mortars or artillery shells. The Navy is no exception: It wants a shipboard laser that is powerful enough to destroy anti-ship missiles.

Defense giant Boeing now says it has completed the preliminary design of one such weapon, the Free Electron Laser, or FEL. In a news release today, the company said it had presented its FEL design, which will operate by forcing a stream of high-energy electrons through a series of magnetic fields, creating a weapons-grade blast of laser light.

If it works, it would be the holy grail of military lasers. For starters, it would able to blast though the atmosphere without losing too much strength (see explanation here). And it would have an unlimited magazine: As long as the ship provided enough electrical power, it could keep on zapping.

Boeing isn’t the only company working on such a project. Last year, the Office of Naval Research awarded contracts to both Raytheon and Boeing for preliminary design work on FEL. As we reported, this laser would be capable of reaching up to 100 kilowatts. In theory, it would be a potential long-range replacement for the radar-guided Phalanx gun, the Navy’s current system for close-in defense from cruise missiles and other threats.

But as we noted last year, it’s all easier said than done. Developing prototypes isn’t enough: The future Navy will need a fleet of futuristic, fully electric ships that generate enough power for these next-generation weapons.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/boeing-completes-design-of-shipboard-super-laser/#ixzz0ifjTyZWM