Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia.militare
Titolo: NORPAC 82

Su un forum in inglese ho pescato un articolo dove viene postato un 
interessantissimo estratto dalle memorie dell'ammiralgio Plummer, 
ufficiale in comando del CVGB della Midway a inizio anni 80.
Ve lo incollo perchï¿œ merita davvero.
The following discussion will be split into several parts and will 
remain at a somewhat top level.
The reasons should be obvious. Specific references will be made to a 
particular operation,
NORPAC 82, but details on tactics and modern systems will not be 
disclosed. These tactics are
essentially the same as during WWII. The historical accounts of the 
German surface raiders, USN
submarine actions, IJN surface and CV operations, and of course the USN 
surface and CV
operations during that conflict include many examples of the following 
basic tactics.
The main question is: How do you hide a task force at sea? The answer in 
very general terms is; by
not telling the other guy where you are.
This is not as dumb as it sounds.
To illustrate take the following generic situation and think of the 
naval environment. One actually
could extend this to other environments as well.
Put two football teams in a stadium at night each on their defended goal 
line. Each team will
provide the backfield players with rifles and the linemen all have a 
pistol. Each weapon is equipped
with a flashlight fastened to the barrel. The quarterback is equipped 
with a flashing signal light.
Now turn out all the lights so it is absolutely dark.
Who wants to turn on their light first?
Now to more accurately replicate the naval environment we put half the 
fans in the stands more or
less evenly distributed on the field. We also put two blimps overhead, 
one for each team, equipped
with flashing light and binoculars.
Obviously the light will replicate both communications and radar 
systems. Everybody's eyes
replicate ESM, ELINT, COMINT, and radar receivers.
Obviously if you want to hide the best way is run silent and blend into 
the general traffic.
There are several conditions of hiding a task force. First is 
undetected. In this condition the presence
of the force is not known. For this to really work it should be coupled 
with a deception plan so that
the opposition not only does not know the force is present, but does not 
know they don't know and
for some reason believes the force to be elsewhere. I will say no more 
about deception. The second
condition is that you have been detected, but not located. This can 
include the presence of the force
is known, but no system has detected the force, or the force has been 
detected but not identified.
And finally, the force has been detected and located which implies 
identification of the targets.
One's tactics will change based on the above.
If the force has not been detected one can run in to a launch point and 
hit the target with the first wave while operating completely silent 
until initial weapon impact. Once the survivors pick
themselves out of the rubble they will deduce the presence of the 
carrier force from the initial wave.
With a force underway the opposition for some reason believes it knows 
that the ships are
elsewhere and has no information to the contrary. Such operations are 
most effective when coupled
with a deception plan that keys the opposition to know for a certainty 
that you are somewhere else
and is therefore not looking. This goes far beyond local efforts of the 
group.
Every man in the entire task force is kept informed of the tactical 
situation and what is going on.
Full awareness, training, and discipline by all hands is essential.
The force transits to its objective area in complete electronic silence. 
Deceptive formations are used
dispersed over a broad area to ensure any detection system does not see 
the classic "bullseye"
formation made famous in countless Public Affairs shots and never used 
in operations. Broad
surveillance systems are known so any detection method is countered 
either by denying sensor
information, misleading, or providing expected results consistent with 
something else. For example,
ESM systems rely on active emissions from radars or communication 
systems. So nothing is
radiated. Overhead systems are in known orbits, are predictable, and 
their sensing capabilities
known. So the track is varied, weather is sought out to hide in when 
vulnerable, blending into sea
lanes (while staying out of visual detection range of ships) and such 
techniques. Deceptive lighting
is used at night so that the obvious "blacked out warship" is instead 
thought to be a merchant or
cruise liner. Surface search radar identical to commercial ones are 
used. Turn count masking is used
by the ships. Aircraft maintenance on the CV and other helo equipped 
ships is limited to prevent
transmissions.
In NORPAC 82 using these and other tactics the CV force operated close 
enough to support each
other, but far enough and randomly dispersed to avoid identification by 
anyone. One night in bad
weather a man went overboard when the ship was within 200nm of a Soviet 
airfield in the Kuril
Island chain. Despite launch of helicopters and active search methods by 
several ships in the
successful SAR, including clear voice UHF transmissions, the force is 
not detected because no
Soviet asset was above the radar horizon. No overhead system was cued. 
The force continued on.
At the initial objective point the ships have managed to penetrate 
without the opposition having any
clue that the force was within 2,000 miles. Limited air operations have 
been conducted to this point
with no aircraft transmitting radio, radar, or any other detectable 
phenom. The aircraft launch
"ziplip" and fly a mission without any transmission. Aircraft stay below 
the radar horizon of
defense sites which are less than 200nm away. The E2 flies a passive 
mission in readiness, but
silent unless called to go active.
At the objective "mirror image strikes" are flown. These are full strike 
missions by the airwing
flown on a bearing 180 degrees out from the actual objective. Again, no 
active transmissions. The
entire launch, strike, and recovery are flown without a key being 
touched. In NORPAC 82 these
mirror image strikes within range of Petroplavask and the SSBN bastion 
in the Sea of O are
conducted for 4 days without being detected by the opposition. All day, 
every day, the E2 orbits on
a passive profile. All of the ships operate in passive mode simply 
listening. In a real war our
presence would have been deduced on the first strike as the survivors 
picked themselves out the
rubble of their airfields. But for this operation we continued to train 
in silence.
One should not miss the implications of this feat. A strategic strike 
capable force operated with
complete impunity for 4 days within range of strategic assets without 
being detected.
Today, the capability to operate in a passive mode while receiving the 
complete tactical picture
from off-ship has been expanded and refined to an extraordinary degree. 
All of the vulnerabilities to
detection of the force are also its strengths in tracking everyone else. 
The complete range of
overhead and other sensors are downlinked to every ship and many 
aircraft. If one system in the
USN or Space detects a contact, everyone receives it. One could, with 
training and discipline, sail a
complete 6 month deployment and merely listen to all of the other 
sensors, and strike without
warning if need be.
But enough is enough. After dodging Soviet Naval Aviation strike 
regiments going out to "raid" the
Enterprise group the time came to tip our hand and enter the next phase. 
So out of the blue a Badger
group going out against Enterprise and expecting F14s was intercepted 
some 500nm from
Enterprise by F4s with "Midway" painted on the side. And all hell then 
broke lose!!
Every Soviet asset that could fly, sail, submerge, or orbit was focused 
on the area in an attempt to
locate the group.
The force has now successfully transited to the operation area and 
conducted the first flight
operations which reveal its presence. In wartime this would result in 
the survivors picking
themselves out of the (possibly radioactive) rubble of their airfields 
and other key military facilities.
So the game is up. But is it? The key as before is to deny targeting 
information to the opposition,
leave them confused about your precise location, and continue to operate.
The task force has as its advantage the element of long-range striking 
power which allows it to
operate at considerable range, thus giving the opposition a very large 
area to visually search. Check
a chart and draw a 600nm circle, cut it in half to represent the 
sea/land interface, and see how many
square miles have to be searched. If operating F18s cut the range in 
half (Side note. A recent USN
article on F18E testing quoted a strike range of only 600nm which 
equates to a strike radius of
300nm. This loss in capability will cost future striking Admirals key 
sea space which will bear on
this problem).
As before, much of the process of targeting is determining which of the 
many contacts detected is
the one you are looking for. Most techniques rely on exploiting the 
Achilles Heal of Radar and
Communication. To work, you have to transmit, and by transmitting you 
tell the opposition who
and where you are. Don't transmit, and he has to find you the hard way, 
by visual identification
searching the vast ocean area 10sqnm at a time.
Recall the original parallel. The Football field with both teams 
equipped with flashlights and
handguns, with half the fans also on the field and the lights turned 
out. Who wants to turn their
flashlight on first?
The USN has the additional advantage of a networked surveillance system 
where if anyone in the
USN (including shore based facilities such as Naval Space Command) has 
the contact, everyone has
it. So one can stay silent, and receive all the data from the other 
participants. This allows tactical
deception, missile traps, decoys, etc.
Also, if the opposition is going to search with active sensors such as 
Radar, he is also telling you
where he is and who he is. So our fighters can run out the ESM line of 
bearing and bag the recon
Bear or strike pathfinder.
A word about the opposition. The SNA strike regiments were (are) 
structured and armed very well to go kill naval formations. The AS4/6 on 
a Badger or Backfire in regimental strength backed with
Bears in the recon role were and are formidable. They roughly had a 
Regiment per carrier. In a
straight-forward engagement, the issue would have been "in doubt" at 
best. If a strike regiment
caught a CV by surprise it would have been curtains. An alerted CV would 
have a better than even
chance of surviving, but probable losses would have been severe. But the 
Regiment running through
fighter opposition to their launch points and then getting back out 
would have taken crippling
losses. They would have not been able to mount a second strike and would 
have been effectively
destroyed if not annihilated. If a missile trap is set so that the 
regiment is climbing to launch altitude
over a missile ship it doesn't know about until the radar comes up and 
missiles start impacting, the
fight will be over before it barely starts. So it was critical for the 
target to be identified and located
prior to the regiment being committed. This takes time and allows the CV 
time to maneuver, set
decoy groups, missile traps, fighter ambushes, etc.
With two hours warning for example, a CV could dispatch a surface CG 
missile trap 60nm down
the threat axis, station the CAP Outer Air Battle Grid, put a CG decoy 
group stationary, and run
another 60nm down range and off axis in a silent mode. Then the regiment 
locates a likely target at
the expected point, runs into a missile trap, fighter grid, and a target 
that can defend itself without
ever threatening the CV.
So the trick is to prevent identification and localization of the force. 
Decoys run out and radiate.
Aircraft launch on missions running silent, fly out to a deception point 
at low altitude, then climb
and radiate as normal. The searchers locate the pop-up point but don't 
find the CV. This is
particularly effective if the first launch of the day locates a large, 
neutral merchant or cruise liner
and everybody uses that as the reference deception point. Then the 
searchers actually see a target at
the point that the flight patterns indicate. In wartime they commit, 
they lose their regiment, and the
CV then has a free ride.
We would also deliberately provide a false contact reference. If a 
searching aircraft is intercepted
they can draw an operational radius of previously observed intercepts 
and conclude the CV is in that
area. That allows a concentrated search. Now if we had deliberately 
intercepted him at an extended
range and then moved the carrier at high speed in the other direction 
the search effort is
concentrated at the wrong point. I did that one day by tanking an A7, 
running him out a long range
and bringing him into an intercept of two Bears that were visually 
searching and identifying fishing
boats and merchants trying to find us. I brought him in off-axis and 
took him back out off-axis (in
other words not directly to or from the CV). We then cranked up the 32.5 
knots the Midway could
then do and went in the other direction. A few hours later we observed a 
"large number" of search
aircraft vainly saturating that area of the ocean and giving all the 
fishing boats a great air show.
They could identify the E2's radar. They could then draw the normal 
circle around the E2's location
and search that area. Trouble with that was that I was particularly 
adept at running out long range
while silent, and then running a distant patrol point and acting as if 
the CV was close by. I used to
routinely obtain contact at extended ranges. So by drawing their datum 
points based on my patrols
they also looked in the wrong places, and at the same time I data-linked 
the complete tactical
picture to all the silent participants.
We would also recover the returning aircraft by marshalling as normal 
but in the wrong place. Then,
under E2 control, the returning aircraft would fly a recovery pattern to 
a deception point, and then
run in at low altitude and silent to the CV.
A sub vectored out to find us has to have some idea of where to look. If 
the CV has freedom to
operate it can avoid contact by "random and dynamic" movement. Only if 
the CV locks itself to a set operational area and pattern (as in most 
structured exercises which lends itself to the prevailing
myth of submarine superiority) does it become predictable and hence, 
vulnerable. If the CV moves
it forces the sub to move to catch it, thereby making the sub more 
detectable. Of course, one could
run over the sub by accident in which case it falls to CV group number 
two to take up the fight!
Such is war.
We continued to operate in that manner during NORPAC much as a boxer 
might in the ring,
dodging and weaving for four days with everything in Siberia that could 
fly, sail or submerge
looking for us. Our success can be measured by the fact that not once 
did any unit ever come close
enough to identify us, and at no time was any strike group committed 
against us in a mock attack.
During this time several regimental mock raids per day were flown 
against the Enterprise which
operated openly. And we continued to fly mirror-image strikes within 
strike range of key Soviet
facilities several times per day with complete impunity.
At the conclusion of four such very interesting days it was determined 
that not only had we
obtained all the needed training and experience we were looking for, but 
that we had also probably
trained the Soviets more than we probably wanted to. So we then 
rendezvoused with the Enterprise
group during the night. The next morning, as scattered light filtered 
into the Northern Pacific, the
initial Soviet strikes and shadows saw two carriers where there had been 
but one the day before.
And then all Hell really broke lose!! But that is another story and a 
very conventional one.

probabilmente li hanno notati, ma se ne sono stati belli fermi per non 
dare informazioni vitali agli americani. All'epoca i sovietici avevano 
grazie alle loro spie un'informazione in tempo reale su dove si 
trovavano i cvbg americani.

 warning if need be. 
A parte che il tema principale era "come copenaghenizzare i russi" uno 
dovrebbe riflettere sulle implicazioni dell' uso dei sensori aerei a 
vantaggio di Unita' Navali in condizioni di zero o quasi emissioni 
elettromagnetiche....
Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.