What are the chances that a CIWS would fail to intercept a missile?

Question

What does six and seven mean? I'm beginning to suspect that those are not serious answers.

Answer 1

Fortunately, CIWS, (pronounced Sea-Whizz, also known as the Phalanx or R2-D2 because of the dome shaped radome) has never been tested in battle, but all of the tests performed have shown almost 100% kill rate. This must be tempered with the knowledge that if a task force were to come under attack, there would not be one missle, or two, or three. If the enemy is smart, they will try to get hundreds of missles in the air, and this is dangerous for the target.

In an attack like this, there will be some form of raid warning, so the aircraft carrier will have all of its aircraft aloft. The E-2 Hawkey AEW will give radar range of three hundred miles at altitude, and the F-14 tomcats will each carry 6 Pheonix missles with a range of nearly 100 miles. The carrier wiil deploy 24 Tomcats and nearly 50 F/A-18 Hornets, which can also perform air interception. The EA-6B Prowler will attempt to jam the missle's guidance. Within a range of 200 miles, all missle equipped ships in the task force will engage the missles with the SM-2 surface to air missle (each Ticonderoga CG can carry 96 missles), and closer in, there are an array of other SAM batteries, such as the Sea Sparrow, deployed on the carrier.

The point of that long pragraph is that the CIWS is the last ditch effort to save your ship. While the CIWS has successfully destroyed missle size targets travelling at twice the speed of sound at a range of nearly two miles, if CIWS kicks in, then you have a problem, simply because something was able to get in that close.

The CIWS is extremely effective, but your safest bet is to succesfully engage your targets at the maximum standoff range (nearly 500 miles with a Tomcat carrying the AIM-54 Pheonix).

Answer 2

Which CIWS? I'm assuming you're speaking of the Phalanx CIWS used by the USN and various other navies. The latest version, Block 1B, is capable against sea-skimming missiles, high altitude launched missiles, low altitude/slow moving/hovering aircraft and small surface craft.

It has never been used sucessfully in an actual engagement. Given it's capability, and the threats it would be expected to face, and the short range of the 20mm round, against a missile you're probably looking at a 50% succes rate.

Contrary to moondog's claim, even when Tomcats were still in service (and they aren't anymore), NO carrier air wing could put 24 Tomcats and 50 Hornets in the air. When Tomcats were in service, those air wings that consisted of 2 Tomcat squadrons would then only have 2 squadrons of Hornets, giving you a total of 48 fighters in an air wing (and several air wings had a 1 to 3 mix).

Also, the Ticonderoga class cruisers can carry up to 122 SM-2s, while the Burke class destroyers have 96 cells. They certainly won't be engaging any targets at 200 miles with SM-2s. Burkes and Ticos carry the SM-2 MR missile with a range of 40-90 nautical miles depending on the parameters of the engagement.

Like moondog says, the best thing to do is to shoot the shooter before he shoots you. That was the driving force behind the development of a long range interceptor (the Tomcat) with a long range missile (the AIM-54 Phoenix).

CIWS are nice to have and would probably take out a few missiles, but they really are a last-ditch attempt, and if they go into action that means you're in real trouble.

Answer 3

Well, first off, the exact Mission capabilites are Classified. Secondly.. CIWS is the last line of defense of any ship. If the call goes out to engage, that means all of the other toys failed miserably, including Tomahawks and Air defense.

Let's continue to hope that CIWS will never be fired under Threat Conditions and will only need to be fired under test conditions or on Family Days and Tiger Cruises.

Answer 4

Depends on the particular CIWS system and the hostile missile being engaged. If the CIWS system is in tip-top shape, alert and ready for action with excellent tracking sensors and equpped with a sufficently powerful weapon (missiles and/or cannons), the chances for interception should be fairly high (75-100%). Defects in the tracking system, lack of preparedness/alert and enemy countermeasures (ECM, mass swarm attacks, stealth missiles etc.) can increase the chances of failure considerably.

Answer 5

I'd say some of the other answers are about right but I don't agree with the conclusions. 0% failure rate is not going to happen there's always a chance of failure.

I figure it will work good enough to make a would be attacker be uncertain that an attack would be successful.

I wonder what we would do if we were attacked and the system worked. Should we retalitate just as if the attack had been successful?

Answer 6

Maybe a fair chance of stopping one, but a crummy chance of stopping a lot of them fired all at once. Call it slim to none.

We need to be on our guard and keep all potential enemy missiles and other WMD's out of striking range of our country. Robert McNamara was asked, after the Cuban missile crisis, just how close America came to being nuked. His answer was "Closer than you will ever know".

Answer 7

Cascade Ranger,
Unfortunately,
they do seem to
be failing. A report
came out last week
in which they said
not to count on
'interception' weaponry
as we have them today.
One was tested over the
Pacific today, and it failed
to intercept.
So, that's the way it is.

Answer 8

Seven.

Answer 9

I thought it was 50%.


.500 good for a batter but not a defense system.

Answer 10

Poor enough that the best defense is STILL a good offense.