Hello everyone.
Welcome back again to Military TV.
In today’s episode, we are going to discuss how effective is Phalanx CIWS against the
incoming threats from missiles.
So, stay tuned for more detailed information.
Historically, The CIWS was created as the final line of automated weapons defense (terminal
defense or point defense) against all incoming threats, including high-g and maneuvering
sea-skimmers.
In 1973, the US Navy received the first prototype system for assessment on the destroyer leader
USS King, and it was concluded that more work was needed to increase performance and dependability.
Following that, on board the destroyer USS Bigelow in 1977, the Phalanx Operational Suitability
Model successfully passed its Operational Test and Evaluation.
The model outperformed the requirements for operational maintenance, dependability, and
availability.
Following a successful second review, the weapon system was licensed for production
in 1978.
In 1980, the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea became the first ship to be fully equipped.
And in 1984, the Navy began installing CIWS systems aboard non-combatant ships.
Taking into account the evolution of threats and technological advancement, several configurations
to upgrade the Phalanx system has been developed.
The Block 1 upgrade in 1988 offered various improvements in radar, ammunition, computing
power and rate of fire.
There improvements were primarily intended to increase the system’s capacity to defend
against the emerging Russian supersonic anti-ship missiles.
So, how is the CIWS working anyway?
The CIWS has an effective range which is relatively short compared to the range of modern anti-ship
missiles (ASMs), from 1 to 5 nautical miles.
However, the gun mount moves at incredibly high speed and with great precision.
The CIWS only needs minimal resource from the ship, which makes it capable of functioning
even when there is an event of potential damage to the ship.
On the other hand, the CIWS also complemented with two antennas working together to engage
targets.
The search subsystem feeds the CIWS computer with information on possible targets' bearing,
range, velocity, direction, and altitude.
This data is evaluated to decide whether the CIWS system should engage the detected object.
However, the CIWS system does not recognize identification friend of foe (IFF), because
it only has the data it has collected in real time from the radars to decide if the locked
target is a threat and to engage it.
To be considered as a target, the CIWS has its own criteria, first, it oversees whether
the target is approaching the ship, second, whether the contact has the capacity of maneuvering
to hit the ship, and third, whether the contact is traveling between the minimum and maximum
velocity.
For the last part, the operator can regulate the range of minimum and maximum limits of
the system.
Given the way it works, how effective is the CIWS against missile?
According to the feature built in the CIWS system, and considering the fact that CIWS
is created as a last line of defense, the answer is, it is not substantially effective
in countering the incoming threats from highly modernized missiles.
First of all, the CIWS will not prevent the ship from being ruined by the missile.
The attack of the missile will not stop just because it has been torn into pieces and bits,
as these tiny bits will continue and crashing into the ship.
Secondly, there will be a significant problem arises in the event of multiple missiles attack.
While the Phalanx CIWS can levitate and cut across almost its entire field of fire in
around one second, this does not imply that it could instantly track and hit whatever
it sees.
The last one, the rapid acceleration of technological development which has given birth to hypersonic
missiles or weapons five times more than a speed of sound will seriously outpower the
CIWS.
As you may already know, hypersonic weapons travel across miles in inconceivable speed.
Hence, it would extremely difficult to defend against.
Besides, other than hypersonic weapons, there are still many ASMs which are capable of bypassing
the power of CIWS by numbers, speed, or agility.
That concludes why the naval fleet cannot entirely rely its survivability to the Phalanx
CIWS.
Yes, and that will be all for today!
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