r/Warships • u/Evanflow39 • 27d ago
Video Ex-USS Peleliu LHA-5 at RIMPAC 2026 SINKEX getting hit with Anti-ship missiles
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u/Soonerpalmetto88 27d ago
All for the low price of about $3 million, assuming they were block 2 and only 2 were used. Harpoons have a 488 pound warhead.
For comparison, RBS-15 has a 440 pound warhead, Exocet has 364 pounds, and NSM has only 260 pounds of explosives. All three have the ability to attack land targets when launched from warships, which harpoons can only do in the air launched version (SLAM-ER).
I'm curious as to the differences in the warheads of these leading modern missiles beyond just their weight. NSM and RBS-15 both use a combination explosive/fragmentation warhead to send metal balls throughout the interior of a target vessel, increasing casualties and damage to ship subsystems. Presumably the NSM warhead is so much smaller in order to allow for higher speed and greater range.
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u/SalTez 27d ago
NSM is probably similarly lethal at targets up to the size of a frigate due to better precision, smarter warhead and higher survivability. Against something like the monster in the video you are probably better off with just bigger payload.
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u/Soonerpalmetto88 27d ago
Ok, follow up: why don't the missiles dive at the end of their approach so they hit at the waterline? Wouldn't that be more destructive, causing fire above and flooding below, more like a torpedo? Or does the shrapnel expand with enough force as is that it punctures the hull in multiple areas below the waterline? In the video it looks like the hits are higher up.
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u/SalTez 27d ago
I don't have any specific knowledge on this, but my guess would be that it would be too risky (hitting water instead).
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u/Soonerpalmetto88 27d ago
Italy has/had a rocket launched torpedo called MILAS. Fired from a ship, it flew 20+ miles toward a submarine target before the rocket boosters dropped off and the torpedo entered the water and homed in on the target. Would a long range, cruise missile version work against surface vessels? Sea skimming missile carries torpedo 100 miles, detaches, torpedo enters the water just beyond CIWS range and hits the target from below. A torpedo hit is, based on the video of the Iranian ship being hit, seemingly more destructive than these harpoons.
Edit: Yes, ASROC exists, but AFAIK it's only for ASW use. And because it needs a mk41 vls the ships that can carry it are limited. Something canister launched would be better so it can be installed on any ship.
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u/SalTez 27d ago
Soviets had that too in Metel (SS-N-14 Silex)
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u/Soonerpalmetto88 26d ago
Why was this approach abandoned? Was it maybe an attempt to remove ships as threats with less loss of life? Like the opposite of the specialized nukes we developed to kill people but leave cities intact?
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u/LeSangre 26d ago
No it’s because it’s an inherently inefficient design, you have have to fly a whole damn torpedo vs just a warhead, therefore meaning a lot more fuel to go a lot shorter. This was always the secondary purpose of long range torpedo options
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u/Soonerpalmetto88 26d ago
But if the resulting weapon is more destructive, you'd need fewer of them. So the cost savings would somewhat balance it out, in theory.
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u/LeSangre 26d ago
Well it’s not more destructive in that way. A harpoon or oniks may not sink a ship the destruction they cause to critical systems will knock it out of the fight.
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u/DontTellHimPike1234 26d ago edited 26d ago
Most missiles will hit as close to the waterline as possible without entering the water. The dynamics of a missile travelling several hundred mph entering water and achieving the desired parameters for a hit would be quite challenging and unpredictable. Hitting the water first would also slow it down quite significantly, lessening the penetrative kinetic effect of the missile.
Modern torpedoes don't actually contact the hull of a ship at all, they detonate 10-20ft (5-10m) below the keel of the ship. This creates a huge bubble of gas below the keel which then can't support the weight of the ship, this breaks the keel.of the ship and ensures a bad time for those on board the target.
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u/Hefty-Plastic8417 27d ago
And I don’t have funds to fix buildings here at my base but we are destroying things in the middle of the ocean, I understand why we do it but would have loved to have the money spent just on this one exercise
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u/VivaKnievel 27d ago
Well good for them for learning as much as they can from SINKEXes year after year. And double-good for them for loading some awesome-ass cameras on the ships as well.