VaderDSL said:How do these ships defend the fleet?
Say they are part of a battle group with a carrier at the heart, do they deploy these Anti-Aircraft/Anti-missile defense boats in a circle around the carrier, and then I assume they are all linked into the central command structure of the carrier with AWACS and long range radar/patrols sent out from the carrier.
Say this is the case and the carrier comes under attack from 5 exocet missiles (would exocet's be used nowadays? or is it more likely to be something else? like a harpoon (i'm reeling off random uninformed stuff from what I remember from games like LOMAC, F117 etc. )
How would these ships then defend the carrier? do they have tracking and missiles to be able to reliably take out any incoming fire?
Thats exactly how it works. The AEGIS works out which ship is the best placed and equipped to tackle each threat and uses that system to defeat the threat. It can tackle a multitude of threats simultaneously. The system was designed to defeat the Soviet strategy. Which was to overwhelm/saturate a defense system with so many threats that at least some of them get through. Sheer weight of numbers. The defense is layered, Aircraft like the F14/Hornet, Missiles then close in weapon systems like the Phalanx. Theres also an anti sub screen. Which is made up of ASW ships and hunter killer subs.
In the Falklands the ships got in each others way, only had missiles and little or poor close in systems. (due to budget cuts).