BAE Systems recently unveiled a proposal to add additional VLS cells to the Hunter class frigates being built for the Royal Australian Navy. Here we examine the background to the requirement for more missiles and the potential opportunities for Type 26 customer nations.
Up arming down under
The Australian Defence Strategic Review (DSR) concluded that the country needs to change from its reactive posture and adopt a more proactive strategy intended to defeat potential threats further away from its northern coast. In naval terms, this will require “an enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet, that complements a conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, is now essential given our changed strategic circumstances.”
The nine Type 26 derivative Hunter-class frigates that are about to start construction are intended primarily for anti-submarine warfare, arguably the finest ASW combatant design available in the world right now. The last three Australian Defence White Papers had emphasised ASW as submarines continue to proliferate in the Asia-Pacific region. Subsequent to selecting the Hunter design, the RAN has started down the long road to acquisition of SSNs which will eventually increase ASW capability significantly. Critics in Australia see the future fleet as having too great an emphasis on defence against underwater threats and a lack of offensive capability, especially in the form of anti-ship and land attack cruise missiles. (An echo of the complaint that Royal Navy warships are “like porcupines – well-defended herbivores with limited offensive capabilities”.)
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has even called for the Hunter order to be reduced from 9 ships to 6 because the current plans “would result in an ‘unbalanced’ fleet biased towards ASW… In addition to the Hobart class [3 x AAW destroyers], the remaining ships should be replaced by multipurpose frigates or destroyers with greater missile capacity to support the DSR requirement of impactful projection”. The RAN is conducting a review of its surface fleet which will be published in 2024 and will set out how it may be reconfigured to meet the changing strategic goals. As the frigate program, along with a new class of corvettes, are the centrepieces of the future fleet, plans for the Hunter class are likely to evolve in some direction. In the meantime at the recent Indo-Pacific Naval Maritime Expo in Sydney, various manufacturers were scrambling to show off new heavily armed combatant designs ranging from OPVs with anti-ship missiles to corvettes and frigates groaning with VLS cells and weapon canisters.
Despite the Hunter class being the best solution for the core requirements originally set by the RAN, the programme has been the subject of criticism and attempts to undermine it. Navantia even went directly to the Commonwealth government offering to build a second batch of ASW-oriented Hobarts (based on a 20-year-old hull) claiming they could be in the water before the first Hunter. Delays to starting Hunter construction have mainly centred around the additional top weight of the CEAFAR-2 modular active phase array radar antenna. Significantly superior to the Artisan of the RN Type 26, the domestically-developed CEAFAR was specified as the RAN wants increased anti-air warfare capability for its prime ASW combatants.
An additional 18-month postponement to cutting steel was agreed by all parties in 2021 due to COVID and the complexity of RAN-specific changes including the radar and combat system. To address the topweight issue, the beam will be increased by 0.6m over the reference design. Even small changes to the dimensions of a ship involve significant recalculation and work for the naval architects. However, the delay is undoubtedly beneficial to industry allowing more time for the Osborne shipyard to develop, work on prototypes and build up workforce skills which should make for more efficient construction in the long run. BAES are confident the programme is on track, the first 3 Hunters are on contract and likely to be delivered as planned.
Cell multiplication
As currently configured, the Hunter class have a 32-cell Mk 41 VLS forward. (The RN’s Type 26 is fitted with 24 Mk 41 cells and 2 x 24-cell Sea Ceptor VLS) At least initially, the Hunters are expected to fill these cells with air defence missiles in the form of the Raytheon Standard SM-2 (which could be replaced with much-improved SM-6) and ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile) Block II missiles. The SM-2 provides area air defence capability (out to approx 150km). The ESSM is essentially a shorter-range weapon (out to approx 50km) but can be quad-packed into a single MK 41 cell. The Mk 41 is highly flexible and there are several other compatible effectors available such as Tomahawk or ASROC (and eventually the European FCASW), should the customer select them. The Hunters will have the Lockheed Martin Aegis combat management system, although SAAB Australia will develop the interface between Aegis and the non-US weapons and sensors.
At Indo-Pac Expo BAE Systems revealed its Guided Missile Frigate (GMF) variant of the Hunter class with an additional 64 Mk 41 VLS cells replacing the central mission bay, taking the total complement to 96. The VLS count is flexible and 48 or 64 could be added depending on the requirement. BAES says that if the RAN really wanted to go ‘all in’ and elect to remove the 5-inch Mk 45 gun, a total of 128 cells could be added which surpasses even the USN Ticonderoga class cruisers.
Removing the gun is unlikely as in the age of the cheap swarming drone. Combined with modern advanced munitions, naval gunnery is making a comeback as a counter to uncrewed air and surface craft too small or numerous to be engaged with expensive missiles. The USS Carney recently destroyed UAVs launched by Houthi Rebels in the Red Sea using her Mk 45 gun. BAES Weapon Systems division in the US already has a contract with the RAN for the manufacture of Mk 45 guns and their Automated Handling Systems (AHS) for delivery between 2023-36.
Swapping out
The advantage of this proposal to modify the Hunter class is that the impact on the existing platform would be relatively modest and avoids the time and expense of a complete re-design. BAES say that 85% of the GMF variant would retain commonality with the original and they have been in discussions with the RAN for about a year on how to move away from its purely ASW focus. Most critically, the company says it would be possible to deliver either all or some of the later ships modified in this way without affecting the overall cost or delivery timetable.
The Type 26 reference design is engineered to extremely high standards of acoustic hygiene for ASW reasons but this is a significant cost driver. A low signature and general-purpose capability is always desirable but it may be that some quietening compromises could be made and the towed array sonar removed to reduce cost and keep the GMF within the original budget envelope. Removing the Flexible Mission Space (FMS) saves on the expense of the mission bay handling system (MBHS) and some of the plug-in infrastructure built to support equipment while in the bay. However, this would be more than offset by the costs of the additional Mk41 systems and integration work.
The FMS has a capacity of approximately 385m3 and is designed to hold up to 150 tonnes of containers or equipment. The empty weight of an 8-cell strike-length Mk41 module is about 15 tonnes, totalling around 120 tonnes for 64 cells. Theoretically, if all 64 cells were filled with one of the heaviest effectors such as Tomahawk missiles this would add about 100 tonnes. This would likely require some reinforcement of the midships area to support the VLS foundations but the additional topweight consideration is relatively modest and BAES naval architects have clearly calculated it to be within safe limits. The 8 Harpoons (combined weight of about 6 tonnes) have been replaced with 16 NSMs (combined weight of about 7 tonnes).
Trading the mission bay for missiles may seem like a straight upgrade but the FMS has very significant utility, especially the ability to deploy a sophisticated array of autonomous systems that will have increasing importance in future naval warfare. The FMS’ full potential has not yet been fully explored and its removal priorities high-end punch over flexibility, especially for low and mid-range intensity warfare capabilities.
Adding VLS cells has little purpose if there are no weapons to fill the cells. In contrast to the RN, the RAN does at least have Mk 41 already in service and a stock of compatible missiles. However, the recent DSR noted Australia’s overall lack of munitions and the need to invest in substantial new stocks. Sadly, the world appears to be lurching towards greater confrontation, with rising tensions in Asia, the Middle East and the war in Ukraine now is a very good time to be a missile manufacturer. For example, Japan has just placed an order for 400 Tomahawks in a $2.35 billion deal and the Netherlands is also in the queue for TLAM. The Norwegian Naval Strike Missile has recently become a runaway export success with many NATO and aligned navies in line to buy. In general, complex weapons remain expensive, even if purchased in bulk and maxed-out manufacturing capacity suggesting there will be a long lead time for some weapon deliveries.
Type 83 candidate?
The RN has begun the concept phase for the Future Air Dominance System (FADS) to provide air and missile defence for the fleet, essentially replacing the Type 45 destroyers. FADS is a broad-ranging concept that adopts a ‘systems-of-systems’ approach and may not result in the capability being centred on just a single surface combatant type. Depending on your point of view, this is either innovation at the bleeding edge or an attempt to save the cost of building expensive AAW destroyers/cruisers like every other serious navy. The ‘ship’ element of FADS will be the Type 83 destroyer but its size and capability its undefined at present. The Type 26 GMF proposal potentially offers a simpler route for the RN to obtain a powerful conventional air defence platform. The obvious advantage would be that Type 83 could have much commonality with Type 26 resulting in huge savings in design effort, time, capital and through-life support costs. Construction in Glasgow could follow seamlessly from HMS London to the first Type 83 and could deliver ships ready to replace the Type 45s in the late 2030s.
The RN already seems set on adopting Mk 41, having selected it for Type 26 and Type 31 and looks likely to abandon the Sylver VLS system. Just how much further the RN may go down the US equipment route is a long and complicated discussion beyond the scope of this article. Standard missiles or an iteration of Aster? UK combat system or Aegis? How much anti-ballistic missile capability is needed? etc. One contentious aspect would be the primary radar selection, given the exceptional performance of the UK-designed Sampson MFR placed very high on the Type 45’s mainmast. In 2017 the MoD announced it would evaluate CEAFAR for future combatants but it’s hard to believe that a ‘son of Sampson’ would not be the preferred option for Type 83 both for capability and sovereign design/manufacturing reasons.
While the Type 26 GFM is not a panacea, and like all warships involve design compromises, it appears to be a very attractive option for the RAN to meet its pressing need for greater firepower. For the RN (and the Royal Canadian Navy) it may also offer important new possibilities.
How heavy must all those panels be compared to Sampson? Would have thought that considering the volume of Chinese Ashm that will be firEd, having a good radar up very high looking further low down would be a great advantage.
Do we know how many AA missiles the RAN wants per ship?
I know the RAN does not have camm, but a T26 has a theoretical AA missile compliment of 72…or more if the mk41 were to be quad packed. AA
Far, far heavier
I worked on a couple of of ANZAC frigates fitted with the S band and X Band panels. This was before the L Band fitting was done. Lots and lots of Ballast was fitted to counter the top weight. The cooling requirement for chilled water was huge as where the pumps to get it up the mast.
The S band panels where I was told around 7 mil AUD each. No doubt the L band is at least if not more than that.
That is a really really expensive radar set up.
Quote from BAE;
The major design changes from the reference vessel relate to Australian-mandated requirements – the Aegis combat management system and the Saab Australia tactical interface; the Australian-designed CEAFAR 2 phased array radar; integration of the Lockheed Martin SH-60R naval combat helicopter; and Australian-specific communications systems.
“CEAFAR 2 is a hugely-capable radar but it’s very power-consumptive, so the power dynamics are much more complex than its direct peers. The radar is heavier than its UK equivalent and when we put weight up high, it has a corresponding effect on ballast and sea-keeping,” Lockhart explains.
the hunter will be about 2000 tons more displacement. This will be mostly because of CEFAR 2 radar and AEGIS baseline 8 / 10
It’s certainly an attractive option for Type 83, but selecting a relatively smaller design with all of its weight margin for upgrades already gone seems a poor choice.
Personally, I say we learn from the lessons of the F-35 programme; instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, aim for maximum practical commonality. A new hull design to max out the potential of the new shipbuilding hall (183m if memory serves), using as many systems from the T26 as possible, that can support the volume of weapons and radar fit needed.
Otherwise we risk T83 being a future T21; modern ships with no margin to accept vital improvements
There are potential options that could see a very small T83 hull. I’m not sure the navy will go for a very large hull to be honest..I think 7-8k tons is likely.
I think we must bring our close allies into the picture here. Assume the UK has the economic clout still in 20 years time, we should be part of the oceanic navy while the smaller nations focus on the littoral. That is already the developing structure. Above 10,000 t warships can no longer be called escorts and we shouldn’t go there.
The economic forecasts have our economy being bigger than Germany’s by the 2030s, so it’s safe to say we should certainly be able to afford to.
Putting an arbitrary tonnage limitation on what counts as an escort doesn’t reflect reality. Once upon a time, a destroyer massing more than 4,000t was insane; now that’s small.
If memory serves, it was research done by the CEBR a good few years ago, and GDP growth rates generally support it. The key aspects are that the UK’s service-based economy and continued population growth will withstand the changes in the global economy better than Germany’s manufacturing industry and stagnating population.
Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) economic forecasts.
I suspect it’s you who relies more on crystal balls and chicken entrails…
Were the people who did these forecasts on mushrooms at the time? I’ve more chance of being the next “Miss World” than the U.K. economy has of being bigger the Germany’s in the 2030’s.
Just some of the recent forecasts after Brexit;
-Take back control on immigration and asylum, and cut migration to the tens of thousands-Cut VAT on energy bills to save the average household £64 a year-Wages will be higher-£350M for the NHS a week instead of being sent to Brussels-Financial protection for farmers who get cash from Brussels- Trade with the EU will be tariff-free and involve minimal bureaucracy
And I have seen that they have all come true in Lewis Carroll’s land.
Since the big red bus spending on the NHS has increased by £750m a week…..I’m sure we all appreciate how much easier it is to see the doctor as a result…
Germany’s economy shrinking due to demographics doesn’t make ours any higher. But we don’t need to worry about still having a blue water navy in 20 years, as the ships we are buying now, Tides, FSSS, T26s and T31s, will still be going in the 2050s. Even the T45s might still be active into the 2040s.
We’d have to actively choose to sell off the Navy. Who would do that? Who would buy it?
Brazil would buy it. In a heartbeat. So would other South American nations.
Yes Big is beautiful especially if it has 3 funnels! Seriously you are right, we often under scale our ships and end up adding tonnage after the first batch is built. Even the Type 32 looks to be larger than the Type 31 if it ever gets that far. How lucky we are the RN chose the Type 31 rather than the tiny BAE offering.
I’d have thought having a smaller x-Band up top for sea-skimmers, with 4 fixed panel son of SAMPSON on the mast (S-Band)and one pointing up would be okay. In future OTH radar should be supplemented by UAVs and ABM will be a bigger thing.
This T26 variant is perhaps a interesting short term solution, but as the ballistic/hypersonic missile threat surely intensifies over time it may be that in the longer term RN AAW destroyer designs will be required to incorporate DEW technology at their very core rather than missiles – with all the additional electrical energy generation and storage capacity implicit in that. So the AAW destroyer of the future may not resemble the VLS barges we see today and be a very different kind of beast indeed.
Or perhaps we won’t need a traditional destroyer type at all because maritime AAW defence is on the verge of its own 21st century ‘Dreadnaught’ moment and the future belongs to a patroling cloud of UAVs, or even some satellite based detection and interception system.
All this ‘Star Wars’ stuff of course depends on directed energy weapons being proven to be a effective defense in all conditions – which I believe is yet to be shown to put it mildly.
“This would likely require some reinforcement of the midships area to support the VLS foundations but the additional topweight consideration is relatively modest and BAES naval architects have clearly calculated it to be within safe limits.”
A courageous statement, Minister…..
It’s not just “topweight”, it’s the moment that weight applies. That’ll be those same naval architects who have recently had to add over half a metre to the beam (in addition to the nigh-on one metre they had to add just prior to Main Gate for T26, then). Adding that beam will help, but is unlikely to fix the underlying stability compromise against DEF(AUS)5000. It’ll also reduce speed and potentially increase fuel consumption.
Having said that, removing the access doors at the sides of the mission bay and plating them in might ameliorate the stress concentrations there.
As for T83/FADS – a very poor choice – although BAES are clearly starting the same pitch they did in the 90s with an “AAW variant” of T23 and the mid-noughties with an ASW T45. The flaws in that logic are :
The continuing misconception that huge savings in design and TLS are possible. That assumes that a design completed in the mid-teens will be suitable (and compliant with regulations) for a ship to be built from new in the mid-thirties – a twenty year interval, during which no MoD/BAES staff will have conducted any meaningful design and therefore have no experience / knowledge of the design intent.It further assumes that the same equipment items at the same mod state and software configuration will still be in production twenty-plus years later. Which is another courageous assumption.It will severely prejudice any inclusion of DEW in T83/FADS. T26 power and propulsion architecture is relatively low on electrical generation because the RN drew the wrong lessons from T45 and were scared of electrickery. You can’t just add it back in.Every single time someone proposes saving money by re-using an existing design, they are opening themselves to knowledge atrophy. The savings are illusory – because NRE in design is a relatively small proportion of the programme cost and people confuse that with programme delays imposed by external effects.
Would love to see more information on AAW T23 and ASW T45 proposals! Or was it BAE just saying ‘yeah we can do that’ without providing any details?
I guess the T45 and T26 sagas show not that design is costly but that endless changes and deferments by the MoD coupled with small numbers are what really inflate costs.
The T23 AAW one predates power point and was a Yarrows (as was) PR brochure if memory serves. The T45 was one of the MVD (Medium Vessel Derivatives) in the S2C2 era.
People mis-understand design. Detailed design (ie producing the individual drawings for systems, compartments, steel units and all the documentation such as items lists and x-refs to purchase orders etc) is always costly because of the sheer volume of it. Trouble is you have to re-do it even if the design doesn’t change much (ie a batch or a variant) because things shift around or components change. The earlier stages are not particularly costly, but its where the benefits (and risks) lie. If you understand design, you can understand risk and deal with it before it becomes a problem. If you don’t understand design, you don’t understand risk – which is why our major primes are obsessed with “clashes” and “re-work” as opposed to the more elemental risks such as poor weight estimates, configuration compromises that lead to structural or stability issues etc. Hiding away from those early stages (eg buying off the shelf) means that your ability to understand what compromises or limits may be inherent in those design choices is limited – not least because the original designer certainly won’t tell you!
You obviously don’t think much of digital twins and fully digital design, not to mention what AI bring to the table. By the way my background is risk management.
Digital twins and digital design are great for what they’re intended for and used properly are fantastic aids to production and in-service support. However, the effort and time required to produce them in the first place is significant and they are not the same as understanding design intent or getting the design into the right place to start with.
By the way my background is ship design.
Many thanks for making many good design considerations in very clear fashion. I hope the relevant decision makers read carefully!
My background is naval architecture and shipbuilding.
Appreciate your comments, but they seem to overlook the fact the BAE have gone “all in” on the digital twin/digital design concept for the type 26, which has been a significant investment and should bode well for future modelling.
Of course they are – they have to build the thing. So are Navantia / H&W for FSS (I’d lay some decent money BMT didn’t do their design in FORAN from scratch though!).
It’s all about knowing when – as in the stage of the design process – to apply digital tools. Much more importantly, understanding that just because you’ve spent a fortune on a digital product model for a ship, does not make that ship – or a variant thereof – low risk for a different requirement.
That is where the understanding of the underpinning assumptions and design intent is crucial – and if you don’t have it, either because you’re using a twenty-year old design or because none of your staff have ever had to do early stage design, then you can make very expensive mistakes, very slowly without knowing it, until its too late.
Digital is great.
Provided the team knows and understands what it is doing…..that, I think, is NaB’s point?
Small core team to thrash out the high level decisions fast.
Hand off to bigger team to detail it in the digital domain.
Small score team retain oversight to ensure the design pillars are not iteratively eroded…..
I think the whole process is a single digital design model. Its just a you go ‘deeper’ and further on there are more digital layers involved which arent defined or visible early on.. That way certain features are fixed early on and cant be changed unless you up the management level- where the implications are obvious from the single digital model.
The issue is the high level decisions have to be set out by a team who knows what they are doing.
Very often this is fastest done round a table sketching by hand.
To a certain extent building much bigger ship with much more compact electronic systems makes the design infinitely easier.
A landscape gardener maybe , but even a house preliminary design is detailed digital design with various choices offered.
A complex warship would be the same – with the decision makers offered range of choices many based on a similar hulls. If none are acceptable is back to a newer design and repeat.
Remember the NL feature on the Carrier design choices, they were quite detailed….as was the process in the 50s and 60s
risk management – like cleaning toilets?
The allusion is lost on me, but if it keeps you happy, yeah lots of toilets at global banks like Goldman Sachs.
How far have you fallen from those toilets?
I have no knowledge of a T23 AAW variant or an ASW T45.
However, there was a Yarrow proposal for a T24 Frigate and a T25 Frigate. See Ship Nostalgia.com to see a model of the T24. Both were dated 1979, so predate the Type 23, which was a post Falklands campaign design. The T24 looks like an updated T21 design. Both were aimed at export markets. The T25 was intended as a cheaper variant of the T22. Neither reach the stage of detailed design, which requires a large design team.
A modern ASW hull needs to have a high degree of suppression of radiated underwater noise built in at the design stage as per Oberon class SSKs, RN SSNs, and the T23 and T26. Such capability would be virtually impossible to incorporate at a later stage. The T45 hull did not undertake that investment to suppress U/W radiated noise.
Similarly, the Navantia bid for SEA5000 submitted an ASW variant of the Hobart class. They claimed the Hobart class had an ASW hull. I very much doubt it.
F100 design was originally an ASW frigate that was pushed into AAW role with the addition of AEGIS after the cancellation of NFR-90. The Nansen class was also built based on it to meet Norwegian ASW requirements.
It is possible that Hobart carries over at least some original ASW-oriented design properties like propulsion arrangement or other acoustic signature reduction measures
That is a really nice explanation.
I’ve no idea what AUS is really trying to achieve other than a monstrously expensive ship.
This T26/T45/cruiser mashup is getting absurd.
As you, sort of, point out it is wandering so far from the common design that it really a unique design based around a low(ish) electrical output set of prime drivers..
It is getting to the point where they would be better off with two sub classes that are more specialised…..and keeping to the UK hull.
That’s a fair amount of empty space about in and above the mission bay utilised in the new version.
As many (including myself) have indicated, the mission bay takes up a lot of space, which, for a destroyer (as against an ASW frigate), can be used for other things. BAE actually have 3 mission bay replacement options, not just the 64 mk 41 cell option that the media have concentrated on.
Do you have a link or images to the alternative configs? Or is the third option with other mushroom farm?
Coll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_nU7EyRSyk
Around the 11 minute mark Xavier is talking to BAE. All the hype & model is around the extra 64 mk41 vls. The BAE guy though does mention 16 & 32 cell versions.
Note that RAN does not use CAMM (currently). It’s smallest naval AAW missile is hot launch ESSM which compares more with CAMM-ER than CAMM. Definitely no mushroom farm
Oh yeah. I have seen that video. I must have not been paying that much attention. I want the models.
ESSM does have a major flaw in that it can’t really be used for point defence. As during launch it is lofted on a high ballistic arc before falling down on the target. This takes time, even if the missile is moving close to Mach 4. So there is potential for leakers to get through, especially sea skimmers.
CAMM being “soft launched”, after being flung 30m up, its tail mounted reaction jets point it towards the threat. Which takes less than 2 seconds. Thus making it significantly more effective for point defence against sea skimmers. I believe this is the reason why Canada chose a mix of ESSM and CAMM for its T26 variant.
The RAAN Hunters will have a possible air defence gap between the ESSM’s minimum engagement range and the maximum range of the Phalanx. This could easily be solved by using CAMM.
I think the ballistic arc you are describing is situational as can be seen in the video in the link below, it doesn’t go very high up and changes direction rather quickly and heads down range.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuUbLU-DdgA
I understand that ESSM Block 2 is considered more agile than the original Block 1 version. There is more to Block 2 than the addition of an active seeker.
It’s an interesting watch. Essentially post launch when it commences its turn, it bleeds off significantly energy conducting the sharp turn. For example when it was launched by the steerable launcher, it accelerates significantly faster than when doing the sharp turn from the VLS.
Aerodynamically speaking the ESSM’s tail fins will have less authority until speed has built up. Which favours CAMM with its tail mounted reaction jets. It also means that the CAMM is loosing less energy on initial launch. As the reaction jets don’t use the main propellent. Therefore all the engine’s propellent can be used for accelerating the missile towards the target. Whereas ESSM has to use some of this propellent not only for blasting out of the tube, but also to do the initial turn towards the target. Which is one of the reasons CAMM reaches further than expected.
Much more likely to go for Sea RAM, which probably was developed to fit the ‘gap’ you identified
https://navalpost.com/why-u-s-navy-select-searam/
has some very nifty features that I wasnt aware of.
Should also be be considered for the RN carrier self defence gap
SeaRAM was already tested by RN on HMS York as far back as September 2001.
You are 25 years late
But not for the carrier at that time was it . The Destroyers and frigates hame the Sea Ceptor now
25 years later the circumstances are different
yes, no more money
Canada is I believe currently planning to fit both ESSM and CAMM to its variant of the T26.
Yes. Apparently so
“Raytheon’s ESSM was selected to provide “point defense”. Instead, MBDA pitched its missile for the RCN’s close in weapons system (CIWS) requirement. The Sea Ceptor beat out systems usually used in that role such as the RAM, SeaRam or Phalanx.” Naval News
You are still 25 years late, waffle between SeaRAM and CAMM
Not for carriers , which wasnt around 25 years ago
Its the also difference between 9 km range for the RAM missile to 2-3km for the Phalanx
Also the Sea ram has more advanced targeting sensors than 25 years back, as those who read my link would find out
Even back then the USN hadnt finished its own trails for the new system and the UK didnt have the development system for very long or even complete all its testing- mainly looking at defenses against fast attack craft.
Now the mission is supersonic ASM and getting a hit beyond the range of the 20mm cannon
Its amazing what some research about the reasons the trials happened and were cut short does find
Bearing in mind that the RIM-166 missile was initially based on Sidewinder. Which is a similar length to ASRAAM (ASRAAM being fatter).
So in that respects, having a Sea-RAM system, but using the ASRAAM missile would be better than the RIM-166 missile. As not only is it a lot faster accelerating and therefore will have a longer range. But also uses a significantly better imaging infrared seeker. However, to improve it further still, you could fit the active radar seeker from CAMM. Thereby giving it true all weather capability.
I wonder – will there be a horizontal launch variant of CAMM?
That would be the sensible thing to add to the carriers.
Along with some 40mm in place of the 30mm – as I think we both know the 57mm is too heavy to go onto the sponsoons.
Hi SB, CAMM is a bit longer than ASRAAM due to the pointier nose and the longer tail section for the reaction jets. It would make sense logistically to use CAMM in a Sea-RAM style launcher. If the bulk of your missiles are CAMM.
However, I have been hearing good things with regards to the ground launched ASRAAM in Ukraine. As ASRAAM and CAMM use some of the same parts. Could we see CAMM’s radar being fitted to ASRAAM, including the pointier nose? Also during flight the CAMM is carrying dead weight with the unused reaction jet propellent. In essence this would make ASRAAM slightly faster than CAMM.
If back in the day they could fit dual 4.5″ or 5.25″ on our carriers sponsons. It does make you question, why can’t they be beefed up to take the weight of the piddly by comparison Mk110 57mm mount?
Interesting thoughts.
I’d love to see a *horizontal* launched ASRAAM or CAMM on the carriers as well as 40 or 57mm with 3P.
Sort launch us born for carrier protection.
If you watch films of the Pacific Fleet in 1944-45 they are firing off with their twin 4.5″s like crazy. We need to uparm our carriers because believe me its arrogant to assume they wont need their own defence. They cant 100% assume there will always be a Type 45 or Frigate next door in harbour or dock in wartime.
CAMM would be a good addition to RAN in general, especially for ships that currently don’t have missiles such as the LHD’s or any larger OPV’/corvette if they shift from the 80m to the 90m version as Leurssen have suggested. I note that the CSC (Canada) uses standalone ExLS launches for CAMM away from the mk41 areas. Is that still possible on the RAN version?
It could be, those ExLS VLS cells are half the length of a mk41 so it would be easier to fit them on board
RIM-162 ESSM is used as point deference by USN in
Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, America-class and Wasp-class
But not as a vertical launch for those ships ?
The vertical launch, and its residual detritus.is supposed to pose issues for the deck aircraft
The canister launch on a horizontal trajectory isnt so ‘messy’ and doesnt involve as much vertical space above the carrier deck….you know where planes fly
Here’s another ESSM video, ESSM has no problem with point defense at all. Check at about 1:35 into the video, the missile tips ate just above masthead height on the ex-Spruance class test ship. The rest of the video is interesting as well. Sea skimmer impact is shown later in the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6rBbLR0aks&t=106s
Didnt show the tip over at all
The timing of the video start is after 1:35. You have to go back to see it.
Two launches are shown , none show tip over . have you watched it from the beginning
It looks like tipover to me. If that vid doesn’t float your boat, try searching for NSPO ESSM Block 2 CTV 1 and 2 Firings, and watch from 1:25 to 1:40 — that one’s in slo-mo.
DB, as someone who has shown familiarity in the past with radar systems, would you care to opine on the merits of Seafar Vs. Sampson?
CEA Technologies produce AESA panels operating in the L, S and X bands. CEAFAR-S is S band, CEAFAR-L is L band and CEAMOUNT is X band. Which I believe the Anzacs now operate all three types of CEA radars. Sampson operates in the S band and a T45 uses its L-band SMART-L for volumetric searching.
To allow a ship to have the panels mounted as high as possible, CEA have made the panels modular. I think for the Anzacs, they are using a 16 x 16 module panel, the Hunters may be the same, I haven’t seen any specifics yet. CEA also use 6 panels arranged hexagonally, thus each panel should have a field of view of +/- 30 degrees.(60 degrees total. This is to maximise the available transmitter-receiver modules (TRMs) to generate the beams power. But it also means that more of the received signal is towards the centre of the panel, thus maximising sensitivity. Additionally it is well known that the Anzacs had to include additional ballasting due to the added top weight.
However, as the CEAFAR’s antenna array panels are placed on a mast above the bridge. Therefore, to minimise the additional top weight, it means that the overall cross sectional area of a single array is a lot smaller than say with the Raytheon SPY-6, that’s being fitted to the Arleigh Burkes, which also operates in the S-band. As GB alluded to further up. It also means that there is more weight required for cooling systems placed higher up. All adding to the ship’s top weight issues.
Performance wise, I would expect CEAFAR to be behind the AN/SPY-6 in overall power output and receiver sensitivity. Primarily due to SPY-6’s much larger single array cross sectional area. However, there have been rumours that CEAFAR, may use inter-panel mutual interference to boost a beam’s power. I’m not so sure, as the space between the individual panels looks too wide. Normally between TRMs, you have a 1/2 wavelength space, which minimises mutual interference. There is a finite limit in how far apart mutual interference works. I guess it could work, but it wouldn’t be as efficient as you’d hope.
To put things in perspective the Flight 3 ABs, a single SPY-6 array made up of 37 modules, which are 2ft x 2ft in cross section. It will have a similar amount of detection range to the Thales SMART-L MM radar. The SMART-L is operating at a lower frequency (L-band), so is more power efficient when transmitting. But the ABs will have four panels! That is a lot of weight and cooling requirements, but also requires significantly more electrical power.
Sampson, is at least 20 years older than CEAFAR and around 30 years older than SPY-6. Although the rear end signal processing will be pretty much similar. You can’t ignore that Sampson’s front end is “old tech” that uses Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) transistor technology. Whilst CEAFAR and SPY-6 uses the newer Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology. This on its own makes a difference, as GaN components generate significantly less internal noise and operate at higher temperatures for longer without degradation.
From some images it looks like Sampson’s individual antenna array is slightly bigger than the Hunter’s CEAFARs in area. Though it is arranged hexagonally as opposed to CEAFARs diamond arrangement. The SPY-6’s octagonal arrangement is better overall for beamforming. As there are more TRMs radially from the centre, than you would have with a rectangle. Therefore the beam will be more circular and can be made narrower. Both a hexagonal and diamond will generate a compromised circular beam pattern. Though the hexagonal will have the more circular beam form.
I would presume that CEAFAR operates with a higher effective radiated power (ERP) and its reception is more sensitive, due to the newer GaN components. So it should in theory be able to detect the same size target further away than Sampson with a slightly smaller individual antenna array. Though Sampson’s radar horizon will still be further away than CEAFAR’s, as it is placed a lot higher than the CEFAR panels. Though CEAFAR will have a better radar horizon than SPY-6’s, being on the mast over of the bridge, rather than below the bridge as per the ABs.
All three radars currently suffer the same problem. Which is they have a radar dead zone directly above the ship. An AESA panel will have an elevation limit of +/-45 degrees from the centre of the antenna array, giving a total of 90 degrees field of view. Again this is a natural constraint due to the design of the antenna array. However, most ships lean their AESA panels back by 20 to 30 degrees, so they can see further up. Meaning the cone above the ship could be from 30 to 50 degrees wide. Which is a problem for the ship, if it faces very steep diving threats. There has been talk of the T45 getting a third Sampson panel. Which would be fixed looking directly up. Thereby closing this radar dead zone. However none of the USN or RAAN have so far looked at doing the same, as far as I know.
Without a working knowledge of either CEAFAR or SPY-6, it is very difficult to make a fair opinion on their merits, compared to Sampson. However, I would say based on the improvements over SPY-1D, SPY-6 should be considerably better. Based on what I hear in the industry, CEAFAR is also a very good radar system. Are they better than Sampson though? Well in some ways yes, but in others no. Sampson although relatively old is no way near as power hungry and its cooling is a lot simpler. There are clear design paths that can be used to make Sampson even better. But it cannot be as powerful or as sensitive as a very large fixed panel, unless you made it into a large fixed panel, such as what you can achieve with SPY-6. CEAFAR is therefore something in the middle. Where its performance is constrained by the number of modules you use in an individual array and where it is fitted on the ship.
I seriously doubt the RN or MoD should draw any lessons from the shenanigans over Hunter other than how not to do it. Dropping the mission bay would be madness for many reasons. That is what will give us the flexibility to operate unmanned systems over the next 30 to 40 years that the 26 will be in service and even longer in the case of Type 83. Many of which are not even in the minds of todays designers. Type 83 will be significantly different to Type 26. Because it’s role will be significantly different. The hull shape and propulsion of Type 26 are designed to be as acousticly quiet as possible not to provide a stable platform for a very heavy long range radar mounted as far above the waterline as possible.
Agree, many on here seem to think that naval architecture is easy and that ships can be done like lego bricks. Would love to hear an informed view, perhaps from a retired naval architect…
The hull form perhaps isnt the biggest issue . Its the fitting of all the noisy parts inside that and the integration of the gas turbine and diesel propulsion and power systems in rafted modules.
Maybe do what The USN does and go for RR gas turbine electrical generators and skip the diesels ?
https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/defence/naval/gas-turbines/ag9160-generator-set.aspx
I wonder if the single shaft 14 stage GT is grandson of Avon ?
ABs fuel consumption is big…Thats down to the Main GTs and the GT Gensets. The requirement for fuel means there are massive tank that extend quite high above the waterline. These are sea water compensated tanks so the additional cleaning and polishing systems for the fuel add to complexity as do the pipework.
I have spent more time than I care to think about in various AB fuel tanks overseeing semi-permanent repairs to wasted comp water pipework.
Another disadvantage to GTs is the huge intake duct requirements for air, big uptakes for exhaust and the IR signature for the exhausts.
Agreed.
One obvious solution to increasing the loadout without changing the base design too much. Is to include a “loyal wingman” arsenal ship. At its most basic, this could simply be a Mk41 VLS carrier, that shadows the Hunter AAW where ever it goes. Being directly controlled by the Hunter. If money was available you could add additional sensors etc.
Way beyond my paygrade to know how far away from that we are. Too far as far as the Hunter opponents in Aus are concerned. It just seems like a dick measuring contest for the ‘experts’ there. How many VLS does it have is the beginning and end of the debate.
Do you have any evaluative evidence for the superiority of Ceafar assertion?
“ Delays to starting Hunter construction have mainly centred around the additional top weight of the CEAFAR-2 modular active phase array radar antenna. Significantly superior to the Artisan of the RN Type 26, the domestically-developed CEAFAR was specified as the RAN wants increased anti-air warfare capability for its prime ASW combatants.”
Not only did the Hunter Class require an AAW capability over and above the T26, hence the SEAFAR2 embodiment but the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) requires an AAW capability similar to the Hunter class. The Canadian government intend to replace the 12 Halifax Class and the 3 Iroquois (280) class with 15 CSCs. They are likely to be fitted with the AEGIS radar system which is likely to create the same topweight issue as the Hunter class with SEAFAR2.
The CSC went down to 24 MK41 from 32. Im sure in an effort to save weight
The CSC will use a version of the the Lockheed Martin SPY-7 radar, the Spanish F110 frigates are also going to use the SPY-7.
at least technology-wise, it’s a GaN AESA radar – which would be inherently better in every way to the original GaAs technology, if everything else is equal, that is
also fixed radars generally have better update rate and range (as they aren’t limited by rotation speed, just adjusting beam) although cooling system takes quite a lot of space, but again that was mitigated by using GaN radar
Update rate isn’t that big an issue with 2 radar faces. Take T45 as an example with 2 radar faces taken at a point in time facing perpendicular to ships head.
Each face can “look” left and right say 60degs from ships head.
With 2 faces you are covering 240degrees of arc at a time with 60 degs on each beam unscanned in a moment of time.
The faces rotate at 1 rotation every 2 seconds (30rpm).
The 60 degree sector remains unscanned for less than 500ms taking into account radar rotation and the ability of the radar face to look left and right at 60degs from the radar face.
In effect a 4K mph target may have moved approx. 800-900m in that short 500ms of time. With the height above sea level of T45 radar you pick up the target earlier anyway than you would with a lower down fixed array system.
Not forgetting Sampson in particular can also vary its rotation rate. So if there is a swarm of targets approaching, it can slow down the rotation in that sector. To allocate more resource time for transmitting at a higher pulse rate. Thereby giving the signal processing more data to work with. Those guys and girls down on the Isle of Wight who designed Sampson, don’t get enough credit!
Another point to take into account are the inefficiencies that an AESA panel antenna array suffers from. In the main, an AESA is restricted to a 120 degree field of view (FOV) in azimuth (+/- 60 degrees to the array’s bore sight). However, as the beam is swept towards the ends of the array, the effective radiated power (ERP) will start dropping off. This is a natural consequence of the array’s design. As you have less transmitter-receiver modules (TRMs) capable of generating the beam, without generating interference or used for steering the beam. Which also affects reception.
The best way to visualize this, even if it is an oversimplification. Is to imagine the positive half of a sine wave as the FOV. where at 90 degrees (the peak) is the array’s boresight, where you have the maximum generated power and best reception. As the wave progresses away from 90 degrees, you start to see a drop off in performance. Where at say 120 degrees the wave is fair bit lower than its peak. So its power generation is less as is its reception sensitivity. In reality the shape of the sine wave, would a lot peakier from 60 to 120 degrees, with an elongated peak at 90 degrees. Either side of 60 and 120 degrees it will drop off sharply, although it can still be used by using advanced (costly) signal processing to remove the ghosting. But you will hit a cost versus performance imbalance.
However by rotating the array, there is more of the array’s TRMs that can be used to maximise the ERP, as the beam can be more centred. Which is significantly better for efficiency but also reception. This is one of the main reasons that the USN on the Arleigh Burkes and Tico’s use a four panel array, as they can limit each arrays FOV to 90 degrees, and use more of the TRMs for generating the beam. Yes, you can still use three panel arrays. But they will still suffer from performance issues the closer the beam gets to the +/- 60 degrees limits. A very good compromise, would be to use three panel arrays mounted triangularly and rotated mechanically. As rotating the arrays will mitigate the edge of the array’s performance issues.
Back of an envelope calculation suggests moving the radar up the mast from 20m height to 40m gives about an extra 7km distance to spot a target at a given height. Not as much as I was expecting, but significantly better than the 800-900m lost through the spin. For a close to the ground/sea target that will make a difference.
The other distance trade off would be for high-up objects, where how good your radar is becomes far more important than how high it’s placed up the mast. Picking up a jet at 150 miles from a 20m high antenna will still be at about 150 miles from a 40m high equivalent antenna, as the horizon is not a limiting factor and the time lost to spin is negligible. So aperture, power, RCS, sensitivity, processing power etc, make the difference. If a single fixed antenna works better than a spinning one, it will pick up the object sooner. And vice versa.
So I’m wondering if having twice the number of antennas lower down allows any other advantages, such as increased power through water cooling. The more I play with the numbers, the closer run thing this gets.
In its most basic form. The power of the transmitted beam of an AESA panel is governed by the number of transmitter-receiver modules (TRMs) used to form the beam. So if we take the Raytheon AN/SPY-6 used on the Arleigh Burkes. This is an S-band radar that uses 37 individual modules to make up the antenna array and each module face is 2ft square. The modules are arranged in an octagonal pattern of 7 modules high by 7 modules wide. Which gives an area of over 170 square feet.
Sampson also operates in the S-band. There is next to no information on the dimensions of Sampson’s individual antenna arrays. Except the dome fairing that covers the two arrays is 4.8m (15.89ft) in diameter. So the presumption is that a Sampson array is quite a bit smaller in surface area to the SPY-6. Simplistically an AESA’s power output can be described as the number of elements (TRMs) power output multiplied by the antenna gain of each element. Therefore the more TRMs equals the more power. This is also true with receiver sensitivity.
A fixed array is always going to be superior to a spinning array. The CEAFAR is large, heavy, very high powered and has high cooling requirements. It’s also a gallium nitride system which has far higher power density than other systems. It’s also completely scalable so you can equip them on anything from a corvette to the largest cruiser. All these clues point to the fact that CEAFAR is likely the best radar system on the planet, with the future American SPY-7 being very similar.
Radars have moved on since the AESA Sampson, the CEAFAR radars and nearly all other modern Navy radars use GaN-on-diamond amplifiers developed by Qorvo in 2013 which come with a much better thermal conductor enabling a three-fold improvement in heat dissipation or increased input power to increase the RF output power by a factor of three and also the previous gen GaAs MMIC amplifiers used by Sampson requires many more devices and is more complicated, as it incorporate a 32-way combining network making it much larger than GaN. DARPA/Raytheon recently claimed they had unlocked a new way to produce Gallium Nitride, where thermal management is no longer a limiting factor and the improved transistors will have 16 times higher output power than traditional GaN with no increase in operating temperature.
Would note the size of the T/R modules is mostly governed by wavelengths, K,X, S & L, since you have to pack them it at a appropiate density to avoid grating lobes.
Presumably BAE are all over this for Typhoon upgrade and Tempest. Presumably also available for Sampson. All things being equal therefore a GaN Sampson rotating high up with current software and current processing power would still be a superior solution.
Do not follow aircraft radars closely but thought the Leonardo Typhon upgrade radar will not be GaN, Tempest possible as RR showing a very large upgrade in generating power from the new engines, power which will be required for a GaN radar both for its much higher RF energy output and the necessary cooling, Raytheon have the new GaN APG-79 (V)4 funded by the US Marines for F-18 E/F and Saab showed a prototype aircraft GaN X-band radar fitted to a Gripen last year, but don’t think so far have found anyone to fund it, GaN radars expensive.
No hint that MoD/BAE funding a GaN Sampson upgrade, they are not even replacing the SMAART-L on the T45s and QNLZs with the new GaN SMAART-L MM/N as are the Dutch with the MLU of the Dutch De Zeven Provinciën class and the French and Italians on the Horizon class frigates.
PS The GaN radar power requirement would have required substantial increase from generating power of the T26 for the Hunter’s CEFAR GaN many radars, no doubt one of the major drivers for Hunter’s increase in size and cost.
ECRS Mk 2 uses a combination of GaN and GaAs. I know Leonardo kept with GaAs for the Osprey and Seaspray radars, to keep down the cost of low SWaP ISR, but for the fighter radars they used blended, presumably to manage power and cooling.
There’s nothing difficult about adding or swapping to GaN or SiC that BEA or Leonardo can’t do it. The Kelvin Hughes SharpEye radars have used GaN for over a decade, Terma Scanter uses them as well (to name a couple of other radar types you’ll find on a Type 26).
I would disagree that a fixed panel array is always going to be superior to a rotated array. Designing an AESA array is a series of compromises. One of the main issues to overcome is weight. It is very good to put the transmitter and receiver on the same board right next to your antenna. Which minimizes losses, but compared to a traditional (old fashioned) mechanically scanned radar, you have nearly tripled the weight of the antenna array, that was previously fed by waveguides and had a arrangements of wire dipoles to make an antenna. This means you are now constrained on where you fit the AESA array, as you have to take into account the additional weight.
There is no doubt that the new Raytheon AN/SPY-6 radar is significantly more powerful in both its effective radiated power (ERP) and reception sensitivity than Sampson. The new Lockheed Martin AN/SPY-7 which forms the basis of the long range discrimination radar for static ballistic missile defence and has been scaled down for ships, is also more powerful etc. However, even though all these radars operate in the S-band. SPY-6 and 7 use a significantly larger radar arrays than Sampson. Though this is constrained by the number of modules that make up the SPY-6 & 7 arrays. Which is again governed by how much the ship can handle the weight of these radars.
When Sampson was being designed the predominant threat was seen as sea skimming missiles, as it gives the ship less time to react to the threat. This was one of the reasons Sampson is mounted so high, which therefore gives it a longer radar horizon. However, the compromise is that the arrays are smaller, due to the top weight requirements for the T45. Having the two arrays mounted back to back and mechanically rotated was seen as the best compromise to scan the horizon as far away as possible.
A ship with even the most powerful AN/SPY-6 radar, has to be able to balance the four panel arrays weight. Hence why on Arleigh Burkes, they are mounted quite lower on the superstructure. Therefore, they will still have a similar radar horizon as to when they had the AN/SPY-1D fitted, thus still shorter than a T45 and Sampson. So in this respect the T45’s Sampson is still superior to either SPY-6, SPY-7 or CEEFAR.
Is it a myth that the S-band Sampson is the best radar due its height above sea level to address the low-altitude anti-ship cruise missile threat is the best option.
According to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the USN radar consultants since WWII X-band radars are considered optimal for shipboard self-defense (horizon search) as X-band frequency with its great ability for low-altitude propagation characteristics which if atmospheric conditions suitable overcome the Earth’s curvature causing the RF signal to propagate well beyond the horizon and also comes with its narrower beam width for better track accuracy and wide operating bandwidth.
Thales Nederland have said a weak point of the S-band is that the radar signal bends slightly upwards at the horizon, so that low-incoming targets are not immediately detected and why X-band radar required for best radar combination.
A prime example being Saab with its GaN AESA S-band Sea Giraffe four panel 4A Fixed Face naval long-range radar with the lightweight rotating GaN AESA Giraffe 1X fitted on top for max horizon range in Saab’s Integrated Lightweight Mast on the Finnish Pohjanmaa class.
So Nick, you are saying that your opinion is better than someone who actually works in the sector and has a detailed technical background. Do you actually any technical expertise?
I don’t understand how can this question can even be made.
It is a modern modular planar system with antenna in various frequencies against a system from late XX century with one frequency band.
CEAFAR is vastly superior to Artisan.
Each CEFAR system is one frequency . The Anzac frigates have adjacent but separate arrays for S and X bands T26(A) will have additional plates for L band
the X band is target illumination only the S band system is no different to the so called ‘late last century system’ as they are both flat plate systems. One is multiple fixed and the other rotates .
Tom-atoes or To-matoes
No. CEAFAR is vastly superior in capability to Artisan starting with max speed target… and as you just wrote the Type 26 version that is what we are here talking about CEAFAR 2 should have 2 search frequencies L and S albeit i found them to be too nearby in the radar spectre. Maybe in opposite extremities.
So multiple different physical radars , one for each band.
this is T45s multiple radars
Type 1045 S band or Sampson
1045- L band 3D large vol search(S1850M)
1047 X band -some say I band
1048 E/F band
So you are comparing future radars that have yet to be built or fitted to an in service vessel
havent we been here before … everything you claim is refuted … just you take time to walk it all back. be my guest
The comparison in question was the type 26 and the hunter class, not the Type 45. Nevertheless while SAMSON is very good, it’s dated and will not be as good as a next gen CEAFAR system.
Hunter class and its radars are some years away from being in service. Feel free to compare future types with each other and their brochure claims
That is precisely what OP asked us to do.
The CEAFAR2 radars though do already exist & are operational on a number of Anzac frigates. These are scalable radars (designed to be that way). The Hunter version is just a scaled up version of the existing radars. It’s not a new radar.
You mean this for HMAS Perth. Notice the traditional air search radar still there
No, that’s the original CEAFAR radar upgrade (no L band). Try here (an official site) for an up to date pic. Note that this is an ongoing upgrade (there are 8 to get the upgrade). Not sure how many still to go but it multiple ships have been done.
https://www.defence.gov.au/project/anzac-air-search-radar-replacement
Note also that BAE both designed & installed both CEA Anzac masts. Yes Hunter CEA mast is a problem, but no-one has more CEA design & install experience than BAE.
That is an old photo of an old version.
As you noted that new-Hobarts would be 20 year old hulls (I assume the design).
Worth noting, if the UK did use a derivative of the Type 26 for the Type 83 in the late 2030’s, that would also be using a 20 year old core hull design.
Nothing intrinsically wrong with that as long as the major equipment is much the same.
remember the Boeing Dreamliner is a 20 yr old design now and the US navy USS George Bush was the last of the Nimitz’s 1968- 2005
nab is of course right about the limitations and the loss of design understanding in that 20 years
well, there was a case study of USN being quite fine with using ~50 year old Burke hulls up until DDG(X) enter service, so it might not be a very big deal
USS Antietam is still in service ( barely), launched 1985
The current build for AB has had a major hull re design to increase bouyancy- according to Namsea
Came across this artist impression of DGX
https://www.navalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/L3YHEYUAR4KW27U235GYXHNNWA.webp
The Hunter class is way too expensive. They are currently just as expensive as the Zumwalt class. That is of course absurd for an ASW frigate.
Although the Hunter class has a modern hull, it will certainly not be better than, for example, the new German F126 frigates. This frigate of more than 10,000 GRT costs 1.3 billion euros. If you compare this with the current price of the Hunter of 3 billion euros, this of course way over priced.
The Australian version already costs 3.8 billion euros each. Truly absurd. This is unaffordable, even for rich countries like Australia and Canada.
Ignore the ‘public price’ thats including development, production , entry into service , simulators , all the weapons systems, sensors and intial load of munitions plus the maintenance costs up to midlife ( or longer ?)
Only excludes crew and fuel
USN uses a different system and publicises the actual contract costs to development and build.
T26 in Australia cant really cost much than they cost in UK- who also used inflated program cost
Also that price would include the cost to build the entire BAE shipyard as well.
The shipyard exists already at Adelaide- its where the Hobart class were built. Just that BAE have stuck their name on it now
A big extension was added behind the existing shipyard between 2017 and 2020, as well as upgrading the existing infrastructure in preparation for the hunter class and fully digital shipyard
The frigates could turn out to be more costly than the U.K.’s recently purchased aircraft carriers according to this Canadian article.
Please read this Canadian article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/frigates-pbo-canadian-armed-forces-1.6631702
“Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux now forecasts that construction costs could hit $84.5 billion for the design and construction of 15 frigates.” That equates to C$ 5,6 billion (£ 3,3 billion) for each ship.
The Canadians and the Australians already have a shipyard, so there is no need to build a new shipyard.
The hunter class shipyard in Osbourne had to be rebuilt and expanded for the program, which has added billions and years onto the hunter class program and many people don’t acknowledge this in their calculations
This might explain an increase of about £ 500 million but not an increase of £ 2 billion. These ships are even more expensive than the Zumwalt class. You can buy a 70.000 GRT Queen Elisabeth aircraft carrier for the same price.
Australia also had to buy intellectual property off the Brit’s to a tune of $1.5 billion. And the final quoted price likely includes both building the hunter class as a whole and the running costs for the next 30 years. It’s very common for the Australian government to quote prices like this because it is seen as more transparent.
The headline of that Canadian article is: “New frigates will cost Canada more than C$ 306 billion over lifetime, budget watchdog says”.
That C$306 billion is the expected “Total Life Cycle Cost”. That amount includes everything from design to operating costs.
I can not imagine that anybody thinks that this is not an absurd amount of money.
Robertson was awarded a £31.5 million contract by Babcock to build the module hall for the Type 31. This is a huge hall for next to nothing compared to the price of one Hunter class ship. This can not explain the huge price increase. Even if you quadruple the price for additional infrastructure.
Some new large sheds for building under cover then. The launch for into the water facility is fine for T26
Pipe fabrication …. !
The adjacent submarine overhaul buildings will need to be expanded at great cost for a nuclear sub build but thats many years away yet
https://www.ani.com.au/osborne-naval-shipyard/facilities/osborne-south/
Not sure about the exchange rate but this seems to be the contract;
“The expected time frame for the first of the Australian Navy’s Hunter-class frigates is 2031, aaccording to defence minister Richard Marles. BAE Systems received a £3.7 billion contract in 2017 for the construction of the first three vessels. Australia’s Hunter-class frigates are based on the design of the Royal Navy’s Type 26s“
So not so sure about these hysterical extrapolations.
Not sure where you get your figures from, but at £840m each the T26 compares favourably with all its competitors on price and is clearly superior, for it’s intended role ASW than all.
BAE Systems Gets Contract To Build 2nd Batch Of 5 Type 26 Frigates
“The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a £4.2bn contract to BAE Systems to manufacture the next five City Class Type 26 frigates for the Royal Navy in Glasgow.”
Maybe, like many, you are confusing the price of the ships with the price of building state of the art shipyards, which will not just be used for these ships but als their successors.
You are right about the build price per ship is around those numbers for Australia too plus their different radars, combat systems etc
The shipyard already exists for the RAN T26 , they completed the AAW destroyers there
Please read this Canadian article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/frigates-pbo-canadian-armed-forces-1.6631702
“Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux now forecasts that construction costs could hit $84.5 billion for the design and construction of 15 frigates.” That equates to C$ 5,6 billion (£ 3,3 billion) for each ship.
The Canadians and the Australians already have a shipyard, so there is no need to build a new shipyard.
Ok so if the RN is paying less than £1bn for it’s Type 26 why do you think RCN and RAN are paying so much more for their equivalents ? Where do you think the money is going to ?
I might be able to explain an increase of about £ 500 million (due to a redesign, more expensive radarsytem, etc.) but where the rest is going is a mystery to me.
I’d add in that Canada has admitted the unit labour costs at it’s yards are significantly higher than in USA. If that’s true they must be eye wateringly high compared to ours. Still though it doesn’t add up to the massive difference in cost. OkamsRazor might have a point but i’ve suggested that to a Canuck on another site and he’s denied it. So !!
Higher labours costs and intellectual property ($1.5 billion) do play a part in the higher price per unit but it does not explain the enormous price increase. A lot of these systems (radar, CMS, propulsion and weapon systems) basically have the same price anywhere in the world. I’am baffled as well.
Methinks you are comparing apples with oranges. Like the Australian Hunter class you cannot compare the “ship” price (des+dev+prod) with the ship + Yard + infrastructure + running costs + inflation. That is silly and a common practice of lazy/tabloid journalists.
No apples and oranges here only a lot of A$ and C$…… The design was basically done in the UK. There is some redesigining in Australia because of the heavier radarsystem and more Mk.41’s. Running costs are by the way not included. The price increase is however absurd. You can buy an Elisabeth class aircraft carrier for that price. Read the article! This is by the way not the only article, just google it and you will find dozens of articles on this subject.
I’am afraid not, if you read the headlines of that Canadian article where it states that the new frigates will cost Canada more than C$ 306 billion over its lifetime, this according to the budget watchdog. That equates to C$10 billion each year for the next 30 years. That is a more than a quarter of the Canadian military budget! This is not sustainable.
Having had a look through the Canadian audit papers going back to 2017, I find the figures, which by the way are similar to the FREMM figures, opaque, in view of the T26 UK gov prices being published. So I could find no data to provide granularity. Highly unlikely that a like for like comparison would make the Canadian/Australian equivalents x3+ more expensive.
I understand that the German F126 is a bit of a joke. Comparing it to the T26 suggests a rather shallow understanding of the subject matter and quoting this 3.8 Billion figure tends to confirm this.
What really is a joke is the LCS ships aka Little Cra*py Ships. Underarm, underprotect, cost as much as AB to run, 20 years late, billions overpriced, unreliable.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship
https://www.propublica.org/article/navy-littoral-combat-ship-takeaways
In what way is the German F126 a joke? It has state of the art radar and combat management system. It is 10.500 GRT ship with a 127mm gun and 16 Mk.41 VLS cells and has a Captas-4 towed sonar array. This ship is going to be build according to German Naval Rules, these are even more stringent than the US Navy . The only shortcoming is that only has 16 VLS cells. However there is enough room on the bow for another 34 cells. If they sacrifice the multi mission bay there is enough room for at least another 40 cells.
With regarding to the price of the Canadian version various sources do confirm this price. Shallow understanding? I do not think so.
However, other articles confirm my previous posts:
https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2022/10/31/canada-can-do-better-than-a-306-billion-surface-combatants-price-tag/354602/
http://espritdecorps.ca/feature/canadian-surface-combatant-watchdog-says-something-has-to-give-as-costs-increase
https://www.defense-aerospace.com/cost-of-canadian-frigate-program-hits-c306-billion-over-life-cycle-pbo/
https://www.arabnews24.ca/en/Cabada_news/229284.html
These are total life cycle costs for 15 frigates including transfer of technology.
I take it that VADM Hilarides USN short sharp review of RAN’s Force Structure, now with the Albanese government, has not been exposed to the public domain, so I cannot speak authoritatively but here goes;
The Royal Navy, within NATO, are recognised to be preeminent in ASW and MCM. The USN are recognised to be preeminent in AAW and carrier borne operations, both with extensive development following their experiences in the Pacific in WW2. The RN, and the RCN, developed their ASW expertise, during and from, the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2.
The PLA(N) aspire to have a 50 strong SSN fleet. AUKUS will need a strong counter to this threat.
The Block I to IV Virginia class SSNs have 12 VLS tubes for Tomahawk. The Block Vs will have the VPM module for 28 Tomahawks. In all, 66 vessels are planned. This constitutes a considerable land attack capability.
The Astutes are more of a hunter-killer concept.
It is understood that the SSN AUKUS will have to have a VPN module since the torpedo launched Tomahawk will cease production.
The RAN from WW2 with its light cruisers, through the Daring class destroyers (Vampire et al), the Charles F Adams class of DDG and present Hobart have followed the USN in having an AAW bias.
Flight I and II Arleigh Burkes and the Flight IIIs, now replacing the Ticonderogas, exemplify the USN’s AAW capability, and in considerable numbers.
The USN’s (and RAN’s) Oliver Hazard Perry FFG 7 frigates were no match for the RN’s T22s.
Now the USN are developing the FFG-65 Constellation class frigate, based on the French/Italian FREMM design. An order for the fourth of 20 FFG 65 has been placed.
With the high number of Arleigh Burkes in the AAW role, is it not a good idea to ensure that we have enough Allied surface ASW vessels? Surely the 32 T26/Hunter/CSC vessels is a good start to counter the PLA(N)’s SSNs?
I am not advocating that the RAN do not need Tier 2 vessels. I would they suggest they need T26 ASW platforms AND Tier 2 vessels! However, appreciate that with the cost of the RAN achieving a mix of Virginias and SSN AUKUS that something will have to give.
I think the RN should use the T266 hull (either of larger Canadian or Aussie variants) to build what I have labelled the T46 air defence destroyer CSG escort to initially supplement the current T45 and then replace them, giving the RN time to mature technologies for a larger cruiser sized (12-15k ton) ABM and anti-hypersonic missile defense capable ship with large loadout and land strike capability which would be the T83.
This approach avoids rushing the T83 design and buys the RN time in the T45 replacement while also briefly increasing hull numbers and keeping production lines hot.
How many of your T46’s would you want ?
I was thinking of 5 “Type 46” which would essentially have the improved Sampson radar from the current Type 45 (3 plate – on top upward looking third) and CAAM / PAAM missile systems of the Type 45. Something I am unable to find answers for though is if the Mk41 VLS can accommodate and launch the PAAMs. If so, I think BAE systems should be able to build these 5 additional vessels for roughly the same unit price as the 8 Type 26s because nothing changes from the Type 26 except for the radars and the addition of the PAAM missiles.
Below I see others advocating the Type 31 as the additional air defence frigate because it would be a cheaper hull to build on. I agree on issue of price but I think BAE systems after the initial 8 Type 26 needs to be kept busy until the Type 83 is ready.
I would rather prefer the RN to use the Type 31 hull for the Type 32 and then also acquire a further 5 of the Type 31 but this second batch being more equipped as ASW vessels to provide supplemental support the Type 26s in the same manner that I envision the “Type 46” providing support to the current Type 45s.
This would approach would provide the RN with an additional 15 surface combatants (5x Type 46, 5x Type 31 Batch 2 and 5x Type 32). Wishful thinking on my part probably but the RN has to start thinking of increasing ship numbers and how to get them manned (I have ideas on that but that is for another time).
Lockheed Martin have said Aster is qualified for Mk41. However, I have yet to see any data of a firing integration trial. This is the same with CAMM and ExLS.
Using even the smaller GCS hulls would be overkill for a second tier T4X, when the cheaper T31 hull is derived from a AAW ship and Rosyth comes available five years before Govan. Also, build an expensive T4X and there will be no T83.
If RN decides it wants a tier two destroyer it could do worse than teaming with the Netherlands, who are having issues with Germany as their potential partners and are looking around for someone better. Like with T31 and Iver Huitfeldt, we don’t need to build a full blown version from the off, but we know it will have the size and pedigree to upgrade to a full-fat ABM destroyer, as that’s what the Dutch will be building.
A T32 based AAW ship would make a lot of sense. It would be great to use a modified and upgraded Samson radar (I know that it wouldn’t be as high up as on the T45s, but still far higher up then AEGIS panels on most ships). This would help keep building on our advanced radar capabilities ahead of a more complex T83 build.
It would also give us a great product for export (see Navantia who have sold Aegis ships to the Norwegians and the Aussies).
Branaboy I came to say that but you beat me to it!
One would hope given the situation with a major war in Europe, the Gov, if not the general public at large, we might find the funding to increase the fleet AND manage to recruit and retain enough sailors to crew them! Fantasy fleets…… 🙂
I like the idea of 4 to 6 “Type 26 Batch 2” CSG escorts as the inner layer ASW and AAW defence for the CV. Ditch the 127mm for a 57mm, and the fwd CAMM for Aussie style fwd 32 strike length MK41. I would keep the midships 24 CAMM, and go with less midships cells than the Aussie’s – 48 tactical length MK41, less top weight not requiring the extra-beam? Go with a cheaper CAPTAS 2…..
If we could afford the munitions, that would give options including as an example: 32 Tomahawk/FCASW in the fwd cells, and 16 VLA, 16 x 2 CAMM-MR, and 16 x 4 CAMM-ER = 32 MR’s with 100km range, 64 ER’s with 45km and 24 CAMM with 25km – 120 surface to air missiles!
As you state it would bolster fleet air defence, freeing up the T45’s and Aster 30’s for BMD, and keep the ship building drum beat up while taking time to consider options and technologies for T83.
I have been thinking about T31 again.
Staying in the realms of what we really should have done I think 6 diesel sloops based on the Absalons would have been better value. Half the machinery but still capable of 500 mile daily jumps. But with better aviation layout than the IH. With a lot of space aft for TAS / VDS etc.
Crossing over in to the grounds of wishful think 6 or 8 of the above with 4 or 6 ships based on IH as air defence sloops.
Sloops ?
This is Finland’s 4300 ton corvette
Looks a fairly standard light frigate / patrol frigate. 32 ESSM is a single 8 cell mk41. Could do with another 8. Nothing like an Absalon frigate though. For the Baltic, really need that extra 8 mk41.
Why ditch a perfectly good 127mm in favour of a decidedly 2nd grade 57mm? Canada already tried that. Not an error they are going to repeat. CSC will have 127mm (Leonardo version).
Type 26 will be a formidable ASW ship, but not so much an AsUW combatant, though its 8 NSM and Wildcat helicopter will help somewhat.
The RAN has different issues. Their 3 Hobart class are pure AAW combatants, and they will most likely reduce their order for 9 Hunter class Type 26 variants to a class of 6, if for no other reason than they need to procure additional smaller vessels AND they’re spending a ton on SSNs. To maintain some semblance of control, they’ll probably upgrade the second ‘batch’ of 3 Hunter class, and may likely procure an upgunned Lurssen OPV into a light frigate. Again, to keep some commonality of systems, while reducing the original OPV order down to 12 vessels.
As you say, a formidable ASW vessel, so, a AsuW capability is a secondary function. I don’t believe that T26 are currently slated to receive NSM, believe that they are going on T23/31/45.
T26 are slated to receive FC/ASM when (if it ever does) arrives – sometime in 2028! Also stated that there will be two variants, LR strike and ASM, with the LR strike arriving first.
Their 3 Hobart class are pure AAW combatants
So the Hobarts haven’t had their hull or towed array sonars fitted then? Or their STWS too?
Hobart
They have both hull & towed sonar array & torpedoes. The original F100 design was based off a AAW frigate originally. However they were built as an AAW ship with 48 mk41 cells & a destroyer based radar & CMS. They are now AAW based allrounders, unlike RN T45 where they gave up on AWS altogether (eventually). Not in the class of T23/T26 or Italian ASW FREMM, but that’s not why they were bought.
Sorry – based off an ASW frigate originally.
Not pretty is it.
One feature of Australia’s defence strategy that may not be widely appreciated is the recent requirement for long range strike. The DSR released in March called for the ability to implement an anti-access/area denial strategy focused on the archipelagos and sea approaches to Australia’s north. In response, all ADF services have been tasked with enhancing littoral operations in the region and developing long range strike capabilities. For the RAN, surface combatants such as the Hunter Class will need sufficient VLS cells to accommodate significant numbers of long range strike weapons such as Tomohawk in addition to the normal air and missile defence loadout of SM2, ESSM, ?SM6 etc.
A vessel with 96 VLS able to deliver 40-50 Tomohawks to targets up to 1500km away better serves the stated A2/AD strategy than an ASW focused vessel only able to deliver a few long range strike weapons without compromising its own air and missile defence.
Any loss of ASW capability should be well covered by the future acquisition of SSN’s, something not on the table at the beginning of the SEA 5000 program.
I am confused. So with 96 vls loaded with 50 tomahawk missiles leaves you with 46 AA missiles which is according to a lot of people is no where near enough to be a serious AAW vessel
I am unable to determine exactly what the priority of the Hunters is supposed to be after reading all these posts.
AA
Morning @AA, the Hunter class are going to replace the RAN ANZAC frigates (a smallish GP Warship), and are designed with the primary focus on ASW. Having said that, the Aussies also want them to have good Asuw and AaW capabilities, so perhaps a smaller newer version of a Arleigh Burke class!
Clearly the vessel design is perhaps realistically a tad too small for what they are trying to achieve, hence all the compromise we are seeing.
Perhaps a better solution would have been to join the Italian DDX project or similar, or, go for a two ship solution (which is invariably far more expensive).
Morning fella. I have posted a reply, but for some reason has gone into ‘moderation’ not that there is anything contentious in the post!
See ? Just like magic, All the post’s are gone !!!!!
Yes, I do see your point. Either you are right at the top of the naughty staircase for whatever, or there is a technical glitch in the system. Try getting hold of admin and see what they say – if of course the post doesn’t vanish first!!!
Australia already has an order in for 200 Tomahawk missiles. RAN also uses quad packable ESSM in addition to single SM-2 & later SM-6. You want more AAW missiles, add more ESSM (CAMM-ER sort of range), 4 for every SM2 you drop.
The article concentrates on the additional 64 mk41 cells, as does most of the media. For that you loose the mission bay & much of the ASW fit out. You end up with a T45 type destroyer but with 96 mk41 vls. If you instead go for the additional 32 or additional 16 vls version you get to keep some sort of mission bay & most if not all the ASW mods. RAN has ordered 9 Hunters, but there are inbuilt design options based on 3 ship batches. It looks like RAN (remember the SSN deal was post Hunter deal), wants to change away from 9 Hunters to 3 Hunters plus (3+3) whatever. This is article is about BAE’s most drastic option for ‘whatever’. In my opinion it will be 3 ASW Hunters, 3 ASW/AAW Hunters & 3 AAW Hunters. RAN is happy, BAE is happy & the lawyers are unhappy.
A note of caution for all those who slavishly swallow Chinese military outputs;
“ At least four Chinese frigates, F-22P commissioned in July 2009, are giving nightmares to Pakistani Navy officers and men tasked to keep them afloat in the turbulent waters of Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Three of these frigates were bought from the China Shipbuilding Trading Company, while one was built at the Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works on the basis of a technology transfer from the Chinese company.
Frigates are two of the most common warships in a navy’s fleet, the other being destroyers. Both are deployed for quick manoeuvrability and are used by navies to escort and protect larger vessels from air, surface and underwater threats. They are equipped with the latest weapons and defence systems, which are vital for their main roles of escorting and protecting large vessels. Some navies use frigates in an anti-submarine mode as well as for short-range air defence.
In 2005, Pakistan had signed a $750-million deal with China to design and construct F-22P or Zulfiquar class 2,500t multi-mission, conventionally powered frigates, which were delivered between September 2009 and April 2013. The Pakistan Navy had set the following mission objectives for these frigates: air defence of a force operating at sea or in convoy; interdiction of hostile surface combatants; commerce raiding, patrolling, protection of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ); and undertaking heliborne operations. This means that the frigates are equipped to operate in multi-threat environments and are equipped with long-range, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.
After the commissioning of the frigates, the Pakistani Navy found out that the on-board imaging device of the FM90 (N) missile-system was defective because of a faulty indication on display. The system was unable to lock on to the target which, in a way, made the missiles ineffective, thereby defeating one of the critical mission objectives. As it turned out, these ships were found to be equipped with a defective infra-red sensor (IR17) system and SR 60 radars, two of the most important sensors on board, which are used for air and surface search. These search and track radars were found to exhibit faults during high-power transmissions, substantially degrading its operational utility. The IR 17 sensors on all the ships were found to be defective and had to be discarded, with the replacement yet to be fitted.
Another set of common faults in the Chinese-built frigates were found in its main engines. These frigates are powered by four diesel engines. A critical engine defect has been low engine speed caused by high turbocharger exhaust temperatures, especially in engines 3 and 4, on all the frigates. High degree of degradation was noticed in the engine crankcase and liner which undermined the coolant chemistry in the ships. Lube oil degradation and deterioration of vibration isolators were some other faults in the engines.
There were other specific deficiencies in different ships. PNS Aslat, for instance, exhibited poor radar performance. The ASO-94 Sonar system on Aslat was erratic in its performance and on inspection it was found it was caused by faulty computing units. Likewise, Aslat’s SR-47 BG Search Radar was below par in performance and repairs were carried out with cannibalised parts from other F22P ships. The ASO-94 Sonar on board PNS Zulfiqar was reportedly picking up false contacts, caused by high noise levels radiated by the ship. The frigate developed a serious snag during an operational deployment in the Gulf of Aden. The port rubber blade of the frigate was dislodged causing it to be grounded for a period of time. The Vice Chief of Naval Staff, Pakistan Navy, expressed great concern over the issue to the head of the shipping company and asked to be compensated for the loss of operational time.
An equally serious deficiency noticed in PNS Zulfiqar, the first Chinese frigate to be commissioned, was the NG 16 single barrel 76mm gun mounted on it. The gun, equipped to engage other ships and aircraft and defend against anti-ship missiles, developed numerous faults in the mechanical and electrical parts, severely limiting its utility. PNS Saif has been running with a problematic HP5 stabiliser gyro since its commissioning. A gyroscopic fin stabilizer, found on both sides of a ship’s hull, prevents excess rolling of a ship, in either direction. The Chinese firm admitted that the fault was caused by defective Gimball Assembly motors, These motors were yet to be repaired or replaced, endangering the ship’s berthing operations.
Defective critical components and poor service from Chinese manufacturers have forced the Pakistani Navy to operate these four frigates with degraded operational capabilities, compromising some of the key mission objectives with which these ships were bought at a high price.”
TL;DR
was copied from
https://www.geopolitica.info/chinese-frigates-give-jitters-pakistani-navy/
Thanks. Forgot to include link.
Perjury – caught red-handed
Plagiarism……. 😉 🙂
TLDR
I thought these used MTU & what is now MAN diesel engines built under license in China? If so, did China modify their design or shoddy manufacturing? If I remember correctly, the MTU’s ran the gensets.
Quality is an issue. My problem is that quantity has a quality all of its own as the saying goes. How much barely adequate kit do they have to field before their numbers win out? And has the USN enough quality capabilities to win out? Thankfully they are doing something about the AShM gap finally. I do not think China has the capability to control the Taiwan Straits to invade the island, but the USN does have the capability to deny them. Consider also those Afghan tribes were running around for the most part with poor quality Chinese (and Pakistan) AK47’s. Then there is Russian dimension will they improve Chinese quality? Also consider perhaps the biggest maritime threat the PRC poses isn’t the PLAN but their Maritime Militia.
INDEEDQUANTITY HAS ITS OWN QUALITY – JOSEPH STALIN
China’s arsenal of anti-ship weapons is truly a force to be reckoned with the YJ-12, YJ-18, YJ-83, DF-21, and DF-26.
Today China’s surface fleet is mainly composed of about eight cruisers, 30 destroyers, 30 frigates, 50 corvettes, and 60 fast-attack missile boats.
Most of the PLA surface fleet’s capability to fire large volumes of long-range anti-ship missile firepower is concentrated in its large surface combatants, a force of nearly 40 warships that was built within the past ten years.
If current production trends hold, this force of large surface combatants could double to around 80 warships within the next decade
China’s surface forces can be significantly bolstered by non-military elements. China’s coast guard and maritime militia feature numerous vessels, and its commercial shipping fleet is massive. While these ships feature little in the way of firepower, they can considerably enhance the distribution of Chinese forces and complicate targeting by allowing the Chinese surface fleet to mask its presence among these more numerous vessels.
China’s ability to mass fire against warships is a product of a truly historic evolution. China was a third-rate maritime power only two decades ago, but it has transformed into a force to be reckoned with.
By emphasizing quantity, Chinese manufacturers have been able to scale rapidly, driving down production costs
The writing is on the wall.
They are copying, designing, and building in bulk.
From Naval News this week……..
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/11/chinese-submarine-is-first-to-exploit-new-stealth-technology/
Harkens, see
TL;DR
was copied from
https://www.geopolitica.info/chinese-frigates-give-jitters-pakistani-navy/
Lots of junk that can’t do target acquisition and completion of kill chain, is still lots of junk. China’s much vaunted hypersonic missiles missed their targets by 20nm! According to the FT (sorry didn’t keep link). Don’t understand why seemingly intelligent people are so susceptible to Chinese media output.
Russia/Ukraine seems to put a lie to the old canard about “quantity”. I prefer the aphorism about “cannon fodder”.
I have been watching some DCS naval battle simulations. Not that realistic as there is no ECM. But it does show the scale of an attack an escort group would have to subdue. And it does simply become a numbers game. Areleigh Burke’s with twice the missile count as T45 run out towards the end of these imaginary engagements. It does some pause to think that perhaps T45 needed at least space aft for another VLS. Adding SeaCeptor cells instead of quadpacking into Sylver was a good decision. It is a shame that the design didn’t share the Italian Horizon’s layout when it came to 76mm mounts.
Perhaps not as going as far as Hunter but perhaps T26 should have an AAW capable like the RCN T26 variant, Continental FREMM’s, and the USN’s FREMM variant? T31’s count now looks comically small. If their had been money T31 perhaps could have followed its base design and become a second rate AAW ship with a SeaViper Lite as it were.
As I have said here a few times I think we should join the Italians in their Horizon follow on project for T45’s replacement.
TWIZK, a schoolboy view of missiles would view all missiles as equal, however, this is not the case. As DB and others with technical knowledge have previously explained, the kill chain requires capture, identification, interception and destruction. This involves both radar and missile. The T45 has a 1:1 kill ratio and x2 radar horizon (in simple terms). Whereas guided interceps, which is the primary AB system requires 2:1 and has a lower radar horizon. So unless these types of factors are utilised in the simulation, for both Horizon and AB, then the simulation is pretty useless. As of now, in the real world the T45 is the pre-eminent AAW destroyer, the AB’s are being upgraded (partially I gather as LM are having difficulties incorporating X Band coverage to upgrades), but so are T45, both radar and missiles and missile count.
It is a many layered problem. My point is simply with opfor fielding more and more missiles supported by better ECM systems there will come a point where more kinetic kills are needed. I appreciate what you say re SeaViper.
Appreciate your comments. Forgive my long winded response. Should have said we have the best AAW destroyer and we are improving it. I’ve been Reading recent GAO reports on the USN and they are in a mess! The ABs are old and a dead end and they are almost afraid to go ahead with the replacement in case of another Zumwalt/Ford/LCS clusterf????????k!
It wasn’t long winded. These things are hard to describe.
SeaViper is superb. And AEGIS has it faults. But there are 6 T45’s out there and over 100 AEGIS hulls. And those AEGIS hulls are mostly better armed than T45 too.
“The T45 has a 1:1 kill ratio and x2 radar horizon (in simple terms). Whereas guided interceps, which is the primary AB system requires 2:1 and has a lower radar horizon. “
If you really believe any system has a 1:1 interception rate then I have some beach front property to sell you. Based on everything I’ve read the USN 2 interceptor to 1 missile is down to doctrine and not so much technology. They are still firing 2 SM-6 (which many would argue is the most capable interceptor anywhere) at one target in recent testing.
I would say both doctrine and technology lead to Aegis shooting 2 missiles at 1 target.
But that is my point that nothing is perfect so relying on SeaViper’s superior tech may not always mean we would win out.
Netking, you do realise that “guided” missiles have a lower intercept rate than “seeker” missiles? Or do you think that the technology is made up, like Chinese/Russian tech.
Yes I do. The SM-6 I mentioned earlier is an ARH missile. It’s truly puzzling that so many people believe this wild claim that any interceptor would have a 100% interception rate. I’m not sure if the claim originally came from the manufacturer or mod but it’s simple fantasy, perhaps to paper over the fact that in a high intensity fight with a peer adversary, any surface vessel with a small amount of interceptors faces the real risk of being overwhelmed by the amount of incoming missiles.
It is quite strange that British commentary is even more jingoistic than in French sites.
It is quite interesting that only in British sites i see this need to present ewar equipment as best in the world.
OkamsRazor certainly don’t follows his name sake principle, asking that Artisan is better than CEAFAR and saying that Aster is a 1:1 missile while Standard is a 1:2 missile are only possible with a very strange concept of reality.
Explain how your “seeker” missiles are not guided? Is that by mental power?
Every type of guided missile uses some form of guidance system for aiming.
Are you making things up?
So for a full technical debriefing on missiles and radar you need to read some of DaveyB’s posts. However, put simply, there are “dumb” missiles which are given intercept coordinates by the ship, launched and are then guided by the ship’s radar. As opposed to “smart” missiles which again are given target intercept by the ship, but use their own radar to acquire and lock onto the target. So T45 uses the latter and ABs, mostly the former (although they are slowly transitioning to the latter. The reason for this is cost and inventory.
What really genuinely intrigues me is why spending billions on digital design, CEAFAR radar, GaN Sampson, T26, Hunter class, T45 1:! kill, etc are needed to counter some Chinese/Russian junk, technology that is made up?
All these T26 projects should be canceled as there is no real need for it.
That’s the problem. It isn’t all junk. Far from it.
The T45 has a 1:1 kill ratio ????
This must be the first perfect system created, the history of warfare has proved otherwise, I have yet to see any claim anywhere that T45 kill ratio is 1:1
Charles Ponzi also said he invented the perfect investment scheme,
I think in both world wars the number of bullets fired to kill an enemy soldier averaged somewhere around 100,000
I seriously doubt if even the most modern missiles on any side can claim a 1:1 kill ratio!
Obviously there are no perfect systems, as a risk management consultant for major entities l obviously understand that, however, unlike Chinese/Russian weapons, NATO weapons are subject to verification testing and FOI/Audit oversight. So when we use the colloquial expressions 1:1 or 100% professionals understand these weapons are very effective at target acquisition and elimination and there have “colloquially” expressed no escape zones and that this has been verified by testing. So nothing to do with “perfect” or “jingoistic”, but merely technical understanding and data analysis.
I’m sure the KGB and can-tell-no-lie Boris agree with you!
The Aster/Sampson combination isn’t really a 1:1 kill ratio, it is a 1:1 allocation. The ship’s CMS allocates 1 missile per target. As Aster and CAMM use active radar homing (ARH). Where the seekers are gimbled, so can follow a target’s manoeuvres. The pK value or chance of a kill against that target, is above 90%. That’s as much as I can say.
The legacy Aegis ships using the SPY-1D and AN/SPG-2 that use the early block versions of SM2 and ESSM, must allocate 2 missiles per target. As these versions of SM2 and ESSM use semi-active radar homing (SARH). Where the target is found by the SPY-1D, then continuously illuminated by the SPG-2. The AEGIS then allocates two missile to the target. As the target is now “locked on” by the SPG-2, it will manoeuvre to try to break the lock. By doing so, its radar cross section (RCS) will vary. At some points becoming a null whilst others reaching a maxima. If only one missile was allocated there is a chance the reflected signal from the target, that the missile is hunting for disappears. However, if two missile are allocated, they are separated by x-distance, so there’s a greater chance that at least one of the missiles will still see the target, even its jinking madly all over the sky. A single SARH missile will have a fairly low pK value, whereas two missiles will significantly increases the chances, but it is still below 90%.
This is the reason why SARH missile systems have a lower pK value than ARH systems. As SARH are easier to evade, due to how they require a third party illuminator to track down the target.
Thanks for the technical clarification and overview.
Thanks for your comments on this article. They’re appreciated even if not always understood.
Watch this for entertainment’;
Red Storm Rising: Chapter 20 The Dance Of The Vampires
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo8FhChnyq0&t=25s
Attacks of aviation Regimental size on Carrier groups. Only the RN is still preparing to re-fight Falklands 2.0 by the attack of 2 planes super Etendard
I have never read the book, but I do know the chapter as it quite (in)famous in defence enthusiast circles.
We won’t find industrial wars at sea in the future. So what few platforms we will have will be needed to be loaded for bear as the Amerikans say. Even then it will be more a question of willy waving. If an exchange of fire happens both sides will push for rapid de-escalation if for no other reason than cost.
If the sh*t hit the fan in the South China Sea then couples of hundred of AShM or drones per engagement would not be exaggerated.
The drones will absorb up all the SAM for the AShM to get through.
It would be chaos.
I think there should be a competition for the T45 replacement and it should not just go to BAE. Also the T83 may need to be a larger ship and we may be better off with a clean sheet design. I do not think buying more MK41 vls is a bad thing it does not lock us into buying US systems so long as we can put our UK ones in too. (eg Sea Ceptor, ASTER etc).
Hello Admin, i love coming to your site, reading all the content and replies but why do you delete so many posts ? I guess my question will disappear shortly.
We appreciate all the contributions of our informed community but please read our moderation policy https://www.navylookout.com/comment-moderation-policy/
Comments that are petty personal attacks will be deleted. Please stick to the subject of the article. This is not a chat forum and in general, fewer and more in-depth comments are appreciated.
One of the chief assets of this site is technical contributions from the likes of DaveyB/Gunbuster, it would enhance the site considerably if they were to do periodic articles on current subjects.
Seconded.
Why do you get a room with them?
There is something disproportionate about a £1b+surface warship whose offensive capability amounts to a single 4.5/5 inch gun and a handful of anti ship missiles. The threat of air or land launched missiles now demands that the sensor / weapon suite is concentrated on self defence, hence the “well defended herbivore” jibe.
Adding greatly increased offensive capability can only be done at the expense of the self defence systems.
So perhaps another approach is required? Semi submersible arsenal ships ( China is testing the idea) would be difficult to detect and destroy. Or, a simple surface arsenal ship could accompany the standard destroyer/ frigate and rely on it for protection.
The only other credible option is to make the standard multi role surface warship much bigger.
Well the type 26 will have 24 mk41 silos as well as 48 CAMMs, ( don’t forget CAMM is not only a short range area defence missile, but can attack surface contacts..at three times the speed of sound, the kinetic energy alone in CAMM is greater than that of an 8in AP shell) 5 inch gun and a small ship fight ( which itself will carry anti shipping missiles) , that’s hardly under armed..it also has a mission bay that can be configured to carry an increased smallship flight, autonomous vehicles etc…it’s hard under armed,,considering its primary fucntion is as a top end ASW platform and not a surface strike platform…T31 will carry up to 48 MK41 silos as well as likely 8 navel strike missiles, small ship fight and mission bays for autonomous vehicles…again not an under armed ship.
Sounds great but I suspect in the heat of battle we would find that many more missiles are fired off than we anticipated. That was certainly the case in the Falklands where we went through Sidewinders like they were going out of fashion and had to be massively resupplied bu the USA
I wasn’t thinking specifically of the Types 26 or 31. Because missiles can’t be re loaded at sea, any ship is limited to what it carries. In protracted combat, the missile load will be used up very quickly, leaving only the smallish main gun in action. In land attack, look at the firepower deployed off Normandy or Leyte Gulf to support amphibious operations. To achieve equivalent effect, hundreds of missiles would be needed, far more than the entire RN surface fleet can carry, even on the latest plans to up arm. Similarly, the defensive missile load would soon be used up to deal with persistent air/missile attacks.
The RN fired just over 4500 shells during the Falklands War. Barely a few hours worth on WW1 battlefield.
24 or so minutes?
Vittorio Veneto Battle
From 24 to 31 October alone, the Italian artillery fired 2,446,000 shells.(from wiki)
12739 rounds/hour
Sigh … Thats was just grid square targeting. Modern ships guns are radar guided and with automatic loaders so 4 -6 rounds can be fired in quick succession
Exactly. 🙂
Could BAE. Please get one in the water and remotely even close to being operational before we start putting the cart before the horse again. Jesus, it’s been over 20 years.
It’s not BAE as such though…… It’s government and the lack of urgency/interest in the defence of these Islands …. just take a look at the Carrier build time frame and the woeful lack of the only fixed wing fighter suitable for embarkation procurement. We are 7 years in operating the QE class and so far only 8 UK F35B’s have been carried. Disgusting waste of tax payers money especially when you think the entire second World war lasted less than 6 years…… Just think about that for a while……
DVD, it shouldn’t be necessary to repeat this to anyone who has been paying the remotest attention to the QE program or the F35 program. The slow buy rate (appx 30 to date) is due to LM and their travails with block 4 upgrades. It is entirely right and it would in fact be irresponsible of the MOD to speed up the rate of acquisition until this is sorted. Do keep up before you comment. A quick search through NavyLookout would keep you amply up to date on the subject.
Really. Australia has almost finished recieving it’s order for 75. Was 50 for UK by now be too hard?
Please keep up, a passing review of NavyLookout would tell you that block 4 includes many euro weapons. If you are not a customer for these weapons block 4 is less critical. It’s not useful to assume that MOD Procurement is stupid.
It also includes various US weapons (especially the smarter ones). Actually F35 without block IV is a rather crippled fighter. Barely IOC but far from FOC. It has basic AA missiles & dumb plus smart bombs & not much else.
There’s a good overview from this site on the issues around F35.
September 14 2022
‘Building up the Lightning force – when will the UK get it’s F35 jets ?’
In part it explains what OkamsRazor is discussing.
Esteban, the program pace is deliberate and sustainable for the shipyard and its employees. The days of churning out ships, boom to bust are irresponsible and thank god they are gone.
Many people quoting Chinese navy numbers don’t seem to appreciate that military equipment is hard, not just copy repeat. You hear snippets of problems and failures but in a media denied country snippets is all you ever get. Military equipment is hard, engine’s are hard, radar is hard, missiles are hard. Stealing designs will only go so far. Then training and leadership excellence are hard.
One of the interesting, but overlooked facts about the loss of the F35 on the QE, was the fact that to launch the rescue boat, in practice the quickest time was 5 minutes, but in action they did it in 2 minutes! Training is an integral part of successful action. It helps when you are able to consistently train with high class peers like our US and other NATO allies. This is something that the Chinese fanboys seem to miss.
For me their biggest problem is depth in senior ratings due to a reliance on officers relaying commands from a ‘central authority’. It is PO’s, CPO’s, and WO’s who run the West’s navies not officers and especially not an officer corps constantly looking to their superiors for the next decision. They have gone someway to correcting this but are still lagging behind the West. To be honest I don’t think China culturally, that is a, in quotes, ‘Communist China’ will ever crack it.
It’s the inherent issue with all authoritarian regimes, they balk at the concept of delegating decision making down the chain of command.
My wife is Asian and over the past 10 years we have had many phd students staying with us whilst studying, including one who has gone on to work in a Parliamentary defence committee. Without speaking to students, we in the west don’t really appreciate the differences in the educational and workforce systems. Students often find it difficult to adapt when they are not told exactly what to do! Independent initiative is almost completely lacking. There is tremendous pressure to conform and produce. Having also spent time in Hong Kong and China people assume and even project western processes and development principles on to Asian cultures. They assume that they have the same cultural ethics and don’t realise that these have to be learned over many generations. Some of this China fanboyism is do to ignorance (just as was the 20th Century Japanese supremacy fad) and some due to the Flynn effect.
Yes. I hear you on that.
Yes. See the first jet airliner was the DH Comet , even though the US had larger civil aviation companies and more ‘geniuses’
Same again for the first and only supersonic airliner , the bigger population country was an also ran to the two europeans
The biggest factor was the US was just interested in other things
The irony is, Boeing’s A team of engineers were worked on SST, the failed rival to the Concorde.
Meanwhile Boeing’s B team of engineers were working on the 747…
While Concorde was the greater technological marvel, the 747 was far more successful.
(All before Boeing merged with McDonnel Douglas and went down hill..)
Agreed, it’s the same flawed thinking that thought we could parachute democracy into Iraq. It took Europe centuries to develop the mindset and value system that underlies democracy, and even still it’s not perfect and under continual threat.
The US under Bush forced free elections in Gaza too, guess who ‘won’ ….and no more elections
You confuse respect and unknown unknows for fanboyism and hubris with support for your own country.
China have a space program, have 1.4 Billion citizens so some should genius level, also have a society that values engineering and maths instead of a society with hundred thousands?millions terrorist supporters.
I detect the literacy of a Boris. If you believe population = power, you haven’t been paying attention to your history lessons!
“Alex” short for “Alexeyevich”
China has 1.4 billion citizens now, but with a fertility rate of 0.9 (worse than Japan and only slightly better than South Korea’s 0.8), its population is now in decline (witness India’s population recently surpassing it). Some economists now doubt that China will ever surpass the USA in terms of GDP.
As for population equating to power, how do you explain the fact that ‘tiny’ Britain ruled a quarter of the planet, including countries such as India?
As for the U.K. having “millions of terrorist supporters” I see that you’re displaying religious discrimination, specifically against Muslims.
Presumably you also think all Catholics support the IRA…
2023 estimates.
China GDP(PPP) 32,897,929
USA GDP(PPP) 26,949,643
It quite quite difficult to me to discuss things with persons for that everything is either binary or linear.
Population = power
That nevertheless don’t mean it is linear relation and person of country x have same capability of person country y.
Actually even depends on areas we are talking about.
And things are changing as years go by…
Making up statistics is not going to win your arguments.
Official GDP 2023 figures from the IMF;
USA = $25 trillion
China = $18 trillion
https://m.statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-ranking.php
Using PPP is disingenuous as it doesn’t cover the whole economy. It only covers around 3,000 consumer goods and services, 30 occupations in government, 200 types of equipment goods and about 15 construction projects. Using it for China is doubly flawed given the fixed rate of exchange of the Renminbi and the tariff situation.
Chinese fertility rate 0.9
An AK bullet that costs several times less than an M4 one kills as well.
Measuring US GDP based on large US litigation levels, absurd health costs and money for woke crap don’t make GDP nominal numbers very reliable.
I say that none is ideal, but PPP is the less worse.
That AK bullet only kills if it has everything behind it to make it effective. The training for the soldier firing it, the transport infrastructure to deploy him, the logistics to support him while deployed, the intelligence to tell him where to find the enemy, and the air cover to prevent him being splatted from above before he has the chance to pull the trigger.
And if the quality of the AK is less than that of the M4’s, then the greater the chance it kills the guy firing it. (As so frequently found by Russians firing North Korean artillery shells.)
GDP doesn’t cover litigation, and your whinging about “woke costs” just shows that you are thrashing around desperately trying to defend your disproven assertion.
Okay, but the strength of the Chinese economy is still truly imposing, and it is entirely too close to the US now.
The fact is that it was sloppy to lose the F35 in the first place, NATO training my foot!
And I have yet to see the Chinese losing any plane by not removing the engine cover, they must have forgotten to copy that trick from the RN!
Well clearly the PLAN have already put a 100 5gen fighters on their aircraft carrier and sailed around the world! Good training involves safe repetitions. Great training involves testing to the limits and learning from mistakes. Which do you think is used by PLAN and which by the RN. It’s easy to fight on video games and make no mistakes! I believe the PLAN have done a simulation in which they defeat the USN in the Taiwan straits easily!
Sailed around world ? 100 5th gen on the carrier
What joss sticks have you been inhaling
This was the ship bought from Ukraine , not a local development
All,
China also has very large reserves of both military and civilian manpower. They also have a huge civilian industrial base inside the own homeland; much of which could quickly be converted to military end uses.
Furthermore, in any war, the Chinese political leadership will be prepared to a sacrifice a LOT of both their own men, and also material = just to achieve their own very-long-term political objective(s) (As Stalin said in WW2; “to loose one million soldiers is a statistic”).
Thus, just as it was in back the days of the 1970’s / 1980’s Cold War stand-off between NATO and the Soviet Empire = today the Chinese Empire has a vast amounts of crude (but often still quite-effective) equipment and also plenty of men.
Therefore, at the end of the day, this is yet-another one of these age-old debates about whether quality (NATO/ARKUS) vis quantity (Enemy) will win (eventually).
———————————–
However, this entire debate on NL about whether, or not, the Chinese now have a good all-round naval warfare / fighting capability seems to be missing one key point:
…………….that distances across the Pacific are vast…
Therefore that little word “Geography” is very important
We all know that it is no good having effective individual warships and squadrons of fighter planes in the region if they cannot be constantly be logically resupplied.
In any near-future war – one which the pundits are betting is going to be for gaining control of Taiwan – the Chinese will be playing at home.
At most, they would only have to control and dominate a sea and airspace area only a few hundred miles off their own (very long) coastline.
In very marked contrast, any US/UK/Allied military’s responses to a Chinese’s invasion of Taiwan (i.e. one that is already underway) will be operating at the far end of a very long supply chain.
That allied logistical supply chain in the western Pacific could easily be stretched to its very limits if most of Taiwan’s airfields and seaports are put out of action early on. Remember, not only will there be military requirements, but also the need to sustain and feed millions of civilian Taiwanese citizens.
It is also very well known that, if the Chinese then also attack and disable US bases in Guam and and on the nearby Japanese islands (especially Okinawa) then allied logistical supply chain will become exceptionally awkward
Therefore, if a war over Taiwan does start, the balance of “quality vis quality” will probably mean that it will quickly degenerate into a long and very protracted sludging match (Just think back to the USA’s efforts at sustaining a very isolated South Korea for three years in the early 1950’s).
At the moment, the best bet is deterrence…. Thus, over the next few years, the whole island of Taiwan really needs to become very very spikey,,,,
—————————–
In the slightly longer term, given those huge distances across the Pacific, I am personally by no means convinced that UK and Australia buying slightly upgraded versions of existing frigate and destroyer designs – i.e. upgrades of those types of ships which were originally developed for use in the North Atlantic – is the right way forward.
To get greater ship range (more fuel) and better habitability (thus longer crew endurance) and especially to be able to carry all-round heavier sensor and weapons capabilities I believe that the MOD and RN really ought to be considering developing ships called Cruisers.
That would be a warship with a proper all-around anti-air; anti-surface and sub-surface capability: and (ideally) also carrying more than few helicopters and many small and medium-sized UAV’s.
It is only inside a larger cruiser-sized hull that the RN can possibly fit in all of the requirements that are now required to fight effectively out in that vast space called the Pacific Ocean
regards Peter The Irate Taxpayer
If you’re interested in China i’d recommend a podcast on Youtube called Lei’s Real Talk. The China you describe is a lot more nuanced in reality.
You’re missing OkamsRazor’s subtle use of sarcasm.
For the record China has 2 carriers in service:
• a Kuznetsov class ship which unlike Russia’s, actually works
• the domestically built Shandong
Irony escapes from my comments, obviously not!
PLAN have two working aircraft carriers and a third launched last year that is currently testing its catapults. Neither of the working carriers are big enough for 100 aircraft, the Chinese don’t have any operational carrier-based 5th gen fighters, they don’t even have 100 J-15s, and operating STOBAR, neither carrier is capable of launching the J-15s properly provisioned for war. Neither carrier has sailed around the world or anything like it, although both have reached the Western Pacific.
Liaoning was originally used as a training vessel to understand carrier operations. A recent refit spawned unproven rumours of an upgrade. Shandong, the second carrier, has been exercising as part of a strike group for some time. It is working to maximise its strike rate and in a recent exercise in the Pacific was accredited by Japanese observers with an average of 63 sorties a day, three times the rate Liaoning has managed, and I think better than any modern non-US carrier has achieved, although both Charles de Gaulle and the QE class could theoretically surpass it.
Chinese carrier capabilities will step change before the end of the decade. When the third carrier, Fujian, has been worked up, it will probably be big enough for 70 planes (estimates vary). The fighters are likely to start out as 4++ Gen J-15Bs eventually to be replaced by a variant of the 5th gen J-20, and because Fujian will work CATOBAR, the planes will be able to take off with a reasonable load out. It will certainly be capable of deploying around the world if the PLAN wants to do that.
Not yet though. Not yet.
Update appreciated. I also understand that they have severe recruitment and retention problems, as the navy is unpopular and there are increasing labour shortages due to the aging population and demographic.
And where did you hear that from?
https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-failing-to-get-enough-recruits-into-basic-training/
He didn’t say the West don’t have those issues, he was trying to make the point that viewing China as a perfectly efficient and uncountable fighting nation is misrepresenting the truth.
Who made that assertion here?
Sailor Boy
You are quite correct that China is NOT a “perfectly efficient” fighting nation.
As background information. There was a very good article published in the Economist magazine earlier this month (Nov). They did a very lengthy analysis, one that spells out all of the many issues within the Chinese armed forces.
Their analysis fully supports both yours and OkamRazors recent comments. This is the on-line “teaser” for it:
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2023/11/06/china-is-struggling-to-recruit-enough-highly-skilled-troops
All in all, the political situation with Taiwan is remarkably similar to that of the Falkland’s over forty years ago. Firstly a long-festering dispute about national ownership. Secondly an indigenous population that want to stay independent. Thirdly a potential aggressor that has a large military forces based all along a nearby coastline. Fourthly, whilst large in numbers, those military’s forces are, technically, still playing in league division 2
That all said, the big question remains unanswered. “Despite all of the obvious risks, will the Chinese leadership be prepared to go for it?”
regards Peter The Irate Taxpayer
The issue is the CCP have been undermined by their own propaganda
There are now 1.4 billion people who genuinely believe that the Chinese should and are capable of invading Taiwan at any moment. If that doesn’t happen then questions will be asked
Did you ask all the 1.4 billion?
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
No, did you?
I’m just saying that China have been conditioning their population for 50 years that their army is invincible and could achieve anything whilst America is corrupt and decadent. If the facts don’t back that up, sooner or later someone ought to notice that China can’t actually rule the world.
Shame that the UK won’t put as many missiles on our type 26
Their main role is ASW and we want to use the mission bay
What is needed is a ‘cheaper’ dual purpose missile along similar lines conceptually to the Raytheon Peregrine which is for air-to-air. SM-6 is too expensive. SeaCeptor doesn’t have the punch or range. This would be in addition to specialist missiles.
Whatever RN would need more VLS cells. T45’s replacement is going to have 96 cells or it won’t be worth it.
And that doesn’t answer the need for strike either.
One of the reviews suggested Peregrine would have the range of an AMRAAM while being smaller than a Sidewinder. Do you think it will have punch too? I think as long as it remained in concept, Peregrine was single purpose: to get funded. Now RTX has funding, it’s all gone a bit quiet and it’ll be interesting to see what the actual spec turns out to be.
CAMM is cheaper, dual use, and being extended in range with new variants. I’m not sure what you are looking for that isn’t in the CAMM or Aster family roadmaps. A cheap SM-6: longer ranger ABM that Aster 30 can provide?
I said….
along similar lines conceptually to the Raytheon Peregrine
The idea behind Peregine is that it is a cheaper and simpler missile than the current batch allowing it to be produced in larger numbers and so used in greater numbers.
I never said to use Peregrine. The important word is in bold.
SM-6 has a secondary anti-surface capability it isn’t just for ABM.
CAMM likes punch for anti-surface work.
I understood that. Just seeking clarification as to which of Peregrine’s many conceptual lines you were referring.
Perhaps something like an even larger CAMM-MR with a Sea Venom sized warhead (CAMM-MRX?), sending a 30kg warhead, 80+ miles at Mach 3? Useful for taking on small and possibly mid-sized warships. Could be much cheaper than SM-6, but not as flexible. Would AAW-enabled FC/ASW be any cheaper than SM-6? Doubt it.
I think a re-bodied CAMM would be a very good starting point. I think CAMM is astounding. Anything that can outperform SeaWolf VLS with solid state gyros is verging on magic. My thoughts about T26 needing to be able to shoot Aster is more about reaching out to take out the archer and not a criticism of CAMM. Perhaps also the same missile but with different warheads too?
SM-6 is just stupidly expensive. It is your typical American system.
My thinking is simply we have 48 ‘normal sized’ and moderately priced missiles as it were that could be used against air and surface to supplement the specialist missiles.
It’s accepted doctrine now that you don’t try and build a ship that is best in class at everything. Instead ships are built to be best at a role (eg area air-defence, ASW) but with adequate cover for other areas. So an ASW ship will have a point air defence system, and an AAD ship will have limited sonar abilities. (The role is defined by both sensors and weapons.)
The Hunter Class issues seem to be due to trying to include AAD on an ASW vessel.
In addition there now seems to be a greater requirement for large-scale land-attack.
Perhaps it’s time to think of a new class of ship dedicated to the land-attack role, rather than solely having it as a secondary role for AAD and ASW vessels?
If so, then perhaps for the RN, a T31 derivative could fulfil this. It would also justify the decision to now fit them with the full 32 Mark 41 VLS fit.
How about an Absalon with out hangar using all that volume aft for VLS?
Big enough and fast enough to keep up with a task group. Perhaps 2 per group?
And of course ‘co-operative engagement’?
Sort of a semi-arsenal ship?
Or perhaps we use the next gen LPD as a base design for a true arsenal ship?
hey, that looks like Argus
Maybe Americans are intelligent after all
Should be remembered that BAE are in danger of having the Hunter order cut back to allow the RAN to acquire missile destroyers. This is their response. Whether it can be regarded as a serious Type 83 contender remains to be seen. In my opinion it is probably too small which is an odd thing to say about a ship that will displace around 10,000 tons.
Other navies are looking at building new generation warfare destroyers in the 12 – 15,000 ton range.
‘the exceptional performance of the UK-designed Sampson MFR’ ?