Aircrew and maintainers that formed ‘Vengeance 4’ Wildcat Helicopter Flight serving on board HMS Diamond during her Red Sea Deployment have been recognised for their exemplary teamwork, efficiency and courage while operating in the face of the enemy.
While deployed in the Red Sea (Dec 2023 – Jun 2023), HMS Diamond came under sustained missile and drone attacks. Throughout this time, the 815 Naval Air Squadron Wildcat flight contributed significantly to the mission’s success.
The most intense period was on the night of January 8th, HMS Diamond and merchant vessels in her vicinity were subjected to a complex attack from Houthi rebels involving UAVs, USVs and missiles. The ship shot down 7 drones, the majority with Sea Viper missiles. With hazardous hydrogen chloride gas swirling around the ship from the successive missile launches and against the backdrop of further possible attacks, the pilot, Lt George Lunn led the Wildcat into action. The helicopter was risked as it prepared to intercept further drones while also confirming that the USVs which had disappeared from the ship’s radar screens had actually sunk.

With Sea Viper costing more than £1m per missile, HMS Diamond’s warfare team looked for cheaper alternatives for countering mass drone attacks. Working with the ship’s flight, tactics for using the Wildcat with Martlet missiles in this role were rapidly developed. Lt Lunn was recognised with the FAA Sandison Trophy for his contribution to this work.
Martlet was initially purchased to equip Wildcat for defence against small surface targets such as USVs but it also has an air-air capability which could be used against UAS. Although the flight conducted multiple further sorties and contributed enormously to the mission, somewhat to their frustration, there was not an opportunity to fire Martlet in combat. Subsequently, the tactics were proven earlier this month with the first successful destruction of a UAS using Martlet at the MoD test range in Wales.

Since returning home in July, HMS Diamond has been de-stored in Portsmouth and was formally handed over to BAE Systems last week to begin a major upkeep period expected to last for at least 3 years. Not only will she undergo the PIP engine upgrade but she will also be the second Type 45 to receive the Sea Ceptor missile system (HMS Defender is currently having this upgrade). Furthermore HMS Diamond will also be the first destroyer to have the Sea Viper Evolution (SV-E) embodiment.
Don’t doubt the fantastic work of the crew for a second.
But I’m sorry…..there have been warnings about saturation attacks by cheap UAV’s, USV’s and missiles for years.
The fact that Diamond was downing drones with Sea Viper’s and the crew were then having to rapidly improvise the use of the Wildcat with Marlet isn’t a good look.
Why does it take an actual, live scenario to get people thinking about the best ways of countering the proliferation of threats and the use of limited stocks of high-end kit to counter!
Indeed , there seems to be an huge institutional inertia.
A lot of ships in the Falklands were hit by conventional free fall bombs delivered by A4 Skyhawks of the Argentine Air Force. These hits were a great tribute to the professionalism of the Argentine pilots.
However had every frigate and destroyer in the fleet been equipped with a Phanlanx CIWS tge tactic would have been suicidal.
As implied above, all too often the UK is penny wise, poind foolish when addressing innovations in warfare which are fully foreseeable.
The Falklands big mistake were not do to lack of money, but to lack of thinking or worse. if Argentinians had aerial torpedoes many ships could have been sunk.
There were no Phalanx operational available for RN at that time, but there were 76mm Oto Melaras, dual 40mm Breda Bofors, 35mm Oerlikon, 40mm Bofors etc etc.
Air launched anti-ship torpedoes became defunct after WW2, due to a combination of the development of anti-ship missiles and ship-borne air-defences making such an attack suicidal.
(The Argentinians did try to jerry-rig Mark 13 torpedoes onto Pucara ground-attack airplanes to attack RN ships. Fortunately for the Pucara pilots the war ended before they went sent on near-certain suicide missions.)
The Argentinians tried to put a torpedo in aircraft because they saw how lousy was RN ship defence without Harrier coverage.
Dropping free fall bombs in British warships at low level is not safer than dropping a torpedo 500m distance from same British warship…
Most causalities made by Argentinians were made by free fall bombs. Exocet hits to warships were only 2.
They tried a Heath-Robinson solution of air-dropped torpedoes because they were desperate. Every navy had abandoned this weapon and so there wasn’t anything they could buy.
The Exocet hits resulted in a total loss of the vessel in every case. They scored more hits with free-falls because they had more available and used far more. Had they enough Exocets they wouldn’t have bothered with free-fall bombs. Fortunately MI6 was able to thwart their plans to buy more.
They saw a chance, and tried an hack job, sometimes it works most do not, but in war you have to try.
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HMS Glamorgan was not sunk by the Exocet hit.
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The point, a bomb or torpedo attack at low level, so WW2 tech had chances against RN ships as long Harriers were not around.
Indeed. As with The Falkland’s we’ve put off addressing potential threats until they are actually right in front of us.
A mix of 40mm/57mm guns should have been introduced years ago. The current 30mm just doesn’t have the range or punch.
Adding CAMM to the T45’s is a good move, but it’s such a belated and slow process.
If Martlet can do the business against aerial drones as well as surface targets then perhaps some trainable launchers on deck could be another layer of defence.
Aster launches produce Hydrogen Chloride?
Nasty stuff, don’t that anywhere near me, especially dissolved 🤫.
Sledgehammer to crack a nut, wrong tool for the job. They should consider changing the 2 30mm canons for 2 40mm Bofors or design a loitering munition that can be frag detonated near the UAVs, USVs
I don’t think we’ll see more 40mm except for on new ships. Plus the 30mm platforms are rather flimsy on the T45, could they mount a larger turret?
T45 is generally well built.
Those platforms could be modestly reinforced for 40mm.
40mm is the right £ per shot as well as effective. If you have dual feed so you can use cheapo rounds on the targets that done need anything better!
I wondered when the armchair ‘Calibre Brigade’ would chime in.
HMS M33
Worse, at least a sledgehammer is cheap. Aster 15/30 are in millions,
Who had the bright idea to kill 4.5″ AA capability ? i know it was limited in AA but still against WW1 era speed drones it should work well at 8km – Italians and others with 76mm were downing drones at 6-7km with 3-6 rounds in Red Sea.
Why can’t they then add the AA ability back in? And look at adding side silos for more than the forward siloed 24 CAMM or better still put in a pair of MK41s.
Side silos? There’s no more space in the hull. No point in cashing out for mk41 only to put Camm in it.
I think he means VL silos added to the upper structure rather than in the hull. Its a variation of the ‘inside the superstructure’ such as in T31. The RCN Halifax frigates have them outside the funnel next to Harpoon
Hopefully, problem solved by 2027
Upgrading the Royal Navy’s Type 45 Destroyers
Nigel
Nice try!
However
carries the same risk of a project being delivered “on time and on budget” as this promise of 2018:
regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer).
We live in hope, and at a greatly reduced cost per shot!
Nigel
There is a very big difference beween “a scientifically interesting experiment“ – which this ray-gun is – and “a useable and useful weapon system”
This ray-gun is being shown, by time-lapse photography, on a very clear night.
Crucially, in your ovely photo, Dragonfire is only aiming at a target which is flying very close by: i.e. a target at a very short range.
I reckon this is, at most, an very easy shot: at approx. a 500m range,
Out here, in the real world, that is far too close!
Thus Dragonfire is yet another example of smoke and mirrors by the boffins = who’s top priority is always to get yet more MOD research funding for “their next pet project” .
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I strongly suspect that this particular deployment of LMM (Martlet) is yet another clear-cut case of the R&D buffons failing to properly finish off their homework – so yet another one of their very expensive development programmes falling short…….
What nobody has pointed out in the string of posts above is that the LMM missile – which has been about twenty years in development – was that this one was orginally planned and developed by many, incl. Quinetiq, to be a cheap and quick method of destroying incoming drones (UAS).
Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) | Thales Group
Furhermore, the whole point of developing this particular missile system was that its very simple launcher(s) could be, very quickly and very easily, be installed on a very wide range of UK sea nd land platforms…….
So the real question to be asking of MOD / RN after this engagement with the products developed by the Yemani Aerouaical and Space Administration (YASA) is:
“On this long-expected deployment, why was LMM not mounted on a ship-borne launcher already fitted to the deck of this T45 operating out in the Red Sea???????”
So instead = gongs get awarded for “making it up on the spot”
Yet again = the buffoons have not done the “D” in “R&D” homework
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Interesting to see that the RN and the Army are interested in it.
I wonder if we can expect to see it onboard the Type 26 frigates beginning in the early 2030s with increased power from the current 50kw to 150kw.
Apparently, it can hit anything within line of sight. Time will tell I guess.
How does it works with rain?
I would assume they have found a way around this problem?
“According to MBDA, these initial low-power trials proved DragonFire’s ability to track air and sea targets with exceptionally high accuracy. This was followed by high-power trials in November 2022, where the weapon engaged targets using its high-power laser in operationally representative scenarios.”
“Rain can interfere with the DragonFire laser weapon’s ability to track and hit targets because the laser beam can be refracted or scattered by precipitation:
When it comes to defend a platform (whether own or ships in company (high value units etc.)) there is no such thing as the wrong tool – you use what ever is available and the further out you destroy the target the better.
What if they hadn’t used Aster to hardkill a target which them destroyed a 250,000 ton VLCC – everyone would be complaining that they didn’t use the missile(s) they had on board. They would have been castigated for loss of life (about 26 I think on a VLCC), hundreds of millions of (pounds/dollers) worth of ship being destroyed and then the environmental impact of a huge oil spill on top of all that.
When you add all that up a, million or so quid for a SAM is barely pocket change. I’d keep firing until the threat is negated.
Russ
Spot on with your comments.
As US defence secretary Donald Rumsfelt once said:
“you go to war with what you have in your arsenal: not what you might like to have”
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And let us not forget that one of those tankers attacked in the Red Sea recently – by Iran’s allies, the Houthis – then had to drop its anchor, obviously to stop the ship
Their anchor then dagged…. thus cutting few underwater cables on the seabed
which then cut off a sizeable proportion of all of East Africa’s entire internet connectivity
(i.e. until those cables were repaired)
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
The anchor dragging/cutting stuff on the seabed (it’s not all the Russians) happens a lot more than most people know about. It just so happens there are very few single points of failure.
Awards for doing their job then.
Agreed but much more deserving than civil servants, politicians and the likes of Phil Green and Paula Vennells!