In air defence at sea, how useful to have a helicopter equipped with ESM and datalink airborne on the expected threat axis?
Let’s suppose your 4-ship SAG supported by some land-based MPAs is enforcing an embargo against a country that has some ASM shooters and a single operational SSK. You have no carrier, no AWACS and your land base is too far away to keep your air force fighters on CAP over the SAG.
But you do have two shipborne helos with ESM and two-way datalink on each ship. How useful will helos be in detecting surprise air attack and if nobody is doing this, what is the real practice among the navies that have area air defence ships but no carrier?
Cheers,
Sunho
By: datafuser - 18th November 2005 at 00:35
At one point they tried putting AIM-7 Sparrows and AIM-9 Sidewinders on the SH-2 Seasprite LAMPS for trials in air defense for its parent ship.Needless to say,this was never used routinely.
I posted about it on sci.military.naval six years ago and got a response from the author of ELECTRONIC GREYHOUNDS: THE SPRUANCE-CLASS DESTROYERS. It was not for air defence because the intended targets were Russian missile boats.
See below.
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: Mike Potter
Date: 1999/12/25
Subject: Re: LAMPS armed with AIM-7 Sparrows
My book ELECTRONIC GREYHOUNDS: THE SPRUANCE-CLASS DESTROYERS (Naval Institute Press, 1995) covers these experiments. The intended targets were Russian missile boats. The large forward-aimed radar displaced the SH-2 Seasprite helicopter’s co-pilot. Upon missile launch the helicopter’s inherently slow speed kept it inside the rocket motor’s flaming exhaust plume, which seared through plastic fittings including the windshield and instantly filled the cockpit with opaque smoke. The test pilot, my source, “thought the aircraft had exploded and this was the end. Time got slow. After a while I thought, ‘It still seems to be flying.'”
Sunho Beck wrote:
> I found an interesting article about early LAMPS development in Norman
> Friedman’s _U.S. Destroyers_.
>
> On page 283
> ‘The manned helicopter presented far greater possibilities, however. For
> example, in 1968 attention was beginning to be paid Soviet antiship
> missiles. It was suggested that LAMPS might carry, as an alternative to
> ASW weapons, a pair of Sparrow air-to-air missiles plus radar and other
> avionics.’
> [snip]
> ‘Although the Sparrow was tested, it was not made a standard weapon.’
Cheers,
Sunho
By: datafuser - 18th November 2005 at 00:26
The Royal Navy has had a AEW version of the sea king helicopter for many years, tasked with AEW for the carrier groups. Here are some images.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/seaking/images/seaking2.jpg
Sea King AEW has never operated from destroyers or frigates. The shipborne helicopter I am talking about is a “typical” one that is deployed on destroyers and frigates. Like Lynx or Seahawk.
Cheers,
Sunho
By: Iranian F-14A - 18th November 2005 at 00:22
At one point they tried putting AIM-7 Sparrows and AIM-9 Sidewinders on the SH-2 Seasprite LAMPS for trials in air defense for its parent ship.Needless to say,this was never used routinely.
By: jbritchford - 17th November 2005 at 15:51
Sea kings
The Royal Navy has had a AEW version of the sea king helicopter for many years, tasked with AEW for the carrier groups. Here are some images.
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/seaking/images/seaking2.jpg
By: Ja Worsley - 17th November 2005 at 14:32
there were trials back in the late 80’s early 90’s with Helo borne radarthat sat above the rotor, some else might have a pic I can’t seem to find one.
There was also a plan to make a Sea Apache but I don’t think it ever got any further than talking.
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November 17, 2005 at 9:37 am