CAMM vs RAM

I don’t think it is too much of a problem, especially if LEAPP continues to go well and delivers all the capability it promises. At that point, cueing the CAMMs won’t be a problem.

But i can agree that maintaining the possibility to use an IR seeker would have had its advantages.
However, the modular nature of CAMM does not rule it out at all: with CAMM expected to influence the future upgrades of the ASRAAM just as the current ASRAAM influenced the CAMM design, i guess an IR seeker will always be a feasible option.

What i really wish for is for a functional secondary surface-attack capability. That would be a major plus.

For me, CAMM is one of the most exciting projects in the pipeline, and one of the most exciting elements of ‘future UK defence’. My one concern is that we’ve missed a trick by not keeping an infa-red guided element or alternate option.
Imagine special forces teams, or the new recce tanks, operating well forward our own lines, or 16AA hitting somewhere. If there were an IR guided version, they would have truly organic high-spec air defence for everything from a land-rover up. Traditionally we’ve not been big on GBAD, and so don’t have a multitude of radar systems ready to cue CAMM onto target, and I certainly don’t see (nor would I really support) a large scale investment in such technologies to remedy that.

By the way, this is what i’m talking about:

There are two six-missile packs elevated side-by-side; each can be split in half horizontally to reload. (MBDA) The new vehicle is the land-based portion of the Team Complex Weapons (Team CW) industrial consortium’s FLAADS project to replace the UK Royal Navy’s (RN’s) Seawolf point-defence missile system and the British Army’s Rapier surface-to-air (SAM) missiles with a Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM) design.

As such, it uses an identical missile – pulling through a lot of componentry and experience from the ASRAAM – and all-weather canister for both roles, but fitted to a new erecting launcher frame for the land role, which has been integrated with a new command and control (C2) infrastructure in a self-contained ‘pallet’ structure that can be fitted to a range of military trucks as air-defence platforms of opportunity.

In this image we see a Giraffe radar and a Rapier FSC Surveillance radar providing initial cueing for CAMM missile.

A missile in its canister:

Interestingly, the FLAADS fire units are not planned to be fielded with their own organic radar packages, instead being designed to operate as the kinetic portion of an integrated air-defence network, helping to keep the vehicle’s location covert. As such, they are to be fitted with a secure MBDA-developed datalink and are essentially open architecture and sensor agnostic.

Thus, the FLAADS (Land) is as closely related to LEAPP as the FLAADS (Naval) is tied to Type 23/26.

Thanks

Dave

It depends. If you want a containerized launcher in which a standard container 20-feet is turned into a VLS system with… answer is that it would probably be quite a lot higher than an even an High-Cube container, since the missile is no less than 2.90 meters and within the canister it may give you a 3 meters thing.
Not impossible, but it would not be standard as of height, and mounted on a truck it would have an undesirable high centre of gravity.

If you want a “Container-Launched” CAMM variant like the russian Club-K, there’s no problem at all for it.

But simplest solution really remains using a flat-platform with the same size of the base of a TEU, put a crane and two 6-missile clusters that can be lowered down and erected for launch on it, and then use a ELPS truck to pick up the platform to have a fully functional Air Defence Missile Launcher.
I guess there would be a Battery Command Post in a standard TEU container mounted on another truck, and possibly other components, too.

A SAMP-T battery, for example, has got a Targeting post, a Command Post, an Electric Generator module mounted inside TEU containers, plus a workshop and spares carried in other containers mounted on trucks.

A CAMM battery will have less stuff, but it will be all definitely TEU compatible in this sense.

The truck will carry at least 12 missiles, and in the MBDA images is shown with its own small crane to self-reload itself by picking up 6-missiles clusters from another flatbed truck.
Both the launcher and the reloads could be carried DROPS (or new ELPS) style.
(systems such as SAMP-T need a dedicated reloader unit)

Dose anyone know if CAMM, and the bit’s and bob’s will fit into a standard TEU Container that is used by all 3 services.

Dave

Why play down the CAMM, i wonder…? For the MICA, of all things…!

The CAMM has a lot of potential. Only the very way it is launched is quite a massive advantage:

-The CAMM will require no Sylver, no MK41, no other expensive VLS silo, because differently from the missiles fired from those, it does not blast off with a huge hot flame that has to be contained, managed, and that requires the VLS cell to be able to handle the exhausts.
The CAMM launches from its container-canister, fired 100 feet in the air by cold compressed gas. Small thrusters aim the missile in the direction of the incoming threat even before the rocket engine ignites.

Better, faster reaction time.
Safer launch mode.
No need for expensive dedicate launcher systems. (CAMM will be fired, for example, by tubes erected vertically on the flatbed of normal utility trucks, which will be far less expensive than any other VL missile available.

The truck will carry at least 12 missiles, and in the MBDA images is shown with its own small crane to self-reload itself by picking up 6-missiles clusters from another flatbed truck.
Both the launcher and the reloads could be carried DROPS (or new ELPS) style.
(systems such as SAMP-T need a dedicated reloader unit)

CAMM could be fitted to practically every warship from HMS Queen Elizabeth to HMS Clyde, bolting the tubes where space is available and then connecting the missile software to the on-board radar.

The CAMM needs NO dedicated radar, and will use (on Type 23) the ARTISAN data to find its targets, while land-based variant might retain the current Rapier radar units, plus the handy Giraffe ABM radars the MOD’s bought.

It has been said range will be around 20 km, and there’s even the possibility to have CAMM capable to strike land targets as well.

I personally love the CAMM concept. It is innovative and with many good points.
I pick it up over MICA at any time, all things considered.

Today I read that MBDA sold the 1.000th Mica.

1,000 th MICA for French order.

Another 1000 ~ 2000 MICAs have been already sold to other foreign countries……..

Today I read that MBDA sold the 1.000th Mica.

Radar,

ICWI is a clip on processor module where the base radar does not have the processor to handle the number crunching. ICWI is basically predictive tracking. The programming samples the radar hits on the target and determines the target track. The prediction is updated on each hit of the director beam.

In practice this means that a SARH weapon can made to tolerate a variance in the return signal. The relevance of this is that the tracker can drift off target for a few fractions of a second and not screw up missile CCIP as it does for a missile receiving conventional signal. ICWI enables the area capability as a reliable mechanism.

Trident

The mount can track at those rates but that is to lay the ordnance on the threat bearing and elevation. The mounts are designed to engage low bearing rate targets as a point defence capability. Phalanx especially so with the tracking system employed – Phalanx targeting logic, the system which governs mount engagement policy, will not declare an inbound as a target of interest unless it is bearing on or near the carrying vessel with a closing range count.

The illustration here is with the Gloucester’s engagement of that Iraqi P15 derivative in 91. The semi active missile and CIWS both had issues with the crossing target. The intercept happening when the missile settled on a bearing past Gloucester’s bows. The Sea Dart had to tailchase but it did so against a low bearing rate target.

As for APAR and ICWI:

http://www.thalesgroup.com/Press_Releases/Thales_wins_missile_control_contract_in_Japan/

Like Distiller, I’d be surprised if even a mechanical director had serious difficulties with tracking a crossing target at close range though. CIWS gun mounts (which would likely be considerably heavier) typically achieve a rate of train of about 100°/s, even at 1000m that’s still enough to follow a Mach 5 target! ESSM certainly has perfectly adequate kinematics as well.

That quote came from a prolonged discussion with an ex-Marconi guy who had been intimitely familiar with GWS25. The conversation came about regarding ICWI with mechanical director elements. He stated that it was a non-starter and the claims that were just being made for area capability off ESSM were hinged on CEA’s X-band director AND ICWI (my mistake there earlier I misunderstood what he was saying!). He was saying that the testing undertaken on Arunta had simulated ICWI operation and a modicum of local area defence capability.

sorry jonesy but all this doesn’t sound reasonable to me. icwi was developed to be used with electronically scanned array (able to generate several hundred to more then thousand pencil beams per face and second). i think there is no public number on how often a target is illuminated per second while using icwi. (imho the best implementation of icwi should allow to adapt these parameters to the target performance). anyhow during icwi a target is illuminated several times per second.

the ran might have tested the essm in a icwi mode (e.g. just by switching the cw-illuminator on and off) but if they used the same mechanically steered illuminator for the test which normally provides cwi for essm or sea sparrow and if your statement is right that these systems are not able to keep a crossing target on the beam how could this test work? in this case icwi only makes a bad thing worse. i think it’s unlikely that a mechanically steered system is able to realign to the target in milliseconds after the target left the beam.
imho they used cwi during the live firing trials onboard of the hmas warramunga (not the arunta). it’s useless to simulate icwi if the problem is not the illumination but the mechanical steering.

from my understanding icwi is more or less a software update on the missile side. if true, it should be no problem to use essm’s with cwi in crossing-target engagements simply by a new software.

The thing is that we don’t have, & officially don’t have a requirement for, a medium-long range land based SAM. We have, & want to replace, SHORADS only. We (officially) want something mobile, air-portable, with a small logistics tail, for point defence – only. CAMM might fit that bill. No version of Aster does.

France has Roland & Crotale for that role, & isn’t planning to replace them with Aster, but Mica-VL – i.e. something more like CAMM than Aster 15.

I can see the benefits of space when it comes to small and medium vessels but aren’t we talking about the T-26 which could be almost as large as the T-45 so space should be an issue. For the smaller classes yes CAMM makes perfect sence if we ever build them.

As for the Land based version, of course the is bigger and heavier, considering Rapier was one of the smallest SHORADS systems developed, but we are not talking defence of fixed points and a Land Based Aster as used by the French can cover a far greater area and far greater altitude bracket. It can also engage multiple targets at once, more than the 2 which Rapier FSC can engage. As for minimum range well anything inside it will be in range of Starstreak teams which would work in conjunction with them. The launchers can also take the larger Aster 30 if required. How many would we need? well possible 1 regiment of 3-4 batteries would cover all our needs

So is we choose Aster ten we have a common missile not just amongst out armed forces but also our allies. It has finished developement in both versions and is available now with ZERO risk and if we follow the example of support for the AIM-9, and European support structure would keep maintneance costs down. It is more capable than the Systems it would replace and CAMM.

That would leave RAM to fullfill the Point Defence and CIWS roles on naval platforms to replace Phanlanx and Goalkeeper.

However if the arguement is for defending the British Defence Industry then all of the above is mute bit I have always believed the UK’s Armed forces should be equipped with the best kit affordable, whether it is manufactured in the UK of overseas. Yes Governments are partially to blame for programme C@@@ Ups but we have to look to the future. BAe Systems for example earns the majority of it revenue from its overseas assets. If it cannot produce the goods on time and budget it should get the contracts. On the other side the MoD needs to sort out its requirements and adhere propoerly to the CADMID cycle and the Government needs to ensure programmes are propoerly funded or stopped.

Will get off my soap box now!

i’m a little bit confused now because these tests were done back in 2003. any source they used icwi during these tests?
btw while searching sources i run over this:

Now, for an area missile like SM-2 dealing with crossing threats 70km off isnt such a problem, this is because the target box can be predicted and the missile mcg’d into it to allow for terminal phase lockup. Not easy, but, not…erm…rocket science. Now close that in to 15km range and the time-to-intercept counter dont look so good. I know ESSM can do crossing engagements but it uses a seperate Homing All The Way mode (not the ICWI one) tying down a fire channel for the whole engagement cycle.
written by you in 2006.

That quote came from a prolonged discussion with an ex-Marconi guy who had been intimitely familiar with GWS25. The conversation came about regarding ICWI with mechanical director elements. He stated that it was a non-starter and the claims that were just being made for area capability off ESSM were hinged on CEA’s X-band director AND ICWI (my mistake there earlier I misunderstood what he was saying!). He was saying that the testing undertaken on Arunta had simulated ICWI operation and a modicum of local area defence capability.

if shooting at a crossing target is that difficult with a semi active seeker, we have to ask why the us-navy and so many other navies don’t use active radar homing.

…because its perfectly fine for point defence applications and most PDMS, traditionaly, opted for faster-reacting, lighter missiles that do not possess the kinematic properties to gain intercept position for local area defence anyway so the functionality hasn’t been important.

Semi-active homing has also been more favoured owing to performance in a hostile EW environment – the thinking being that you are more assured to burn-through hostile jaming with a shipboard director element than the ‘battery-powered’ seeker head of an active missile.

as sayed before shooting at crossing targets imho is not enabled by either icwi nor by cwi and also not by active seekers. the missile performance is critical, supported by optimized flight path and data links.

The missile has to have the performance to gain intercept position otherwise the type of seeker head is absolutely irrelevent. I noted that myself in the first comment I made about VL Mica regarding the amount of energy left to the missile in terminal phase.

Again though the point I am making is about optimal configuration for a local area air defence missile. That is an active RF seeker. CLOS and SARH have dwell issues guiding a weapon on a high-bearing rate target…thats just a fact…if I can find an UNCLAS study on missile tracking for you I will. Passive IR/RF seekers rarely offer the same angular resolution as the active seeker. So, if you are designing a weapon to the FLAADS requirement, you dont start from RAM as a baseline.

If commonality is a concern, would it not make more sense for the RN to stick with the Aster 15 – since it’s already in use on the Type 45s – rather than introduce a new weapon system?

Did we actually buy any? I thought an earlier cost-cutting measure was to only employ the -30?

The RAN did do local area defence testing with ESSM as part of the same trials that ICWI was tested in. It was the ICWI technology that was the enabler for the crossing target trials. The CEA active scan director with its ability to hand off the beam between faces, to obviate any array masking issues, will improve that further.

i’m a little bit confused now because these tests were done back in 2003. any source they used icwi during these tests?
btw while searching sources i run over this:

Now, for an area missile like SM-2 dealing with crossing threats 70km off isnt such a problem, this is because the target box can be predicted and the missile mcg’d into it to allow for terminal phase lockup. Not easy, but, not…erm…rocket science. Now close that in to 15km range and the time-to-intercept counter dont look so good. I know ESSM can do crossing engagements but it uses a seperate Homing All The Way mode (not the ICWI one) tying down a fire channel for the whole engagement cycle. If you only start with four fire channels on your APAR array and are in the process of engaging more distant contacts…..well…..it might be unfortunate!.
written by you in 2006.

as sayed before shooting at crossing targets imho is not enabled by either icwi nor by cwi and also not by active seekers. the missile performance is critical, supported by optimized flight path and data links.

if shooting at a crossing target is that difficult with a semi active seeker, we have to ask why the us-navy and so many other navies don’t use active radar homing.

btw. does anybody know the range of a aster or mica seeker against a low rcs ashm and if artisan is able to provide a data uplink? (rpm?)

It’s not just price. you can fit 4 CAMM into the space taken by 1 Aster 15, & it’d be interesting to compare the minimum ranges.

Ditto for land-based use. Aster 15 weighs much more, & takes up much more space. The launchers have to be much bigger & heavier.

Many nations that looked at ASRAAM thought it to be both overkill for the WVR role and expensive compared to the AIM-9X and IRIS-T.

Saying that given what is going to be a late entry into the field isn’t CAMM going to end up another UK bespoke piece of kit. Rapier sold because it was at the head of the line with Roland in the SHORAD market but land based CAMM will probably only be used by a few nations.

Although more expensive per unit I do think ASTER 15 should be seriously considered for ship board use in the T-26 in whatever form it takes and could even be used in its land based form to replace Rapier. I know the system is bigger but then again each battery would cover a signifantly larger area then a single Raper battery.

RAM is a good system especialy the latest Mod and should be seen as a alternative to existing CIWS, a role it is assuming in the USN. I think it should also be looked at for the T-26 in this role and for a C3 platform should it become reality.

i think you missed the point. the graph and my comment is about bearing rate changes on crossing targets and not about saturation or battle damage. 😉

Hmm. If a system isn’t suitable for a task for fundamental reasons it doesn’t matter if it’s able to do other stuff.

But I also don’t think that target angular velocity is a problem.