Malaysia places order for Frigates with BAE

Didn’t their A109’s end up with the SAS for years and years?

I think Sandy Woodward upset a few people when he made a comment in relation to the ship losses that if you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t sign up, not the most tactful comment for the families of dead seamen to hear…..

Oh yeah and I forgot to say that the Argentine had alot of very good ground kit…….so good they took it home with them! 😀

A number of the Browning 50 cal in British service now are ex Argentine war booty.

………………………………………………..Oh cool Under Siege is on!

Siegal’s only decent film. :diablo:
Good old BBC 1

One of my fav teenage movies!

Indeed, Sandy Woodward himself has stated that whilst its not nice to loose warships in the end they were expendable. What surprised many RN personel was the focus of the Argentine aircraft on the warships rather than the troop and cargo ships. Its clear to see that the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor almost scuppered the operation causing a major change of plans and the loss of ship like the Canberra with all the troops and ammuntion on board would of been decisive.

I do have a criticism of one particular MOD policy which was that crewmen from any sunk ship couldn’t be transferred to another ship. Apparently many of the ships like Fearless were undermanned. The memoirs of one of the Commando officers on HMS Fearless (I forget the name of the book but it was good) stated that a number of the crewmen from the ships that were sunk passed on to the Fearless. He felt that if asked they would of happily made up the numbers so to say.

Good points, in many ways the equipment issues balanced out, the Argentine ground forces were much better equipped in several key areas (not least boots and winter jackets) and many of the limitations of Argentine air power were due to command decisions rather than any real problems with the actual equipment. Since the war many have given the AIM9L and Sea Harrier credit for winning the war, ignoring the fact that the RN had to carry a landing force 8000 miles from home, put it ashore and supply it then the ground forces had to win a ground war against a well entrenched, well equipped enemy.
One of the things I find odd about the war is that it was the Argentine Navy who were one of the prime movers in starting the war, yet their fleet played very little part after the loss of the Belgrano as they were scared to lose their ships. There has been a lot of comment on British ship losses, but for all the British lost their ships they also achieved their aims and it was this British acceptance of losing assets in pursuit of victory that was one of the biggest differences. If the Argentine fleet had mounted a serious attack on the task force they’d probably have taken crippling losses but could also have potentially crippled the British task forces ability to retake the islands, and in so doing secured Argentine control of the islands. A fleet that is not willing to take risks is a worthless fleet. Argentine pilots and soldiers paid the price of a war that was in no small part the brain child of their Navy, which showed no fight after losing their old cruiser.

Rapier was a massive disappointment in 1982, partly due to the way the weapons were stowed and carried South, and partly due to a reasonable design oversight in that the launchers were not suitable for operating in soft and boggy ground areas so that the launchers kept moving and sinking into the ground when they were used which had a serious impact on performance. Another good example of the difference between exercises and real world use, prior to going South Rapier had a superb reputation as it’s trials performance was excellent, but in real combat shortcomings not previously considered had a major impact. After the war it was honed and did indeed become a truly world class, superb local air defence system.
One of the problems with Sea Dart and it’s well documented lock ups and failures in 1982 was again a result of tight fistedness in that to save money it was decided to economise on the radar fitted to the Type 42’s and the fire control computers and the interfaces between the radar, fire control and missile were not brilliant. Yet another example of spoiling the ship for a ha’penny of tar 🙁 Design a leading edge missile then decide not to put similar investment into the radar and fire control systems, great.
Feydakin is right about the general unsuitability of many of the weapons employed, one of the biggest myths of the modern era is that in 1982 the British forces enjoyed a crushing technological superiority, when in fact it was quite a well matched contest in terms of equipment and suitability of equipment for the roles it was used for. The difference was the human quality of the British forces and a greater committment and acceptance of losses in pursuit of victory on the British side.

There are certainly alot of myths which surround the Falklands War equipment performance is just one of them. The Argentines were disadvantaged in many repects:

1)Failure by their senior leadership to understand Britains likely reaction and an asumption that they would receive international support for their noble cause.

2)A decision to waste resources putting thousands of conscripts on the Island and placing a General in command who whilst experianced in counter insurgency didn’t have the the correct skills for the tacticul situation.

3)Not lengthening the runway at Port Stanley to allow fighters to operate off the runway despite the steel matting being available on the main land. Many millitary experts and reports (including a well reguarded report by the American millitary) reguard this as one of the single greatest failings by the Argentines.

4)Due to the previous point the Argentine aircraft were forced to operate at there maximum range without decent tanker support from the mainland.

Of course looking back to the British there were many issues and myths arround the conflict some of which has already been covered in this thread.

1)Poor performance of equipment accross the range from ships to weapon systems and infantry kit.

2)Fighting a war with equipment designed for an engagement in the North Atlantic against the Soviets.

3)Lack of decent rapid fire small calibre anti air guns for ships within the fleet making many ships vulnerable to fighter bombers carrying dumb bombs. Ironically many ships were not lost due to the umbrella thrown up by Sea Dart and bravery of the Argentine pilots. They flew too low and launched there bombs too late not allowing them to fuse.

4)Lack of Organic AEW assets!!!

5)Whilst San Carlos was the correct place to land the high hills made it very difficult for the missile systems in the area to operate except for Sea Wolf. Aside from the set up issues with Rapier there just wasn’t enough time for the weapon systems to track and lock onto ships popping over the hill.

Looking aside from these problems and focusing on the Myths whilst Sea Harrier was a decisive War winner (making its retirement all the more crazy)many myths have grown up around it. I have spoken to many people including ex millitary who have attached almost supernatural capabilities to the aircraft. The main factor for its success in the war aside from Sidewinder and the quality of the pilots is the extreme range the Argentine jets were operating at and the unwillingness to engage in air to air combat.

I know that I am missing many points and over simplifying others but nevertheless it is interesting.

Rapier was a massive disappointment in 1982, partly due to the way the weapons were stowed and carried South, and partly due to a reasonable design oversight in that the launchers were not suitable for operating in soft and boggy ground areas so that the launchers kept moving and sinking into the ground when they were used which had a serious impact on performance. Another good example of the difference between exercises and real world use, prior to going South Rapier had a superb reputation as it’s trials performance was excellent, but in real combat shortcomings not previously considered had a major impact. After the war it was honed and did indeed become a truly world class, superb local air defence system.
One of the problems with Sea Dart and it’s well documented lock ups and failures in 1982 was again a result of tight fistedness in that to save money it was decided to economise on the radar fitted to the Type 42’s and the fire control computers and the interfaces between the radar, fire control and missile were not brilliant. Yet another example of spoiling the ship for a ha’penny of tar 🙁 Design a leading edge missile then decide not to put similar investment into the radar and fire control systems, great.
Feydakin is right about the general unsuitability of many of the weapons employed, one of the biggest myths of the modern era is that in 1982 the British forces enjoyed a crushing technological superiority, when in fact it was quite a well matched contest in terms of equipment and suitability of equipment for the roles it was used for. The difference was the human quality of the British forces and a greater committment and acceptance of losses in pursuit of victory on the British side.

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, Jebat’s seniority is only in her role as the flagship.

Pff, I’ve been wrong on that name for all my life then… Guess I’ve read somewhere Lekui and kept that name in mind without really checking, thanks for the correction!

But if I’m following the thing right than Jebat is older than Lekiu? or do you mean with “seniority” that she is just more important in the fleet as flagship?

IIRC the second ship of the Lekui class was called Jebat… So wouldn’t this just be another two (possibly slightly improved, but overall same) Lekui class frigates?

A few things, the class is Lekiu not Lekui; correct, the second ship is called Jebat although she has been assigned a lower pennant number to denote her seniority as she serves as the Royal Flagship; yes, the 2 ships ordered are essentially stealthified versions of the Lekiu class.

There was talk that the Seawolf would be dropped in favour of the VL Mica but no confirmation on this. There was a scaled model of the “stealthified Lekiu” at LIMA 05. It had a OTO Melara 76mm cannon instead of the Bofors 57mm as her main gun. Other than that I didn’t notice much difference. Sorry, I didn’t take a picture. My boss was in a bit of a rush.

Sorry to get back on topic but does anyone have pics of these new ships for Malaysia?????

In the Official history of the Falklands war published last year, it mentions iirc that all the missile systems at that time worked kind of okay in the blue water environment (with some caveats), but as soon as they moved inshore they were all badly compromised by the close proximity of land and the low level tactics the brave Argentine pilots used. Even the much vaunted land based Rapier systems were initially not very effective due to the ‘clutter’ of the surrounding hills and they had to review their tactics fast to make them more useful. Even then they only managed 2 kills despite lots of launches.

Your welcome Turbina,

You got there before me Sea Dart caused massive headaches for the Argentines. Im a bit hazy about RN Phalanx purchases, i think the RN had purchased some for the carriers prior to the Falklands war.

I remember more than one book and documentary with RN personel expressing the surprise they felt over the Falklands war and the unsuitability of many of the primary weapon systems employed. The thing is I can understand why the MOD didn’t go for the Type 82 in the end it was overly big for their needs on the other hand the Type 42 was too small for its intended role.

Sea Cat was something of a joke really, it’s main purpose was to arm the RN vessels with a missile, whether it was of any use was a secondary consideration 🙂 Now Sea Dart on the other hand was a very powerful missile, and even I as a hater of the Type 42 will say this, it was the Argentine awarness of the capabilities of Sea Dart that was a major factor in keeping their air attacks at very low level with all the implications that has for fuel burn and payload, so it must be admitted that for all their faults the Sea Dart equipped Type 42’s did play a major role in the British victory.

To Wanshan, the Type 42’s did not have any way of integrating Sea Wolf, apart from swapping out the Sea Dart (or possibly the 4.5″ gun), it was hard enough finding deck space for Phalanx. The ships were terrible for stability in both it’s true sense and sea keeping sense, they were terrible sea boats with virtually nil reserve stability, they had no free space in the hull and virtually no free deck space, so adding Sea Wolf was a no no. My point is that when the Type 42 was being designed the RN was aware of the threat and in the 70’s specifically included anti-missile capability in it’s new Sea Wolf design and was aware of US work on high speed radar controlled cannon for CIWS. Even if the weapons were not ready for the Type 42 on initial service entry why were they built so small that there was no way to integrate such weapons in the future (apart from losing existing equipment like boats)? These ships were built for 20-30 years life, the RN knew full well they were very limited and that they had no upgrade potential beyond capability upgrades to existing equipment on the ships, why were British politicians so short sighted and greedy to build ships like that? The ships were deployed as radar pickets (as our great politicians had decided fleet AEW capability wasn’t needed) and to put a ship with no close in self defence against the weapons they knew they would face was criminal IMO. Feydakin is right, most of this stemmed from the decision to reduce the RN to a NATO North Atlantic ASW task force and to ignore any threats outside the Cold war Soviet air and submarine threat. In 1982 a lot of equipment was funded and fitted almost literally over night, given that the USN was interested in finding out how good Phalanx was in the real world you can bet that CIWS could have been sourced and fitted in a hurry.

The absolute weight of additional equipment isn’t so important compared to the stability reserves of the vessel. Obviously stability reserve varies according to consumables carried (fuel, water, stores, munitions, ballast condition etc.) but if the stability is already close to acceptable limits then whether the extra equipment is light or heavy is not important, the reserves aren’t there.
In 1982 the Type 42’s were sent South to face a threat of Exocet sea skimming missiles, the Exocet threat was fully recognised, and the RN were well aware of the qualities of Exocet by virtue of having selected the missile themselves for use. The counter measures were already in service, and the UK themselves had developed a SAM with anti-missile capability against the weapon in the 70’s (Sea Wolf), the Phalanx was available. Bearing in mind that the UK suddenly found funds and sources of certain other systems very quickly, for these ships to be sent into combat against air and sea launched Exocet with nothing more than chaff and jamming to protect them was criminal. Most of the developed navies were working on counter measures against this threat in the 70’s, and the development of Sea Wolf is enough evidence that the UK RN was fully aware of the risks and need for a defence. By building these ships to a minimum possible spec, and then settling for a hull design that made even future upgrades dificult, was pathetic.
At least in the Type 45 the RN has avoided this mistake as that design has a large amount of reserve capacity for future upgrades. I’d like to have seen them fitted with Harpoon when new, and the ASW torpedo tubes, in this case though the RN have done it pretty well, concentrated on the core mission (air defence) with adequate in built upgrade potential to imprve the ships capabilities later.

While Sea Wolf was available, it was’t installed on the Type 42s. What are you suggesting? That they should have fitted Phalanx before sending the Type 42s south? Did the RN own or had it ordered any at the time? How long would it have taken to install and integrate into Type 42?

What I was saying is that many navies were aware of the SSM thread, and that still many didn’t get around to putting CIWS or anti-ship missile missiles on board their ships untill well into the 1980s. Look at the german F122s: they borrowed containerized Dutch Goalkeepers for 1992 Gulf deployments because they still hadn’t gotten their RAM launchers. These are newer ships than the Type 42!

The prototype of the Phalanx was tested aboard USS KING (DDG 41) in 1973. These tests resulted in some improvements. The Phalanx underwent operational tests and evaluation onboard USS Bigelow in 1977, and exceeded maintenance and reliability specifications. Phalanx production started in 1978 with orders for 23 USN and 14 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) systems. The first of the new installations was installed aboard USS AMERICA (CV 66) in 1980. The first ship fully fitted out was the Coral Sea in 1980. Think! 23 systems, first going to carriers. NBy 1982, not even the USN had many surface combattants with Phalanx operational.

The Italians treat the OTO type guns like Super Forty and 76mm Super Rapid as CIWS. With late generation proximity rounds they have the same effectiveness as a smaller calibre rapid fire gun like the Phalanx or AK630.

As for the French, well they do there own thing….

At that time there were no 40mm twin Fast or Super Forty and no 76mm Super Rapid, just 40 mm/70 Twin Compact (600 rpm rate of fire) and 76 mm/62 Compact (80 – 85 rounds per minute in automatic mode, later 100 rounds per minute with retrofit kit). The higher rate of fire of the later Super Forty (900 rpm) and Super Rapid (12) rpm) is because of the intended the CIWS role.

The Italians treat the OTO type guns like Super Forty and 76mm Super Rapid as CIWS. With late generation proximity rounds they have the same effectiveness as a smaller calibre rapid fire gun like the Phalanx or AK630…

Well, Oto Melara have some very fancy ammo for their guns. The guided long-range 127mm rounds look very impressive.

That is very true, Sea Dart was designed to counter Soviet weapons systems that tended to use supersonic plunging missiles rather than sea skimmers, so for it’s intended role the emphasis on higher altitude longer range performance made sense. My complaint isn’t with Sea Dart per se (it was as good as any other AA missile of it’s era and probably better than most) but rather the economy decision to reduce costs with the Type 42 hull to the extent that it couldn’t take any additional major weapons and was built in the full knowledge that it’s close in AA defence was seriously defficient. Lack of surface-surface capability you can accept as part of the trade off to optimise a air defence vessel, but to build a air defence vessel with such a serious AA hole in it’s defence was crazy. The problem wasn’t that the RN was blind to the problem or ignored the threat of advanced sea skimmers, it was the treasury and politicians who were too tight fisted to pay for a decent hull. To build a ship, with an intended service life of 20-30 years that has already reached the limit of it’s capabilities when new is ridiculous. When the task force went South the Exocet threat was a major headache to all of the vessels in the transit South and all of the commanders were fully aware of just how exposed the vessels were to the threat.
Sea Cat was a very poor missile, there has always been a big debate as to whether replacing tri-axially stabilised, RPC 40mm mountings and equivalent with Sea Cat was actually an improvement or a degradation of AA capability, the old joke was that the only way Sea Cat would knock down an enemy target was if it crashed into the launcher 🙂

Of course at the time the Government were going to reduce the navy down to a glorified north atlantic asw force with the Americans providing all the serious AAW kit. Just look at the original speck for the type 23, no Sea Wolf at all with the Fort class providing air defence to several ships. I’m sure the MOD and politicians said you won’t be going up against anyone who has Sea Skimmers the Type 42 will do and the RN did what they always do: Shut up and Make do!

I talked to someone who served on a Amazon class ship during the Falklands and he told me the only decent air defence system they had on board was the Bofors 40mm, the Sea Cat was a waste of space in his opinion.

That is very true, Sea Dart was designed to counter Soviet weapons systems that tended to use supersonic plunging missiles rather than sea skimmers, so for it’s intended role the emphasis on higher altitude longer range performance made sense. My complaint isn’t with Sea Dart per se (it was as good as any other AA missile of it’s era and probably better than most) but rather the economy decision to reduce costs with the Type 42 hull to the extent that it couldn’t take any additional major weapons and was built in the full knowledge that it’s close in AA defence was seriously defficient. Lack of surface-surface capability you can accept as part of the trade off to optimise a air defence vessel, but to build a air defence vessel with such a serious AA hole in it’s defence was crazy. The problem wasn’t that the RN was blind to the problem or ignored the threat of advanced sea skimmers, it was the treasury and politicians who were too tight fisted to pay for a decent hull. To build a ship, with an intended service life of 20-30 years that has already reached the limit of it’s capabilities when new is ridiculous. When the task force went South the Exocet threat was a major headache to all of the vessels in the transit South and all of the commanders were fully aware of just how exposed the vessels were to the threat.
Sea Cat was a very poor missile, there has always been a big debate as to whether replacing tri-axially stabilised, RPC 40mm mountings and equivalent with Sea Cat was actually an improvement or a degradation of AA capability, the old joke was that the only way Sea Cat would knock down an enemy target was if it crashed into the launcher 🙂

The absolute weight of additional equipment isn’t so important compared to the stability reserves of the vessel. Obviously stability reserve varies according to consumables carried (fuel, water, stores, munitions, ballast condition etc.) but if the stability is already close to acceptable limits then whether the extra equipment is light or heavy is not important, the reserves aren’t there.
In 1982 the Type 42’s were sent South to face a threat of Exocet sea skimming missiles, the Exocet threat was fully recognised, and the RN were well aware of the qualities of Exocet by virtue of having selected the missile themselves for use. The counter measures were already in service, and the UK themselves had developed a SAM with anti-missile capability against the weapon in the 70’s (Sea Wolf), the Phalanx was available. Bearing in mind that the UK suddenly found funds and sources of certain other systems very quickly, for these ships to be sent into combat against air and sea launched Exocet with nothing more than chaff and jamming to protect them was criminal. Most of the developed navies were working on counter measures against this threat in the 70’s, and the development of Sea Wolf is enough evidence that the UK RN was fully aware of the risks and need for a defence. By building these ships to a minimum possible spec, and then settling for a hull design that made even future upgrades dificult, was pathetic.
At least in the Type 45 the RN has avoided this mistake as that design has a large amount of reserve capacity for future upgrades. I’d like to have seen them fitted with Harpoon when new, and the ASW torpedo tubes, in this case though the RN have done it pretty well, concentrated on the core mission (air defence) with adequate in built upgrade potential to imprve the ships capabilities later.

Whilst the RN was well aware of the capabilities of Exocet they were not expecting to go up again that kind of system.

The development of Sea Wolf and Sea Dart was focused on the threat of a saturation attack by dozens of large Soviet Anti Ship missiles possibly armed with nuclear warheads. At the time Soviet weapons dived at high speed onto a target from quite a large distance. The Sea Dart was designed to take down the launch aircraft or at a push the missile which would be flying in a steady albeit quick dive. Sea Wolf is really a Sea Cat replacement with the bonus that it gave a point defence capability against leakers.

The RN in many ways regarded chaff to be one of the most effective defences against AShM after the Falklands war with the ultimate defence being a good CAP with AEW support.

Whilst much has been made of Phalanx and it’s introduction into the RN after the Falklands war in many ways it was added to RN ships to offer better protection against low flying fighter bombers armed with retarded bombs. Arguably Hms Coventry would of Survived if she had been armed with the rapid fire 30mm canon and Phalanx later fitted to her sisters. Many in the RN were unsure of the Phalanx and its performance against Sea Skimmers, its worth noting that the Phalanx itself was a crash program in response to the performance of the SS-N-2 fitted to various Soviet and client state vessels – this missile is far simpler for Phalanx to deal with then a sea skimmer.

Investment in anti sea skimmer missile technology by western navies wasn’t especially prevalent until the mid 80’s after the Falklands and the sinking of the USS Stark in the Gulf. In most cases this either involved more exotic electronic and semi active defence like ECM and programable chaff or upgrades of existing weapon systems to deal with sea skimmers.

Raytheon added a number of new modes and features to the Phalanx system to deal with the threat and the UK’s Sea Dart system was extensively upgraded making it a very potent weapon system now as shown by the succesful shooting down of a Iraqi ASHM during the first Gulf War.

The absolute weight of additional equipment isn’t so important compared to the stability reserves of the vessel. Obviously stability reserve varies according to consumables carried (fuel, water, stores, munitions, ballast condition etc.) but if the stability is already close to acceptable limits then whether the extra equipment is light or heavy is not important, the reserves aren’t there.
In 1982 the Type 42’s were sent South to face a threat of Exocet sea skimming missiles, the Exocet threat was fully recognised, and the RN were well aware of the qualities of Exocet by virtue of having selected the missile themselves for use. The counter measures were already in service, and the UK themselves had developed a SAM with anti-missile capability against the weapon in the 70’s (Sea Wolf), the Phalanx was available. Bearing in mind that the UK suddenly found funds and sources of certain other systems very quickly, for these ships to be sent into combat against air and sea launched Exocet with nothing more than chaff and jamming to protect them was criminal. Most of the developed navies were working on counter measures against this threat in the 70’s, and the development of Sea Wolf is enough evidence that the UK RN was fully aware of the risks and need for a defence. By building these ships to a minimum possible spec, and then settling for a hull design that made even future upgrades dificult, was pathetic.
At least in the Type 45 the RN has avoided this mistake as that design has a large amount of reserve capacity for future upgrades. I’d like to have seen them fitted with Harpoon when new, and the ASW torpedo tubes, in this case though the RN have done it pretty well, concentrated on the core mission (air defence) with adequate in built upgrade potential to imprve the ships capabilities later.