Can a swarm of fast attack craft replace large escorts?. I’d say the answer is yes they can, but, its entirely contingent on your definition of what makes a Fast Attack Craft and what you class as a swarm.
All the problems have been well covered on the thread already….such as self-deployment…FAC’s traditionally dont do too well anywhere above Sea State 4….open ocean transit is right out. UK rules dictate 90m minimum hull length for tolerable pitch response in oceanic waters. Then there are the problems of weapons or sensors but not both in the hull and rotary air, the invaluable asset for looking OTH, is right out. Then you have endurance, habitability and even things like durability. Small hulls tend to suffer from pounding effects more heavily than larger hulls so you have increased shock loads on electronics, missiles, nerves etc!.
There is a way around this though…..that would be semi-SWATH and the Fast Sea Frame. The US’s FSF-1 Sea Fighter. Even modified (as per diagram below) you have a hull thats at most tipping in at ballpark $180mn if built in numbers. Seeing that a major fleet unit like a Flight IIA Burke averages about $1.8bn according to the US Congress you are looking, rule-of-thumb, at a 10-1 ratio of Sea Fighters to Burkes. I’m not sure is 10 is exactly a swarm, but, you would likely deploy more than a single Burke at a time so, if you were deploying three Burkes, that makes 30 Sea Fighters!. Much more swarm-like!.
It is stretching things calling a 79m hull a fast attack craft I suppose but if modified similar to this:
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5545/fsf1x.png
…its definitely got the potential to take the sensor and weapon fits required. The diagram there has it with a very limited modification moving the bridge superstructure forwards to add a raised VLS deckhouse. New kit is a pair of Millennium guns forward, 4 self-defence length VLS modules and a pair of Hitrole-G turrets on the aft quarters. A new 3D TI radar and directors for the guns would be spotted otherwise its the same as the experimental hull on trial now.
Dependent on role the missile decks either side of the VLS deckhouse could take angled SSM launchers or IAI Jumper or MBDA Sea Spear missile packs etc. Plus you have the mission bay to garage a pair of 11m USV’s or even, perhaps, a pair of Finnish NEMO mortar LCP’s and still have room for couple of radar-carrying MQ-8B’s.
With 10 hulls in your per-Burke flotilla you could have 2 with an ASW fit with a 2087 type towed array containerised deploying out of the bay door with operator vans in the bay itself. Maybe this mission role has an RN Bay style aircraft shelter and supports an organic Merlin class helicopter. You have 2 configured for surface action with two or four quad SSM mounts, a pair of 11m USV’s and a pair of MQ-8B’s in the bay, plus another 2 configured for anti-swarm with 4 6-pack Sea Spear launchers in place of the SSM’s on each beam. Then the final 4 in the flotilla embarking the mortar LCP’s plus 4 Jumper missile packs per side in place of the SSMs.
There is not much chance of doing area air defence without the kind of radar array that these size hulls wont support. What these hulls can embark though is an Artisan class 3D TI radar and FLAADS or a point weapon like VL MICA/Umkhonto. FLAADS offering quadpack and horizon range coverage, but, even VL MICA is going to put 32×10 active SAMs in the immediate region of the flotilla. Thats going to soak up a lot of antiship missile fire.
With FLAADS, conceivably, thats 128 missiles per ship and, over the 10 Sea Fighters replacing the one Burke, means that you are deploying 1200+ horizon range SAMs instead of 80 or so SM-2’s. Long range area air defence perhaps a bit irrelevant?.
So you have, instead of your Burke, a self-deploying 4000nm-ranged flotilla of vessels capable of deploying a pair of large ASW choppers, at least 8 radar-equipped MQ-8Bs for persistent theatre surveillance, 8 11m USV’s, 8 NEMO-LCP’s, up to 32 medium SSMs, 96 short range SSMs, 250+ short range land attack missiles and, at least, 300 potentially over 1000 short range SAMs plus 20 Millennium guns and another 20 50cal gatlings. Team all that up with an UNREP vessel with a decent sized flight deck and hangar for 3 or 4 more large helo’s and I think there is an interesting expeditionary capability there!.
Can you land systems such as iron dome for protection to these ships? I mean considering that the boats would be significantly smaller than a larger cruiser and that they can be spread out hard to detect etc could that linked within MQ-4’s or MQ-8s be enough ? couple with something like the granite missile system.. I was also wondering if these boats could be place as the LCS is in friendly ports close to potential aggressors and used from the harbour. I could also imagine using some “drone” boats to act as the cheese for any given trap…
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