Whoever wins, we lose. Just like AvP.

Harry-san, do you have any take on why we are seeing new gear being put on different Rajput class destroyers in a piecemeal fashion? Is there any plan or movement towards a comprehensive refit of at least some of that class of ships? Very curious.

No problem!

I send you a bottle of champagne (half empty) to celebrate 😉

Ah,
According the Portuguese Media, an official source of the Navy informed that the final contract should be sign still this month.

Let’s see…

Half a bottle is better than no bottle at all :p

Congrats to our Belgian friends: you are getting a couple of fine ships.

Dang, only 50% right, hate it when that happens….

You typically see a high powered 2d search radar and a lower powered 3d targeting radar.

Exactly. And remember, we don’t know what’s being displayed in those drawings. Could be a non-Fregat family radar there on that carrier, e.g. Pozitiv-ME1.2.

All Fregat radars have the same shape antennae (the ones in the picture are definately identical) and serve the same purpose there would be no reason to have two different Fregat variants on one ship.

Well, let’s see:

All Fregat radar the same shape? Compare Fregate MAE and Fregat M2EM below

The ones in the pic identical? Come on, click on it and look again. And also take a second look at the image with orange and green.

Serve the same purpose? Yes, after all, all radars serve the purpose of detecting air threats. No, because some radars are for long range volume search and others for closer in work, which is reflected in operating band and data rate (rotation speed). There are such differences between different models of Fregat radars (see attachment: check range, scan rate, antenna rotation rate, and weight of antennae station. In one case, band also differs). This is reflected in the choice of radars on that modified Udaloy (carrying MAE3 and MAE4K)

http://www.milparade.com/catalog/pdf/570-571.pdf#search=%22Fregat%20%22MAE%204K%22%20%22

The Typhoon name was officially selected by industry specifically for export campaigns (with some urging from the Brits, who were the only partner who really objected to Eurofighter as a name for the aircraft as well as the ‘manufacturer’). Finding a name that meant the same in all four languages, that didn’t have a latin/German/Anglo root, and didn’t upset the boxheads too badly was a long and complex process.

The Typhoon name was selected primarily because it was felt to follow the ‘wind’ theme of the Tornado – echoing the wartime fighter-bomber was a lucky coincidence for the RAF. Urban legend has it that Cyclone (Zyklon) was also a contender until our German chums realised that if the single seater was the Zyklon-A the two-seater would be the ………

The Brits quickly adopted the Typhoon name for their own aircraft, and Italy and Spain followed suit.

The German Government didn’t follow, but it wasn’t because the “Luftwaffe did not like the name at all.”

Many Luftwaffe blokes use the name, however.

Aghree on the wind theme, but the Cyclone part (german translation and all) …. hilarious!

As for Spain and Italy, what’s wrong with Tifón and Tifone?

Anyway, it don’t matter if. Fighting Falcon turned into Viper, which probably is a much better name.

any official source for this? harpoonhq is a (computer-)game.

German navy Sorry, in German only. Check the downloads on that page though to veryfy further technical data. Also contains pic of PzH 2000 strapped to the helo deck of frigate Hessen. But no reference to VLUs here.

However, did find reference to them here (near bottom of page):
“Waffensysteme: Seezielflugkörper, Vertical Launching Systems (VLS) Flugkörpersystem RAM, Täuschkörperwurfanlagen, Nahbereichsgeschütz (27 mm), Maschinengewehre MG (12,7 mm), EloGM Radar“

But my impression is no VLUs, as this ship is intended more for shore oriented ops and, like corvette 130, will operate under missile cover of ships like F123 and F124.

That was … untill I hit the websiteof ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, of which BLohm & Voss in Hamburg is now a subsidiary. First thing you see is an image of an F125 version with VLUs. But they show a different CG on their dedicated F125 page.

So, it may be that modularity would allow for easy switch or conversion to VLU carrier, probably swapping out MLRS with reload capability.

See further
http://www.europaeische-sicherheit.de/Ausgaben/2006/2006_06/04_Jedlicka/2006,06,04,01.html

In short, VLU possible but its anyones guess at this point.