The company formerly known as McDonnell-Douglas (swallowed by Boeing) was working on a Ground Rescue Insertion Extraction Resupply pod (GRIER) for its AV-8B Harrier II V/STOL attack jet that would carry two men inside, taking advantage of that aircraft’s ability to land and take-off vertically. This pressurized pod on the outer wings like a fuel tank would allow a 4-man LRS or SF special recon team to insert under the cover as being part of an attack jet “strike package”, and/or to dart in and rescue downed pilots faster and with better armament

From pdf folder on Thales netherlands website:

The STIR HP is a medium-to-long range tracking and illumination radar
system. The system has been designed primarily to control point and
area defence missile systems, such as Seasparrow, Aspide and
Standard Missile (SM1 and SM2) types of SAM systems as well as dual
purpose types of guns.

STIR HP systems are available in two different director configurations;
one director having a 1.8 m antenna, and another director with a 2.4 m
antenna.

Antenna
• Antenna type : Cassegrain with monopulse cluster
• Diameter antenna : 1.8 m or 2.4 m

Target acquisition and tracking capability up to:
– 1.8 m antenna version 200 km
– 2.4 m antenna version 500 km

http://www.thales-naval.com/pdf/stir%20hp.pdf

Ah, good point! Missiles tend to be more expensive than cannon rounds, so maybe Goalkeeper is more expensive to purchase but less expensive to operate (i.e. over the entire life cycle). But … not sure what will happen in terms of operating costs when you get guided rounds …

Mmm, is it the case that an externally powered cannon cannot jam? If so, then that would apply to chaingun as well, wouldnt it? Garry, enlighten me.

The Israelis protyped a landbased application combining Phalanx mount with Barak SAM on a 6×6 truck. IMHO there is no technical reason why you couldn’t integrate one or more 8 cell VLUs for Barak SAM with one or two Goalkeeper systems. You wouldn’t need to place the VLU near the Goalkeeper gunmount (but you easily could, given the small size of the VLU). Might even work with Sea Wolf or MICA VL. SO, no doubt Phalanx and RAM can be integrated effectively as well. I think such integration wouldn’t work with longer range SAMS like Aspide, Sea Sparrow, ESSM though.

in my opinion there is no good gun based ciws. of course they have advantages but how important is the ability using a ciws for a warning shot? you can use nearly everything for that, a manned maschine gun, automated maschine gun, a medium caliber gun or the ships main gun. of course a bulled for a gun is cheaper than a missile but if a ciws starts firing, the ship is in real danger. the ship is only seconds away from a ashm hit (which will at least be a mission kill). so i won’t take a cheap solution, i will take the best solution.

a ciws should
– have a high effectiv range (more space for a second salvo, preventing the ashm wreckage hiting the ship)
– have a fire and forget mode (so there is no “channels of fire” limit)
– of course have a high kill probability
– have a short reaction time

the range is imho the greatest disadvantage of gun based ciws. today there is no guided bullet and with unguided bullets you have to predict the position of the ashm for the next x seconds befor you fire the bullet. maybe this is not as difficult if the ashm travels straightforward but today a ashm maneuvers unpredictable so the x has to be small enough so the ashm can’t escape the hit or the blast.

What do you mean “no guided bullet” ? See earlier post on Davide/Dart.
What do you mean cheap? A gun based CIWS cheap? I think RAM is cheaper than Goalkeeper, for example.

Steam catapults are large, heavy, and operate without feedback control. They impart large transient loads to the airframe and are difficult and time consuming to maintain. The steam catapult is also approaching its operational limit with the present complement of naval aircraft. The inexorable trend towards heavier, faster aircraft will soon result in launch energy requirements that exceed the capability of the steam catapult.

Electromagnetic launch systems offers higher launch energy capability, as well as substantial improvements in areas other than performance. These include reduced weight, volume, and maintenance; and increased controllability, availability, reliability, and efficiency.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/systems/emals.htm
http://www.edn.com/article/CA207108.html
Or just google EMALS and ADVANTAGES

That would be Shtil VLS, not HHQ-16. Note the Front Dome illuminators in the model.

If russian Shtil then forward launcher may be a 3×12 instead of a 4×8.

Wasn’t HQ-16 a chinese development of Shtil? > could use the same illuminators?

yeah it works, oddly enough it came up rather quickly for me and I’m on dial up, thanks for the site mate

We’re just spoiled users :p

PLA’s new 054B FFG?

Seems a new grade VLS SAM 1st appeared here: HHQ16 is long time rumored to be a replacement for HHQ7 SAM currently installed on 054 FFG.

HHQ16 could be a Chinese counterpart of Russian SA-N-12 but a VLS version.

In a brief:

SAM: HHQ16 6 x 8
Anti-sub Missile: AS176? 1 x 8
ASM: YJ83 2 x 4
CIWS: type730 1 x 2

THAT WOULD BE A PS JOB. Notice how the rear vl units do not align properly in perspective. HERE IS THE ORIGINAL: