Probably more much, since russian shipyards dont have any experience in building large warships (kiev, kuznetzov and ulyanovsk classes were built in nikolayev shipyards, ukraine) and right now they cant even build an 20000t LHD by themselves.

So. you classify ships like the Kirov class as small? Or boats of the Typhoon class?

The fact that a 20k LHD isn’t build sole by itself doesn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t if they chose to. You’ld need more ‘evidence’ to reach draw conclusion.

To answer the posed question….where do the big guns go?. The answer to me is any combattant hull that can embark one.

I’m with you on this.

Oto-Melara and its 127mm Vulcano gun! Seems like if Key forum’s members held the purse strings, they’d be selling like hot cakes. 😉

@ AI
Your Type 45 AAW destroyer seems rather unaffordable, though I do agree with the high-low mix of Aster 30 & CAAM. The thing I disagree with is the big gun for naval gunfire support. AAW destroyers should be the last ships in any fleet to carry out this mission – better leave it to a GP or ASW frigate going inshore to drop commandos or snare a sub. At least the frigate has some reasons to go inshore, and is more expendable if things go awry.

@ Wanshan
I like the idea of upgrading the OHPs for littoral combat & ASW. Would be a rational mission if LCS was cancelled (or never invented in the first place). However, why not go for something simpler & cheaper? 64x ESSM is overkill, and APAR is a bit rich especially if it’s only going to serve as a glorified short-range designator. The uprated GTs are a mistake: I’m not even sure you can pack that many HP on a gearbox, and certainly not on a single variable pitch prop. All you’re going to achieve is much higher fuel consumption due to the GTs operating at partial loading (OHPs can do 25kts on one GT & 20,000hp, so pottering around at 15kts on one 40,000+hp LM2500+G4 is going to be a disaster).

So why not go for:
– 8 VLS forward for 32x ESSM (same as Aussie frigates)
– Replace the Mk13 SM-1 launcher with the 127mm Oto-Melara + Vulcano (great idea!)
– Add the 8 Harpoon for land-attack & inshore surface threats (same position as on Taiwanese FFGs)
– Replace Phalanx with SeaRam for 2nd layer IR-guided defense
– Add Davide ammo to the 76mm gun for 2nd layer defense
– If you want modern radars, I’d go for CEA-FAR and CEA-MOUNT for search & guidance. Much more complementary than SMILE + APAR.

Should do the job, me thinks.

Me was thinking later it would be simpler to keep the 76, scratch the chainguns on the flanks and put a couple of ‘Danish’ – 2x 6-cell Mk48/56 (2×12 ESSM) – there, no Apar but just a pair of STIR 1.8. But CEA products would work nicely too.

INcidentally, is that SeaRAM (rather than Phalanx?)

The Netherlands is a NATO member – and I’ve not been able to find any reference to such a sale except a very ambiguously worded Wikipedia entry with no source. Every other reference is identically worded, & equally unsourced. Where did you hear of it?

http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/ned041126-redirected

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/intelandterror/article_1064229.php/Dutch_aim_to_be_third_country_with_Tomahawk_cruise_missiles

2004-5: Idea to get 30 Tomahawk for the Dutch LCF class frigates.

Very iffy, didn’t actually result in purchase IIRC

Shirane class.

Landed: OPS-12, WM-25, TACTASS, Mk42 x 2, ASROC, Mk29, Phalanx x2.

Installed:

– FCS-3
– SONAR2087
– OTO127LW ‘A’ Position.
– ‘B’ position Mk42 deckhouse retained. Modified for 6 x Sylver A35 (24 VL Mica)
– Raised deckhouse created on foredeck directly aft of B position for 4 x Mk41 Tactical modules (8 VLA, 24 SM-2blkIV/SM-3)
– Millenium mounts x 4 situated on Phalanx pedestals and port and starboard beam on hangar roof. Individual director elements.

Airgroup 3 x NH90 FFH with FLASH, LWT and NSM capability.

drewl :p

One hot spot at a time my friend. 😉 Besides, if the tactics used around Somalia are effective, there is little reason why they would not also be effective when applied to the other piracy hot spots.

Well I think that is not the most accurate of comparisons, since in the case of Somalia, there are no law enforcement agencies trying to close these guys down. They effectively own and run most of the coastal towns. As such, there is less need for paying off for silence of greasing palms.

I would also suggest that it is inaccurate to compare pirates to poppy growers. A more accurate comparison would be between pirates and drug gang enforcers. Would anyone here have any moral objections to suggesting police should shoot to kill against those guys? I am merely arguing for the same policy against pirates.

These are not cute and fluffy (or more accurately, drunk and funny I guess) Captain Sparrow and jolly maties sailing about fighting the evil East Indian Trading Company of the 21st century here. Good honest merchants have been killed and injured when they tried to resist these thugs.

I’m arguing its way past time the kiddy gloves come off and these criminals get the treatment their kind deserves.

If folks in the pirate business are the only folks around that have money, would you as an honest shopkeeper or something like that refuse to sell them supplies? That’s what I mean: there has to be an alternative to (tacit/active) support. Make the water unpleasent for the fish is all I’m saying.

Three caveats:
it must still float
ideally each additional bit ought to have been proven as possible
and there ought to be some rationale for the additions.

Well foreign over fishing has certainly played its part if helping to supply the desperate men the pirate leaders need to do their bidding.

However, what you are suggesting is high problematic for a number of reasons.

Chiefly, Somalia has no working government, as such, there is no means to effect economic development short of sending in an occupational army to in effect build a state out of that bowl of wrong.

What more, I do not subscribe to the idea that being born with a poor lot in life somehow justifies you to take up a weapon and go robbing other hard working folk out of their wealth and goods to make your own situation better.

Call me old fashioned, but if you behave like a criminal, then you should be treated as one. And rewarding thuggish thieving behavior with aid will only encourage other down trodden people to follow this perverse example.

There are plenty of needy people in the world who has not taken to piracy that deserves my aid money a hell of a lot more than Somali pirates, no matter how pathetic their life story might have been.

Piracy is not just a problem around Somalia, though it is logically concentrated around the chokepoints in the world’s main shipping routes.

Poverty doesn’t absolve persons of their individual responsibility but it is clear that in a poor area people with money can get (away with) things that other can’t i.e. if the environment is poor, this provides a safe habitat (you don’t have to be a ship boarder: to earn some money or palm grease, poor people will aid and abet or at least not report the actual thugs. See hard drug producing countries: you can’t just eradicate coca or poppy crops, you have to give the poor farmer a viable alternative to make a living. A coca farmer is part of the production system but not necessarily a thug or criminal)