The Type 1030 was cancelled, however the current Type 1022 essentially uses the a single antenna of the system – the 1030 was to have two antennas back to back.

I’m intrigued by the mention of a Sea Dart2 from the 90’s, I have only ever seen information of the system cancelled by Knott in 1982. Any further details.

I agree Kerosene is a relatively benign fuel as against HTP or LOX, however, in my view the thing to remember is that liquids leek. I would imagine that the any missiles would be subject to a very high degree of slamming if the ship was caught in heavy weather.

I do not know what protocols that the RN uses when maintaining the missiles on board, but I would certainly want to know that non of my missiles had fuel leeks, however unlikely. Otherwise a very spectacular fireworks display could result when the booster ignited when being launched.

Once again I make the point regarding the electronics. I remember as a child watching over the shoulder of the TV repair man on his twice yearly call out replacing the valves in the telly – which was the item that always needed to be replaced. So what chance for these delicate items on a 3500ton destroyer in a force 10 gale. This reliability problem would have been address in the Sea Dart Mk2, and was only resolved after the Falkands in 82 when a back door Mk2 program was undertaken and the missiles and radars where upgraded in stages.

As regards aquiring the targets, surely the German SAMs where designed to take on high level bombers flying at 30,000ft, therefore there would have been time for the missile to gain sufficient velocity to become aerodynamically manouverable. However, for the missile to “tipped over” immediately upon launch; as would be required with a VLS, thrust vector control would be necessary, a technology which I understand only matured in the 1970’s – Taildog/SRAAM as an example.

Also if vertical launching was so easy why then was SM1, SM2, SAN3, 4 & 7, Crotale, Sea Sparrow and Aspide all launched on mechanical launchers when all of these came after Sea Dart, and why did it take until the early eighties to come up with an effective verticle launcher.

I absolutely agree that VLS launching is desirable, but believe it would have come with a “Sea Dart Mk3”.

The Sea Dart Magazine isn’t directly below the launcher as in the Soviet VLS and the Mk13 Launcher. There is an intermediate stage directly below the launcher where the missile is warmed up, and the magazine is below that.

The Soviet VLS systems use a gas generator to launch the missiles from the tubes a “cold launch”, in the same way as an SLBM is launched. Western VLS SAMS are hot launched, which requires venting of the rocket motors exhaust.