Radar

i don’t know if phalanx for example today has the same reliability problems it may had years ago but this doesn’t matter because there are a lot of ciws around and at the upper end is ram.

A CIWS gun/missile system is always going to be the more fail-prone system because of the extra complexity….as I’ve said it all has to work first time or its game over. IF you BASE your self-defence on that system you are vulnerable to the first 15 pence microswitch fail that brings down the mount traverse motor, or the FCR or the operator console. Comparitively a countermeasures launcher is a tube with an unguided rocket in it. You would not dispute the fact that a chaff rocket, pyrotechnics rocket or floating RF jammer is, mechanically, a far simpler system than a state-of-the-art CIWS I trust?.

and in a streaming attack of ashm how long your decoys will be deployed? 30 sec? and how fast you can reload your decoy launchers? sorry but softkill systems can also be saturated.

Decoy launchers can be reloaded in seconds and brough back into readiness in next to no time after that. Re-seeding chaff clouds or smokescreens is a reasonably simple exercise to undertake in all weathers too and it really isnt that difficult to simulate seeker heads to guage the effectiveness of softkill. How fast can you reload a gun-based CIWS in a streaming attack and, if you have on-mount sensors, how long does it take to re-initialise the system after the reload is complete?. Bit mean on the gunners mate to keep the radar energised whilst he’s feeding new rounds in!.

I reiterate that it is very much easier to saturate hardkill defences based on gun/missile systems utilising closed-loop engagement cycles and finite fire-channels, as most do, than broad aspect soft-kill.

a decoy is not able to shoot down a plane (how much ships were hit by a ashm and how much were hit with bombs during the falkland war?), …

Stretching the point a bit radar!. You are suggesting that no ships wouldve been sunk by freefall bombs in the Falklands if all RN ships had mounted a Phalanx?.

maybe you could start list all the decoyed and destroyed ashm but that is not my point. the point is, that most (if not all) of these decoyed ashm situations are 20 years ore more ago. and nobody can forecast if a state of the art ashm can be decoyed like a exocet or a silkworm 20 years ago. it is impossible to proof a softkill system with all ashm which are available today.

The point is though Radar that those earlier missiles were decoyed by peer-technology systems. Syrian P-15’s may, by today’s standards, be antiquated, but, to the Israeli Navy at Latakia in 73 they were anything but. They defeated that threat with softkill. AGM-84’s, AM-39’s etc have been defeated by softkill under operational conditions and both are current service weapons who’s seekers capabilities, generally, are unchanged in the sense that they still operate in the same frequency bands and still respond to defined RF contrasts.

a softkill system can only proofed if you can get all the state of the art ashm-seekers or you have to wait until you really need it in wartime

You think there is anything special about the radar in a missile seeker just becuase it sits in the nose of a missile?. Some are more discriminatory than others, some more powerful than others but, essentially, they all have certain ranges of capability within which they fall that are not, at all, hard to simulate with a high degree of accuracy with a couple of underwing pods on a bizjet!. ECCM techniques tend to be variations on the same theme no matter whether its an Indian, Russian, British or French seeker head thats employing them – simply put the nature of the technology doesnt allow for much else.

Passive/Active seekers really are nothing new Radar and the counter to them – is well known and well proven. That going for western seekers as much as eastern ones.

Wasn’t that because the French told us exactly what electronic countermeasures to apply and how? I might be wrong on that, but it’s my current understanding.

Of course softkill is more than possible, but some anti-ship missiles are better able to compensate than others.

We knew all about the AM39 seeker and had the right types of chaff already because we had MM38 in the fleet as GWS50. The French helped us by letting us get an ESM profile of the Super-E/Agave platform, codenamed ‘CONDOR’ in the fleet, and some experience against SuE’s on Exocet attack profile.

Softkill, against most ARH seekers, will be every bit as effective as hardkill….if not more so.

Ed,

On a side note, what is the betting regarding UAVs? Something along the lines of the MQ-8 Fire Scout or A160 Hummingbird might make sense. I would definitely look at mounting an air surveillance radar, to allow them to be used as radar pickets, since they could help with some off-board targetting, and allow longer range surveillance. Certainly the A160 is big enough, but I haven’t heard much about it of late, which is a pity.

A-160 Hummingbird was trialled, as above, with a 1000lb payload and flew for 8hrs in that configuration unrefueled. I believe the Searchwater array and a datalink would be a practical configuration for the air vehicle and the DARPA FORESTER radar tests (see below) show that the air vehicle carries enough onboard power generation to drive a fairly high power radar system.

It would seem that whats required is the leap of logic to see whether A160 and Searchwater can be mated and trialled for MASC and whether we can fit a Merlin to act as a node to receive the Searchwater downlink in circumstances where we dont want the CVF to be participating in an active datalink conversation. I would stress that it is my sincere belief that A160/Searchwater, if realised, could be one of the greatest transformational systems since naval radar was invented. The concept of any vessel with the aviation capability to operate a light chopper, being able to deploy a theatre surveillance radar on a 8hr+ coverage mission I find quite astounding.

Firescout is an even easier proposition as, IIRC, the USN have already trialled it successfully so it would be a relatively simple acquisiton for the RN. For force protection, MIOPS overwatch and ISTAR it could be a very valuable system indeed – if the price isnt too severe.

Honestly, i’d just get the 4.5″ guns for the C3’s and use them with the normal and *cheap* HE rounds that are all they will need. Let the 155mm guns on the C1, C2 and T45 get the expensive smart ammunition derived from the army munitions.

Concur absolutely. The Mk8 is just too useful a tool for us to not reuse the mounts we already have.

As has been described, relevent to C3’s mission, for anti-drug work the appearance of a couple of very impressive shell-splashes in front of a go-fast boat has proven a great discouragement from further attempts at evasion. The mount is capable of firing starshell in quantity for illumination purposes for patrol or rescue operations. In embassy evac/low intensity disorder type operations a ship pointing a ‘big gun’ can be a remarkably useful declaration of intent.

Having the Mk8 permanently fitted, as opposed to for-but-not-with, allows for a greater flexibility in operations. Imagine, for example, we have a C3 on hydrographic survey tasking mapping out round Cyprus when we get a diplomatic situation blow up in Lebanon. A quick re-task to the C3 to lay off the coast and adopt an aggressive posture in support of UK interests see’s a very swift and decisive response from the Royal Navy that an OPV(H) with a 30mm just isnt going to be able to match.

The whole idea of the large Oceanic Patrol Vessel concept, as dispalyed by the Thetis Class or the USCG WHECs or the new Dutch 3750ton vessels is independence of operation and flexibility of response. Giving them the ability to employ significant force, without the expense associated with full warfighting capability, only aids them in their mission.

For the likely costs involved in refurbishing and reusing existing mounts we have in the system NOT redeploying the Mk8’s seems more daft to me than mounting them. In fact the only issue is, like Phalanx, going to be in numbers. As far as I can tell there would be 11 or 12 that could be taken from the 42’s (though that may be more like 8 or 9 actually reusable and I think the T45’s guns may be drawn from this pool), the 13 from the T23’s and the 4 from the 22B3’s. Could be that we’d only actually have about 20 guns available to the C2/3 force from our own stocks. In an irony though it may be possible to come to an arrangement with the Pakistan Navy for the Mk8’s off their 21’s when they discard them and maybe even with the Argentine navy for the guns off their 42’s!.

I’m quite intrested in why you think that 2 C1’s should be fitted for flag duties as i thought that all the T45, CVF, Albion and Bulwark have the facilities.

Flexibility.

I’m not too sure how extensive the facilities on T45 are in flag terms. The amphibs command facilities are best employed by the amphibious command staff/land forces commander and no-one else. CVF will obviously be home to a full group Flag, but, its not a given that we will deploy the duty CVF every mission or even that we’ll have a free CVF if an event blows up unexpectedly whilst we’ve already got the carrier deployed.

To my way of thinking if a low-order, but, involved and sustained crisis blew up, something like Armilla say, and we needed to concentrate a group of C2’s and C3’s in the gulf to escort tankers and deal with mine threats then having an ability to place in local command and control on a large and capable hull might be very useful. Similar for coalition operations using a vessel like this as a leadship for an escort group similar to that in the Black Sea currently would be useful. Lastly its another hull capable of supporting land-attack, group ISTAR/ELINT and Fleet ASW ops with its VLS and airgroup. For the likely costs of adding another couple of hulls to an existing build of a largely de-risked design I think that could be good value for money.

I know we don’t want role creep, but we have to realise that tasking creep will happen.

Dont see it myself….we are discussing a complete paradigm shift in the balance of the RN escort fleet here gents. This is fundamental root and branch stuff aimed at giving the RN a half chance at meeting the commitments that have been placed on it. The simplest oservation to make is if we ever role creeped the SSK’s into fleet duty!?. The answer is no we didnt because the one vessel could not do the others job.

The same situation exists here. I’d actually go to great pains to make sure that the C3 wasnt capable of being upgunned anywhere close to C2 and I’d sure as hell make sure that the C2 stayed as much at the austere end of the spectrum from C1 as possible whilst still giving it sufficient capability to undertake its missions.

As soon as we give C3 an approximation of the capability to operate in a contested littoral we pull the rug from under C2. We also then oblige the C3 fleet to start taking aboard additional crew members to support the weapons systems. IF we start seeing a greater threat environment evolve in 15 years time then, after we have C2’s in build, then we can look at, perhaps, a containerised version of CAMMs that can be sited on the C3’s work deck or some such thing. That though is not the point of C3 and that should be well down the list of RN priorities.

In numbers terms the C3/C2’s have to be considered carefully as they will be shouldering the bulk of the RN’s routine taskings. If you look at all assets you are replacing high-end is 4 T22B3’s and 5 non-2087 T23’s then low-end 4 River/OPV(H)’s plus 16 Hunt/Sandown MCMV’s and then another 5 Droggy hulls. That means C3/C2 has to replace 34 hulls of various capabilities.

Half of the Hunt class boats do double duty as OPV’s already so, with the increase in capability that the UUV’s bring to MCMW we could probably see a reduction in the number of hulls in MCMW, but, the Droggy ships tend to be tasked to clear off for months on end mapping things so the numbers probably have to be maintained there. I would wish for 18 C3’s to replace the 25 minor vessels just to have available hulls. I dont think we could withstand any reduction in the high-end patrol capability so I would be looking at minimum for 10 C2’s to cover the higher-threat taskings and any SNMG duties that we could get away with detailing a C2 to.

Rounding the Fleet component I’d also imagine Frosty to be close to the mark. I dont see us getting additional T45’s now so we’d be looking at a ‘Fleet component’ of 6 T45’s and 8-10 C1’s (additional 2 non-2087 C1 hulls fitted for Flag duties) plus the SSN’s of course. Sounds quite a modest contingent until you realise that C2/C3 are shouldering most of the routine deployment work so the core fleet can be husbanded and tasked for FleetEx’s and combat deployment only – a factor which should allow for much improved mission availability rates.

Done right it could see the RN able to deploy a very considerable offensive punch into waters defended by the most modern threat systems. Which is, at the end of the day, the name of the game these days.

Steve

What is to stop an Iranian or Chinese submarine moving out into the “blue water” to attack an approaching fleet?

SSNs for Chinese SSNs and some fairly routine anti-submarine procedures will make an SSK attack in blue water a very limited threat level event. The greatest danger now and for the medium term future is not ASW in blue water. There was only one Red Banner Fleet.

The ships need to be able to do both blue and green water ops, a ship that is quietened for ASW in blue water would not be limited in green water, however a ship that has less quiet engines may not be limited in green water, but will be in blue.

Again though even in blue water there are no shortage of merchantment running around on a couple of diesels. Not many of them are propelled by 400hz electric motors though. Your threat submarine may not get the 400hz line until its very much closer than it would hear the diesels, but, it would be able to make a good guess at identifying the IEP ship as military where it may have to visual the diesel ship before it can get a POSID. Besides we are talking patrol ships here not ASW warflighters. According to released information the ASW escort is slated as being C1 – here we are talking about the propulsion fit of the C2 and C3 neither being an ASW type.

Plus situations change, these ships will have an expected service life of 25-30 years, who is to know the RN wont go back to a blue water focus during that time?

Who is a threat that in 25 years could contest the RN in blue water transit?. Even the PLAN aren’t going to be a proper blue water force by 2030.