JonesyOne quick question – which Air-Ship missiles are those being discussed for the Thai Gripen force?. I only know of three possibles that are, or are intended to be, cleared for Gripen (RBS-15, NSM and Penguin) and, to the best of my knowledge, Thailand operates none of them?.
I know Malaysia has been considering NSM and a rationalisation of its anti-ship missile inventory for a few years. Never heard of interest in the system from thailand though?!.
EDIT: No matter – I’ve found the answer. RBS-15F’s included in the Gripen deal.
JonesyThats because you looked in the wrong place. If you want to reach Andy Pico you will need to try and find someone who knows where he went. I suggested Tony D because he was one of the guys who founded Warships1 and he may, and I stress may, be able to point you in the right direction. Also I suggested mailing him directly and pointed you towards a site where you could find his mail address.
I saw your post on that site and, to be honest, I dont understand your problem?. The open source material indicated is the best you’ll get generally available and you were given a link to buy a download of the E-2A/B flight manual for the tiny sum of US$20. Surely your publisher will advance you that much if you are unable to spare it?. Then again though you would have to question your seriousness in a project that you seem unwilling to invest $20 in?.
JonesyThe issue of a life extension for the Type 23s has been discussed before, the consensus being that the Type 23 was not design and built to a standard sufficient for 30 years of service.
Simply put then Tinwing the consensus is wrong. The 23 was designed for a service life of 17-18 years with the concept being that the strategic situation may have changed in that window and a new vessel would have to be considered anyway. The 17-18 years were also meant to be taken up towing the 2031 array across the north atlantic and back and getting a pretty good pounding for its trouble.
Well, the strategic change happened, and, because of it, the Dukes have spent more time cruising the Med and the Gulf than was expected, albeit with the odd trips to the southern oceans. The net result is that the 23’s hulls never got the anticipated atlantic hammering and are in better nick than was expected. SLEP therefore becomes an option. That really isnt the point I was trying to make though – I am not saying that a SLEP’d T23 is the answer to our ASW challenge going forwards – I am saying that the capability offered by ASW FREMM isnt sufficiently great over T23 to warrant its acquisition.
The reality is that the RN has effectively demoted the 5 remaining unmodernized Type 23s to what is effectively a patrol role, a mission that will be filled by the C2. The 8 modernized Type 23s represent the future ASW force that will transition to the C1 as the hulls age.
Which was my point from the outset. We are only likely to get 8 hulls out of C1. Perhaps, of those 8, if we’re lucky 5 will be deployable at any one time. If we’re only to have 5 operational primary ASW hulls then we need those hulls to be standing off a threat and not being an addition to some SSK skippers collection of scope shots!. This means that the aviation dept HAVE to be the vessels principal armament, so, its a straight line equation that we need a big hull to deploy a practical ASW airgroup and support it for a protracted period. That is not a description of any of the FREMM ships.
The ASW mission looks very dated in the current context, where the demand is for transport helicopters for land-based and amphibious operations. To preserve the current RN Merlins for the dedicated ASW role, there needs to be a Sea King HC4 replacement, preferably a Merlin order. The RAF’s Merlin inventory is too small to be called upon to replace the HC.4.
ASW mission looks very dated???. You may be forgetting that the RN is one of the few developed navies that has experience against modern(ish) SSK’s in littoral expeditionary warfare. The Argentine Armada’s Type209 San Luis operations in the Falklands War were one of that actions most salutory lessons. Merlin HM1 is under no threat whatsoever please believe me on that one!.
The operating economics of a platform large enough for 3 Merlins will kill the C1 on financial grounds. If you try to replace 8 Type 23s on a 1:1 basis with cruiser sized platforms, the program will never get funded – which should be a lesson we’ve already learned from the FSC. You’re talking about going from 8 ships operating single Merlins to 8 ships operating 3 Merlins each. Aside from platform costs, the cost associated with tripling the size of the ship’s flight will outweight any savings from reducing manning in the ship itself.
How do you figure that Tinwing?. By you own statement you accept that we would be going from a force of 13 T23’s, say 8 deployable at any one time, each embarking Merlin to a force of 8 C1’s with 5 deployable. If you accept that, in peacetime, the airgroup is likely to be perhaps a pair of Merlin with the 3 being ‘surge’ the same way the RN traditionally does naval aviation then, really, you are going from a Merlin deployment of 8 airframes to a deployment of 10 – and thats if we keep 5 C1’s out simultaneously!. Realistically routine chopper deployments are not going to be an issue here and, as said, the beauty of a T45 ASW variant is in the design/support/operations savings. Savings that FREMM just would not offer.
It is doubtful that the RN will invest in an expensive, inflexible single purpose missile such as ASROC or MILAS. In any case, the employment of stand-off ship based ASW weapons would created an argument against a large ASW helicopter such as the Merlin.
To set one thing straight no stand-off ASW weapon would ever be in conflict with large autonomous ASW choppers in the RN. That lesson was learned with Ikara twenty years ago!. Other than that your point is quite a familiar one – the RN is going to continue to use large ASW choppers for prosecuting submarine threats. It therefore makes sense to use the biggest available escort hull capable of supporting a worthwhile airgroup of such helicopters for the longest time practicable. Just what I’ve been saying all along.
ASW FREMM will be a perfectly adequate design for ops in the Med and in the context of multinational expeditionary ops where its aviation component will be merged with other vessels assets. The RN, however, has to face the possibility of unilateral power projection operations and must equip as such. In this context only FREMM is too small for our requirements.
JonesyZuyev,
I cant help you directly on this but, as the saying goes, I know a man who can.
The gentleman you need to speak to is a a guy called Andy Pico and he’s a retired USN Cdr who spent most of his time on E-2’s. I’ve not spoken to him for a few years now, but, he used to be found at warships1.com and if you contact a guy called Tony DiGiulian (email address can be found at http://www.navweaps.com) he might be able to steer you in the right direction.
Hope you find him and good luck with the book – let us know when you are near a publishing date.
JonesyYeah they took that from the MoD website. Unfortunately for Naval Technology thats not the full load figure.
Just for clarification I’ve still not seen completely official figures, from BAE, as to precisely what the full load displacement figures are – just that the figure they give of ‘circa 7350tons’ is deliberately vague and, I’m told, the full load displacement tips the Daring over the 8k mark.
For the purposes of the exercise whether the displacement is 8000tons or 7700tons is largely inconsequential. The fact remains that the physically larger ship has the greater potential as an aviation platform over a circa 6000ton FREMM.
JonesyFREMM is not the sort of “gold plated” platform that the RN typically specifies, but would seem to be more than adequate for the C1 mission.
By what justification?. What makes you think that FREMM is suited for forced entry into an SSK patrolled littoral?.
I too question the economy of the FREMM in the patrol mission, something that a GoWind sized combatant is better suit to, but that mission has been devolved upon the poorly defined C2. The FREMM might be considered as a 1:1 replacement for the 8 modernized Type 23s for the C1, while the C2 would seem to replace the unmodernized Type 23s and Type 22 Batch 3s, although it isn’t clear is any of those units will survive cutbacks.
FREMM cannot be considered as a 1-1 replacement for T23 as it doesnt offer anything in the way of a capability improvement over a 23!. We’d do just as well SLEPing the 23’s!. C2 would be a new platform, not to replace T22B3 and the non-2087 Dukes as they are both true escorts in their own right, but to develop an economical platform for forward littoral presence in the ‘gunboat diplomacy’ model. to suggest that they would directly replace the last 22’s and the remaining 23’s would be to set an expectation for the class which would be wildly inaccurate.
In any case, the “ASW mission” is meant to support “power projection,” not the other way around. ASW is typically defensive, outside of very peculiar, obsolete cold war definitions.
…and this is your fundamental mistake. ASW was pretty much defensive in the Cold War. Our cueing systems were almost entirely passive and relied on them (Sov SSNs, SSGNs etc) coming to us. Now, when we are obliged to put ourselves in threat littorals, and the opposition has home waters advantage, sitting back and letting them come to us is extremely, extremely dangerous – especially if the threat is from modern discrete SSK’s operating under their ideal conditions. Now the new paradigm is the need to sweep and actively sanitise areas of littoral battlespace to make sure no nasty suprises lurk as reliance on the old passive warning systems offers little guarantee of safety.
Without a follow-on order, I fear that the current Merlin fleet will lose the ASW mission to the Future Lynx. The “Commando” variant of the Sea King requires replacement, and MASC, if it survives, will require newer airframes, even if current avionics are reused. It would be far cheaper to “strip out” the current Merlins for transport, SAR, VERTREP, and COD roles than to engage in a futile battle to fund a follow up order. The reality is that the Lynx is better suited to the smaller ships in S2C2, and it no longer makes sense to maintain two separate helicopter types for use aboard the greatly reduce surface combatant fleet.
Absolutely no chance. FLynx is for force protection, MIOPS, modest ASuW and light ASW duties. Merlin is acknowledged in the RN as our prime ASW asset and that crown is unassailable. The Jungly Sea Kings are likely to be retired without replacement and some attempt undertaken to use conventional transport Merlins from the joint Helicopter force to gap fill. A few airframes for MASC are not going to cause all the HM1’s to be stripped out – its more likely that a handful will be poached from the current 42 in inventory while a decision on long-term fleet AWACS/ISTAR (ie MALE/HALE UAV) requirements is undertaken.
For C1, the RN doesn’t need a platform for a pair of ASW Merlins, but a hangar for a Future Lynx, or two, not to mention VTOL UAVs.
Again no chance. The RN needs a platform capable of deploying 3 Merlins and supporting them for an extended period. If we envisage a class of 8 vessels the 4-5 that would be deployable would require 12-15 Merlin HM1’s at maximum surge which we can accomodate from the 22 aircraft ready pool we currently maintain. In peacetime one or two Merlin plus rotary UAV’s would be more likely.
Littoral ASW is now the game of the autonomous hunting chopper. The days of sending plucky little frigates in to try and get a sonar hit and blast off an ASROC (or MILAS) on a contact are well over. That, now, is a great way to lose escorts to pop-up AShM threats or very smart 40knt HWTs!.
McConrads
Ok, I see your point. If compared with such a (fictional) design the FREMM will loose in all capability areas. But how realistic is such a design inn sufficient numbers? I think it is virtually non existing.
Again though if we base an ASW escort on the T45 hull and we immediately get common support with the Darings and a most-part developed hull that requires only modest modification from the original. It sounds almost beancounter-ish at first but when you look at the savings having things like common generators, osmosis plants, HVAC systems, distribution panels, galley equipment etc from one class of ships to the next it really adds up. we get that with a modified T45 for C1.
Against that we have the situation where we opt for FREMM and if, I say again IF after the Horizon debacle, the French do not demand workshare and allow us to modify the design to our own requirements we then get the chance to take an off-the-peg hull and try and see if we can fit our kit into it. If not we then get in to the business of supporting additional equipment and system unnecessarily.
Well the F124 and the F123 and even the F122 carries two helicopters with all the necessary equipment on smaller hulls.
Two Merlin sized helicopters?. No. T22 can carry two Lynx but it does so with finite embarked stores to support that detachment. Supporting a group of two or three Merlin for a realistic number of sorties over a continuous operations window of several days means significant space given over to aviation consumables and that will simply be easier to find in a circa 9k ton hull than in a circa 6k ton hull.
Do you mean the 8.000 t hull which can carry … wait…. ONE helicopter only? And which is so expansive that the RN will get 6 ot of its envisioned 12 unites?
The 8k ton hull that is currently an AAW vessel and only needs one chopper!. Evolving an ASW escort from that design would naturally enhance the aviation support capability. Take a look at the back end of a stock 45 now – there is a good sized flight deck already – putting a hull stretch of 20-25m aft to enhance the hangar, resite the ships boats and widen the hangar at roofline could, relatively simply, give that vessel a very considerable aviation capability. Similar to a design that BAE have actually already generated concept artwork of.
As I’m sure you are aware a large proportion of the T45 costs are in the UKPAAMS system. Funding the SAMSON/PAAMS combination on our own was never going to be cheap and spreading that over only a few hulls is going to lead to expensive ships. This ASW hull would not need UKPAAMS, SAMSON or S1850 so there is an immediate saving of what £150mn a hull?.
Ok, if C1 is only slated to be the ASW follow on design, I stand correct. But than again C2 is supposed to be “a big fitted for not with” empty hull, preferably the same general design than C1, right? Not a simple OPV either. BTW, FREMM will be cheaper to run and maintain, e.g. because of its smaller crew (but not by much I agree).
The only factor I’ve ever seen listed for C2 is that it must be cheaper to deploy than a full-strength escort. To that end I cant see how C2 can be anything other than some form of large OPV with, perhaps, the systems/weapons of a light frigate. Nothing else is going to address the RN’s operational budget difficulties. To me there’s a reason why Vospers have propsed a larger version of their Khareef OPV for C3. The basic Khareef design stretched and equipped with RN standard equipment makes a sensible C2.
European,
Sorry?
T45 8k tons??? What u mean with tons? British tons are different from the european/metric system tons?
The Horizon/T45 will displace 7k tons (european/metric tons). A Burke, bigger than Horizon/T45 and with 4 LM2500 is 9k tons.Talking about T45 it would be glad if the Samson radar will work properly after the billions £ RN is losing.
T45 is a very expensive platform and 6 units will be a great financial effort for HM £.
Sorry, but 2 AW-101 every ship or an ASW version of T45 is nothing more than nice dreams.
At full load the Type 45 displacement is in excess of 8000tons – I believe metric ones at that!. SAMSON is the end result of a prolonged period of research stemming from the MESAR array and works perfectly well. As I understand it the French are having issues with their PAAMS integration on the Forbin, as well as one or two unfortunate rust spots cropping up here and there!. Integration of SAMSON with PAAMS is going to be expensive thats well appreciated. In many ways it is unfortunate that the Italians and French were happy to accept the less capable EMPAR arrays as, if all of us had adopted SAMSON, all three services would have equally capable AAW platforms.
T45 without PAAMS is not a ‘very expensive’ ship and whole-life it promises to be very economical by virtue of the IEP and automation. Building an ASW variant just gives us economies of scale that makes the unit cost cheaper and gets us more from the money already spent on development of T45. Buying a foreign design like FREMM is non-sensical compared to that.
JonesyEuropean,
You could just as easily say 6000 tons is a bit of a stretch for a frigate!. T45 full load is 8k tons not 7k. T45 isnt a frigate its a destroyer – a modified variant of T45 is what I was talking about i.e (as I said) a circa 9k ton DDH. DDH = Helicopter-carrying Destroyer.
I would confidently expect that a T45 ASW variant would be cheaper, whole life, than buying in FREMM then equipping it to our specs and then supporting that for thirty years – if we get that out of, as Distiller rightly observes, a petty tight looking hull!.
JonesySwerve,
You’re saying it’s too small for C1 & too expensive to run (perhaps too big) big for C2
Exactly.
McConrads,
I have to disagree. FREMM (in the French AVT version) is a decent power projection platform (in company with additional assets like carrier launched aircraft and sub launched cruise missiles) and a good stabilization/peace keeping/surface support platform (as a single operation ship).
I agree that land-attack FREMM looks useful. It doesnt fit in to the force structure the RN is trying to develop though. The closest requirement we have to AVT is C2 and the whole point of C2 is to be a littoral patrol presence that we can deploy cheaper than the T23’s we have sat alongside today for want of operational budget. AVT is not going to be any cheaper to run than a Duke as the key factors, crew size, sensor/weapons and propulsion fit are all present. See response to Swerve above.
Whether it is not much more economical than a Type 23 I cannot judge (and I guess neither can anybody else really).
You can identify key factors in the design, as stated, and make a good guess!. The running costs for this hull will be cutting-edge escort ballpark and not OPV territory.
But the real question for the RN is if they need to replace their ASW capability right now or whether their true needs lye somewhere else, e.g. in the afore mentioned stabilization/peace keeping/surface support missions (replacing the Type 22 and unmodified Type 23).
Again you’re talking about C2 and this kind of escort cannot be the solution to that requirement or we’re no better off, in efficiency terms, than we were with T23. Selecting a FREMM derivative here is to completely discard the, very necessary, S2C2 concept and revert back to some analogy of the old FSC programme. Do we need to go back into that can of worms?.
Again, I don´t think the RN needs an ASW asset right now. Never the less I strongly believe that the FREMM could be easily modified to carry to helos.
Why bother inducting and modifying a circa 6k ton hull to take extra choppers when we will have a class of circa 8k ton hulls already in the fleet, with a support infrastructure offering a far more suitable chopper platform?. The cost of the larger hull for C1 is hardly going to be more than buying FREMM off the French is it!.
You do realize that it is the same sonar that the FREMM in its ASW role will also employ, don´t you.
You do realise there is a lot more to the installation than the towed array dont you?!. Also that, similar arrays notwithstanding, the SONAR2087 buy is complete. The 8 on the modified Dukes will go to C1 and likely that will be that.
Why not?
Simply owing to the fact that if, as seems likely, C1 stops at 8 hulls we arent going to be risking them chasing off into the weeds after an SSK. We have, arguably, the worlds foremost ASW chopper in Merlin and C1 has to be a vessel optimised for the deployment of Merlin whilst retaining its escort characteristcs. Thats not a description of any FREMM variant – even the Italian ASW one!.
ENRR,
I disagree!
Small for the power projection ASW mission?– displace 5.980 tons full load (De La Penne destroyer is smallest)
– can carry a VDS or boat,
– space for 2 8-cell Sylver A70 for Scalp Naval plus 2 8-cell Sylver A50
– 8 SSM mix between Otomat/Teseo and Milas (fr: Exocet)
– 1/2 Oto 76/62 with Strales/Davide and 1/0 Oto 127/64 with Vulcano ammo (up to +120 km)
– 1 EH-101 plus 1 NH-90 (I think they can enlarge the 2nd hangar for 2 Merlin)
– Mu-90 torpedoes
– Crew: 145
I dont recall saying that FREMM was small. I said it was too small for expeditionary warfare in a contested littoral!. Compared to what we need – which is something like an 8-9000ton DDH – FREMM does not make the grade.
Interesting you say that the FREMM hangar can be extended – would you expect the aviation fuel stores, air ordnance stores, chopper maintenance facilities to be equally extendable on a 6k ton hull?.
JonesyThe RN can buy the project of hull of FREMM and install its system.
French and Italian FREMM are very different as structure (1 nh-90 for FR vs 1 nh-90 + 1 eh-101 for IT) and system&sensor (herackles vs Empar)
FREMM is not a good fit for the RN unfortunately. Essentially its too small for the power projection ASW mission and it will be too expensive in operational terms to be much more economical in the patrol mission than the current Duke class boats.
Effectively the C1 ASW capability needs to be a platform capable, at minimum, of operating a pair of Merlins because no-one, in their right mind, is going to want to send an expensive frigate into the shallows to dig out SSK’s. Also there is a vaguely defined class size of 8 hulls for C1 through the likelihood that the new C1 will inherit the 2087 towed arrays from the 8 upgraded Type 23’s. 8 FREMM will nowhere near offer the kind of capability we’ll need to exist in an SSK contested littoral.
JonesyThe issue here isnt one of combat power, marginal or otherwise, its whether the hulls meet the requirement. If the PN’s requirement is for a Patrol Frigate capable of modest-threat level engagement, on paper at least, the F22’s meet that better than anything else in the inventory.
That the PN has acquired that ‘capability upgrade’ cheaply and without encroaching on the funding for anything else is a considerable victory for the PN. IF the induction of the type leads to an indigenous naval construction (if short of design!) capability then it is hard to see how Pakistan could have got a better deal!.
The giant catch in all this, like Fitz and others describe, is that it all hinges on the design and build quality of the product delivered. The Thai and Egyptian vessels have been text-book examples, in many ways, of how not to design and build warships. Even the basics such as designing in access-panels when running vital wiring looms behind bulkheads were ignored. The Egyptian Navy especially have been quite comprehensive in their opinion of their Chinese vessels. This, it must be noted, is not down to any lack of design skill that the Chinese may have recently caught up on – it takes little genius to design in maintenance access to critical systems, rather, it was the quality of design, making sure that these sort of factors were correct, that was needed to be found in Chinese yards.
The only real way we can be certain whether this is an issue that the Chinese naval shipbuilding industry has addressed, it seems, will be from the reports from the PN about how the F22’s are received. Until then, whether the F22 program has been a really good deal or a really bad one will be an imponderable!.
JonesyIts closer to the truth to say that the surface-vessel Polaris was never really something the USN was interested in other than as a method of demonstrating the missiles ‘versatility’ and ‘strategic flexibility’ to give it more clout in the USAF/ US Army/ USN strategic weapons standoff.
Ultimately it was successful as the USN got their system through – which they promptly based in subs as was always intended. What they got that wasnt intended was to foot the bill for its development solely out of their budget!.
The vessel in question in the initial post was a Charles F Adams class DDG formerly the USS Biddle (DDG-5) and she did undertake an MLF cruise, without Polaris, that brought together a crew from, allegedly, 7 NATO nations. The legend goes it was even considered a successful experiment!.
Jonesy“Or tell the software in the radar to ignore the reflections from the rotors.”
Oh bloody hell!. Yep sorry Swerve no attempt to steal your thunder intended!:o
JonesyAlternately, why not just configure a filter in the compiler to blot out anything within a rangegate within 100m with zero doppler. Presumably the distance between the radar empennage, when emitting, and the proprotors will be fairly constant – barring some catastrophic fuselage failure of course – and will be travelling forwards at roughly the same velocity as the rest of the airframe!.
Should’nt be too difficult to filter out the returns from the props. There is an issue that anything behind the props will be masked for a few tenths of a second, but, the effected arc and masking duration should be of little significance in any real sense.
JonesyPortagee,
The point is though that the RN is looking for a MASC (Maritime Airborne Surveillance & Control) aircraft. An unmanned flying radar array can’t by it’s very nature provide the control element.
I think this is a clear case of technology outstripping requirements though. Searchwater 2000 has proven itself to be equally competent overwater on air surveillance and ashore on ISTAR taskings. If A160T can simultaneously provide comms relay for deployed ground troops it offers overwatch, targetting and control capabilities far beyond the MASC requirement on a single air vehicle. A scope of operations that would be far beyond the remit of a pair of RN ops lads at their workstations in an ASaC7 to control anyway!.
It may be that a Merlin AEW with the Cerberus mission suite might be in order to provide local look-down radar coverage over the fleet at assembly areas etc and that the ops in that fleet air defence role could be extremely valuable in air direction and raid assessment. For the wider mission however you would want ground intel piped back to senior bootie and his team aboard the LPD, any significant ground target ashore would need to be fed to the TLAM planning cell or surface PWO etc, etc. For that mission it doesnt matter whether the radar is on a UAV or a manned airframe as the operators are just doing a relay job anyway!.
Trident,
I’d never have put the Oko array at 200kg!. Good information – thanks!.
JonesyThales has, allegedly, developed a lightweight Searchwater array called the 2000MS that is based on the 2000AEW set fitted to ASaC. The claim is made that this array tips the scales at 100kg.
Boeings A-160T Hummingbird UAV has demonstrated a capability to lift 1000lb’s for an 8hr stretch unrefueld and 500lb’s for 12hrs. It also has enough onboard power generation for the impressive looking Forrester radar.
We’re looking at TOSS for what reason again?.
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