Yeah that starts to look a bit more sensible! 🙂

LEGEND-3 coming in at $337mn including the redesign costs for the hull strengthening. By the end of the run they should have that down to $280-300mn for a hull that is considerably more bells n’ whistles than C3 would ever be.

Essentially a figure of circa $150mn for construction with the remainder in systems and ‘stuff from the extra’s list’ establishes the ‘top end’ for this type of true Oceanic Patrol Vessel. The comparison being with the new Dutch 3750ton OPVs of which 4 are contracted for 500mn Euro’s or circa Eu125mn a copy. Applying the general rule of thumb it can be reasonably argued that, with a long production run, a vessel with lesser sensor/comms fit than either Dutch or American vessel, but, with a more competent machinery fit than the Dutch design should be closer to the £75-90mn bracket than the £95-140mn of the other two designs.

Since then we have also had Northrop Grumman offering a NSC based “patrol frigate” with minimal changes for just under $400m to fill the gap left by LCS troubles.

There’s quite an irony in that, for me, in that it seems that they are considering an upgunned version of an ‘austere’ (in US terms) oceanic patrol vessel as a littoral warfighter. Quite the concept of C3 and C2 as I had it mapped out!. 🙂

The model that illustration was based on turns out to differ from the real ship in some details. Recently a video of the ship was released showing that the arment forward of the bridge consisted of two manned 20mm light AAA, one each side – um, hardly high tech lol. In the video the 76mm main gun has yet to be fitted and we don’t get o see the rear of the ship.

The video does show what looks like a fire-control set mounted atop the bridge though. The type looks very similar to that mounted on the Thondor class boats which, if I recall it right, is a Chinese Type 341 set. That is a set commonly used for gun direction…the Thondor using it to direct the AK-230 mount.

A fire control set like a 341 obviously is not there to serve a pair of manually laid light guns so it does lend credibility to the fact that something heavier is still to be fitted!.

Harry,

Just to make it clear I think that the NSC is the ‘type’ of vessel needed for C3, and as basis for an ‘upgunned’ C2 variant, rather than the actual vessel we need!.

The changes would be considerable. US ships are always overmanned and this vessel appears no different! :). A design crew complement of 148 souls is excessive…especially when you consider that the Singaporean Formidable class mentioned earlier in the thread gets by with less than half that number despite being a design requiring a much greater Warfare Dept. The NSC’s complement, it would be anticipated, would cover the aviation dept and some form of constabulary/boarding detail but its still just 26 short of the crew requirement of a Type 23 frigate!.

The CODAG propulsion fit for 29knts is going to be a bit of a luxury solution and diesel-only machinery for closer 26knts performance is going to be cheaper in aquisition and year on year terms and probably quite adequate. Personally I like IEP for all the C-series boats as I think the ease of maintenance will more than pay for the added expense over the life of the vessels but I may be in a minority on that one!.

The comms fit of the vessel seems inordinately complicated, so much so that apparently tieing the systems to all necessary C3I nodes is proving difficult, legacy of the need for the vessel to establish itself as the netcentric master node at the scene of an incident probably. Needless to say that such complicated systems would be extra and over the RN’s requirement and a nice simple Link16 fit would probably do C3/C2 quite adequately.

Weapons and sensors we have covered before but, to reiterate, I cant see the RN inducting the Bofors 57 or, in fact, any new gun system in the immediate future. If there is a 4000ton hull to fit a gun to you’d put money on the RN refurbishing old Mk8’s into mod1’s and bolting one for’d!. Nothing else really makes that much sense for an austere hull of that size – the 57mm actually looks a bit dinky on the NSC for that matter but is obviously a highly efficient and effective mount.

Just an idea but seeing the recent posts for deep water and having seen the national security cutter for the first time it looks very a very suitable ship for C1/C2 I got a source which says the contracts were for $140 million http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita…s/ship/nsc.htm

Would I be right thinking that you meant C2/C3 there Frosty not C1/C2? 🙂

Essentially you are quite right NSC is precisely the kind of capability set we need to be looking at for C3. I’d have deep and meaningful doubts about actually aquiring the vessel for C3 as there are a few issues, not least in machinery fit and systems integration, that would oblige us to get into more weighty support costs than perhaps we are really looking for.

What is certainly interesting is that NSC proves that a 4000ton, comprehensively kitted out, hull is deliverable for circa £75mn!.

Dionis

Yeah, just like there probably aren’t more than a few of the latest SM missiles on each Tico or Burke, and they don’t practice anticipating an attack from hundreds of supersonic missiles.

What do you mean by ‘latest SM missiles’ IIRC SM-2blk IIIB has been the series production model for years and is the issue round. There is no ‘latest’ version unless you are talking about SM-3 which is an ABM or SM-6 which isnt deployed yet?.

They probably do not practise attacks againt ‘hundreds of supersonic missiles’ because no-one could practically mount an attack using such resources….Russia very much included unless she managed to get every single launching asset she possessed in a position to launch simultaneously. A situation that doesnt just require a lack of military comprehension to suggest but probably a recent dabbling with recreational pharmaceuticals as well.

What the US, along with many other developed navies, DO practice against is streaming missile attacks where a number of inbounds are plotted simultaneously…close enough to the attack that you fantasize your Russian platforms could make as makes no odds.

And we’ve discussed how they launch these things. In terms of being at a real war over the Middle East, there’s really nowhere to look, so a few satellites and recon Bear variants or A-50s can easily track a carrier group, which in turn could guide the Backfires, or in terms of Oscar IIs, you have inertial + SAT update guidance.

Once again…your few satellites DO NOT EXIST!. You are placing the group in the middle east to try and solve the area targetting problem, but, how is a Bear or A-50 at extended range from home air cover going to detect a battlegroup when the battlegroup E-2’s will detect the Bear or A-50 and direct fighters to intercept?. Quite where the Middle East comes in to this I dont know anyway…but are you proposing that an Oscar SSGN sails into the Persian Gulf???. Have you any concept of what you are saying?.

So currently the Russians should withdraw all their ICBMs and SLBMs and use them for profit launching satellites because NATO is Russias friend…

Dont know about ALL of them but I understand they are doing that with some….which is IMO to their credit!. Then again though Garry you know the difference between a strategic weapon and a tactical one, such as an antiship missile, and you are just trying your usual obfuscation tactics aren’t you?! 😉

There is not much threat at the moment then having half a capability is not really much different from having a full capability but still without the need for that capability.

Wooo say that three times really quick!. Of course there is a difference – how can you have ‘half a capability’. You either have a capability or you dont. Without Legenda its stretching credibility to say the Russian Navy HAS a long-range antiship missile capability. They are paying for the upkeep of missiles that impress nobody who has to deal with antiship missiles in a professional capacity.

I doubt replacing all those large antiship missiles with Kh-35 would make much difference at all… when was the last time the Russians fired any sort of anti ship missile in anger in peacetime? When has any navy actually solved a shipping dispute with an antiship missile in peacetime that wasn’t intended to and didn’t start a war.

The difference would be the cost savings from not sending out legacy platforms, like Oscars, and using those savings towards the deployment of patrol assets that actually do important work.

I’m not sure I completely understand your parameters there but Op Praying Mantis saw the use of antiship missiles that didnt end in a war IIRC?.

Can’t see these newer smaller ships being any cheaper than the older models. New electronics and stealth features and new weapons that need to be tested and introduced… and of course at the end of the day you have all these small ships and when you finally need a few vessels to take on carrier groups (from any nation not just US) you find your little missiles have short range and lack the explosive power to really effect a carrier sized vessel.

Garry whole-life costs can dwarf the initial acquisition cost of any vessel. As I’ve written elsewhere on this site the annual running costs of a competent FFG can supercede the sticker price in as little as seven or eight years. Running a modified Slava class just to mount 64 Yakhonts, with a quad tube arrangement in place of every P-500 launcher, means deploying a single 12000ton hull with a crew of 400+.

You are telling me that Russian warship designers would not be able to come up with a 6-7k ton hull with a 32 cell Klub VLS and 32 round S-300 VLS on an economical CODAG hull with half the crew requirement of a Slava?. That is the kind of flexible and economical DDG hull that the Russian Navy needs to get on a long-production run to rebuild its fleets and ensure that it can crew and deploy useable fleet assets in the future…a couple of these honking great Rakenty Kreysers draw funds away from that goal for very, very little purpose.

Think you got that around the wrong way. PESA uses rather less power and generates rather less heat than an AESA.

Nope. Power budget required by a Passive ESA is far higher than for an equivalent AESA.

Was SUNBURN the only sea skimmer (MOSKIT is the airlaunched model) in the Soviet Inventory? The Sovremmeny was fitted with Sunburns in 1981, the fact that the boats had a protracted fitting out period and did not enter operational service till 84 does not diminish the fact that the Soviets had sea skimming missiles.

OK. I’m fairly certain Sovremmeny didnt get her P-270’s til after that…have a Janes with an image of her without the SSM tubes that I’ll have to check the date on when I get home. Anyway we can agree that the Soviet Union did not have an operational sea skimmer til at least 1984 – using your dates.

The SS-N-12 could fly down to 30m, and by 1986 of course there was the Kh-35.

the P-500 in this regard having low altitude capability similar to that of Styx/Termit and the Malachit series….not exactly sea skimming but a low altitude cruise profile.

Ed,

Another stupid though occurs, though (forgive me, I’ve been away from the board for a few days, staying in the hotel NHS…), that we could do what I proposed, but with the C-1/2. The C-1 would have the VDS etc, and the C-2 would have slightly more austere fitout, but overall very similar fit. The C-3 is then much smaller and cheaper, but could at least carry one 8-cell VLS, which, with quad-packing would allow 32 missiles.

Wouldnt say ‘stupid’ too loudly there Ed – the joint C1/C2 with small C3 was where Turbinia came in on this!. 😀

I say this over and again, but, I feel its so important that it cant be overlooked. The requirement out of the C1-3 structure is to provide Fleet ASW and, some version of, ASuW/NGFS and to cover all our patrol taskings more economically than we can currently achieve with Type22B3, 23 and 42.

C1 has to be our principle ASW warfighter and, despite the orientation shift to the littoral and SSK’s, ASW is still every bit as vital to RN ops as it ever was when we chased Victors across the Atlantic. The core issue, stemming from what you (and Turbinia) postulate, of whether should C2 share the same hull as C1, depends largely on how you view what an ASW escort should be today. IF, as I think Turbinia believes, a FREMM-sized hull is sufficient creating, simply, a direct like-for-like replacement of Type 23 then room certainly exists for matching C1 and C2 and ending up with a quite powerful C2 in to the bargain.

I think that approach moves us no further forward with the problems faced today though. Right now we have patrol slots being gapped and escorts tied alongside that could fill them, however, the budget just isnt there to send them out. If C2 is the same as C1, just a little more austere, then we are still, basically, paying for a frigate deployment to cover the patrol tasking….something we cant do now!. Plus we get rather a modest hull for C1 that, personally, I feel is a long way short of what C1 needs to be.

Its my opinion only but I think the greater commonality, to minimise operational costs whilst delivering maximum capability, is for C2 and C3 to have the crossover.

The problem still comes down to what on Earth C-2 is actually going to be though. There seem to be a couple of very different concepts as to what C-2 is meant to be – a standing ‘presence’ ship, an ‘armed patrol’ ship, or an intervention ship. If it is for standing presence or patrol, then moderate armament may suffice; if it needs to be capable of leading a small scale ‘hot’ operation, then something more is needed.

I guess one question is going to be how capable CAMM ends up – I have heard that the IRIS-T-SL has something like a 20km range, which might be enough for our purposes. On the other hand, if it has less than 10km range, then I have real concerns about the defensive capabilities of the ships. A small ‘sort of VLS’ (i.e. something similar to the IRIS-T’s ground launcher) might work. It should be possible to put in a sufficient number of launch tubes (which may, of course, be reloadable). Thirty-two of these would be sufficient, and could represent a good basic armament.

If we then assume that C-2 and C-3 are to be ‘presence ships’, C-3 for low-intensity and C-2 for higher intensity, then they can be the same hull. If we wanted, we could actually make C-2 and C-3 the same basic ship, just with mission modules (a mission bay aft, under the flight deck, allowing either MCM or maritime interdiction crews). There would be the same radar, hull sonar, SAMs, space for anti-ship missiles, and CIWS, and a flight deck and hangar. It should be possible to keep regular manning down to under 80, with space for as many as 80 more staff (flight crew, MCM crew, boarding parties etc..). The main gun would be the same as on the C-1 and T-45, preferably the 127mm – overkill for some taskings, but gives a lot of capability, and commonality.

-4,500 tons displacement
– Common mission bay aft, for VDS, MCM, RHIBs etc…
– Large flight deck and hangar, allowing UAVs and/or helos
– 127mm main gun
– 32+ CAMM (20km+ range preferably…)
– 2 CIWS (maybe our 40mm CTA, with a very high burst rate)
– 80 man crew

I’m still of the opinion you had this right a few dozen posts ago Ed – C3 low/med threat environment and C2 med/high. Simple as that.

I disagree that we could have C2 and C3 being exactly the same ship but fitted with differing modules. Thats the capability-creep we need to be very careful of.

As I’ve stated I think that commonality in hull and machinery is plenty with C3 being the version with the mission deck, crane, transient crew/passenger berths etc, etc. C2 being of a modified ‘batch 2’ design with VLS (CAMM intended to be quad-packable in Sylver A50 – according to rumour) perhaps 2 Aster50/70 modules, BAE 155 (if we go down that route) and with expanded aviation and weapons departments.

Putting in as much commonality as possible whilst maintaining the seperation in costs and capability would be the critical factor in pursuing this joint C2/C3 approach. Otherwise its too easy for the government to take the numbers down to 10-12 modular hulls. 8 of each type means 3-4 simultaneous deployments out of both types which, if you look at what we’re needing to cover, is about adequate. Less than that and we’re still going to be gapping slots!.