JonesyThis is a different ‘new SeaDart’ then as the one I’m talking about was being looked at in the early 90’s and incorporated a VL launcher modification and, allegedly, an active seeker.
JonesyBest of luck with this one SLL, I used to fix the things and I never heard or saw anything ‘official’ about the Advanced Sea Dart (as it was called at the time).
If it hadn’t been for our training PO grumbling about having to learn all the active seeker and vertical launch stuff I’d not have heard of it at all!.
JonesyCant pass up a good bandwagon……..
A sincere Merry Christmas and best wishes for a safe, prosperous and happy 2007 to one and all.
JonesyDon’t forget either that Assension is a UK dependancy and the USA has a lease to use it similar to the one they have for Diego Garcia. They couldn’t refuse to let the UK use them so thats hardly major American assistance. The UK didn’t need to ask permission to use them, they only had to say they were coming.
True and to slightly correct Rossco’s earlier point the Fleet Air Arm did not have AIM-9L variant sidewinders prior to the Argentine invasion. They had the AIM-9G variant missiles left over from the Phantom air ordnance days.
Whilst its undeniable that the 9 Lima was a superior missile to the 9 Golf it must be pointed out that no Sidewinder engagement occured in Operation Corporate that was out of envelope for a -9G shot. So, apart from reliability perhaps, the inclusion of the AIM-9L in the task force was not the advantage that many try to make it out to be.
Thats not to suggest of course that the Fleet Air Arm were not grateful for the provision of the new missiles just like, I’m sure, the good folks at Raytheon were grateful for the outstanding advertising their system got!.
JonesyI hadnt heard of the ‘Global Corvette’ designation as such there Nimrod thanks for providing that.
I think that there is merit in this but a lot depends on information that doesnt seem to have much focus applied in all the information I’ve found: Whole-life costs!.
Obviously the lesser the equipment fit the cheaper a boat is to operate (as well as purchase) and the lower the crew requirement. For this reason it seems sensible to move away from a Absalon type boat or a fully-armed/sensor’d-up light frigate like a Lekiu-Mod like those seemingly proposed for Global Corvette. Simply as they would be unlikely to be any more economical to run than what we have now. The spectre of cuts still looming in that scenario and those cuts would naturally be at the warfighting sharp-edge.
The ideal platform for this, I think, is going to be something like the Austal LCS-2 design. Given the experience VT’s recently had with Triton its inconceivable they couldnt put together a low-spec 3000 ton, 5000nm ranged trimaran OPV design capable of embarking a couple of Lynxes or a Merlin, a Type 996 3D radar pulled off decomming 42’s or 23’s, space left for a 2087 sonar and line handling gear, IFEP with a Marine Spey prime-mover and new OTO76 SR forward and a reused Phalanx covering the stern arc. get the DPA to set a cost plus contract for 8 of these for delivery at about £100 mill a throw and your looking at a class for the cost of the two T45’s were doubtful to get anyway!.
This offering a very cost-effective guardship/sea-policing capability with a useful warfighting function as a littoral ASW escort with 2087 fitted and a Merlin embarked. The Spey coupled to IFEP and, perhaps, a pair of auxilliary diesel generator sets should provide the speed to keep up with a CVF group and 3000 tons should leave space in the design for later upgrade as necessary.
As things stand it looks like we could lose the 22B3’s early with no replacement, T45 7&8 could be wishful thinking and this kind capability cutting show’s no signs of letting up while we have the level of commitments we do and defence remains low on voter priority in the UK. The idea of reducing the total capability levels of the RN appeals to me not a bit, but, unless we can convince the Argentines to have another crack at the falklands it seems unlikely that the current funding trends will be reversed in the forseeable future!. It seems, therefore, we need to take steps to cover our own tails a bit!
JonesyUnicorn
You’re an Aussie right?. Was really hoping someone such as yourself would chip in as you may be able to set me right on a couple of things. As I understand it the Meko 200’s the RAN bought were bought exactly as patrol frigates with an austere fit that is getting fleshed out through successive upgrade. The role that they delivered, initially at least, being similar to the kind of global OPV role that some factions in UK MoD seem to have in mind for us. If I have that much right can you give any indication of the success of the design in RAN service and an idea of how much the Meko’s originally cost?.
Sounds a bit like the arguements for the Sea Control Ship, which died the death when the USN’s carrier Admirals realised that every dollar spent on a SCS meant one less for a CVN.
The same thing will happen with these global OPVs.
The logic there is both familiar and undeniable. That said though the problem we have is in getting the taskings achieved within the annual O&M budget, a budget that we’ve already had £300 million redirected to the Army and RAF from. When you consider that a legacy full-up escort like a T23 takes about £16 million per year to keep operational the solution is going to be to be to scrap/sell off hulls without replacement or place escorts at extended readiness (reserve status) to keep the fleet ops inside the budget. Both have happened and are still happening with the RN escort fleet and the danger is that, if the RN is being seen to be able to achieve ‘enough capability’ despite the lower escort numbers then we’ll lose the hulls regardless.
At least with the second-rank ships we would still have hull numbers and will be able to maintain the core warfighting capabilities which, to the RN today/near future, seems to be the ability to assemble a single fully supported CVS group and, simultaneously, a single fully supported ARG and the odd national tasking with the global OPV’s performing guardship and NATO sea-policing taskings.
Governements and bureacrats don’t understand tiered threats, they will always go for the cheapest option. Better to buy the best and have too much ship for the threat, than to have saved money and end up with too little ship for the threat environment.
Again I completely agree with the sentiments, to be absolutely honest I am NOT sold on the second-tier thing, but I dont see us getting the Type23’s replaced one-for-one unless we take a stake in FREMM or something similar and get the boats on a political premise. Given our history with joint European naval projects, I dont like the chances of that coming off and we are still in the situation that we will be placing escorts at readiness status to keep inside the budget!.
plawolf
Didn’t the UK try something along similar lines right before (and arguably helped to cause) the Falklands war? I have always beleived that a nation cuts its defence potential at its own perral, and all too often pay a heavy price in blood later because of it.
Several times before that as well. Read up on the state of our forces between the two world wars!. Those, fairly unspectacular, lend-lease destroyers the US passed over to us really were critical at the time!.
Given the British tendency to ‘go it alone’ with ill-advised American wars, I would think that such a move would be particularly rash for the RN unless the UK finally gets a PM with some backbone and integrity in their GB.
Not just with American wars either…with europeans and on our own it must be said. Essentially with the level of tasking that our forces are expected to meet I’d settle for a Minister of Defence with the backbone to go to the Treasury and demand more money or turn round to the PM and Foreign office and tell them to forget further taskings.
Alas, if the bean counters demand a sacrific, then I would think the best course of action in choosing a replacement for NATO’s warfighting FFGs would be to aquire several different omi-role ship classes instead of trying to have one much smaller and cheaper type trying to fill the shoes of much larger and more capable ship.
So I would take that as a shout for an ‘expensive’ Absalon MSS type vessel that could be mission configured as a warfighter or as a tailored patrol vessel?.
So, in essense, what I am proposing is that intead of wrapping ASh, ASu, AA into one ship type, you have one ship type that is specifically designed to do each. So you have one corvette with a massive complement of AShMs at the cost of not having any medium and long range SAMs or much in terms of ASuW capacity, have one type with a TAS and extra large hanger as well as all the other ASuW essentials, have one type with as many medium range SAMs as you can squeeze onto it at the expense of all other cpacities etc. All three types would be able to happily undertake policing and other non-combat duties independently, but in times of war, you would be able to datalink them all with the sensors from your few existing war fighters and have about the same firepower as if your have a large fleet of ‘overspecced’ FFGs.
We have already tried that single-role frigate before with the Leander-class and, as I recall it, the concept wasn’t all that successful despite the fact that the Leanders were, for there size, superb boats!. We moved from that concept to the multirole (albeit ASW weighted) frigate concept with the Type 23 and found the latter far more flexible and deployable. The problem with the single role hull is that a single mechanical fault to one ship can rob a small task group of its serious ASW expertise and systems or suddenly remove the greater proportion of its antiship potential and you end up with a badly unbalanced, and vulnerable, flotilla!.
JonesyThe A2G capability that the Typhoon will ultimately get will be a big capability boost.
The future Mount Pleasant detachment certainly is an interesting discussion point. Obviously for current needs the F3’s are the natural fit….long legs, a decent weapons fit and two-up so the at least one crew member can be relied on to know the way home.
Heading forward though the question presents itself as to whether Typhoon is the natural successor for the long term and whether this should always stay an RAF det?
The rumours are floating about even now that the UK JSF buy really is going to be split with a land-based mod of the F-35C going to the RAF while the RN will take on the STOVL variant for the carriers. The RAF version taking on a deep-interdiction role and offloading/supplanting the GR4’s until the FOAS-esque UCAV’s start coming onstream.
Completely ass-backwards for what most expected the split buy to achieve (long-range strike from a forward deployed CTOL strike carrier backed by rapid deployment RAF STOVL assets as necessary) – trust the RAF to really stir the pot though!!!.
Given that the prime target for any Argentine move to recapture the Falklands would have to be the neutralisation of the drag at Mount Pleasant and that our two front line -35B sqdns and the OCU will probably leave in excess of 20 STOVL airframes sat at attrition/reserve switching the det from RAF to Fleet Air Arm would seem logical. Seeing that we already have a supply chain out there for the Guardship scrapping the RAF det and streamlining the aviation support in with the naval requirement seems eminently sensible.
JonesyNo more Sea Eagles in UK service Schorsch. They were reaching the point where the missile airframes needed deep overhaul to maintain operational reliability and it was decided that there is no forseeable enemy that we absolutely NEEDED Sea Eagle for….so the money was spent elsewhere and the Sea Eagles disposed of.
Looked at from a purely fiscal point of view its hard to say the decision was a bad one. Could I justify the expenditure on a stand-off antiship weapon when soldiers are walking round Iraq without sufficient body armour, hand on heart no I couldn’t.
The falklands-II scenario is proof of this really. We have, available to the Harrier and (I believe) GR4 force, AGM-65G2’s. This is an IIR weapon proven capable of hitting a moving target, possessed of a 300lb warhead and with a 17nm standoff range. What surface platform does the Argentine Navy possess that could engage a GR7 prior to missile release?. Two of them slamming home is going to send anything up to Burke size home and I’d not like to imagine what the effects would be to an A69 sized light frigate!
JonesySimple fact is lads that Argentina now knows that the UK would HAVE to fight to get the islands back. Thats the biggest deterrent of all!.
Their whole gamble last time was that UK really didnt care about the whole thing and that they get away with it without any more than a verbals session in the UN and a few years worth of sanctions. That fiction is simply not a flyer now because the UK has spent too much and has too much prestige wrapped up in those islands.
Militarily it should be a no-brainer. The facts and figures suggest that recapturing the islands, with our current force mix, should be easier than we had it in 1982. We now have TLAM to perform offensive counter-air on Argentine airfields, we now have much greater PGM capacity in the naval tacair force, we have ASaC capability in the Fleet to dramatically reduce the hostile AShM threat and we have LFTAS to neutralise the SSK threat.
The threat reduction exrcise is therefore quite promising, even without FA2/AIM120 or Storm Shadow, as the threat is largely unchanged and we have, to a degree, still got an armed forces that learned lessons on exped warfare the last time round.
Let the Crabs send a couple of Typhoons down there – wont do anything new and different to discourage Argentine aggression, such as that is, but at least it’ll give the squaddies something new to look at and maybe, in some small way, help to justify why we are going to be buying 232 of the things!!!.
JonesyExactly what my choice would be as well. NH90 does look to be very good kit!
JonesyMost likely the last option. The Yak-141 has been touted in this region before, if memory serves, for its ability to use austere basing.
Problem, as there always is, is that logistically it can be quite difficult to keep complex aircraft operational at dispersed locations, the C3 network has to be surviveable and in place to direct the air picture whatever fighters are used and any serious opposition will put up aerial radar coverage that’ll get the -141’s when they liftoff anyway. The logic of the interest in the Yak-141 is undeniable though.
JonesySo, you believe a PAAMS equipped T-45 is more capable than a Aegis Cruiser or Destroyer??? Even if true what does either have to do with Taiwans ASW/Littoral needs? :rolleyes:
For Taiwans threat enviroment PAAMS is better than the SPY-1/SM-2 solution because it has a much quicker engagement rate. The active missile does away with the whole shoot-shoot-look or shoot-look-shoot cycle. You let the MFR designate targets and ripple fire off as many missiles as necessary. I dont think T45 is any better suited to Taiwans needs than an AEGIS cruiser as, I think theyre going to be worrying about littorals more than blue water. The initial statement was that the Ticos shouldve gone to Taiwan wasnt it?.
We weren’t talking about Taiwans ASW needs but you said ‘Speaking of littorals and ASW……you would think a reasonable size fleet of SSK’s would be just as worth while?’ and I misunderstood your point!. Simple answer is definitely yes!
JonesyYou know what Rick. I had a reply written out and nearly finished, but, reading over what you wrote its clear you didnt read what I did the first time?. Youre not going to read what I write this time either…just what you think I’m going to write so hey….I’ll not waste my time.
JonesyScott
AEGIS is a buzzword isn’t it!. Politicians say they want AEGIS because that, in the main means, snappy, up-to-date and hugely capable regardless of whether its the most appropriate solution or not!.
SPY-1/AEGIS/SARH missile is not the best solution to a massive saturation fire from opposing tactical airpower. Active missiles on as many hulls as possible is by far the better solution.
The answer to SSK’s is low frequency active towed sonar cueing as many HELRAS-type dipping sonars as can practically be lofted!. In other words a fairly sizeable ASW leadship with either a good aviation capability or a group of chopper capable light escorts in support.
Broncho,
Yep they do. They aren’t likely to get PAAMS to refit them with though because the belief seems to be at the moment that anything going to Taiwan today will be in Beijing tomorrow and PAAMS will be one of the big ticket items that the French…..erm….cough…..Europeans will want to drag big bucks in for when the arms embargo ends/gets ignored!
JonesyNope Scot, a big blue water cruiser isnt any good for Taiwanese needs. They dont even need AEGIS.
They need an active missile solution like PAAMS and a smaller, affordable, ship, like the Singaporeans have built just stretched and with a couple dozen more Sylver cells.
The USN has a glaring gap in littoral ASW that the new capabilities are still emerging for. They should have stripped off the Mk26 twin-arms and like I said fitted a Low Frequency Active towed array in place of the original tail, modified the aviation capability to SH-60 operations, perhaps bolted on a couple of RAM launchers and Nulka to enhance the self-defence suite on the cheap and used it as a fast-deployment coastal SURTASS type platform acting as ASWCS for a frigate/chopper group. Like to see that Gotland sneak up on a surface group with an LFA tail banging away after it!
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