Keep costs down & plug into relatively local support by adopting Tempest’s proposal of two Makasar class LPD rather than a ro-ro or Galicia class. Not as capable as latter, but probably good enough (not aimed at amphibious assault, but amphibious transport), & the over the beach capability could be useful.

Yeah I see where you are coming from on that one Swerve and I did consider that hull briefly…but I wouldnt go that route for a couple of reasons.

First is the obvious one of single supplier and a potential joint deal with the patrol hulls…similar to how the Aussies have packaged their escort plus amphib project. Single supplier can pull through real advantages in training, logistics and costs if only from carrying through same-vendor subsystems installed through all three classes of ship involved. In operations terms, especially for a smaller service, ease of logistics, training and deployment are very significant enablers to getting ships sortied and keeping them on station.

Second is the nature of the taskings described. This is not a capability being purchased to face a direct threat…no matter what we are not looking at invading India with a couple of battalions of naval infantry as reprisal for fishing rights encroachment!. This is a capability intended for disaster assistance, peacekeeping support, antipiracy and similar coalition ops. The common thread there is that they are all elective taskings…so quality is more important than quantity. Better to do an excellent job for the one operational deployment a year your command authority signs you up for than to scrape your way to 75% effectiveness over two.

For me the Galacia just offers a lot more of everything important to actually do a good job….not least that nice big well deck. Four LCM-1E’s is a great way to put stores, people and vehicles over a beach….as Haiti proved. On antipiracy maybe you switch out the landing craft for four Watercat M18’s and embark a pair of the SuperLynxes. With one of the 2200C’s deployed as consort suddenly, on antipiracy, you look like a serious player….perhaps enough for flag tasking….which is the kind of engagement you develop the capability to undertake. Perhaps I’m undervaluing the Makassar, but, I see the Galacia doing a better job.

As Jonesy points out a container base NSM solution would be very interesting, the major issue would be providing targeting data.

I suppose you could use Typhoon for that but then you might as well integrate NSM on the jet and not bother with the container. Adding NSM to Typhoon would give a global rather than a Falklands unique solution. Not that it would happen aside from the cost it would interfere with Spear 3. Also putting any offensive antiship missiles on the Falklands would rather undermine the whole defensive posture we are trying to forward on the Islands.

Thats actually where the missile makes the difference Fed. The IIR seeker and target rejection capability of the weapon means that a target profile, general position, course and speed would be all that would be needed. The missile wouldnt attack a target not matching the profile…where an active radar missile would oblige us, under normal OTH missile RoE’s, to ensure that the target environment was clear. Realistically a modest paramilitary/civvy optronic turret on a FIGAS fisheries Islander and a laptop would be enough to target the NSM-in-a-box.

A commercial GPRS/EDGE 2G-and-a-bit GSM connection, such as that provided on the islands, could do the rest and would be sufficient to transfer that data at practical rates. Near-zero signature commercial fuel cell UPS systems are available that could power the receiver, for many months at a time, without out needing to be touched as well. Very doable at face value.

Although I agree with what you are saying here, but USN is the template they are using for developing carrier operation (and the navy for that matter).

Btw, this interview by Admiral Greenert is quite interesting. I think it’s pretty clear what China’s intentions are.
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=122760

The USN benchmark is a 50+ plane airwing with sustained 3 sorties per day per airframe. It is multispectral, above and below surface, sensor surveillance out to 100’s of kms from the group core. Its established multiservice integrated strategic and tactical manoevre experience based off developed organic and offboard wide-area ISTAR and it is developed operational UNREP and support capability.

That bar is set high for anyone else….it may be the PLANs goal to reach this eventually and I certainly wouldnt bet against them achieving it but, for now, the goals for current evolution have to be more realistic. As the admiral says in his piece that is a regular deployment schedule with a duty deck, a couple of operational fastjet squadrons and a comprehensive, drilled, escort screen. He seems to think thats deliverable for the PLAN in 5 years…..to get the third deck in and through trials, to guarantee year round deployment, I’d say more like 10 and split the difference with him. After that point is reached then the next step is the above benchmark. To my mind though, going from dead stop, if they get to the year round deployment capability inside the next 10yrs they have done an amazing job.

I think the only real problem with the Type 45 is there are only 6 of them. When the new carriers come on line the Navy will need at least 1 if not 2 of them to escort the a carrier every where the days of letting Lusty and Ocean wonder around on there own will be over. and if the Navy let the new carriers out with out an escort oh dear

There’s no contention that six are too few, but, we do need to recall that not every tasking a uk group deploys to will face an evolved air threat or will be one that we deploy on alone. Op Palliser off Sierra Leone wouldn’t have demanded an AAW escort. The coalition ops off Libya saw the navies of France, Spain and the U.S. deploy no fewer than seven area AAW capable escorts all told. In either case the absolute necessity to incorporate a Daring in the tailored task group is questionable. If you consider the new capability that Ceptor is supposed to be bringing as well the point must be made that the frigate force will shortly be able to do much more in air defence terms than has been the reality for the last few generations.

Fantastic. Never noticed that the Rivers hadn’t got the Scanter set!. You are of course quite right!. Makes the deployment all the more inadequate!.

with HMS Seven about to leave UK waters for the first time on operations and head for the Caribbean for an Atlantic Patrol North mission over the winter, taking over from HMS Argyll. is this a sign of how few ship the Navy have or is it a testing of the water

This is a return to an earlier form of disciplinary deployment that has been allowed to lapse in recent decades. Essentially those showing inadequate performance or poor discipline are threatened with, and then condemned to, a winter northlant deployment in an 80m patrol hull!. Be interesting to check Navy News and see how many swap drafts there were for this deployment!.

Modern anti ship missiles promise a lot and as do misdile defence systems in dealing with this threat. The old tactic used to be to have many multi layer defences. With budget cuts ships are depend on only one layer of defence and this what the ship can carry. I would rather rely on multiple systems as if one fails for layers are there to protect. What situation does everyone see these missiles being used for and by who?

F35b I’m afraid you are following the common misperception that blazing gatlings or massively wonderful SAMs are the only appropriate response to the antiship threat. This is understandable as they are very visceral ‘cool’ systems….having watched a Goalkeeper let rip I can confirm the ability of the system to induce a very, very silly grin on the faces of those watching.

Antiship as a concept is a lot more subtle than this though and a whole kill chain needs to complete before an antiship missile is anywhere near being tackled by any short-range hardkill system. If you can break the kill chain at any earlier point then the antiship missile never leaves the aircraft racks/missile bay. The best way to defeat a missile is to never have it fired on you in the first place.

If the opposition is able to complete their kill-chain and release weapons one simple fact remains, to the best of my knowledge, to date that no ship that has employed softkill techniques has ever been hit by an antiship missile. The Israeli’s decoyed successfully at Latakia, the RN successfully decoyed several AM39’s in 1982 and the USN decoyed successfully in the Gulf around the Praying Mantis action. Those ships that have been hit by these missiles either never had softkill installed i.e Atlantic Conveyor or didnt employ them….Sheffield, Stark, Hanit etc.

Most ships have some form of softkill to backup up any installed hardkill systems. There is your multilayer defence.

This is a great illustration Falcon. The answer is always going to be the one you see first.

If the grouse is doing 50knts it may be easier to get a shot off and bring him down. But if you can’t see him against background foliage you can’t shoot. So, irrespective of whether it’s easier to hit him or not he is still a hard target.

Conversely the rc plane isn’t flying in the trees…it’s a good height above them where it’s engines are more efficient and it’s easier to control. It’s harder to hit with your shotgun, but, not impossible and lining up your shot is easier as you see the model quite a ways off.