JonesyJohn,
The fact remains that the cost to convert Prince of Wales to CTOL went up from £800 million to £1.8 billion in short order, and my question is where did they find that extra billion in costs?
You do know that Prom has already provided his view on that in the sentence preceding the one you claimed ‘stifles debate’?. He said:
the arrestor system, JPALS systems; different EO approach systems, changes to the ATC, flight deck, deck lighting, etc even before we get onto non-ship costs
…the non ship costs being things like recovery tanking, CATOBAR basic and continuation training etc i.e all the things that constitute full CATOBAR capability that do not apply to STOVL.
JonesyPhilip,
What good is the C’s higher range and payload if the sole carrier outfitted to operate it is down for maintenance?.
In answer to your questions:
a) how does the RAF practice and sustain the necessary skills to do these rolling very short landings
Only landings exceeding rated bringback limits for VL will be SRL’s. Defined requirement for VL is typical ‘heavy’ bay load of two 1000lb class bombs and two AIM120’s. Last I read F-35B was still meeting that requirement albeit very close to the mark. Ferry flights to the carrier by surging RAF F-35B’s will not be at airframe weights that require SRL.
SRL’s should not be as taxing as you seem to believe either. This is because its a very low energy event. Landing approach speed is carrier speed +30knts or so. The touchdown on the deck is therefore at about 30mph. Even a fully laden 18-wheeler can stop, in the wet, in a few hundred feet. Plus the pilot will have the massive benefit of EODAS and the Bedford Array lights as landing aids. All told its a far, far safer operation than an arrested recovery profile.
b) and what effect will these landings have on the airframes and landing gear?
The same effect that short rolling landings do when they are used on land bases. SRL is the normal approach used in the Harrier community for landing on conventional airfields. I see no reason to believe things will be any different in the F-35B community. As noted earlier there is no comparison between the impact energy of an F-35B SRL’ing and an F-35C trapping.
JonesyNow a days you just never know..:D
Coming to the Vik..those controls surely look very obsolete…but why change something which works?Maybe Jonesy or someone else can say what those controls are for?
Clearly those ‘aged’ photos are taken in one of the engineering control spaces. Bottom panels look to have a bank of 8 warning lights, at quick glance, alongside an electromechanical dial readout. Seeing there are 8 boilers in the ships propulsion fit I’d make a guess that the panel is a pressure test display at some point in the boiler circuits and that the second panel is the readout for a second point.
If that is what they are, personally, I’d have no issue with them being retained on the exact principle mentioned. Steam plants tend to generate environments with no shortage of heat, humidity, vibration and all the wonderful things that flashy computer driven displays get really upset by and boiler pressure is the sort of thing you want under close scrutiny regardless of whatever else goes wrong in those spaces. Those consoles look like they’d work quite happily if you took a lump hammer to them….in fact it looks like they are working happily after someone HAS taken a lump hammer to them!!!.
Its been said time and again through the discussions on the Gorshkovs conversion that big steam plants are maintenance intensive…this is one aspect of that process. Thou shalt watch all of the dials all of the time!.
JonesyName every occasion on which this has happened…
Your bored and yet engaging in this kind of pedantry?. As described the, public-source, instances of ASM engagement at Latakia, in the Gulf, in the South Atlantic have all shown the same evidence.
Both of which were damaged, one of which would have been terminal with a correctly fuzed bomb.
My mistake I assumed by stating that the system was only deployed on 2 ships in the Task Force the point was clear that in 1982 GWS25 was still a little immature. The fact that one of the instances of ship damage was down to human error in ship-handling, by a consort vessel, and nothing to do with the missile system itself is also noteworthy. The fact is that, operating properly, GWS25 was fully capable of defeating opposing air targets. You can try and make a generalised point that vagueries of technology mean you cant depend on a system, but, that applies equally to attacker as defender doesnt it?.
In computer games… You need a beachead for logistics, which most computer games ignore.
I cant see us rebuilding a Mulberry harbour any time soon Chaffers. Securing a port with a full transport infrastructure behind it is going to be far more the strategic goal than trying run the LSTs we dont have up on the shingle?!!!.
It would be for the Petrel, it was subsonic.
Now try Google again….this time your keywords are Petrel Sounding Rocket, supersonic target, Aberporth, Woomera.
A months transit time certainly is wasteful but at least it is in the open ocean. In open media our 7 SSNs have run aground at least 6 times.
No the months transit time is for the SSK to get there. SSN gets there in 10 days. If they are running aground the answer is training…not spending billions on new SSK’s and UNREP vessels.
There is no subsurface threat to any oil production facilities that may appear off the Falklands.
I never said there was.
You dismissed OPVs for having no sub-surface capability?. Why would that be an issue if you agree there is no subsurface threat?.
In computer games…. I’ve given numerous real world examples.
Yes you have, but, you are ignoring the basic fact that none apply to us.
After that they’d become the largest skipping stone in history. This has been seen empirically in tests where the defending platform has been destroyed by debris.
Skipping stone?. Quick empirical test for you….try and skip a housebrick or an irregular shaped lump of metal. What tends to happen is that a flat edge digs in, especially to waves, and it skips like a bulldozer. This is why, when planes ditch, they dont generally skip blissfully across the water surface. Please do provide the results of your empirical testing though.
If your knowledge of physics was anywhere near your knowledge of computer games you would know that Ramjets don”t work below supersonic speeds. A rocket propels them to high mach numbers before the ramjet even operates.
Correct on the booster to get airflow into the ramjet. Incorrect on the ‘high mach number’. The booster gets the missile to ramjet ignition and then there is an acceleration curve as the ramjet gets the missile up to cruise/sustain speed.
So…. SSKs are useless
SSKs are great in your own littoral performing sea denial. They are no good for sending into the other guys littoral to do NGFS or any kind of offensive role – unless he happens to be an immediate neighbour. We may not like the French very much but we arent going to war with them anytime soon.
SSNs can operate freely and effectively close to shore
Correct.
Battleships are useless as anything other than TLAM launchers or eating a couple of Kingfish
Nope they are useless for launching TLAM as well. Battleships are just generally useless today…which is why no-one has them.
no-one needs NGFS or logistics
Logistics yes…NGFS only sometimes.
patrolling is pointless…
Patrolling can be wasteful of scarce resources. In infantry terms, if there is hearts and minds to be won….sure….but you patrol under cover of a surveillance asset. You dont win hearts and minds when the locals see your patrols chopped to bits by IEDs and ambushes. Arm the surveillance asset and you get a very short fire-chain.
short range self defense systems only fail when they run out of ammo, sensors and radar always work perfectly even when close to land and frigates should be loaded out with TLAMs to take out inland airfields.
….and, in your view, only defensive systems fail?. Frigates ARE being armed with LACMs to take out inland airfields…as they should be.
I’m talking about real life scenarios, you’re talking about beating computer games.
No, you are talking about a platform unsuited to power projection (an SSK) being fitted with a vertical gun system to provide NGFS in support of a beachead against low or peer threat states. This resulting in a platform that must patrol in an indiscreet configuration with, at very least, a comms mast extended – if it expects to receive calls for fire – while apparently at the same time proving an elusive target with all of the normal virtues of an SSK. The irony of you calling me a fantasist is amusing.
JonesyI’m not very knowledgeable on this subject what options are there for this in terms of AEW assets that can provide data to various other assets such as surface vessels and aircraft?
Can these LM pods provide the same level of capability as Searchwater?
Supposedly so. The AESA arrays are meant to be being modified with a ‘gimbal’ to allow for each pod to cover a full hemisphere and the array is certainly powerful enough to deliver range performance suitable for the mission profile. Theoretically then, with the interesting potential for OTH fire-control and electronic attack lent by the AESA tech, the LM solution offers a lot.
If we can get the T45’s cleared for Merlin the potential combination of airborne surveillance/fire-control and Sea Viper on the AAW picket could reduce the threat of anything flying a sea-skimming antiship profile, to RN ships, to the point where its no more advantageous than a medium or high alt approach. The trick would be to allow Vigiliance to ‘gather’ the outbound Sea Ceptor/Sea Viper after launch…not an insolvable problem though I wouldn’t have thought and the potential benefits……!!!.
The interesting thing is that I believe LM are in the driving seat for Crowsnest by dint of their work on Merlin HM2. So this, quite exciting, prospect could be a goer!.
JonesyAgree with Prom.
LINK allows component nodes to put a track developed by its sensors into the LINK plot for general distribution to all LINK receivers. CEC takes this one step further by deriving a full composite sensor picture from all netted units.
Simplest way to think about it is that LINK is like you posting information from your hard-drive on this forum. With CEC I just read whats on your hard-drive directly.
With the fused picture you get the obvious advantage of seeing a plot that your ownship sensors couldn’t develop as it will add in dispersed and airborne assets and you can react to them, from the appropriate firing platform, as a single ‘virtual’ combat system.
Its clever, but, limited value for the price. As explained for us real world instances where it would allow for otherwise out of envelope shots are limited. A non-SAMPSON ship is going to be limited in the cueing it can provide to a Daring for example. In coalition ops perhaps an APAR or AEGIS ship could provide guidance updates with the required resolution but surely they’d take the shot themselves.
Personally I’d rather see the money spent investigating the LM Vigilance pods capabilities in guiding ARH missiles. Based on a fighter radar able to update BVRAAMs already and with Vigilance proposed for Merlin already I think that offers far more interesting prospects for horizon-ignorant SAM coverage able to support ‘silent’ Sea Viper and Sea Ceptor shooters.
JonesyWell I’m getting bored of this but one last reply…
Fair enough. The best thing I can do then is list the inaccuracies and false assumptions you’ve posted. That way there is nothing you have to come back on but, hopefully, you can get the idea of why you are so far off the mark here?
1, Those ships who have used countermeasures have defeated inbound missiles. Those who have either not had them or had countermeasures and not employed them (including Hanit and her CIWS) have been hit. There is nothing ambiguous there. These were not ‘inferior’ missiles as you suggest as the ships of the day (targets) were no more advanced.
2, NGFS is an ancillary role in surface escort design. Useful to have certainly but not something that you would allow to dictate the design beyond a nod to stability. Strike ashore, in the naval context, means more than just NGFS…a lot more.
3, Seawolf in the Falklands was not ineffectual. It was deployed on only 2 escorts and, in one attack, destroyed 2 out of 4 aircraft on a dumb ordnance delivery profile and forced a third into a manoeuvre kill. Current GWS26 improves on the capability of the original GWS25 variant.
4. Lessons learned in previous opposed amphibious landings have been marginalised by technology. Vertical envelopment and OTH deployment are now the target concepts.
5. Intercepting supersonic inbounds is nothing new. Petrel rockets as targets from Aberporth and the US NAVSEA’s Vandal targets were/are supersonic and have been intercepted over the course of several decades by several missile types.
6. Dispatching SSN’s to the South Atlantic during times of increased tension is not wasteful. Quite the reverse in the 70’s the dispatch of an SSN had a stabilising effect. Given that Argentine ASW has not reached a point where it can reliably counter an SSN the factors involved are unchanged.
7. There is no subsurface threat to any oil production facilities that may appear off the Falklands. If the Argentine Govt decided to initiate hostilities it would be to gain access to those resources. Destroying them with a submarine attack defeats the only plausible reason for hostile action in the first place.
8. OPVs can be excellent sea-boats. The Castle class performed extremely well as duty Falklands Islands Patrol Vessels and displaced circa 1500tons. The Leanders were not a great deal larger and were legendary for their stability in a heavy sea and, ironically, as gun platforms.
9. Just as with E-3D SURTASS would be a force-multiplier. SURTASS would direct deployed SSNs to be where they need to be only when they need to be there. It has a direct impact on warfighting potential…similar to the earlier examples of UAVs directing forces onto convoy chokes etc only when opposition is detected. Saves a lot of useless patrolling.
10. There are few taskings that our SSNs do that an SSK could replace them in…this is why we got rid of SSKs in the first place. SSK advantages in the littoral etc are not significant enough to warrant the spend. If we had the money extra to build SSK’s we’d use it for Astute 8 and 9.
11. Physics dictates that supersonic travel is difficult for fragments of destroyed antiship missile. They do not travel much more than a 1000yds or so and are pretty much spent as projectiles by the end of their journey.
12. A heavy, supersonic, antiship missile is likely to be within min range inhibit at 10nm. You’d have to question whether the ramjet could get a 6000lb 30ft long missile up to high mach numbers in such a short distance??. Regardless of that though the weapon has an active seeker head and, if the launch had somehow been missed by the ship, the immediate seeker activation would be unmistakeable and trigger an immediate reaction. 10nm puts the inbound squarely in the FLAADS envelope so not only could the surface ship defend itself against that threat, but, extend that defence to any surface vessel within visual range. FLAADS quad-packing and active seeker also mean volume/saturation coverage so it would require an unrealistically large, coordinated, strike to take down one ship….10nm offshore. Thats before inner-layer CIWS and softkill behind the FLAADS are mentioned as well. FLAADS/Sea Ceptor being already funded – a point worth reiterating.
JonesyAs to buying UUV’s equalling the costs of an off the shelf SSK buy you only need to buy enough for the deploying SSNs you know? So you’re not going to train with them? Can’t afford 7 of them? None will ever be U/S? Lol
Assuming this is a joke by the LOL?. You were the one who stated a UUV for every boat so, as you so correctly note, that means one per boat PLUS training and reserve units. I said they only need be tasked to deploying units so you are immediately saving a few units arent you?. Is this not glaringly obvious?.
But your entire argument is based upon SSNs being faster!! In other words speed isn’t an advantage in the littoral… Neither is size. Even endurance isn’t, 1 month pottering is more than enough, unless you’re volunteering to clean their UUVs without seeing daylight for months on end.
Humour again?. Transit time to get to station is an issue – SSN does this in days unsupported – SSK in weeks with an UNREP or two. Spot the difference. In the littoral sensor capability and crew training count more than speed. SSNs have, generally, more room and available power for sensors, installed processing power, cooling etc. A competent SSK with a well trained crew and a command team who know their waters can challenge an SSN in the littoral….no question of that….but we’re back to the local sea denial versus expeditionary strike issue. SSK’s can only do one SSN’s can do both.
What use is a two shot fragile toy in a firefight? What sort of support are you suggesting here, moral support? Comedic value?
‘Time spent in reconnaisance is seldom wasted’ as the saying goes. Why have your NGFS SSK barrage a dozen shells into a set of coordinates to catch a single Toyota with a pintle KPV and three lads when an LMM or Viper Strike can pick it off with a single shot while its moving?. Why have your NGFS platform suppressing insurgent positions ambushing your convoys if your ARGUS/A160T watched them lay their IEDs and set the ambush?. Mate of mine is a REME Recce Mech always used to quote the 7P’s to me. Wasnt something the was especially big in the mob, but, the pongo’s love their 7P’s apparently. Worth looking up and having a think.
We are talking about frigates being vulnerable. Add in the ships damaged or destroyed by dumb bombs from aircraft incabale of anything but VFR and the 5 Styx kills in the Indo Pakistani war.. If I were being harsh I’d count the unexploded ordinance in the Falklands as mission kills. Thats 20+ easily.
Ahh goalposts shifting now the humour isnt working. OK. Dumb bomb delivery profiles were successful in the Falklands because we had allowed ourselves to focus on a one dimensional air threat – Soviet high alt bombers and big diving antiship missiles. Close in defences had been neglected. Sea Wolf rectified that and the GWS26 installation on the 23’s enhanced it. FLAADS/Sea Ceptor takes that to the next level with horizon range area defence and quadpacking. With FLAADS our next gen frigates will be tough/expensive targets to engage from the air and FLAADS is already funded.
The South Atlantic is going to be teeming with oil rigs in 2020 and you think we have nothing to patrol?
Why are we patrolling oil platforms with an SSK?. Why not use an OPV like everyone else does?.
You don’t think our SSNs are currently tasked there? You don’t think their month long transit alone is a waste of a $2billion asset? Give me strength….
I dont think there is one down there on permanent station. Remember what you said before about training though. Deployments down to the Southern oceans maintain familiarity in those waters. There is no substitute for observing the operational environment. Learning where the shoal waters are…getting a feel for flow patterns and the bathymetry. Deploying there is no waste…you cant have it both ways!.
We have no maritime reconnaissance and you think we have nothing to patrol?
Exactly. We have no MPA so the answer is to buy MPA’s when we can afford them not waste money on one-trick pony SSK’s with some ludicrous gun system aboard!.
Completely wrong, there is a gap in our wide area undersea surveillance capabilities you could drive an SSBN powered by air raid sirens through.
Agreed. I’ve been an advocate of us buying at least three, preferably five, SURTASS boats/arrays off the Americans for decades. No one questions the Crabs need for AWACS or its effect as a force multiplier yet no-one seems to appreciate that the same factors exist sub-surface. Dont see where your SSK comes into this though as SSK’s have a very limited sensor footprint.
And little use for NGFS. Looks more expensive than the $500m cheap frigate you posted earlier. Wouldn’t be allowed within 15nm of the shoreline if even a small ASM threat was present.
Remember no ship that has been equipped to defeat a missile and has actually employed countermeasures has been hit by a missile….that is simple fact.
Closer to shore is more vulnerable for a surface vessel as its easier to employ less sophisticated and more prevalent weapons against the ship. That said though even a conventional frigate can deliver effect from over the horizon ranges and that is effect against a bigger target set than just basic NGFS allows for. At the SAME TIME its on station for a raft of other missions that your SSK is just not getting near.
You’d be happy polishing UUVs on this craft whilst shore batteries containing Brahmos or Sunburns were 10nm away? Frankly the Hanit was better armed than what you just posted.
The vessel I outlined…absolutely…especially against those missile systems you list. I’d be a hell of a lot more scared if I knew the opposition had truck launched NSM 30 miles away. The answer to that is surveillance UAV’s on the frigate though…not a new class of SSKs.
JonesyIf they were designed to operate in the littoral specifically they would be a quarter the size. They are an improvement over the Los Angeles but 8000 tonne subs are not ideal in such an environment. Why else would they need UUVs which I must admit I thought had been cancelled anyway…. Saying that giving each of our SSNs a UUV and you could have bought several SSKs or SSIs off the shelf….
Specifically not exclusively!. SSN is far more able to operate in the shallows than an SSK is to make a rapid transit anywhere. Only one of the platforms can do both jobs simple as that. As to buying UUV’s equalling the costs of an off the shelf SSK buy you only need to buy enough for the deploying SSNs you know?. Then we have that tiny issue of the ‘off-the-shelf SSK’ needing a full redesign to accommodate your gun tubes and that just about the only, available, tested design capable of the range and endurance you need is the Aussie’s Collins boat. Do I need to point out they’ve already come to BAE in search of a replacement?!!!.
You didn’t answer my question though, how fast do you think an SSN could go in 200ft of water without creating an easy to spot surface bulge? How fast could it go safely in poorly charted waters?
Likely the same kind of speed range as your 4000ton SSK would be able to do without generating a surface wake.
Is there any mundane military task that doesn’t require fragile and expensive drones in your world?
Run ashore?. Otherwise the pongos ashore want support and the best way to do it is with persistent sensors overhead i.e A160T, Firescout, Camcopter. Armed where possible.
Include bombs and I’m thinking 20+ without considering FAC. Include those and the number is probably 60+
Er what?. This is a bit on the cryptic side. We’re talking about frigates being hit by missiles…as you claim they, surface escorts less AEGIS, are so vulnerable to them. So far we have had:
Eilat (not equipped to defeat a missile)
Khaibar (not equipped…..etc)
Sheffield (didnt try to defeat)
Glamorgan (didnt try to defeat)
Sahand (unknown. no reports of softkill)
Stark (didnt try to defeat)
Hanit (didnt try to defeat)
See a pattern emerging?. Against this every ship that has attempted to defeat an antiship missile has been successful in doing so. 6+ P-15’s defeated in the battle of Latakia, 3 AM39’s in the Falklands. 1 Iranian fired Harpoon in Op Praying Mantis, 1 P-20 in Desert Storm.
Watch an AS90 firing, then multiply the weight of the vehicle by 100.
Then take the floor underneath it and set it moving in a 10ft swell.
And our SSNs have to do both.
Not guarding GIUK anymore…remember reduced need for Patrol tasking equals bye-bye U-class Patrol submarines??.
Have you not considered that we might have something we need to defend?
Patrol Submarine – SSK – Patrols. No Soviet Red Banner fleet surging down through GIUK = no need for patrolling SSKs. Please believe this…we have no need of an SSK whatsoever. If we had the money for a fleet of SSKs it would be FAR better spent on even a couple of extra SSNs that would also assist with practical training and easing overstretch etc and wouldnt need the RAS fleet augmented.
Your cheap frigate argument doesn’t hold water because of the range of threats they have to counter. A cheap frigate is just a target, give them the capability to defend themselves against a range of threats and they aren’t cheap anymore. Add the sort of hardware you are obsessed with and they become very expensive. Add the capability to deal with such threats at exceptionally short range and notice and you have something as far removed from your cheap frigate as you can get.
Local area air defence off FLAADS/Sea Ceptor….under development already, high density and cheap. Harpoon launchers and consoles we have, so, RGM-84L as a quick off-the-shelf standoff land-attack capability is there for the cost of the missiles. If we want multilayer land attack OTO’s 127LW is an off-the-shelf buy as is IAI’s Jumper weapons system. LACM strike planning capability we have so, again, its just a matter of fitting appropriate strike-length cells and buying the VL version of the missile. Sonar2087 ports over from T23 as does ARTISAN. The big costs are always in development…everything listed there is already developed, has its development funded or is already actually in service!. No need to pay out AEGIS cruiser money and our frigate is pretty well covered for threats above and below the surface. Most importantly its a multirole platform able to deploy capability against a wide set of threats and undertake taskings from civvy evac and defence diplomacy through to warfighting.
JonesySo your SSK is, as you claim, outpacing the amphibs by virtue of the fact they dont exceed 10 knts and leave earlier?. OK, so, not outpacing anything just being ‘faster to deploy’ as any equivalent surface escort would be. Assuming, for the SSK, that some form of UNREP capability existed at the destination of course?.
Twaddle. We have SSNs and you dont do exped warfare with SSK’s if you have any alternate. The SSN is on scene faster, providing intel (as you mention yourself) sooner be that in the wide deep OR in the shallows as has been done and practiced for decades. Occasionally in foreign waters and known chokes as well…can you believe?!!. In RN terminology an SSK was termed a Patrol Submarine when we had them as principally they were good for a 12knt transit to the gap and then a couple of weeks pootling back and forth a few knots over steerage. That is all they are good for and is the reason they were so easily dismissable when the need to guard GIUK diminished.
Thinks are much more difficult in uncharted water, when the pressure is on. Think what the N Koreans would do to an Astute than ran aground, or any unfriendly nation for that matter.
Managed it with much less sophisticated boats for decades…where is this concept coming from that operating in shallows isnt done and done routinely?.
The US Navy’s definition of the littoral is water depth of less than 200ft. Taking an 8000t nuke into such would either be desperation or a navigational embarrassment. Talking of which how fast do you think such a beast could go in such shallow water without creating a surface bulge?
Virginia SSNs designed to operate in the littoral specifically. Anecdotally, from their people, the design is very good at it. SSN’s are more detectable in the shallows if you have the right sensors looking in the right spot. SSNs have operated in contested littorals for literally decades though so this picture you paint that only an SSK can survive in the littoral is just plain wrong.
The surface escorts? There is a clue in the title. They go as fast as the STUFT and amphibs. Or is your cheap escort going to morph into a stealthy AEGIS all singing and dancing behemoth which can survive a few miles off the enemy coast? Is is going to be shallow draught or designed for fast blue water transits?
Surface escorts can also deploy ahead of an amphib group…they also have the ability to detach from the group and increase the rate of advance if so required. If you buy more frigates instead of one-trick pony SSKs you get the flexibility to do both escort and detached ops…imagine that!.
Why do you need AEGIS and why do you need a frigate ahead of an amphib group to go within a few miles range of a coastline?. Libya you say?. An escort carrying carrying a couple of Firescout with a few LMM’s strapped on would have been hugely more valuable than your SSK. Libya is an argument for bigger aviation departments on surface escorts not NGFS SSKs!
The SSK can outpace the main fleet because it can operate independently, there are numerous examples of rather expensive frigates succumbing to ASMs close to land, you won’t be risking them without air cover or a DD in tow.
No there are a couple of examples of switched-off frigates being caught by surprise ASM attacks…not the same thing. There are also a number of examples of ASMs being successfully defeated by more alert escorts.
Rubbish, I gave an example of an SSK that carried three IRBMs. The weapon system isn’t important, it is the space they take up which is. The complete volume of the D5 design was 1600 cubic feet which would barely bring the size of an existing design like the 214 to 2000t submerged.
Weapon system isnt important?. You think?. Your gun system fires on the move I take it….boats need to maintain steerageway otherwise they tend to move with the prevailing body of water they are sat in. You dont think that stability of your gun platform is an issue?.
The Golf class put a larger weapons system in a similar configuration in a hull capable of 17kts using 1958 technology. Your objections based upon size, weight and dimensions are not credible.
The Golf-I class couldnt fire its missiles if the boat rolled more than 12 degrees or pitched more than 6!!!. LOOK at what BMT designed for a boat that needs near-surface zone stability. Does SSGT look anything like a 50’s era hull form to you?!.
You continue comparing SSKs to SSNs as an argument without appearing to understand the littoral environment or the advantages that SSKs hold.
This is because they hold none for the attacker. What YOU dont seem to understand is the difference between an SSK undertaking local sea denial and an SSK undertaking expeditionary strike ops. Patrol subs are very good at one of those and utterly useless at the other. Perhaps I can make this simpler for you: defence=SSK/attack=SSN hows that. Its a simplification but you do seem to need it.
Indeed given limited budgets your argument is self defeating as each SSK free’s up an SSN from training, NATO commitments, or becoming stranded in safe and well charted home waters during peacetime.
Better yet take the money you would spend on the one trick pony SSK and put it in the budget for your new frigate. If you were going to buy 6 SSKs and a couple of sub-tenders to support them, instead, buy an additional 6 frigates. You save money on designing a new class of submarine with zero export potential and a very narrow range of operational uses and, instead, spend money on useful ships – allocating the surplus for UAV/USV programmes to enhance the usefulness of those platforms.
Pottering around coastlines, inserting special forces, operating in very shallow depths, mine laying, mine detection and defending merchant shipping are all roles that the SSK already excels in even compared to an SSN.
If we ever go to war with France, Holland or maybe Denmark you are right. For anywhere where we have to actually stage out a good distance you could not be more wrong.
JonesyRefitting SSBNs has nothing to do with constructing an SSK. Work on the reactors alone would be the vast majority of that figure. 150 TLAMs would come in at $225m.
Of course it doesnt. This is why I said replace the cost of the refit with the development cost for the SSK. I only mentioned the SSGN because you did. You seemed to be inferring that the Ohios conversion was in some way laudable or applicable to your concept. I made the point that it wasnt cheap!.
Not at all, in it’s primary role it would only realistically have to outpace the amphibs and the main fleet.
Agreed. Which design of, currently afloat, SSK can sustain 20knts surfaced or submerged for several thousand miles?.
Risking an SSN close inshore isn’t ideal contrary to your assertion. Indeed this was the reason Onyx was brought along, to free up an SSN. The argies would have had great fun if an SSN had run aground..
SSNs work inshore…we train to put them close inshore…part of training is that sometimes cockups happen!. SDV’s and UUV’s deployed from the SSN are the solutions to operations in really shallow water NOT a whole new class of SSK that requires support to deploy to the opposing littoral then further support in it!.
The USN hardly touches the littoral with it’s SSNs for just this reason, they are blue water boats. A 7000 ton SSN is not the platform of choice.
Yet its the USN that is at the forefront of ASDV and submarine-launched AUV technology to maximise their SSNs capability in the littoral. What makes you think USN SSNs dont play in the shallows?. Time was they were pretty good just off other peoples coastlines…its nothing really new to them after all!.
You fail to mention that SSKs can outpace your cheap frigate, have lower complements and add a great deal of training and force multiplication to our SSNs. Propulsion has moved on a great deal since the 60’s and it might surprise you to know that the Oberon’s tended to do rather better than the nukes in exercises against US CBGs.
Modern SSKs are not outpacing any proper surface escort. The irony is that the 60’s Oberons were more suited for the kind of sustained transit you are talking about than any modern SSK as they were designed for surface running. In what way has propulsion moved on such that a conventionally powered SSK can approach SSN transit speeds for any kind of sustained period?.
Playing fantasy weapon loadouts has little to do with reality and frankly your idea of a cheap frigate isn’t.
Its a hull that will be somewhere near the same price as your SSK. The weapons loadout is an indication of what can be done with a conventional frigate hull and current weapons nothing more. If you want to get into fantasy stuff start looking at the really creative ‘new’ hullforms under study and you’ll see how much more strike effect you could get compared to your NGFS SSK.
Wrong, as I’ve proven with figures. 4 tube guns would add roughly 6% to the size of an Upholder, though given the advances in automation and crew reduction you could happily fit it into a hull of the same tonnage or less.
No you proved an extended conning tower could hold three SLBMs. On the surface (or close enough that barrels could be extended above it) the last thing you want is such a structure…hint the yanks refer to it as a ‘sail’ for a reason! I’m assuming you want some stability for your gun platform?. You want stability you need beam…you would end up with something quite similar to the SSGT design but necessarily bigger…Barracuda size at minimum.
As for cost, take the reactor cost (£700m) out of an Astute and you’re left with £500m for a 7000ton platform. Lets say you kept the same sensor and weapons fit (you wouldn’t), it would still come in at about £400m.
LOL and you are going to power this 7000ton SSK with batteries are you?. Have a check up with ‘the people who do this regularly’ and ask them how much battery power is drawn down by HVAC and the rest of the subs hotel loads on a modest sized boat. Big boats need more propulsive force which needs more stored power to drive. The equation breaks down well before you get to your mythical SSN-performance SSK!.
Thats a great deal cheaper, more surviveable and more useful than your ‘cheap’ friagate (which you’d need to add aviation costs onto) and would even have those expensive gunboat diplomacy missiles which you love so much….
No its a one-trick pony that only manages one thing over what conventional, expensive, SSKs already do poorly today. That is to hit things ‘with legs wheels and tracks’ with a few hundred guided shells. Worth a couple of billion in development and manufacturing?. Nah.
In other words 3+ SSKs for 1 Astute.
1 Astute doesnt need the RAS support an SSK does so add in an extra UNREP hull plus an additional escort tasking if your planning on topping off anywhere near hostile waters.
You gain the capability to influence ground conflicts without deploying boots on the ground
Better tasked to a surface vessel in case a need to evacuate people blows up at the rush. Not going to get many out on an SSK are you?
allow fast air to do it’s primary role (depending upon whether the hotel has tennis courts or not)
Your SSK is going to provide radar coverage for air direction is it?. How about CSAR?. Again better done with a surface vessel.
Most importantly however you gain the ability to do the primary role of every branch of the armed services, which is to support the infantry.
Erm didnt you just say no boots-on-the-ground???. If we have infantry ashore why are we needing a covert NGFS platform again?. The wonking great amphib assembly area just offshore should be a bit of a giveaway and theatre entry denial targets should have been well attrited by that point anyway…seeings there actually is a beachhead etc???.
This is VGS concept is a perfect example of a solution looking for a problem. The fact it never progressed should have been the giveaway that a problem was never found that couldnt be met better with more conventional platforms.
JonesyNGFS is a role in itself and an important one, I think I have illustrated that with regards to the USN.
NGFS isnt sufficient role in itself to develop a submarine monitor (doff cap to Distiller). NGFS is generally prepratory/supporting to some other mission. Are you really going to spend a couple of billion designing and building a few of these, plus another half a billion adding additional specialised RAS capability to forward deploy, just so you can suppress an airfield for a few hours and dink a few potholes in a runway or two?. Artillery isnt the right tool for the job…its good to support infantry…its good to disrupt operations….but hitting infrastructure targets sufficient to put them permanently out of action you dont do with 6″ shells you do with 250lb bombs at minimum.
Any fixed asset within range would be obliterated by a full salvo. If, however the target was hardened to the extent that 155 wouldn’t do the job (I’m rather skeptical) then a few T’hawks would be on their way. Very much a complimentary weapons system.
Here’s where we agree – full-spectrum strike effect calls for more than one weapons system. Is your SSK also going to tie in to theatre ISTAR and be able to deploy LACM and POLAR-type strike effect…if not its already second best to a modest frigate design.
Hence 4 tubes. Seeing as though they are well within the design constraints of an SSK if you wish to carry sneaky beaky types then take a gun or two out and you have room to deploy and equip the chaps who write the books. Incidentally the Ohios have 22 tubes converted to TLAM launchers and two for SF insertion.
Incidentally the cost, per boat, of just converting the early Ohio’s to SSGNs is listed as $700mn!. 4 boats times by $700mn and you’re knocking on 3bn. Thats, by your ballpark figures, 10 3mnth strikefighter dets and thats before you start looking at ops and support costs for the subs and ignores the other taskings that the strikefighters are performing while deployed. For a scratch-build SSK, like SMX-25, you swap the conversion costs for design and build costs and you will arrive somewhere in the same ballpark, but, then add in the RAS capability provision to keep SSKs on station.
Think about what you are saying… Even given the slight cheat of ‘already acquired’ a gunboat SSK could perform intelligence gathering, SF ops, and maritime patrol on the quiet long before the idea of sending a det of fast air even arose.
True, but, we do that with Fleet subs now and did so in Libya. SSNs have huge advantages for persistent covert ops not least in the fact that they can stay discrete for weeks and have far superior sensor and comms fits…that more than outweighs the advantage the pigboat has in crawling round the shallows. If you need sensors in very shallow waters deploy something like an AN/BLQ-11. SSK is good as a mobile minefield and thats about it. Theres a reason we split our subs in Patrol (d/e) and Fleet (nuclear) taskings when we had both.
Suddenly the little old diesel sub quietly sitting off the coast raining holy death on anyone that requires it starts to look very cheap indeed.
A little old diesel sub might. Thats not what you are describing here though…not by a very big margin. Even if your tube gun was a real concept you’re describing a boat that will be bigger than one of the new French Barracuda class fleet jobbies to deploy it!.
If you wish to argue that vanilla SSKs are useless at this then I might have to start taking the mick.
Go for it. Expeditionary warfare with SSK’s is dense…look how long it took Onyx to get down to the Falklands in 82 and the O-boats were designed for extended surface transits as the basic design predated nuclear propulsion. There have been attempts to get SSN capability out of ‘cheap’ SSK’s and you get BMT SSGT or the DCNS design as the net result. They have one thing in common…theyre less useful than an SSN. If you already have SSNs the decision is an easy one.
… Can hit 24 targets, of your preferred variety, before running back to a nice safe port to lie alongside a tender. On a more serious note however it is good to see that they have included a decent gun. However.. They cost £400-£450 million apiece.
Can hit 24 targets with heavy weaponry such that they stay hit!. With NSM in inclined launchers and chopper-launch they will hit, with precision guided 250lb warheads, another couple of dozen depending on the size of the air-ordnance magazine. Then they have the gun. Go check out how much a good ‘normal’ SSK costs these days (hint: look at what the Aussies think they are going to spend on replacing Collins). Rather than just a spot of NGFS you have real strike capability for the money.
JonesyIf you want to it any target then artillery is a good choice.
No. Its a good choice for any target with legs, hooves, wheels or the lighter things that come with tracks as you mention. You mentioned ports, airfields etc before are these mobile?.
Problem being that to want to hit those mobile things, that 155 is good for, means that you either have people ashore or want to do so. Hard to think what other objective or mission would be served by blowing up a few opposition trucks or putting a short spell of suppressive fire down on a port or airbase if it is not serving some other mission goal?.
You are concerned about return of fire on a surface vessel then put a bit of money into A160T?. Keep the frigate over the horizon, stick the A160T up above the trashfire SHORADS envelope carrying an ARGUS pod for 10hrs and let the ships on gunline bang away with impunity. Better still, rather than just the guns, have a platform simultaneously able to carry a missile like NSM or VL ATACMS able to hit target from multiple strike angles without being subject to trajectory masking like conventional artillery can be.
Come to think of it it’s rather expensive if you’re looking at any airframe.
Compared to developing the gun system, the submarine and the tender/UNREP capability to forward support your land attack SSK concept?. You think the cost to deploy a det of any already acquired fast-mover even scratches the surface of that?.
Get out of your head the idea that 155mm is in some way a popgun tickle feather. True there are better weapons systems for hitting hardened targets but the overwhelmingly vast majority of targets are mobile.
Army background? You seem to be thinking solely of a single operational scenario and are conceiving of a single role platform exclusively useful for that scenario?. Navy’s deal in terms of engaging the systems that will counter their theatre entry and the establishment of an assembly area/beachhead. These are the sorts of things you mentioned upfront – SOC’s, docks, airfields, logistics hubs are principle targets and those tend not to be mobile and normally built on the solid side. Your SSK will empty its magazines trying to do much more than chip bits off of any one of those targets then its creeping out of theatre to find a sheltered anchorage to UNREP alongside a tender.
The Italians are now inducting a frigate-sized platform that has 32VLS cells, inclined SSM launchers, a modern 5″ mount and dual chopper aviation dept. Its not even an especially good design yet if you wanted you could give it an air det of an NH90 plus an A160T and outfit with 32 Sea Ceptor quadpacked, 16 VL ATACM, 8 TACTOM plus box and chopper-launched NSM as well as the for’d 5″ and you have a range of strike effect from near-strategic to donkey-plinking all with organic ISTAR support. The only development needed would be the VL ATACM and getting the VLS and missiles to be compatible. Compared to a whole new sub design its small beer. That is flexibility your SSK just isnt going to have.
DCNS have proposed a variation on the theme you are talking about in Euronaval about 3yrs back, the SMX-25, that had a weapons system more relevant to punitive covert strike that the design was optimised for and there were very mixed reactions to it. Certainly no-one has publically come out to say they have ordered it!.
JonesyPrecision strike using extended range precision munitions would still be extremely effective, especially in terms of cost. Target set would not be dissimilar to conventional artillery, which is pretty much everything. The HE content of 155mm rounds is a bursting charge and should not be confused with it’s destructive force.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaJBmyDxtYE&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL94D77C31B89F80B6
Difference is that this isnt a conventional artillery battery its 4 guns firing modest numbers of guided projectiles at point targets. You are right that the fill of a conventional round is principally to create and propel frag but the youtube video showed it very clearly, compared to even a modest sized missile warhead or small freefall/glide bomb the target effect just isnt there against anything modestly ‘hard’. Great for hitting a mobile missile battery or a non-reinforced building, but, what else?
If you want to hit a small, unhardened, point target and have bugsplat concerns use the UAV that you already have overhead to carry a few Viper Strikes, LMMs or MBDA SABER’s. If the target warrants more save the money on the submarine gun/submarine and get POLAR/VL-ATACMS back on the scope for integration into current VLS systems. You want stealth….fire the weapon from a position back over the radar horizon. You want economy use existing launchers on platforms already bought and paid for.
JonesyTheres also the question of quite what effects 4 155’s would actually deliver on target?. A 6″ shell isnt actually making all that much of a bang when full sized and the kinds of guided rounds that would be demanded by a ‘Trident-tube VGS’ tend to be sub-calibre swapping charge for precision. The actual target set that this platform could service then is quite limited.
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