Sinking skimmers is best done IMHO by subs for bigger boats and choppers/aircraft for the smaller ones. I dont like the Italian Marte seems like a half arsed attempt at a decent missile. I would rather go with the NSM and ASROC for a gd combo this allows commonality between platforms:)

I don’t think that the latest Italian AShM is Marte. Whether that materially affects your argument or not? Pass. I believe that has significantly longer range than Asroc and can be course corrected in flight (as could Ikara of course but presumably as with Ikara there is a penalty to be paid in terms of weight, volume and cost per round it may also suffer from being in direct compettition with a round which already has widespread adoption and lots invested in its current use).

C2 for me would be the off the shelf Absalon *Whips out danish flag again and waves it* i think i have already told of it’s suitability.

My very first post on these y’ere forums suggested Absalons for C2. I was shot down (mainly on the strength of my suggested mods rather than Absalon platform per se) so I certainly have some sympathy with the urge to go a Vikingr. I would like a common hull though hence wanting T45, C1 and C2 to use the same hull and C1 and C2 to have the same superstructure.

My C3 would be the VT 100metre C3 proposal,

I have a certain ambivilence (sp?) to the VT C3. Partly over the design not quite sitting right with me (no technical reasons just my (flabby) gut) and partly due to VT’s PFI proposal, which scares me.

I like the german mauser as well seems like an excellent weapon i agree with you there but i think 2 on each side of all the FSC fleet would be adequate.

Of course it would. Any more than 2 per side isn’t going to add much/anything to coverage, its unlikely to need to independently engage many more targets independently and probably volume of fire isn’t going to be utilised but I like the idea of a broadside:dev2:. Can we have 2 on each side and some mortars as well? 🙂

The T45 really needs it’s CIWS and Harpoon, i agree with no TLAM tho. I would not bother fitting more VLS cells 32 Aster 30 and 64 CAMM seem good enough coupled with 2 CIWS. If i was to fit more cells i would have more Aster 30. But i would also build 6 more T45 if not my C1 would keep SAMPSON and add Aster 30 as i have already mentioned.

In the absence of a decent-sized SSN fleet then surface units are going to need AShMs. But will they ever be funded for our 6 precious T45s? Re-using CIWS ought to be cheaper than fitting CAMM. TLAM I believe to be an argument which has already been lost so I’d like to just get on use that empty space in the silo for SAMs. That being said FFBNW does allow their Lordships the luxury of defering a decision (they have reached a draw, can return later and can expend political capital now on other battles)

Al

Sinking skimmers
RN doctrine/dogma for a long time has been that the RN has two offensive arms; the silent service and the fleet air arm.

In terms of sinking skimmers this does seem to have been bourne out by history. Small FACs have been sunk by Lynx/Sea Skua and big beasts by the mighty Conqueror. Now I don’t mean to gloss over the deaths of those people on board and genuine apologies if that’s the effect.

You don’t ever want to put your big high value skimmers close enough to your opponent’s. Especially if they have very similar AShMs on board. So putting your antiship weapons on platforms which can travel far from your fleet/flotilla before engaging makes a LOT of sense.

Added to the fact that damage below the waterline is far more damaging than above (again not to trivialise the casualties on RN ships in Falklands conflict or USS Cole more recently).

IIRC RN skimmers only got MM38s when we lost the flat tops as some kind of attempt to replace the lost ability to sink the enemy as sea.

Next gen AShm
Isn’t the current Italian AShM also available in an ASW/torpedo version? If so adopting that would free our helos from the burden of carrying torpedoes with them and so give them better range/endurance and surely provide an AShM with the ability to use its (admittedly lightweight and ladylike) shaped charge warhead to hole the enemy below the waterline.

Admittedly that doesn’t do anything to address Land Attack by Frigates.

Stan’s FSC
I like the C1 best. I’ve thought for a while (but not been energetic enough actually to draw it up as Stan has) that taking a T45 and
1. replace Sampson with Artisan
2. making everything abaft of the GT superstructure workdeck below and helo deck and hangarage above. (So just extended a bit further for’d than Stan’s current version).
would be the way forward

Stan’s C1 does an admirable job of getting rid of extraneous topweight so any chance of putting Artisan nice and high like Sampson?

I would add my voice to the chorus asking for 2 CIWS but I wonder if we’ll get CIWS on top of CAMM? Still if we have some going spare to be used up from legacy units we may as well use them. Is that the rationale for having but 1? We won’t have enough to give C1s 2 CIWS each?

C2
Then more of the exact same as above for the colonial cruiser/stabilisation/constabulary role but leave off the TAS (the sheetwork of course would still have the holes drilled in it for mounting TAS as it would come off of the same production line……………)

Off-the-shelf for C3
The biggest version of Sigma (10513 I think) looks like a good start point to me.

Likewise Danish Thetis. (Which has double the range to go with double the hulls)

In either case Mk8 on the sharp end if possible please.

Small calibres on ships
I have a VERY low opinion of Gashbo and would rather see lots of the German remote-controlled turretted 27mm. 2 on each side for all surface units and more for C3s which are actually more likely to engage assymetric threats as a matter of course.

Small calibres on land
The argument between 5.56 and 7.62 has I think been won on all fronts expect actual procurement decision. The spams have invested heavily in the M240 (a licensed built FN MAG and so the GPMG in all but name) realising that there is a reason that the Bundeswehr refer to their infantry as machinegun platoons rather than rifle platoons. A buddy of mine at Warminster swears blind that there is a serious paper doing the rounds proposing that the pongoes should standardise on but two weapons the LRR (8.59mm semi-auto) and FN MAG (7.62mm proper belt fed fully auto).

If you were to think that this sounds like nonsense I might have to agree. My figures are at least a decade out of date but I recall that the Gympy costs something like 10x as much as a vanilla (i.e. rubbish) L85.

Arsenal Ship
The SSGN version of Ohio class (and the mooted UK version of Vanguard or Vanguard replacement) strike me as being a survivable successor to the Arsenal Ship concept of the early 90s.

I’d like to see an SSGT Arsenal ship meself.

T45
I wonder if the time has come to bite the bullet andd realise that T45s are not going to get Harpoon, TLAM or CIWS and just fit the ‘midrow’ with cells for quadpack CAMM. Ideally paired with taking the Aster 15s away and giving them the booster to make them Aster 30s.

Al

Don’t think so, though you’d need to ask the hull’s designer, Rabid Stoat; I thought the two outer parts were more like small sponsons for the close in weapons. Basically, it would carry a few good sized VLS’ of Aster 30, CAMM (I opted to just use the Aster missile body, sans booster for CAMM) and Scalp Naval, plus a few Trident missiles. For the main guns, I opted to cross breed the Oto Melara 127mm stealthy turret with a lengthened version of the 155mm gun from the RN’s 155mm, since I much preferred the Oto’s looks. Basically, the whole idea was to build an even more theoretically impressive ship than the South Korean KDX-IIIs! Ahh we can dream!

Yeah baby. Hoon the Loon mooted fitting tridents with tactical rather than strategic warheads so maybe take Trident off of Vanguards, fit with tactical warheads and fit to your HMS Quango class.

Presumably these would be bought using PFI and/or lottery funding?

Al

Where has all the money gone?

Just to add to the litany of waste

Yes schools and LEAs and educational quango’s fritter cash away but I’d rather see it actually spent properly in education -‘yes Ms. dysfunctional mother who’s child has been rehoused with a family 40 miles away we will accede to your demand that the daughter who you left alone for 2 months must go to school within walking distance of you because you have a right to make that demand, and of course we’ll pay the taxi fair for the journey both ways‘ and ‘hmm let us spend a fortune on diplomas without actually knowing what they are supposed to do, how about creating a whole generation of teachers who spend but one third of their working week in meetings, oh of course we’ll pay for the county level advisers and consultants‘ but ‘no you cannot possibly have any kind of insulation in your school, what’s that you say its too hot in the summer well there is no legal definition of too hot just reasonable steps to ensure blah blah, too cold in winter as well, damn there is a LEGAL definition for that we’d better take the thermometers away then, the glass might break you understand‘

Hopsitals likewise – ‘it is absolutely necessary to redecorate and revamp the executive areas of the hospital on a two yearly basis (at absolute minimum), the money would be better spent on more nursing staff as its actually lack of them that translates to a lack of ‘beds’ (the furniture is actually dead cheap)? oh that’s silly and overly simplistic‘

NHS in general – ‘why would we need to provide any kind of speech and language provision at primary and secondary age or for adults, sure start will sort it out. What’s that you say 60% of all inmates in young offenders institutions have previously undiagnosed language disorders, no, no prison works you see anyway sure start will sort it out. Oh and you can’t mend people with ASD you say? Hmm sure start will sort it out‘

Policing – ‘you are much safer with less police on the streets oh yes, short term targets to reduce recorded crime levels and expenditure in areas being part of the criteria that officers in managerial positions must meet in order to gain promotion. No, no pure co-incidence’

Taxation – ‘sophistication’s the key, why would we want people earning more to pay a fair proportion of their earnings as tax, that would be madness, its much better for there to be lots of special exemptions and allowances and get them to pay tax advisers, accountants and lawyers than for that money to enter the public purse‘

Financial help ‘ Right lets see the Inland Revenue is designed to collect money and works at least one year in arrears, that is clearly the best organisation to task with providing support for working families, much better to spend the money on a needlessly complex analysis and distribution system‘

Armed Forces – ‘tell you what, facing a recruitment and retention crisis lets let Admirals retire on full pay, that’s sure to cheer the chaps in dark blue up, everyone loved Nelson‘

Al

Agreed

I absoutely cannot see Treasury resisting the urge to string the procurement out further. With a four ship class will add yet more to costs escalation.

Plus you would have to factor in the cost of equipping dockyards and service maintenance personnel with imperial rather than metric tools.

A different set of lubricants and fluids.

Any design work designed to offset these.

The equipment fit will be (not so) subtly different so added costs there.

There is no way that MoDPE/Admiralty/Treasury will be able to resist the temptation to fiddle with terms of contract, equipment fit, et al. There is no way that they will be bought off the shelf. And no way on earth that the contract will be left as is after signature.

Al

Cancelling CVFs and/or meddling with CVF design and contracts NOW is the worst possible option.

All of the already sunk money is gone and WE GET NOTHING FOR IT. The various suppliers are NOT going to refund HM Treasury all the money they have already been paid to complete a contract which has already been signed.

Some of the mooted alternatives might very well have been cheaper IF THEY HAD BEEN CHOSEN AT THE BEGINNING. Switching now means that their net costs will be list price PLUS previous expenditure on CVF. Which will make them very poor value for money.

Labelling Not Labour as anti-defence is not a helpful reaction. It lets them off the hook. They have engaged with two wars and not considered that this might be an expensive thing to do. Which is insane. On top of which they have prevaricated and postponed all of the procurements which were obviously required a long time ago. Not Labour are certainly anti-planning. And have carried on a fine UK tradition of wanting to be able to do high visibility things without worrying about maintaining the capability to do these.

Continuing to use PFI as it puts costs in a different column in the ledger (EVEN THOUGH ITS THE MOST EXPENSIVE POSSIBLE WAY OF PROCURING THINGS) similarly causes the treasury to haemorrage money with little (or certainly less) to show.

Providing financial institutions (the same ones who will happily carp on about survival of the financially fittest and watch primary and secondary sector firms die off in the name of the holy market forces) with financial support at favourable (better than the market) rates AND letting them dictate how other sectors are funded is certainly a good way of weeing money up against the wall.

Not REPLACING Trident might be a way of saving money. Although presumably you’d have to factor in the increased risk of having to fight an expensive, defensive conventional war. I happen to think that the ‘joker in the pack’ strategem was always a bit suspect but I do not know what the heads of state of potentially hostile nations thought.

Not REPLACING Trident, not REPLACING SSNs and allowing the remaining submarine building capability to wither and die will make the NEXT submarine procurement programme EVEN MORE wasteful and expensive than Astute was.

Not REPLACING Tonkas might be a way to save money. Although you’d have to factor in the shortened service life of Tyffies and JSFs if they will be expected to pick up that role as well.

Not REPLACING one or more of light tanks, AFVs and MBTs might be a way of saving money. But again there will be long term consequences and financial risks to factor in.

Ultimately the UK is now broke, and defence programmes are inherently expensive. through careful mismanagement of course they can be made to be EVEN MORE expensive. Cutting EXISTING programmes off now means that these programmes will not provide any capability AND means that the suppliers involved will be unable to contribute to any industrial renaissance. I could think of other expenditure which I’d rather see the Treasury curtail.

Al

Goalkeeper does indeed use a US gun. It being the shooter off of the mighty warthog (presumably the Dutch wanted anything it shot at to stay shot)

I wasn’t aware that the weight difference between Phalanx and Goalkeeper was so small.

My understanding is that Phalanx’ key benefit is its minimal deck penetration. I don’t honestly know how Goalkeeper compares.

There haven’t been the same horror stories of Goalkeeper deciding to engage the wrong targets as Phalanx but that MAY be because there are just so many more Phalanx units in use!

Al

Now I will show you the drawing off of which Stan based all of his. I wonder if this would meet all of your requirements. Yes I realize that it has a Metric Butt-ton of VLS, but it doesnt have to to be a viable cruiser design.

My comments would be pretty much the same

Very purposeful-looking
The overall aesthetic works better at this scale (and USS Space Yamato posted immediately before) than with the smaller C1, C2, C3, Arsenal ships
The multi-tier CIWS has got to be a good thing (as has the fields of fire afforded to it)
Will the USN ever adopt/be allowed to adopt Goalkeeper?
I would be much happier with the helo ops moved much closer to CofG
(Maybe move some of those missiles abaft of the helo spot a la Ticos, Spruances and Sovremennys?)

Al