Al.IFF the LCS enters service to replace all USN Frigates
and
IFF the LCS has a nice sensible route to load and unload modules
THEN a dedicated mothership makes perfect sense.
However if LCS is going to be a littoral combat ship and a littoral combat ship alone and if loading and unloading modules is going to a pain in the fundament then it makes far more sense to RAS over the horizon as per normal and to ship and unship mission modules at a base.
I believe (and I cannot provide sources for this) that the modular mission bay is a way of building one external platform which can be fitted out to carry out multiple roles. Much in the same vein as the MEKO family. Possibly the USN sees an advantage in being able to upgrade the contents of mission modules more easily during midlife updates? I do not believe that the idea is to allow rapid reconfiguration for different roles when at sea or even whilst in service.
From what I have seen the modules are not analagous to pylons on a warplane. There is no expectation that they can be rearmed and turned around for a new tasking. POSSIBLY the USN have missed a trick here and in fact the mission modules should be analogous to weapons pylons.
Al
Al.Oh and another thing the best-looking planes were of course the 3rd and 4th Gen ones which were never built/never built in numbers
P1154
TSR2
F16XL
Al
Al.2nd 3rd and 4th Gen all looked best from 3/4 head on
5th Gen (both of them!) look like a dog’s breakfast from that angle but look menacing from other angles
Add my vote to ‘Phantom, pretty WTF?‘ but she does look like you’d better respect her in the morning
Al
Al.Raid the pirates nests and take no prisoners i say.
Which is certainly a tempting sentiment.
But remember what happened the last time that (well meaning I am sure) US Forces intervened in Somalia?
Or the escalation in Afghanistan and Iraq when the decision was made go cut people’s balls off and label them as trophies rather than going for a sustained police action?
Al
Al.That is what I did in the first place, none of the three it shows are actually the relevant one, I think they’ve removed it
Blind leading the blind?
I found some PDFs but of course whether they’re the one you were referring to I don’t know! And if you did the same as I suggested then they probably aren’t!
Sorry about that
Al
Al.http://www.bmt.org/News/?/1/0/160
There was a pdf factsheet that went in depth on their website but I can’t seem to find it now.
Just stick ‘SSGT’ in the search box on said site and choose ‘search BMT’.
Certainly an interesting design. I wonder how things have moved on since 2004/2005?
Al
Al.In answer to the question: Yes, yes it is
As to what it actually signifies we will have to wait and see
Al
Al.The beauty of VLS is that you dont need to touch it very much when you are underway.
Quite correct and when shut down as part of NBC procedures you don’t need to send some poor sap topside to reload and get exposed to nasties.
21″ fish, and similar cannisters intended to be fired through the same tubes, are remarkably awkward things to shunt around a ship.
And then some! I had a vision of using below decks. Thus removing some of the design pressure on laying helo ops, masts, VLS, uncle Tom cobbly and all all on the single plane. The issue there of course being penetration of the hull with potential NBC and NBCD issues.
I’m pretty much resigned to ladies weapons as regards skimmers and their fish.
I think we stand on the brink of a considerable revolution in naval battlespace coverage and that is the move to long endurance offboard sensors.
Agreed.
There is potential for AEW and AESW (clumsy new made up acronym I know) feeding all units. AAW destroyers as pickets far from high value units is a mugs game but give those vessels their own high endurance AEW and suddenly they look much more survivable.
Al
Al.Simply because the Mk32’s dont take up much space and they keep the submarines back a bit. If you are firing a 35knt torpedo at an escort that can do 30knts, and get there quickly, then all you have is a 5knt advantage to play with. If you shoot from 10000yds (5nm) it’ll take the torpedo an hour to catch up – if your fish can run for 30nm!!!.
Firing torpedoes then, unless your target is slow or stupid, is something best done very close in. Mk32 coupled to even a modest MF ship-mount set is a good way of encouraging a submarine driver to hesitate before getting too close for very modest expense and ship impact. The newer magazine-fed STWS systems are even better than the venerable Mk32’s though as they feed off the same torpedoes as the ships flight uses. Nice and efficient solution that one.
Another one to file under genuinely interesting. Thankyou for that number crunching, I had honestly not looked at the situation that way.
I still think that NATO skimmers should have man-sized fish (with the added advantage that the tubes can be used to deploy Cruise Missiles and AShMs leaving the VLS for SAMs and giving a nice uncluttered groundplane up top) but you have shot a big hole in my assumptions.
Personally I think that putting the torpedoes on rockets about the ship and letting the choppers do their hunting without being weighed down with ordnance is smarter, but, thats just a personal opinion!!!.
That appears to be the way that AAW is moving (away from CAP flying with long range missiles and towards more effective ship mounted SAMs*) and AShMs (witness the numbers of Cruise Missiles and AShMs mounted on skimmers rather than loaded on airframes and deployed thence) so it could very well be a model for ASW as well.
Al
* I hope against hope that AEW is not going to disappear again only to be replaced when its lack is shown to be so dangerous
Al.Has anyone seen the recent issue of international fleet review?
In the rant (a well argued rant and I agree with much of it, but a rant nonetheless) on what the money spent on a VAT cut should actually have been spent is an interesting piccy of a BAe proposal for FSC (nothing in the way of figures or specs though sadly)
Picture here FSC
Al
Al.they shud make 1 massive carrier like 80,000 ton and 1 smaller 40,000 but exactly the same design that way we can keep the beast in port just in case we actualy need it n send the small 1 out but if we need to scare some misbehaving country we can send the small 1 and they will think its the big 1 just far away! i know theres alot of reasion that wouldnt work but im chosing to ignore thm! 🙂
Golden the Ship Was— Oh! Oh! Oh!
Al.Grrrrrr
Just when I think that the crabfats are showing technical nouse (exhibit A the swing role coolness and clever use of big Foxhunter antenna on F3s:cool:) they get involved in this nonsense again 😡
Divide and conquer on budgets is only going to disadvanatage all arms
What stops the next logical step?:
‘That is very cogent argument against organic airpower’
‘Well you have never actually used BVR weapons, so we’ll cancel them’
‘In fact external stores only increase your signature you’d be best off sticking to an internal gun only’
‘2 GTs on Eurofighter is wasteful so we’ll halve the total engine order and just ballast the right-hand engine tunnel and have a permanent trim bias on that big old rudder, if we have any left over after ripping them out of old airframes you can have them as spares, no need to buy any more as dedicated spares that’s for sure’
‘UAVs are SO much cheaper so we’ll ignore the bandwidth and EW issues and just cancel manned aircraft (again)’
‘Actually no need to actually own any UAVs we’ll just lease them from the Yanks, I cannot believe that a foreign profit-making organisation would have any reason to stitch is on the details especially if we hand them a monopoly situation‘
Surely:
Pointing out the profligate waste in PFI agreements
Pointing out the nonsense in trying to renegotiate fixed-price contracts mid flow and so losing the potential benefits
Pointing out the awful conditions of service accomodation
Pointing out the insane money spent on pensions for flag rank (and equivalent) retirees
Pointing out that the Royal Family are the biggest benefit scroungers in the UK and that if people think that they are that important then they could fund them as a charity
Pointing out that the ONLY recent airframe improvement programme which stayed to cost and time was the RAFs inhouse modernisation of their Jags
Pointing out the horrific waste on the RNs two recent helo mod programmes
Would all be better ways of getting the funding that they need
Al
PS: Good call on cancelling DDG1000 ZumWhiteElephant class though
Al.but it would prolly be cheaper to just build more Horizons then redesign the FREMM….
I keep hearing that ’90:10 rule’ and thinking that you are probably on the money with that suggestion
Al
Al.Those 76mm Super Rapid are the closest the French navy has ever got to buying some form of CIWS system.
Even the spams are going for bigger calibre CIWS now, maybe the French were right all along?
Al
Al.Irecognised the Treasury was the real enemy and not each other, then a bit of horse trading could have gone on: 1SL:”We’ll not oppose TSR2 and other programmes in the works if you (CAS) throw your support behind retention of carrier aviation and back CVA programme starting in the early 70s.”
A lesson which has still not been learned. Anyone read the more recent issues of AIR international?
The existing carrier force could be kept serviceable for another decade without much difficulty (Eagle SLEP refit 59-64, viable until 1984 without major refit, Victorious SLEP refit 1950-58, viable until 1978-80, Hermes NEW in 1959, STILL in service with India, Centaur new in 1954, refitted 56-58, only ten years sea time when paid off, Ark Royal SLEP 67-70, if extended to 72 then engines could be expected to last into the 80s. Bulwark lasted into the eighties and could have lasted longer if properly refitted, and Albion was the same vintage so could have been retained just as long).
Those are pretty stark figures aren’t they?
If the Sea Vixen is upgraded further with superior radar, perhaps the same as fitted to the Phantom so that it can fire Sparrow/Skyflash then it can remain viable for fleet defence through the 70s at least (most Sea Vixens had at least 10 years airframe life left to them when withdrawn), so whichever aircraft is chosen to replace the Vixen doesn’t have to enter service until about 1980, on the same timescale as the SHAR historically…
Hell yeah.
Ignoring the cost differentials
I’m not one for taking numbers from wikipedia uncritically but this time out they suit me.
Phantom – combat radius 680km and not built for dog fighting*
Sea Vixen – combat radius 635km and lovely flying wing
On top of which the Sea Vixen is MUCH MUCH prettier
* which is not to unfairly denegrate those pilots who did manage to get it to perfomr up close and personal
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