I wouldnt be so disheartened Planeman. What you’ve actually done is to show people how vital it is to correctly define the scope of a project before embarking on the basics of the design. Also what happens when project definition is ill-thought out how quickly capability-creep takes a project out of all bounds of sense even though the ‘individual steps’ may seem almost plausible.
You started this with the premise that the RN needed a new escort to fit into the CVF taskgroup going forwards. In reality most of this designs itself based on the limits around it. Seeings AAW is covered by the t45’s for the next two decades at least, and the ageing T22B3/T23 fleet is going to present a Fleet ASW gap with a secondary ‘DLG’ requirement the roles required of this escort are manifest. These roles also define the sensors that will be employed and, therefore, the hull numbers in the class.
There are only eight 2087 towed array sonars in the escort fleet, so, the RN’s next ASW combattant class numbers 8 hulls only!. 8 hulls is too few to be risking them inshore chasing down SSK’s and we arent going to be affording an allround competent GP frigate for C2 when we cant afford to send T23’s on deployment today. That means the new 2087 ships must be capable of as much standoff ASW as we can provide them with. Standoff ASW for the RN means Merlin HM1 and so the new escort MUST be an aviation-weighted design. Noting that sentence used the word ‘escort’ and not ‘carrier’ as this still needs to be a vessel capable of consorting HVU’s and NOT an HVU itself in need of escort!.
So we have already pre-defined mission, sensors, performance, armament, hull numbers and only, realistically, have cost/logistics/supportability left as a variable. By that I mean can we provide a hull that services all the pre-defined criteria for a price that can be met by the defence budget. Thats the challenge and it, I’m afraid, is not met by the kind of fancy pentamaran through-deck CGH’s you want to draw. I would like to see what your design package could do with the below concept though:
Essentially the same concept as I put through above, but, pared down to provide as much pull through from T45 and the decommissioning Dukes.
- 170m x 21m
- BAE155 fwd
- 48-cell VLS (4xA70/2xA43)
- ARTISAN MRR
- REMSIG 30mm’s port/starboard
- Phalanx-1B port/stbd
- re-uprated WR21 IEP propulsion – after turbine set resited fwd so uptake intrusion into hangar minimised.
- 50m flight deck/40m hangar – 3 Merlin HM1 surge airgroup.
- SONAR2087
Essentially still a big ship, knocking on cruiser sized, but nothing really ‘big-ticket’ expensive. No PAAMS so saving of near £200mn on T45 before stretch costs. Sensors/weapons transferred across, mostly, from T23. A43 cells for theoretical quadpack CAAMS, 32 LACM capable cells for meaningful secondary land-attack capability. Hul stretch allowing for increase in dieso and avcat bunkerage, air ordnance stores etc. Cant see why this wouldnt be considerably cheaper than T45. C1 sorted IMO!
True, these would be your fleet ASW assets for escorting the CVBG and ARG. You could build smaller T23 sized general purpose escorts for your C2, these would be very cheap (werent the later T23’s ~150Mil?). They can carry one or two Flynx.
If you go down further to C3.
Lets say 2000-2500t hanger equiped OPV/MCM replacement.
Either have a deck aft of the flight deck for a containerised TAS or MCM gear, or have space saved in the hull for the TAS.
Hanger for 1 Flynx.
Mk.8 Mod.0 or 1 guns and mountings from retired fleet ships, with new build fleet escorts receiving the BAe 155mm gun.
Either keep space for RAM or fit them for but not with CAMM.
———————–
Dream Ship
Tiger class cruiser
2x twin 6″ guns. In A and Y positions.
Flight deck at X position with hanger for 2-4 merlins.
64 Cell VLS at B position for CAMM and Aster 30.
RAM midships as CIWS.
With modern automation technology, maybe you could limit the crew enough to make it possible. Takes care of NGFS and can act as a flagship. Not to mention that it can use its fairly large flight wing to either argument the ASW screen or to covertly land Royal Marine commando’s.
Narrower hull (more draught) with only two EH-101s (plus UAVs?) and distributed peripheral VLS but using Sylver footprint. The 16 amidship would be max depth for TacTom and SM-6. The rest would be A-50 or equiv.Rear mast is SAMPSON etc, front mast is 3D air-search.
Erm, sampson at the back? Why SM6 and not Aster 30? Even if the RN were handed an unlimited budget today, i doubt they’d go buy any missiles of the SM family when they’ve just got their own brand new missiles in service. And what is the point of the weirdly placed frontal VLS cells and the light cannon in front of the bridge?
Why go to the complexity and expense of creating a microcarrier to operate 3 Merlin?. You have 4 deck spots for a vessel with an airgroup of 3 aircraft?. Why?. As to an F35B – precisely what is that going to achieve on this ship?.
A very ‘cool’ design it may be but its absolutely nothing to do with meeting any requirement the RN would have for a Type 8x or any other escort for that matter.
The stretch, 170m, T45 is the much more realistic solution. As roughed out above – a 45-50m flight deck, on T45’s existing 21m beam, gives two spots for concurrent Merlin flight ops. This is quite sufficient as the ship would not fly off all three choppers simultaneously under any operational scenario I can think of. A 40m long hangar is going to provide more than ample space for the Merlins folded and for room to work on them. For ‘expeditionary cruiser’ deployments that airgroup would obviously be tailored to match. A single Merlin, plus either an FLynx or a number of UAV’s etc.
Forward half the vessel is standard T45 with the VLS increased to nine modules. The aft three modules all being increased to Sylver A70 for LACM/Aster45 as necessary. The remainder being A50’s for stock Aster30.
Absence of a VSR is mitigated by the Sampson and radar-equipped LE UAV’s. TA sonar and comprehensive ESM/COMINT round out the capability.
Unless you are deliberately trying to come up with ‘something revolutionary’ there really is no need to work harder than this to come up with a highly effective design.
Lets call the first one HMS Tiger! 😀
Type 83 Cruiser.
@planeman:
I guess what we are saying is that a straight T23 replacement is going to be 4,000-5,000t with ~32 VLS, TAS and a single helicopter.
If you go for a more capable T45 sized ship, you can have a ship with a less capable air defense system by removing the LRR, redesigning the rear superstructure to hanger 2 merlin and add a TAS.
If you go for a 10,000t ship, then you can get a Tiger class style ‘commando’ cruiser along the lines of what Jonsey suggests, carrying up to 4 Merlins as well as the same AAW set up as the T45 derivative.
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