Drawing a very long bow, and
not suggesting that the CV90 is in any way favoured for LAND400 Phase 3, but the Swedish use this gun system on their IFV variant (CV9040) which is one of the proposals
I suppose I'm suggesting that at this stage we have no
detailed knowledge of
future requirements for medium calibre weapons used by Army and RAN, but at some point
something must be the first of a new system
oldsig
Bofors 40 Mk4 naval gun system BAE Systems 40mm datasheet pictures photos video specifications
CV90 versions armed with both a 30 mm (Finland, Norway, Switzerland) and 35 mm (Denmark, Netherlands) gun have been developed and exported. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish CV90's have seen combat in Afghanistan since 2007 with a number having been damaged or lost due to IED's.
My preference would have been for a mounting for the 35 mm Millennium Gun which is a non-deck penetrating CIWS, and then to see additional examples brought into RAN service to replace the existing pool of Mk 15 Phalanx CIWS.
That or go larger with either a Mk 110 57 mm Bofors, or better a Mk 75 76 mm/cal 62 OTO Melara gun with DART ammunition.
An issue I have with a number of the small calibre naval guns (Bushmaster 25 mm, 40 mm Bofors, etc.) is that between the weight or shot, effective (as opposed to max) range, and sustained rate of fire, they are useful vs. smallcraft but not much use again aerial targets. Take the Mk 4 40 mm/L70 Bofors, at a "max ROF 300 RPM" that could be hard pressed to defend vs. an inbound AShM, even with programmable ammunition, since I doubt such rounds would be quite as capable as programmable 57 mm or 76 mm rounds. Add in the fact that while the ROF is listed as 300 RPM, the gun itself only holds 100 rounds, which means after 20 seconds it needs to reload. In point of fact, the Mk 110 57 mm Bofors has a similar issue with a listed ROF of 200 RPM when the gun holds less than 200 rounds and at full rate would run out of ammo after about 40 seconds. The OTO Melara 76 mm Compact version also has a similar issue, though the listed ROF is much nearer the practical max ROF, being a listed at 85 RPM, with the gun holding 80 rounds. I am uncertain about the 120 RPM Super Rapid version, though I would not be surprised if it too only held 80 rounds ready to fire in the gun.
For the large guns, the greater effective range and precision ammunition, plus potential ASuW and NGS are assets. With the smaller guns, it would seem a significantly higher ROF coupled with the magazine capacity to actually achieve the claimed ROF would seem to be in order.
Committing to a comparatively slow sustained firing small calibre gun would seem to limit the potential flexibility and versatility of both the weapon and vessel.
