The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

Fair enough, an ASW frigate does need a decent VDS / towed array. To be honest I hadn't considered that, but now you mention it, it does make sense.
 
RobWilliams said:
That's UK date for UK ships built in UK yards, these ships are being built for the next decade, so there's not exactly much of a time limit on wanting in for a while yet if Canada wanted some kind of personnel transfer to get some practice building this class of ship.
Click to expand...

The "Plan" ( LOL) is to Candianize an existing proven design and then build ships in Canada. To my knowledge no design has yet to be selected. DND screwed around with their JSS design for at least 10 years before realizing they could only afford a Berlin class oiler. Even this will have some modifications so no telling when first steel is cut. The other issue is Canada urgently needs a new heavy icebreaker and the yard tasked with these builds can only build one ship at a time. Since Protecteur is likely lost, it will have to be the Berlin class first. So much for the government's Arctic sovereignty ambitions. The surface combat ships will be built in a different yard.
 
Yup - all Canada has missed is the chance to get on board with the design from the outset. I'll be interested (huge understatement) to see how the Type 26 looks when then design is finalised (I'd like 'em to go back to fore and after 1b for instance) Whatever happens, it'll be a large and roomy design for a frigate with a quiet power arrangement, allowing for a higher "sneaky" cruise speed than Type 23.

The aviation facilities look good as well, roomy deck with space for anything we have in inventory and a mission bay of sorts to one side. That's flexibility...
 
Out of curiosity, what is it about the fore/aft location you prefer?

A couple of the reasons i've heard thrown around is that it could cause more wear and tear to the fore 1b from crashing into waves all the time, although during the Falklands it read like whenever a missile was inbound, the ships tried to move head on to present as small a target as possible for the missiles so i'd imagine it'd be able to still engage.

A mission bay of sorts to one side? That sucker is huge! It's the entire width of the ships superstructure, you open both the doors and you can see right the way through, it's one huge open space.

Same setup as the RHIB arrangement on the Type 45 so that's some commonality.

The kicker i'd really like to know is if it's Sylver or Mk41. The reduction of 24 to 16 could indicate a swap from Sylver to Mk41 as the cells on the Mk41 are larger.
 
I think two of the significant factors influencing the which vls to incorporate will be:
1) Agreement between UK and France on investigating a replacement for Harpoon/Exocet that was agreed upon recently.
2) Imminent end of production for Tomahawk block 4.
 
Indeed which definitely leans towards Sylver in both respects with MdCN and - in the future - a derivative of Perseus which i think was developed in consultation with the RN and French Navy.

Greater European drive for expanding their BMD capability with a good development path for Aster 30 reduces the edge of picking Mk41 to a degree.

Gotta show my love for Perseus. One missile to give us land attack capability AND surface attack capability on our airbourne platforms AND surface ships AND submarines. Would prefer an ER version for naval use however with a bigger booster. Similar to what France did with SCALP and MdCN.

EDIT: Holy Smokes, google'd the TLAM thing and the budget for TLAM and Hellfire ends in 2016 and 2015 respectively in the proposed budget.

Brimstone 2 anyone?
 
RobWilliams said:
EDIT: Holy Smokes, google'd the TLAM thing and the budget for TLAM and Hellfire ends in 2016 and 2015 respectively in the proposed budget.
Click to expand...

I thought the TLAM production was to end at the end of this year/fiscal year? Regardless I don't think it's been particularly widely reported, althought the US is working on a replacement which will go X times further and do X times more things at XX times the price of course.
 
This is where i'm reading it from, it says that TLAM

Obama to kill Navy's Tomahawk, Hellfire missile programs in budget decimation - Washington Times

It's probably a case of cutting funding for procurement and freeing up funding for the replacement whilst making do with current stocks. Which seems sensible enough for a budget under scrutiny, but then the article moves on to say at the current rate of usage stocks will become 'depleted' by 2018.

Although this is a proposed budget, so there's plenty of hurdles for it to stumble on, including making it through Congress IIRC.

IMO if we're pushing interoperability with the rest of Europe, then we need to go Euro.
 
RobWilliams said:
I...
EDIT: Holy Smokes, google'd the TLAM thing and the budget for TLAM and Hellfire ends in 2016 and 2015 respectively in the proposed budget.

Brimstone 2 anyone?
Click to expand...
Weelll . . . . DM Brimstone has been successfully fired from Reaper, IIRC. Should work on Wildcat. Shorter range than when fired from a fast jet, but still at least as much as Hellfire.

And we have LMM for small targets, & will get FASGW(H). I don't think an end to Hellfire production is a problem for the UK.
 
Going for the Mk45 may help with certain markets, i.e. Australian, who already use this mount. It can still be changed out for something else if required by customers but that will be entirely up to them. Producing a ship that could for all intents and purposes slot straight into the USN could have its advantages, not so much with US orders but with allied and friendly navy orders.
 
Volkodav said:
Going for the Mk45 may help with certain markets, i.e. Australian, who already use this mount. It can still be changed out for something else if required by customers but that will be entirely up to them. Producing a ship that could for all intents and purposes slot straight into the USN could have its advantages, not so much with US orders but with allied and friendly navy orders.
Click to expand...
Its also BAE which is important so it can be sold as a UK purchase compared with the OTO mount which isn't.
 
Volkodav said:
Going for the Mk45 may help with certain markets, i.e. Australian, who already use this mount. It can still be changed out for something else if required by customers but that will be entirely up to them. Producing a ship that could for all intents and purposes slot straight into the USN could have its advantages, not so much with US orders but with allied and friendly navy orders.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, Australia, New Zealand and probably Canada would prefer this gun mount as opposed to the Oto. In reality the more US based systems the RN incorporate the more attractive it would be for those nations
 
And it's nice to get confirmation that the current intention is to fit new mounts and not recycle the 4.5 inchers one more time :)
 
RobWilliams said:
This is where i'm reading it from, it says that TLAM

Obama to kill Navy's Tomahawk, Hellfire missile programs in budget decimation - Washington Times

It's probably a case of cutting funding for procurement and freeing up funding for the replacement whilst making do with current stocks. Which seems sensible enough for a budget under scrutiny, but then the article moves on to say at the current rate of usage stocks will become 'depleted' by 2018.

Although this is a proposed budget, so there's plenty of hurdles for it to stumble on, including making it through Congress IIRC.

IMO if we're pushing interoperability with the rest of Europe, then we need to go Euro.
Click to expand...

Which is utter horseshit. Most of the articles picking up that line are very conservative and looking to slam the current administration.

Navy Plans To ‘Expeditiously’ Replace Tomahawks | Defense Daily Network

Open source testimony has us "at about 4000 Tomahawks" (does not specify variants). With an expenditure of 200 in Libya. We've barely shot any since.

Even if we had a Libya sized intervention every year, that'd take about 20 years to deplete the inventory.

I do think the "rolling the dice" comments on next gen are a legitimate concern, but we'll see how it shakes out.
 
That sounds more like it, it seemed pretty ridiculous that the USN would be short of TLAM a few years after their last purchase!

But back to the Mk45, having it as standard would certainly make it a more attractive proposition for other navies who would want to use that system.

Pick Mk41 as well and that's two ticks. . . .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top