Royal New Zealand Navy Discussions and Updates

[Todjaeger]

I don’t believe the Sierra is still in production; stopped in the mid teens I think.

AFAIK that is correct, however LockMart/Sikorsky still has versions of the S-70 in production and a customer has quite a very capability requirements which they can request so a new S-70 order could likely be spec'd to be an equivalent to a MH-60S.

In terms of the Kiwi MH-60 order... it does seem like any lessons learned in the past from the SH-2G(NZ) order have been lost or forgotten. Looking at the RAN's first MH-60 order, the requirement was for a force of eight naval helicopters available for ops and/or deployment, and therefore 24 helicopters were ordered. Using the same ratio for the RNZN/NZDF, that would suggest the Kiwis only had a requirement for a single deployed or operational naval helicopter. Also worth noting is that, by my count, it appears that the RNZN have six ships which can support embarked helicopters, with the entire Navy able to handle up nine helicopters at once.

 

[OldTex]

I don’t believe the Sierra is still in production; stopped in the mid teens I think.

That was the reason given for ordering MH-60Rs as the replacements for the MRH-90s operated by RAN (which replaced the Seaking Ml50As in the VERTREP role). My understanding from the information in the public domain was that the ASW equipment etc "could be quickly removed to support personnel or cargo transfer". Whether that actually happens is a question for those with far more knowledge of day-to-day naval aviation operations in RAN

 

[Nighthawk.NZ]

It might be possible to still overwhelm a theoretical RNZN Mogami-class FFG loaded with 128 Sea Ceptor missiles by just having more inbounds cross within 25 km of the ship at once than the CMS and missiles can respond to.

You are not waiting till the missile gets to 25km before you launch or fire at any incoming threat, that 25km is where you would like to hit your target and depending on height speed etc it could be further out... (again we don't know the exact range of the SeaCeptor and for good reason)

However fire enough missiles at any ship it an over whelm the CMS and missile guides of any ship.

 

[Todjaeger]

You are not waiting till the missile gets to 25km before you launch or fire at any incoming threat, that 25km is where you would like to hit your target and depending on height speed etc it could be further out... (again we don't know the exact range of the SeaCeptor and for good reason)

However fire enough missiles at any ship it an over whelm the CMS and missile guides of any ship.

I agree that the vessel would likely fire before the inbounds were 25 km away, but as they approached the umbrella coverage. Going off the publicly available data (yes, I am aware that the reliability of such data can be questionable) it should take a Sea Ceptor missile ~24 sec to reach the 25 km range mark. Depending on the inbound and it's flight profile, an inbound might not be that much further away before a Sea Ceptor would get to that outer range mark. Using an inbound YJ-83 on a cruising speed approach of ~0.9 Mach, that could get fired up whilst ~32 to 33 km away from the targeted ship if the Sea Ceptor is getting fired for max range. The ship could very well be aware of an approaching in bound for multiple minutes, but just not have options available to respond until the inbounds get closer.

Where this could get problematic is if there is a need for a ship to re-engage an inbound that became a leaker, or if there is a saturation attack which seeks to overwhelm the CMS and missile guidance. Not sure what the capabilities of the Sea Ceptor and CMS 330 are in terms of handling and guiding multiple outbound SAM's against multiple inbound threats. From published data on the RAN ANZAC-class frigates, the CEAMOUNT illuminator for the ESSM Block I can engage 10 targets simultaneously. I would imagine that the ESSM Block II which has an additional seeker and extra guidance capabilities, there could be both a larger number of targets engaged at once as well as greater range to engage inbounds as they approach.

Where I grow concerned is that it seems people might grow complacent, thinking that because a ship holds/can hold nnn-number of Sea Ceptor missiles the vessel and nearby assets are protected, when it is distinctly possible that the ships sensors, CMS and missiles cannot effectively engage numerous inbounds even though there are plenty of missiles onboard.

Now of course I could also be quite wrong and the CMS configuration along with Sea Ceptor guidance could permit a significant portion of the VLS to be emptied all at once, but that does sound a little unlikely.

 

[Rob c]

One must also keep in mind that low flying missiles may not come into a defending systems radar horizon until quite late. this may be as little as 10 t0 15 km so most system have the potentual to be overwelmbed by numbers should the attack be below the radar horizon and in some numbers as the time factor becomes very short. this is one of the reasons that I think navies are still fitting systems like philanx as last ditch defence .
Having very long range missiles is of little use if the enemy and the missiles stay below your radar horizon, which they will if they can.

 

[Todjaeger]

One must also keep in mind that low flying missiles may not come into a defending systems radar horizon until quite late. this may be as little as 10 t0 15 km so most system have the potentual to be overwelmbed by numbers should the attack be below the radar horizon and in some numbers as the time factor becomes very short. this is one of the reasons that I think navies are still fitting systems like philanx as last ditch defence .
Having very long range missiles is of little use if the enemy and the missiles stay below your radar horizon, which they will if they can.

Hence my regular use of radar horizon calculators.

An ANZAC-class frigate (radar height ~38 m above water line) should have a radar horizon of ~35 km for an aerial threat flying at ~5 m, which would roughly match the believed terminal approach flight of something like the YJ-83 AShM. This is of course also assuming that there is no datalink contact info coming into the frigate via from other assets, or that inbound missiles were not already detected prior to their reducing altitude for terminal approach. It is also making assumptions about the launching platform(s), since I would expect a frigate to at least be able to detect an air group in flight from 150 km to 200 km away where they would likely be when launching a strike.

If one is trying to factor in AShM launched by surface vessels, then things get more complicated still because the launching ship would most likely be below the radar horizon (and therefore be just as blind of the Kiwi frigate as the Kiwi frigate is of it) if greater than 50 km away. This in turn means that an offboard asset would need to provide contact and targeting data prior to launch.

Potentially further complicating things is if the RNZN frigate ends up with an embarked MH-60R 'Romeo' once they enter service, and the helicopter is aloft. Not sure exactly what the normal patrolling altitude would be for an MH-60R, but I would suspect it would likely be somewhere around the 3,000 m mark unless engaged in ASW ops deploying sonobuoys or the dipping sonar to provide the APS-147 radar with a decent field of view for sea (and some air) searches. The potential radar horizon then for a target at an altitude of 5 m is over 200 km.

The Sea Ceptor itself does appear to be a very good VSHORAD to SHORAD missile, but there is also a reason why most air defence ships currently feature a few different air defence missile types with different engagement range capabilities.

One final thought. Realistically if a RNZN frigate is getting engaged by hostile forces belonging to a state actor whilst by itself/unaccompanied, then either it is one of the very first actions in a conflict which is just beginning, or else something has done gone horribly, horribly wrong.