New frigates for Greek Navy

Swerve thats correct that the APAR smart L currently are employed with the SM family but due to the facts that the radars are a European design they could easily be made to work with the Aster missiles. Lets not forget after all that the Type45 radars that are essentially heavily modified and customized APAR and smart-L do work with Aster.....

I could never see SPY-1D being modified for Aster..... The Americans are simply not that desperate to sell....

Thanks for the discussion....

Although APAR can fly SM2's, they only fly the SM2 Block 3A, where as Aegis flies the Block 3B. The B has the active seeker extending the range.

also, the X band can only provide point to point uplink, while the S band provides continues uplink, thus extending the range and accuracy (PK).

You are right I dont see the US adding Aster to its inventory, most likely I cant see the French providing MK-41 the integration data.

I've read several articles that the German 124s are dockside in Germany, until the problems with the CMS are fixed. (no radar issues, just CMS software issues).

A Spy-1D would seem to be too big of a system in price and size for the Greeks, but the SPY-1F would be in the price range.

I've read the Saudis and Isrealis are looking at LCS with Spy-F. That could solve the build in Greece issue, if the US allows export of the HME design.

thanks for the insight and comments to my original question.

CarrierRider said:

I've read several articles that the German 124s are dockside in Germany, until the problems with the CMS are fixed. (no radar issues, just CMS software issues).

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There's a working CMS software version for the F124. One of the three ships is trying it out in the current Africa/India cruise, the second is running active missions with it, and the third operates "close to home" (North Sea) in trials to work further on the CMS software.

CarrierRider said:

I've read the Saudis and Isrealis are looking at LCS with Spy-F. That could solve the build in Greece issue, if the US allows export of the HME design.

thanks for the insight and comments to my original question.

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Israelis are studying both Spy-1F and MF-STAR
along with Combatss-21 CMS integrated to IC2.

LCS-I brochure

dk706 said:

Obviously I take the suggestion for the Milgem and the TF2000 as a joke...

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No why not? Does Greece have the capability to develop it's own planes?

kato said:

There's a working CMS software version for the F124. One of the three ships is trying it out in the current Africa/India cruise, the second is running active missions with it, and the third operates "close to home" (North Sea) in trials to work further on the CMS software.

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Are the Dutch DZP's having the same problems? I haven't heard anything about it.

Attila mate I think you are a bit confused.... we are talking about ships here not planes....

And to your question now..Greece like a lot of countries in Europe has the necessary knowhow and shipbuilding skill to actually design and built a modern combat vessel.....the reason that that is not done is because RD and designing something from scratch is very expensive and its becomes especially expensive when you do not achieve economies of scale due to large production numbers....something impossible for Greece....
Therefore as you can understand the above make a greek design inviable and unnecessarily costly to the Greek navy...

Second thing about the Milgem and TF2000 is that milgem is not a frigate its a corvette and its role is ASW/ASUW not AAW moreover the TF2000 is still on the drowning board and i havent even seen a sketch of it.....

The third and most important thing is that buying military hardware is always a political desicion as much as it is a military decission. Only a crazy person would buy some military hardware to protect against the country that designed them or would pay money to the country that is the reason the greeks are buying this frigates for....

Finally it is totally unrealistic of you to believe that the designs were would ever be offered to Greece....

gvg said:

Are the Dutch DZP's having the same problems? I haven't heard anything about it.

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Nope.

I think the problems stem from the new base layer of the F124 software architecture - unlike other ships, F124 uses a fully distributed system. I.e. the base layer has to coordinate available resources here in addition to the usual stuff. The hardware isn't just a single system with multiple redundancy backups, but about 30 different cores spread throughout the ship. Intention is that the ship can lose like half its processing hardware due to damage and still have the same processing available to the CMS.

Kato does any other ship have a similar system to the F124 or is it the first?
It seems like F124 could withstand a lot of damage especially with modern firefighting systems and modern damage control...

I wonder how many actual hits of modern western subsonic missiles would need a ship like that to be rendered useless...

dk706 said:

Kato does any other ship have a similar system to the F124 or is it the first?

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As far as i know, it's the first that really distributes its system like that. The common thing seems to be to have three or four computer cores that backup the main system for redundancy.
Not exactly my specialty though.

edit: The base concept (system of systems) is something that'll likely be in more and more new ships. In the German Navy it's mostly an evolution from dedicated mainframe architecture (F122) through a distributed specialized-hardware system with a unified central bus (MEKO, F123) to more-and-more software based distribution with specialized interface structure (F124, F125).

edit2: The CMS of Horizon and Daring use similar systems. The ARMARIS proposal i've seen for Horizon (and SIC21) uses a ton of COTS equipment interfaced via ethernet, although i have no idea how widely the processing load can be distributed, and whether the RTOS can fail-safe processes by redistributing them within the network (there's a variety of strategies for such redistribution in computer grids). It's rather likely it works out similar in the end though.

Every CMS that is based on TACTICOS has the same software distribution capabilities. The F124's and the LCF's CMS is TACTICOS, as well other ships CMS's are based on that, like the Super Vita FAC's in the Greek navy.

A look in this pdf will show which ships have this Combat Management System and some of the capabilities it has. http://www.omg.org/docs/realtime/01-04-05.pdf

Also here http://www.naval-technology.com/contractors/data_management/thales4/ is the description of TACTICOS.

According to this pdf and the description, the whole system, the CMS, the sensors and the weapons is a network, every system is part of it. If some of the consoles are offline or destroyed that doesn't mean that the ship doesn't have the ability to fight, as kato correctly said the distribution and allocation of resources between the consoles will keep the ship active as long as it has some MOCs operating, if the ship hasn't lost the data buses that connect the sensors and the weapons.

eliaslar said:

Every CMS that is based on TACTICOS has the same software distribution capabilities. The F124's and the LCF's CMS is TACTICOS, as well other ships CMS's are based on that, like the Super Vita FAC's in the Greek navy.

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Yes, but the question is the number of (processing) computer cores involved that the CMS can distribute between.

I think that's information that cannot be found. Though i believe that the CMS is still operational even with 1 console online but this will put the system in lots of trouble.

During Mr Sarkozy 's visit in Greece, on Friday, as everything shows us in the media reports there was a "deal" with the Greek side about the FREMM, from a political point of view, on the new frigate program.

I don't want to be a prophet but i think that FREMM will be the next frigate.

eliaslar said:

During Mr Sarkozy 's visit in Greece, on Friday, as everything shows us in the media reports there was a "deal" with the Greek side about the FREMM, from a political point of view, on the new frigate program.

I don't want to be a prophet but i think that FREMM will be the next frigate.

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Most likely yes, but for how many ships, with or without SCALP, with or without Aster 30 and AAW or "Freda" fit ... this remains to be seen.
On top France is competing with Italy for export of FREMMs knowing that the Italian ones being built are closer to the Greek tender (because all our ships are AAW with Aster 30 and active EMPAR)... so in order to win France will have to cut prices to rock bottom and let the Greek shipyards build almost everything...

cheers

Most people in Greece agree that the number of the ships will be 3+3 and all of them will be built in Greek shipyards. There are no further details on the program not to talk about the configuration, but i am sure we will hear more about them in the very near future.
I am sure though most in the navy dream of the SCALP capabilities

contedicavour said:

Most likely yes, but for how many ships, with or without SCALP, with or without Aster 30 and AAW or "Freda" fit ... this remains to be seen.
On top France is competing with Italy for export of FREMMs knowing that the Italian ones being built are closer to the Greek tender (because all our ships are AAW with Aster 30 and active EMPAR)... so in order to win France will have to cut prices to rock bottom and let the Greek shipyards build almost everything...

cheers

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Conti do you have any idea about the testing of Scalp Naval and its introduction into the French Navy

Well it will enter service only in 2011 (on the land attack FREMM, then on Barracuda SSN) so it's not imminent; however given its close link with SCALP EG/ Storm Shadow there won't be that much testing needed...
What else... 910 million euro for 250 missiles - if they really do order that many...
Range of SCALP-EG is approx 400km and in theory the naval version should have > 1000km range.

cheers

@contedicavour

I don't think there will be 250 missiles, even though i would like it a lot! Even HAF had 90 missiles for the Mirage 2000 we have in service. A number of about 50-100 missiles would be much more logical to our needs.

eliaslar said:

@contedicavour

I don't think there will be 250 missiles, even though i would like it a lot! Even HAF had 90 missiles for the Mirage 2000 we have in service. A number of about 50-100 missiles would be much more logical to our needs.

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250 is the tentative order for the French Navy, not the Greek one.
And even the French are unlikely to order that many with the last wave of budget cuts.
Frankly I don't think it's the best value for money, I'd rather invest in guided ammunition fast guns like the Strales programme of Finmeccanica. Hell if you can already guide 127mm rounds 70km away it's great for amphibious warfare. To bomb targets over a 1000km away there's the air force or the carriers' embarked jets !

cheers

cheers