Particularly when you factor in the advanced state of the conversions. Ships nine and ten would be the cheapest of all provided they slipped in seamlessly after No 8.
Further advantages have been noted, ESSM Blk II, CEAFAR, less travel etc.
Royal New Zealand Navy Discussions and Updates
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Further advantages have been noted, ESSM Blk II, CEAFAR, less travel etc.
Cost alone, the ASMD budget far as I can tell from a 2013 article https://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/290/Anti-Ship-Missile-Defence-impressive-progress was in the ball park of $1.05 billion AUD for all 8 ships, NZ has effectively wasted $400+m for less capability.
tongan_yam
New Member
You beat me to it!
Can someone in the know shed some light on this? It seems to be a common theme in our defence spend that our Aussie cousins strike a good deal, offer us a chance to participate, and then we snub our noses and enter into more costly contracts with reduced capability and extended timelines.
Herc replacement vs Herc upgrade, and the Fridgate upgrade to name a couple of recent examples.
Is there an underlining attitude at HQ that baulks at any rational working relationship when it comes to defence procurement given the recent Fridgate example?
Ocean1Curse
Member
It starts at the top with the minister.
Most of defence procurement contracts get signed, particularly the recent frigate combate systems upgrades. How ever there was a delay of about 3 months between when the contract was signed and the first instalment was payed. Additionally an extra 30% was added to the quoted price rising to $639mln And was only recently payed in full.
Looking at the way the upgrades were handled it's hard to see how things could have been diffent. It's just semantics really.
The NZDF CAPEX target remains at $20bln.
As for the cost rise over time. Of course there is the currency retrenchment from the .95 basis points to .87 basis points over the period of 2014-2017. A potentially 15% spread that would at least add $50m even with hedging.
Be careful that when looking at the upgrades because you are comparing just one element of it. Yes the RNZN effectively paid more AUD$70m more per ship as the unit cost of the AMCAP was $AUD$250m. The total cost to NZ is AUD$320m per ship and that is a complete upgrade from electrical system propulsion, comms, weapons - everything but the hull which as been spruced up anyway has has replacement over what will be a 3 stage upgrade.
However CAMM(M) and its soft-cold launch characteristics I still believe was a very good capability investment for the RNZN and was not just about the current Frigate project but over the longer period.
Agree with the above, they even got new and more powerful diesels. The CAMM (sea ceptor) has some extra useful attributes, being active homing such as under the radar horizon ability and can be fired at multiple targets at the same time. Due to its use of low frequency homing (radio frequency) it could also have a anti stealth ability.
All true but I would note that ESSM block II will be a major change over Block I and will offer the same fire and forget capability with more range. Block II has always been the end game for Australia. The combination of ESSM Block II and SM6 will provide the ability to take out targets not seen by the ship based systems.
But it really is what was desired by the RNZN and how they intend to operate, I am source CAMM was chosen for good reason.
With the ANZAC upgrade cost, don’t forget the volume search element is still be be completed. That will add to the cost.
While it is true that the ESSM has greater range, the difference is probably less than it appears as the range is very dependant on the altitude of the target, with some missile ranges only being a third at low level to their max at high level. My understanding is that the sea ceptor 25km + quoted range is the low level range and I have seen unconfirmed press reports of successful trials at over 70km, I would stress that these are unconfirmed. Is the block II ESSM scanner a radio frequency unit (which can be useful against stealth) or in the normal radar frequency ranges?
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Are you sure that it was the Sea Ceptor you were reading about? The follow-on to the CAMM which is the base for Sea Ceptor is the CAMM-ER which is in development. Some of the preliminary results I have seen indicate a range of ~50+ km, or comparable to that of the ESSM.
For low flying targets, one of the primary issues is going to be the limited radar horizon. Having said that, having the option to cue and launch missiles at a target further away detected by other assets has advantages. A limitation of a system like Sea Ceptor is that if the frigate is acting as an escort, other vessels need to remain within that 25 km range to stay within a Sea Ceptor defensive "umbrella". That likely is not much of an issue if just one or two other vessels are being escorted, but could start to become problematic if a frigate tries to provide an escort to several ships at once.
Even with ESSM the CEAMOUNT system provides electronically steered beams of continuous wave RF energy to support multiple semi active homing missiles in the terminal phase of flight in all modes of the missile. So range/altitude becomes less relevant.
In addition the CAMM is a significantly smaller missile (shorter and significantly thinner) with both using a solid fuel rocket motor, so unless the European engine / aerodynamic ‘fairy’ has been at it again, I’d suggest any reports of CAMM (or even CAMM-ER) having a significantly greater range than ESSM are just a tad fishy...
The lower range of all missiles at low altitude is simply a factor of the drag caused by the denser air, which becomes more significant the higher the speed. this is the very reason that airliners fly at high altitude. A missile at supersonic speeds (2+) the effect is on range is far worse. Even in my time in the air force a A4 with full fuel (internal and external)could travel at low altitude about 6-700 miles, at high altitude this increased to 1800 miles and they are a lot slower than a missile.
The report I read was not clear on exactly what model it was talking about and while the general conversation was about the sea ceptor there where references to the other versions. The jurno may have mixed up test results with the air launched version which being launched at altitude and speed would has a significantly greater range.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
The ER version is supposed to have a booster stage and be about 1 m longer than the 'regular' CAMM. In fact the CAMM-ER is ~2 ft longer than the ESSM, though with a smaller diameter and about 120 kg lighter. One thing which is unclear to me is how large a warhead Sea Ceptor has. The ESSM has a ~39 kg blast-frag warhead which should be sufficient to take out an aircraft of missile it hits, and make a mess of any smallcraft. The RIM-116 RAM is comparable in size and weight to Sea Ceptor, but has an ~11 kg warhead with considerably shorter range (~9 km vs. 25+ for Sea Ceptor).
According to the manufacture the Seaceptor has a weight of 99kg with a range of more than 25kg
http://www.mbda-systems.com/?action=force-download-attachment&attachment_id=14287
I doubt it has a warhead of the size of the ESSM Block I or II. At this stage the RNZN is going for Sea Ceptor noting the ER version is still in development. The big advantage of Sea Ceptor is the soft launch and the fire and forget option.
However, before we deride ESSM in this respect the success of the CEA FAR and SAAB combat system was the ability to use the radar to see the target and engage it using active homing. Lets face it we have proof this will stop a supersonic missile.
What block II will bring is more range and an over horizon capability that can use third party data. The ESSM is a true medium range missile basically. The Sea Ceptor is a self defence missile but this will improve if the ER versions is fielded. In either case to use the full range of either missile third party data will be required,
Horses for courses really.
The warhead size determined by how close you intended to explode the warhead from the target and what the target is. For example the original british Rapier had a 1.4kg warhead but it was accurate enough to make direct contact with the aircraft so this warhead proved to be very effective and big enough to do the job.I suspect that the sea ceptor with active homing would also be very accurate, (the closer the missile gets with active homing the more accurate the system is) so would not require a large warhead as 1-2kg warhead will easily bring down most aircraft if in contact. If you actually hit the target, the weight of the missile it self travelling at mach 2 plus would be enough due to the energy release on impact.
Cautionary note on this one. I doubt the Rapoer warhead could be relied upon to be effective against a high speed Mach 3 target simply because kinetic energy is going to carry the missile a long way unless it is broken up. This is the issue with Phalanx as the ship can suffer a mission kill from being hit by the remains of the missile.
The advantage of a large fragmentation warhead is it can shred the incoming missile without having to hit it. This is very useful to hitting crossing missiles where your vessel is trying to defend another and the incoming missile is a fast mover.
This being said the Sea Ceptor warhead is bigger than that on Rapier and would be entirely sufficient for self defence IMHO.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Where did you see the Sea Ceptor warhead size? I looked at the MBDA brochure and did not see info on the warhead, just the overall missile size/weight?
The area of potential concern from my POV would be if a Sea Ceptor-armed frigate was escorting other vessels, at which the Sea Ceptor could be used in an area air defence vs. self-defence capacity.
The potential for other RNZN vessels getting kitted out with Sea Ceptor to provide a self-defence capability, much like if they were fitted with SeaPhalanx and/or SeaRAM is worth exploring. The same could be said for the RAN's support and Minor Warfare vessels.
As a point of interest on missile accuracy, which is very dependant on the type of missile control system used. Around 1980 when I was at defence HQ I was shown a report of the testing of the then new sea wolf missile. One item I remember was that the British were firing 4.5 inch shells down range and intercepting the shells with the sea wolf missiles. The report said that in 10 tests the missile actually impacted the shell on 7 occasions. This was + 37 years ago and the target was very supersonic.
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