windscorpion
New Member
The first lesson of warfare is that you forget your lessons of warfare.
The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter overlander
- Start date
Yes very true. I don't know if you have ever read Andrew Gordon's excellent Rules of the Game, Jutland and British Naval Command. One of his observations is a general flaw in military planning, that the further they get in time from actual warfare the more they forget its lessons.
The T23 does carry a pair of 30mm guns, as will the Type 45. These must be pretty potent with a high rate of fire, especially if there is some remote control aspect involved from the ships radar. I dont think there was enough top weight on T23 to fit any other CIWS but Sea Wolf is pretty potent and a missile seems a better way to kill a ship or missile at a greater distance. The RN places a great emphasis on soft kill as well as hard kill, maybe they have learnt the lessons so perhaps they are confident they have the combination right?
The T42s got a pair of twin 30mm guns post Falklands at the expense of its boats, then the Phalanx so weight probably was the issue. The goalkeeper on the latter T22;s seems to be in a position that compromises its arc of fire, they maybe benefited from a bit of post Falklands cash floating around?
They did stick a Sea Ram on HMS York but I read that the RN was unsure how controllable RAM missiles were in a formation of friendly ships and helicopters, seems a bit risky to shoot off fire and forget heatseekers, especially of you are flying a Merlin nearby, Im not sure if this is true though.
if your SAM has a 90% kill rate, fire two then you should be pretty sure of bringing down that threat, then the 30mm and Phalanx should be sufficient for the leakers. Im curious to know how the air warfare aspects are coordinated, the threat aircraft closes at around a mile every 8 seconds or so, is the sequence automatic? Is there a distance in cut off point where the gun crews or phalanx takes over from missile, and can the ships guns actually interfere with the missile tracking and flight?? If Sea Wolf is tracking towards a target and the guns are firing at the same target, isnt there a slight danger that the sea wolf could be downed by your on CIWS or guns? If you have multiple rapid fire CIWS on deck, this must confuse the airwarfare system surely?
I had not thought about the danger of RAM and friendly fire but it must be an issue if there are a lot of aircraft about. I think SAM are the best answer to supersonic missiles, but I do think Gatlin type weapons have a value and the Kashtan concept has such shear firepower.
I would have exchanged the T23's 4.5" for a 76mm and a Goalkeeper. Combined with Sea Wolf (or even Sea Dart) would have been an excellent capability.
I think the 30mm guns are just for patrol work 30mm is hopeless as an AA calibre
The DS 30M mountings being adopted by the Royal Navy on the Type 23 frigates are automated mounts for use against fast attack craft. I don't know how far this capability can be used with aircraft.
Cheers, I doubted it would have any serious value in the AA field.
Why is 30mm hopeless as an AA calibre??
I dont have enough knowlege of the 76mm as an AA weapon, the super rapid has a ROF of 120 RPM, an aircraft would close at 200 M/Sec so it would seem to be able to put rounds on target each 100m the aircraft closes, but does weigh 7.5tonnes and has a magazine of only 80 rounds (not sure of accuracy of source here), The Goalkeeper would fire 70 rounds per second at the same target.
if you face mutiple threats eg 2x two ships as attacked HMS Coventry and Broadsword would 76 mm have helped? The US navy now seems to favour a bigger GP gun and Phalanx, Im not conviced the 76 mm is the best of either, it seems a compromise IMO?
From Wiki (a crap source I know) but Goalkeeper versus something like a Sunburn...engagement sequence from automatic detection of 5.5 seconds from synchronised start of firing at 1500metres aiming for missile kill at 300 metres. The system carries 1190 rounds so potentially it could engage 2-3 similar targets. Costs a reasonable £16million.
Sea Wolf seems to have an engagment range of 1000m-6500m(10000m with VL) each ship has two directors able to manage two missiles at the same target. Sea Wolf would leave the ship at something like 600metres P/Sec, so it has an engagement envelope of a "box" 2 seconds - 11 seconds from the ship. so from pure guesswork each tracker should never be more than say 11 seconds from jumping between targets? that actually seems frightening because a sunburn or brahmos would close just as fast, so potentially more than two missiles arriving simultaneously should overwhelm the system??? Again pure gueswork but theoretically a Type 22/23 should be able to cope with salvos of supersonic missiles as long as they are spaced, as to aircraft, a skyhawk etc at say 200m/sec would spend close to 30 seconds in Sea Wolfs engagement window, so the ship should have a good chance of downing multiple aircraft even if attacking simultaneously.
Add the Goalkeeper to the Type 22, against the range advantage of VL Sea Wolf then I wonder what is the most potent ship?
Maths has never been my strong point but from a go at trying to guess the potential i would think Sea Wolf plus close in guns is pretty useful as it is? Add a few gadgets to dazzle pilots, big waves and hard manoevering then sinking a RN vessel is still going to be a costly exercise.
The argument on AA gun calibre is largely a result of the USN/RN experience in tail end of WW2 Pacific. Both Navies had adopted 20/40mm guns but found although they could hit Kammakzies they could not destroy in time. So post war both Navies dumped nearly all their 20/40mm weapons and focused on 76mm 50cal guns, because they could take proximity fuses, they even worked on a joint 76mm 70 cal gun which the UK variant end up on the Tigers and Canadien frigates (pity not on our type 12s). The RN did still use 40mm but only as a temporary measure until the useless Sea Cat.
The RN/USN dumped guns altogether just as the Italians overcame the problems of reliability with heavy automatic mounts and captured market. The arrival of anti ship missiles has revived the 20/30mm calibre gatlin guns thanks to the Russian AK630 way ahead of the West, but the RN has stayed firmly in the SAM for anti missile and AA. The RN Mk 8 & USN 5" are just designed for surface action. personallly the T42 would have been much better off with a 76mm OTO than the 4.5" certainly the T21 would have been a lot better off. The 76mm was never designed for shore support although some countries do use. The USN is currently favouring the 57mm cal may European Navies adopted in the 50s as it could also us proximity shells. Would 76mm guns been better than Sea Cat I don't know but they could hardly have been worst than Sea Cat/4.5" guns.
Britain's choice of the 4.5 inch Gun for a maritime applications was driven by it's primary role as a shore bombardment asset, it was developed from the land-based Abbot System. It is still slaved to the SeaDart tracking system on 42's, which is easy to see (You-Tube) when SeaDart tracks a target, the main gun moves in unison.
Britain will not mimic other European Nations and opt for the fast-firing 76mm (unless on patol class as seen on the Peacoks), if anything she will move to a 155mm standard main gun (C1, C2) reinforcing the belief in maintaining a powerful shore bombardment capability to support amphibious operations supplimented possibly by a maritime version of the new 40mm caseless. With Astor 30, 15 and future CAMM, combined with a future 155mm calibre weapon the RN has the right balance between dealing with the unlikely event of major conflab with a tier one/two airpower and the more likely event of supporting a strategic raid against a failed state or terrorist haven in a littoral environment.
if you look at UK amphib doctrine a critical element is the JTAC component moving ashore ealry in the game and directing either CAS or seabased gunnery, no different from what they are doing in A-Stan, except the seabased gunnery is replaced by landbased 105/155mm fire-support.
Britain will not mimic other European Nations and opt for the fast-firing 76mm (unless on patol class as seen on the Peacoks), if anything she will move to a 155mm standard main gun (C1, C2) reinforcing the belief in maintaining a powerful shore bombardment capability to support amphibious operations supplimented possibly by a maritime version of the new 40mm caseless. With Astor 30, 15 and future CAMM, combined with a future 155mm calibre weapon the RN has the right balance between dealing with the unlikely event of major conflab with a tier one/two airpower and the more likely event of supporting a strategic raid against a failed state or terrorist haven in a littoral environment.
if you look at UK amphib doctrine a critical element is the JTAC component moving ashore ealry in the game and directing either CAS or seabased gunnery, no different from what they are doing in A-Stan, except the seabased gunnery is replaced by landbased 105/155mm fire-support.
I don't have anything agains NGS and the move to 155mm would be great, but not on every ship at the expense of airdefence. The approach you suggest above is very capable but is some way in the future. The current situation is a reliance on only 5 very old T42, and Sea Wolf in the later stage of its service whilest we have no fighter capability. But as you say we have very little real threat at present......but then if you say that politcians would say if you don't need now why do you need in the future.
I find it odd that the biggest lesson the RN has come out of the Falklands is NGS and yet it takes air defence so lightly. Whereas for me the lesson was 6 ships sunk because of neglect of air defence, NGS "nice to have" but risky (HMS Glamorgan).
I think the RN should look at some additional ways to provide shore bombardment , maybe small fast corvettes armed with AMOS type mortars or even heavier 160mm versions.
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MOD not being straight on defence procurement. I heard a radio interview this morning from a Committee member, saying procurement of equipment is wasteful with: ordering more than we can we can afford, resulting in cancellations, delays adding to waste, overs specified and late......nothing new then!
BBC News - MoD 'misleading' over budget problems, say MPs
The one about we don't need 12 T45 becase it is so good is a cracker.....have you heard the one about the gold plated aircraft carrier with no aircraft.
BBC News - MoD 'misleading' over budget problems, say MPs
The one about we don't need 12 T45 becase it is so good is a cracker.....have you heard the one about the gold plated aircraft carrier with no aircraft.
Yeah - i saw that. Very amusing. I am assuming they mean it is so reliable!
Hopefully the C1 (Type 26?) can provide some numbers in high end fighting capability. Will be on budget and delivered on time in the numbers promised.
Im not sure you can say the RN takes air defence so lightly, on the Beedall pages there is a lot of detail on what the RN wanted the Type 45 to be able to do in terms of air defence, the Key User Requirements for Type 45 seem more stringent than Horizon.
The RN website also suggest the Navy has been juggling its cricket balls again, this time for the HMS Sutherland upgrade, where it can track a cricket ball target at mach 2 at 20 miles and engage with a salvo of two missiles, whereas the Type 45 can handle better bowlers who can toss a ball at mach 3. Artisan and Camm should enhance that further.
There were many factors surrounding NGS in the Falklands and one ship (Glamorgan) being hit out of all those that were engaged in it, perhaps wasnt unexpected, that said HMS Glamorgan cut a corner trying to get away to sea, and the deficencies of Radar systems near land and lack of effective close in weapons has been rectified. Not every opponent is going to be able to lash an exocet to a truck bed.
If you add a class of corvette just for NGS, you add another vessel to support, more manpower to recruit and pay and small fast corvettes will lack the range and possibly the seakeeping to get to conflicts across the globe. Corvettes, bit like SSK's they do the job for certain navies who dont want to stray too far from home. Corvettes would also be vulnerable to land based missiles and guns, so where would the advantage be?, couldnt we just fire a GMLRS from the deck of an RFA? If we get 155mm on warships then I assume we could get Excalibur rounds and other future goodies to make NGS longer ranged.
Yes I assume they are talking by number and not value, so the stationery order, uniform and catering contracts have all come in just Astute, T45 & CV are over budget!
kev 99
Member
I suspect it's more a case of looking at things like service contracts, if you look at most of the refit contracts for RN ships they usually seem to come in on time and within budget (or at least appear to have done lately), I suspect aircraft and vehicle services for the army and RAF are the same, there's also a huge amount of smaller contracts the problem is that the very large contracts appear to be the ones that get out of hand, for all three services.
The more I hear about the FSC C1/C2, the more I think it all sounds very muddled. I would rather the C1 was a beefed up ship like HMDS Absalon, we drop the C2 and the C3 was changed into a true global corvette like a modern version of the French A69 class. Maybe c12 of one and 30 of the other.
I did hear the US has legislation requiring cancellation/renegotiation in any programme that overspends over a certain contract value 25-30% ? I wonder if it works and if it would work in the UK?
Doubt it on numbers.
To be of significant use, the C1 needs to be able to achieve:
- Anti Surface Vessel Warfare
- Anti Submarine Warfare
- Shore Bombardment
- Deep Strike
- Local Air Defence
Which would make it a very capable ship. To achieve this it would require:
- Harpoon/Tomahawk Anti-Surface Ship Missile (TASSM)
- 1/2 Helecopters, Torpedo Tubes, Towed Array Sonar
- A 4.5" or 155mm Gun
- Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM)
- Aster 15 or CAAMM and CIWS
That is some hefty speck, and i doubt much of it will be present (although it would be fitted "for but not with"). Some of that has to be on there (the Gun, local air defence, Harpoon, Helecopter. Others, are unlikely, e.g. TASSM. Others may or may not be fitted e.g. TLAM, Towed Array.
A lot depends on that "C2" will be.
For me, C2 should be a moden T23. Can do some patrol work on its own and specialises in submarine catching, with the potential to add, say TLAM if required.
C1 should be more of a general purpose T45, focused on Land Attack, but also able to provide local air defence, and a degree of sub-hunting.