I think it would be perfect and add to the RN fleet very easily and would require the minimum of political interference and has been sea trialled would just reqire RN crews and a follow on order of 3 more as heveiliy armed EEZ ships Caribbean, and eastern med missions and showing the flag a kind of heavily armed floreal class. i bet it will be sold to the RN
I wouldn't take that bet, but it sounds like an excellent idea, I like the idea of one permanently each to Diego Garcia, Falklands and Gibraltar or somewhere in the Caribbean. A nice low manpower (sic) deterrent in any key area.
Not suitable for the Falklands. Too heavily armed, too many crew (needed for all that firepower), too lean & mean. They're warfighting ships.
The Castles are going. The new HMS Clyde (beefed up River) is taking over in the S. Atlantic. I think she's en route as I type.
The idea I'd raised about possibly switching out some armament was on the basis of "What might make the corvettes attractive to the RNZN..." when the NZDF doesn't make use of either the 76mm/62 gun, Exocet AShM or Seawolf SAM, and the ADF uses neither Exocet nor Seawolf. Modifications to use what the NZDF/ADF uses or no, I don't think it very likely that NZ would purchase the three corvettes, unless they were offered at a very good price...
the RN is familer with the hull of corvettes as it is similar [in fact based of the VT frigate hull which was used for Type 21] it would be used in a similar role
Just if anyone's interested, here a list of SeaWolf users around the world.
Yep that's why I talked about these navies above as potential takers of the corvettes. Brazil isn't building enough Barroso to replace the retiring ex USN DDs and Chile might want to replace old FAC(M)s such as the old Saar with them. RMN and RN we talked already. Oman is too small to operate efficiently 3 new light frigates (at least for now it lacks trained personnel)
It's highly unlikely that a frigate will carry 2 different types of short range SAMs, it's either ESSM or Seawolf. ESSM has a range which is 2 times that of the old Sea Sparrow and can be launched in quadruple packs from a single VLS launcher. Aspide did have a faster and longer range version, Aspide-2000, delivered to Brazil for example. Today's replacement of Aspide however is the Franco-Italian Aster.
I think the Aspide 2000 missile is being marketed to existing users of the Albatros system as a replacement for their old missiles, to improve the system without having to spend too much money, but not to potential new customers.
Indeed. It is my understanding that there is no production anymore of Aspides, so there could only be modernization of existing missiles to -2000 standard. I'm not 100% sure however as there isn't anything official about this.
Is there any sort of announced "reserve" that the Brunei government won't accept less than, or perhaps a timeframe by which a sale needs to go through? Just trying to get a frame of reference to see which nations might be interested in terms of platform, availability and cost.
I seem to recall reading (though I cannot remember where, it might have been here somewhere) that there are a couple of additional issues facing potential purchasers of these vessels, both relating to the environment for which they were designed.