I don't disagree with any of that. Issues such as the quality of the FCS, the precision and speed of response of the gun mounting, and the accuracy of the gun are all very important. But assuming that these are all equal, if you're serious about hitting aircraft, let alone missiles, you'll chose a high-RoF gun because that maximises the probability of a kill.
The fact that the RN has deliberately chosen a low-RF gun shows that these roles don't really feature in its priorities.
Anyway, to deal with missiles you need an automated system like Phalanx and Goalkeeper: the speed of response required to swat an incoming anti-ship missile (even subsonic, let alone supersonic) is just too high to rely on manual intervention.
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition
website
Thanxs for the reply !
I can, in respect, agree with
ALL the comments you made (
as I'm relatively sure your knowledge is better than mine), but still feel that the one above isn't quite right.
I've boldened a piece of text in your comments & would ask if you could expand your thoughts on this, but for the moment, here's mine.
In the design phase of any naval contract, there's a 2 way dialogue, that can go on for months, or even years! Most of the time, the shipbuilder is restricted in how he can do things, by the customer placing certain requirements on him.
For example, The customer can say that the ship must achieve 40 kts, be able to cover 7,000 miles on a tank of fuel, weigh no more than 3,000 GRT & have a particular Gun / Missile / Radar / Weapons system.
You get the idea...
From my personal opinion (
& not that of any company I am, or have ever worked for), I think that there's been a comprimise of sorts, in that the RN / UK MoD have specified the guns, for 2 reasons.
#1. Commonality of spares with equipment fitted elsewhere in the fleet. (
common sense & practical)
#2. Knowledge that the designer (
BAE) has a system, or can produce a system which can utilise the guns in AA mode, with a high degree of accuracy.
Now, I do understand the marked difference in RoF your speaking about (
as obviously the gatling style guns that are fitted to Phalanx & Golakeeper both spew out over 600 RPM in comparrison to the DSB30).
I feel, however, that in some respects the RN remembers it's recent history & experience from it's little trip "down South".
Following that excursion many things changed, including the introduction of a pair of 30MM guns to most Frigates.
So with this in mind & that fact that the Command system that's fitted to T45 is based on BAE's "Nautis 2" system that it used in both the OPV's & Frigates for Brunei & Malaysia, it provides an "additional fallback".
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/lekiu/
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nakhoda/
The command system, amongst it's multitude of tasks & operations, has been designed to use the guns for both Surface & AA, as they can be manually operated, or put into an Automatic (
remotely operated) mode.
It's in this remote mode where the Fire Control System (FCS), will probably make the difference, especially if it's "hooked up" (
in the form of tracking data / information), from the Sampson or Thales 'Smart L' Radars.
It will also work well with the Ultra Electronics EOGCS (
which is designed to be the primary sensor for these guns).
But not being in the thick of that "Engineering knowledge path", I can only speculate WRT to the interoperability / data inputs from other sensors.
Obviously with T45, Phalanx is the preferred CIWS for anti-missile self protection, but as many people will testify, during the period in 1982 when our task force was under attack from A4 Skyhawks in San Carlos Water, anybody who could shoot, ran to the upper deck with everything from pistols to GPMGs, aimed at the sky & fired as many rounds as they could.
It wasn't pretty, it caused a whole lot of damage to the ships (
from mis aimed rounds & exuberance while under fire), but it did it's job by scaring the hell out of the Argie Pilots, helping to protect the fleet.
SA