Marine Nationale (French Navy)

[swerve]

The French have very good AAW ships the Horizons Well, if the CdG is in refit, the Horizons would escort the Mistrals. The French carrier group is the most well protected in Europe. The French Fleet is networked, and the FREMM point defense system uses the Aster 15. Which much better missile than the British V L Seawolf. The MN will be overlapping the FREMM' radar coverage in their CGs and AGs.

Yes, the Horizons are very good - but there are only two of them! That is not enough. Sometimes there will only be one of them in use. Then what? The whole argument here is that two ships is too few. I note that you haven't commented on the weather issue.

Yes, Aster 15 is longer range than Seawolf, & probably better in most other respects (though not at very short range - it's not a point defence weapon), but that doesn't make the Herakles radar better.

Seawolf will be replaced by CAMM, BTW.

 

[Spacearrow99]

Yes, the Horizons are very good - but there are only two of them! That is not enough. Sometimes there will only be one of them in use. Then what? The whole argument here is that two ships is too few. I note that you haven't commented on the weather issue.

Yes, Aster 15 is longer range than Seawolf, & probably better in most other respects (though not at very short range - it's not a point defence weapon), but that doesn't make the Herakles radar better.

Seawolf will be replaced by CAMM, BTW.

Your weather issue is conjecture. I say a Horizon with the FREMM overlapping their radar coverage can easily defend a French CG. Serve, you said one Horizon is not adequate AAW defense.

THe Herakles very good radar for MN's local area doctrine. The Aster 15 is a fire and forget weapon the V L Seawolf is not.

 

[kev 99]

Your weather issue is conjecture. I say a Horizon with the FREMM overlapping their radar coverage can easily defend a French CG. Serve, you said one Horizon is not adequate AAW defense.

THe Herakles very good radar for MN's local area doctrine. The Aster 15 is a fire and forget weapon the V L Seawolf is not.

We're talking about Marine Nationale here not Royal Navy and as Swerve has already pointed out Seawolf is to be replaced by CAMM.

 

[swerve]

Your weather issue is conjecture. I say a Horizon with the FREMM overlapping their radar coverage can easily defend a French CG. Serve, you said one Horizon is not adequate AAW defense.

THe Herakles very good radar for MN's local area doctrine. The Aster 15 is a fire and forget weapon the V L Seawolf is not.

Sea Wolf is irrelevant. What we're discussing is whether two dedicated AAW ships is enough for the MN.

The weather issue is not "conjecture". There are times when aircraft can not operate from a carrier, due to the weather. We know this. It is indisputable. Therefore, carrier-based AEW coverage cannot be guaranteed. Sometimes, it will have to shut down. At those times, the fleet will have to rely on ship-based radars. If the entire navy has exactly two AAW ships with long-range radars, then we can only guarantee to have one available. I would be very twitchy if my navy had only one usable LRR.

There's nothing wrong with Herakles, but it isn't a LRR like the S1850.

One Horizon is not adequate not because of any deficiency of the ship, but because it's a single point of failure. A fire, a breakdown, an accident - & then what? You depend entirely on FREMMs, with the much shorter-range Herakles. That's enough for many threats, but it's greatly inferior to the Horizon, & I wouldn't want to rely on it against decent opposition.

The system lacks resilience. That is the problem.

 

[youpii]

Yes, the Horizons are very good - but there are only two of them!

Horizons are flawed in the short range: the Sadral have been canceled.

FREMM/FREDA also don't have point defense.

 

[swerve]

Horizons are flawed in the short range: the Sadral have been canceled.

FREMM/FREDA also don't have point defense.

Like Type 45, then, & I presume for the same reason: money.

Ah well, Sadral should be relatively quick & easy to procure & fit, if there's provision for it on the ships.

 

[Spacearrow99]

Sea Wolf is irrelevant. What we're discussing is whether two dedicated AAW ships is enough for the MN.

The weather issue is not "conjecture". There are times when aircraft can not operate from a carrier, due to the weather. We know this. It is indisputable. Therefore, carrier-based AEW coverage cannot be guaranteed. Sometimes, it will have to shut down. At those times, the fleet will have to rely on ship-based radars. If the entire navy has exactly two AAW ships with long-range radars, then we can only guarantee to have one available. I would be very twitchy if my navy had only one usable LRR.

There's nothing wrong with Herakles, but it isn't a LRR like the S1850.

One Horizon is not adequate not because of any deficiency of the ship, but because it's a single point of failure. A fire, a breakdown, an accident - & then what? You depend entirely on FREMMs, with the much shorter-range Herakles. That's enough for many threats, but it's greatly inferior to the Horizon, & I wouldn't want to rely on it against decent opposition.

The system lacks resilience. That is the problem.

The future French AAW capabilites will much better than they are today. When you consider that 3 or 4 FREMM will be assigned to the FOST, there will be 5 or 6 left to be assigned to atleast 2 CG and 2 AG. The MN want have the ASW assets to protect 2 seperate CGs and AGs. So, more than likely the FREDA, and the Horizon will be assigned protect the same combined CG/AG taskforce in high threat deployments.

Even if something happens to the Horizon, FREDA, and E2C are grounded I am confident of the FREMM' capabiliites in you scenario, which has very low probability of happening.

 

[youpii]

The future French AAW capabilites will much better than they are today. When you consider that 3 or 4 FREMM will be assigned to the FOST, there will be 5 or 6 left to be assigned to atleast 2 CG and 2 AG. The MN want have the ASW assets to protect 2 seperate CGs and AGs. So, more than likely the FREDA, and the Horizon will be assigned protect the same combined CG/AG taskforce in high threat deployments.

Even if something happens to the Horizon, FREDA, and E2C are grounded I am confident of the FREMM' capabiliites in you scenario, which has very low probability of happening.

When used in a carrier group, Horizon+FREDA+2 FREMM ASW pack quite a lot of AAW
32+16=48 Aster 32
16x4=64 Aster 16 (+16 on CdG)

But FREDA is merely a new configuration of the FREMM ASW (Aster 32 instead of SCALP) and improved Heracles instead of towed sonar. I think they might even be cheaper than the FREMM ASW. Therefore, they don't deserve a new fancy name like FREDA, FREMM AAW (or AA in French) would be closer to the truth.

 

[riksavage]

Another critical factor represented by a fully integrated theatre defence system, is command, control and added time-factor it brings to the fleet. PAAMS for example provides a 400km search range capability to the table. This means that In poor weather conditions the fleet admiral has a bigger time window to reposition his pickets to screen critical assets once the threat is detected, analysed and prioritised. He/she can take pro-active action, rather than rely on the reactive capabilities of the fleets point defence systems. if you have a mix of incoming land based aircraft and hypersonic missiles, you potentially have 400 KM of space around your fleet to plan your next move, this will be vital if the enemy try's to saturate you defences with multiple strikes from different directions (port, starboard, fore and aft of the fleet). A single escorting Horizon may find itself on the wrong side of the very assets (CDG/Mistral) it's desperately trying to protect. Imagine the benefits of having 4 off stationed as pickets at the four points of the compass with their long range search radars interlocking.

 

[Spacearrow99]

Another critical factor represented by a fully integrated theatre defence system, is command, control and added time-factor it brings to the fleet. PAAMS for example provides a 400km search range capability to the table. This means that In poor weather conditions the fleet admiral has a bigger time window to reposition his pickets to screen critical assets once the threat is detected, analysed and prioritised. He/she can take pro-active action, rather than rely on the reactive capabilities of the fleets point defence systems. if you have a mix of incoming land based aircraft and hypersonic missiles, you potentially have 400 KM of space around your fleet to plan your next move, this will be vital if the enemy try's to saturate you defences with multiple strikes from different directions (port, starboard, fore and aft of the fleet). A single escorting Horizon may find itself on the wrong side of the very assets (CDG/Mistral) it's desperately trying to protect. Imagine the benefits of having 4 off stationed as pickets at the four points of the compass with their long range search radars interlocking.

The four AAW DDGs would almost never be assigned a single (carrier/LHD) taskforce.

 

[youpii]

The four AAW DDGs would almost never be assigned a single (carrier/LHD) taskforce.

Yes, normally it a french carrier group would only include one or two AAW DDG, two ASW DDG, a sub, a supply ship, a La fayette, and the carrier

 

[youpii]

MN is going to upgrade the Rafale Marine F1 to F3 for €300 millions. Don't you think they should buy a frigate with that money?

 

[KiwiRob]

I heard from a French colleague that a second aircraft carrier is back on, Sarko announced plans in a speach a couple of days ago. Can someone confirm this?

 

[youpii]

Jean Bart & Cassard are badly outdated as AAW frigates with their SM-1 missiles (don't know about the radar). But the hulls are only 20 years old.
Would it make sense to convert them to ASW frigates? I think they share the same hull as the F70 Georges Leygues.
Of course AAW FREMM would then be delivered earlier.

 

[harryriedl]

Jean Bart & Cassard are badly outdated as AAW frigates with their SM-1 missiles (don't know about the radar). But the hulls are only 20 years old.
Would it make sense to convert them to ASW frigates? I think they share the same hull as the F70 Georges Leygues.
Of course AAW FREMM would then be delivered earlier.

Could makes sense to a perry on them and rip out the AAW systems as they are Diesel powered which means they shouldn't be too expencive to run. and seem to have all the other kit needed

 

[swerve]

The AAW FREMMs won't be ready for quite a while. Until then, France needs the F70s, however out-dated. When the FREMMs do arrive, I doubt the Cassards will have enough life left to be worth converting.

BTW, they have both diesels and gas turbines, not just diesels.

 

[youpii]

The AAW FREMMs won't be ready for quite a while. Until then, France needs the F70s, however out-dated. When the FREMMs do arrive, I doubt the Cassards will have enough life left to be worth converting.

BTW, they have both diesels and gas turbines, not just diesels.

AAW FREMMs are almost identical to other FREMMs

 

[harryriedl]

The AAW FREMMs won't be ready for quite a while. Until then, France needs the F70s, however out-dated. When the FREMMs do arrive, I doubt the Cassards will have enough life left to be worth converting.

BTW, they have both diesels and gas turbines, not just diesels.

odd Wikipedia got it wrong as it has a just diesels
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassard_class_frigate"]Cassard class frigate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Cassard_1.jpg" class="image" title="Frigate Cassard"><img alt="Frigate Cassard" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Cassard_1.jpg/300px-Cassard_1.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/1/1c/Cassard_1.jpg/300px-Cassard_1.jpg[/ame]
normally Wikipedia are quite good at these specs
4 x SEMT Pielstick 18PA6-V280 BTC is what Wikipedia has for it

 

[swerve]

French & English Wikipedia disagree -

[ame="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassard_%28fr%C3%A9gate%29"]Cassard (frégate) - Wikipédia[/ame]

But other French sources agree with English Wikipedia - Caractéristiques

And so does the French navy -
Cassard (D 614 )

You.re right, all diesel it is. It seems I was misled by French Wikipedia. I should have looked more closely - 4 GTs & two diesels is rather too much, obviously wrong.

 

[kato]

It's btw not even a confusion of F70 ASW and F70 A/A - the F70 ASW use CODOG with two Rolly-Royce Olympus TM3B plus 2 SEMT-Pielstick 16PA6-V280. The English wikipedia entry has it in line with Jane's at 4 SEMT-Pielstick 18PA-V280 BCT for F70 A/A.
The English wikipedia entry is slightly incorrect though regarding the power of the propulsion, giving 43,000 hp, while Jane's gives 43,200 hp sustained (with Jane's also giving a slightly higher top speed at 29.5 knots).

Not so sure whether the Cassards carry F2 20mm guns btw, as given in the Wikipedia entry (Jane's lists Oerlikons at 720rds/min). Might have changed, since i'm using an older Jane's issue.