Look guys I don't know the answer either and this is all in the pass, but all I do know is we entered the 80/90s with a capabile missile system and industry and now we have ended up with a French missile (which sounds like it will be very good)
France seems to build and develop capability and we seem to miss opportunites. its the same with Typhoon/F35 and Rafale who has made the better call for the long term.....no one seems to want to answer these painful questions and the French don't read this forum??
1805, I agree that we in the UK are pretty poor at developing technology but we have to be realistic in that other than call centres we are lacking in industry so anything that keeps a home grown industry alive should be welcome, but there are limits.
I would be careful of looking at what the US possesses and thinking it is good for everyone. The US has massive resources, the USN has AEW and a multitude of sensors, fighter CAP's etc that we lack, so yes packing Standards onto Burkes and using them from anything from major conflicts to piracy patrol makes sense to them, not to us though. They also use ESSM as a point system.
Without AEW coverage any enemy with a brain would creep under radar cover , thats why Point defence makes perfect sense for some ships, yes you need area defence but not on all. If you didnt even develop Sea Wolf in the 1960/70 era, you would still need something. You would have a financially crippled economy with a very hot cold war and an urgent need to keep as many ASW escorts at sea to meet NATO commitments, in a conflict where you dont get a second chance. It was a game of constant upgrade and rearmaments. We had Leanders , Counties, other older ships plugging away in the the N.Atlantic and a limited amount of money. Without Sea Wolf the RN ASW would need to rely on Sea Cat and guns at the height of the 70/80s period of tension, that is a severe position of weakness to the enemy IMO. You cant fit Sea Dart onto those ships and the replacements have to be affordable, if we can only afford 6 T45's now, the Type 42/Sea Dart was a similar financial drain then, thats why they were cut down in size, never got the promised lightweight sea wolf, had to make do with old radar etc (sounds familiar).
During the Cold war the USN mixed missiles, Standard on the Perrys for convoy escort, Sparrow on the numerous Spruance class, Point defence on the carriers, not really much different to us. I think a lot of it comes down to what was do-able at the time tech wise, and I admit to being clueless in that respect but I read a lot, particularly about the Falklands era navy.
Again money is the issue, and development times and if the wife hadnt tidied away my copy of British Hypersonics I would be able to quote. Sea Wolf was intended to be light, easy to install and a highly potent addition to the smallest vessel. It wasnt because the technologies of the time made it dificult, it is now though, it has matured. It was already being developed alongside Sea Dart, so the scarce money was already being spent. Where you would have a valid point is that VL Sea Wolf was mooted at the start, we could have developed a comon launcher for both either steerable of a VLS, we could have figured out a joint Sea Wolf/Sea Dart director, perhaps add the abilty to launch exocet or an Ikara derivative and you start to have a decent flexible system but not cheap as proposed by Anthony Williams in one of his articles.
I agree that Land Dart was viable for fixed sites or for defending UK airspace but not for the foward edge of the German battlefield, you need to keep Rapier thats my disagreement. But Land dart was not affordable, you would need to cut something else. Ramjet propulsion has its limits, it was good for its day but you need a rocket, and by the time you change to a rocket, it aint Sea Dart anymore, yes we should have developed a long range SAM, but its money again.
Any higher flying Soviet aircraft would have been shot at by F15/f16/F4/Starighter or engaged by iHAWK, so Land Dart may have been unnecessary (and we could only afford so much), that brings me to another point, in the 70's and 80's could you really fire long range SAMs into the German sky whilst NATO aircraft engaged Warpac ones? did we have the technology to keep blue forces safe then? I dont know.
If Sea Wolf struggled in the Falklands then so did Sea Dart suffer from some drawbacks, just because Sea Wolf was a new system with teething problems doesnt mean Sea Dart would be a better choice. There were ships with differing levels of electronics amonsgt the 42's and the Silkworm shot down by Gloucester(?) was after numerous tweeks and upgrades 9 years later. Sea Wolf today is far removed from the original Falklands era model, just as my Dragon 32 home computer that I owned in 1984 had about 0.01% of the power of my current laptop. You and I arent privvy to the performance data on the curent systems unfortunately, all I can say is that from reading other Navy forums, current Navy personel rate Sea Wolf and have faith that it works, I wouldnt dare to disagree. It does what it says on the tin, to steal a phrase, it shoots down missiles and aircraft within 10km.
As to fitting Sea Dart on a Type 23 , Im sure you could at a cost, the ship would be different to accomodate a bigger air search radar, but as it was designed to tow a sonar to detect submarines, would you really need it to, especially as air defence could be offered by an existing Type 42, a Sea Harrier (when we had them) or a tornado, so again, its nice to have, but is it necessary? If the hunted sub pops off an anti ship missile at 5km, Im afraid Sea Dart might just whisle overhead, Sea Wolf will likely hit it, or so is the claim.
CAMM is not a waste of money. Trying to integrate Samson with ESSM/Standard would be a waste of money, refitting US VLS would be a waste of money at the moment, we have paid for Aster, a limited number on 6 ships, a cheaper alternative will do.
CAMM at 20km range is a good deal, not far off the performance envelope of Aster 15 for less money. CAMM pulls through technology that is already being paid for and funded such as Asraam and Meteor. It will be designed to be used with the planned Artisan radar that will equip RN vesels. In fact for once we seem to be getting it right, using common technology, joint systems for the army.navy and RAF. In fact if you read some reports, mating the french missile to PAMMS/SAMSON seems to be having some teething problems so it isnt all rosey. The Army wants a local defence solution, CAMM will provide that. ABM technology is far beyond our current budget, a nice wishlist but unrealistic, if the threat grows bigger then fine, buy something but who today, or tomorrow is going to threaten us with a ballistic missile?
Camm is already here, youtube it, there are plenty of demos, soft launch seems to be a novel and promising technology that we may be able to sell.
:
