The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter overlander
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StevoJH
The Bunker Group
Unfortunately i'm guessing logistics will be first on the chopping block.
Fortunately they are also the quickest and easiest to re-establish.
Should be able to, depending on the range at which the missile is fired, BrahMos may be fast but it is essentially straight shooting, so once detected it should be fairly simple to intercept.
The deciding factor would likey be Radar fitout and method of delivery.
Disregarding your rude behavior.
In principle the counter artillery problem is the same as that which confronts land counter-artillery.
Since at least WW1 artillery has been able to detect, determine and respond to enemy artillery fire.
The only difference is that the methods and cababilities has improved 100 fold.
I can easely think of a lot of countries that got radars that can track artillery shells,
such systems give you the fireing position, I suspect that one can also determine the velocity (speed plus direction) of the fireing vehicle at moment of fire (at least in theory you can).
Ofcourse it's quesswork how the ship moves from moment of fire until counter-fire arrives.
But you can probably aim your shells in a nice pattern?
Let's do the math; Say the ship fires at a distance of 30km. assume that the artillery spotting system picks up and determines the trajectory in, say, 10 s. Counter-artillery then fires. Assuming that the shells travels with an average speed of approx the speed of sound, it will take our shells around 90s to cover the distance. With the detection delay, that's 100s that the ship can move in.
Let's say that out ships moves at 20kn or around 10 m/s - it will have moved 1km before the shells arrive. So to be reasonably certain the counter artillery units has to fire enough shells to hit a, say, 150m times 20m target in a disc of radius 1000m.
From the top of my head; With 100 evenly distributed shells you would probably make a hit.
(It's a square of the response time plus flight time; every time you double that time, you need to quadruple the number of shells)
Anyway - a 4.5" probably won't be able to allow the ship to hide beneath the horison - so the clever counter artillery crew uses the radar to track the ship....
I don't know why you think that navial based artillery neccesarely outranges land based art.
A 4.5" Mark 8 ranges at max 30 km. The L52 (PZH2000) is accurate at 40km.
Dispite the simpleton conclusion that everything equal a PZH2000 would defeat a frigate with a 4.5" in a gun duel, the PZH2000 is cheaper and there is not 100 mothers crying when it's lost.
"? It bears no relevance.
Minehunters have been using ''drones'' for a long time."
That's my point, why build a minehunter when you want a drone (perhaps with sealift)?
"drivelling on about european economic policy or how the absolon will sail to the moon one day. "
The Abs are 1805's favorites, not mine. though Economy that's me. And in my humble oppinion the future of the RN and british shipbuilding is a question of economics, so if you have an interest in the RN and british shipbuilding I suggest to you to read a book on economics, instead of wasting your time being rude to me.
"If you don't understand the role of an ASW frigate"
I was hoping for a qualified answer, but that's apparently too much to ask of you.
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StevoJH
The Bunker Group
Horizon at 10 metres ASL is 12km. A ship at 20-30km is well over the hoizon.
A frigate is a moving target, the longest range hit on a moving warships occured during world war two, at roughly 28,000yards from memory. Thats 25 km.
A Mk.8 gun can fire 20-25 rounds per minute, until either the gun jams or it runs out of ammunition, that is much raster then a PzH200 can fire.
Oh, and I didn't quote that part, but the radar's can presumably calculate launch location from tragectory rather then actually spotting the location of the ship, not that it will matter since it will be 'old' information.
Because you want to be able to take your drone fairly close to where you think the mine field starts. They don't have unlimited endurence. C3 is a move in the right direction, but I don't think they should be tasking RFA's with mine clearence as a primary task.
They need to build one large ship every year, one medium ship every year and one small ship every year.
Large = Carrier, LPH, LPD, RFA etc.
Medium = Destroyer/Cruiser, Destroyer/Frigate
Small = C3, Hydrographic ships and whatever.
Doesnt really matter, T26 is to be a general purpose ship, ASW will be a primary role, but not its only role.
you should consider that both the target and the observer is at height. Say that the ship can be spotted at 10m ASL and that the observer is 10m ASL (most observers would probably be able to find some way of getting higher) then your line of sight horizon is approx 25 km.
"A frigate is a moving target, the longest range hit on a moving warships occured during world war two, at roughly 28,000yards from memory. Thats 25 km."
As I outlined above, even if we only know the position of the target at a fair distance, the ship will not be able to move fast enough to make a hit unlikely - if you distribute enough shells on the area that the ship can move in. In reality you woud probably have a good idea in which general direction the ships move, that would significantly reduce the number of shells needed to make a hit a high probability incident, since the area the ship can cover is restricted by it's own initial movement.
25km sounds right. I think that HMS Hood was struck at 22km - with old fachion optical range finding equipment - though I might be wrong.
"A Mk.8 gun can fire 20-25 rounds per minute, until either the gun jams or it runs out of ammunition, that is much raster then a PzH200 can fire."
Assuming 40km range for PZH and 30km range for the 4.5"
A PZH2000 can have the observation post 10km in front of the PZH, having the same observation cabability everything equal, but out of range of the 4.5".
Further more the PZH is a faster moving and smaller target.
"Oh, and I didn't quote that part, but the radar's can presumably calculate launch location from tragectory rather then actually spotting the location of the ship, not that it will matter since it will be 'old' information."
Yes, that's the point. When the below horizon ship fires it's shells above horizon, they can be spotted, and the launch site determined. land artillery then respond by fireing in a pattern around the launch site to cover the movement of the target (ship) during the detection "delay" and the flight time of the shells. I think that's straight forward in the "manuel of counter artillery".
Ofcourse you need to have enough firepower to "pump" a lot of shells into the area.
"Because you want to be able to take your drone fairly close to where you think the mine field starts. They don't have unlimited endurence. C3 is a move in the right direction, but I don't think they should be tasking RFA's with mine clearence as a primary task."
So basically you need a sea lift that can deploy (and control) the drones - right?
"They need to build one large ship every year, one medium ship every year and one small ship every year.
Large = Carrier, LPH, LPD, RFA etc.
Medium = Destroyer/Cruiser, Destroyer/Frigate
Small = C3, Hydrographic ships and whatever."
So you think that you can maintain a healthy shipbuilding industry by building 2+1 ships a year???
OK if it's a carrier every year, I accept - but I don't think that's very likey considering the size of the RN aquisition budget.
I know this offends a lot of people, but I, for one, thinks it's highly unlikely that British shipbuilding can survive in a healthy state by only building ships for the UK goverment (And NO, you won't have exports, because an unhealthy industry doesn't attract orders from people not forced to by)
"Doesnt really matter, T26 is to be a general purpose ship, ASW will be a primary role, but not its only role"
I try again;
Question: Is it fair to assume that in close range Ship vs Sub. The sub has the advantage?
Question: If yes. Is that why they use helicopters and such to fight the sub at a distance?
Question: If it's f.ex. the helicopters that do the fighting at a distance. What's the purpose of a dedicated ASW ship beyound having "enough" helicopters?
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
You would need a lot of shells, the WW2 era ships werent exactly inaccurate with their gunnery, now think about how many guns they had, how many shells they fired and what the hit % was.
At those ranges, the ships were firing massive shells, these shells were being fired at the rate of two to three every minute from 8-12 guns per ship. At long ranges, how many hit? Not Many.
As stated, a hit is unlikely on a moving target at this distance. Unless you have a couple of hundred artillery pieces lined up I guess, but who has a couple of hundred artillery pieces to spare?
No, they are too vulnerable. What you want is a 2,000-3,000t ship built to purpose which is capable of at least minimal self defense and which can carry out other roles during peace time such as patrol and hydrographic work.
An example of this currently would be the Echo class survey ships, planned ships of this type (for this very role) are the C3 ships. The program has changed names now though, fairly sure swerve looked it up last time.
Yes, I do.
You fund one large ship every year. This ship could be an RFA ship, it could be a point class RO-RO, it could be a carrier, it could be an LPD, it could be an LSD, an ice breaker.
These ships will all vary in the amount of time needed for construction. for example a point class RO-RO might take 7 or 8 months from laying down to entering service. On the other hand an LPD might take 3 years and a Carrier 4 or 5.
Once you add in the large RFA and RN ships and the point class you get just over 30 ships (unless more have left service recently)
A similar concept can be used for the smaller ships. The average time from laying to to commissioning was roughly three years for a T23.
You are funding one ship every 12 months, or three if you do one large, one medium, one small, but they actually take longer then twelve months to build in most cases.
Depends on the age of the sub and quality of the crew, but generally yes.
Yes.
Helicopters cannot fly in all weather, the towed array on the warship is going to be much more sensitive then a dipping sonar on a helicopter. Not to mention, as well as sensors, an ASW focused warship also tends to have much more focus on the amount of noise it radiates then say a T45 or a carrier would.
The PzH2000 has a burst rate of fire of 10 rounds in just under a minute, so a battery of 6 guns could put down c60 rounds in a minute, enough for a hit? If not I sure a MLRS using submunitions would do the job.
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In the example above, I quessed that 100 shells would give you a fair chance. (about 1 min fireing from a battery of PZH2000). Knowing the initial velocity of the ship will greatly increase our chances of a hit (or decrease need of shells). And as you say, the men of old did the feat with much less sophisticated equipment.
Ofcourse if the enemy doesn't have the means to locate the ship, the above is irrelevant and land bombardment sounds like a very neat thing to me.
OK. Sounds reasonable
To me that doesn't sound like a plan for a healthy shipbuilding industry, to me it more sounds like an employment plan for shipbuilding workers and engineers otherwise unemployed.
The entire idea that you can have an healthy industry with one single customer (goverment) is wrong and will fail. You can, depending on size of wallet, keep the patient alive in that way, but you (taxpayers) will pay in terms of more expensive products.
I am reading with interest the comments on the efficiency of shore based artillery and would like to add my thoughts and comments. Firstly having been on the receiving end of shore fire in 82 I can report that at least then it was ineffective against warships on the gun line well inside the effective range of the Argentinean artillery who used 105mm howitzers and towards the end used a CITER 155mm L33 battery which if memory serves correctly was emplaced in Stanley for the obvious reason.
Secondly it may well be the case that the shore battery could be supported by counter battery radar but this would surely be detected by the warships EW kit the moment it lit up making it the first target. The SP artillery may well be able to shoot and scoot it cannot however move and shoot as a warship can which makes it much more vulnerable.
The big difference that may change the game today however is the introduction of guided munitions which dependant on the effective detection radius of the active/infrared homing head fitted to the shell may influence events. These can be countered however by CIWS and countermeasure’s chaff flares etc which should continue to give the warship the advantage as would ship launched UAV/Helicopters for spotting/target designation and of course the ship would have guided munitions as well.
I do think that the only good thing to come for defence from the last government is the defence industrial strategy and the concept of a drum beat of production which if maintained will IMHO result in long term savings and prevent financial disasters like the gap between Vanguard and Astute.
Secondly it may well be the case that the shore battery could be supported by counter battery radar but this would surely be detected by the warships EW kit the moment it lit up making it the first target. The SP artillery may well be able to shoot and scoot it cannot however move and shoot as a warship can which makes it much more vulnerable.
The big difference that may change the game today however is the introduction of guided munitions which dependant on the effective detection radius of the active/infrared homing head fitted to the shell may influence events. These can be countered however by CIWS and countermeasure’s chaff flares etc which should continue to give the warship the advantage as would ship launched UAV/Helicopters for spotting/target designation and of course the ship would have guided munitions as well.
I do think that the only good thing to come for defence from the last government is the defence industrial strategy and the concept of a drum beat of production which if maintained will IMHO result in long term savings and prevent financial disasters like the gap between Vanguard and Astute.
The radar can be placed out of range of the ship's gun.
This is an unrealistic "lab experiment" in the real world the attacker (those with ships) would probably have surpressed the senor cababilities of the shorebased enemy etc. disregarding what I think is the most likely course of action for the defender; Fire anti-shipping missiles cabable of aquireing the target on it's own.
Though I think that we can perhaps get the idea that for the shore battery to have a good chance, it is critically dependent on it's ability to determine the position of the ship, and it has to be able to fire a great deal of shells in a short while. I quess that the argentinians could do neither.
If you can make a not too expensive shell that can be fired into an area, take a high altitude "look" at the sea and then correct it self to hit a target, then it will probably be a good idea for the captain of the ship to stay far away from such a battery.
It will be difficult to counter such an attack, since the amount of shells that a modern battery can fire is huge.
Though I doubt the possibility of such a shell.
I think that what we really need here is to somehow have british shipbuilding re-enter prefferably the commercial shipbuilding market or as a second choice, gain access to a wider defense market.
The reaon for that, is that we have to give volumne to the industry, so that the industry by doing healthy buisness can stay modern/competiative etc.
Now, imo, we can might as well give up on trying to compete on the large container/bulk ship market. Certain countries have huge comparative advantages in that. Though in building Complex/Special ships the playing field is more equal. The main problem here is that, that market is probably mature and the germans, dutch and french are strong on that market, so it will probably be difficult to beat them (and make money at the same time). Though as they say: If you can't beat them, you could join them?
A sub segment of this "Special ship market" is warships. They are the most complex ships builded. And clearly we should have a good chance on that market.
BUT as it is, there is frankly not a market. Rather the British, French,spainsh etc, goverment orders warships from their own (some times owned) yards. And it has nothing at all to do with which yard is best, but simply because the national goverment orders from national yards.
And that is no way of maintaining a healthy shipbuilding industry.
There is a small export market, though in the extend that british shipbuilding isn't on the commercial market in any significant degree, it will most likely loose out to f.ex. the germans, Spanish or french who all have yards that operate on the commercial market and in any case the export market won't be enough to sustain british shipbuilding as the export market is..
So if britain wants to maintain a healthy shipbuilding industry, I see two options;
A) A difficult, perhaps impossible, re-intry on the commercial market
B) Create a defense market large enough, for british yards to operate on in open competition with other yards.
In my oppinion the obvious answer to B is a common european defense market. If we can get the americans on the boat, it would be even greater.
I suspect moving forward we will see the introduction of not just guided munitions, but rounds with a limited loitering role capable of being fired from a 155mm weapon. Dovetail these with a UAV surveillance and targeting platform launched from the parent ship and you may end up with a credible over the visual horizon round capable of pin-point accuracy against bunkers, troops and armour. The ships gun could fire say five rapid rounds, send them loitering over the target area ready for simultaneous impact determined by laser designation from a land based FOO or hovering rotary UAV. Fire-scout is already on the market, Excalibur is on the market, build-in folding wings, rocket assisted propulsion and hey-presto you have a winner.
From a ship-building point of view I can see the UK & France coming to some sort of arrangement whereby they work share, this almost happened with PA2. Will involve compromise and teddy throwing, but as both nations are planning steep reductions they have no other choice.
The whole Iraq/A-Stan adventure has left a bitter taste in the UK military and civilian populations mouth, which will lead to a more surgical approach in the future utilising smaller better equipped and trained assets - good-bye box standard infantry/armour and hello more specialised medium/light units supported by unmanned systems. With all the hullabaloo surrounding collateral damage, offshore and onshore based firepower will need to be very surgical and very accurate to mitigate the growing bands of left-wing loonies wikileaking morning, noon and night about civi deaths.
I point to the following
We have a common market that works very well. Also in public works.
When a given state start an order for a bridge, a hospital a highway or whatever. Companies from all over the common market has a fair chance of winning the order.
The effects for european compaines have been huge, with large improvements in efficiency (due to increased competition)..
We should do the same for the defense industry.
I wonder which aircraft they have in mnd?
The DIS & the drumbeat will only work if the govt, after arranging all this, actually sticks to their guns by supplying orders to the industry that they've shaped & keeping to agreed timetables.
This current arrangements are in jepoardy, with the government actually stretching the build programme of QEC & delaying things, in the hope of saving costs when it will actually cost more trying to maintain facilities & maintaining manpower / skilled workforce levels, which is the hardest part.
As for other comments implying that Europe would be better pooling it's Military Industrial base (mainly the shipbuilding aspects), I think that's a complete folly.
Previous 'experiments' have been astronomically expensive, wrapped up in metres of red tape & been overbudget & late.
What makes anyone think it would be any different this time ??
SA
overlander
Member
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
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Superhornet, Rafale, conventional F35??? or maybe a navalised Typhoon, the last is practically impossible in my opinion, I think these are good news because is the demonstration that the carriers are safe from possible cuts.
Completely agree on the need to maintain the drum beat of production set up by the last administration and Fox is on record bemoaning the cost incurred by delaying projects so I have some hope that he will sustain it although I suspect that industry will be asked to look at the cost of some items.
I share your scepticism regarding European cooperation it always seems to be slanted against UK plc to me and wind up costing us more.
I did wonder if you could help me with a brief explanation or a link to a breakdown/explanation of cost for SAMPSON as opposed to a cheaper less capable set i.e. ARTISAN.