The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[Abraham Gubler]

Apart from that, getting back to bigger guns, If the UK were to opt for say, the US MK45 - 5" Gun, then there would still be issues over things like buying a new ammunition type, all the spares, not to mention things like reduce Rate Of Fire (compared to the 4.5") & the 'double load', that's needed for the MK45, due to the seperate warhead & explosive.

There is no issue with ROF and separate loaded ammo like 127mm. The Mk 45 loads at 20 rpm with electric fusing/ no fusing (16 rpm with mechanical fusing) and the Mk 8 26 rpm and 20 rpm with mechanical fusing. But that is simply the way the power loading system was designed separate loaded rounds carry both elements together and sequentially ram them split seconds apart. The Otobreda can load at 40 rpm and the Mk 65 48 rpm all with separate loaded 127mm. If you really want ROF then the twin barrel 127mm Mk 66 can load at 96 rpm.

Obviously replacing the Mk 8 with a new gun type is going to generate costs. But savings will be on hand via access to wider sources and supply lines of ammunition for either 127mm or 155mm. The clear advantage of 127mm is you can get it from any US, Dutch, Australian, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, German, Danish, Korean and Turkish resupply ship whereas 113mm is only available from British and Brazilian resupply and 155mm from land based Army stocks. Then of course you have the advantage of the wider number of ammunition types for 127mm and 155mm including a range of precision guided shells.

...& finally, there are other issues to be considered, such as new legislation that will affect any NEW design / build RN warship, sincluding HSE rules about how heavy a weight an individual can carry (which I believe to be 25Kg, according to EU Directives), not to mention trade controls & rules about things like ITAR....

127mm shells can be carried by a two person cradle like 155mm.

 

[brodie]

a few months ago a lazer was shot of a ship for the first time .i wondered if this was a navy experiment

 

[Repulse]

Does anyone have cost comparisons between the 113mm, 127mm and 155mm options? With the advent of specialist munitions, I think the RN needs to give this much more focus than it does. The key aim of navalising the 155 mm was to be common with army, this must still be a good efficiency objective.

To me investing in a common gun across the forces could lead to enough economies of scale that means that the even low cost RN vessels (MHPC/C3) could get them - perhaps with gunnary radar built into the turret?

Could we get to the point where a the twin barrel 127mm Mk 66 (or similiar) could fire 96 Volcano AA rpm for example? Sounds like exactly what you need against a saturated air attack...

 

[riksavage]

a few months ago a lazer was shot of a ship for the first time .i wondered if this was a navy experiment

BAE have been working on a product designed to deter pirates based on laser technology, they are aiming it at the merchant marine mounted high-up on the superstructure.

I read one of the UK's T Class SSN's has just finished a ten month deployment east of Suez, a post cold war record I suspect. Was delayed an extra two months on the return home due to the ongoing crisis in Libya. The crew must have been going nuts at the end. Apparentyl it acted as the submarine asset dedicated to the French Carrier group in the Med, more evidence of improved Anglo-French relations.

The recent ship-to-shore engagement is the first since 2003 by the RN. I understand other NATO assets provided a similar service.

The RN if not opting for 155mm should move to 127mm like everyone else. BAE build the bloody things in the US, so they are in a win win situation whether the UK opts for 127mm or 155mm.

 

[StobieWan]

The marginal cost of lets stick with 8 ships, having £100m lavished on them (I will go with but don't accept they would be £200m each) are so at the bottom end of defence procurement that the costs over 30 year life cycle of purchase and operation is going to be tiny...surely you can see that? £30m/pa capex. Increased operational costs is mainly people and as this is a crisis capability they don't have to be regulars...so unless you can find a way to inflate fairly small aswell.

You've just recast HMPC as the C2 variant basically - and yes, they'd be £200m or more.

Just to touch on points about missile fit and CAMM vs RAM - most active seekers only illuminate as they're about to hit - that built in radar flicks on in the last few seconds of flight. In any event, the radar fitted to the ship has to provide a high quality stream of updates for the missile to fly an efficient intercept course.

What we've been saying about fitting CAMM to a ship about it needing a decent radar is that you need a radar capable of scanning the air around and doing so rapidly enough to pass on target information to a fairly precise degree. In the case of SARH missiles, the demand on the main radar isn't so great as the final illumination is handled not by the seeker in the missile but by a separate illuminator - and in the case of some of the US kit, their STIR's are about as capable as they come - but expensive.

RAM has a simple and reliable IR seeker, which can be cued by a fairly cheap search radar, and also has a seeker designed to home in on radar emissions from an anti ship missile. That means, within it's limitations, it's more tolerant of a lower update rate - but also more susceptible to firing multiple missiles at one target, leaving another on a similar angle untouched for instance. It's cheap, simple and fairly effective but the two (RAM and CAMM) are different approaches to air defence.

Neither are really appropriate to HMPC because if you're making the assumption you're sending the thing in harms way, you'd send something else.

Just to recap, costs on the Type 26 assume re-use of CAMM and Artisan from the decommissioned Type 23's, ditto the TAS and possibly Phalanx and the gun - and the Type 26 is looking to come in someplace between £250-350 million. FREMM is generally about £350-400 million a copy as a counter example.

Fitting the HMPC with all the stuff you suggest would need new buys of all the additional kit and effectively, would put the thing into the same category of cost. Construction and materials costs are today a smaller portion of a warship's build costs - it's the expensive and complex systems in each ship that make up the bulk of the unit price.

Fit many of the same systems for the 26 to HMPC and the HMPC will rise in cost - £200m as opposed to £100-120 m for a BAM-alike

Worse, the crews rise in size - and no, staffing with RN reserves won't work out - you need crew on board to maintain the systems, test them and service them periodically. If you're not going to bother and you're just going to leave all that kit unused except in a time of military emergency, you're wasting money on stuff that could be in use constantly.

It's gold plating on a epic proportion to be honest - we need a simple and flexible ship, ideally with a stern ramp and mission bay for boats, USV's and mine counter measures, a hangar and some guns. Keep it to that and we might get 12.

Ian

 

[1805]

Just because the 155 was going to be based on 4.5, doesn't mean it would be cheaper. Whatever way the UK looks at upgunning their ships it's going to be expensive...

Here's another point of view on the Gun situation / HMS Liverpools actions...
CDR Salamander: "Ding Dong"? OK, call it what you wish .....



Why does the 127 make sense?

Because Babcock have already signed an agreement with Oto-Melara, who make the 127 ??
Media Centre | Babcock International Group PLC

All this does is muddy the waters. My belief is that under the ToBA that BAE has with UK PLC, THEY are the sole providers of ALL warship designs for the next 15yrs, so I don't understand how Babcock could influence that design.

Assitionally, GCS (Global Combat Ship) / Type 26, AFAIK has NOT had it's main gun selected yet. After all the project hasn't got passed the initial agreed design stage, so there are no hard & fast agreements on equipment fit, & there won't be until the design phase is complete & they produce a baseline to work from.

From MY understanding of things(that have been posted elsewhere on the internet), It looks as though the UK RN may prefer to wait till another foreign nation get onboard the GCS programme, then opt to take the design on, so that more ships of the same design are being built, thus helping to lower initial material procurement costs & those of spares.

Apart from that, getting back to bigger guns, If the UK were to opt for say, the US MK45 - 5" Gun, then there would still be issues over things like buying a new ammunition type, all the spares, not to mention things like reduce Rate Of Fire (compared to the 4.5") & the 'double load', that's needed for the MK45, due to the seperate warhead & explosive.

...& finally, there are other issues to be considered, such as new legislation that will affect any NEW design / build RN warship, sincluding HSE rules about how heavy a weight an individual can carry (which I believe to be 25Kg, according to EU Directives), not to mention trade controls & rules about things like ITAR....

Not things that can just be swept under the carpet !!

SA

I said 127mm not any specific manufacturer. My reference to cost was relative nothing is for free but not on MR4 scale.

 

[1805]

One issue, half the rate of fire - the loading cycle spent one cycle putting the shell in, then the next loading the charge - so, 15-20 rpm vs 35 rpm for the 127mm.

I guess the other is ammo carried.

Ian

RoF is not really that relevant unless you are considering this as an AA weapon, this is a surface/shore role weapon now and here weight of shell counts. The RN does not consider medium calibre guns having a major role in the AA space. I suspect developing ammunition is where the real costs are so it will probably be cheaper long and short term either develop the 155mm or opt for a suitable 127mm mount.

 

[StobieWan]

RoF is not really that relevant unless you are considering this as an AA weapon, this is a surface/shore role weapon now and here weight of shell counts. The RN does not consider medium calibre guns having a major role in the AA space. I suspect developing ammunition is where the real costs are so it will probably be cheaper long and short term either develop the 155mm or opt for a suitable 127mm mount.

ROF is still useful for ship to shore work - a time on target shoot against infantry or a moving vehicle convoy is "death from above" - no time to react, suddenly three or four rounds airburst or impact around the target. It doesn't hurt for simple shoot and scoot jobs either if you can crank off the entire fire mission of a dozen rounds in one minute instead of two, you're on your way and getting out from under counter battery fire. If a reasonable ROF doesn't have a cost impact or introduce other issues, it's all good.

Ian

 

[1805]

You've just recast HMPC as the C2 variant basically - and yes, they'd be £200m or more.

Just to touch on points about missile fit and CAMM vs RAM - most active seekers only illuminate as they're about to hit - that built in radar flicks on in the last few seconds of flight. In any event, the radar fitted to the ship has to provide a high quality stream of updates for the missile to fly an efficient intercept course.

What we've been saying about fitting CAMM to a ship about it needing a decent radar is that you need a radar capable of scanning the air around and doing so rapidly enough to pass on target information to a fairly precise degree. In the case of SARH missiles, the demand on the main radar isn't so great as the final illumination is handled not by the seeker in the missile but by a separate illuminator - and in the case of some of the US kit, their STIR's are about as capable as they come - but expensive.

RAM has a simple and reliable IR seeker, which can be cued by a fairly cheap search radar, and also has a seeker designed to home in on radar emissions from an anti ship missile. That means, within it's limitations, it's more tolerant of a lower update rate - but also more susceptible to firing multiple missiles at one target, leaving another on a similar angle untouched for instance. It's cheap, simple and fairly effective but the two (RAM and CAMM) are different approaches to air defence.

Neither are really appropriate to HMPC because if you're making the assumption you're sending the thing in harms way, you'd send something else.

Just to recap, costs on the Type 26 assume re-use of CAMM and Artisan from the decommissioned Type 23's, ditto the TAS and possibly Phalanx and the gun - and the Type 26 is looking to come in someplace between £250-350 million. FREMM is generally about £350-400 million a copy as a counter example.

Fitting the HMPC with all the stuff you suggest would need new buys of all the additional kit and effectively, would put the thing into the same category of cost. Construction and materials costs are today a smaller portion of a warship's build costs - it's the expensive and complex systems in each ship that make up the bulk of the unit price.

Fit many of the same systems for the 26 to HMPC and the HMPC will rise in cost - £200m as opposed to £100-120 m for a BAM-alike

Worse, the crews rise in size - and no, staffing with RN reserves won't work out - you need crew on board to maintain the systems, test them and service them periodically. If you're not going to bother and you're just going to leave all that kit unused except in a time of military emergency, you're wasting money on stuff that could be in use constantly.

It's gold plating on a epic proportion to be honest - we need a simple and flexible ship, ideally with a stern ramp and mission bay for boats, USV's and mine counter measures, a hangar and some guns. Keep it to that and we might get 12.

Ian

All you points have been answered in other posts, I would just add is:

I was not talking about fitting all ships, it would be a modular fit like Stanflex....I think some bright spark noticed we didn't have such a system, so would have to develop one....yes of course and we might even sell it to some other navies.

Although ship and material costs are not the most expensive proportion, when you take that weapon systems costs out, which you have, they are a very high, partcularly the type of construction standard.

This is not gold plating I did not imply a high spec of kit (hence my previous point about Tesco; value, blue and finest ranges!).

I think CAMM will need to be match to inexpensive radars, in the same way ESSM has been, but again as I have posted before I would be happy for these ships to just have the option of a 57mm & CIWS (missile or small calibre gun).

 

[1805]

ROF is still useful for ship to shore work - a time on target shoot against infantry or a moving vehicle convoy is "death from above" - no time to react, suddenly three or four rounds airburst or impact around the target. It doesn't hurt for simple shoot and scoot jobs either if you can crank off the entire fire mission of a dozen rounds in one minute instead of two, you're on your way and getting out from under counter battery fire. If a reasonable ROF doesn't have a cost impact or introduce other issues, it's all good.

Ian

Not when you have achieve a RoF over 10-15 rpm; most SPG can't mange anything like that. The bigger issues will be overheating, barrel wear and ammunitions stocks, if you had much higher RoF for any length of time.

 

[swerve]

I think CAMM will need to be match to inexpensive radars, in the same way ESSM has been, but again as I have posted before I would be happy for these ships to just have the option of a 57mm & CIWS (missile or small calibre gun).

What inexpensive radars has ESSM been matched to? I can think of radars which are inexpensive in comparison with SPY-1D, or Smart-L & APAR, but not compared to Artisan.

 

[StobieWan]

Not when you have achieve a RoF over 10-15 rpm; most SPG can't mange anything like that. The bigger issues will be overheating, barrel wear and ammunitions stocks, if you had much higher RoF for any length of time.

The standard US 5 inch can manage 20 rpm and some of the Oto Melario mounts can go 38rpm or higher quite easily, without any issues you describe.


Shoot, move, shoot...

Ian

 

[StobieWan]

What inexpensive radars has ESSM been matched to? I can think of radars which are inexpensive in comparison with SPY-1D, or Smart-L & APAR, but not compared to Artisan.

I was about to pose the same question...It's been suggested that the Sea Giraffe as fitted to one of the LCS candidates could do the deal with additional TI's but it's in itself not a cheap system.

Ian

 

[StobieWan]

I was not talking about fitting all ships, it would be a modular fit like Stanflex....I think some bright spark noticed we didn't have such a system, so would have to develop one....yes of course and we might even sell it to some other navies.

How many ships then? If it's 5 or less, just stick that on the GP Type 26's or or build a couple more, it's straight forward.

HMPC won't have any hull quietening features and will likely end up with good old fashioned diesels and a straight forward transmission system which weighs against it being a truly useful ASW platform I think. I'd like to see it have a stern mission bay capable of handling RIB's, USV's etc - and that would help with the possibility of some sort of modular winch or other handling gear for the TAS.

Frankly TAS on an HMPC baffles me, and the fact that we're recycling the ones on the 23's to fit to the 26's should give a clue as to where the cash situation sits.

Ian

 

[1805]

The standard US 5 inch can manage 20 rpm and some of the Oto Melario mounts can go 38rpm or higher quite easily, without any issues you describe.


Shoot, move, shoot...

Ian

I'm not sure what your getting at are you suggesting a return to medium calibre guns as AA weapons...??

A burst of 5-6 accurately placed 100lb shells would be very effective. I'm not sure what 38 rpm gets you just reliability issues. You are not thinking this through, when the RN/USN abandoned medium calibres as AA weapons, they both dropped the RoF requirement for lighter, more reliable (didn't always work out that way) self contained mounts.

I personally think the RN was too quick to give up on guns and should have continued the development of 3", it is prehaps regrettable that the Type 41/61/12 construction programmed focused solely on the 4.5" twins and not the 3"/70 Mk 6 as the Canadian navy did. Then maybe when they looked for a replacement for the 4.5" on destroyers they would have adopted 127mm.

 

[StobieWan]

I'm not sure what your getting at are you suggesting a return to medium calibre guns as AA weapons...??

I'm not - all my comments were aimed at ships shooting at surface targets.

Better ROF lets you achieve MSIP (Multiple simultaneous impact point) and also lets you perform other fire missions more quickly. Look up the term "time on target" for an idea - it's a simple idea and critical one - get the right gun, with a reasonable rate of fire and precision of accuracy and you can drop 3-4 rounds on target at the same time, with devastating results on soft targets that would otherwise take cover.


Smaller calibre weapons like the 76mm and 57mm do tend to get used for the inner/CIWS layer - and need a high rate of traverse and higher rate of fire of course, but we're talking of the move from 114mm to either 155mm or some other calibre, which in all likely hood would be 127mm.

Ian

 

[1805]

I'm not - all my comments were aimed at ships shooting at surface targets.

Better ROF lets you achieve MSIP (Multiple simultaneous impact point) and also lets you perform other fire missions more quickly. Look up the term "time on target" for an idea - it's a simple idea and critical one - get the right gun, with a reasonable rate of fire and precision of accuracy and you can drop 3-4 rounds on target at the same time, with devastating results on soft targets that would otherwise take cover..

Ian

Not the RoF you are talking about, yes 10-15 rpm but not 20+ this will just empty the magazine, put strain on the mount and add weight. The Mk 8 & 45 where about reliablity and automation.

 

[1805]

What inexpensive radars has ESSM been matched to? I can think of radars which are inexpensive in comparison with SPY-1D, or Smart-L & APAR, but not compared to Artisan.

i don't know the cost of the fit for the Absalon SMART-S Mk2 3D. But ESSM/CAMM isn't relevant as again I said I think a 57mm & CIWS would be sufficient.

 

[StobieWan]

i don't know the cost of the fit for the Absalon SMART-S Mk2 3D. But ESSM/CAMM isn't relevant as again I said I think a 57mm & CIWS would be sufficient.

So, why did you repeatedly state that CAMM needed to be capable of working with a "cheap" radar set? It's very relevant to your arguments here - you're criticising CAMM for not working with cheap or affordable radar sets, it's been pointed out that ESSM won't go there either. Wrong again effectively,

Ian

 

[StobieWan]

Not the RoF you are talking about, yes 10-15 rpm but not 20+ this will just empty the magazine, put strain on the mount and add weight. The Mk 8 & 45 where about reliablity and automation.

So, shoot the fire mission, stop firing, and get moving faster? I've talked several times of fire missions of a dozen or less rounds - why bring up this ridiculous canard of shooting the magazines dry? I've explained the concept of multiple simultaneous impact about three times, you're still refusing to even acknowledge it - why?

I'll say again, precision fire effects combined with the range from a long calibre barrel and a high rate of fire mount are a Good Thing. Shoot a fire mission of three, six or a dozen rounds in half or a third the time that the current 114 mm mount can manage, using precision rounds that the 114 can't fire, and get the job done with less rounds, less time and less collateral casualties?

I'm baffled as to why you're still arguing somehow that a low ROF is better when the evidence is that there are mounts out there that can shoot faster, as reliably and get the job done safer.

Ian