I am saying that 10-15 rpm is sufficient for what you are talking about, in fact when I suggested 5-6 rounds arriving accurately in single burst, I was discribing such a MSI attack. But this does not support the need for 20 rpm+ Are you saying MSI can not be achieved with 15 rpm?
The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter overlander
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Naval guns like 113mm and 127mm can’t shoot MRSI missions anyway no mater how high the ROF because they do not have variable charges. Quick shooting however enables them to achieve near MRSI performance like getting 3-4 rounds on target in 10 seconds.
10-15 rpm is not sufficient for single mount naval use, which is why the Mk 45 and Mk 8 provide 20 rpm and 26 rpm. This isn’t just for AA fire but for surface action and naval gunfire support. Higher ROF has its benefits as well for surface action and naval gunfire support. But comes with a weight penalty for the mount: the Otobreda 127mm weighs 38 tonnes compared to 22 tonnes for the Mk 45.
Typically ships carry 400-600 rounds per gun and even rapid shooting is not going to exhaust the magazine quickly. Since all these rounds are going down range onto the target I fail to see how shooting them quicker is a ‘waste’. It means you can cause your damage in a shorter period of time so the ship has to spend less time on the gunline and/or exposed to enemy counter fire.
Also rapid fire enables target saturation for suppression of defences. Why the 96 rpm Mk 66 was developed to replace the 127mm rocket launched on LFS type ships, though never ordered into production.
We were talking about the merits of adopting the 155mm gun providing access to army ammunition and practices. I think SW was saying a handicap might be the lower rate of fire at 10-15 rpm, preventing MSI. I don't personally think it would and would accept the penalty to get the heavier round and comonality of munitions. However if it is not a goer than yes 127mm (Mk 45 or OTO-M).
I did find the Mk 66 an interesting concept which I was pleased was raised as I was not aware of it before, a bit like the Russian twin 130mm? However I suspect the USN did the right thing focusing on the Mk 45. One thing that does surpise me is once the USN & RN abandoned these weapons as AA guns (even liberated them from the role/constraints), why there was not talk in the 60/70s about standardising on army 155mm munitions. It seems to have had recent interest but the case was surely as strong before, was there talk before?
On the subject of land attack it would be great to see a navalised HIMARS capability built into the Type 26.
It is a pretty big issue if you want to hit another ship sailing at speed, the >20 rpm enables you to adjust fire and cover more predicted space much better than a 10 rpm capability. Of course you can just mount two 155mm gun turrets and presto you get the same rapid fire capability as a single 113mm or 127mm. Or carry a high ROF medium calibre gun in 57mm/76mm to provide the anti ship, anti coast battery type rapid fire capability.
The Mk 66 was never a competitor with the Mk 45. Its role was to replace 127mm rockets for naval gunfire support and was to be fitted to specialised LFS ships alongside the new 175mm/203mm lightweight turrets. That the USN didn’t build these ships in the late 60s, early 70s was a great loss to naval littoral/amphibious capability.
They never abandoned them as AA weapons and they also needed them as anti surface warfare weapons and to suppress coast artillery. Army 155mm at this time was hand loading of charge bags only and this would slash ROF for any naval weapon to make them next to useless.
Navalised MLRS has been an attractive concept since MLRS was first developed. I think there have been at least three Navy projects to realise it but they have never gotten off the ground due to funding issues. A GMLRS rocket carries the same bang as a 203mm shell which is pretty much the ideal shell for artillery use.
I think the surface fire role was a big factor in the RN retention of 4.5", particularly before widespread availability of SSM & helicopter based systems. I think this is far less of an issue compared with the heavier shell/access to wider range of munitions. Either way the RN just can't afford to develop munitions idependently so it has to go with either 127mm or 155mm if it is to have a worthwhile capability.
I do agree a MLRS of some form would be very useful, the weight, range and accuracy. Again I think it would attract a lot of export attention. I am not sure if it could replace the need to a medium calibre gun?
The RN largely abandoned them as serious AA weapons, I think the mark 8 had an initial role to provide lower leverl cover to Sea Dart. I have always fleet the RN should have developed from the Mk 6 3"/70 a single mount. When you look at the success of the 76mm OTO-M mounts which have evolved in to very reliable/effective weapons. The Type 42 would have been better served with a 76mm & single Phalanx than the 4.5" There are plenty of other ships that could do the shore support role.
The RN did largely abandon them as serious AA weapons, and all other lighter calibres. The 20/40mm guns fitted to most RN ships were older weapons, there for "junk bashing" because of concerns about a USS Cole type incident not as serious AA weapons. The RN (led by the USN) was not a supporter of these calibres after poor performance/experience with Kamikaze attacks against the BPF (although there was the 40mm STAAG perhaps a lost opportunity?). They did have a bit of a comeback after the Falklands, but where soon dropped again when the Type 23 came in.
This is the reason the RN never introduced a truly modern lightweight dual purpose weapon such as the French 3.9". A 4" gun (26t/40 rpm) was developed, but never fitted it; I think it was only installed on some destroyers for Chile, which appear to have been reliable.
I think this was probably the right call as I have always felt the RN should have developed from the Mk 6 3"/70 a single mount, that said the 4" would have looked a much better option on the Leanders than the 4.5" twins.
I think the 4.5" mark 8 had an initial capability to provide lower level cover to Sea Dart. When you look at the success of the 76mm OTO-M mounts which have evolved into very reliable/effective weapons. The Type 42 would have been better served with a 76mm & single Phalanx than the 4.5” There are plenty of other ships that could do the shore support role.
I have not commented on the USN but understood the rational behind the move from the Mk 42 to Mk 45 was similar. Didn't they drop guns altogether on the USS Long Beach (similarly to the much later RN batch 1 & 2 Type 22) only to put back on some 5" guns when asked by JFK how it would deal with a PT boat?
If it isn't relevant, then why introduce it?
Because you continued to question CAMM on the proposed ship.
Absolutely! There's no point in spending money on ships which will always be second-rate at ASW to make them able to accept a TAS & use it, when we have enough first-rate ASW ships to use every TAS we own, & no money to buy more arrays.
And what does that have to do with ESSM, a very different missile with a different mode of operation?
You asked the question what low cost radars ESSM had been matched to. Lets kill this exchange we are getting into detail off the subject.
Capitan Trueno
Banned Member
I have seen some comments from you that are not exact:
-you say the Royal Navy commanders planned badly some Harrier caps which ended in Argentinian jets achieve the ships, but once Argentinian detect/guess a ship and can pass onto comrades, many sorties are done to distract, confuse, run out and eliminate the Harrier caps, so that some Argentinian jets can achieve to reach the targets. So i would not say, in general, there was a bad commanding from Royal Navy in the caps, you see simple that some jets get to the ships but many times is a intelligent global effort from the Argentinos to "mission kill" the Harrier caps before other Argentinos get to the ships.
-you say, either the "Argentine pilots were terrible, or the Harriers were much superior jets", because you say Argentine didn´t score a single Harrier kill. But there are many factors that you don´t mention, like the radar superiority from the Royal Navy ships, to direct and help the Harriers. Argentine radar in the Falklands just reach 50 kms over the sea, so it was useless out of that range, similarly was a radar with little discrimination of number of jets in the screen. Argentinian jets didn´t have nothing but their sight to beware of Harriers, different to Harriers that knew before where the
Argentine jets were. The Argentine jets didn´t have navigation system, just one out of 4 or 5 jets did, so that they had to be joined in the mission, with very little flexibility to do independet engagements, independent of the navigation jet of each group. Recall that the Falklands are 800-1000 kms from Argentinian bases, in general they just had 10 minutes to be on station before going back. Argentinian didn´t have reliable missiles, as the first time they had a Harrier in the lock, they launched the missile and it missed the Harrier. Old Shafir is not the same as newer version os Shafir. But i´ll read more on this to post something better. Also the guns in the Argentinian jets stoped easily and some of them didnt shot more than 5 guns before stoping. Also Argentinian jets didn´t have tracing munition for their jets gun, so that able to correct the shot. And finally and so important you can´t weight an engagement fairly if ones come from a relaxed cap, and the Argetinian come from a fligh at 15 mts high from sea level, at 900 kms/h, after dwelling with some ships 20 mm, 30 mm, missiles, during 2 minutes, in general. And you shouldn´t expect any Argentinian jet in such a situation is going to want to engage with Harriers knowing all these conditions and the Sidewinder.
-and i want to make Argentinian heroes their pilots, not "terrible pilots" but "incredibly skilled pilots". If you have seen how Sky Walker in Star Wars destroyed the Death star with an heroic effort, the argentinians did the same but many many times.
In response to you introducing ESSM & the radars it's used with into the discussion. You then responded that ESSM was irrelevant.
I'm happy to drop it & move on, as soon as you stop trying to misrepresent what's been said.
5 years after being launched HMS Daring finally fires a missile..
http://www.navynews.co.uk/news/1185-daring-finally-shows-her-bite.aspx
Makes you so proud...
http://www.navynews.co.uk/news/1185-daring-finally-shows-her-bite.aspx
Makes you so proud...
Argentine CAP spoofing may have happened from time to time – the Phoenix squadron was set up for this mission – but it didn’t with the Exocet strike that sunk HMS Sheffield. This is a specific instance with huge tactical and operational flow on effects.
The Tipsy radar used by the Argentines at Port Stanley was an excellent system with longer range against cruise altitude SHARs than just 50km. The lack of air warning of SHAR sorties was because of good tactics by the RN of approaching below the radar horizon after carrier launch. Also all of the Miro vs SHAR air combat happened within range and under direction of the Port Stanley radar. The Argentines were not deficient in this regard. In the air battles over San Carlos the Argentines didn’t have radar warning but neither did the SHARs because they were all below the radar horizons.
Yet the Argentines were never outnumbered in all of the fighter vs fighter engagements. In fact they often outnumbered the SHARs but still got bounced badly.
So? Poor gun and missile maintenance by the Argentines is no ones fault but the Argentines. The Shafir 2 missile was nicknamed the ‘killer’ by the Israeli pilots because of its excellent if inelegant looking guidance logic system. The RN didn’t have tracer ammo either yet still racked up gun kills.
LOL. The RN SHAR crews had much worse conditions and fatigue than the Argentines. They were flying multiple sorties every day with VTOL landings whereas the Argentineans had lots of rest between sorties. The entire, combined Argentine air forces only flew some 500 fighter and attack sorties while the much smaller British force few over 2,000 sorties during the same time period.
I see a lot of excuse making and very little focus on the real issue: the Argentine air force had very poor air to air combat training and tactics. They also showed very poor attack techniques with bombing too low for the fuses of their bombs. No one can doubt their bravery or natural ability but their technical competence was at a low level.
In addition their aircraft being all 3rd generation fighters were at a significant performance handicap to the 4th generation SHAR. The latter’s integrated radar-nav system, high thrust to weight ratio and snap turn ability gave it a significant combat advantage. Even though Miros and Skyhawks are generally considered some of the most manoeuvrable 3rd generation fighters.
I vaguely recall reading something about the RAAF’s Miros being hamstrung by poor missiles and 30mm ammo during the early 80s. The AIM-9Bs were shagged as I believe they were left over from the Sabres, the R530 had already been retired and the 30mm ammo was in such poor condition shells were exploding just infront of the aircraft that fired them. Had we gone to war we would have been screwed. Argentina was in poor economic condition at the time and it can be assumed that this had a similar affect on their war stock as it did in Australia
The RAAF fixed it's 20 year old Sidewinder problem in 1981 by ordering 550 Magic missiles from Matra. They only cost $14m and all were delivered in 1982-83.
Looking at the Argentine record and they recieved 25 R-530 in 1972-73 and aother 10 in 1980. So all still in their 10 year shelf life. They also had 84 Magic on order for the Navy that were delivered in 1981-83. 150 Shafrir 2 were supplied from Israel in 1978-80 and 200 in 1981-83. There were also 96 AIM-9B Sidewinders supplied in 1966-67.
So plenty on hand missiles for use in the Falklands if properly maintained and deployed. The Shafrir 2 had slaughtered the Arabs in the '73 war and should have worked fine in the Falklands if the Argentines had maintained them and used them correctly.
Looking at the Argentine record and they recieved 25 R-530 in 1972-73 and aother 10 in 1980. So all still in their 10 year shelf life. They also had 84 Magic on order for the Navy that were delivered in 1981-83. 150 Shafrir 2 were supplied from Israel in 1978-80 and 200 in 1981-83. There were also 96 AIM-9B Sidewinders supplied in 1966-67.
So plenty on hand missiles for use in the Falklands if properly maintained and deployed. The Shafrir 2 had slaughtered the Arabs in the '73 war and should have worked fine in the Falklands if the Argentines had maintained them and used them correctly.
OM are quoting MRSI/MSI/TOT performance with their guided Vulcano rounds on the basis that the guidance system can be programmed to produce that effect (which is another great reason to pick it up) - but thanks for the correction on variable charges, it's not something I'd understood ti you mentioned it.
Ian