kev 99
Member
That would be the sensible thing to do, which is a little worrying when you consider the UK Government's history on defence over the last 3 decades.
The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter overlander
- Start date
Thats the issue, services make personnel cuts and then they try to 'expand' the navy, the crew will expand approximately 2-300 (if 3 T42s are replaced by 6 T45s) I thought there was 5 active T42s but the RN website lists only 3 (Edinburgh, York and Liverpool) [1]
Then again there was an issue in early 2011 about 100 trainee pilots were axed when some had nearly finished training [2], its just puts people off joining the RN if they might get sacked before they even finish training.
They must plan to be able to have enough as theres no way they could operate 2 carriers with 1 full compliment crew and a depleted crew and maintain the high level of service they show.
[1] Frigates and Destroyers | Royal Navy
[2] Quarter of RAF trainee pilots to be sacked in defence spending cull - Telegraph
Excellent, after doing some digging round the web i've found this quote
[1]
Seems like the ROF drop with a 155mm gun was more significant than i thought, that same website also poses the issue that
[1]
Could someone distinguish the difference between 'naval gunfire support' and 'anti surface warfare'? Because to me they both represent the same thing, attacking targets above the surface and on the shore (which they both could do). Also, could you REALLY use the 127mm as an AA weapon effectively? Or is it just one of those things journalists say like 'oh yeah it can do this' when it can, but is very limited in its effectiveness.
[1] 5-inch vs. 6-inch: Naval Gunfire Support Debate Rages On Good discussion, good information.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ezCs2R9ts0"]5 inch gun rapid fire shoot - YouTube[/nomedia] a nice gunnery clip from the 5in gun.
NGFS is indirect fire support against usually stationary shore targets using the guns a traditional artillary. Go look up "five inch Friday" for a good, recent example.
ASUW is using the ships guns to deal with other water craft directly using tracks from the ships own sensors. This is usually done within the ships direct LOS.
The 127mm has been an effective AAW weapon since WW2. Improvements in warhead type, proximity fuses, better ship sensors and combat system automation means that it is still a decent short range weapon. Is it as effective as ESSM or RAM? No but it is yet another layer of protection and rounds are much cheaper than missiles.
Ah i see the diffence, thanks to the FIF example i can understand how the 127mm can achieve both of those requirements but would the 155mm not be able to do both also? The most likely one it would 'fail' at would be ASUW as it would naturally excel at NGFS.
True, whilst its not a MAJOR AA defence if it comes down to the wire it'd probably be decent enough to knock a missile or aircraft. I guess i was just thinking about it wrong, i kinda imagined a Bofors AA gun trying to take out a supersonic jet, what a fool
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Its a six for six replacement, the numbers of Type 42s were gradually cut down without replacement to six and then those were cut as the Type 45s come in. Right now there are thre Type 45s in service or late preperations so there are only three Type 42s left in service, those you have mentioned.
Thanks for the info
Using RN numbers it appears that for every T42 - T45 trade you have a spare 100ish personnel left over (IIRC T42 is around 287 and T45 around 180) [1] so meaning overall throughout this program theres 600ish service personnel left without a job which isn't too far from a ships crew of a QE carrier (excluding pilots/aircrew) so you could probably grab a few hundred for retraining for carrier duties keeping peoples jobs and decreasing the strain on the recruitment process.
[1] http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/The-Fleet/Ships/Destroyers
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The 155mm should be able to do ASUW if developed to do so. And there's the rub. The argument for the 155mm was commonality with the army, but how much is that worth? Estimates of development cost were unreliable, & to pay a lot of money to develop something that would never be as good as an OTS gun at one task, & probably two, out of the three that an OTS gun could do - well, why bother? Any commonality savings would almost certainly be wiped out by the development cost.
Developing our own ammo would be sheer waste, for a handful of guns. Both 127mms are known quantities, at a known price, with known OTS ammunition, ammo & spares commonality with close allies, & acceptable on the export market. The 155mm might have struggled to find acceptance with export customers, necessitating two versions of any ship we fitted it to, if we hoped for exports - i.e. more development cost.
Neither the market nor the benefits are big enough to justify the cost.
Ah, thats true. I seem to have oversimplified matters thinking that an artillery gun would have served better than a 4.5in or 5in gun for NGFS, that and overemphasising army commonality.
True, plus i expect as its in use on American naval vessels it would add extra weight for any calls for BAE systems to develop various upgrades on its system rather than just the relatively small (20-30 guns maybe? Thats off the top of my head) RN. Looks like the 5in is superior to the 155mm, i've got a dreadful habit of oversimplifying things if i don't fully understand
Yeah, AGS is shaping up to be a real winner of a system.
That said I like the idea of palletized ammo
THIS should hopefully stop a bit of random speculation on most of the Navy threads...
Brazil Buys Ocean Patrol Vessels - BAE Systems
SA
Brazil Buys Ocean Patrol Vessels - BAE Systems
SA
Getting back onto the RN tack...
Here's some news on Type-45....
http://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/3221
SA
Here's some news on Type-45....
http://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/3221
SA
just read this from the telegraph
Navy's £5bn Harrier jet replacement 'unable to land on aircraft carriers' - Telegraph
whats your thoughts? scare mongering or potentially a big problem for the RAF/RN? i
also if the report is correct we will only have 6 f-35's by 2020 does anyone know when we expected to have enough aircraft to fill the new carriers?
Navy's £5bn Harrier jet replacement 'unable to land on aircraft carriers' - Telegraph
whats your thoughts? scare mongering or potentially a big problem for the RAF/RN? i
also if the report is correct we will only have 6 f-35's by 2020 does anyone know when we expected to have enough aircraft to fill the new carriers?
There's an F35 thread in the aviation forum that covers some of this and the essence of this has been out for a bit. There's also a first fix being tested for it right now - I don't think it's a show stopper. It needs to be fixed - given that the entire future of USN carrier aviation rests on it working, I think they'll try quite hard to get this squared away shortly,
Ian
spsun100001
New Member
According to the article she's "ready for anything". Is she really?
As we start to rely on the Type 45 to take on front line duties in the RN's highest threat areas (such as the Gulf in this case) her "fitted for but not with list" just keeps jarring with me.
We are told her equipment omissions are due to her being an AAW vessel and she could be fitted with the required capabilities if needed.
Both of those arguments are baloney to me.
1) Given Type 45's make up 30% of the surface fleet we need all of our ships to be general purpose not fixed to role.
2) You can't bring a ship back from the Gulf to fit weapons on it that it doesn't have if things get hot. Ships need to go into high threat environments with full capability embarked.
3) Given the current high threat level in the Gulf the Type 45's advanced radar would be crucial if things got hot with Iran. Yet her usefulness in this her primary AAW role is severely retarded by her not being fitted with the Co-operative Engagement Capability to enable her to network all of the data from her systems to other ships. Odd that we don't fit an AAW vessel with one of the key AAW enabling technologies.
4) Why the ships have no ASW torpedoes or SSM's is beyond me. You could easily fit four Harpoons to each ship from the retired Type 22 batch III ships and ASW torpedoes from retired Type 42's. The weapons are already in our inventory for heavens sakes. Without them the ship has to carry the Lynx helicopter rather than the Merlin which severely reduces her ASW capability (but is necessary because Merlin can't carry the Sea Skua ASM without which the Type 45 would have no stand off anti-ship capability).
Before anyone posts about "when was the last time SSM's were used" it was in Operation Praying Mantis when US and Iranian warships both fired SSM's at each other during Iranian atttempts to disrupt the Gulf and US retaliation and martime security enforcement. This is exactly the scenario into which HMS Daring may be sailing.
In any event, it isn't about volleys of SSM's or ASW torpedoes; it's about a ship being able to enforce a zone of control around itself from other surface and sub-surface units which will not want to come into its weapons envelope. The Type 45 is entirely reliant on its helicopter for this. That relies on the helicopter being appropriately configured, fuelled and ready to fly which is far from always the case.
I've also read that the Sea Viper has never actually been tested against supersonic targets. Does anyone know if that's true?
I would have thought placing 4 or 8 Harpoons would have been a dead easy, cheap, effective way to add capability. As modern harpoons have some ground attack capability (limited but its there), would be a nice little upgrade adding surface and land attack capability that would compliment TLAM or SM-6 capability (if such VLS are installed in the future).
Australia was able to squeeze 8 harpoons on a tiny Anzac. I would imagine the T45 would be able to fit the same.
She already went into maintenance to get the CIWS systems, she should have received the Harpoon systems then and there and taken them to the Gulf, its not like its a new system - the men are available to maintain and operate the missiles (unless they've already been sacked). It would be good if one of Fleet St's 'defence experts' actually told the truth of the danger these men and a $1.6 billion warship are in instead of just feeding the public MOD propaganda.
With the lack of a ship based deep strike capability, it has to be one of the top priorities to fit some VLS for either TLAM or SCALP. Money might be tight but to fit someType 45's out with say 24 cells would significantly increase the RN offensive capability. Probably could even save money on RAF use of Storm Shadows.
As they are new ships, once fully worked up they should have a high availablity, so we could probably just fit out half the ships, whilest making up a lot of the capabililty gap caused by the early Harrier exit.
As they are new ships, once fully worked up they should have a high availablity, so we could probably just fit out half the ships, whilest making up a lot of the capabililty gap caused by the early Harrier exit.