Going with CAMM seems to have been a smart move from the export point of view. Add in the potential to retro fit to other in-service platforms, that Sea Wolf was never an option for, as required and you have a real winner. Depending how many other ships they can fit CAAM to, Darings, QE, Ocean, LPDs etc. having it in service now looks even smarter.
Frankly it seems ideal, from a RN perspective for LAAD it is a definite performance upgrade from Sea Wolf and doesn't require dedicated illuminators IIRC. I like to think that it's the fact we're going with such a lightweight missile system that
hopefully there is growth put aside for the fore missile silo on the Type 26.
Lightweight option seemed to go down well with NZ, but that's as a retrofit to an old vessel looking to keep a handle on topweight. Time will tell if it's attractive to have on a new build, might work out a bigger ship + bigger weight margins overall and a system like ESSM + extras is more preferable
CAMM works with ARTISAN, we'll see about how well ARTISAN can update the seeker on the targets location well enough. IIRC the seeker FOV of CAMM is relatively small and depends more on the radar to supply the tracking data on where the target is, add this in with us relying on using a single face rotating array with an rpm of 30 and it gets a bit iffy. Sure hope there's room for a more capable radar there in the future.
But the fact it works with ARTISAN means that in theory it can be expanded to all our amphibs and the QEC. Although currently i'm not 100% sure about having it on the carrier is desirable, what effect does it have on flight operations when you shoot it off? Easy to install - presumably - but operationally I'd like to know more about +/-.
Then the discussion we had recently about CAMM killing off Aster 15. Personally i'm pretty keen on a loadout of 48 CAMM + 36 Aster 30 for AAW work as opposed to the 16:32 ratio currently working on now. Hell, 32 CAMM + 40 Aster 30 would be fine. Maximising Aster 30 capacity is the priority given the Type 45 is meant to be defending a
fleet from air attack as well as itself.