Yes.
ESSM can pretty much handle any weapon system fired at it and makes a very efficient inner missile guard on the Hobart's and a fair single shell of protection on the anzacs. Its a medium range missile, able of intercepting thing out to 50-75km.
C-Dome doesn't. I would put C-Dome on the level of capabilities of SeaRAM, Mica and C-Dome and regular CAMM in the same category. 70-120kg missile, short range terminal interception as a Close In Weapons System. I would put it in that category with gun systems such as Phalanx and ~35mm millennium guns. Useful range ~<10km for fast moving intercepts and probably < 5km altitude. Slow moving drones might be able to be hit further out. How indeed will we be seeing further away without the embarked drone capability I don't know.
So in that sense, putting C-Dome in Arafura makes as much sense as Searam, or Phalanx. It is not going to be a game changer IMO, not against the Chinese. Against RPG armed pirates, against pirates firing mortars and 40mm old ww2 naval guns, maybe. It may even have a more naval role in the Mediterranean and the Persian gulf. It could maybe even useful as an inner CIWS on a bigger ship. But unlike Arafura, those ships will have other capabilities until a new CIWS is FOC. Arafura would have nothing.
ESSM is like 3 times the size, 3 times the range, 3 times the capability. Larger missiles are probably not able to be intercepted by C-Dome at all, it just doesn't have the hitting power against some of those big old soviet style antishipping missiles.
But I'm not the missile police, I am just trying to cool expectations about any sort of imminent announcement we are fitting C-Dome to Arafura, and what a game changer that would be against China.
Of course if we had built 90-100m (or even a capable 85m OPV) ships
in the first place, there would be some room to fit ESSM, C-Dome, 76mm, 35mm gun, NSM, proper radars, torpedos, towed arrays, enough power for the crew, enough speed to be somewhat useful at least for short engagements etc.
Not that we had to, but if we felt we must, you would get a far, far ,far, far more capable platform. Its not C-Dome I dislike per sec, its putting it on Arafura. Its just the wrong ship, and it was widely noted at the time that we would never be able to up gun this platform in any meaningful way. It can't move fast enough to move with major fleet units, it doesn't have enough organic capability to do anything meaningful alone, its not offensive enough to deter and not layered enough to be defender.
Give them to Boarder force and be done with it. I feel we are done with that limited platform from a Navy perspective.
Is it? The amphibious and auxiliary fleets are growing in size whilst the surface fleet is reducing in size. AEGIS is capable, though the number of vessels mean they will need to be concentrated under the cover of the few escorts we have. Its not necessarily even about deterrence - we are an island nation with a massive reliance on sea trade, amidst heightened geopolitical risk.
I am genuinely interested whether a T2 fleet, built out of Henderson, is economical and can be achieved.
AEGIS is no longer tied to massive ships the size of cruisers. At least the combat processing capability. It is now houses in COTS server racks that can fit on many sized military ships. Its also more modular and has libraries that can be left and incorporated depending on the combatant.
The DSR talks about smaller. Smaller than 10,000t. This could still mean 2500-6000t ships, ships half to a quarter the size of Hunter.
We do seem to be able to build ships out of Henderson. CIVMEC and Henderson aren't really the problem. Its government/Defence not acting on the obvious, China.
I'm not sure a corvette is the answer, but small medium frigates, will something Anzac sized but with half or less crewing and brand new with new systems could be a game changer. That is doable. They would likely be more capable and better armed than the Anzacs.
I presume with 6 hunters we would then go off and build ~6 super hunter cruisers. Small ships would be in addition to that. Lose the Arafuras and we could crew potentially 10 light Frigates. So that would still be ~12 major combatants. Then say 10 minor combatants, giving a total of ~22 actually combat capable ships.
