And yes they, and the range facilities, are provided by the ADF; as they (and their predecessor systems at least as far back as Jindivick) have been for the RNZN for generations. It’s something we’ve got on with doing without fanfare because it just plain makes sense.
All good, because the Frigates were upgraded with various new systems the test firings (as mentioned in the article) are part of the testing and evaluation process i.e. to test and validate systems/processes work as designed. Looks like that was the last capability to be tested as the vessels have now achieved full capability release (even with CAMM only being tested on the one Frigate). No doubt following their TransCap upgrades one or some of the RAN ANZAC's will undertake testing and evaluation of their new capabilities (eg MASS decoys, NSM etc) on behalf of the fleet.
Might be time for NZ to ask Australia for a RAN Seahawk and crew detachment agreement till they can get their replacement Helicopters. With the immanent retirement of a couple of Anzacs, the Hobarts going in for refits and the delivery of 12 more Seahawks, on paper it seems the RAN is going to be short on ships for the Seahawks to deploy to at least for the rest of this decade. Might actually benefit both countries.
www.navalnews.com
I haven’t seen anything to suggest it. How I believe the Te Mana will go into a “major” maintenance period and Te Kaha will need time to work up. On previous schedules I couldn’t imagine anything available to March or April. Given the capabilities of the rebels, I’m not sure our Frigates are “tooled up” to that level of operations.
Yeah, that's why the US, France and the UK have all sent air defence ships to the area. That's the appropriate vessel type for the situation.
In the future would you expect the Hunter-class FFG (with its Air Defence capabilities eg Aegis combat system/CEAFAR-L/CEAFAR-S/CEAMOUNT/Mk41 VLS & missile load-out options etc), to be able to fulfill this type of tasking as well as the Hobart class DDG's?
In hindsight a modernised FFG-7 could have made a much better ANZAC.
Apparently the Unisys Corporation proposed the FFG-7 in the initial RFP round (but didn't make it into the final 3 which was Meko 200, Type 23 and the Dutch M-class).
I have no idea what was offered but I do know the Tenix FFGUP options looked much better than ADIs (now Thales).
Thanks I thought you'd know more on it. The ANZACs were tier 2 and if I recall weren't even meant to get torpedo tubes but it was later decided to fit refurbished ones from the River Class. Tier 3 was the Fremantle's which were meant to be replaced with a missile corvette.
CAMM is designed for area air defence. What we now need is the CAMM-ER.
The range of 25k+ for the CAMM would be useful in area defence and there are many reports of success at significantly increased ranges, I suspect that the 25k+ is the low level range, which due to air density is usually only 1/3 of the high level range. The poms do tend to quote the worse case scenario's when referring to range and speed.