$7 Billion will cover the Hobarts and Hunters, and hopefully several reloads. What will the missile capabilities be of the GPFs? If we go with the Ocean 4300 with the pictured CEAFAR what is it capable of supporting? I don't know about the Evolved Mogami?
Are SM2IIIC and SM6 restricted to Aegis equipped vessels?
You guys are the experts, I'm just an interested amateur who's concerned about the future security of his country.
The average Aussie price for an SM2 is about $3M and an SM6 is circa $6M, so assuming a 50:50 order, that equates to approx 1,500 missiles. Note: some of this money might be allocated to upgrading our current SM2 holdings to the modern baseline rather than new missiles.
I've read somewhere, just can't find the reference, that Raytheon is targeting an SM6 annual production rate of 300 units (from about 125 now). SM2 would be similar, so call it 600 missiles off the production line a year by the turn of the decade. To state the obvious, this is scarily low for total global production.
On that production, I can't imagine us getting say more than 100 per annum, so this is about a 10-15 year procurement program.
The use of the standard missile family is less connected to the type of radar and more the combat operating system. As far as I'm aware, the standard missile family has only been integrated into the Aegis system (FFGs excluded).
The Japanese for instance only use SM2/6s on their Kongo/Atago/Maya destroyers, with the rest limited to ESSM or their own indigenous AAM designs. Same for the Koreans. So the Mogami, despite having a mk41 VLS, to my understanding, is not configured for the SM2/6, nor is it planned at the moment.
The Australian Gov specified in their announcement that the SM2/6 order would only be for the Hunter and Hobart, not the future GPF.
There is no reason that the Mogami (or the Korean FFX) could not be upgraded to use standard missiles, just someone has to write the code, or fit an Aegis interface (such as the virtual system). I can't see much value in doing this for a 16 VLS package, but a 32 VLS unit starts to make sense (just).
Or just stuff them with 128 ESSM and be done with it
