Hello, this will be my first post after reading these boards for a couple of years.
Contedicavour,
I think your comparison between Apside and Sea Wolf contains some pretty simplistic points. A weapons system on a warship depends on sensors, ESM, ECM,ECCM, Processing power, good crew training and a multitude of other factors not just a tick box against the range and speed of the missile itself. Any adversary will always target the weaknesses, the RN learnt that the hard way during the falklands.
If the enemy is stupid enough to fly at you frigate at 2000 ft, then yes, on paper Apside will shoot it down before Sea Wolf. (Though He may have received a Sea Dart in the face long before). However if the opponent is an exocet type missile at wave top height, neither ship will have much chance of engaging it at more than 5 miles. Add clutter from waves then this could become less so any range advantage is pretty much negated. It then becomes a matter of tracking, locking and killing the missile. I dont know enough about either missiles capabiliies to make a "one is better than the other" judgement but I know the RN has been happy with SW over the last two plus decades. Maybe the experts could advise on which missile has the best chance of hitting an incoming sea skimmer?
A type 22 had 12 ready missiles, a T23 has 32. The are pretty easy for a couple of crew to reload on the Type 22. Forgive my lack of knowlege of the Italian ships, but what is the load carried/re-load time on your vessels? Also ours have two directors, we had TV as well as radar, the Type 22's launchers and directors have a good arc of coverage. The Italian ships? It matters if there are lots of aircraft and missiles coing in, especially if the enemy is prepared to sacrifice planes for ships as the Argentinians were.
In a multiple sea skimmer attack I think SW is as good a system as any out there from its contempories. Apside clearly gives good coverage in terms of range and probably therefore makes a better general purpose ship. Again, please give the info on the overall sensor weapons mix on the Italian ships.
It is the capacity to deal with multiple threats that count. The Argentinians took out HMS Coventry with an eight-ship of Skyhawks coming in from different directions at zero altitude, utilising the radars deficiency against background land masses to reduce detection time. It is here that I think you have misrepresented the success of SW. HMS Broadsword was part of the trap and had two Skyhawks locked up and would likely have shot them down had the Coventry not turned into the line of its sensors. This was not a failure of the sensors but a circumstance of war. Would other missile systems have worked better? particularly as the computers of the day were far less powerful than today.Did anyone actually include that freak event in a simulation? SW was a new system, dating from the 60's but deployed from the late 70's. Only two ships had it in the Falklands, Brilliant and Broadsword, Brilliant engaged four Skyhawks, killing two and the third crashed avoiding one, Wiki says it had two kills and three possibles from only 8 fired, so not a bad record fo a new weapon, used in combat not a simulated demonstration. In fact, if success is judged on kills the the Sea Dart did pretty well, an even more ancient missile, getting seven kills.Has any other current western missile killed more aircraft? No, but would anyone want it now? Course not, but it still has to be judged a success. I see that your stats on the Apside 2000 refer to a 2004 test, some 28 years after SW was first deployed. I doubt though if it will ever see combat as intensive as SW did in '82.
SW will do the job until the RN needs a replacement.It does what it was designed to do, give point defence against missiles. I dont think Aster would fit in the tubes of the T23's or does anyone know differently? If the VLS needed replacing I would rather spend the cash on more T45's or Carriers.
Apside is obviously very good for the Italian navy and for the fight it faced or faces ie the Sunny Med where the sky is often blue and sea calm. The RN was going to fight in the freezing north atlantic, huge waves, wet decks and often ice forming on the antennas. The batch one 42's in the Falklands suffered from the missile doors jamming with salt. Do you think that got mentioned in any sales brochures or test programme? That is the kind of fact that stat by stat comparisons dont consider. Again, how would apside, its launchers and directors perform in the worst the north atlantic can offer? Have you any info on testing in extreme climates? (though I would imagine the brazilian navy has taken it antarctic bound?)
Anyway, we have SW, you have Apside, we use ours within a package of other assets maxiising its effect, as Im sure you do.
Cheers Dave
