Naval Requirements

Moving to a new place

2010-09-10T16:06:00.001+01:00

Hallo

I have been busy lately writing reports instead of writing blogs, and as the group I have been working with have decided to publish our reports I decided to throw my lot in with them and set up + run their blog...so from now on if you wish to find me just click on the title

yours sincerely

Alex

Is there a possibility for Amphibiosity in coversion?

2009-09-16T20:58:00.006+01:00

Concept

A good fast containership hull would be an economical starting point for a new generation aircraft carrier. The hull of a containership is open and empty, so naval architects can fit in accommodation, fuel tanks, magazines and hangar decks, and on top of it all, the flight deck needed for an aircraft carrier. For the cost of two ships now building, we could have four or more. After all, apart from planned dry-dock time, ships sometimes don’t pass in the night, but instead suffer accidents, and with just two carriers available, the danger is that one will be undergoing a refit and the other damage.

(Wragg, 2009, pp. 189-90)

This is not a new concept, the MAC ships in World War II were key to the efforts against the wolf packs, Atlantic Conveyor was at points in time the most important vessel sent to the Falklands War – and was certainly the greatest strategic loss. Full conversion is requirement of some major changes on the ships though; hence the first section of this piece focuses on practicability, and it is only after that capability will be considered.

Practicability

As Wragg makes clear these vessels are open spaces, in fact almost blank canvasses; only better. Due the fact that they are designed to be strong, even without a top deck to complete them, the addition of such a deck will only add their capability.

They are built with range; they do their journey’s with no chance of an at Replenishment At Sea, they are built with speed; time is money, and they are built big; this means it is literally a case of building a top and a hangar, with a large flex bay underneath – far larger and therefore more flexible than the ones which have shown to be off such use in the Danish Absalom class and the American LCS designs; with the freeness offered by their initial design there is no reason why, that with the provision hydraulic bomb doors, that the lifts and ramps could not service both decks – therefore providing maximum internal mobility and force capability.

It would also be a lot cheaper than building a brand new third aircraft carrier or a pair of LHDs; especially in Britain’s case, as they could all be put together in one yard. This would highlight the quality of that yard for civilian contracts, whilst also providing a very capable vessel for the RN at a cost of under £1billion per unit.

The most complicated part of the conversion will be the re-sitting of the superstructure; and the changing of the engine and power generation arrangement. The former is relatively simple due to the fact that ship is to be built up/filled in as part of the conversion any way; it depends upon the design chosen, and whether American, British or French practices are chosen. The power plant is more complicated as depending upon island position, propulsion system chosen and whether or not it requires a funnel to evacuate steam/fumes; if the American Island system is followed, with it mounted to the rear, then the power plant may have to be barely altered from its current arrangement.

Due the power, size and stability available in the design a relatively heavy weapons fit could be included for the benefit of both operational and tactical strategic capability. For example a heavy CIWS outfit of 4x SeaRam and 4x Mk110 BAE 57mm could be installed in complimentary pairs to provide defence against any missiles, small boats or aircraft which penetrate the perimeter. A perimeter which could be further enhanced by the inclusion of the Mk41 VLS loaded with SM-3 ABM, Aster 30 & 15, Tomahawk TLCM and ASROC. This along with the inclusion of the sensors and systems off the T45 destroyer; would allow the vessels to be fully multi-role and capable, as well as reducing the requirement for close escort.

Problems

The limitations are obvious; any design is being built in a confined space, an already built hull. Whilst it is a hull which is large, roomy and undeveloped; in a simple phrase, it is a ‘blank canvass’. It is still an already built hull, many will certainly contest that survivability is better included in a hull which is built for purpose – some would even contest it is cheaper to build an equivalent vessel from scratch than to convert. The other area of contention and problems will be the capability of stores/support mechanisms that can be put into such a vessel and its ability to deal with top weight for all operations. This author would contest that with all these questions and arguments they would be topics of further study, but are nothing that good Naval Architect could not overcome with a little thought.

Capability

A conversion is likely to produce a highly capable ship; but any aircraft carrying vessel (even one of an amphibious focus) is judged by its capacity for aircraft, not its capacity in any other role. This is conversion hover, is not just about producing an aircraft carrier, it is primarily envisaged as an LHA. Therefore it is fitting it should be fitted with ramp for Griffon Hovercraft; the same craft which are currently deployed upon the RN’s serving LPH, HMS Ocean, with much success. Ably bracketed by 4 LCVPs on davits; this is tradition in the commando carrier concept and is something which adds very interesting dimension into possible force multiplication.

The various roles require quite different air groups; the size and composition of which will depend upon the size of container ship converted. TEU’s are containers, and container ships are classed by how many they can carry. The specifications given at the end of this, and therefore the air groups are for the conversion of vessel that carries 6-8000 TEUs; there are larger vessels available, some carrying as many as 12000 TEUs. The important thing about the 6-8000 TEU container ships, are they represent the best balance of size, manoeuvrability and possibility if they are converted – there larger ones are really to large; the smaller ones are two small.

Ideally the smaller 6000 TEU ship could accommodate, in theory, its hangar and air group of 44 aircraft including either E-2D Hawkeye AWACs or Chinook Heavy Lift helicopters. Whilst the larger, 8000 TEU vessel, would accommodate the same air group of about 44 aircraft; such a vessel would have the advantage of developing a far more potent sortie rate. This would be down to its greater space for workshops and other support facilities required to maintain the capability of aircraft and their weapon systems.

There are constraints in any design though, Hawkeye’s & the cheaper and better F-35c JSF & the current envisage generation of UAVs all require catapults; this is something which could easily be built in (and AWACs are an aircraft carriers best force multiplier). It is though a decision which will need to be made at the design stage. Such decisions are crucial, a ship may be in service with the navy for 40 years, therefore whatever restrictions are imposed at the beginning, cannot be easily rectified (in the catapults case, without some major re-piping or re-wiring), and certainly not replaced in service for up to 4 decades.

The flex deck, is another key enabler of this container ship conversion, its ability to be re-modulated and refocused would allow 1600 personnel to be carried its assault amphibious role. Slightly less for the longer term deployment of conflict stabilisation a smaller contingent of 1000 personnel would be carried, with the space being converted to increase internal food storage and recreational facilities in line with the requirements of its longer deployments. In carrier mode, the flex deck could be converted to either stores, extra hangar space further increasing the aircraft capacity or it could be a true commando carrier and accommodate 800 personnel; to provide any battle group that it is a component of with a light strike/raiding and even emergency conflict stabilisation force.

Conclusion

When in future the British government deploys the RN, for whatever role, in its current situation it is going have to watch timing very careful, or else it will be deploying forces with no air cover. The purpose built carriers of the Queen Elizabeth class will if built number just two, and there will be periods when neither will be operational. Added to this there is proof in the success of HMS Ocean, in the necessity of an air assault component in the amphibious fleet. The answer to this question, especially in the time of financial strictures, is obvious to the mind of this author in light of what has been discovered and discussed in the course of this work.

A class of 3 (or perhaps 4...we can hope) converted container ships would fit the requirements of the possible roles very successfully and at a cost most affordable to the nation. The benefits of having vessels; which in turn could provide an alternative or supplementary carrier battle group when such is the need; the core of amphibious task group; or the keystone of any sea based conflict stabilisation and management that the British government wishes to engage in are great. Such vessels, especially armed as suggested, would provide the currently very overstretched RN with a multi-versatile core from which its other forces and capabilities could projected with the necessary levels of support and security.

Further more if they were designed to be capable (and were in fact capable of doing so) of carrying the ‘commando carrier’ load then they really would be ‘Woolworths Carriers’; a good quality vessel for all occasions, not spectacular, but not something to be discounted.

Specifications: that must be asked for (Based on the Conversion of a 6-8000 TEU container ship)

Reconfigurable air group/assault group for roles:

in LHA/Conflict stabilisation mode -

Air Group: 8 UAV, 12 JSF, 8 Apache, 4 Chinook, 4 ASW Merlin, 8 Merlin Transports = total of 44 aircraft
Surface Assault: 4 LCVPs on Davits, stern ramp allowing access of 4 Griffon Hovercraft
1000 troops carried = 1 Squadron RMC + Enhancements

in LHA/Assault mode -

Air Group: 8 UAV, 12 Apache, 8 Chinook, 12 Merlin Transports = total of 40 aircraft
Surface Assault: 4 LCVPs on Davits, stern ramp allowing access of 4 Griffon Hovercraft
1600 troops carried = 2 Squadron RMC

Depending apon the design; this might also be a possibility

In Commando Carrier mode -

Air Group: 8 UAV, 24 JSF, 4 Hawkeye, 4 ASW Merlin, 4 Merlin transports = total of 44 aircraft
Surface Assault: 4 LCVPs on Davits
400 troops carried = ½ Squadron RMC

Vital statistics (aprox):

Length of flight deck: 300m

width of flight deck: 50/75m

Speed: 27kts +

Range: 10,000nm

displacement: 40-60,000 tons

Aircraft operations

2 Aircraft lifts; each capable of hefting a Chinook (or Hawkeye)
2 Equipment lifts; each capable of moving a standard under-slung load (up to a 4x4 vehicle) or weapons
Hangar Deck/Flex Deck underneath
Ski Jump + a Single Catapult would be best for the development of operational capability on a budget and would have best interoperability with the currently envisaged Queen Elizabeth class; however if these are in the end not built then 2 Catapults would be needed.

Assault operations

stern ramp allowing for the operation of 4 Griffon Hovercraft
davits for LCVPs, the stern ramp must be able to support a Mexifloat or similar to provide for an easier operational loading/offloading.
There will need to be spots to allow for 2 Chinook and 4 Merlin’s to be operate simultaneously in assault prep.

Weapons & sensors

Enhanced T45 sensor suite; command and control system
2*32cell Mk41 VLS mounted out of standard flight parameters; combined with sensor suite should be capable of mounting SM-3 ABM, Aster 30 & 15, Tomahawk TLCM and ASROC
4* SeaRam & 4* BAE MK110 57mm for CIWS
8* Oerlikon 30 mm KCB guns on DS-30B mounts & 8 single 20mm cannon mounts, for saturation defence in confined waters
Chaff, & flares

Power Plant

Gas Turbines combined with Pod Propulsion would be best for all round operations of the vessel.
A significant level of power will have to be developed in order to support Electro-Magnetic Catapults or alternatively a steam generator will need to be included to power any steam catapult.

Cost

conversion & purchase must cost less 0.9billion per vessel, and the vessel must be serviceable for at least 25years

Bibliography

Wragg, D. (2009). Naval Aviation: 1909-2009. Barnesly: Pen & Sword Maritime.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/container-types.htm
http://www.eurans.com.ua/eng/faq/containerships/

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newwars (http://newwars.wordpress.com/)

Alex, as long as they Navy is wholly focused on projecting power ashore against Third World dictators, or trying to stop China from invading Taiwan, they will have no time or money for alternatives like this. We must get spending priorities straight or we lose our edge. The West having been at the forefront of change for centuries, is now wholly committed to the declining dominance of carrier air, when there are so many other power projection alternatives, as well as needs for the small low tech warship and auxiliaries.

the trouble is this type of vessel would be perfect for those kinds of operations in those kinds of wars; although I personally think that specialised vessels for the warships will be always present. I do wonder about the non-sinking amphibs and the future aviation ships - so many large hulls already available...however, it is capacity for workshops and systems that will be key.

yours sincerly

Alex

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Armchair Chinese Admiral (go easy on my landlubber's use of naval terms.)

some good points were raised, but the whole point about a more permanent conversion and the use of pod propuslion is that these ships can be 'quite' manouverable - nothing of the order of 50,000, in fact even 30,000 tons is ever going to be manouverable enough; especially when avoiding a missile comining in at Mach 3. With your idea containerised CIWS weapons could be installed, which would allow for security.

In this one, ideally it would (along with its Air Group and its supporting Escorts) have a 4 Sea RAM CIWS and 4 BAE Mk110 57mm as well as two Mk41 VLS loaded with various missiles of its own; in other words its aim is to stop the missile before it hits the ship. Added to this the open space of the hull would allow for some quite heavy levels of subdivision, stabilisation and anti sinking systems to be installed.

However; the key with these ships is the space they have to put into supporting their airgroup, supporting their troops - that is their true advantage.

yours sincerly

Alex

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Armchair Chinese Admiral (go easy on my landlubber's use of naval terms.) 2nd Post

this is where we diverge; what you are talking about is cheap and quick wartime conversion; what I am talking about is full time fleet ship; a full conversion, no containers, the hull be used as blank canvass with proper decks put in a - a complete rebuild in manyways. My ship would be a non-expendable asset...well all assets are expendable but it would not be one to which this would be readily described it would be to useful.

The ship I am proposing would be a class of three vessels, to provide the RN/RM amphibious Task group with the LHA it desperately needs, as well as the core of an influence squadron and even a back up carrier when operational required - I am talking about making proper warships out of them. I am talking about this from the RN perspective - which needs ships of these capabilities.

Also Pod Propulsion is probably going to become standard on the new 8-12-???000 TEU vessels as it has been found to be far less maintenance intesive, more energy efficient as well as more able to manouver in busy ports...and shipping lanes. However, for the purposes of my design would put in as part of the rebuild.

yours sincerly

Alex

Curtesy

2009-07-21T16:33:00.002+01:00

I was driving back from work today, the road was a little busy, at a point where due to a bus lane two lanes become one, a little jam developed. Now why is this starting this post you will ask? well I had (because I have experienced it before), gone straight into the right hand lane, but not everyone manages this of course, and when I got to the point of the conference (which is helpfully just before some traffic lights) a jam had developed with the cars from both lanes coming together. Now thanks to a bus forcing its way through the bus lane, a lady driving a small Peugeot 308 (small compared to my Vauxhall Astra) was forced up next to me, indicating to join my lane. Now when the traffic cleared a bit, she was most shocked when I waved her forward instead of charging on my own way. Partially I will admit I let her through because she looked slightly distracted, not unfocused on her driving, but as if she had something on her mind; but mainly I let her through because I could, because it was the 'right', the 'courteous' thing to do.

Now I get to the point of this blog, if I can be courteous whilst driving my car, why can senior officers and ministers in our military/government not be courteous with each other and with each other’s projects; why does every military system have to be compared to every other military system? Yes we need to get the best for our needs; but why turn the argument over whether or not the Army gets its own or RAF UAVs into whether or not the RN should be allowed new carriers, or maintain control of its own fixed wing aircraft? Why is it then when the RN offers to help out the Army by sending more of its Commando Helicopters to Afghanistan, the RAF then jumps in about this testifying to the RN not needing fixed wing aircraft, and therefore not needing to buy the JSF, therefore Britain does not need to purchase the JSF, and as the RAF's magic Eurofighter's cannot fly off carriers - they are not needed either. Apart from this argument which was put forward in a magazine being terribly convoluted - it all smacks of obsession with self. There seems to be a rash of officers, both in American and Britain more obsessed with defending their own patch, and getting their own funding than providing their nations with what they need to defend themselves and their interests.

Now before anyone gets into the various debates of: maintaining bases in Germany, and Saudi Arabia vs. building aircraft carriers; whether we should build 3 or 2; or if they should be built nuclear or not; purchasing Eurofighters or JSFs; UAVs or Manned; IFVs or MRAP; in fact any of the debates wouldn't it be good if those fighting both sides admitted that the other systems do actually have some benefits; for example the RAF admit that the RN needs carriers and organic air power of a much better standard than it currently has; that the Army allows that the RN needs escorts and subs; the RAF allows that UAVs/MAVs dropping bombs will not win the war in Afghanistan alone; the RN could admit and allow the Commander of the RM to become a fully fledged member of the Chiefs of Staffs. Accepting this, and instead of making the debate 'you have to have one or the other based on partisanship'; you transform the debate based in the merits of the various equipment. Such a debate is what Britain, in fact what every nation needs; we need politicians, ambassadors, the public and most importantly all branches of the forces to get involved, to work out what the nation's current, future and supportable defence commitments are and are most likely to be; then design a force, and force structure capable of fulfilling those needs - perhaps with a little more than required, just in case.

Rebuffing the IPPR

2009-06-30T19:21:00.005+01:00

Never give in,

Never, never, never,

Never-in nothing,Great or small,
Large or petty,

Never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense.
Never Give In, October 29, 1941 Winston Churchill

I was going to write a stinging attack on Paddy Ashdown and the IPPR, who managed to write a report which recommended scraping every navy project, and greater still - not purchasing any American equipment or actually exercising with them as much; because it is Europe that is our future and Europe that is our greatest ally and commitment; however after reading the report, and realising how lacking in proper research (apart from the opinion of so called 'great men' of the past) and un-ashamedly biased and corrupt it was; with pages reading as if they had been cribbed from the former Commander of the RAF's article in the telegraph. So I decided to be balanced, methodical, and vaguely polite. I would also like to point outs in panel was surprisingly lacking from a balanced naval point of view; perhaps this explains why every system it seeks to cut or curtail is part of the Royal Navy's order of battle.

On a sub-note I would point out that the last time a power put its nuclear deterrent on aircraft, with cruise missiles, well accidents did happen - and who really likes the thought of nuclear bombs endlessly circling above our heads.

The phrase throwing the baby out with the bath water springs to my mind, when the say that whilst we cannot fault the strategic and tactical arguments for the nuclear deterrent, aircraft carriers, JSF (rather than Typhoon's...which they do not mention in spending review at all), or Type 45's(which are not in service yet, but they have been built, and yet they want to scrap them or sell them on); however, due to the strictures of the current financial climate we should cancel them all, and put of the Future Surface Combatant indefinitely. Okay, I know currently we are fighting a war in Afghanistan; but who knows where we will be fighting next? Who knows what forms of conflict there will be? What we do know is that aircraft carriers are useful; they provide on call air power where ever they are needed. As for the strategic nuclear deterrent, it is currently the only ace in our sleeve keeping us on as a permanent member of the Security Council; something which every foreign expert says is incalculable in its worth diplomatically and status wise. The T-45s are necessary in a world of cruise missiles; and whilst they do not have the t41 vls which would allow them to carry the SM-3 ABMM...they are pretty good, and could be upgraded fairly cheaply. as for the JSF's...the same arguments for an aircraft carrier, require that vessel to have aircraft, and the RAF has got rid of the sea harriers...so there is no other option.

Let’s all go nuts and piss of our best ally buy European, conform with Europe. This seems strange to me; as it is a German soldier in Afghanistan complains about a lack of a good bed..and if they see combat, then the whole company has to go back home for counselling; whilst this is not something to hold against the Germans - it is something to say that you should seek to have as much commonality with its more active partner; with the one who it goes to war with. We may someday see United States of Europe, I for one shall fight it democratically to the utmost; and if me and those like me fail...expect to see me moving to Canada, or Australia, New Zealand perhaps; but up until that point to do try and make something out of nothing, make an artificial connection because that is your dream, when the reality is very different.

Finally the bias. An attack on all these navy projects, well that must mean the RN is now not necessary. well its not surprising; you take a group of former RAF, and Army officers, and you ask them to write a free thinking paper on the future of defence spending...surprise, surprise the service which they can take the money from is the Navy...wow that was unexpected - please excuse the cynicism but I am getting a little fed up of this; we have to stop this destruction of our armed forces...these spending fights are turning them inside out, and this is going to lead to tactical problems in the battlefield. If only they united together against the treasury, then they would surely far more likely to succeed in getting what they need to carry out the missions that the British Government signs them up for.

And where are the FCO, in this piece I see no mention of them, I see no mention of their views on the aircraft carriers, and the strategic nuclear deterrent...even though these weapons are in the norm far more important to them and their work? I find this lack of involvement and lack of joined up long-term thinking and preparation a little disturbing, and disquieting; it seems so reactionist as to be dangerous.

So after writing all this, you will be wondering why I started off with Churchill, well apart from it being about time I did, I thought it would be a good speech for those who speak reason, for those who put forward a balanced strategy for defence. I support the aircraft carriers, I also support the army's need for troops, I am sceptical - although many are not and I do respect their arguments, of the value of the Typhoon fighters...what though I want to see, second only to an election, is a proper defence review; which instead of looking just to see what it can cut, is a review which says: these are our current commitments; this what we need to be able to maintain these commitments; these are likely commitments; therefore we need some other stuff to give coverage if they come true. That is the only way that any British government could fulfil its most sacred duty...defence of the realm, and the only way to rebuild the covenant between the political classes, the British people, and the forces which protect them...by allowing the forces to ask for and be given what they need to do the jobs we ask of them.

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Solomon

that is the problem, a few years ago the other services (army and raf) forced the RN to take on the sole burden of maintaining the strategic detterrent, and they managed to get the extra money divided equally between the three services!

yours sincerly

Alex

The Bay Class....Brilliant Motherships? or just Logistics?

2009-06-30T10:47:00.010+01:00

RFA Mounts Bay

Here are the vitals:

Crew: 60

What they can Transport :

Troops - 356, materiel - 1,200 linear metres of vehicles; including up to 32 Challenger II MBTs & 32 Warrior IFVs, or 150 land rovers, or various other combinations

12 x 40 TEU or 24 x 24 TEU containers

Landing Craft: 2 x LCVP Mk.5 or 1 x LCU Mk10, 2 x Mexeflotes

RFA Cardigan Bay

Overall Length: 176m

Beam: 26.5m

Draught: 5.8m

Full Load Displacement: 16,200t

Speed: 18kt

Range: 8,000nm

Propulsion:

Type: Diesel electric
Diesel Engines: 2 x Wartsila 8L26 engines (2,240kW each), 2 x Wartsila 12V26 (3,360kW each) engines

RFA Sir Bedevier...what the Bay Class replaced

WEAPONS

The ship design has included weight and space allocation for 4 30mm gun emplacements, a Phalanx close-in weapon system and decoy launchers for chaff and infrared flare rounds. there are also rumours that they can be fitted with a vls designed for the launch of sea wolf missiles...although these have not be substantiated by any official site or source in an explicit manner.

HELICOPTERS
The superstructure is located far forward to provide the large available space to the aft of the ship for the helicopter deck.

RFA Largs Bay alongside next to the Grand Turk

"The helicopter deck has the capacity for two landing spots and allows simultaneous operation of two medium-size helicopters"such as EH101 Merlin, or Sea King

The helicopter deck structure is reinforced for two static load points and will also support operations by a Chinook helicopter, an MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and Support and Amphibious Battlefield Rotorcraft.

A helicopter hangar is not installed as standard, but tempory ones (picture above) are often fitted to those vessles on counter drug operations in caribean, as well as those operating in the south atlantic; they are usually big enough to support either 1 medium or 2 light helicopters in shelter; although most rotor maintenance will have to be carried out on the deck.

My Analysis

I like these ships, they are very good at sea keeping, and can carry a lot, I just wish they were fitted with not for on the weapons, I also think a permanent hangar should have been included and a definite plus in my opinion would have been the construction of 6 or even 9 of these excellent vessels. The fact that they are 'D's of the amphibious trade means that they can operate Landing Craft with maximum ability; making them very useful tools of modern amphibious warfare - in both the logistical and tactical sense. The latter I added on because although they have only 350 troops as standard, they have been given enlarged shower facilities as well as larger than required galley spaces...meaning in overload they can take over 800 troops, or a full Royal Marines Squadron or a Army Infantry Battalion.

Overall the Bay class are great, but to have been really up to standard, there needed to be more of them.

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Cost: £400 million for all four; this included cost of design, and it would have been cheaper per unit cost had all the orriginal 6 considered been bought, going on final cost that would have made to total £528million...which would have made a unit cost of about £88million each, rather than £100million

Whatever Happened to the Type 45?

2009-06-28T11:10:00.028+01:00

Figure 1: HMS Daring

Abstract

This text is examining the appearance of the Type 45 Destroyers in the printed media, how various experts feel the program has been portrayed, and what could be done to improve the situation. It has discovered that there has been so small an amount of real coverage of the program that it is almost a joke. It has found that a nation which used to pride itself on its navy, and where practically every journalist could name off the top of their heads every major vessel in the Royal Navy. Now, they cannot even get the number of missiles carried in the navy’s brand new class of destroyers. It has concluded that the programme of procurement for Type 45 destroyer has included the MoD pursuing a media agenda which was actually counterproductive (whether willingly or not) to the Royal Navy getting what it asked for. Its findings reflect the fact that the UKNDA has been handicapped in its attempts to correct this and many other programs. Primarily this could be said to be because the UKNDA pursues an exclusive top down approach to lobbying rather than inclusive ground swell political campaign; simply put it is concentrating on influencing ministers and rallying former senior military personal to its standard, when the former have no wider body of ‘voters’ interested in the issue, and the latter are already prepared to pledge support; but are very bad at presenting either a united front or actively mounting a political front to effect the government. However, more than anything it is the current government forcing down the level of debate which has crippled both their actions and their attempt to build a wider base of support. In order to overcome this in the long-term a suggestion might be for them to try a populist approach to build up a wider foundation of support for complete defence procurement reform; as well as to enable to starting of an ongoing vibrant debate on the future operational requirements, strategy, shape and what is necessary for it.

Figure 2: Artists impression of a T45 firing an Aster missile in profile

1.0 Introduction

“I have not followed the programme closely, and to me there has been very little coverage of note in the press, and no significant discussion at Westminster.”
CG(2009)

The Type 45 class of destroyers[1] is arguably the Royal Navy’s most important vessel procurement program for 30 years[2]. These 6 destroyers, of which the Royal Navy originally asked for 14, will be the core protection, presence, and support of all future naval operations; whether they are in the Mediterranean (Freedman, et al., 1994), the South Atlantic (Woodward & Robisnon, 1992, paperback edition 2003), or East of Suez (Clapp & Southerby-Tailyour, Amphibious Assault Falklands, The Battle of San Carlos Water, 1997).

These vessels, whose primary role is that of ‘monkey-goalkeeper’; moving around the seas and the carrier (Fig 3) or amphibious task groups that they will be attached to with the roles of fielding cruise missile strikes and air attacks; whilst also providing fire support with their 155mm main gun[3]. They nevertheless have only the fittings for but are not fitted with anti-ship missiles, they are fitted with a Vertical launch System (VLS)[4], which even those who recommended it, advertise it may have to be upgrade to another; which was cheaper to buy in the first place. To this are added a litany of further compromises on the original requested specifications. Even with these issues, and costing about £600million for each, there has been limited, or no involvement by the media; this report asks two questions; what have the media reported on the Type 45, and why have they reported so little. Simply put, both these questions ask what the quote at beginning stated; why has there been no debate on something so important.

Figure 3: Artists impression of a Queen Elizabeth class carrier under way

2.0 Background

During the 1982 Falkland’s War and the 1991Gulf War I the importance of area air defence was consistently reinforced (Clapp & Southerby-Tailyour, 1997; Jones, 2008); unfortunately all the Royal Navy had was the Type 42 class destroyers (Figure 4). They were, and are still, armed with the arm launched ramjet based Sea Dart surface to air missile (Janes, 2006).
Figure 4: Type 42 class destroyer firing a Sea Dart missile

A replacement though was sought; originally this was to be a collaborative effort with France and Italy; in order to spread the cost, this was the Horizon Frigate project. Unfortunately, it was doomed from the very first due to the nations wanting different things from the vessels, and unlike with Euro-fighter project[5]; the navies were building enough the compromising was an option; thus FREMME (still sometimes called the Horizon Frigate, Fig 5) and the T45 destroyer were born. Italy and France had similar enough requirements to continue working together; whereas prior to 2004 the RN desperately needed at least 12 (it had by then been forced to accept the cuts already) Area Air Defence Destroyers or AAD’s as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) calls them, in July of 2004 it was cut to 8 (SPG Media Limited, 2009).
The T45 design was thus entrusted to British Aerospace Engineering (BAE), Britain’s largest, in fact one of the world’s largest, full spectrum arms companies. Through the borrowing of a lot of influences from both the Type 23 Duke class of ASW Frigates of the RN (Fig 6) and the Horizon project, a design was cobbled together with an initial order of eight being placed; after a strategic defence review had made further cuts.

The project continued, eventually leading to events of 2005, when HMS Daring’s keel was laid, the lead ship in class which due to budget cuts brought about by ‘unforeseen drains on the MOD finances’ (Afghanistan & Gulf War II), had been further cut to the figure it now currently resides at 6. They had also grown dramatically in price and austerity.

Figure 5: Horizon class Frigate of the French Navy

Figure 6: HMS Norfolk, a Type 23 class frigate

3.0 What has been reported?

“It has focussed on the gee whiz statistics and largely ignored the need for AAD and the question of why 6 is the right number.”
AL (2009)

The report of the type 45 has been heavily orientated within the direction of firepower and the equivalence to the Type 42s (Evans, 2006), which were considered inadequately armed even when launched 30 years previous (Ministry of Defence (National). C, 2009). The most obvious example of this focus is the quote Lord Drayson[6] in the Times “the most modern and powerful air defence destroyers anywhere in the world” (Scotland Correspondent, 2005); this is a very bold statement considering the world also contains the Arleigh Burke class of the United States (Janes, 2006). However, this is where the reporting comes in, the Arleigh Burk class are General Purpose Missile Destroyers; which thanks to the SM-3 missile[7] and their Aegis command and control system (and the SPY-2 radars) (Janes, 2006) mean they can hit ballistic missiles or aircraft the size of cricket ball’s, if ever that is necessary, but can also carry Tomahawk cruise missiles which can hit land targets with pin-point accuracy at a range of 1000nm’s (WGBH educational foundation, 2009), or can launch ASROC torpedoes at targets found by their own sensors or either of the two helicopters (compared to the Type 45’s 1) or the UAV’s(which the T45 does not have) that they carry’s sensors (Janes, 2006). Despite the comparison with the Arleigh Burke class the claim is based in some fact.

3.1 PAAMs

The reports point to the Principle Anti-Air Missile System (PAAMs)[8], talking about it as “the most sophisticated of its kind” (Leppard, 2009), as an ace in the Royal Navy’s arsenal; after all only one type 45 is required to defend London (Leppard, 2009) for the 2012 games. There have been considerations for installing the SM-3 on Type 45s (Pike, 2008), however as was stated in the introduction the Type 45 with the wrong VLS, it is fitted with Sylver A-50, not the Type 41 VLS, or even the Sylver A-70. The problem therefore is one of size of launcher, whilst the A-70 might have been upgradeable[9], the A-50 which was selected over the Type 41[10] for political reasons (and the Type 45s might still have to be retrofitted) is too small and too limited to be able to take the SM-3, or tomahawks, or even the less capable Tactical Land Attack Missile being developed by the French for the A-70 VLS[11].

Figure 7: Type 41 VLS missile range[12]

3.2 The way the Type 45’s design is presented

The comparative qualitative lacking of the Type 45 has been further clouded by the eye catching statistics such as each Type 45 has the firepower equivalent of over eight Type 42s (Evans, 2006); “weaponry capable of hitting an object the size of a cricket ball travelling at twice[13] the speed of sound” (Reid, 2007; Ministry of Defence (National). E, 2006); And that a Type 45 “generates enough electricity to power the Shetland Islands” (Reid, 2007). The fact remains that none of these statements really matter, it does not matter in a warzone whether or not a Type 45 could power the Shetland Islands, whilst being able to hit a cricket ball suggests a very accurate system - any missile or aircraft will be dodging and manoeuvring not travelling in a straight line, and the firepower of eight Type 42s does not matter as the Type 45 is not fitted with the technology to be in eight places at once[14]. These originated with the MOD’s own press releases such as is featured in Appendix F (Ministry of Defence (National). E, 2006).

3.3 The way the Type 45’s role is presented

“These ships will form one of the essential pillars of the Royal Navy in the 21st Century."
(Ministry of Defence (National). A, 2009)

Bob Ainsworth the Minister for the Armed Forces has been quoted by the Ministry of Defence as describing the “Type 45 is an immensely powerful state of the art destroyer that will provide a vital layer of protection from missile attack for the fleet” (Ministry of Defence (National). B, 2007); Whilst Quentin Davies the Minister for Defence Equipment and Security “These ships will form one of the essential pillars of the Royal Navy in the 21st Century". The Type 45’s are consistently presented as important and necessary for the future capability and operation of the Royal Navy in waters near or far from Britain’s own territorial waters; however only 6 are being procured.

Figure 8: HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, the LPDs which are the core of the RN's Amphibious Task Group
Figure 9: HMS Ocean the LPH which is so important to the RN's Littoral capability

4.0 Analysis of Interviews

‘To me there has been very little coverage of note in the press’
CG (2009)

AL (2009) classified the press coverage as simplistically positive and taken straight from the press release; the quote of CG is very much a reinforcement of this; but it is JM’s analysis of the press which is really interesting.

The emotive and highly expressive vocabulary that JM uses to describe the way the media interacts with their audience and the information available to them on topic of the Type 45 would suggest that he believes it is a more widespread problem than just the Type 45 program of procurement. It also points to a source of the trouble, targeting the MoD/Government’s ‘spin’ doctors as being responsible for giving cover to the undermining of the Royal Navy’s required number of destroyers. It is therefore an analysis which puts forward the view that rather than the press coverage just being non-existent in the most part and vacant in the rest, the press coverage was in places wilfully uninformed and in others was in a frame not suiting the seriousness of the topic.

Figure 10: 3D drawing of a Type 45

The seriousness of the topic though is something which comes up again and again in AL’s (2009) testimony, for example he states that “there is a glaring need to show the public that behind the statistics...is a vital mission upon which the safety, prosperity and food supply of this country depend”. AL doesn’t finish there though, making the statement that “No navy = No food, and no fuel”, a point which is probably the most salient to make in support of a stronger Royal Navy, in fact it is the most salient point to make in favour of a viable debate on defence, on what is desired for, on what is needed from the defence establishment and what is required for the forces to accomplish that.

This is different again from the way that JM develops it; he suggests that the RN did get the type and style of ship it wanted; although he is careful to avoid mentioning the words quality or quantity. The Royal Navy wanted an AAD[15], it wanted 14 of them, probably with a better VLS than the Sylver A-50; however it’s got just 6 of them, and according to JM (2009) it is due to the huge cost which was caused by MoD/government imposed cuts to the defence budget. This is an interesting point to put across and it’s probably more a product of the lack of media or public debate, in fact interest, in the defence procurement and planning process.

Figure 11: Selected point Picture HMS Daring

5.0 Conclusion

The programme of procurement for Type 45 destroyer has become mired in its own MoD media releases. They have focused on fun rather than serious, they give anecdotes about football pitches, cricket balls and one being enough to cover the whole of London, rather than have a radar system which can pick out sea skimmers at over a 100 miles, armed with Aster 30 missiles which can pluck said sea skimmers or in fact almost any aircraft out of the sky at a range of over 40 miles. Therefore instead of focusing on the Type 45 as a war fighting vessel with an actual role in modern conflict they have been putting forward a media program like they are advertising a kid’s toy or a book of 1001 interesting facts no one else knows. This is why the Type 45’s press has failed; this is why defence procurement gets so little mention of quality, because the MoD’s own press releases have pulled it down to a level below the lowest level of newspaper readers. The reason there is no debate is because defensive is a complex issue, defence procurement even more, and it keeps being driven down below the level at which it can take place.

6.0 Findings & Recommendations

The groups such as the UKNDA need to develop the capability of lobbying the court of public opinion as the only viable method of affecting government action. They are currently focused on lobbying a government which does not want to listen in the first and in the second would prefer to not have to pay anything for the forces it deploys around the world for its political/diplomatic ends. This is notably the converse opposite of America where defence spending and procurement is a very public issue. As an issue though it gets worse when you go from land to air to sea, the land has a visible battle Afghanistan and Iraq which it is fighting, the air is ‘obviously’ supporting the ground battle (even though the most successful aircraft are RNAS harriers); what is the role of the navy? This is not being announced to people of Britain, all that they hear and see are the failures verses the pirates, not the fact that it is lack of deployable escorts, with UAVs and Helicopters, which is holding back the counter pirate effort and merchant protection.

Figure 12: HMS Daring conducting pre-service entry trials

Primarily this has happened because the UKNDA pursues an exclusive top down approach to lobbying rather than inclusive ground swell political campaign. The UKNDA is concentrating itself on influencing ministers and rallying former military personal to its standard; when the former have no wider body of ‘voters’ interested in the issue, and the latter are already prepared to pledge support but are very bad at presenting either a united front or actively mounting a political front to effect the government. It needs to change itself from focusing at the very top, if the MoD drives the debate too low, the UKNDA is focusing too high – they need to bring the bottom, they need to bring the defence debate to the same level as immigration and hospitals; equally complex topics but they are still given more debating space because they are at the level at which debate can and will take place.

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[1]. Defined as vessel as greater than 6000 – 12000 tons and not nuclear powered
[2]. Whilst the Future Carrier (Queen Elizabeth Class) is also important, without the destroyers to provide a layered protection against the swarms of cruise missiles and any aircraft which might leak through a Combat Air Patrol CAP, then the carriers and the amphibious ships will be tragically exposed. Layered defence, that is CAP and long range Surface to Air Missiles SAMs are what are necessary to provide a full spectrum defence for a modern fleet far from home (Hill J. R., 1988)
[3]. This is to be retrofitted into the first two vessels of the class when it is opportune
[4]. VLS is complete system of both launcher and controls, including software, which allows for the operation of a specific range of missiles
[5]. The MOD has been on a buy European tract recently; but it keeps having to then buy American to get the equipment it needs, the Euro fighter is a perfect example of this as it is only batch 3 which will be able to launch the bombs required for modern warfare, whereas the Joint Strike Fighter JSF (Britain and America’s joint effort to replace the Harrier) is about 20% of the cost and even though it has not gone into production can launch or fire every weapon system either in use or projected
[6]. Minister for Science
[7]. SM-3, is the Standard Missile, the principle family American naval SAMs, they have multiple versions, with the SM-3 being the Anti-Ballistic Missile/Extended Range Area Air Defence missile; with a range of 250nm and a ceiling of 150nm. (Pike, 2008)
[8]. PAAMs is like the Aegis, it is a command, control and information system, however the Type 45 does not have phased array radar, and does not have missiles with the range of the SM-3 or SM-2ER
[9]. It is bigger, therefore might be large enough to take a modified missile, the A-50 due to its size is limited to Aster and Mistral missiles: the A-70 was selected for the Horizon class frigates, but when the project broke down the MOD changed and selected the A-50 in order to keep costs down
[10]. The Type 41 is probably the most common most tested VLS in the world; it carries the widest range of munitions available (Figure 7 is only about 25% of those available), because of its modular design it is capable of taking multiple sizes of missile. It is currently fitted in the USN’s Ticonderoga class cruisers and Arleigh Burke class destroyers, examples from the rest of the world include the Anzac class frigates of the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy, the Canadian Iroquois class destroyers, the Netherlands De Zeveb Provincien class frigates, the Israeli Navy’s Sa’ar 5 class corvettes, the Japanese Kongō class destroyers, the South Korean KDX-II & III class destroyers, the Spanish Álvaro de Bazán class frigates, the under-construction Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen class frigates, the German Navy's Sachsen, Brandenburg, and F125 class frigates and others.
[11]. In its RAF version it is called Storm Shadow and has a range (once launched) of 250km, its cost seems to vary though with Italy having paid $270 million for 200 putting it at $1.35million per unit, whilst the French senate is indicating it at €800,000 per unit or $1,117,760 per unit; the RAF have not disclosed what they paid for it. This is all compared to $575,000 per unit for the Tomahawks which are arguably better more proven systems.
[12]. From left to right, Tomahawk, VL ASROC, SM-2 IV (for runner of the SM-3), Aster 15, Aster 30, Sea Sparrow, and Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) quad pack
[13]. Some articles have three times the speed of sound
[14]. This point is especially important America has 61 Arleigh Burkes in its fleet and is still building, whilst Britain is only building 6 of the Type 45’s, which is only slightly better in design and slightly cheaper to build; but is so under armed and un-versatile in comparison that they should never be put next to one another lest the rest of the world notices how hollow the British claims are. Whilst Britain does not need 61 destroyers, to guarantee at least one to defend the UK, and two deployed at other places in the world 9 would needed, to accept any level of battle damage and extremes of situation 12, if not the 14 originally asked for, would be required. Although if 6 more were to be built then A-50 VLS would probably be replaced with the Type 41 VLS.
[15] The RN likes specialist vessels still, although this might be a reaction to the MoD/Treasury and the need to sell it to them. It is after all easier to sell a vessel which has a single visible focus or mission that is easy for non-area specialists, not to understand, but to quantify.

Contemporary globalisation has reached levels unseen since before 1914. Comment on the significance of this fact in the context of two of the....

2009-06-24T15:00:00.003+01:00

...following topics

Introduction

James Rosenau (Reich, 1998) describes globalisation as it is not:
“Globalisation is not the same as globalism, which points to aspirations for an end state of affairs wherein values are shared by or pertinent to all the world’s five billion people, their environment, their roles as citizens, consumers or producers with an interest in collective action designed to solve common problems. Nor is it universalism—values which embrace all humanity, hypothetically or actually.”

This when combined with the definitions of Higgot and Reich (Globalization and Sites of Conflict: Towards Definition and Taxonomy, 1998), and also Scholte (What Is Globalization? The Definitional Issue - Again", 2002) can give the following definition:
Globalisation is a term of economy and purchase where by companies or in fact any organisation spreads the costs of production and resource procurement between different nations, territories, or even continents in order to maximise profit by taking advantage of the situation within those places.

Armed with a working definition of globalisation it is now necessary too examine the title question through the use of two sub questions. The first to be considered will be whether or not resource conflicts are on the increase; first examining what are resource conflicts, then considering those which have become wars, those wars which were not resources conflicts and finally conflicts which have not escalated to the level of war.

The second question is that of considering two aspects of capitalism, and their impact upon globalisation. The aspects selected for this evaluation are Free trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) combined with Multi-National Corporations as a new ‘imperialism’. These are both of course cornerstones of globalisation, with free trade being the ‘best’ and ‘truest’ circumstances for the conducive conducting of globalised business model; whilst FDI is closely linked with the process of turning a company into a global force as it is only by investing in factories, workers and mineral rights within the poorer countries (directly investing or investing through intermediaries), the company can gain access.

Both questions will be concluded in their own sections before the conclusion of the whole work draws together the evidence from both to examine the significance of Contemporary globalisation attaining a levels financial fluidity and prevalence unseen since before the First World War.

Are resource conflicts becoming more or less endemic?

Virtually all conflicts fit the definition of a resource conflict; i.e. a conflict over or because of economic reasons such as mineral exploitation, trade, fossil fuels, and of course the oldest form of resource conflict over living space or farm land and people to tax. The problem that sometimes arises with such conflicts though is that there are so many different forms as well as reasons for resource conflicts; is it a conflict to deny or restrict access to a particular resource, to gain access to or control over the resource, to displace and replace a resource (i.e. people); or is gaining these various levels of control over such resources as are part of the dispute subsidiary to another wider dispute (i.e. cultural, religious or political). These are all questions which have to be decided before the conflict can be confirmed as a resource conflict.

There are however some wars which are straightforward when it comes to assigning them as resource conflicts. For example World War I can be assigned as one such straightforward resource conflict. In World War I there was conflict over empire; all the European powers wished for ‘their place in the sun’ or rather access to the raw materials needed to fuel the factories and arsenals of Europe which were so important to the powers sense of themselves (Kaufman, Little, & Wohlforth, 2007; McDonald, 2004). For Britain there was another resource which it sought to defend, from what it saw as German aggression; control of the sea. Much as the modern US dollars predominance in economic transactions gives the united states power, British military and mercantile dominance of the world’s oceans were what secured it the empire, and its place in the world (Churchill, 2004; The Churchill Centre and Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms, London, 2009; Lavery, 2006; McDonald, 2004).

World War II is much the same with Germany instead of attempting to build an empire external to Europe, aiming to take through force of arms ‘Lebensraum’ from what they viewed as the ‘lesser’ peoples of Eastern Europe; Poland, Ukraine and Russia. For the Japanese it was again a story of the desire for more natural resources; something which had become more urgent after the American government had cut the supplies of the resource that has kept on giving, in terms of conflict, oil. Oil was arguably the root cause of the British and French involvement in the Suez Crisis 1956; it was the cause of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; and according to some the real reason for the American led invasion of Iraq in 2007.

The future cause of conflict though is more likely to be the one thing more precious than oil; fresh water for drinking, irrigating, and practically every other basic life requiring necessity. The African Great Lakes region (Adebajo, 2002; African Union, 2008) and the Middle East (Mendoza, 2007; Bregman, Israel's Wars, A History Since 1947, 2000) are just two areas where water is already causing conflict; the latter area building on the already inflamed tensions of the Arab-Israeli conflict (Bregman, A History of Israel, 2003). A conflict which up till recently was mainly based in culture, ideology, and history has added an even more important element; life. This is similar to the Falkland Islands conflict between Argentina and Britain, which started off with history (Clapp, Commodore Amphibious Warfare 1982, 2007; Thompson J. , 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands, 2007) and has now added oil under the sea shelf to its potential victor’s prizes (Cronin, 2007).

Although of course the currently most famous resource conflict is the piracy of the coast of Somalia. This is where a very poor people are holding lots of very rich corporations, governments and international organisations to ransom in order to earn a living (Fellows, 2009; African Union, 2008; The Daily Telegraph, 2009).

The other major form of resource conflict is of course trade/tariff ‘wars’, such as the banana conflict when the EU was structuring its Tariff’s to favour former British and French Colonies (elsalvador.com, 2008); these in modern times are mostly decided by the World Trade Organisation. However, these themselves have escalated into full wars such as when Britain was in war time fight Napoleon’s armies, in peacetime fight the Napoleonic Continental system (Corbett, England in the Seven Years War, 2005, London/New York/Bombay/Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co 1907; Mahan, 1987, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1890). With the increase in globalisation some say these forms of conflict are over; others point to the growing militancy of labour movements revolting against the loss of jobs to cheaper less regulated peoples.

In conclusion resources conflicts are changing, they are less physical now than they used to be more focused on diplomatic posture; but when they do get violent they go all the way to total war very quickly. They are on the increase; especially in areas such as South America, Africa and the Middle East, where a combination of scarcity of resources, widespread poverty and political regimes which have both a history animosity and history of rapidly occurring extreme changes of those in power makes them all extremely volatile. These situations are only compounded by external interference and the factionisation which often results; that not only will the number of conflicts increase but they will grow in nations and numbers that they encompass.

Discuss two aspects of the development of capitalism from its origins which have continued to be part of the contemporary debates on globalisation.

Free Trade

Free trade, the theoretical counter to the causes of resource conflict, unfortunately there is also the counter that Germany’s biggest market in 1940 was Russia; however that is also countered, after all, both of those nations at that time were dictatorships and therefore not subject to the normal rules and restrictions imposed by a capitalist market on a democratic nation.

Therefore perhaps we should say that Free Trade stops wars between democracies; well leaving aside what some would say was the natural tendency of politicians from democratic nations to want to rely on their own strengths of jaw, jaw, rather than they’re commander’s abilities at war, war, this can make sense. After all the greatest advantage when revving a nation or people up for conflict is misunderstanding, it is playing on the cultural stereotypes to fuel the fires of indignation and pride (McDonald, 2004). However, free trade boosts contact, boosting cultural exchanges, and the relationships which spring forth from such interaction; all these things make it harder for politicians to build the case for war (McDonald, 2004). This is one of the theories behind the European Union, the more interconnected and interdependent the economies, the people of its nations become the less likelihood of conflict. However, some would also point out that the conflict has just moved from the arsenal to the parliamentary chamber; and whilst this may be good from the ‘war’ point of view, it does not mean there are any less conflicts in fact there are probably more as they take on such personal perspectives.

It is promulgated that if the nations are trading rivals, then free trade will decrease the chance of conflict because it will move the emphasis to the individual corporations rather than making it a case of national pride (McDonald, 2004); after all when it does become a case of pride it can actually increase the chance of conflict.

Many economists will argue that Free trade is the truest form of Fair trade, as it is only under a situation of no tariffs in fact no trade barriers of any kind does the economic and mercantile world seem to be a fair and level playing field. This fairness if implemented would benefit all nations involved by allowing supreme access to limitless financial growth; although recent events would suggest that that is no longer more than an idealised possible. Unfortunately, this would not be the case as without tariffs to protect the manufacture of goods and the operation of services being carried out ex-national then a lot of nations would simple go bankrupt and their own industry would be bought wholesale by the really rich American, British or Chinese Multi National Corporations; or they might not even bother to buy out the local opposition, they may just decide to undercut to the point that all manufactured goods or Wheat (for example) is brought in from outside; due to the cost in comparison of producing their own.

Globalisation = Empire

Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) are the main vehicle for the transfer of work/production from one national address to another, the main vehicles for undermining local economies and the main vehicles for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); or as some call it economic ‘imperialism’. It was argued prior to 2008 that the MNCs had lost their nationality; that they had become supra-national like the United Nations or European Union, and were now separate and powerful almost state-like organisations channelling the movement of capital (FDI) from one geographical area to another as it promised greater profit or greater influence and thus more power for a longer-term increase in profit.

However, with the recent banking crisis have caused many of this so called supra-national entities to suddenly become very national; for example HSBC ‘the worlds local Bank’ suddenly became ‘British’, General Motors became ‘American’ again (Abboud, 1009), in fact almost all major countries to a lesser or greater extent found themselves suddenly having to support these huge conglomerates which right up until before the crisis had been protesting their freedom, their power, their place in the world as being above/apart from nation states.

This has of course had a major impact on the flow of FDI; something which will have more of impact of the poorer nations whose economies had been reliant upon MNCs using them for the production part of the product process. In this case with the ‘re-naturalisation’ of the MNC’s governments are placing on them the requirements to build at home, to close factories abroad before they close factories at home; so as to protect their own economies (Abboud, 1009). As the economic crisis deepens the true extent of the FDI impact on nations economies is going to become very apparent; with countries Mexico going to need an increase in aid if it is going to carry on financing the Drugs War, without the part and unit production that has become so important to its economy.

Conclusion

Globalisation, free trade, these are both concepts which are supposed to reduce the chance of conflict by creating/fostering a ‘global world’ – this is not the same as globalism however. Globalisation is in its purest form when it is a Multi-National Corporation, moving parts all over the world, assembling, selling them again all over the world, minimising cost and maximising profit; removing the need for a conflict over resources as after all who needs to go to the costly business of sending arming when you can a send profit making entity to take control. The problem though is in the title; even with the huge levels of jealousy the empire period brought about; the fact was globalisation was present, and according to the title at a level which has not been seen again till the current era.

The significance of this should not be lost as whilst such trade and economic power is good it can build up unhappiness; with fresh water and oil both becoming such precious resources, how content are populations going to be if such resources are in the hands of foreign nations. This has previously been an argument countered by the fact that MNCs had apparently lost their ‘national identity’; something which the recent economic crisis has changed, perhaps irrevocably. This means that now foreign powers are controlling key resources, which are now key not only to national development, but thanks to Globalisation international development.

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The Logic of Cuts....not that logical

2009-06-22T17:51:00.006+01:00

In the current debate on cuts, all that is spoken about are Carriers, Typhoon fighters and other major projects; but is the right place to look? Britain maintains at great expense bases in Germany, Saudi Arabia and many others; but do we need them? And if not; why have these bases at all? These bases are cold war relics, the aircraft carriers are not – the RN needed them in the cold war but the RAF and Army vetoed them; hence the Falklands War problems. Even worse the bases in Germany are still defended with the visage of Hitler...if we leave he may rise up again; he won’t, he is dead; we do not need them anymore. What about the bases in Saudi Arabia, surely with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq they are worth the money...the short answer is no. Britain and the US were not allowed to use them in either conflict, and in fact Saudi Arabian bases are too far away to be of much use, if any, in Afghanistan. So to sum up these bases; they provide a rallying call for Islamic extremists, they provide no tactical assistance at all, with bases in Iraq they have lost their strategic value, and they cost money! These bases are of course the only ones; there are a multitude of Airbases and other facilities around the world that Britain purchases access to through the expenditure of hard currency. These bases, which may well never be used, but if such facilities were needed could be far more cost effectively provide by an aircraft carrier; after all aircraft carriers are built and maintained in Britain, their crews live in Britain, they do not employ foreign citizens in foreign lands, they do not take funds out of the nations own economy, in fact they often stimulate growth in the home technology and service industries.

The other accusations thrown at the Royal Navy is its fighting the last war...always an interesting accusation, this though should not be considered always a bad thing as it is represented; it is considered a sign of good character to learn from ones past actions, to not do so is a sign of immaturity. Therefore, learning from past actions:

1982 Falklands War, dependent on naval airpower for the entire campaign, one must ask the question...what would the outcome have been had the RN had a decent carrier? Would the war have taken place in the first place?
1991 Gulf War, carrier based aircraft provide arguably the most efficient 50% of the tactical air support, as well as also provide
1995 Bosnia & 1999 Kosovo, whilst being peacekeeping operations the preferred air support for the Peacekeepers was called from carriers...the reason being that it was felt the nice safe USAF and RAF bases in Italy damaged moral by bringing down massive airstrikes of a strategic nature, and then leaving, going home nice and safe and beyond easy call back range (unlike their carrier counterparts); whilst the peacekeepers were taken hostage or fired at by angry participants.
2001 Afghanistan, beyond the range of many land bases, the key troops were inserted by helicopter from amphibious ships, and whilst air support was provided by USAF from bases in central Asia, those bases themselves are now being closed by internal politics of host nations.
2003 Gulf War 2, due to the denial of land bases to USAF and RAF, the USN were the key providers of air support, providing at times up to 90% of the tactical air support, and with cruise missiles included a minimum of 54% of the strategic air strikes.

Finally I put forward these figures for your consideration before conclusion:
But he has a problem: so much of what the Navy does is invisible. Be it anti-drugs patrols in the Caribbean, anti-piracy patrols off Somalia, mine clearance in the Persian Gulf or intelligence gathering by nuclear-powered attack submarines, naval operations rarely make the news. The Royal Marines, the Navy's infantry, have distinguished themselves in Afghanistan but when a television viewer sees a Marine he or she is likely to think Army. The contribution of Fleet Air Arm Harrier and helicopter pilots to the campaign is also rarely noted. If it flies it must be RAF.
When the Navy did make the headlines in March 2007 it was in the most humiliating circumstances. Fifteen Marines and sailors from the frigate Cornwall were captured by the Iranians while inspecting vessels in the Persian Gulf. Images of detainees smiling their way through captivity were compounded by the inexplicable decision to allow several to sell their stories. Nelsonian it was not.
But public relations are only a part of it. Why does Britain, which shed its global empire nearly a half a century ago, need a blue-water Navy? Why not a brown-water one, a vestigial coastal defence force? The answer lies in some figures.
The United Kingdom remains a crowded archipelago of 61 million people reliant on maritime traffic for its survival. Shipping carries 92 per cent of British trade, as compared to less than one per cent carried by air. Tanker traffic – oil, chemicals and liquefied natural gas (LNG) – accounts for nearly 40 per cent of total maritime trade movements. LNG is central to future energy needs, with imports expected to rise by half in three years. The British-owned merchant fleet may not be the colossus it once was but still weighs in at 20 million tons. The raw materials and finished goods on which the UK depends must use nine global choke points which are easily blocked, and the country is still enmeshed in a network of treaties and informal arrangements requiring a naval presence. There is also the nuclear deterrent, a naval responsibility for 40 years..
"All truly great powers are maritime powers," says Lee Willett, senior naval analyst at the Royal United Services Institute. "Navies allow you to operate when and where you want, over the horizon or as a visible presence helping to prevent conflict."
From an Article in the Telegraph by Neil Tweedie (The Navy strikes back)
Published: 7:00AM BST 18 Jun 2009

So what am I saying with all this? I am saying that if the reason you have a base is political commitment it is cheaper for a ship to make a port call every so often than to maintain a base which is a tie to a particular regime, a particular set of commitments and of course a far larger cost; after all a corvette could visit many countries in an 18 month period, hold many drinks parties, and cause many occasions for everyone to get dressed up; but most importantly if you don’t like that countries human rights, or the current government it can skip past and visit their next door neighbour whom you do like.
I am saying that before the RAF and Army go pointing the finger at the RN they should take a look at their own budgets, and ask if they really need multiple jungle training bases, when most of the army is so over stretched I am surprised they still have time for basic training.
However what I am really trying say is you cannot fight 2 Major Regional Conflicts, 1 Minor Regional Conflicts and have commitments numbered in the double figures each requiring the maintenance of garrisons numbered in treble figures on a budget which is actually less than the average peace time commitment of funds; when compared to comparative powers, whose governments sign them up for less resource drains.

The simple fact I am arguing therefore, is that the forces need more funds not less, they need to stop fighting each other, and fight together to get these funds. I am arguing the Navy needs 3 aircraft carriers* (but it is just getting 2 and only half of the JSFs deployed on them will belong to it), 18 destroyers (it asked for 12 but it is getting 6) and at least 48 corvettes (asked for none, but they are cheaper and if you have 18 destroyers to provide core of escort fleet will do all that needs to be done whilst providing increased worldwide presence); the Army needs an extra 16 battalions of mechanised infantry (with decent armoured vehicles), an extra 8 squadrons of attach choppers as well as transport helicopters and they need new vehicles...desperately; the Air Force has fared the best in some ways under the current climate, but it is still suffering, it might have got its Typhoons but they need to be modified to Tranche 3 level to be able to carry the bombs and other munitions they need to support the army on the ground, they need helicopters to support the troops as well (if they don’t want them then they should allow the other services to buy them). I am also for the greater building of UAVs and amphibious forces; as I believe and will be posting on this in the future that sea basing is the future of humanitarian intervention, due to the benefits for keeping western troops especially out off bases which are surrounded by groups whom may turn hostile at any moment; however this article is focusing on the procurement of the platforms those systems would operate off.

The conclusion is this, the forces have been cut, further than they should of been, further than they would have been if the government had actually thought about more than the cost before making decsions. There is an old saying 'the price of everything and the value of nothing' well successive British governments have fitted this addage, they no price of armoured vehicle but not its value to the men sheltering behind it as they try their uptmost to carry out orders which will make their political masters happy, the know price of destroyer but they don't understand why the navy needs them, they don't think...what will that be used for? these masters know the cost of every nut and bolt of the aircraft they purchase, yet still they do not think...if that will be used for Combat Air Support...why did we not order the fittings for bombs to be attached? The unfortunate thing is this is likely to continue, until someone listens, and I don't mean to bloggers, to senior officers and former grandees, I mean to the facts, to the actual facts that are presented to them when they are presented honestly; and instead of just hearing the price tag they might hear what it does, and then might just buy what the forces need, rather than buying what looks good and costs right.

*3 carriers actually work out better value for money than 2, especially if the bases are closed, as they provide a guarantee of at least one read for operations immediately, and one either on operations or able to come online within 2 days.

************************************************************************************

singing to the choir is good...as long as you can get the choir to sing to other people as well

yours sincerly

Alex

Questionair - Type 45 AAD

2009-04-22T20:11:00.002+01:00

Questionnaire: Type 45 Report; is the main stream media coverage of the AAD procurement correct when it puts forward the premise that the program provided the RN with what it needed?

Purpose of questionnaire: MSc Research

Name:
Rank/Title:
Service history/Experience:

Question 1: How in your view have newspapers/media portrayed government’s handling of the Type 45 ‘Daring’ class Destroyer programme?

Question 2: In what ways do you think that this newspaper/media coverage been accurate or inaccurate in its representation of what the Navy needs and what government is supplying?

Question 3: In what ways do you think that this newspaper/media coverage has been fair/unfair in its representation of the programme?

Question 4: do you feel that there has been enough newspaper/media coverage of the programme?

Question 5: Any other information that you feel would be of value to the report?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anyone would like to complete this and send it to me, it would be most helpful, thankyou!

Alex

EU to control Gibraltar & Falklands

2009-04-03T20:21:00.005+01:00

Originally this was going to be a patriotic blood and guts rebuttal of the EU's temerity in even proposing this; however, the Military Historian in me, after a week of lots of work and lots of set backs on a professional level, still managed to triumph, so that instead of a Churchillian Fire and Brimstone preaching no surrender to unelected European bureaucrats and technocrats, I have chosen to use my knowledge, use my academic skills, use my ability to analyse evidence to produce an argument which makes sense, an argument which builds on logic not just emotion, an argument which is worthy of the debate it enjoins.

Well it seems fair to start off with by saying that my objections to the European Union are not just it is Europe; frankly that kind of thinking just seems wrong to me, I object to the Europe Union on the grounds I am about to outlay below:

The people of the United Kingdom’s of Great Britain are being drawn into a Federalised super state without ever getting a vote on it; I believe that in the case of a nation which claims to be the longest running continuous democracy in the world its citizens should get to vote on whether or not they sacrifice their nations sovereignty to a super state.
I object to the European Union because it has not been declared a federalised state; but is instead being built by stealth through a combination of smoke and mirror politics, and, unfortunately journalism as well as academia. This is wrong, the people of all the nations of Europe need to be allowed to make an informed decision, and whilst they do not have all the information delivered to them on a factual basis how can they do this? It seems just wrong in my humble opinion that when 70% of a nations laws are either made or highly influenced by a still amorphic state which has no clear or direct link to those whom its laws pass.
The European Union still has no proper checks and balances; if you are going to build a federal system, you need a Supreme Court, you need a Popularly elected leader, you need a clearly defined division of power between states and nation; you need a leadership which is not elected just by casting a vote as in a PR system (as the current is), but also another house which is elected by a First Past the Post system to give the voters a direct link to their leadership - to know who they are voting for, to be able to question and examine these people by their individual qualities not just by their party allegiance.

So here is the argument; therefore how can, before all the above is settled and agreed upon, Britain and France, and all the other nations in Europe unilaterally give up all their overseas territory and bases to the European Union

...and why do they need to?

After all last time I checked Britain is an ally of France, and Germany, if a war develops surely under these existing agreements such basing facilities as are available and are required; will be opened for use? Therefore why is this proposal even required? As for the European Union assuming control of the CVFs - the same applies, there are alliances in place, why therefore is it necessary to hand them over to the EU after the British tax payers have handed over a lot of money for them? Have the Royal Navy suddenly been exposed at being criminally negligent in its ability to run a decent navy? This has certainly not happened; the RN lacks enough escorts, and should be building 3 instead of 2 CVFs, as well as a larger amphibious and auxiliary fleet - but I am a major support of the RN so it could be colouring my judgement slightly, but this does not affect my judgement on the European Union.

What does affect my judgement on the European Union is my belief that before anything is done a vote should be taken on the state of membership within the union (a vote in which more than 80% of the population should be in agreement, it cannot be a 50%+1 vote, it has to be an overwhelming majority in order to give it legitimacy); then a proper constitution should be written with checks and balances as well as enough contact with the electorate that the electorate is connected to it; this constitution should then be voted on by the people of Europe (under similar circumstances to those mentioned above).

Finally I would also like to add that such a constitution, in my humble opinion, would also make the Queen of the United Kingdom’s of Great Britain & the Commonwealth, Queen of European Union and the Commonwealth - if it does not have that proviso then no matter how balanced it is, it will never get my vote.

Something of Interest...Can anyone see whats wrong?

2009-03-22T09:26:00.003Z

Friction at Sea Will Not Cause a Sino-U.S. Cold War

(http://watchingamerica.com/News/23528/friction-at-sea-will-not-cause-a-sino-us-cold-war/)

By Li JieTranslated By Ming Li20 March 2009

Edited by Christie ChuChina - People - Original Article (Chinese)

The standoff in the South China Sea between Chinese and American ships is just military friction being exaggerated against the backdrop of concern that the U.S. has had about Chinese military forces since the 2001 military airplane collision. This time, the action of the U.S. naval spy ship, in contrast to the cries of “threats by Chinese submarines” from senior American officials, is clearly a movement directed at China. Prior to the standoff, Lyle Goldstein, the director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College, pointed out in his book “China Goes to Sea” that the U.S. needs to calmly rethink its experience during the Cold War at sea with the Soviet Union, and try to avoid a “Cold War with China at sea” while dealing with the vigorously growing Chinese Navy. The standoff seems like proof for his concerns, but is it really? I don’t buy it.

The Disparity between the Chinese and American Navies Cannot Be Changed in Such a Short Time

It is undeniable that China’s increasing comprehensive strength helped China’s navy upgrade its armaments and markedly improve its degree of technology. Equipped with Chinese-made submarines, destroyers, frigates and warplanes, China’s navy has basically set up a weaponry system comprising of second-generation arms as its main body and third-generation arms as its backbone. This makes the Pentagon oversensitive.

In response to this standoff incident, an anonymous Pentagon official acknowledged that the U.S. spy ship was collecting intelligence in the South China Sea. This seems to indicate that China’s growing navy has posed or will pose a threat to America. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said that the Chinese submarine force has made great improvements both in quality and quantity, and the U.S. must hold onto its superiority in submarine technology.

It is undeniable that China’s navy has improved greatly in its fighting capability, but the gap between the Chinese and American navies is unlikely to be bridged in such a short time, as the American navy is also expanding with the most advanced and largest amount of nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers. Even Lyle Goldstein had to admit that the development of the Chinese navy cannot compare to that of the Soviet Union’s in the 1960-70s, as the latter had 380 submarines and was quickly making new ones in 1969. For the Chinese navy it would be impossible and unnecessary to build up that many submarines, either right now or in the future. And so there is no threat at all to the U.S.

The Strategy to Surround China Will Continue

The U.S. strategy to surround China will remain firmly in place regardless of how China moderates or restrains its military development. The U.S. has moved its military strategic core eastward in recent years, and built several island chains to blockade and surround China with the help of its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. Now almost all of the channels, except those located to the south and north of Taiwan, are controlled by the U.S., Japan, Korea and the Philippines. To further strengthen the marine blockade of China, the U.S. Army deployed not long ago B-2 strategic bombers, F-22 Stealth fighters and Virginia Class nuclear-powered submarines in Guam, the key hub for the second island chain. Moreover, the U.S. Army also invested a lot to rebuild Pearl Harbor into a strategic base for aircraft carriers and a base for strategic nuclear-powered submarines, which not only decreases the disadvantage of U.S. strategic forces being over-concentrated in their homeland, but also enables these strategic weapons to increase their deterrent powers and the ability to deal with all sorts of crises swiftly.

“Accidental Fire” is Difficult to Avoid Completely

The U.S. military deployments around China will not lead to a direct conflict between these two countries in the short term, but the strengthening of the U.S. military reconnaissance and military exercises around China might be an inducement that causes Sino-U.S. friction at sea. It cannot be ruled out that this standoff in the South China Sea is an event created by some members of the U.S. military forces who, taking advantage of the fact that the fresh Obama government has not had enough experience in military and marine affairs, produced a misleading impression among senior U.S. officials and in Congress that U.S. marine movements are often harassed, so that the forces would receive sympathy from the American people and support for military expenditure in this area.

It can be deduced that the U.S. Navy will continue its spy activities for military, hydrological and meteorological data in the waters near China or even in key Chinese waters and strategic channels. Therefore, similar “standoffs” will be hard to avoid, and some minor conflicts might occur. To deal with this, both Chinese and American military forces need to be adaptable and should increase communication with each other as soon as possible. They should also restrain themselves if and when an incident occurs, in order to leave room for diplomatic settlement. After all, neither China nor the U.S. would like to have their economies or politics affected by the friction at sea between them during a global recession. Both China and the U.S. should think clearly about this situation.

*****

To whomever, has the time, inclanation, or interest to read this blog, and specifically this post

Now normally I am not one to quote from other sources...I prefer to stand completely on my own, but when this came back on a Google search, well I just found it interesting enough to critique...and correct...ever so slightly.

Whilst I agree broadly with the last paragraph, that much as in the last undeclared war between superpowers that the two sides militaries need to talk a little, give a little, make friends a little...just to try and prevent sudden and catastrophic escalation...I also think this piece has been living off chasing the dragon a little to much.

For starters whilst the Chinese navy is the Peoples Liberation Army Navy, the US Navy is just that; and I think both it and the US Air force would take great umbrage at the suggestion that they are being told what to do by the US Army....I seem to remember the latter only truly one its independence in World War II, and ever since has been trying to prove that you do not need the other two to fight wars. I would also like to point out the Hawaii has been a heavily armed, central focus point for American Military activities in the pacific since a while before Mao's Long March; so it is not anything new, in fact I think there were carriers and subs there before Mao's Long March. The truth of the matter is that Hawaii is American sovereign territory, the current president even comes from there, it has been a naval/strategic military base for a very long time, and if you are going to take umbrage every time anything is done to improve its capabilities; well you are going to expel a lot of oxygen, for a very pointless reason, from your body for no effect.

I am also sorry to point out that the threatening deployment to Guam was an exercise, such a deployment exercise is common, china herself has engaged in them to the border with Russia on occasion; it is an unfortunate twist of fate that the paranoid people on one side insist on such things to check it works, and the paranoid people on the other side see it as an overt threat gesture.

Also whilst Obama himself is new to military, I don't think his administration is, in fact he has a lot of people in it positively bristling with both military and international relations experience. I also reckon, and this is just probably me being a little naive, that as the USS Impeccable was in International Waters, and unless the author is trying to claim that the Chinese fishing boats were under the control of the CIA; it had to have at least a 50% origin in china. Sorry, but the claim just does not add up, and if you are going to write about the importance of truth speaking and trust to calm the waters, then trying to use a illogical and slight dead-ended argument/story in an attempt...I am not sure what but I hope it was not to divide the president from his own armed forces, you are only going to succeed in making yourselves look, to be honest a little desperate.

The last point to be made concerns this statement "And so there is no threat at all to the U.S." I wonder at this point if the author has ever searched "risk fleet" in an internet search engine, if they do they will find out that whilst in quantity the German High Seas fleet could never match the British Royal Navy, it was designed to be big enough that if the RN went after it, it could do sufficient damage to reneder it impotent for the near future; I would argue that this is what the PLAN seems to building itself into, large enough to influence world events, and large enough to do significant damage to the USN before the comence of any end game scenario.

yours sincerly

Alex

Dream Carrier

2009-03-18T21:41:00.007Z

this is something written as an idea, to start a debate and to provide a point of reference within that debate...

So here it is, this carrier is designed to not only project its own bubble of defence, but to also be able to launch a significant strike group; it is designed to survive and fight in all likely situations.

Displacement: 70,000tons (aprox)

Range: infinite

Speed: 32kts

Crew: 400 + Air group + Marines (minimum to be carried 400) + Command Staff

Armament;

Saturation/Small Boat defence; 4* 57-mm Mk 110 Mod 0 Naval Gun System (mounted forward)

CIWS; 4* Phalanx + 4*RAM, these are paired up, in part to mimic the Kashtan system, in part because I do not believe 3 of one or the other can provide sufficient protection to make such an important and targeted vessel viable.

Multirole; 48/64 cell MK41VLS – mounted aft of the single island structure - these can be loaded with Tomahawks, Standard Missiles (2, 3, & 6) or Aster Missiles (15 & 30) and Asroc; all of which make the vessel potent, and capable of self defence against a myriad of threats; I am not of the school that believes you have escorts and carriers, especially in the case of the RN we do not have enough escorts, to have our carriers being barely armed.

Sensors:

Air Search: The same BAE Systems Insyte / Thales S1850M radar operating at D band as is installed in the T45 AAD -this is installed to allow it to act as its own destroyer

Air/Surface Search:

Command Control System: Suggestions please....I am not sure what to choose, and I know you lot will make some very good suggestions

ESM:

Sonar: this may have to be developed, because their does not seem to be one designed for ships of a carrier size

Communications:

Fire control:

all the blanks fit neatly in this, which would naturally be mounted at the top of the island; Thales integrated sensor mast - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sMgEsHC1Lc

Decoys

Chaff launchers/flares

DLH active naval off board decoy system as has been fitted in Type 45 AAD

Aircraft

Fixed wing Aircraft; 4-6 AEW EC3-D, 36-48 JSF/F-22N/Strike UAV

Rotary wing Aircraft; 4-8 Apache, 6-8 Merlin MK3 Junglie, 6-8 Merlin ASW, 6-8 UAV ASW

total; 56-78 Aircraft + 6-8 UAV ASW

Boats

4* LCVPs

8 * Launches/Assault Boats

4* USVs; http://nosint.blogspot.com/2009/03/sea-protector-to-fridtjof-nansen.html)

Propulsion: Nuclear power is best for vessels of these size, so I would pick two PWR as are installed in the RN's submarines...I am sure they would do the job nicely, and would provide enough power to split water into Hydrogen for fuel to power its escorts..Should they be switched to that as a power supply? Most importantly the Nuclear power will generate enough steam or electricity to operate catapults, for launching aircraft with far more powerful weapons load outs than a ski jump can provide.

Design

All edges are to be sloped 7˚ as in duke class frigates, cause like with the corvettes, I feel its radar imaged should be minimised, but full scale stealth boat is pointless due to size and expense.

coated in radar absorbing paint

Estimated cost; £2.4billion (compare to current Queen Elizabeth Class costing £1.2billion), and do you want know what, I would build 3 of them!

***** (19/03/2009)

Sven you started without so much as happy birthday, ah well here we go;

My general understanding for future carriers is that they should be difficult to identify for aerial opposition and difficult to detect for subs.That excludes large size, operation of untypical or powerful radars and the use of loud nuclear power.A very silent engine running on kerosene for 5 kts + electricity generation in the area of operations plus a cruise diesel running on kerosene as well would be my choice.Nuclear power is quite pointless unless you use the ship as sea control cruiser or have a fully nuclear powered battlegroup.
Or if you want to launch aircraft of a decent size + payload weight, whilst a Ski Jump is lovely, catapults are better. plus a nuclear powerplant does not generate smoke, or require a funnel thus removing the RAFs ruling that the aircontrol platform has to be seperate from the mechanicals...there will be none for it to be seperate from allowing for just one Island structure and reduced drag.

The right use of aircraft (take off with ski jump, low landing speed) enables CV operation with much less than 30 kts.Power requirements increase much more than speed, so there's a lot of weight, space and also some crew and money to save with a slower ship.
actually nuclear power works out as net cheaper over 40 years of service, and it is also far better in terms of crew and capability, plus this might seem strange but a faster ship is more useful as it can cover a far larger area.

I would limit air defense to about a corvette's self-defence suite - lightweight and compact.
Helicopters will carry lightweight torpedoes, so a triple torpedo launcher fired from the hangar deck would be a cheap improvement, especially as there are now some torpedoes (like a MU90 version) that can allegedly hard kill heavyweight torpedoes.
you would limit air defence to a corvettes self-defence, well lovely, but I would point out even the Italian navy has started fitting Aster 15 and many other weapons, and the Americans, Russians and Indians are all beefing up their defences to deal with the next generation of missiles. added to this the RN is always short of escorts, so I reckon the carrier will need to fulfil that role to an extent itself.

"launches":Protector is pretty much crap imho, hyped up but crap.keywords: "Troika" system with "Seehund" ROV in Germany, add two SRBOC launchers, a jammer (to attract home-on-jam missiles), an IR sensor for air target detection/tracking/ID and a SeaRAM (7 missile launcher).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensdorf_class_minesweeper

I like the protector myself, its nice and simple, and it works, you like the others, fine but I was just using it as an example, I myself would wager that by 2012/2014/2016 there will be better ones still, available for purchase.

AEW: An Erieye system on a Merlin (mounted like the Orchidée on Super Puma) would fly lower, but be superior in other regards; performance over land, ability to refuel (on escorts and picket ships) without disruption of CV deck ops, maintenance commonality with Merlin, no requirements for deck length and CV speed like Hawkeye.

I come from the nation thats produced the Sea King AEW and have seen a Merlin AEW...trust me I prefer the Hawkeye, it has a far better range of detection, and whilst you might like the idea of the AEW helicopter landing on a picket ship which was not designed to take it, I don't...I have watched the difficulties of landing them on an unprepared land base...(this next bit added in later...) however there are cost and their are advantages and disadvantages, the fact is Hawkeye is better if Britain can get it/wants to afford it because simply put it has a more powerful radar, greater range, greater speed, and longer endurance which combine to give it a larger radius of effect - but if its decided perhaps for logistical synergies as well as cost reasons that its best to have as fewer different types of aircraft as possible, then the merlin successor to the sea king is the obvious choice and the question becomes why don't we have them rolling off the production line already? afterall the italians have some, and rumours suggest we have a better radar than they do...

Greatest problem:CVs are useless for the defence of Europe or the UK. The range of land-based aviation increased too much with midair-refuelling - carrier aviation has no defensive purpose (helicopter ASW CVEs could quickly be built on container ships if necessary).

okey for starters, what about supporting troops abroad in foreign lands? or amphibious/naval task groups operating far away from Britain, I am sorry I don't care much about Europe. (this next bit added in later...) I would also point out that during the problems caused by a Volcanoe errupting the aircraft carriers were able to move and provide air defence whilst the land based aircraft were imobilised...furthermore during world war II the Royal Navy operated quite successfully in the mediteranean more often than not in range of enemy air - yes they took lossess and damage, yes they were not always successful, but they pulled off many very large and very precarious operations in the face of this threat, and whilst aircraft and their weapons may be better today, so are the weapons which the navy has to oppose them with.

Even three 70 kt CVs are merely good enough to weak small country. The "Dream Carrier" lacks a justifiable strategic raison d'etre.

the dream carrier has the strategic raisin d'etre, is that they are there for the visible projection of power on a strategic level, whilst also providing support and succor for forces figthing far away from home bases.

Sven, I hope this answers your questions

yours sincerly

Alex

*******(19/03/2009)

Sven

I'm not much into small talk and such.Those who know me learn to appreciate my ways over time or break contact.

Sorry, that was a joke, british sense of humour, whilst it is my birthday, I certainly don't expect congratulations,
---

"the dream carrier has the strategic raisin d'etre, is that they are there for the visible projection of power on a strategic level, whilst also providing support and succor for forces fighting far away from home bases." That's pretty much what I call "not justifiable". It's not related to defence, neither self-defence nor collective defence in our alliance. Distant places are by definition no threat to our security. They cannot invade us and can hardly bomb or blockade us from afar.

North Korea is a distant place, so is Afghanistan, one is building missiles, the other was send terrorists all round the world... I am sorry sven but there is no such thing as local defence anymore in the global age, and whilst Europe might still be obssessed with the continetal strategy, the British have always been spread all over, and that requires we be able to postion ourselves all over.

A CV battlegroup with three carriers, about a dozen necessary escorts, participation in a special aircraft project for the carriers, keeping this force effective for decades, a workforce loss of thousands of people etc - the average annual cost to the nation is far in excess of a billion pounds.Far more than a billion pounds annually - for the mere capability to bully foreign, distant countries and to meddle in other continent's affairs instead of caring about domestic challenges? Or for prestige? Sorry, that's billions wasted as long as I could discuss domestic problems facing every country in Europe for hours without a pause. Your country is pretty much broke(n). The damage done to the economy is much greater than the mainstream media tells the people. This is no crisis for two or three years that goes away - it's a symptom of an economic structure that raced into a dead end for decades and crashed at its end. GDP about $2.8 trillion in 2008, trade balance deficit about $180 billion in 2007 - about 6.5% deficit. The military expenditures were about 2.5%. The efforts needed to fix domestic problems require a lot of the society's fiscal power, motivation, attention, brainpower and time. Expeditions and adventures overseas are simply a waste of these scarce resources.A CV can be a tool in a national security strategy - but it's a hollow shell with no purpose if it doesn't fit, and a British national security strategy needs to exploit our relatively calm times to spend resources on fixing domestic problems. The Spanish, Ottomans and Soviets demonstrated the effects of a ruined domestic economy on national security in the long term.

very nice fiscal analysis, I have many economic specialist though who are independent and tell me it is not as bad as it looks. however, I will get to this at the end. building a CVN+Battlegroup would actually help us, as the areas of employment we are suffering in is mainly car manufacture and other industries which have been closed down by their parent european companies in order for them to maintain the factories in their home countries going...so please don't get me started on the europeans, and how brilliant they are for the british economy, this means these unemployed could be given work building the ships; a bonus of this is that as money spent in these areas would be spent locally it works as a more productive form of job seekers allowance... it would also allow us to build up our defence/manufacturing industry, the former is one of the few areas still bringing in large amounts of foreign currency - with the revamped ship yards I would request that the british shipping firms by their merchant ships/cruise liners in the UK offering them tax incentives to do so.

Added to this Britain is not just part of europe, Britain is also part of the UN Security Council and the Commonwealth; both of which require far flung deployments of troops, as well as other personal and material. These operations require support (it is often forgotten that Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and both of the Gulf Wars had large amounts - in some 85% of their air support flown from carriers, and of course British Forces in the Falklands were entirely reliant upon it). As for fixing domestic problems excetra which you seem so worried about, might I suggest that stop obssessing with so much you see on the news, I know from many friends all around the world and their reports to me that Britain is not doing that badly compared to some others, and I hope that with the next election the government will be changed and that the new incumbents will be more proactive with dealing with the current difficulties. Finnally I would also point out that leaving Europe would free up about 8% of our national budget, as well as another 4% spent on compliance, so that is 12% from European Union vs 2.5% on Defence, I know which I would cut first.

----

Your design would be a great target for SSKs, by the way.

This would be the SSK that would be the target of the 8 ASW helicopters on the Carrier itself, plus 10 more on the escorts and auxilaries in the battlegroup. Added to this you have the fact that whilst an SSK is very quiet once in place, it is not as quiet when it needs to charge its batteries, and is tied in place/operating era, so once it is discovered it either needs to move or is easily avoided/hunted to distruction. Even if the SSK does make it close enough to target the carrier, if it did fire it might hit a decoy, but its chance of being alive for that long would not be very great.

yours sincerly

Alex

***** (19/03/2009)

Kobus

Be aware, a CV is an purely offensive unit. Do not use automatic self defence weapons, you don´t want to kill an aircraft returning with an emergency.You´ve got destroyers, frigates and submarines to protect you when the aircraft are on board. Forget the sonar, you´ve got ASW helicopters.

whilst I can see your point, I do believe the deployment of carriers can be a defensive strategic tactic and is always something worthwhile having up the sleeve.

as for the defensive cannons, whilst I have heard that argument before, in practice we still deploy these weapons on the RNs carriers and the US's carriers, because the benefits of such weapons far outweigh the negatives when you are facing a saturation level missile attack.

yours sincerly

Alex

******(20/03/2009)

Mike

Arrgh! Since its your birthday, I bite my tongue.Except to say, with a hybrid carrier/missile ship/amphib I think you will need a bigger budget. Oh, those choppers will need to be airborne constantly to deal with SSK's. maybe UAV's instead?

well I increased the budget, and added UAVs to supliment the choppers...mainly keeping the latter cause at the moment they carry better torpedoes.

and thankyou mike for your kindness

yours sincerly

Alex

Carriers Fully Loaded - Vikradmaditya

2009-03-12T11:43:00.011Z

2.2 Modified Kiev, Vikramaditya India (Russia)

Figure 15. Vikramaditya

Class/Brief History of design

Figure 16. Vikramaditya when it was the Admiral Gorshkov

The vessel was laid down in 1978 at Nikolayev South in Ukraine; it took four years to build the vessel, it was physically launched in 1982. However, it was not commissioned until 1987; due in primary to software bugs in the new command and control system. The vessel was originally called Baku, but was renamed after Admiral Gorshkov when the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the city of Baku as part of the newly independent Azerbaijan. Between 1991 and 1994 the Admiral Gorshkov was the principle aircraft carrier of the Russian navy. However, it was in 1994, following a boiler room explosion, that the Admiral Gorshkov was docked for a year of repairs. Although she returned to service in 1995, the vessel had lost its importance and she was finally withdrawn from service in 1996 and offered for sale in 1997.

On the 20th of January 2004, after almost 8 years of bilateral and trilateral(with china) negotiations, Russia and India signed a deal for the sale of the ship, the then- Admiral Gorshkov. In the end the deal from the perspective of both sides was sweet, for India the ship was free; for Russia, India agreed to pay US$800million for the necessary upgrades and refitting of the vessel. Russia also achieved the added bonus of at the very minimum an additional $1bn for the aircraft and weapons systems. This part of the deal included the purchase of 12 single seat MiG-29K 'Fulcrum-D' and 4 dual-seat MiG-29KUB aircraft, 6 Kamov Ka-27 "Helix" anti-submarine helicopters, as well as torpedo tubes, missile systems, and artillery units. The Russians also agreed to open their facilities and procedures for training pilots and technical staff; the delivery of simulators, spare parts, as well as the establishment of maintenance on Indian Navy facilities were also part of the contract.

Outline of Design

As the Admiral Gorshkov, the vessel was, as is shown by Figure 16, a cruiser with a runway tacked on to port side. Like the Admiral Kuznetsov, the Admiral Gorshkov was heavily armed. Its fore deck is dominated by the 6 twin SS-N-12 Sandbox SSM launchers. It was a heavily cluttered design unlike the successor of the Kievs the Admiral Kuznetsov. There is a reason for this in the Kievs the cruiser was dominant over the aircraft carrying, but in the Admiral Kuznetsov this was reversed; a difference not unlike to that from Admiral Gorshkov to Vikramaditya. With its new name, the vessel has become a carrier, no longer and Aircraft Carrying Cruiser.

Figure 18. Vikramaditya Plan

As can be seen from Figure 18, the upgrade plans for the conversion of Admiral Gorshkov to Vikramaditya have involved stripping all the weaponry from the ship's foredeck to make way for the revised Short Take-Off But Assisted Recovery (STOBAR) configuration. This will allow the vessel to operate far more capable aircraft than it did in its previous form; however it will still be restricted by its small hangar space, Figure 18. In fact according to that plan there is space in the hanger for just 14 fixed wing aircraft of the type selected (the Mig-29k), and 4 rotary wing aircraft (Ka-27 family). What is most interesting though about this early plan is that it shows just one take off position; whereas the more recent models (Figures 22 & 23) clearly show two; as the vessel is not yet finished this is hypothetical conjecture, but if it has the space for two such positions it would both simplify and accelerate air group operations.

Figure 19. Vikramaditya Deck Operations/Hangar Plan

Weapon Systems/Sensors

Figure 20. Admiral Gorshkov

As the Admiral Gorshkov the vessel had almost as impressive a range of firepower as the Admiral Kuznetsov, the mounting of 6 twin SS-N-12 Sandbox SSM launchers, 12 missiles, on its foredeck being a key part of this. It also had 24 of 8-cell SA-N-9 vertical SAM launchers, for a total of 192 missiles, and even 2 100mm deck guns; although whether it would have got near enough to its opposition to use them remains to be seen. Like the Admiral Kuznetsov it the Admiral Gorshkov had 8×AK-630 30 mm CIWS. Again like the Admiral Kuznetsov, and in the spirit of a battle group operating far from home and safety it was given an impressive ASW outfit; including 10 × 533 mm torpedo tubes (again like the deck guns – would it have ever been able to make use of these?), and 2 RBU-6000 anti-submarine rocket launchers. All this weaponry allowed the vessel to be incredibly self-dependent for an aircraft carrier; it also gave it a strength which most of the other navies that operate aircraft carriers seem to have been almost adverse to doing so with their own.

The big hitter of this weapons outfit, and the only system I will discuss from this list, as we are considering the Vikramaditya not the Admiral Gorshkov, is the SS-N-12 Sandbox SSM. These as can be seen from any picture of the Admiral Gorshkov (Figures 15, 19 & 20) was dominated by these huge silos mounted in pairs. This missile was both the numerical and the technological predecessor of the SS-N-19 Shipwreck, discussed previously. The SS-N-12 was physically bigger than the SS-N-19, however it was still dangerous with a range of 550km[1], and speed of about Mach 2.5[2]. It was then, and still is a weapon system which it is not easy to discount, especially when just one hit of its 950kg semi-armour-piercing high explosive warhead has been seen to break the back of both old warships and freighters in exercises.

Figure 21. Admiral Gorshkov to Vikramaditya

As is shown in Figure 20, one of the key features of the transformation of Admiral Ghoshkov to Vikramaditya is the elimination of its weapon systems in favour of a larger and far less restricted operational deck area. However, the Indian navy does not go in for sitting ducks or white elephants when it comes to its large ships; thus like the Admiral Kuznetsov the Vikramaditya is to receive 8 of the very capable, and still one of a kind (in that it combines both missile and gun under one)CADS-N-1 Kashtan CIWS[3].

Aircraft Carried

The Indian Navy looked at equipping the carrier with the E-2C, but decided not to, as the fitting of catapults, and their supporting apparatus would have been very expensive, and most importantly the lifts have not been built with such aircraft in mind; and the question of whether they would fit must most certainly have had an impact on the decision. The air group it is expected to be a either a mixture of British and Russian origin aircraft; the actual types are Sea Harrier, Mig-29k, and helicopters of the ubiquitous Ka-27/31 Helix family (both ASW and AEW).

Mig-29K/KUB

Figure 22. Mig-29K taking off from Admiral Kuznetsov

This is the naval variant of the very successful Mig-29 the “K” does not stand for a new type by just for deck based; by this it means that the airframe has been modified with equipment such as folding wings, arrestor gear, and reinforced landing gear. The aircraft was originally intended for service upon the Admiral Kuznetsov class aircraft carriers; this did not happen however even though MiG received series production approval from Russian Ministry of Defence; however this was stopped in 1992 due to shift in military doctrine and state financial difficulty. MiG Corporation restarted the program seven years later on a semi-private basis making vital improvement to the previous design (specifically in the area of landing gear – which on original would have had a very high attrition rate). On 20 January 2004, Indian Navy signed a contract of 12 single-seat MiG-29K and four two-seat MiG-29KUB(training aircraft) with delivery to be between 2007 and 2009.

Further modification was made for Indian Navy requirements; now this is standard for all Mig-29 aircraft currently under production. These modifications included the installation of the Zhuk-ME radar, the newly developed RD-33MK engine, an increased combat payload up to 5,500 kg, 13 hard points (this number is inclusive of those provided by the multi-lock bomb carriers); most importantly additional fuel tanks have been inserted into the airframe, they are situated in the dorsal spine fairing and wing LERXs, these have increased total fuel capacity by 50% when compared with that of the first variant of the MiG-29. All these new capabilities are brought to bear through the use of the updated 4-channel digital fly-by-wire flight control system; Russia’s evolutional equivalent to that installed in the Eurofighter Typhoon. The Mig-29k has also been given the advantage of special coatings radar reflecting ‘paint’ which has reduced its radar presence to between 20% and 25% of that of the basic MiG-29. The MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB aircraft are equipped with an in-flight refuelling system and also have the facility (when fitted with extra tanks) to be used as in-flight tankers, if they are furnished with the UPAZ refuelling pod.

The cockpit has had pilot visibility/awareness improved through the installation a full-sized two-seater style canopy on both MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB aircraft. The Cockpit has also had its displays improved so that they now consist of wide Head Up Display (HUD) and three (seven on MiG-29KUB) colour LCD Multi-Function Displays (MFDs), in the Indian models only the French Sigma-95 satellite GPS module has been added, however all have been provided with the Topsight E helmet-mounted targeting system. The Mig-29K is fully compatible with the complete range of weapons carried by Russian Air Force’s MiG-29M and MiG-29SMT aircraft. However due to all these improvements it has received a new NATO reporting code, the Fulcrum-D; this in many ways is its ultimate accolade – it is such an improvement its ‘opponents’ have to give it a new name.

Sea Harrier

The Royal Air Force's Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1s had entered service in April 1969. In 1975 the Royal Navy ordered 34 Sea Harrier FRS.1s (later FRS1), the first of which entered service in 1978. In total 57 FRS1s were delivered between 1978 and 1988.

The Sea Harrier was largely based on the Harrier GR3, but was modified to have a raised cockpit with a "bubble" canopy (to give better visibility for the air defence role) and an extended forward fuselage to accommodate the Ferranti (now BAE Systems) Blue Fox radar. Parts were changed to use corrosion resistant alloys or coatings were added to protect against the marine environment.

Figure 23. 2 Indian Navy Sea Harriers, and an F/A-18 from the USS Kitty Hawk on exercise

The cockpit in the Sea Harrier includes a conventional centre stick arrangement and left-hand throttle. In addition to normal flight controls, the Harrier has a lever for controlling the direction of the four vectorable nozzles. The nozzles point rearward with the lever in the forward position for horizontal flight. With the lever back, the nozzles point downward for vertical takeoff or landing. The Indian Navy is in the process of upgrading up to fifteen Sea Harriers in collaboration with Israel by installing the Elta EL/M-2032 radar and the Rafael 'Derby' medium range air to air missile. This will enable the Sea Harrier to remain in Indian service until beyond 2012, and also see limited service off the new carriers it will acquire by that time frame.

The Indian Navy is currently interested in acquiring up to eight of the Royal Navy's retired Sea Harrier FA2s in order to maintain their operational Sea Harrier fleet. Which consists of 13 Pegasus 104-powered Sea Harrier FRS51s. If the deal goes through it will have to involve ongoing support from BAE Systems and Rolls Royce. The sale will not involve the Sea Harrier FA2's Blue Vixen radar, the RWR and the AMRAAM capability. Certain US software will be deleted prior to shipment. With the loss of another Sea Harrier on 24 December 2007 (attempting a vertical landing, pilot ejected to safety), the total number of Sea Harriers with the Indian Navy has fallen to 13. India purchased 30 Sea Harriers in 1983, using 25 of these for operational flying and the remaining to train pilots. Since then seven pilots have died in 17 crashes involving the Sea Harrier and more than half of the fleet is now gone, lost mostly to routine sorties.

History of Service

Figure 24. Vikramaditya (top)

Figure 25. Vikramaditya (front)

Not yet in service as Vikramaditya so no history to give.

[1] Pike, John. GlobalSecurity.org: SS-N-12 Specifications. 22 April 2006. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/ss-n-12-specs.htm (accessed February 22, 2009).
[2] some sources say Mach 2.6, others Mach 2.4, and some say Mach 2.5, the latter was chosen as it is the middle so whatever it actually is, it is approximately right
[3] Please read the Admiral Kuznetsov report, specifically pages37-38, for more information on the Kashtan CIWS

******
for some reason not all the photos will load, will try and sort this out over the coming days

Alex

****

Kobus

you might want to look at the video attached to the dream corvette post

Alex

Dream Corvette

2009-03-03T20:11:00.018Z

In responce to Mike Burelson's recent posts, I have decided to generate some specifications for a general purpose corvette, to service the Royal Navies requirements, what do you think?

Displacement: 1500-2000tons

Range:10000nm at 18kts

Speed: 29kts

Crew: 60

Armament;

1* 57-mm Mk 110 Mod 0 Naval Gun System (mounted forward)
2* two 35 mm Millennium CIWS guns mounted towards rear on either sides of hangar - these have been chosen allong with MK110 (which can be used in the CIWS role), now the reason I have put two in is due the desire for these ships to be capable of surviving a heavy missile attack and as added defence against swarms of motor boats - something which could present in the modern littoral enviroment; however I must admit it would be cheaper to mount 1 centerline on the hangar - this combined with the MK110 would be purfectly servicable if not as powerful as I would personally prefer
24/32 cell MK41/53 VLS – mounted between hangar & bridge - these can be loaded with Tomahawks, Standard Missiles (2, 3, & 6) or Aster Missiles (15 & 30) and Asroc - which if mounted then torpedoes might not be fitted to save costs
2*two stanflex containers, initially to be loaded with 16 harpoon SSM – mounted forward of bridge in ‘B’ position
2* TRIPLE torpedo launchers – to flank the vessel; as back up if the others fail

Sensors:

Air Search: The same BAE Systems Insyte / Thales S1850M radar operating at D band as is installed in the T45 AAD -this I would like too install because I think a corvette given a general purpose role will need a good air search radar, although this might make it too top heavy
Air/Surface Search: SMART-S mk2 is my first choice as this will also provide a measure of Air Search as is to be installed on the Project Khareef
Command Control System: TACTICOS - because it is good, of the shelf so not expensive, and has been proven to be a system of choice for corvettes
ESM: Vigile 400 ESM, after reading about it in the article on Project Khareef, I looked it up and felt it was the right choice
Sonar: Type 2050 medium-range bow-mounted active / passive search and attack sonar the same as is in the Type 23 F
Communications: Shaman communications-band electronic support measures (CESM) system
Fire control: Thales Naval Nederland - as is fitted on the German K130 corvettes

Decoys

Chaff launchers/flares
DLH active naval offboard decoy system as has been fitted in Type 45 AAD

Aircraft

1*Super Lynx & 1* UAV, or
3* UAVs

Boats

2* Launches or
1*Launch & 2*USVs (like this http://nosint.blogspot.com/2009/03/sea-protector-to-fridtjof-nansen.html)

Propulsion

Gas driven waterjet system. With instead of a conventional funnel, a waterline engines exhaust system will be used. This configuration will reduce the vessels thermal signature as well as benefiting operations by allow a 360° vision capability from the bridge.
From Sven; a combined Stirling-electric engine with a propeller (not as efficient as diesel, but very silent) and a sprint gas turbine with forward/center waterjet.
Hydrogen will be considered as an option

Design

All edges are to be sloped 7˚ as in duke class
coated in radar absorbing paint
however will not be designed as a ‘stealth’ ship

Estimated cost; £55-65million - a bargin!

So what do you think?

*****

This is the third draft taking into account all that has been discussed

*****

That is a good corvette, but the http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/ is better in its range and capabilities, and I think they can be bettered still with the adition of decent VLS, and built of a slightly larger size than some which are built now - although although the Sigma class is more of the size I am interested in employing; Project Khareef http://www.naval-technology.com/features/feature1476/ is a prospectively good example of this, if the next three that are planned to have Type 41 or 53 vls installed are built.

******

Terry

in reply to your post;

My personal observation is that a netted architecture is invaluable when working with other ships, aircraft or sensors. It is a true force multiplier allowing one unit to share time/space/position data of the good and bad guys with others. Assume Link-16 at a minimum and maybe something more robust at the higher end.

this was considered standard, but there are a current number of specialist ones being developed for various corvette classes in production; I did not want to make a selection to soon - although the Royal Navy does have its own standard one, so a version of this might be installed

Other thoughts:

1. 60 is too small a crew. Try a work force analysis with all of the funtionality that you envision and these guys will never sleep.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/ - I would point too the swedish visby class corvette, whose compliment is 43, but crew is only 20 - the other 23 are mission applicable

2. Get rid of the helo.

I agree with this, but I included it as a considered option because the reason the RN keeps giving for building frigates instead is that they need the 'force multiplication value' which comes from helicopter operation; I think personally if you need the helicopter send a bigger escort!

3. I like the USV, but there continue to be C2 issues with these guys: seemingly more complicated than a UAV to control.

have you seen the Rafael USV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_USV? there are others like the Seastar http://www.aeronautics-sys.com/?CategoryID=264&ArticleID=207 ; these systems have been itegrated and up and working for a while, to my mind they are more useful than a helicopter for a corvette; as any vessel working in the littoral will need capabilities they will provide - the Protector is my favourite, as it is proven, and is very much off the shelf.

hope this answers your questions

Alex

*****

Sven, I will attempt to answer your questions - there is no such thing as a pessimistic comment, I feel if you can not defend your ideas against all angles, they are obviously not as well thought out as they should be.

crew - likely much too small
I can see your point by, but as the swedish visby has a crew of 43, and the K130 class of the German navy (http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/k130corvette/) is only 50, so I feel I actually gave it more than will be needed

Range - this is unnecessarily long. This is not meant to be a cruiser, after all.

I chose the range because whilst it might seem unnecessarily long, it will provide with a very wide range of independent unsupported action; purfect for Britains wide flung commitments, as well constant operations in the south atlantic.

guns - lacking a manually or remote-controlled autocannon or machine gun mount for very close encounters

The 57-mm Mk 110 Mod 0 Naval Gun System (mounted forward) combined with the two 35 mm Millennium CIWS should provide more than enough protection, however if you do go for only on CIWS, then the fitting of a couple of Rafael Typhoon's should make up for those deficiencies which would then be realised

SSM - twice as many as the internationally agreed standard. You might consider the more modern and countermeasure-resistant NSM

That is possible, but the 16 Harpoons is the same Absalon Class, most importantly with their land attack capability incorporated into the new version of Harpoon - added to all this is the fact that as a tried and tested system it will not be expensive to attach. remember the whole point of this corvette is that is cheap and sustainable escort for providing the bulk of future fleets as well as fulfilling water policing/flagshowing and guard ship roles. This is another reason for the heavy SSM capability, as in support of what you pointed out next.

VLS - the long strike version, a questionable choice for a corvette

VLS - was chosen because of its capability in providing the wide range of options; a limited long range missile strike from a corvette might be all you can put in area; but it might just be enough and is always better than nothing; besides for me the combination of

triple torpedo launcher - (lightweight 324mm?) saving that (see your VLS remarks) won't save any significant sum. The launcher is cheap and used examples are in arsenals. You need the lightweight torpedoes anyway for the helicopter (that's imo the primary reason why these launchers are so common).

well as I pointed out these vessells might not be running a helicopter; and if they are then it may be fitted; I have nothing against them - I would be using the lightweight torpedoes.

Sensors in general - FFG/DDG equipment in a small corvette that's also stuffed with weapons; I feel that this isn't possible (also see: SAMs).

that is a judgement call, I feel modern corvettes are getting more and more heavily armed, as they take on more roles which during the cold war were the purview of larger escorts; if you are going to fit these weapons to give it the advantages it needs, then you have to fit the sensors to match the weapons.

Sonar - outdated afaik. An modern active low frequency VDS like LFTAS would be a much better idea vs. SSK.

that as maybe true; but again instead of going for expensive new equipment, which is under development I decided to go for tried and tested systems which we know work, and we know how to make them operate to their best ability.

(LL)TV, IIR and LRF sensors - missing, but essential for object identification and passive surveillance

again I thought these would be considered standard; I know they are part of the Royal Navy's standard build so I just felt that is what would be put in, whatever anyone else said.

Communications suite - missing

not missing the same as above; Royal Navy have a standard system; however it will be affected by the command system chosen, which perhaps you will have a better understanding of which of them is best - I currently can only the see the SAAB system on the Visby; which is based on the RN's efficient ship project as a system with any lead over the competition but this is only marginal.

ESM - is Vigile 400 only ESM? Modern ships of that size need ECM, too.

yes, but what would you recomend, the Vigile is designed for corvettes - the German K130 only has the EADS SPS-N 5000 radar ESM.

SAM - that's the choice for an AAW DDG or FFG, not for a corvette. Mica VL, BAMSE and Barak SAMs are more suitable, or ESSM if an illumination radar capability is available

I knew people were going to say this; and I understand what you are saying; however I still believe that if they are going to operate on their own then a corvette deserves, no requires, the same capability of intercept as its larger counterparts.

Subroc - this is a sub vs sub weapon, I think you meant Asroc

sorry sometimes I do mix up the two; I have changed it

Boats - missing. Dinghy could be used as decoy especially with simple broadband ECM against home-on-jam missile modes, minimum: installation of decoy launcher and remote control/autopilot

for boat read 'launches' - sorry the Royal Navy call subs 'boats' and ships boats 'Launches'

Propulsion - gas turbines aren't very efficient & never silent, waterjet isn't as efficient as propeller IIRC. Gas turbines produce a lot of exhaust gasses, pressing all that into the water is loud and means loss of efficiency (not advisable as permanent measure).I would rather choose a classic CODOG installation or a combined Stirling-electric engine with a propeller (not as efficient as diesel, but very silent) and a sprint gas turbine with forward/center waterjet.

I like this the later one, hence it has been added above for consideration

Hydrogen - no support infrastructure in harbors, no support capability in support ships, requires huge volume and lH2 limits mission endurance due to vaporization or requires a re-liquefaction system

An interesting analysis, on the topic of Hydrogen, I would point out that before the Queen Elizabeth Class Super-Dreadnoughts there was no infrastructure for oil powered ships either; if this is the new propulsion you need then you have too build it; oil/gas fossil fuels in general are getting more expensive and its supply is coming under more threat as it is found in places which are less and less politicaly stable - Hydrogen is all around us; a nuclear powered carrier could generate the Hydrogen for its battlegroup itself; now that would be really good infrastructure

roll stabilization system - missing
harbor maneuvering system - missing (a simple retractable fin in the path of a forward/center waterjet would do the job)
external fire hose / fire fighting system / water projector - missing, but relevant for OPV use (I don't know the correct English word)

All of the above are fitted as standard; although my personal choice for roll stabilitzation system would be the RNLI's new system (I think its called 'glide' but not sure)

cost - unrealistic unless you build hundreds of these in PRC

Again I can see your point, but disagree, as if you do build using conventional off the shelf technology, and you use a convetional build system it is certainly possible; most importantly if I were in charge I would want about 48 of these in service, so that would make it possible for such a Per Unit Cost.

overall - add 100 crew, another Lynx and 4,000 tons and you've got a GP DDG.You've stuffed too much into it for a corvette and neglected ASW (especially sound stealth) and unspectacular components.

I have put in what you term unspectacular; what I call, cost effective tried and tested equipment - its the Sherman(upgunned) rather than the King Tiger. Whilst it is heavily armed, to be fair you haven't seen my destroyer specks yet. Added to this, I think that the sound stealth would suprise you - but that does not matter as much your remark about it having to much arnament for a corvette; this suprised me as I think the more capable a warship is the better armed warship, and a corvette in the littoral enviroment needs to be able to defend the Amphibious ships as well as defend itself.

@Mr. Johnson: Helicopters are extremely versatile and useful. UAVs alone cannot cover the mission spectrum yet. Corvettes are not really a good choice in strong battlegroups and operate rather outside of friendly helicopter support.

I disagree I feel a combination of destroyers and corvettes is a far better combination of escorts for a battlegroup - especially in littoral regions, than frigates; which are not as powerful as destroyers, and too expensive to build in the required numbers.

*******

B-smitty

There's no way you'll fit all of this stuff on a 1500-2000 ton corvette. The equipment you've spec'd might fit on a 5000 ton frigate.

this is a range of equipment to fit in it, and I think it will, for starters without the helicopter but carrying smaller UAVs; I am also keen on making the vessel as simple as possible in design so that in can afford to insert these...oh and a corvette is any vessel up to 2800tons....I think with a little bit of skill and luck it could be fitted in

Look at similarly-sized corvettes such as the German K130 for a reasonable configuration.

Its a very interesting configuration, and I have gone for similar, I have just increased the load a little, and replaced its RAM system with a proper VLS.

The K130s cost around $300 million (USD) each, IIRC, so I think your estimated price is low.

I might well have to accept this, but I also believe that if you use conventional proven technology, and keep the design simple and build enough of them; plus limit the builders to an acceptable degree of profit, then is no reason why unit price could not be £60-80million; as I have said before I would plan on building a lot of these vessels thus reducing the price considerably; and due to the use of existing tech, would keep development costs down to a minimum.

yours sincerly

Alex

****

B Smitty

If you drop the VLS, the rest might fit. A warship can expect to carry 5-10% of it's light ship displacement in payload. If your corvette's light ship is 2000 tons, then that means 100 to 200 tons of payload. A loaded, 32 cell Mk41 VLS weighs around 100 tons by itself! (for comparison, a RAM launcher only weighs around 6 tons)

Smitty you are right, it is usually for it to be 5-10% of weight, so if you built the maximum 2800ton corvette, it would be 280tons in weapons at maximum - more than enough for the vls, which is key to providing it with the capability it requires.
Plus a strike length cell is 25 feet long, which will be tough to fit in a small hull, especially 24+ of them.

I know, so it will have to be a little on the long side for a corvette

yours sincerly

Alex

******

B.Smitty

A 2800 ton light ship means over 3000 tons full load. Certainly this is more reasonable for a VLS, though there aren't any ships of this size with 24 or more Mk 41 cells. This is roughly the same size as a Type 21 frigate, btw.

I concur; but the sizes have moved up, and the Type 21 or Type 12 frigates were both very good designs, although the type 12 was posibly the most successful frigate design of its age.

IMHO, a reasonable armament for a future British 2000-2500 ton (full load) "corvette" would look something like this,
- 1 gun (whatever the RN wants in this class)

the BAE MK110 is about the best for this, as I don't think the 4.5in standard issue would be a good choice

- 8-16 Slyver A43 cells with Aster 15 & CAMM quad-packs

why did you pick the Sylver? why? I beg you - its awful, the Type 41 is cheaper, and has a better range of weaponry; also its made by BAE in britain, and I know this is going to sound stupid coming from a British person, but in times of financial crisis I think the government should try and sources these things from within the nation.

As for Aster 15 or CAMM, I prefer a CAMM/Aster 30 combination, as it gives the depth of defence whilst also providing the mass protection of the shorter range camms for dealing with saturation attacks.

The type 41 also has the advantage of packing Tomahawks; a useful force multiplier.

- 8 x Harpoon

a standard arnament, but I feel the Absalon class has shown that a vessel fighting in the littoral needs the extra fire power.

- 1 CIWS (or additional A35 cells for CAMM)

I prefer the option of two, however if one was fitted I would want to fit 2/4 Typhoons instead of the 2 x 30mm guns

- triple torpedo mounts (though one US Admiral said you might as well add a lifeboat launcher rather than torpedo mounts these days because if you're in range to use them, you're about to eat a torpedo)

I agree if its close enough to need them, then its to close, hence I like the ASROC fitted in the Type 41 VLS....it gives far better depth

- 1 Lynx-sized helo pad and hangar
Well I can't argue with this, but I prefer UAVs to manned helicopters as they take up less space, I think at least one for fire spotting is of advantage along with the helicopter...although 3 UAVs are certainly more useful to my mind.

Just MHO.

why no USVs?

yours sincerly

Alex

*******

B. Smitty

I chose Slyver only because the RN chose it for the Type 45. Being American, I certainly think Mk 41 is preferable, but the UK has hitched its horse to the Aster/Slyver wagon. It doesn't make sense to change for this class.

for starters the civil service are making a big deal out of the fact the Type 45s were built with a minimum of naval officers; another is that the Type 41 was turned down (and there is a report I have seen stating this) because it was felt the Sylver fitted better with the then governments political ideas. The Conservatives (the current opposition party, and the ones tiped to win the next election) have said they would change to a Type 41 vls in the the later Type 45 Destroyers, along with the 155mm gun.

B. it is also not unusual for the RN to have a range of different systems across its levels/classes in fact this is incouraged. With the number of submarines in service with the RN shrinking all the time, the corvettes with the Type 41 would also be able to fill the TLAM role nicely with Tomahawks; thus there would only be a minimum loss of capability.

A 3000+ ton ship could carry a small number of Slyver A70 cells, if you really, really want TLAM. Personally, I don't think it's worth the weight and cost for a low-end frigate.

I concur, but I personally feel that frigates are just to big to be made in the numbers requires, and to small to be able to justify that. A corvette/destroyer mix seems a better solution to me for the RN's problems with escort numbers/commitments.

How has Absalon shown that it needs more than 8 x AShMs? Has it fired any? It gets a lot of use out of its helos and boats in CTF 151, but hasn't had to fire a shot of any sort in anger, AFAIK.

No it has not fired a shot in anger, but my point was this with those mountings you can swap and change around; in reaction to the fact that we have not fitted AShMs to our Type 45 Destroyers, you may want to give the other escorts a boost in this area; on the other hand you might want to 4 pairs of exocet launchers (although there is apparently a version of this which can be launched from a Type 41 VLS, in which case I could legitmately say take them off all together, all we need is the VLS and some guns; however as I am not sure of this, I will not say that; although the Tomahawk those definitley have a AShM capability; which would render this with a point); the system can also mount (if put with no obstruction to the sea) two torpedo mounts and two Quads of Harpoon, it is a very goood system.

VL-ASROC is certainly an improvement over triple mounts over the side, but a torpedo-armed helo betters both. Until someone produces a UAV with a dipping sonar that can carry torpedoes (not to mention perform SAR), I'll stick with the manned helo.

I suggest you go on the BAE site, or the German equivalent whose name I can't remember (or sorry have time to research at the moment) but you will find the KC130 mounts three UAVs with dipping sonar, and can carry 1 helo torpedo; okey not brilliant but backed up by VL-ASROC and you could have two or even all three operating; then I would say at least as effective at most ranges as the manned helo.

Alex, I get the impression that you want to build a frigate here. Area air-defense, long-range surface strike and high-end ASW really aren't tasks for a corvette.

well you have to a certain extern rumbled me, I desiging here a mass production capable corvette which can replace the frigates, and cover for the diminishing submarine fleet, as well as be of use in protecting amphibious task groups. Oh and by the by; although our Frigates do have the high-end ASW, they don't have Area air-defence or Long-range surface strike (they just mount Seawolf & Harpoons); I did actually consider Seawolf instead of Aster 15 or CAMM until it was pointed out to me, that Aster was in a lot of trouble till BAE transfered all its SuperSeawolf team to it...and that the Aster missile looks a lot like seawolf; especially the new seeker unit it is fitted with.

yours sincerly

Alex

******

B. Smitty

It doesn't feel like a good idea to have multiple, similar VLS systems in service. You won't maximize your R&D money spent on integration, and will have yet another unique system to support. That being said, if the RN decides to go with Mk41 for future Type 45s, then by all means, use it here too.

Yes it doesn't seem like good money, but it is what has been happening, and looks like it could continue. besides which the RN's R&D money is always overstretched, so whats a little more.

The RN also doesn't use VL-ASROC, so that would be another new system.

A new system which even you have to agree is useful, besides America uses the Type 41 & VL-ASROC, so the RN could always just purchase it as one complete set.

I wouldn't expect a corvette-sized vessel to be a primary TLAM shooter. A ship of this size will likely only have 8 or 16 strike-length cells (and only if you make sacrifices elsewhere), some of which will have to carry ESSM, VL-ASROC or SM-2. So just carrying 2 or 4 TLAMs isn't much help, IMHO. Better to let your big ships carry TLAM in larger numbers.

Size is not the major cost driver in warships. "Steel is cheap and air is free", as they say. The big cost driver is the desire to pack a ship full of expensive combat systems. You can have a larger ship if you exercise restraint and keep the combat systems to the bare minimum. A larger ship has more room for upgrades over its lifetime, handles rough seas and combat damage better, and is generally more comfortable for its crew.

Yes, what you say is true, but a) the big ship will never be subject to such constraint - plus the Treasury would never allow the RN to build a ship which did not utilise every square milimeter of space, b) if you build corvettes you could build enough to allow to put a pair or even more on the operation, so whilst you might have only eight TLAMs loaded per unit, you could mount 32 between them, as well as a very flexible little force, c) whilst the larger units might be available for american ship yards too build, british shipyards have been so run down, that with the Astute program, the Daring program and the Queen Elizabeth II program, we only have yards left which can build heavily armed corvettes. Sorry this is a medium power, whose government has mismanaged industry to such an extent that it has been seriously undermined.

I'm not sure which UAV you mean. The one I've seen mentioned for the K130 is the S-100 Camcopter, which is way too small to carry torpedoes or a dipping sonar. Firescouts may one day carry a dipping sonar, but they are too small to carry current generation torpedoes. They may one day carry the smaller torpedoes under development. Regardless, a manned helo is still more flexible. You can't do this, http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/cosar-ts/img/uk-sar-3-600x800.jpg with a UAV. At least not yet.

Well no, you can't, but you can do everything else. and the types of UAV I am talking about are like this one http://www.victory-systems-uav.com/uavp-vtoluav.html becoming more and more common; and BAE has a nice line of them coming along.

yours sincerly

Alex

*****

if this was a dream corvette, and it was only allowed 1 CIWS, I think I would be sorely tempted by this system; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guVLqfiCfO4 - just watch, and think does this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2R4XAz193U really compare with it?

Alex

********

Kobus, thankyou for that, I wish you could be made Sir Kobus for your actions, but you will have to make do with just my humble thanks, what a great video, and a perfect system for a Corvette.

Alex

Albason Class - the True LCS?

2009-03-03T09:14:00.010Z

Absalon at Sea (click on the picture to see more)

Specifications should come first I suppose so I will start with those;

Weaponry

One 127 mm Deck Gun, two 35 mm Millenium CIWS guns,2 twin Stinger SAM launchers, 5* Stanflax containers (currently outfitted with);

two stanflex containers loaded with 16 harpoon SSM
three stanflex containers loaded with either 36 ESSM or 18 NSSM SAMs

added to this a number of 12.7 mm machine-guns - Up to 7, and an undiscoed number of Light machine-guns, with the bonus of 2 twin ASW torpedo launcjer with a limited number of reloads; just to make it a really 'fun' party

Decoys

4 × 12-barrelled Terma DL-12T 130 mm decoy launchers, 2 × 6-barrelled Terma DL-6T 130 mm decoy launchers

Other deployable decoys can be fitted although this depends apon mission, what outfitting they take

Aircraft

2 helicopters currently: but crucially are fitted to be moded, so could well take UAVs one day or even sooner

Boats

2 small fast patrol boats; again though do have space to take more

The Flex Deck

It this deck which allows the Absolon class to be called "flexible support ships" or "combat support ships" (more rightfully so than the last considering their arnament). The class is a frigate, but it has a huge open space, called the 'flex deck', something which is made really flexible by its stern vehicle access ramp.

Due to this space, the ships can serve as task group command platforms for a staff of 75 persons (naval or joint staff) with a containerised command and control centre; or it could be both the transport and the dockside base of operations for a company-sized landing force of around 200 personnel with vehicles.

Alternatively the flex deck can be used for mine-laying operations with a capacity of some 300 mines, or the flex deck can be fitted out for mine-clearing operations and launch and recover mine detecting and clearing equipment via a retractable gantry crane, adjacent to the stern ramp, which also is used for launching and recovering the fast landing crafts.

Added to all this the flex deck can support a containerized hospital or simply transport a number of ISO standard containers or some 55 vehicles including, up to 7 MBTs.

So to coin the phrase of Scot is making on mike's post is proved possible; instead of building a complex system build a huge encolsed space, with an access ramp that a lorry or even a tank can get up.

Dimensions
Displacement: 6,600 tons full load
Length: 137.6 m (451 ft 5 in)
Beam: 19.5 m (64 ft 0 in)
Draft: 6.3 m (20 ft 8 in)

Power

Propulsion: 2 MTU 8000 M70 diesel engines; two shafts, 22,300 bhp (16.4 mW)
Speed: >24 kn (44 km/h)
Range: 9,000 nmi (17,000 km) at 15 kn (28 km/h)

Personnel

Complement: 100 + aircrew and transients (accommodation for up to 300 in total)

Sensors and processing systems

Thales SMART-S Mk2 3D volume search radar
Terma Scanter 2100 surface search radar
Atlas ASO 94 sonar
4 × Saab CEROS 200 fire control radars
ES-3701 Tactical Radar Electronic Support Measures (ESM)

The Question

Is this ship the better LCS?

************************************************************************************

definitely; as you could build 3 dream corvettes and 3 absalon's for the price of 2 LCS, and still have plenty of change...that is what I would prefer.

after all then you could deploy 3 pairs to do jobs, instead of having to decide which two get one hull apiece....it also allows for greater tactical flexibility.

yours sincerely

Alex

My tips for the Future; but more importantly what do you think?

2009-03-01T00:16:00.008Z

K130 Class Corvette of the German Navy

Now whilst I am beavering away on many projects at the moment, including the 'Aircraft Carriers; Fully Loaded' set of reports & analysis which is ongoing and may well lead to a few more entries soon, I wanted to lay out some points of view for your considerations (and whilst admitting they might in part be the rantings of an overly stretched mind, which is functioning on barely any sleep), to do with the future of sea power projection, and vessels it will be utilised from.

Corvettes

Now, it is not unknown how much I like these vessels, I personally like their power, punch, versatility, and price will make them a more and more common component of the world’s navies; especially in blue water roles. This is most shown by a recent definition of the corvette (mine, trust me it took a long time to perfect so I will make full use of it!);

A corvette is something of around 550 to 2,800 metric tons, and between 50-120 meters in length. They carry almost any armament going, although it is increasingly common - and advantageous, for them have multi-role capable VLS system which take any combination of surface to air, surface to surface, or even surface to sub-surface weaponry. They carry a small helicopter- the lynx is quite common, although the new German ones have unmanned air vehicles with dipping sonar’s and small torpedoes instead of them. As is expected from the fact they are operated by so many states they exhibit a wide variety of gun armament across the range of corvettes in use. This I know is a nice long list, and I am sorry its style is lacking but its purpose is to show what these vessels are capable of.

The German K130 Braunschweig class is a key example of the flexibility on offer, as is the Omani Project Kareef vessels which are being built in Portsmouth, United Kingdom.

Other Escorts

These are going to have to become General Purpose Guided Missile vessels, whatever their displacement and engine system classifies them as; frigate, destroyer or cruiser. I would also not be surprised if they tend towards being larger; in fact I envision a future where the corvettes make up the mass, whilst destroyer sized vessels provide the extra strength and firepower required for war. In the case of the Royal Navy this could be 2:1 with at least 15 Destroyers, supported by 30 corvettes (although this is probably a pipe dream knowing the Royal Navy’s success with politicians supporting it). Escorts which are a one trick pony (i.e. Area Air Defence) will be shown to be not only not value for money, but also dangerously inadaptable in the fluidity of the modern conflict area.

Aircraft Carriers

I read so many blogs, articles, books decrying these vessels and predicting there imminent demise; what is even better is that some of these date from the 1920s! Nearly 90 years later, you still have people rabbiting on about submarines, or new long range weapons annihilating the aircraft carriers. So whilst I will not state that aircraft carriers in their current form will probably not be so prevalent, especially the really large ones (100,000 ton ones), but the numbers of 60-70,000ton aircraft carriers will increase, especially with nuclear power, and lots of hangar space. Simply because whether it is manned or unmanned it still needs to be maintained and stored out of the weather at some time. They will have nuclear power, because will provide speed, limitless range, and catapults – to enable the operation of heavier aircraft/heavier payloads. Aircraft carriers will also need to be more heavily armed, CIWS only will not hack it in the modern world; Aircraft Carriers need the VLS loaded with SAMs, loaded with Cruise missiles and rocket torpedoes; in order for them to make it in the world with fewer and smaller escorts. They will make it, this is because Aircraft Carriers are needed; they are the most cost efficient, most deployable base for power projection as well as tactical air support/strategic strike ever made; and whilst they still hold this title (and let’s face it only a space station armed with fighters could beat it) they are going to be needed and thus they are going to be built.

Amphibious Warfare

This is possibly the area of greatest importance for future warfare; the light fast equipment which armies had been focusing on the procurement of, has been shown to be very weak in recent wars, in cities their speed counts for nought, and in mountains they are just not as capable. So they either have to be up armoured so much that they loose the speed, and the weight which was desired to make them air portable; and even worse this makes them even less capable at all terrain manoeuvres. The vehicles such as the Warrior and the Bradley APCs, as well Challenger 2’s and Abraham’s, are the vehicles which survive the fire fights best; but moving them buy air is just so expensive, so slow, so laborious, and mostly so difficult; moving them buy sea might not be any faster, but instead of arriving in one weak easily destroyed penny packet after another, they arrive together, ready to fight together.
Amphibious warfare is going to become more and more about the armour and the aircraft the Amphibious shipping can carry, not the numbers; however if a nation has a smaller capacity than a heavy brigade (about 6 battalions plus logistics, artillery and other supporting units) then that nation will not matter all that much.

So, I ask you, what do you think?

******

Mike
thankyou for your time and comments
I have to agree with you on the carriers, 100,000tons are just wastes of money, I know it doesn't sound that different but 70,000tons comes in at about half the price, with a decent airgroup; so why over build?
The Royal Marines have been obssessed with Helicopters for actually slightly longer than their US coleagues, having the first LPH's (Albion and Bulwark; conversly now the names of our LPDs!) and using them in Suez. The thing I see coming is a greater alamgamation of LPH/LHD and Aircraft carrier? why have have multiple types different aircraft carrying ships when you can one which can be easily reconfigured for a different role at a moments notice? the one trouble will be the armour requirment; although with Hovercraft assualt vessels, how big a problem that will be I can not accurately predict.
I personally think that the LCS is not the forebear of things to come in the small ship world, true corvettes with multi-missile capable VLS are; these vessels will thanks to the vls, and the stealth which comes naturally from being smaller, be able to deal with so many of the minor roles/peacekeeping & peace enforcement roles that really do not require their larger cousins attention.
thanks again Mike
yours sincerly
Alex

********

A hypothetical corvette design

They are doing this ultra high tech thing with ships as well, when what you really need is a corvette with only basic stealth (i.e. all vertical surfaces 7degrees of the straight as the Royal Navy have in the Type 23 Duke class), not the thing which looks like the ship from the weird bond movie. This ship needs to have either the type 53 or 41 vls, it because of its size, will probably only need one CIWS although 2 would be nice (mounted fore and aft), a small deck gun could be usefull although this could be a double 50mm radern cannon mount. finnally it will need torpedoes, because it should to save money, space, and to boost its capability carry 2-3 sonar dipping (maybe torpedo dropping) UAVs - like the German K130 Braunschweig class does. This ship would not be that expensive, and as long as it had a launch as well, then it would be able to doo all the jobs that could ever be required of it (if you really wanted to spend some money you might even fit with Harpoon, although you don’t really need to afterall most SAMs have a dual capability and with the type 53 or 41 it could carry Subroc and Tomahawk - both certainly capable of damaging a ship).

*****

posted in response to Mike Burelson's post on corvettes

Your formula is very good ‘keep militaries affordable and relevant in the new hybrid warfare: dumb platforms+smart weapons’, the only problem is that for it to be implemented you need smart people in charge - but might I make a small suggestion; that you substitue simple for dumb, i.e. ’simple platforms+smart weapons’. This I suggest purely due to the lesson of world war II; the Germans built the King Tiger, one of the best tanks ever made, but it was complicated to maintain even by todays standards and very costly to build; on the other hand the Americans and the Brits fielded the Sherman and the Cromwell, two of the easiest to manufacture and maintank tank designs ever concieved and put into production. It was the Americans and Brits who won because they could keep those simple designs in the field for longer than the germans could their complicated ones. To my humble mind therefore there is nothing ‘dumb’ about this simplicity, it is fact the most intelligent and logical position. In fact I would go further to argue that the ‘dumb’ platforms of our modern age are the over-engineered, over-priced, and under-thought platforms such as the Zumwalts, the LCS, and the Type 45 destroyer - all of which are overly focused on one area of warfare and forget that others exist - as well as, due to their complexitiy, being prohibitively expensive.

Eisenhower is taking on the Pirates

2009-02-24T15:04:00.007Z

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69)

The piece of the Vikramaditya is finished, but I have decided to put this out first. Right then, I have read a lot of (for want of a better word) garbage written recently about the deployment of the Eisenhower Battle Group to Western Indian Ocean , so this is what I will deal with first. The really important thing for dealing with the pirate problem is watching them/monitoring such a vast expanse of water. The dispatch of carrier group is therefore a collosal bonus for dealing with the pirates, not because (as some people have asserted with great vemhenence) FA-18 Hornets/Super Hornets are going to be diving out of the sky sending a maelstrom of lead at any small boat they see; because that is the way to lose the moral ground that the governments are assuming over the pirates. Why would they lose this ground, I hear so many people ask? Well it is simple because when all you are doing is seeing and then shooting, you end up making mistakes; shooting up fishermen who use the same style of boats as the pirates, or turning the pirates into heroes as they battle the evil inhuman technological lords of war. So in what way will the carrier group be useful; well it is those venerable, beautiful all seeing eye in the sky, the E2C Hawkeye, that are going to be so very useful. This is primarily because they can monitor such a large area of ocean without be seen by the pirates; then the SEAL team and the helicopters, which I am sure have been tucked aboard the Eisenhower, will be dispatched to the pirates; thus providing a truly synergous detection and interdiction force – something which is currently missing from all the deployed forces currently in theatre.
Up till now nations have been sending escorts; not even Britain has sent one of the Royal Navy’s carriers to support the operations against the pirates, and there is a reason for this. Whilst sending regular naval frigates or destroyers to assist the efforts at combating pirates within region, as Europe, Russia, India and China have done, is good for showing the flag and protecting specific vessels or very narrowly defined sea lanes; as well as being relatively cheap. However, you need the AEW system, that can be provided only through a Carrier Air Group (CAG) and therefore a carriers presence to improve the slim odds of being able locate and interdict the pirates when they are at sea; although the idea that such a vessel will allow piracy to be eliminated is preposterous, purely from the point of view that attacks on Somali ports are not allowed, and you will not get rid of the pirates until you provide Somalia with the sea security it desires (from illegal dumping and fishing), and the people of Somalia with a better source of income. However, it is true that before these changes come about, the only vessels that can really enable a naval commander to interdict the pirates effectively is an aircraft carrier. It is even more true to say, that as so often usual the American nuclear-powered ones are actually much easier to deploy and much more effective for the job than smaller, conventionally powered ones such as the Royal Navy’s Invincible class or even the projected larger but still conventionally powered Queen Elizabeth IIs.
The most obvious, and the coincidentally the most pertinent of the reasons for this superiority The obvious reason for this is that American nuclear-powered super carriers, because they are nuclear powered can stay at sea for an infinite period of time without being refuelled. This simple fact vastly reduces the logistical problems of keeping an aircraft carrier operationally active and deployed on station for long periods of time; for example the Eisenhower has been sent to the Gulf for a five-month mission, and has served longer when the situation required it. The other thing they have is a far higher operating speed and tempo, they are capable of maintaining a constant speed of 30-33kts over infinite range; almost double that of the Invincible, which is 19kts for 7000nm (maximum speed is 28kts). It is also far cheaper, over a lifetime of 40 years a nuclear powered carrier will cost less in fuel and engine costs than two Daring Class Destroyers will (sums based on my own bad maths – I did A Level, and official figures) or the Queen Elizabeth IIs which will only have maximum speed of 26kts (less than the Invincible class) and its range and cruising speed are yet to be announced. I also used the word Tempo, and the reason the super carriers have a better tempo than others is that their nuclear power produces not only enough steam to power catapults allowing larger aircraft with more useful payloads to be launched, but also enough energy allowing the future magnetic based catapults to work; all these things cannot be done by a gas powered vessel because it does not create steam or enough energy (unless you really want to ramp up the expense by adding in special plants).
The American carriers also have the advantage that because they are much larger than most of the conventional carriers employed by the remainder of the world’s aircraft carrier operating navies; they can carry a far larger and more formidable complement of aircraft including the E2C Hawkeye. This combined with a far larger air group; which has a far larger space to operate from allows them to patrol far larger areas of sea at the same time as maintain capability launch fast interdictions with potent forces more often and easily than their equivalent conventional cousins.
So all in all, it is the correct thing for this vessel and her attendant group to be deployed; it is also very difficult to see how under peacetime circumstances other nations, with conventional powered vessels which cost so much more for the value they provide on operations, would manage to match this deployment. In the therefore one rule shines through; if a nation is going to maintain a navy with true power projection capabilities, then the nation need to build nuclear aircraft carriers of a decent size and air group, and most importantly that nation needs to build three; for after all what is the point of going to the expenditure of build carriers if the nation the does not have enough of them to guarantee the capability. If any of those criteria are not met then the nation is crippled by false economies, enforced by those who do not understand the true requirements and even truer benefits of sea power.

************************

Pete

In clarification, I do not think that a Super Carrier is the right way for Britain to go either, but a 70,000ton nuclear carrier is the upper end of the medium carriers; and in actual fact whilst costing slightly more to procure they actually cost less over the long term due to fuel, ease of upgrade (due to the more powerful power supply), and often a larger more versatile airgroup which means you have more choice in selection of aircraft; finnaly they are far more flexible in operational capability compared to their conventional powered comrades.
The UAVs you speak of quite correctly are maxed out in other theatres, and whilst they do provide a lot of information very far from all American ships (let alone their allies) have been fitted with terminals to directly recive information from them.
Most importantly the supercarrier is actually more easy to absorb the burden economically than foreign bases, as building them in your own yards, maintaining them there keeps the money largely within your own economy; and often have very positive affects on technology and manufacturing sectors. Whereas the foreign bases you are highlighting are nothing but finacial drains which just take money out of the economy, whether in overseas pay for personal, renting the facilities, the extended logistics supply, and upgrading facilities which might in the end be denied to you when you need them because of that countries domestic policys (Kazakstan is a good example of this).
Finnaly I will reiterate a point I made above, which I think has got lost in the weight of other information; "However, you need the AEW system, that can be provided only through a Carrier Air Group (CAG) and therefore a carriers presence to improve the slim odds of being able locate and interdict the pirates when they are at sea; although the idea that such a vessel will allow piracy to be eliminated is preposterous, purely from the point of view that attacks on Somali ports are not allowed, and you will not get rid of the pirates until you provide Somalia with the sea security it desires (from illegal dumping and fishing), and the people of Somalia with a better source of income. However, it is true that before these changes come about, the only vessels that can really enable a naval commander to interdict the pirates effectively is an aircraft carrier

****

Pete

I am not sure why, but I do not seem to be able to comment on your rebuttle, but I was just going to ask how you got the audio player.

yours sincerly

Alex

****

Kummar

yes it is sea denial, but Somalia is not harbouring pirates, the pirates are the Somalians, they are their response to the complicated situation which has evolved in this failed state. The largest problem is that whilst we can use warships and other methods of 'seapower' projection to minimise the problems of piracy off the somarlian coast; it can not be eliminated until somalia itself is rebuilt and there are far more legitmate opportunities for fiscal renumiration available to the populace.
The carrier group helps, because it is the ultimate in sea control and wide area monitoring. However, possibly its biggest assistance is as a political statement of commitment.
yours sincerly
Alex

Carriers; Fully Loaded - Admiral Kuznetsov

2009-02-20T18:08:00.015Z

I am building up to a full report on all aircraft carriers, comparing them with the aim of finding a forumla for future carrier design/operations.

here is the first entry;

Admiral Kuznetsov

2.1.1 Class/Brief History of design

Figure 1 RFS Admiral Kuznetsov at sea
The Soviets never built just aircraft carriers; they built Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers. This was questioned at every turn by western navies, but it does make sense, perhaps even more so in the modern world, for it provides the ship with its own defences, in the age of shrinking fleets the capability for self defence is far greater on the Admiral Kuznetsov, and its ascendants the Kiev and Modified Kiev (to be examined next) classes, than any other carrier. Their powerful arsenal means that with or without their air group they are potent vessels, most importantly it means that the aircraft of its air group, and to an extent the carriers escorts, are not so tied to its mother ship allowing a freedom of movement no other navy can achieve without deploying a significant number of escorts to defend the carriers.
2.1.2 Outline of Design

Figure 2 RFS Admiral Kuznetsov (artistic drawing)
Unlike many of its American counterparts the Kuznetsov is conventionally (oil) powered with eight boilers and four steam turbines driving four shafts with fixed-pitch propellers; whilst the maximum speed is 29kt, the range at this speed is 3,850 miles. However, at 18kt, Kuznetsov has a more useful range of 8,500 miles. It is also far smaller than its counterparts it terms of size and weight, being only 58,500 tons (full load – according the Jane’s 2006), with a length of 304.5m and breath of 70m.

Figure 3 RFS Admiral Kuznetsov Flight Deck Operations Plan
It was also the first carrier built by Soviets/Russians which had a conventional deck arrangement (Figure 3); achieved by mounting the weapon systems flush to the deck, rather than as they had on the Kiev’s where a large amount of the deck was taken space was taken up by weapons. This also has the addition of allowing far more flexibility for helicopter operations at the same time as fixed wing operations as compared to the Kiev class – something that operations with the previous mentioned class had shown was requirement for its operations in fleet protection/projection roles.
2.1.3 Weapon Systems/Sensors

Figure 4. Ganit VLS

When starting on this class, the operational flexibility provided by its weapon outfit, something which is very similar to the Kirov class cruisers; especially in the case of the weapon system which provides the potency whether the air group is present or not is the P-700 Ganit or as NATO calls it SS-N-19 Shipwreck SSM 12 of which are carried (Figure 4) flush to the deck right in the middle of aircraft run ups. The missiles have a speed of Mach 4.5, a range of 625km, and capable of pulling manoeuvres of 16g; it is possibly the most dangerous anti-ship missile in the world; it packs the standard issue 750kg high explosive warhead, this is not a weakness as it is a very good warhead, and certainly can do what its intended for. Of course the real threat of this weapon is that like almost all soviet weapons it can have a nuclear warhead fitted, providing the vessel with its own strategic action capability. However, it is not this system which provides its air group with the flexibility; it is its air defence system.

Figure 5. Kinzal VLS

The Kinzal (based on the SA-N-9 Gauntlet) system is mounted, unlike the Granit; of to the side of the air deck (pictured right) each of the launchers contains 8 9M330 missiles. There are 4 clusters of launchers comprising of six modules, totalling 192 missiles. Fire control is handled by the 3R95 multi-channel FC system (Cross Swords). This system is comprised of two complimenting radar sets a G-band target acquisition radar and a K-band target engagement radar. This gives the system a good degree of flexibility because the G-band is constantly scanning the area even when the K-band is focused on a target. To maintain its 360 degree view it the G-band part of the system is actually two mechanically scanned (so quite a slow system when compared to Aegis) parabolic mounted radars. However, the K-band is electronically scanned phased array reflection type antenna, which is closer to the Aegis, the best thing about this technology though is that it can track and guide eight missiles to four targets simultaneously. These missiles have a maximum range of 12km, but a speed of 850m/s – 950m/s (depending on source), not as fast as some but with its accuracy and the capability of taking up to 30g it is not a system a pilot or an officer planning a missile strike can treat with disdain.
Kashtan Close-In-Weapons-System a combined gun, missile - 9M311K (Figure 6), and semi independent fire control system; all put in one module. Whilst there is some disagreement over how many of these modules, Jane’s states 8, so does the Russian navy website and Wikipedia, however naval-technology.com claims 4; personally I would be more likely to believe the 8. Principally because of the size of the Kuznetsov, after all if 6 are necessary for the Kirov class cruisers it would seem common sense that for a larger vessel, with the added complication of air operations limiting fields of fire, more systems would be needed. Therefore 8 is by any measure the more probable figure. Anyway, on to the facts of the system; the 9M311K missile has a currently a range of 8km, although the newer version would seem to have had this increased to 10km. Its speed of 900m/s means that the missile will reach maximum range in a little less than 8.9s. In its land form the missile is actually radio controlled, but the operator has their own radar display combined with a display from a wide angle zoom camera (which is focused by the radar data). However, the naval version is even more automated, perhaps reflecting both the longer time of service in the navy and also the greater space for computers, power, and sensors. Most importantly for dealing with saturation attacks, is that whilst the launcher includes just 4 missiles, it can automatically reload from the rotating magazine which stores 24 reloads. The gun used is the GSh-30k (AO-18K) six-barrelled 30 mm gatling guns which are fed by a link-less feeding mechanism allowing for a very high rate of fire. This combination makes the Kashtan CIWS far better than any other; as all others are either missile or gun, thus have the limitations of one or the other (missiles have a minimum range, guns are not that accurate past a certain distance); whereas the Kashtan has no minimum engagement range, from 8km out it will engage ceaselessly until the target or targets (each command module can deal with up to 6 at a time). Added to this already large weight of fire are another 8 AK-630 AA guns, which although not being part of the Kashtan system, certainly do add to the ability of the Kuznetsov to project a ‘wall of steel’ in front of oncoming aerial attacks.
A continuation of this theme of layered protection and firepower prevalent throughout the Kuznetsov’s design is the addition of a RBU-12000 UDAV-1 ASW rocket launcher this fires up to 60 rockets in a salvo at either submarines or torpedoes. It would seem absurd for most navies for the vessel which is the most important and presumably going to be at the centre of any battle group it is a component of, to carry an anti-submarine armament of any level. However, it does make sense if you are banking on fighting outnumbered wherever your fleet goes, if you are sure that ships you send out to the furthest range are going be beyond easy resupply and repair, then it makes perfect sense for everyone of them to pack as biggest punch as possible, and most importantly to be able to deal with as wide a range of possible foes as it can.
2.1.4 Aircraft Carried

Figure 7. 2 Su-33 preparing to take of from the Admiral Kuznetsov
Due to its size, it was never going to carry as many aircraft as its far larger American counterparts, but it comes with a perfectly respectable fixed wing compliment of 12-15 × Sukhoi Su-33 fighters (18 according to Jane’s), and up to 5 × Sukhoi Su-25UTG/UBP aircraft (4 according to Jane’s). Its Rotary wing compliment is either 4 × Kamov Ka-27LD32 helicopters (SAR/ASW), 18 × Kamov Ka-27PLO (ASW) helicopters, and 2 × Kamov Ka-27S (SAR) helicopters or 15 Ka-27PL (ASW) helicopters and 2-3 Ka-31 (AEW) helicopters. It is therefore obvious to discern the anti-submarine focus of the Kuznetsov.
Sukhoi Su-33
The Sukhoi Su-33 fighters are a navalised version of the Su-27 – the soviet answer to the F-15. However the Su-33 is carrier fighters, and compared to American carrier-borne fighters, of similar age, like the F-14 Tomcat, the Su-33 uses a ski-jump instead of catapult for carrier takeoff. This method thought does have the advantage of avoiding the massive stresses produced by the catapult method, and provides the aircraft with a positive pitch and climb angle upon launch. Unfortunately though, when using a ski-jump, the Su-33 cannot launch at maximum takeoff weight – so it cannot carry the same weight of munitions as the Su-27.
It does differ though in ways from the Su-27 which give it advantages over its sibling, for example the Su-33 sports canards that shorten the take-off distance and improve manoeuvrability. The wing area was also increased, though the span remained unchanged. The wings were fitted with power-assisted folding, and the vertical tails were shortened to allow the fighter to fit in the typically crowded hangars of an aircraft carrier. The rear radome was shortened and reshaped to allow for the tail hook, as well as to save space inside the hangars. The IRST was moved to provide better downward visibility and an L-shaped retractable refuelling probe was fitted to increase range; all things the Su-27 didn’t have.
The Su-33 carries guided missiles such as the Kh-25MP, Kh-31, Kh-41, and the R-27EM which provides it with the capability to intercept anti-ship missiles.. The plane can be used in both night and day operations at sea. It can operate under assistance of the command centre on the Kuznetsov, or in conjunction with a Kamov Ka-31 (a variant of the Ka-27) early-warning helicopter.

Figure 10. Su-33 about to land on the Admiral Kuznetsov
Sukhoi Su-25UTG
The Su-25UTG is a variant of the Su-25UB which is modified for the training pilots in takeoff and landing on a land-based simulated carrier deck. It first flew in September 1988, however only 10 were produced, these had to be added to as such a small number of aircraft were insufficient to serve the training needs of event Kuznetsov’s limited carrier air group; so a number of Su-25UBs were converted into Su-25UTGs, these aircraft being distinguished by the alternative designation Su-25UBP. They are quite serviceable and there appears to be no apparent rush to replace them in their training role, whilst the current carrier is in service.

Figure 11. Ka-27 Helix in flight
Kamov Ka-27LD32 / Kamov Ka-27PLO / Kamov Ka-27S
The Helix helicopter was developed as naval helicopter from the outset; due to this it’s designers focused on its capabilities as a ferry and anti-submarine warfare. Design work began in 1970 and the first prototype flew in 1973. It was intended to replace the decade-old Kamov Ka-25 Hormone; in fact the Helix bears more than a passing resemblance to it, primarily I am sure due to the primary requirement of fitting in the same hangar space. The largest similarity though is that like all the other Kamov military helicopters it has a co-axial rotor, removing the need for a tail rotor. The most common variant currently in service is Ka-27PL or "Helix-A", the Anti-submarine warfare version, the current generation of the PL is the Ka-27PLO; which carries a truly wide array of weaponry, the studying of which would take up a whole new chapter. The Ka-27S variant is the Search and Rescue helicopter; this is equipped with very powerful searchlights as well other aids in order to assist with the extraction of downed pilots, and seaman from burning ships. The Ka-27LD32, is actually the experimental replacement of the PLO and could be in full production soon; however at the moment its membership of the air group is a constant but in small numbers.

Figure 12. Kamov Ka-31 Helix (AEW)
Kamov Ka-31
Like all Kamov helicopters, except for the Ka-60/-62 Kasatka (Orca) family, the Ka-31 has co-axially mounted contra-rotating main rotors; thus like the rest of the Helix family has no need for a tail rotor. Visually the only distinctive feature of the Ka-31, compared to Ka-27, is the large antenna of the early warning radar(taken from the cancelled An-71); this whilst it is working rotates(Figure 12, note the landing gear has to retract to allow this to happen); however when not working it folds up under the fuselage for stowage. It is thanks to this radar that the bulky and rather unwieldy electro-optical sensory suite beneath the cockpit which allows it to be wider and more spacious.
Some of the less obvious changes engineering changes from Ka-27/29 are; the upgrading of the engines/power plant (additional Auixlary Power Units APU were added) in order to power both the secondary Hydraulic system and the radar which it is turning. Operational variants of Ka-31 include a command and control variant; sometimes confusingly termed a Ka-29RLD, but often now just termed a Ka-31 as all of these have been upgrade to make them ever more capable AWACs rather than the AEW they were first delivered as. Later batches of these aircraft have featured major navigational equipment improvements, for example digital terrain maps, ground-proximity warning, obstacle approach warning, auto-navigation of pre-programmed routes, flight stabilization and auto homing onto and landing at the parent the Kuznetsov and information concerning the helicopter's tactical situation. All these upgrades have been designed with the intention of making the Ka-31, a very important piece of kit, more survivable in combat situations; as well as a more operationally flexible aircraft.
2.1.5 History of Service
It was as “Tbilisi” that the carrier that is now known as Admiral Kuznetsov (it was renames in the 1990s) was launched in 1985. It was initially outfitted with a wide variety of aircraft, in order to test the new carrier’s deck capability (although this did cause some damage in testing). This aircraft included specially configured Su-25UT Frogfoot B, Su-27 Flanker, and MiG-29 Fulcrum conventional jets landed on the deck of the Kuznetsov in November 1989, aided by the strongest arresting gear the Soviet/Russian navy have ever put to sea. However, even though the Mig-29K passed its test flights from the deck of the Kuznetsov it was not ultimately not selected for use on Russia’s own carrier. After all the testing was complete, and it was finally ready for service, political turmoil prevented the ships official commissioning until 1991, and it further delayed it becoming fully operational until 1995.
The Kuznetsov made a very short Mediterranean training cruise early in 1996. However, by the end of 1997 the carrier remained immobilized in a Northern Fleet shipyard; awaiting for funding for the very necessary and extensive repairs; that had been stalled when only 20% complete. It was In July 1998 that the Kuznetsov emerged from this ‘two-year overhaul’ and after another period of testing it was once more declared active in the Northern Fleet on 03 November 1998. It was in autumn of 2000 that the Kuznetsov took part in covering the rescue operations off the Kola Peninsula after the loss of the submarine Kursk; this use had the knock on effect of delaying a planned return of the Russian Navy to the Mediterranean; something which was eventually cancelled for the then immediate future.
In early 2001 there were reports that the dozen Su-33 Flanker fighters assigned to the Kuznetsov were slated to be supplemented by another dozen modified to the attack role, capable of carrying air-to-ground ordnance. In 2003 150 million roubles were allocated from the budget to repair the aircraft carrier. The floating dock PD-50 was used in 2003 for repairs on the Kuznetsov; however, the aircraft carrier did not finish the repair program – primarily because of the floating docks rather limited facilities. It was therefore rather unsurprising that the Murmansk Shipyard received a military order from the Russian Navy on 26 April 2004 to repair eight gas pipes on the Kuznetsov.
On 24 July 2004 RIA Novosti reported that the Admiral Kuznetsov would begin performing missions after it emerged from the preventative maintenance, and the headquarters of the Northern Fleet stated that the ship would be released from repair on 06 August 2004. By coincidence the emergence from scheduled repair coincided with the 100th anniversary of Admiral Kuznetsov’s birth. Its equipment and armaments were reportedly in a good state (Jane’s, Russian Navy site, Telegraph), and after some careful preparations the Admiral Kuznetsov started to perform operational missions again. The ship's carrier-based aircraft began their training shortly thereafter, and have since been seen to maintain a high level of capability.
Following repairs, the ship participated in exercises in the Atlantic Ocean together with its deck based aviation and other ships. This was only the vessel’s second major operational mission in a decade. In October 2004 the Admiral Kuznetsov participated in one of the most ambitious naval exercise performed by the Russian Navy to date. It sailed with the Northern Fleets flagship, the nuclear-powered heavy cruiser, the Pyotr Veliky, the cruiser Marshal Ustinov, the destroyer Admiral Ushakov, a tanker and two support ships. This group set out for and arrived at an area approximately 20 nautical miles off Iceland on 05 October 2004 and returned home on 01 November. This may seem rather small, but what it demonstrated was the ability of the fleet units to work together, especially the big units around which any future naval power projection will be based.
On 23 February 2005 Rear Admiral Vladimir Dobroskochenko, the Deputy Commander of the Northern Fleet, announced that the Admiral Kuznetsov would embark on a voyage around the oceans that summer. That was, however, just the first benefit of a growing significant increase in funds allotted to the Russian Navy within the defence and military budgets which also provided the benefit of allowing both further repairs and upgrades to be initiated in 2007. At that time the ship's naval aviation component was comprised of elements of the 279th Ship borne Fighter Air Regiment. The carrier was equipped with more than 20 Su-33 fighters and 16-18 Ka-27 and Ka-31 helicopters. Upgrades in the aircraft’s detection and weapons systems that are (this would seem to be obvious but is not always the case) generally considered to have enhanced the ship's overall attack capabilities.

Type 45 & PAAMS/Sea Viper

2009-02-12T19:42:00.009Z

As I have said before the type 45s are in form a very well designed modern destroyer, they have lots of good points which have to born in mind when considering them; for example their striking stealth design. However, they have a glaringly bad point that they whilst they carry the brilliant Aster missiles (the equivalent of the SM-2 Block IV, but not the exceptional SM-3 ABM) – the primary reason for this entry, and are fitted for but do not carry the stalwart Harpoon SSM. They have the great new deck gun the 4.5in Mk 8 mod 1 gun, the decent if not exactly new or what I would have selected with the same decision to make combination of 2 Phalanx 20mm (instead of BAE MK110 57mm) placed flanking the ship (even if I had selected these, I would have put them fore and aft like they are fitted to the USN’s Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers, pictured left, and the RNs own Bulwark Class LPD– as this allows both to cover either side of the ship; thus providing a measure of insurance if one goes wrong). To my mind all the weaponry puts too much faith in the air defence capability of the missiles – they are very good, but they will also run out – the Royal Navy is not building enough of these destroyers (only 6) to not have to deal with that as a possibility. The lack of the long range land attack capability from the stowing of Tomahawks in a Type 41 or Type 53 VLS; or even perhaps the Storm Shadow Cruise missile which can be taken by the Sylver A70 VLS. However, if this does eventually become the case, then it would be advisable to have a large VLS than 48, perhaps a 64 or even 80 would be more useful. Another system, which I would certainly support, would be the addition of a rocket torpedo, either by the adaption of the Subroc (technically possible due to size of rocket and size of launcher - as shown in chart below), or the creation of a new one; more importantly the inclusion of any torpedo would be useful – as I am constantly saying the Royal Navy is not large enough to afford to have specialists, they need very good generalists; the insistence on such ships by the Civil Servants in the Ministry of Defence/Treasury is crippling them.

However, back to Sea Viper or Aster as everyone else calls them; there are two variants the Aster 15 - the Short/medium range surface-air anti-aircraft and anti-missile missile, and Aster 30 - the Long range anti-aircraft and anti-missile missile. Both have proximity detonated directed fragmentation warhead, fused to a solid propellant two-stage rocket. The operational range of the two types differ, the Aster 15’s range is 30km, whilst the Aster 30’s in 120km. The speed is also different being Mach 3 or 1000m/s for the Aster 15, whilst the Aster 30 is Mach 4.5 or 1400m/s. The real asset of these missiles though is their manoeuvrability. They achieve this through a new control system, where the control flaps are associated with four powder manoeuvre rockets at the centre of gravity of the missile, sometimes referred to as PIF-PAF, this system prevents a rupture of the missile under high-g manoeuvres during trajectory corrections (by placing less strain on the body). Thus, allowing violent manoeuvres to be performed without risking the missile and thus improving the precision of the missile and chances of impact on target. The one area of weakness perhaps, is the missile guidance, in its terminal it lacks the addition of an infra-red secondary homing system; something which is standard in both the newer American and Russian missiles.
Broadly speaking therefore the Type 45 is a very well armed Area Air Defence Destroyer; unfortunately what the Royal Navy really needed was a GPGMD or General Purpose Guided Missile Destroyer. The Royal Navy needs the anti-ship SSMs, it needs the Land Attack Missiles, it most definitely needs the torpedoes – Helicopters do break occasionally after all, and it’s just nice to have a backup when faced with modern submarines with their quiet engines, anechoic tiles, and countless other tricks. The Aster, or the Sea Viper, though is really good weapon, okay compared to SM-3 its lacking, but no one has the Americans development budget, and that is built upon the history of possibly the most successful lineage of medium and long range missiles so far; whereas the Sea Viper, well its rather similar to the Sea Wolf lineage – the most successful short range missile so far. Fast, manoeuvrable with a decent range, they are what they are; very good area air defence missiles. The same is true for the Type 45s, unfortunately unlike the missiles; the Royal Navy needs the destroyers to be so much more.

Joint Force Harrier

2009-02-04T22:41:00.006Z

Okay, in another break from the series of entries I have up till now been following, this piece is going to focus on the Royal Navy’s/Royal Air Force’s Joint Force Harrier. This force is under threat in the forthcoming budgetary battle, an annual event which has been made worse by the current economic climate. So here are some reasons this force is under threat, and the reasons why in my mind it should not only be saved, but if at all possible expanded by at least one if not two active squadrons.

Why it is under attack;

Whilst this probably has not gone through the minds of the officers involved, a bonus of removing the aircraft which provide the strike element of our carrier air groups would, although removing only two squadrons from the RAF would remove the RN’s only fixed wing squadrons from service. This would critically undermine the RN’s ability to involve itself in the JSFs and perhaps even the whole Queen Elizabeth Class carrier project – something which would perhaps free up money to provide the RAF with all the Eurofighter’s it loves so much.
To Quote Mr Mark Lancaster MP “What does that actually mean? I am not going to draw the Minister into debates on Treasury cuts and the fact that the RAF is having to find ways to save money next year. A lot of money seems to be splashing around, but if the MOD needs more money, that is a point for him to argue with the Treasury. It is pretty clear that if the Harrier stays in Afghanistan, it will not be subjected to the programme review. If, however, the Tornado is pulled out of Iraq—it soon will be, hopefully—what exactly is it going to do? It will not be on operations, and it will not have an operational role. I am assured that the RAF is concerned that, all of a sudden, the Tornado fleet is beginning to look exposed. It believes that by ensuring that it has a role in Afghanistan, we can give the Tornado fleet and its future a degree of protection.” Now I have copied the whole paragraph, not just the salient point, for reasons which I will explain later; but it does raise a very important point to be considered – are operational requirements being put second to doctrinal belief? The Tornadoes are fast aircraft, the most successful ground support aircraft are (in order) the A-10 Warthog, Apache Gunship and the Harrier – all these aircraft are significantly slower, and more manoeuvrable at low altitudes were all the tactical ground support required by the troops takes place.

Why it should be saved;

This point is perhaps a continuation of the end of point 2 of ‘why it under attack’, but as it is to do with why it should be saved it is here. The RAF does not have the A-10 Warthog, neither does it have Apaches although the British Army does; the only ground attack aircraft it has is the Harrier. The Tornado was originally designed as an air superiority aircraft designed at the height of the cold war that was adapted to the role; and has always had difficulty fulfilling this role.
Then there is the problem of combat capability and reliability, a point which Mr Lancaster MP has also raised;
a) “For example, from a weapons point of view—I will not go into detail, as it would not be helpful in a public debate—of the six weapons systems that are carried on the Harrier, four cannot currently be carried on a Tornado. Indeed, one of the biggest impacts that we will see is on the degree of proportionality. The Tornado, which is due to replace the Harrier, seems very much to be an all or nothing option. Also, the Harrier has a series of close air support options fitted to it. In fact, of the eight specialist items on a Harrier for close air support, four will not be available for the Tornado.”
b) “I will not go into the details of ground abort rates, but suffice to say that at the moment the Harrier is operating at a 0.34 per cent. ground abort rate. That means that only about four in every 1,000 times that we call on a Harrier to go on a mission in Afghanistan it cannot take off, because of some technical problem. By comparison, the Tornado GR4 is operating at a ground abort rate of 11.6 per cent. That means that more than one in 10 times that a Tornado is scrambled on operations, it simply fails to get off the ground. If that is the case, why are we replacing eight Harriers with eight Tornadoes? Why are we accepting that one in 10 times a Tornado will not get off the ground and therefore one in 10 times it will not get to serve our soldiers on the ground on the front line? Is the Minister really happy to take that risk? In fact, the ground abort rate for Tornadoes peaked last month at 12.7 per cent., so this problem is getting worse, not better. I would also like to pass this summary to the Minister so that he can confirm or deny this information, which apparently is not held centrally.”
c) This sub-point is not raised by Mr Lancaster MP, I would like to think because of parliamentary nicety rather than not realising. Why in the name of all things logical and common sensical would any sane person withdraw an aircraft which is so capable and provides so much of a life line to those brave men and women risking their lives every day and night they serve this country in Afghanistan and then replace it with an aircraft which is not as good? In an echo of a point I made to a friend recently such actions seem almost criminal if considered in the light of modern health and safety laws relating to the employers duty of care to their employees.
If they do retire the Harriers, what will we fly from the carriers – the Invincible class can certainly not carry Eurofighters, or the Harriers projected replacement in Afghanistan the Tornado; incidentally neither can the new Queen Elizabeth Class carriers – they will carry the JSF, the Harriers projected replacement, which will not begin to enter service till 2012. So, if the Harriers were withdrawn from service now, with even the most optimistic projection of full service work up time, would mean a 4.5 year or 54 month gap of capability in close support fixed wing aircraft organically available to British Forces on operation; more likely it would be 6 years or 72 months capability gap, i.e. 2015.
This whole situation is strikingly similar to something described by Chalmers Johnson in his text ‘America Is Completely Broke, And Here We Are Funding Fantasy Wars at the Pentagon’ – a text which I disagree with much of, but does raise many salient points;
a) “Instead, in military terms, the most unexpectedly successful post-Vietnam aircraft has been the Fairchild A-10, unflatteringly nicknamed the "Warthog." It is the only close-support aircraft ever developed by the U.S. Air Force. Its task is to loiter over battlefields and assist ground forces in disposing of obstinate or formidable targets, which is not something that fits comfortably with the Air Force's hot-shot self-image.”
b) “Some 715 A-10s were produced and they served with great effectiveness in the first Persian Gulf War. All 715 cumulatively cost less than three B-2 bombers. The A-10 is now out of production because the Air Force establishment favours extremely fast aircraft that fly in straight lines at high altitudes rather than aircraft that are useful in battle. In the Afghan war, the Air Force has regularly inflicted heavy casualties on innocent civilians at least in part because it tries to attack ground targets from the air with inappropriately high-performance equipment.”
c) So here is another case where the very capable ground support aircraft is being sidelined in favour of an aircraft which has been designed in the cold war mould of high speed air superiority mission primacy; ground support mission somewhere below the visible horizon. I have a solution for this, for some reason – Unknown and still unexplained to me a Brigadier of the Army was put in charge of ordering and building the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers, so why can’t a brigadier be put in charge of order the new ground support aircraft – this makes far more sense than the carriers, as they have the knowledge of what they need as well experience gained through Apache operations of what an aircraft can do. > I wrote this (on the night of the 4th Feb 2009) having not read the Telegraph on the 4th of Feb 2009, and it seems that this has already been done with a Major General being put in charge, who suprisingly and much to RAFs chargrin agrees that the Harriers should be kept on....I wonder why?

I will admit that this is not the most balanced piece I have ever written, that is because this is such an important topic in my point of view that I feel I have to drop the academic niceties of life, and be, well, more forthright than those conventions would traditionally allow. The Harrier is a combat necessity in the modern era, especially when it’s only visibly capable replacement in the role of close combat support is so far away. 6 years might not seem so much to a civil servant sitting behind a comfortable desk in the Treasury, but trust me; my friends regularly reiterate the point that 6 seconds seems like lifetime when waiting for air support to arrive in close quarters action in the heart of Helmand province – just imagine when they get told, sorry the aircraft cannot take off due to mechanical failure, or it can’t carry the right weapons to assist you, or even worst it can’t help you because it cannot go slow enough to operate at low level in valley – a not unknown occurrence with the not do dissimilar to Tornado F-15s currently deployed by the USAF in Afghanistan.
So here is my plea, please before anyone decides to withdraw these aircraft, consider those personal we have on operations, not the ones in future operations, not the ones Cold War battle which thankfully have so far never come true; but those deployed in Afghanistan, on carriers deployed to support far flung obligations signed up to so easily by the current government, carrying out tasks in areas where there are no big airfields – where a Harrier is literally the only aircraft which can be operated from the facilities available. The final point I have to make is this, why is Britain considering withdrawing an aircraft from service 6 years before its replaced is probably going to be operational, when the Americans who will operate the same types of aircraft, but will not withdraw the Harrier for 10 years – in other words 2019 in order to avoid losing those capabilities which would be so glibly dispensed with in the Harriers own nation of birth.

Chinese SuperWeapons and Submarines

2009-02-03T21:02:00.004Z

This is a break from the run of entries brought about by repetition I have kept viewing on so many other sites; namely that the Chinese have managed to out technology all other nations and can now precision attack carrier groups with ballistic missiles; and that due to the only useful warships in modern warfare are submarines. Well I will start with the beginning:
1) The Chinese are developing such a system; but even they do not think it will be ready for 50 or more years, due to requirements of technology and more importantly the creation of the required infrastructure to support such a system. For example a comprehensive real-time satellite intelligence network, supported by a central command centre equipped with a computer core capable of processing and analysing the vast quantities of information gathered by such a network - none of the things on this list are beyond the Chinese, but they will not be built quickly or easily.
2) Just as the Chinese are developing such a system, the Americans are actually further ahead (in visibility of project anyway) with the counters to such a system; I of course referring to the very capable SM-3 and SM-6 missiles coupled the current SPY-2 or the future SPY-3 Aegis radars. These systems are designed to deal with saturation level air attacks and ballistic missiles - as well as having the capability of targeting satellites. That being the crucial part of the equation, and what so many other writers have missed, the projected Chinese system would be rendered impotent if the satellites which will provide it with much, if not all, of its targeting capability are destroyed; then the weapon would cease to be a major factor in influencing operational parameters.
3) Submarines - are not wonder machines, some writers talk of these very complicated, very potent machines in such terms, one could almost be excused for wondering why navies build anything else; one has even described them as the modern capital ships and being the only useful craft. A reader, may even be excused from reading the start of this point for believing I feel the same, unfortunately I don't, and they are overstating the evidence a lot - in words of one of my former lecturers; 'restating your argument ad-infinitum does not make it real, neither does shouting it at the top of your voice'. Submarines are useful, but they did not provide 90% of the tactical air support used in Afghanistan and the Second Gulf War - that was the carriers; neither did they provide 86% of the cruise missiles fire in support of these operations - that was cruisers and destroyers. Another argument made in their support is that they are immune from air attacks; well last time I checked there were lots of aircraft which specialise in the hunting and destroying of submarines - and many of these are quite good. In fact so good the Russians have been fitting Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) in their Submarines since the 1970s; yet even with this addition their chances were not considered that good. It is in fact a basic tenant of NATO doctrine that submarines would always operate under at least a neutral sky if not a friendly sky (weather by land bases or carrier groups), unless the operation was important enough to warrant the sacrifice of a submarine.
So here is my conclusion, submarines are useful, but as part of an overall naval package, they cannot do nearly as much at the moment as their proponents would seem to suggest; in fact I wonder those proponents actually know much about them at all. As for the Chinese weapon system, every time a new weapon, which is longer range and more accurate comes out, the same argument appears - 'this renders all others before it useless'; in reality this is never the case, after all the missile replaced the gun; but ships still have guns, which very useful, some are in fact very useful at destroying missiles! So, here is my advice, before you sell the bath to pay for the shower - think, sometimes a bath is more useful than a shower, sometimes it is what you need for that situation and it covers most of same situations as the shower does; even though it as an idea predates the founding of Rome.

Cruisers; The Big Boys? Or Just Really Big Toys?

2008-12-29T18:13:00.029Z

This might seem a strange topic for consideration, after all the total number of cruisers within the worlds navies are very small, in fact there is only one in service outside of the realm of the Superpowers – and even with this it is only the navies of Russian and United State which posses and operate them

The superpower cruisers are:
United States Navy:

Twenty Two Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers.

Russian Navy:

Two Kirov-class large missile cruisers (sometimes referred to as battle cruisers due to their size),
Two Slava-class missile cruisers (further one at reduced readiness, further one under construction, transferred from Ukrainian Navy to Russian Navy),
Two(one) Kara-class.

The only other navy;
Peruvian Navy: One De Zeven Provinciën-class cruiser, the world's last operational gun cruiser.

Now in complete opposite to the list above, I will start off with Peru’s entry into the world of cruisers. Almirante Grau’s (formerly De Ruyter of the Royal Netherlands Navy), for deck pictured to the right, is has not only the title of the largest weight of shot fired currently in the world it is also the most powerful mobile artillery unit in the world. The De Zeven Provinciën class (pictured below) was a fairly effective design of cruiser which was built by both sides but never finished in time to serve either during World War II, but upon reaching active service provided the command ship elements in many NATO deployments after hostilities were over.

The Almirante Grau has been updated with Otomat Surface to Surface Missiles (SSM) – which puts in front of the brand new Type 45 Daring class destroyers of the Royal Navy; however I am still not going to examine to depth of the other classes, for one reason it is not fair as it is so much older, secondly it is really not the purpose of this entry to compare cruisers of World War II to cruisers of the modern era but to compare those of the modern era. It was though worthy of a mention.

Now for the beginning of the meat and bones of this entry; the Kara Class of Russian Navy. The `Kara' class design is generally similar to that of the Kresta II cruisers which preceded them, but the Kara’s are longer and are powered by gas rather than steam turbines; which perhaps is an explanation for the Kresta’s rapid disappearance post cold-war opposed to the slow continuance of Kara construction. Originally the Kara’s mounted two SA-N-3 launchers fore and aft, with their associated Head Lights fire-control systems; which are perhaps the most dominant feature of the ship to look at. The large mainmast supports the very large Top Sail radar. As in the Kresta II there are four SS-N-15 launchers either side of the bridge – a similar configuration to the Sovremenny Class destroyers. Unusually for an escort the helicopter is raised to flight deck level by a lift; something which is more associated with carriers and amphibious ships than an escort. The guns mounted on the `Kara' class include two twin main 76.2 mm guns. As in the earlier ships, however, these are cited at the waist and have an arc of fire of some 150o on the beam; different from that of Sovremenny and Udaloy class destroyers where they are mounted centreline; this may of course reflect Russian Naval doctrine on the purpose of cruisers within task groups; but it also seems a reflection of the fact that the guns are not of primary importance in these vessels. Similarly, the 30 mm CIWS turrets are sited in two pairs either side of the stack covering their respective beams, but unable to cover the forward or after arcs; although how significant this might seem in action depends on the ships ability to manoeuvre within the situation the attack finds it. RFS Kerch, which is the only vessel in a state of true active service, entered refit in the late 1980s, which included the installation of a Flat Screen radar, in place of the Top Sail. Whilst, it is logical that this would have been installed in other remaining ship, the Ochakov, however as far as I know this is not the case.

The missile armament is these ships, like all modern cruisers, is their reason for being; starting out they have 2 quad SS-N-14 Silex anti-submarine missiles, the same armament as is fitted the Udaloy class anti-submarine destroyers. Added to this is the fairly impressive by soviet standards SA-N-3 Goblet surface to air missile launchers – with 80 missiles reportedly carried they were in some ways the equivalent of the early Ticonderoga class cruisers – which will be discussed later, the similarity of the level of importance attached to the air defence role is the fact they also pack the SA-N-4 Gecko surface to air missile launchers – with reportedly 40 reloads. This all fits in with a fairly potent radar system (according to all reports, if anyone can actually tell me the definitive Russian name for them I would be most impressed and grateful – I am not putting Owl Screech in my blog entry – it sounds way to much like a Bill Oddie nature documentary).

The Slava Class are different again, for starts the main guns have returned to the centreline, and its visual presence is dominated by the 16 (4 double launchers either sides of the main structure) for the P-500 Bazalt surface to surface missiles(SSMs) otherwise known as the SS-N-12 Sandbox missile. This system, the forerunner of the Shipwreck which is mounted on the Kirovs and will discussed later, is a system which is worthy of great respect. In the history of Russian made anti-ship missiles, this system has definite status. The reason for this status, I hear you ask? Simple, with a range in excess of 550km, a 950kg semi-armour-piercing high explosive warhead, and a speed measuring greater than 2.5 times the speed of sound - it is a weapon system which certainly puts the harpoon to shame, and doesn’t exactly cast the Exocet in a shining light. Added to this impressive system is the S-300F or as NATO calls it SA-N-6, its upgrade missile (compared to the land based version) with range extended to 90 km and maximum target speed of Mach 4; although it does have a more limited engagement altitude compared to its land counterpart, only 25-25,000 m. The radar system attached to this is the TOP PAIR – that is a TOP SAIL teamed with a BIG NET; a comprehensive system if not the technological equal of the of the American SPY Aegis system.

This system is itself further reinforced by the SA-N-4 Gecko system, as is also fitted in the Kara class; this system is aimed at far closer range system than the SA-N-6, only 15km, but it covers this range at 1020 m/s, so it is less than 15s from launch to maximum range – making it a useful system; although not quite on par with the British Seawolf. The missile systems on the Slava class are augmented by 1 twin AK-130 130mm/L70 dual purpose guns; as I have mentioned previously mounted centreline forward, this is supplement by 6 AK-630 close-in weapons systems. As is usually with Soviet era ships of this size it carries a comprehensive anti-submarine outfitting, 2 RBU-6000 anti-submarine mortars, and 10 (2 quin) 533mm torpedo tubes; along with a helicopter as well; although at current it seems to be whichever one can be found that works. There are not unsupported rumours that the final vessel of this class, which is still under construction in the Ukraine, will be sold to Chinese; surely a prospect they must be considering in light of their expressed desire to have 6 carrier groups in service by 2020; cruisers as the Russians, and the Americans acknowledge are important to such groups successful operations.

Undoubtedly, with this in mind, the Soviet navy commissioned the largest class of cruisers to ever be constructed, weighing in at 28,000tons fully loaded, 4 of the class were completed and off these (Kirov) Admiral Ushakov has been inactive since the early 1990s; in fact slated for scrapping as of 2000, (Frunze) Admiral Lazarev has been laid up in Severomorsk, technically in reserve since 2004 – but is being worked on with a view to selling it too the Chinese, (Kalinin) Admiral Nakhimov has been undergoing repairs at Sevmash since 1999, but is not expected to rejoin the navy before 2012 if not 2015, and finally (Yuri Andropov) Pyotr Velikiy (pictured above) is active and serving as the flagship of the Northern fleet, something its namesake Peter the Great would have been proud off.

These goliaths of the escort world pack a very powerful punch centred on the massive P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) AShM, 20 of which are carried. With a speed of 4.5x the speed of sound, a range of 625km, and capable of pulling manoeuvres of 16g; this is possibly the most dangerous anti-ship missile in the world; it packs the standard issue 750kg high explosive warhead, this is not a let down however as it is a very good warhead, and certainly can do what its intended. Of course however the real threat of this weapon is that like almost all soviet weapons it can have a nuclear warhead fitted – hence the NATO designation of Shipwreck is inappropriate it should ‘Carrier Battle group Wreck’ rather than mere shipwreck. It is role as Battle Group BFG (Big Freidly Giant - Ronald Dahl) it also carriers a very impressive, by any standard (and really it can afford to – it’s not lacking in space to put it) air defence arrangement. Working out in range from the ship, the SA-N-9 Gauntlet, which uses the same 9M330 missile as its land based version. They are stored within rotary VLS modules, the missiles are positioned in 4 clusters of launchers comprising of six modules, totalling 192 missiles (each module contains 8 missiles), and mounted flush to the deck. Fire control is handled by the 3R95 multi-channel FC system (Cross Swords). This system is comprised of two complimenting radar sets, a G-band target acquisition radar and a K-band target engagement radar. This gives the system a good degree of flexibility because the G-band is constantly scanning the area even when the K-band is focused on a target. To maintain its 360 degree view it the G-band part of the system is actually two mechanically scanned (so quite a slow system when compared to Aegis) parabolic mounted radars. However, the K-band is electronically scanned phased array reflection type antenna, which is closer to the Aegis, the best thing about this technology though is that it can track and guide eight missiles to four targets simultaneously. These missiles have a maximum range of 12km, but a speed of 850m/s, not as fast as some but with accuracy, the time it takes too travel this distance is about 14s, whilst not as fast the Seawolf or SMs it is not a system a pilot or an officer planning a missile strike can discount.

The next envelope out from this is that created by the constant throughout these Russian cruisers, the SA-N-6 Grumble, however the Kirov’s got a special version, or rather RFS Pytor Velikiy did – the others will probably be upgrade, in the fullness of time, with full consideration of all economic strictures and work labour contexts. This is the S-300FM Fort-M sometimes referred to as SA-N-20, it introduced the new 48N6 missile. This has a speed of Mach 6, compared to Mach 4.5 of the original, and is capable of a maximum engagement speed of up to Mach 8.5. Added to this the warhead size has been increased to 150 kg; most importantly though the maximum engagement range was increased to 150 km as well as opening the altitude envelope to 10m-27 km; time therefore from launch to maximum range is 72.5s. Another advantage of the upgrade missiles was that they introduced the best so far track-via-missile guidance method, which brought with it the ability to intercept short-range ballistic missiles.

However, this system would be useless with bad information, therefore it is combined with the TOMB STONE MOD radar, rather than TOP DOME radar used in the previous. As an added layer of insurance both naval versions of this system are believed to include a secondary infrared terminal seeker, similar to the newer US Standard missile system, probably to reduce the system's vulnerability to saturation. This would also have the theoretical capability of allowing the missile to be used to engage contacts over the radar horizon, such as warships or sea-skimming anti-ship missiles – although there have been no reports of this being the case.

Added to all this, RFS Pytor Velikiy, and one must presume the others of the class once they are back in service. Like all large Soviet designed ships, and something which has carried on into the new Russian navy, the anti submarine armament is almost over the top; they mount the SS-N-15 Starfish rocket torpedo, 2x RBU-1000 305 mm ASW rocket launchers, 2x RBU-12000 (Udav-1) 254 mm ASW rocket launchers, and 10 533 mm ASW/ASuW torpedo tubes. Centreline aft, overlooking the helicopter deck is a twin AK-130 130 mm/L70 dual purpose gun.
The level of CIWS varies between the vessels, for example Nakhimov & Pytor Velikiy have 6 separate CADS-N-1 Kashtan missile/gun system whilst Lazarev, the one apparently destined for the Chinese mounts 8 of the AK-630 hex Gatling 30 mm/L60 PD guns. Both these systems are fairly comprehensive in the cover they afford their vessels, however the Kashtan system is considered to be a very innovative and effective design by all whom have come in close contact with it.

The last class to be considered is that which makes up almost 75% of the cruisers in the world, this class is of course the almost ubiquitous (as far as their presence in conflict goes) Ticonderoga class of US Navy. USS Port Royal CG-73

They were revolutionary when they were first launched with SPY-1 electronically scanned phased array radar; although originally they were classified as destroyers, it was only after the capability of the Aegis combat system was realised that the class was reclassified as cruisers. In addition to the added radar capability, the Ticonderoga class built after the 5th in class, Thomas S. Gates, are outfitted with two then revolutionary VLS. Theses allow the ship to have 122 launch tubes that can carry a wide variety of missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, the Standard surface-to-air missile(SM-1 & 2, and apparently the future 3 & 6), the Evolved Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile, and the ASROC anti-submarine missile. More importantly, the VLS enables all missiles to be on full stand-by at any given time, shortening the ship's response time. The original five ships, including the Thomas S. Gates, had MK. 26 twin arm launchers which limited their missile capacity to a total of 88 missiles, and could not fire the Tomahawk missile. After the end of the Cold War, the lower capabilities of the original five ships limited them to home-waters duties. The classes rather overcrowded superstructure (in fact it is a very ‘fiddly’ design), inherited from the Spruance class destroyers, required two of the radar transceivers to be mounted on a special pallet on the portside aft corner of the superstructure, with the other two mounted on the forward starboard corner. This meant that the weight of the ships, 1,500 tons heavier than the Spruance’s, and more importantly the position of the weight in the vessel; resulted in a highly-stressed hull and some structural problems in early service, although these were mostly corrected before the 1st Gulf War. Due to the differences between the first 5 of the class and the rest, they are sometimes treated as almost separate classes the Mark 26 (or just 26), and the Mark 41 (or just 41). For the purposes of this blog I will also treat them thus, with the intent of using their differences to examine further the role of the cruiser in the modern naval force.

The 26’s had to Mk26 double arm missile launchers, and carried a total of 88 SM-2 reloads, added to this impressive air defence capability, and against the decisions of the British MOD 20 years later, they were also fitted with two quad launchers of RGM-84 Harpoons. To supplement the missile armament the type 21s were also fitted with 2 single mounting deck guns Mark 45 5 in / 54 cal lightweight gun (fore and aft), 4 .50cal guns, and 2 Phalanx CIWS all situated to provide converging fields of fire in the event that the SM2s failed to intercept. Finally an addition any soviet designed would have been proud of 2 triple torpedo launchers mount MK32 ASW torpedoes.

The mark 41 cruisers differ only slightly on the surface, but majorly in capability. The primary difference is the use of this blogs old favourite, the Type 41 VLS, it carries in fact to 61 cell VLS, which carry any combination of RIM-66 SMs, TIM-162 ESSMs, BGM-109 Tomahawk, or RUM-139 VL-ASROC (I will explain these in further detail a bit further on). Again, like the 26s, they are fitted with the 2 quad Harpoon launchers, and have a similar gun and torpedo outfit, the only difference being the addition of 2 single 25mm cannon.

The missile systems are extensive on the Type 41, but I will start with looking at the Standard Missile or SM-2/3/6. SM-2 is the originally SAM fitted to these vessels and has a long history, so long in fact I could very easily write another blog entry on it alone, but for reasons of not wanting to make this piece to long, I will just examine a few of the variants. The first one, is the now truly ‘standard’ standard missile; the SM-2 Medium Range Block IIIB or RIM-66M, with a range of about 160km, it has more advanced targeting system than the previous versions, which included a dual semi-active/infrared seek for terminal guidance; a system which is optimised to cope with the high levels of jamming, and decoying used by modern combat aircraft. Combined with all this technology is a speed of Mach 3.5, and an unspecified G capability; but it’s probably not that low. Unfortunately though, this missile system good though it is does not even begin to take full advantage of the Aegis’s radar capability. The RIM-156 SM-2 Extended Range (SM-2ER) Block IV has an extended range of 185.2km, something which will built on again by the SM-6 generation of missiles (even though this will probably be classified as MR, compared the next). The SM-3 (pictured left launch from USS Lake Erie to destroy the statelite), is the fullest development of the Aegis system, with operational range of 500km, and ceiling of 250km, the SM-3 is not only a ship based anti-ballistic missile, an anti-satellite weapon (as long as they are in a low earth orbit), it is also a very capable, typically American, Surface to Air Missile. This system makes all previous weapons mounted by Aegis ships look like the really were, an average weapon attached to a very much above average detection system.

The Ticonderoga cruisers do of course not only stop aircraft, unlike the Royal Navy’s Type 45 Daring class destroyers, they also stop ships, and for this they use they primarily use Harpoon, although of course the Type 41s can use Tomahawks – but I will get those in a second. Both the 26s and the 41s mount the Harpoon, with a speed of 850km/h or 236m/s, a range of 75km, and warhead of 221kg, it hardly matches up to the Shipwreck, but it is a capability, and Harpoon has proved itself a reliable and capable weapon.

The Type 41s of course gain to weapons with their Type 41 VLS, the Tomahawk and the Asroc. The Asroc or more precisely the RUM-139 VL-ASROC, which carries a Type 46 torpedo – it has a range of 28kms, and provides a measure of extended support the vessels ASW helicopters; something which the Russians had always done, and the Americans perfected. The party piece that practically everyone knows about, thanks in large part to the prolific way the Americans wage war, is the Tomahawk, possibly the best know cruise missile ever made. Its rasin d’etra is that it has a range of 2,500km, and all though its not fast (only 30km/h faster than the Harpoon), the range combined with the accuracy had made it a war winner. A note which I am adding, in contrast to what the Wikipedia entry for the Tomahawk claims, the Sylver A70 launcher can carry the new French cruise missile, the Daring class mount the Sylver A50 which can’t, none of the Sylver launchers can accommodate the Tomahawk.

This weaponry is, as is usual, dependent on that which sees for it, unfortunately I am not able to talk much about it, as not much is available for certain (and I prefer to report facts as a rule). What is known is the AN/SPY-1 is primarily a phased array 3D Air-search radar transmitting an S band frequency, with a detection range well in excess of a hundred nautical miles, and is considered the most powerful radar afloat.

So cruisers, the weapons suggest that they are multi-role combatants, and this is true, they are often the pickets or core ships of naval task force; they are big escorts which support all others, in the cases of the Kirov and Ticonderoga classes, they mobile ABM weapon platforms, something for which their size and the power systems it can accommodate are necessary. The range of weaponry they carry also shows, the range of wartime roles they will fill – picket and core ship sounds so limiting, compared to primary strike co-ordinator, principle air-warfare vessel, command ship, and my personal favourite lone ranger. That cruisers are useful is beyond doubt that China and maybe other nations will consider joining this at the moment very exclusive band is beyond doubt; the more important question to my mind, is why wouldn’t a nation which is building every other component of a naval force build a cruiser? It would seem to my humble mind a error of judgement to do so.

Destroyers

2008-12-29T18:12:00.003Z

Since they first evolved from Torpedo Boat Destroyers; destroyers have maintained an image of, as well as necessity for being fast, manoeuvrable and of surprisingly large endurance considering their size. The reason they needed this combination of qualities, was the raisin d’être; escorting and protecting larger more vulnerable units such as carriers, merchantmen or amphibious ships. The modern destroyers are of 7,000tons plus, in fact the USNs DD(X) will be over 12,500tons. They often have a capability for area air defence, as well as providing the capability to deal with a wide range of other targets.

The increasing numbers of destroyers in service, and especially the reliance placed on them by the USN, the PLAN, and the VMF, are all symptoms of the fact that being larger than frigates, they are far more capable of taking the plethora of modern weaponry required for operations. However, the other advantage they have is that they are cheaper to construct than cruisers; thus presenting a middle way. The most common fleet role undertaken by destroyers is that of air defence, whether using their powerful radars to direct carrier borne aircraft onto targets or just engaging the targets with their own weapons. Another role which is common for destroyers is that of ‘command ship’ as in most navies they are often the largest vessels available, so are the most ‘viable’ option.

The above is Type 52c Lanzhou class destroyer of the People Liberation Army Navy, the most advanced escort currently in service with China’s fleet, it is a very capable ship mounting, as would be expected from such a wealthy nation, a comprehensive array of weaponry. Its most important weapon system being HHQ-9 SAM VLS which combined with the new Type 348 Phased Array Radar makes these two ships, in terms of air defence capability the equivalent of the USNs Arleigh Burke class. The Lanzhou’s also carry a 100mm deck gun, 2 Type 730 CIWS (visible in the picture, they do heavily resemble the Dutch Goalkeeper CIWS used in European navies), it is also outfitted with two triple barrelled 324mm ASW torpedo launchers. This final weapon system is enhanced by the presence of Kamov Ka-28 ASW helicopter – which can provide over the horizon guidance to them; as well as hunting submarines. This whole design, the capability it has provided the Chinese navy with is far in advance of anything which preceded it; most importantly they are the equals of many other classes in service around the world, and the betters of the rest; if they are a sign of things to come, then the time when the Chinese navy could be regarded as technically inferior no matter how good their servicemen and women manning the weapons were has passed into the faded pages of history.

The PLAN is also benefitting from the growing ‘detente’ between China and Russia, allowing it to purchase some modern versions of Russian classes. This has mainly been exemplified by the acquiring of several units of Sovremenny class destroyers, an example is pictured below, firing a Sunburn Aegis Killer.

Like the Royal Navy’s type 42 destroyers the Sovremennys have a prominent radom atop the Bridge structure; although unlike the Type 42s this radar is by no means its only system. The class was built with the Arleigh Burkes of USN in mind, these ships are their Russian, and now Chinese opposites, and whilst they are certainly not as advanced as Arleigh Burkes, in fact probably not as advance as the Lanzhou's they are, due in large part to the extensive array of weaponry the Russians usually cram into their hulls – and the Sovremennys are a premier example of this, not able to be written of the order of battle as of no consequence. The picture shows of the SSMs, it carries 2× 4 SS-N-22 'Sunburn's; which will be discussed in further detail, the SA-N-7 'Gadfly' SAM, 2 double 130 mm guns, 4× 30 mm AK-630 Gatling guns CIWS, 2 x 2 553 mm Torpedo tubes, and RBU-1000 ASW rockets. This hefty and very encompassing outfit is topped off by the inclusion of a Ka-27 'Helix' ASW and over the horizon targeting aircraft.

It is the missile systems with which the Sovremenny class are outfitted that allow ‘hefty’ to be used to describe; the SA-7 SAM, is based on the 9K37 missile; better known as the SA-11. The missile travels at mach 3, can go out to 22 miles from its launch point, and with the original system installed in 1980 could engage two targets simultaneously per tracking radar. This was a system, which whilst not being up to sophistication and capabilities of aegis, was more than capable of holding its own. The real killer in the Sovremenny’s formidable tools of destruction is the SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles. These are so quick that the maximum theoretical response time, in perfect conditions, is 25-30 seconds; compared to the 120-150 a crew will get when dealing with a Exocet or Harpoon in such perfect conditions, it lethality could never, in fact can never be questioned. In fact the sole reason I can see for the purchase of these ships by the Chinese navy, other diplomatic, is the missile system, the PLAN have access to some very good home grown missile systems, but Sunburn or P-270 Moskit to give its Russian designation is a one of a kind, a weapon system which makes whatever platform it is bolted on to, not only worthy of respect, but also a wide berth. The Sovremennys are not Russia’s only class of destroyers, they also have the Udaloys, these vessels however are really – barring the Udaloy II, large ASW ships, with an armament reflecting this; thus in many ways the Russian equivalent of the Type 23 frigate; although following Russian practice it does have more in the way of weapon systems, there is a picture below of an Udaloy I, Admiral Panteleyev.

The prominently displayed missile tubes (underneath the Bridge) are home to SS-N-14 Rocket torpedoes, and along with its brace of helicopters show the lengths the Soviet Navy was prepared to go to in its attempt to counter NATO submarines.

Mentioning NATO, it’s now appropriate to move into the destroyers of the ‘western’ navies, and appropriately enough to start by comparing, on the chart below the various types of modern Air Defence ship being employed. From the top USN DDG-51 "Arleigh Burke" Class, Flight IIA; Flight I; RN Type 45 "D" Class; French Horizon "Forbin" Class; Dutch "De Zeven Provincien" Class; Spanish "F100" Class. Source: Mihoshi (4/2003) – please note the French Horizon has now become the FREMM or rather the FREDA.

Beginning with an analysis of the second vessel down (above left), the Flight I Arleigh Burke class vessels are some of the most successful destroyer designs ever made - pictured above right with a Nimitz class carrier; even though they lack anything more than rudimentary facilities for Helicopter support. Their Aegis system, combined with the excellent SM-2 missile has provided the backbone, and much of the skeleton, of USN escort groups since the 1980s. Key this success though must be the multi-missile capable VLS system incorporated from the beginning which allowed them to carry everything from cruise missiles to self-defence missiles and a lot of things in between; as is demonstrated by the figure below.

It is the Type 41 vls, which is also used in the Dutch "De Zeven Provincien" Class, which means even the Arleigh Burke Flight I are general purpose destroyers, rather than just air-defence, or anti-submarine; an advantage over the previously mentioned destroyer classes as it allows America to have one class for all jobs rather than two as in the case of the Russians, or many in the case of the Chinese. Flight I Arleigh Burkes even compare well with the new Type 45 destroyers of the Royal Navy (which will be discussed further on) due to the limitations that later have been given by the use of the SYLVER A50 VLS which is limited to just Aster missiles(even the A70 version could have also carried the SCALP Naval, otherwise known as Storm Shadow, cruise missile), rather than the Type 41 VLS. Though not even this advantage was enough on its own for the USN, hence the changing to Flight IIa standard (USS Winston S Churchill pictured below); basically a Flight I with helicopters.

After all the discussion about the Type 41 VLS system; the Arleigh Burkes carry 1 × 32 cell, 1 × 64 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems with a standard load containing a combination of SM-2 SAMs, BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles and RUM-139 VL-Asroc (rocket torpedoes). To compliment the missile systems they are outfitted with a 5" (127 mm)/62 cal Deck Gun, 2 × 25 mm cannon, 2 × .50 cal. guns (single), 2 × .50 cal. (dual) machine guns, 2 × 5.57mm m240 grenade launchers (with the option of 1 more on flight deck if required) and 2 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS. To add depth to defence provided by the 2 SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters and the ASROC torpedoes they also mount two Mk 46 triple torpedo tubes. These ships are therefore the ultimate, currently in service, multi-role combat ship – the benchmark by which all future surface combatants, whatever the navy, should be measured. They have the capability to not only decimate air attacks, but also to fire in support of amphibious operations, bombard cities hundreds of miles inland, and comprehensively fend of submarines; and most importantly they can do this all at the same time.

The picture above is a graphic projection of USS Zumwalt, the lead in the class of DDX. It is the next class of destroyer after the Arleigh Burkes, and are, in as far as I know my own words, a powerhouse of mobile firepower. However, they are not general purpose destroyers like the Arleigh Burkes, they are Land Attack. Their armament reflects this, it has 20 × MK 57 VLS modules (the successor to the Mk 41) comprising a total of 80 missiles; Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM), Tactical Tomahawk and ASROC. It artillery is however far more potent with 2 × 155 mm Advanced Gun System as compared to the single 127mm of the Arleigh Burkes, added to this capability it will carry 3 MQ-8 Fire Scout VTUAVs to compliment the helicopters they will also be carrying. As well as this there are the now obligatory CIWS, although these are projected to be of a new type, the BAE Systems MK 110 57mm gun. Their lack of advertised capability in air defence is undoubtedly a reflection of both the quality of the Arleigh Burke class and their continued service, as well as the project CG(X) advanced air defence ship. However, even though it is not advertised, the AN/SPY-3 Multi-Function Radar (MFR) an evolution of the current Aegis radars, which would suggest a certain compatibility with SM-2, the soon to be in service SM-3, and the projected SM-6 SAMs. Whatever the case, this lack of emphasis is the exact opposite from the Royal Navy's new destroyer; as I stated earlier I would examine the Type 45 Daring Class, and now is the time.

This is HMS Daring the first and therefore the name ship of its class, it is a Type 45 Air Defence destroyer. In many ways its layout is reminiscent of the Type 23 frigates; with the major bulk of its weapons systems forward of the Bridge. With the SYLVER A50 prominent behind the new 1 x 114 mm (4.5 inch) Mk 8 mod 1 gun, it will also carry two American made 2 x Phalanx 20 mm CIWS, rather than the British made the BAE Systems Mk 110 57mm gun – as the Americans have selected for the Zumwalts. This is many way’s nit-picking, but it is necessary, the Daring class were put together quickly after the Horizon joint European air-defence frigate project fell through. Thus, I feel mistakes have been made. The single 48 cell SYLVER VLS system is at a disadvantage when compared to the 32 and 64 cell TYPE 41 VLS mounted on the Arleigh Burke, now the Royal Navy has nowhere near the budget of the USN so this would be expecting to much, but a single 64 cell Mk 41 or even Mk 57 VLS would have taken up only a little more space, but would have also carried a far larger quantity and range of weaponry – as has already been pointed out; interestingly enough the SYLVER was designed for the French and the Dutch navy, however the Dutch still put the Type 41 into their "De Zeven Provincien" Class. Most importantly the other VLS systems would have made the Daring class a multi-role Guided Missile Destroy, rather than just an anti-air. Carrying on we have the usage of the Phalanx CIWS a good and proven system, used on the previous Type 42 class destroyers, hardly anything to argue you against it, but, it is old, the Americans who developed it are moving beyond it, the Dutch Goalkeeper is a newer and in many ways better system already used on many new units. However, the winner in my opinion should have been the BAE Systems Mk 110, mounting 3 of these in concert with about 4 Rafael TYPHOON remote controlled weapon systems; preferably of the GSA type, although the DSA with its gun combined with countermeasures devices is of course a very good alternative.

The answer to questions why is this better than the Phalanx, and why would I build a system like I have just outlined - rather than what has currently been installed? The answer is simple, the Mk110 is just as good at anti-missile work as the Phalanx, but cheaper, more importantly it also has a far better capability against swarms of motor torpedo boats packed with explosives; a threat increasingly possible with the modern prevalence of Asymmetric warfare. Thus these very capable weapons augmented by the 4(?) Typhoon GSA's, with their combination of gun and SAM(this can be RAM or even Seawolf/Aster 15 - its just a small software fix away) would provide a very very strong anti-aircraft air defence umbrella for the support of operations in the littoral as well as providing a better sphere of protection against burgeoning range of anti-ship missiles with which nations are equipping their forces.

The use of the Oerlikon 30 mm KCB guns on DS-30B mounts is becoming a tradition in the Royal Navy having been fitted in the Type 23s, they are a very serviceable weapon system but would be, in my opinion, of more use with the weapons described above rather than the Phalanx as they would provide a far smaller percentage of the weight of firepower that could be used against air or surface threats. This is unlike my feelings on the inclusion of only 1 helicopter; be it Merlin or Lynx, even the addition of UAVs would have greatly increased both the ASW capabilities, and her fire support capabilities. To my mind, when there are so many British built, let alone worldwide, UAVs of such high standards it would surely have not been that difficult to build them in from the start; rather than as I suspect have to be built in at a later date. This lack of inclusion goes further; for some unknown reason these ships have not been given a SSM – the only anti-ship capability they have is that provided by the deck gun; there is plenty of space on them for the inclusion of a Harpoon system or if they had carried the Type 41 or 57 VLS tomahawk cruise missiles could have been fitted – adding the further dimension of deep strike land attack capability.

This all will come across as me disliking the Type 45s or even not thinking them good ships; that however, is my personal dilemma; I do think they are great ships, with the Sampson radar system, their powerful stealthy design, great manoeuvrability and turn of speed; they are great ships. It is just, that they could have so easily been exceptional ships; they could so easily have replaced the Arleigh Burkes, even for a short while, as the bench mark. They will not be built in large numbers, so the decision to build them so heavily focused on Air-Warfare is almost criminally short sighted; it forgets that there is no bigger, more powerful escort to provide them with back up. It is the story of the Type 23 frigates repeating its self, a brilliant ASW ship, it however lacks in depth of air defence; in the Type 45 they have the air defence, but not the strike capability; the Royal Navy is not big enough anymore to have these specialised ships; but no one seems to have told those in charge of procurement this. However, I could rant at the lack of consideration shown by this for hours; but in fact it would be pointless, as once the juggernaut of designers, engineers, and civil servants have made the decisions it is the fate of the naval officers to live with them; and historians such as myself to try and bring the stories of their trials, tribulations, and heroisms to light.

Above is HMCS Algoquin, a fitting point to start the conclusion of this piece. It is a destroyer in the Canadian navy. She is of the Iroquois class, a class which has served throughout the Cold War, they will be replaced soon, and without a doubt the Canadians are eyeing their allies’ ships, to see what traits they should include in the replacements. The Type 45’s are a rogue element set against the flow of ever more capable vessels; with ever more expanding armament and roles for which to use them in. As has been said the Arleigh Burkes are the benchmarks of this, but the Type 51c’s of the PLAN are also worthy of consideration. Both these classes exemplify the growth in sophistication of what used to be the workhorses of the fleet, but are now its thoroughbreds. All in all destroyers are now, and will continue to be the go to vessels, therefore the navy with limited destroyers will always be limited in operations and in the end might as well not show up to the conflict zone.

Frigates

2008-12-29T18:11:00.002Z

Royal Navy Type 23, HMS Somerset

Sorry this took so long; I eventually realised with so much going on in this area of ship procurement I would never have been able to make this definitive - as new stuff would always be emerging, so I will just keep adding.

The workhorses of the majority of modern naval forces, these ships were originally and still are at the forefront of the surface based anti-submarine warfare effort. However, as the Cold War developed and they became more and more important in making up the numbers of escorts; frigates have grown both in versatility and breadth of weaponry carried, as well roles for which they are to fulfil. These factors have in turn lead to a growth in size of the vessels themselves, something which is shown by the chart below.

A general description of a frigate is “A warship, usually of 4,000 to 9,000 displacement tons, that is smaller than a destroyer and used primarily for escort duty”. The average modern displacement is often closer to 9,000 tons, than to 4,000. This, as is said above, is reflective of the weapons capacity they are now outfitted with.

There is a slight exception to this general trend, now to be discussed. HMS Chatham, pictured to the left, is a prime example of the growth of roles which frigates are supposed to carry out when considered alongside HMS Somerset, pictured at the beginning. Chatham is a Batch 3 Type 22 Frigate of the Royal Navy, weighing in at 4,900-5,300 tons as opposed to Batch 1's 4,400 tons. She is armed with Sea Wolf SAMs in the visible launchers fore and aft, a 4.5in main gun, Stingray Torpedoes, a Dutch Goalkeeper CIWS and Harpoon SSMs; as well as the ability to carry two Lynx Helicopters or one Merlin (EH101).

HMS Somerset is a Type 23, she weighs in at 4,200 tons, as can be seen in the picture she has 4.5in deck gun, behind which is a Vertical Launch System (VLS) for her Seawolf SAMs, poking out between this and the bridge are the Harpoon SSMs launchers. She carries only a single Merlin helicopter, has not got CIWS, but does retain the Stingray torpedoes. Even with her lower level of armament HMS Somerset and her 12 sisters who remain in the service of the Royal Navy make up 50% of the escorts available. The reason for this is that they were originally designed to act as part of an escort group, along with larger numbers of destroyers/general purpose frigates; whilst they took care of the submarines. The Type 23's are considered the best Sub-Hunters, in NATO's arsenal, but the problem which has come about with them, is that the Governments have never built the rest of the escort group, leaving them to fight in roles for which they do very well, but not as well as they could if they were properly supported.

I have, however, spoken of a trend of ever larger and more powerful Frigates, and this I shall now show by pointing to the other navies of the world. Germany is a prime example of this, with an expanding fleet of general purpose frigates, the F124s- F221 Hessen pictured left, weigh in at 5,960tons, the new class of Frigates the F125s, are 7,200tons - picture to the left below. Whilst both classes can carry two NH90 helicopters, the difference that appears between them is that of armament. The F124, carries a MK. 41 VLS with 8 cells for 32 RIM-162 ESSM (4 per cell) and 24 SM-2 IIIA SAMs, 2 RAM launchers with 21 SAM/CIWS-missiles each, 2 quadruple Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, an OTO-Melara 76 mm deck gun, 2 Mauser MLG 27 mm auto cannons, and 2 triple torpedo launchers with EuroTorp MU90 Impact torpedoes; an impressive outfitting for a ship which focuses on Anti-Submarine and General Purpose warfare.
On the other hand the F125, which focuses on peacekeeping and land attack roles, has a very different outfitting. This is projected to be 8 × RGM-84 Harpoon SSM (interim solution until joint sea/land attack missile becomes available), 2 × RAM Block II SAM/CIWS, 1 × 127 mm lightweight Otobreda naval gun with guided VULCANO ammunition for land-attack missions (range: more than 100 km (62 mi)), 2 × 27 mm MLG 27 remote-controlled auto cannons, 5 × 12.7 mm Hitrole-NT remote-controlled machine gun turrets, 2 × 12.7 mm heavy machine guns (manually controlled). Most notably there are no torpedoes carried; in fact these frigates could be called destroyers, if they carried a better SAM system, such as Aster, which might be put in to the Type 41 launcher anyway at a later time. What points mostly to their future inshore operations is the sheer weight of firepower devoted to close defence, 2 Auto cannons, 5 remote controlled machineguns not to mention the RAM (Rowling Airframe Missiles) and 2 manually controlled machineguns. This will provide these ships with an almost unparalleled capability within the Littoral regions of operation.

The F125's are not the only large frigates coming into service, replacing/complimenting smaller, older vessels. The De Zeven Provinciën class frigates, of which HNLMS Tromp, below, is a prime example.

Weighing in at 6,050 tons, and with another very impressive aray of armaments; it has a modular Mk41 VLS with 8 cells each Standard armament: 8×4 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile, 32 SM-2 IIIA surface-to-air missiles, as well as this she carries 2 Goalkeeper CIWS guns, 2 quadruple Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, an Oto Melara 127 mm/54 dual-purpose gun, 2 Oerlikon Contraves 20 mm machine guns, 2 twin MK32 Mod 9 torpedo launchers with Raytheon MK46 Mod 5 torpedoes. They have a flight deck and hangar facility for a lynx helicopter. The class has also the advantage that as it stands it can add in at least one more set of 8 cells onto the VLS. This class fall in the category of large general purpose frigates. It is a good class of ship, which will provide a truly powerful bastion for the support of operations. In a way it is like the complimentary class of frigates the Royal Navy planned when they were building the Type 23s.

France and Italy are providing another addition to the large frigate family; 5,800-6,000 tone FREMM or FREDA (depending on whether it belongs to the Anti-Submarine, General Purpose or Anti-Air subclasses). Whilst weapon outfits for this class are sketchy, and fairly fluid at the moment, the Anti-Air or FREDA's will be almost certainly be carrying the Aster Missile system.

The Chinese are also building new escorts, although currently they seem to focus on destroyers, rather like America is doing; this maybe something to do with superpower status, or more likely it is a reflection of the usual truth, that if in doubt the larger more versatile and well armed escort is the better bet – if you can afford it, and both these nations can.

For my view on frigates, they are going to get larger in size and be multi-role focused, also I am doubting the wisdom of small nations commissioning more than 6 vessels in class or perhaps making them batches of 4, as such nations need to adapt their forces to meet a constant changing set of requirements, building one large class based in one set of ideas, such as the Type 23s of the Royal Navy, would seem to undermine their position.

Corvettes

2008-12-22T17:04:00.000Z

Okay so this, I am afraid, is another of those joining the dots entries I am adding so that when the next large one is put out there it will not be such a great leap from the first. This is focusing on those little vessels, which the more I learn about the more I think are of growing importance in modern naval warfare; after all for navies such as Israel's they are their largest ships (Sa'ar 5 Pictured). I am of course referring to the very humble, but multi-mission capable corvette.

The limitations on corvettes are of course obvious, they are small; this means all the space has to be used effectively, but the continued use of the Pauka's by former Soviet Countries, and the American's new Littoral Combat Ships - a hybrid corvette in everything but name, rather like the British 'Through Deck Cruisers', aka the Invincible Class Carriers. Both these designs show that if you put enough thought into the design you can get a very useful 'ship of war' out of it.

Another factor which has raised the importance of these vessels in my mind at least is the lesson of the Joint Strike Fighter - an aircraft produced to a budget, of very high quality, very good capabilities, and not that expensive. Whilst of course the possibility exists to do this with other classes of ships, it is in fact better to build a number of corvettes in this method rather as the USAF is doing with JSF a larger number of those aircraft to provide the quantity whilst there is a core of F-22 Raptors. This is how I envisage the role of corvettes in a modern 'blue water' fleet, the Destroyers/Frigates provide the key escorts of the carriers/amphibious groups, whilst the corvettes fill the gaps, shadowing the big targets - the carriers and the amphibious ships, or taking over guard ship posts from the larger escorts if those vessels are needed elsewhere, thus alleviating the possibility of the Falklands Islands being left unguarded in the case of the British.

My definition of a corvette is something of around 550 to 2,800 metric tons, and between 50-120 meters in length. They carry almost any armament going, although it is increasingly common - and advantageous, for them have multi-role capable VLS system which take any combination of surface to air, surface to surface, or even surface to sub-surface weaponry. They carry a small helicopter- the lynx is quite common, although the new German ones have unmanned air vehicles with dipping sonar’s and small torpedoes instead of them. As is expected from the fact they are operated by so many states they exhibit a wide variety of gun armament across the range of corvettes in use. This I know is a nice long list, and I am sorry its style is lacking but its purpose is to show what these vessels are capable of.

With the German K130 Braunschweig class the standard theory of corvettes being the little ships which support other escorts is turned on its head; as it is these corvettes which are responsible for supporting the German navy’s attack boats. Now, this is focused on the Baltic sea operations, but it still demonstrates the same theory which I pointed out in the first post, that a destroyer operating in support of three or four corvettes will be able to achieve a large degree of sea control within a limited area of conflict; especially in support of littoral operations and peacekeeping/counter-piracy operations, both of which favour the larger numbers of smaller craft for which a corvette is an ideal constituent.

The final area which lends a corvette so well to modern warfare is the recent theories of decentralisation whereby capabilities are distributed around smaller vessels in order to make them more secure against enemy attacks. Reminiscent of guerrilla warfare and the methods by which smaller states survive the attacks of larger ones; for example the policy of Long War epitomised by Ho Chi Minh. However, back to theories of naval warfare. Corvettes can provide so much, but they come at a price, they need the support of a larger escort, a destroyer, and further back a carrier group. A corvette because of its size will never have the onboard supplies to survive unsupported against a modern threat spectrum as will be deployed in a full conflict. Whilst this is true, it also misses the main purpose of a corvette, it is a ship designed to act as part of something larger, as part of a battle group; it is as part of a collective that it comes into its own. Most importantly a corvette provides an option for navies which need the hulls but don’t have the budget of the USA to spend billions on escorts; because of this fact whatever its logistical limitations its importance will just continue to grow as time goes on.

The Royal Navy's New Aircraft Carriers

2008-12-21T01:49:00.000Z

Okay, this will be a slightly shorter missive than the last, but as I am working on another long one I thought I would lay some ground work out there, to highlight points in the previous post, as well as to lay the foundations for the next.

Well it seems the time has come again for the great carrier debate; please note all the old war horses who appear to still live in the 1930s are charging out with a variation on the theme ; 'the bomber will always get through'. The first is a former chief of the Air Staff, unremarkable really as he was one on those who believed that it was impossible for the Falkland’s war to be waged successfully; we all know how correct that was...it was almost very close to the truth, without those very ships he is so dead against and the amphibious forces which he obviously believes can somehow miraculously operate in the modern world without 'organic' air support, it would have been lost.

However, they do make a salient point, air power is crucial in modern war. No one can argue with this, without sounding like a person who fundamentally believes that the moon is really made of cheese. No one should argue with this. The most important point here is that the strength and importance of air power argues for more aircraft carriers, not less.

Therefore....
Fact 1
Airplanes need to land in order to be maintained and rearmed - yes they can be refuelled in the air, but even that can only be done so many times before the complex piece of military hardware referred to as an aircraft needs to be looked at for things going wrong.

Fact 2
Airplanes are becoming more and more complicated, and thus require more and more capability to be included in their airstrips in order to support them.

Fact 3
Airbases are vulnerable; not only to attack at source - they do not move, and have usually been around for a fair number of years, but also to diplomatic attack. Most wars fought in this age are not fought near enough to a home country in order for tactical aircraft to readily launch from them in support of the campaign. Strategic bombers are of course another matter, but Britain does not possess any, although a fare number of American ones are based on British territory. This all means, that rather like America and its bombers, we need to base our aircraft on very expensive to maintain, upgrade, and possibly denied to us Airbases. If we are allowed to use them, then we need to put a sizeable chunk of the ground forces assigned to the operation to the task of protecting these fixed points. These are all things which to a logical mind seems odd to say the least.

Thus therefore....
Airbases are useful, and will always be important to the waging of war, but for a nation of limited means the prospect of a mobile air base, providing a strategic platform for tactical air support seems to be the most viable solution; not as an offensive weapon, which surely, could be put forward, as the only reason for maintaining an airbase in another countries territory, but as a defensive instrument of policy. An aircraft carrier can be moved to where the crisis of the moment is, provide the air support to the forces employed or its presence might be enough to render actual use of force unnecessary for the resolving of the situation; without any other powers or state being endangered or required to provide aid or succour. It can then move on to the next, and the next, before being replaced on station in turn by another carrier, thus its crew go home and it can be repaired and replenished for the next crisis. An airbase cannot do that.

This all beggars the question - why then replace three carriers with two? and why are some persons then suggesting this should be reduced further. Whilst it would be easy to perhaps accuse these people of only acting in their own interest and not thinking of the security of the nation they have served for so many years, that is not my answer. They are thinking in a way of themselves but it is not out of selfish reasons, like a 'tanker' would say we need more tanks because they know that tanks work, these men say we do not need aircraft carriers only airplanes due to the simple fact they have never opened their minds to them. This presents a further argument for not only aircraft carriers but also the Royal Naval Air Service, which keeps alive an Naval Air mentality which embraces aircraft carriers - ships which I believe I have demonstrated with the above arguments are well worth the investment for a nation which is not only an island, but an over committed and overstretched one.

please read this article, mainly because it provides another view of what I have written about; http://forums.canadiancontent.net/news/80695-4-billion-airfix-kit-behind.html

A study in the Royal Navy's requirements

2008-12-18T09:50:00.000Z

Hallo, I have never done one of these before so I appologise if it is dire!

A good place to start I suppose is what are the Royal Navy's requirements/missions;

Maintaining the diplomatic position/status quo through providing physical presence and capability of moderate intervention in support of diplomatic action
Supporting a worldwide commitment to the support and protection of British interests
re-iterating the point above due to its importance; Providing the capability – without creating a casus beli – like the deployment of troops or aircraft to a neighbour would, of intervention within nation states, in the context of Genocide/Ethnic Cleansing
Providing succour, multiplication and the vital artery and arms of any expeditionary force.

Broadly speaking the Royal Navies requriments/missions are not that different from any others; what is different is perhaps no other navy is expected to do so much on so little money and especially with so little men and material. Britian is a...Medium Power, its not that big, but its friends are and we like to keep up with the club; but unfortunately our governments often take on more commitments than the forces are actually designed for; as in a similar situation to australia we have a 'balanced force' which has a little of everything and enough of nothing. The Royal Navy is the worst example of this in a very bad set, currently we have no guardship in the Falklands, because the Foreign Minister committed us to the EU anti-piracy taskforce of Somalia, before bothering too ask the Defence Minister let alone any naval officers if they had the ships to spare. This event I feel serves to highlight my point - overstretch has not just been reached, but the band has broken.

So, now I have made my case, here is what (according to some basic maths, logic, and sound strategic/military convention based in years of blood and sacrifice) the Royal Navy requires;

A third carrier of some description is a necessity for maintaining a permanent two carrier capability or most importantly a permanent carrier on station; after all it is the only way of guaranteeing organic air defence of a fleet as well as mobile/cost effective deep strike/strategic influence capability – this could be done by building a third Queen Elizabeth, or perhaps the purchase of an older American CVN...

the carrier groups could be significantly enhanced by the addition of LHD/LPH + 2 ALSLs to each group, this would provide each carrier group with its own (small) Independent Land Action Force, as well as a force which could be mated onto the amphibious group to provide increased strength for thats operations - most importantly if deployed with 2* commander it will have a real capability on the international stage and within peacekeeping/peace enforcement operations
The LHD option would have the added advantage of extra strike aircraft as part of the battle group, something which no naval officer would ever turn down, and which no government should ever brush aside with out at least considering how this would impact on not only power of operations but the possible battle evolutions which such extra capacity can provide; e.g. should the extreme happen and the carrier be deck be damaged beyond repair you still have limited organic air cover, or more appropriately some escorts and the LHD could seperate from the group to provide the basis of an at sea pincer movement, finnally why not the carrier carrying out support air strikes whilst the LHD gets in close to take off some civilians from a contested shore or in a different form using its own air detachment for all operational support leaving the carrier air component a free hand to strike at will.

An amphibious task group based around 3 LHD/LPH + 3LPDs + 9 ALSLs, would provide for a permanent lift capability of 5600+ Marines, a significant and desirable intervention force consider the requirements of British foreign policy, something which again would require the construction of a 3rd Bulwark class vessel, and 2 either LHDs or 2 enlarged Ocean class vessels

if the LHDs are attached to carrier groups, then a larger amphibious group of 6 LHD/LPH + 9 LPD + 15 ALSLs = providing a capability of 12000+ Marines or light division (two enhanced brigades/three short brigades) strength force, such a balanced intervention force would be of great advantage to British policy, and the independent capability of a power of Britain’s size/strength
examples of where this would come in would be if we needed to support a commonwealth member, retake the falklands for a second time, or more likely need to provide a force capable of implementing regime change...something which western governments are getting more and more keen on

To maintain a guaranteed strength of 3 required escort groups – each made of 3 destroyers, 4 frigates, and 1 SSN – requires a strength of 4.5 groups at the minimum – 6 would be of preference for operational flexibility to be fully developed, i.e. a fleet of at least 15 (18) destroyers, 18 (24) frigates, and 5(6) SSNs (surplus to those required for other duties, and estimate of total SSN fleet strength would come in at about 12-16, the latter being desirable especially if more extended deployments are foreseen) total difference in vessel strength is 15D+18F+12S = 45 vessels, 18D+24F+16S = 58 vessels, difference is 13 vessels, but in operational effectiveness this roughly equates to an increase capability of 50% based in standard power projection terminology/capacity (capacity could be increased by purchase of 18 corvettes, instead of aforementioned vessels, however these whilst providing the hulls, and certain level of capability would not be realist substitutes, especially in the case of destroyers and submarines, the most affected categories); any combination in between would be a considerable improvement on the current system, with a force of 18D+24F+12S = 54 vessels being perhaps the more opportune option for political agreement/support.

To maintain this level it might be a viable option to purchase some (6) Flight IIa Arleigh Burke class destroyers from America, to compliment a group of 6 type 45's, and perhaps 3-6 larger destroyers optimised for surface group command.
13 Type 23's and 4 Type 22's in service would not require that much more building, in fact it would only require a small building program, accomplishable by bringing forward the construction of the type 22's replacements and providing an extended program (+1-7 on the 4 replacements required).
The submarines are possibly the easiest as the 6 Trafalgar class boats could be joined by 6 Astute's to provide the necessary 12 boats, an extra 4 would be nice but again, if it was desired purchasing American boats or building SSKs would be perfectly reasonable suggestion for a power of the British position.
The 18 corvettes could be based on enlarged versions of those being built in Britain for Oman, ships which in actual fact are being heavily based on a design of the Future Surface Combatent. These ships might want to be bought anyway with the requirment for amphibious/littoral warfare, especially if the enlarged amphibious group is sought as they would provide a key pool of extra escorts to supliment its escort group.

To support all this would require the maintenance of a 6 support groups, based around 1 oiler + 3 one-stop replenishment ships, a total force of 24 auxiliaries.

this could be supplemented by the increasing of each group to 6 ships, with the addition of a 4th one-stop replenishment ship(1SRS), and 1 medical ship, this would certainly be something which, with the modern dislike of casualties, should be considered seriously, especially if the larger carrier group/amphibious group is adopted

Therefore computing a total fleet strength in vessels (excluding patrol boats and minesweepers) would be around 96 vessels of blue water status (warships + Auxiliaries).

Total fleet strength with enlarged carrier group/amphibious group/support group+Corvettes; 153 vessels;

each carrier group would in this case contain; 18 vessels - Carrier, LHD/LPH, 2*ALSL, 4*1SRS, 1 Medical Ship, 1 Oiler, 3 Destroyers, 4 Frigates, 1 SSN
the amphibious task group would contain (in constant); 42 vessels - 4*LHD/LPHs, 6*LPDs, 10*ALSLs, 4*1SRS, 1 Medical Ship, 1 Oiler, 3 Destroyers, 4 Frigates, 1 SSN, 8 Corvettes
addition of second support group might be of use to this force, raising it to 48 Vessels - 4*LHD/LPHs, 6*LPDs, 10*ALSLs, 8*1SRS, 2 Medical Ship, 2 Oiler, 3 Destroyers, 4 Frigates, 1 SSN, 8 Corvettes - Ratio of 2 Auxilary/Transport vessels to 1 escort
free surface escorts (in constant); 11 vessels - 3 destroyers, 4 Frigates, 4 Corvettes
free subs (in constant); 5 vessels - 5 SSNs

Okey, so this is a Long list, and its a large number of ships but it is worth it. I know people are going to take the numbers to pieces, and I will thank them before they do so, as that will help me improve it; but, the escort groups are based in what worked for the Americans, French and Royal Navy - during Cold War, Falklands War and other conflicts. This itself is built upon something which a good friend recently said to me 'Even though the equipment is better now, the sea is still a very big space, and you cannot coverit without a certain quantity of hulls'.

looking forward to the feedback!

Added: 5th January 2009

The difference between the fleet strengths is 57 ships, but this relates to a constant operating strength of about 100 vessels, as opposed to 60 vessels in the first. However it is more than just numbers, the larger fleet allows for extra escorts of the amphibious task group - thus allowing the carrier battle groups to operate more freely - with their movements less constrained by providing defence for that amphibious group.

This is important because it will allow a far more flexible fleet to implemented - the difference between the two fleet strengths is that whilst the smaller will do almost everything that the Royal Navy is or could be required to do; on its own or part of an alliance. The larger will do everything and would enable the Royal Navy, and therefore the British Government to take the lead on humanitarian and peacekeeping operations around the world; something which in the modern world are of increasing importance and provide opportunities for prestige as well as the exercising of their role as a UN security council member.

hope this answers the question!