In August, the Navy shot down a medium-range ballistic missile target with the SM-6, which uses a fragmenting explosion near its target as the kill mechanism.
It can also be used to hit surface targets at sea and on land from hundreds of miles away. The Navy is planning to buy of the SM-6 over the next five years. For the Maritime Tomahawk, Raytheon is integrating a new seeker into its tried-and-true strike missile for long-range ship-on-ship engagements.
The ship is the second in the stealthy Zumwalt class of destroyers. Robert F. The decision to switch the requirements from a land-attack platform to an anti-surface platform came in November following a review of the requirements, according to the documents.
The lead ship in the class, Zumwalt, is currently getting an overhaul and combat systems installation in San Diego. The Michael Monsoor, the second in the class , completed acceptance trials this month. Getting a surface strike platform in the Pacific fits snugly in with the distributed lethality concept that was championed by former Naval Surface Force Pacific commander Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden. Rowden argued that surface ships can and should be used in an offensive capacity, not just be relegated to the defense of the aircraft carrier.
By adding long-range systems to every kind of ship, Rowden argued, it forces potential adversaries to expend resources looking not just for destroyers and cruisers but also littoral combat ships and even amphibious ships that have not had a strike role in the past. In testimony submitted Feb. All three of the Zumwalt-class destroyers will be based in the Pacific. Local area cover?. The T26 isnt going to be in-close in a formation its a sub hunter.
The close consort is an AAW ship…. If its self defence how much ship impact are you giving over to self defence with all of the radars and VLS cells tied up with quad ESSM cannisters instead of offensive weaponry?. What detriment does that place on the primary mission….. Why extra air defence for RAN? The PLAN with its growing fleet of aircraft, drones, missiles, and other assorted goodies. I am asking where the long range air detection comes from, in the RAN, that cues these super-T26s?.
Or is that whole, heavily ship impacting and cost driving, radar suite just a really, really good ASMD system?. The U. Or indeed we are seeing the end of that arbitrary nomenclature? If you believe gold-plating is necessary?. Its not the conventional wisdom. The Italians have AAW destroyers that would, presumably, be present in a high air threat scenario and they bring along long range radar.
The same one we have on our AAW ships oddly enough. Unless Sea Ceptor is somehow not a viable system. Be prepared to support your assertion though. Type 26 should be multirole. Propulsion — or more precisely energy storage. By the time these ships enter service, back end of the 30s, there will be some very interesting challenges in that respect. The RN — like every other shipping operator — is going to have to make a choice, whether to stay with F76 or derivatives, move to an alternate fuel, or do something else.
The current alternate fuel options LNG, ammonia, ethanol, hydrogen are fairly unattractive for military ships for a range of reasons including toxicity, storage and handling requirements and energy density.
T83 is likely to be the first RN class to have to truly confront these issues — not least because the electrical load required for the ship function will be high, which also means the total energy stored will be high.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that a nice little tea-kettle set might suddenly become a relatively attractive option. Not a fan of the Swedish Doom-goblin then!!! A small pressurised kettle would certainly solve a lot of those energy requirement problems you have raised, whilst creating a load more no doubt. Are you saying we should start to dust off the plans for that nuclear T4x that was floated in the early 70s?
Go nuclear and add hugely to the cost and create a manning issue. Nuclear engineering is I understand already one of the shortage trades in the RN. However, a large chunk of the manning issue is related to the current location and employment of those plants. Scale may actually work the other way — particularly if there is take-up in the wider maritime industry.
The alternative fuels are not exactly low-cost or benign. Like it or not, unfettered use of F76 or similar may not be sustainable in the long term. There is not enough arable land in the world to make biofuel viable — at least while feeding populations is a consideration. Will mass production of F76 remain viable in the long-term? Will the adherents of the SDG mandate that hydrocarbon fuels are banned? There is no real consensus in the commercial marine industry as yet and their problems are less demanding than naval forces.
I suspect that for lots of specialist military and civilian tasks fossil fuels will still be in use in 50 years. Where energy density both per m3 and per kg are vital the technology is still nowhere near replacing them.
When you include the decommissioning and waste management costs nuclear is only going to make sense when it offers huge operational benefits. If you are allowed to. Absolutely agree that neither proposed alternate fuels are palatable or even feasible, but never underestimate the effect of political pressure and small autistic scandinavian schoolgirls. I always thought for large ships that the total space for propulsion varied little between the various systems more it is just distributed differently through out the hull.
Propulsion and generation, generally yes. I would also include intakes and uptakes, which, for example for gas turbines as you know better than I, takes up a considerable volume within a hull. And I should have said bunkers too………. For something like a T21 or a T42, with two sets of turbines, plus DG, they did. Which takes us back to for larger ships the propulsion system takes up much the same volume just that that volume is distributed differently in the hull.
For the same calorific energy as a cubic metre of F76, a fuel with one third the energy density of that will require three cubic metres of bunker.
So that three metres may end up being five. Plus any compression plant required, plus lagging for liquefied gas fuels etc. When you consider that bunkers on a frigate take up hundreds of cubic metres, trebling that in a fixed volume ship is non trivial. I think you have gone a little further than was needed. We are going to move a 10, tonne destroyer at up to 32kts for a range of what nm at 18kts.
Which is my point. The article and many of the comments are focussed on upgrades of what we have now. The original Dreadnought made all existing battleships obsolete by its size and firepower.
What could have a similar transformational effect in the near future? Long range semi autonomous drones might make surface ships impossible to defend driving more of the future battle fleet under water.
Surface vessels might become much smaller, accompanied by unmanned platforms. Given these possibilities, spending ever greater sums on a diminishing number of high end destroyers might be a mistake. If we plan to replace 6 with 6, recent history suggests we might get 3 or 4. Better to keep the costs affordable by using one of our existing platforms as a starting point.
The cost of designing a surface platform from scratch is in the low hundreds of millions. However, a large chunk the majority that would apply whether you were starting from scratch or modifying an existing platform.
The actual cost of early stages of design that get you to the same start point as where you start to modify an existing design is in the high tens of million for the overall class. For that relatively small amount you get to avoid compromises forced by constraints of the existing design, optimise the basic design itself for the role you want it to perform and retain the design skills that allow you to do this in the first place. And yet the USN continues to build and enhance Arleigh Burke destroyers at the same time as every newer platform goes way over budget and fails to deliver the capabilities expected.
Simply because they have actually lost the skills to do so. Arleigh Burkes have aobsolescent propulsion with too short range…and they had to go to Italy to have a frigate design. Totally agree. It may be that with advances in technology such as missiles and drones, the vulnerability of surface ships continues to increase and their actual usefulness in any kind of a conflict diminishes — it becomes too dangerous to put them into harms way. Agree that submarines are likely a much better investment.
Focus should be on developing a cheap diesel-electric submarine rather than focusing so much on huge surface vessels. Nothing in your post tallies with the discussion. SSK are good for sea denial only. A ship can only be in one place at one time.
Really interesting article, thank you! Well argued, and good points, although I personally disagree with some of the conclusions. I also agree that trying to make it an ASW platform is a bit of a waste of time.
Our advanced missiles projects and products are some of the real successes in our military acquisition programmes and provide a lot of good jobs.
No reason to expect them to fall down in the ABM role. Not in the context of ASW or mine hunting etc. The vessel will need the room and comms to handle a lot of operators and data traffic. Happy to take correction on any of the above!
Mk41 does not imply Aegis. Japan and S. Korea also use Mk41 on their non-Aegis ships. SM-6 is first and foremost an anti-air warfare missile. It also has capability against ballistic missiles. It is now being developed for longer range and faster speed as a hypersonic missile.
An anti-ship and land attack role has been added. As for ASW. Hi GHF, I thought I might get a response from yourself always welcome , apologies for the late reply- was working on site all day yesterday. Will be interesting to see how they use it in practice if we ever find that out.
As far as ASW goes, I agree with you. A VLA based upon Stingray or the new future lightweight torpedo is a no-brainer, although it would need a range of at least 20 km on the rocket motor I think.
It could even be used to carry other warheads, like EW loads, some kind of hard kill anti-torpedo system, the unitary munitions that are supposed to take over from cluster bombs great for boat swarms and unmanned systems? But there are no known missile programs that need this increase in size, everything known including the once discussed SM-3 Blk IIB would fit in a Mk Mk57 can also handle more powerful rocket motors, but designing such a missile would immediately restrict that missile from being used in Mk Lockheed advertises lower costs on Mk57 for new missile integration and there seem to be some operational benefits.
If SM-6 is capable of doing all the roles using a single variant, i. The new lightweight torpedo is interesting because with advances in technology it could be smaller and lighter for similar effect to Sting Ray.
If so then that would more practically support a longer range VLA. Regarding other options, it may be interesting to take a peek at BAES Kingfisher concept and other videos at link below, if not seen already. Zumwalt has had problems with the primary mission of using guns for land attack, both in the overall concept, the custom gun and especially the special ammunition cost that killed the program.
All wrapped up in a an unnecessarily stealthy and expensive platform. MK57 is not traditional VLS farm, can only match with the tumble home hull, so it is a dead end. It leaves scope for the quad packing or other multiples of larger missiles if nothing else. Surely it should not spend time or money designing the T83 that is suitable just for a railgun, or other specific for that matter, only to find it cannot be made to work.
But new more flexible guns, with smart shells, with more than one if needed after an upgrade, might be catered for. We also need to target air bases that aircraft carrying Kinzhal would otherwise take off from.
Bit late to this article but here goes. The first issue with the T83 is what will be her role. If I am correct then the T83 will need two main radar systems, general survalance and target tracking much like the T45 has now. Will a T83 need anti submarine capability, not really but it would be nice to have a limited ASW capability.
So if my assumtions for the T83 role is correct then how should she be armed, does she need a 5 inch gun not really so the 57mm gun would be enough, if Dragon fire is available to the fleet then two such systems should be installed and 40mm guns this should take care of the point defence these could be backed up by 2 30mm guns with LMM that should take care of swarming attack boats.
Now lets get to the missile load. If these ships are to work with the carriers and amphibs and they will, then a long range land attack missile with anti radiation capability should be a must. Possibly upto 24 land attack missiles should be carried. A further 16 anti ship missiles in the to sea mile range. That gives 5 Mk41 vls blocks. Overall that means 5 Mk41 vls blocks, 6 Sylver 50 blocks and a Sea Ceptor farm. If the T83 is to have a limited ASW ability then she should have the same bow sonar as the T26 but the Thales Captas4 light towed array this would then mean a hanger is needed for a Merlin or Merlin replacement and enough hanger space for three RUAVs.
The flight deck should be Merlin capable. I recommend a bow array such as the no towed array and the hanger reduced for RUAVs only.
Does the T83 need boat bays, not really and Royal Marines that would be needed to board other vessels would come from either the escorting frigates or the Amphibs. So now for some basics, well I have always believed that a ship of war should have power to spare, you never know when you might need it so my T83 would have 2 MT 30 turbines and 4 diesel generators the question would be two or three electric motors.
In this configuration the T26 hull design is not able to be stretched or widened enough to fulfil the role of the T The ship would need to be between , tons m in length and 23m in the beam.
This would give the same length to beam ratio as the T So that is my ideal T83, I think that we need 8 of these ships, two for each carrier group, two for the Amphibious Groups and two for independent frigate squadrons. As one carrier and one Amphib will in general be in dock for refit repair etc then three T83s would also be undergoing refit repair.
But do believe that m ship has plenty of room for more VLS silos. A similar destroyer with heavier weapons would be great. Search for: Search Button. April 24, Although large for her era, at 6, tonnes Bristol was actually smaller than the 8, tonne Type 45s. Stripped of most equipment, Bristol has served as a training ship alongside at Whale Island in Portsmouth since but was formally decommissioned in and likely to be scrapped soon.
China S. Notify of. Oldest Newest. Inline Feedbacks. Those Type s are the best looking ship afloat! Reply to Jamie. Stephen Ball. Reply to Pacman Glass Half Full. Reply to R. Lord Jim. Last edited 6 months ago by Lord Jim. Meirion X. Reply to Lord Jim. Last edited 6 months ago by Meirion X. Reply to ATH. How come some other nations can build destroyers cheaper….
Reply to Cam. For starters, very cheap labour in China and devalued currency. Rob N. Reply to Rob N. Reply to Glass Half Full. Reply to Duker. Whatever VLS we go for it should be strike length to give full versatility. What about developing a wider diameter A90 cells for future Aster missiles? Which version of Standard? Reply to Fedaykin. Hopefully EW would have taken care of it……….
David Barry. Great reply. Your last paragraph is very interesting. Reply to David Barry. Barry M. Reply to MikeKiloPapa. Also by using the T45 as a basis for T83 we can retain similar supply and maintenance chains. Allan Desmond. Reply to OkamsRazor. Up to a point. Supportive Bloke. Reply to X. Reply to Supportive Bloke. Reply to AlexS. A couple of examples to really ram home the issue. Bear in mind that Wolf is only relatively recently fully retired from the T23 fleet.
Our sonar has always exported well. T45, the ship, is adequate. It is not great. In spite of how good Sea Viper is or is not. You have lost All credibility on this site by your peacenik postions! Denounced them, or leave! Reply to Netking. I agree: what he says is meaningless of itself. It seems also will be installed in the Horizon upgrade replacing the S When it arrives and if it works I understand that it is due in There again Corbyi You would Not arm them!
Humpty Dumpty. What our T45s and their replacement really need is: 1 An anti-ship missile that outranges ship-launched Kalibr, Oniks and YJ My 2 cents worth! Geoff Baker. James Fennell. Last edited 6 months ago by James Fennell. Anthony McKiernan. Reply to Anthony McKiernan. Joe Porter. After declaring the T83 to be a cruiser in all but name it metamorphoses into the T A typo? Blue Fuzz. For a long time, I thought military service fit on one of two sides of a coin.
It was either war, meaning combat and fighting A new hotline and a more comprehensive, comparative claims processing system are among the efforts to assist Gulf War and At least five service members allegedly were part of the deadly pro-Trump mob that assaulted the U.
Capitol on Jan. The committees also found the Mar-a-Lago members exerted dominance over White House staff who were tasked with implementing While the involvement of Saudi and Israeli fighters in the same mission is significant, that development does not necessarily Military News DoDBuzz. All rights reserved.
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