HMS Queen Elizabeth has fired her Phalanx close-in weapon system as part of a training exercise.

The Phalanx CIWS is a close-in weapon system for defending against anti-ship missiles. It was designed and manufactured by the General Dynamics Corporation, Pomona Division (now a part of Raytheon).

Consisting of a radar-guided 20 mm (0.79 in) Gatling gun mounted on a swivelling base, the Phalanx is used by multiple Navies around the world, namely the Royal Navy and the United States Navy on every class of surface combat ship, by the United States Coast Guard aboard its Hamilton-class and Legend-class cutters and the navies of 16 allied nations.

Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth recently visited Oslo, the capital city of Norway, for her first-ever visit to the city.

There’s video footage of the arrival courtesy of Norwegian TV channel VG. You can watch it by clicking here. HMS Queen Elizabeth is leading a Carrier Striker Group of warships, helicopters and F-35B stealth jets on Operation Achillean.

The ship is proving popular in Norway.

https://twitter.com/dlysearchtrends/status/1593816484177903616

According to a Royal Navy statement:

“The Carrier Strike Group will work closely with NATO and Joint Expeditionary Force allies as the UK underscores its commitment to safeguarding European security. The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is a coalition of ten like-minded nations, which are dedicated to maintaining the security of northern Europe. This latest deployment builds on a range of operations and exercises with JEF allies this year for the Royal Navy, including maritime patrols in the Baltic Sea. 

HMS Queen Elizabeth will be at the centre of the Carrier Strike Group, with the Commander UK Carrier Strike Group, Commodore Angus Essenhigh, and his staff commanding from the aircraft carrier. F-35B Lightning jets from 617 Squadron will carry out flying operations, while helicopters from 820, 845, 815 and 825 Naval Air Squadrons will be undertaking sorties from a bustling flight deck.”

British aircraft carrier visits Oslo

Commodore John Voyce, Portsmouth’s Naval Base Commander, was quoted as saying:

“We wish HMS Queen Elizabeth and all the Carrier Strike Group the best of luck on their upcoming deployment. All at Portsmouth’s Naval Base are proud to support the Royal Navy’s flagship and prepare her for Operation Achillean. We look forward to welcoming her home when it is complete.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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62 COMMENTS

  1. Ty George 🙂 Cue the anti M61 crowd who don’t seem to apricate what hundreds of rounds of 20 mill tungsten impacting an incoming bogey/vamp actually looks like.

    • I’m not in the anti M61 crowd, but it does add another ammo size to the supply chain. Could we standardise a bit more, say: 25x137mm, 40x311mm, 57mm, 127mm?

      20x102mm Phalanx
      25x137mm F35
      27×145 Typhoon
      30x113mm Apache

      30x173mm DS30M
      40CTA Ajax
      40x311mm Type 31

      57mm Type 31
      105mm L118

      114mm Type 23/45
      120mm Challenger
      127mm Type 26
      155mm AS90

      • You can scratch the 25x137mm for our F35s as the B-Variant has no gun. If one is ever deemed necessary, then there is a gun pod available but I understand we will not be ordering it.

        • The USMC have a gun pod due to their use of the F35B to support amphibious operations. I can’t fathom a scenario where they’d actually use it though. It would have to be a very benign environment, in which case they could use helos.

          We use it as a true carrier strike aircraft. The days of dogfights over the White Cliffs are long gone, AMRAAM and Meteor mean engagements will happen at distance.

          • I think that’s a bit naive I’m afraid. In what scenario other than all out war do we think that BVR is actually going to happen? The requirement for PID is always going to be there.

            Also, my experience of ops in Afghanistan and Iraq was that even when AH was available you often still utilise CAS from fast air. And though the gun isn’t always the best option it is a low collateral damage option. To not have it limits choice for commanders (and the pilot)

            Also fir the record, only F35A has a gun. Nether B nor C have it.

          • The B and C variant both have a fully integrated and operational stealthy conformal gun pod available. It carries the same weapon as F-35A does internally. And to date has given far fewer problems than F-35A’s internal gun…

            The UK has not ordered any however and appears to not be interested.

          • re the A model gun, it seems odd the gun only has 180 rounds, that’s only about 3 seconds of firepower. Do you know what the ammo capacity in the external gun pod looks like?

          • Guns still have a use. They were extremely effective at suppressing the taliban in Afghanistan. Forcing them to hit the deck and eat dirt allowing ground troops to disengage from an unfavorable position.

            The f35 isn’t a dogfighter though so it’s probably not a great loss in the air to air role.

          • F35 is very agile, just not quite F22 agile. F22/Typhoon are superior in the supersonic flight range, but subsonic not a lot in it.

          • F35b is a 7g max rating, it’s not going to last long against a lot of previous gen fighters up close. All the more reason why the long long meteor integration is a handicap. This thing is all about sensors, data links, situational awareness and range.

          • It’s not just about G rating. The super Hornet is 7G rated. That is still a very formidable dogfighter. F35 has very high angle of attack capabilities. It isn’t an energy fighter like F22 or Typhoon.But will still be very formidable close in,
            especially when subsonic with ASRAAM and the helmet mounted display. But with any engagement, if its got close in, then something has gone wrong. No fighter pilot wants to get in a visual merge, no matter what they are flying. They want to shoot the bad guy from 30 miles away, and return home safe and sound.

          • Was it not 30mm gun pods on the sea harrier and gr1, gr3 models? I think the raf Gr7,9 were meant to get the marine 25mm gun but it never got put on. Could be wrong though.
            Often in the place of the gun pods were things that looked like pods as it helped the airflow around the airframe. (Can’t remember what they were called(

          • GR7/9 didn’t have the cannon. They fitted areo strakes that helped the air flow when in the hoover. When operational though, they carried the Sniper targeting pod, and a digital recce pod under the belly. And also the TERMA defensive aids pod.

          • For the GR5 yes, but they couldn’t get it to work reliably for whatever reason, so it was never declared operational. Probably a typical British effort to integrate a British weapon when it would have been simpler to buy the American cannon that was integrated onto the USMC AV8B that worked absolutely fine.

          • 30mm MS my mistake , GR3s I think that it was mounted portside fuselage as a Camera for photo recon was mounted starboard side beneath and in front of the Cockpit

          • I never knew that about the gr3 mounting a camera on there. Fascinating stuff. I must say the harrier, especially the GR9 was a great aircraft. If it was still around we could be seeing a GR11 with automatic take off and landing, new cockpit etc. Dreaming I know.
            I read recently that the cost of keeping a mixed fleet of 48 harriers with 24 deployable and 40 tornados with 12 deployable for 4 years was cheaper than having 72 tornados with 24 deployable for 4 years. I will need to find where I read it and post the link.

      • Completely agree with you, I still don’t understand why the royal navy went with the Bofors 40mm when there was a navalised version of the CTA available.

        • One arguement might well be both the cost of the ammo and the choices currently available. Certain ammo choices are upwards of 8x more per round than comparable 30mm versions.
          To counter the ‘economies of scale’ arguement, to date the CTA 40mm gun has only been purchased by the French and us, nobody else is looking interested in buying it.

          • True but the army has already purchased 515 of these canons I can’t see them binning those now, So may as well purchase an extra ten for the type 31’s maybe a couple more to fit the river class with, My thinking was the Army and navy could then share R and D costs and buy in bulk streamlining the logistical burden and hopefully driving the costs down. but like you said so far it’s just us and the frogs.

          • Don’t really know the difference between the army cannon and the navalised version, perhaps it’s just the mount and ammo feed system?
            If the cannons are interchangeable, why not just take some from the 515 already purchased? Unless you can see us using all 515, tbh I can’t, unless they really sort out the cluster that is Ajax, should be some spare.
            I believe that there are currently 6-7 ammo variants already tested, so imagine one or two would be suitable for the RN version!
            To really drive down the costs of the ammo I imagine there would have to many more countries that bought into CTA. That’s just my uninformed view mind.

      • I agree. When the T26 were given the 5 inch I assumed that would be the next standard medium gun replacing the 4.5″. So I was horrified we chose the 57mm for the T31s, the ones best suited to hazard loitering close to shore for NGS(rather than our few very expensive top of the range T26 ASW frigates). Would we be better-off retiring Phalanx & replacing it with the bofors 40mm as standard? Much greater range & hitting power than phalanx, wider range of projectile types & it could also do the job we use the 30mm for v small fast attack boats.

        • Hi Frank, the reason the T26 have the 5″ gun harks back to the days of the Global Combat Ship (GCS) requirement. Are now a leftover from that program.
          The navy needed 13 replacements for the then 13 T23 ASW frigates.
          The 4.5 inch was becoming obsolete so the Navy selected the 5″ as it’s replacement as part of the requirements was still NGFS.
          The navy then introduced ST2087 TA system into service but only fitted them to the last 8 T23s, leaving the first five without a ‘tail’, they became the 5 GP variants.
          GCS turned into T26, the navy tried to get 13 past the treasury by saying 5 were tailless GP versions. That didn’t happen as it was to expensive, hence the T31 was born, the T26 had a 5″ gun!
          Personally I think it’s the wrong weapon for our high end ASW asset. I think that the OM super rapid 76mm with Strales system would be a better and much cheaper fit. But imagine the costs of a redesign would have been v expensive at the time.

    • 20+ years ago, Oerlikon had an upgrade to Phalanx, using their KBD 25x 184 gatling gun. I think the 25 x184 stands a better chance of stopping modern AS missiles. Other priorities at the time, meant it was never adopted. Perhaps the Phalanx user countries need to look at this again?

    • Or even with! Plus the usual anti-torpedo and decoy systems needed too! Where are they? Hopefully there’s lots of 20mm ammo and spare barrels on board. Mentioned before but even a couple of RAM type launchers synchronised with this Phalanx’s could help.

  3. and the United States Navy on every class of surface combat ship

    Constellation frigate will not have them.
    Likewise the LCS and Zumwalt

    • Makes me wonder what does the us navy know that the RN don’t about phalanx Cannon. Same with harpoon as well. The US navy is getting NSM. I had voiced that harpoon would be better for RN as it’s already in service but there must be some good reasons the US navy are going to the effort of changing.

      • Phalanx is very short range 1,5km at most . They probably reached same conclusion as Italian Navy with 40mm Breda Bofors 660 rpm was okay to take 1-2 subsonic missiles in 4km range but not more. So they went 76mm guided rounds with a 8km range.
        US do not have a proper naval gun industry(5″ was sold to BAE) and believe full in missiles so they have RAM, which have the pro of being fire and forget so you can just fire missiles and the cons of the missile head do not have any backup.

      • Btw, i am sure RN knows Phalanx limitations.
        But they prefer to have more hulls than arm their ships better.
        Still for a capital ship it is a bit puzzling the lack of own defences.

  5. Why am I always reminded of the Simons when I see a picture of Phalanx..?

    Cheers CR
    PS. Good to see HMSQE with extra kit…

  6. Perhaps they could instal the fourth Phalanx QE was intended to have before the penny pinchers removed it along with the 30mm mounts. QE must be the least armed carrier in NATO.

      • The Chakri Naruebet has 3 Sadral missile launchers each capable of firing 6 Mistral lightweight missiles for CIWS, and a couple of .50 machine guns (FFBNW Phalanx and Mk41).

        What do you think 3 Sadral, or 3 Phalanx? I think I’d rather have the Phalanx, but I’m not impressed by either fit out.

        I supposed I should concede that since the loss of its Harriers, it debateable whether the Naruebet is still functioning as an aircraft carrier, with only helicopters and drones. It’s a bit mad that that’s how far down the food chain you have to go to get a comparator.

        Checking out the rate of fire on the 4 x 20mm Oerlikon CIWS systems on the Juan carlos, they are probably worse than the QE’s 3 Phalanx too.

      • Yes but it has many other weapons. You do get 360 coverage with 3 CIWS but you have to think to of combat persistence and sharing the load when attacked by several attacks at once. With 4 CIWS you have a good chance that 2 systems will be able to target an incoming attack. There are also other advantages, each CIWS has a search radar, a targeting F/C radar and an E/O sensor, all this can be used to feed the ships situational awareness.

        I would in fact swap out the Phalanx for 40mm mounts as in the T31 and fit Sea Ceptor. That in my view would be the minimum fit.

        Not fitting the extra weapons is nothing to do with providing credible defence of the ship and all about saving money.

        • Phalanx uses Threat Evaluation Algorithms. Each mount talks to the rest of them and passes threat evaluation data . They work out the highest threat priorities and calculate the best mount to take that threat. Once engaged and hit they move onto the next target in the threat list. They do this in real time.
          If a mount goes down that is taken into account by the software and your engagement arcs are reduced. This info is passed to the command so that they can alter course to open firing arcs accordingly.
          On mount reloads are now pretty quick taking minutes.
          Everything is on mount .
          That helps with alignment of systems, power and ancillary supplies such as sea water.

          40mm will need a separate director/tracker. Lose the tracker and you will have a gun that cannot be aimed. Reloads wont be as quick.
          Range will be better.
          Ceptor is a given due to its AA and ASM capabilities to engage air and afloat targets to range.

  7. Very curious what the justification for putting CIWS on US coast guard ships was.
    I didn’t know drug barons had moved from narco subs and Cessnas to AShMs, Pablo Exocet eh?

    • They support the USN around the world, including guarding access routes to navy/submarine bases. One reason the USN can make do without GP Frigates is that the Coastguard’s National Security Cutters (Legend class) are what others would call GP/patrol frigates.

    • Could u imagine the uk coastguard having 20mm phalanx 😂😂😂. I don’t even know if the coastguard has any ships. It has the helicopters sort of. Time for a google search.

    • I seem to recall the larger high endurance USCG cutters had provision for Harpoon as well as an ASW suite/torpedoes’ Unlike Phalanx , I’m unsure if theses were actually fitted.

      • During the Cold War USCG Hamilton class cutters were armed with Harpoons. They were withdrawn as the Coast Guard no longer wanted a war-oriented mission as the Cold War was over.

  8. Those who still think Phalanx is still effective may wish to consider why no new US Navy ships will carry Phalanx. Nor will the Canadian Type 26. Nor will the French/Italian FREMM frigates. Nor will the new German F126 frigates. Nor will the RN’s Type 31. I wondered about this until I did the maths which strongly suggest a Phalanx firing 75 rounds / sec has little chance of hitting say a Russian hypersonic Zircon incoming at an oblique angle at 3000m / SECOND or a Chinese YJ-21. Worth thinking about.

    • Yes we should replace Phalanx with 40mm mounts as in Type 31. Or turn them into SeaRAM mounts. Saying that you could argue that if you get into CIWS range with a hypersonic you are likely to have a bad day whatever you have as last ditch. This said I do not think Hypersonic ASM are that fast at sea level or in their terminal phase mote M2.5 – M3….

      • Using basic maths, (which may be wrong) even at M3 this results in 7.5 projectiles spread over the final 100 meters (900 out to 1000) which vary in height of 1 meter from 900m to1000m. Given that the missile will travel this final 100 meters in 1/10th of a second and the missile is 10meters long, theoretically the missile will encounter 0.75 projectiles at the intercept point/height. Any firing adjustments made by the Phalanx are not included.

        • That is why Hypersonic ASM need to be taken out at range with SAMs. However the 3P pre fragmented amo on the 40mm may put up more fragments then Phalanx. This is why QE should have a SAM system. It is under armed for cost reasons alone. In the future energy weapons may be a better CIWS.

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