Royal Navy warship shoots down drone off Scottish coast

Yes, certainly DP.

Possibly 10x Type 83, then 8 Type 26 and 10 Type 31/32, which would give 28 escort ships.

Then we’d need 10-12 AUKUS submarines, and we then have a very potent force.

With out a doubt

Do you know if the ships could be retrofitted with a hull sonar?

The IH class on which T31 is based has a Hull mounted sonar – something from Atlas I think, so can’t see why we couldn’t put our own one in. Wouldn’t know if all the plumbing is in place, so don’t know how big/small a job it would be.
Fitting a Hull sonar is the easy bit, it’s just money – which we lack it appears, the difficult bit is getting the people to operate the system. T45s lost their sonar rates a while back to keep the T23s going. Unfortunately it’s ot something you can just open another box of.

Yes, they do have a basic hull sonar as ordered.

The question is can it be upgraded.

If the internals are the same as the IH then absolutely they will already have the internal semi wet compartment and fibreglass dome in place.

As @Deep32 says it is more about wether there are enough trained and skilled rates to operate that many sonars on a watch based system. To operate an effective sonar office you need 10 – 12 people to staff watches and possibly more if you are using a tail. That is a lot of crew when you start to multiply it out over 5 x T31 and 6 x T45 and then think about double crewing some forward deployed ships as well.

At the end of the day are you better off operating T23 and T26 to its maximum potential or diluting that by trying to operate less capable T31 and T45 as ASW?

I am not sure that I know to the answer to that as it depends so much on the details of ships sonic and acoustic performance which we will, rightly, never know.

I also think the CIWS in T45 should have been placed along the ship centreline instead of sides, that way 2 could fire to same side if necessary.

CIWS Phalanx uses Threat Evaluation to determine which mount has the best chance of a hit and allocates accordingly…The mounts literally talk to each other sharing the threat table.

If on the center line you cannot use both mounts ahead or astern and it brings in firing arc issues over 360 degrees and hemispherical cover.

CIWS positioning is a swings v roundabout thing. Dont forget ships, especially FF/DD will be opening up firing arcs as required for the best engagement arcs for EW, Missiles and Guns whilst also presenting the smallest RCS/ IIR profile.

Oh I do miss ASM Tactics!!!

I don’t understand your argument. The Phalanx in T45 are side by side it will be rare that they need to talk to each other…

Hemispherical coverage. Targets from ahead or astern with the ship manoeuvring so weapon arcs open and close. The mounts swap engagement criteria and hand off the targets as they bear.

It is being fixed now so it is just news from the Sour Grapevine.

I know…I couldn’t resist a comment back. I should ignore, but why allow such behaviour to go unchallenged.

balanced as I think there’s a chip on both shoulders.

The Zumwalt copied the propulsion system from the T45, British engineers spent a lot of time on assisting US counterparts to avoid some of the same pitfalls. First use of a technology is always hard.

The WR 21 was a good idea to reduce fuel burn of GTs by 30%, but had not been properly de-risked. Partially due to RR not having an effective bench testing facility for marine GTs at the time. Originally France, UK and US were in the programme, but only UK persisted on a reduced development budget. The intercooler and energy recuperation components were the innovative features but not nearly mature enough given the reduced investment in development.

The programme suffered as oil prices fell significantly in the ’00s (ironically due to greater flows of Russian oil), and soaring development costs.

To thin, we once had the NGTE but decided it was too expensive to run.

The T45 was designed like the the T31, with lots of room for growth. Smart move by the RN.

“only 40% of its escorts have ASW capabilities leaves things a bit fragile.” No that’s entirely negligent. We need every escort to have basic ASW capability(Hull sonar & ASW TT or Asroc/similar)as well as ASW capable helicopter. It seems mad to me that only Merlin can perform sub-hunt missions & only Wildcat can perform surface strike.

VECTAC!
T45 has a Torpedo Mag. It carries Torpedo’s for the Helo.
Wildcat can do ASW VECTACS.

But something somewhere has got to discover the vector to attack….?

In a CSG that isn’t an issue as there will be plenty of sonar about. The issue is more when on picket or other duty.

ASW is a team game. So you are not going to use T31 for ASW the same way that you wont use a Merlin for Surface Stike with Sea Venom ( Although it can do OHT)

So a 2087 ship many many 10s of miles away gives a contact to a Merlin to prosecute. If its carrying its own MK75s it carries less fuel and has less time on station. A Wildcat doing the Pony part of a VECTAC travels the 150 + miles to where the Merlin is at 150Knts carrying 2 torps , drops them and leaves the Merlin on station to carry on. The Wildcat returns to its deck, RRRF and Rearm and is back out with another 2 torpedoes to continue the action whilst the Merlin is still on station.

I agree that team play is the best in terms of persistence and effectors etc.

Trouble is with a grey battle canoe fleet that is down to 16 ships that won’t be for every day.

Although I appreciate that either of the cabs could be flying from and Tide/Albion/Bay or anything certified for the munitions.

At what point is it a worthwhile capability? At what point a waste of resources?

What do we need more? 2nd string ASW or load out for the Mk41’s coming into service? Or accelerating T45 offensive and defensive upgrades?

The costs of the sonar itself borders on the trivial but the issue is more the number of bodies needed to staff a sonar office…

Maybe it is really important to force up the number of sonar rates and officers so that everything is fully staffed?

But we do at least have 8 really, really good ASW frigates on order and in build.

8 ASW Frigates that only 5-6 operational then a damaged or sunk one…type 26 is a mistake for the price. Might be a wonderful mistake, but still a mistake.

Uh?

SSN’s are hard to detect.

Do we want something that can detect them or not? Bearing in mind Russian and Chinese subs are getting better the detection margin needs to continue to improve.

Lashups with T45 and T31 might work but might not be future proof.

Given how long it takes to get a ship designed and into service T26 is the right answer with a serious offensive punch.

https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2166802/cec-cooperative-engagement-capability/#:~:text=Cooperative%20Engagement%20Capability%20(CEC)%20is,and%20integrated%20fire%20control%20capability.

An article that uses a lot of words to say very little.

Ta. Hmmmm.

Bandwidth mostly, it’s a bit like the F35 which can share data using link 16 with any platform but can share everything with another F35 using MADL.

Thanks for the update mate. 👍

Link 11 is not Link 16

This, copied and pasted direct from UKDJ, IKA Gabs Blog.

“Royal Navy has in its priorities development of its “Naval Strike Network”, but we know little. It is something other than the normal plethora of Links (16 and 22 above all, the latter rolling out under Maritime Multi Link program) and closely involves Royal Marines and drones.”

Indeed.

TBH I’d be keeping pretty quiet about it too as it would be high on Chinese and Russian hacking interests!!

Yes others have pretty much answered this accurately I think. Just want to emphasise the Kinzhal has been typically over hyped by Russia it’s effectively an updated Soviet design that’s somewhat faster than the original (which was no slouch) but is effectively a ballistic air launched missile with little to no added in flight manoeuvrability it seems so as such likely can be intercepted by Viper certainly the Block 1 version which has ballistic missile defence capabilities. True new generation hypersonic missiles of various types that in reality are/will Bea different beast to what Russia seems presently capable of fielding will be the real test of such defensive systems and I’m sure few would be willing to speculate on such matters. That said as others have alluded to there are factors involved in hypersonic design that with technology as we know it sets parameters for any offensive missile, the plasma bubble being perhaps the major one which raises debate about their speed in the terminal phase and ability to fly at low level aerodynamically. Thus manoeuvrability may prove to be the crucial element in the effectiveness of hypersonic missiles and clever software no doubt to exploit it. These factors by the way and their effects on hypersonic physical design have led to doubts in the West about the capabilities of the Zircon missile based on released Russian pr coverage of its launches as again it has the physical appearance of a predecessor and shows no design aspects that one would associate with a proposed next gen hypersonic missile. That said one has to be careful about jumping to conclusions in either direction in such matters based on limited material evidence.

The USN Standard Missiles had to have some very exotic materials incorporated into it.
The ray dome needs to be RF Transparent but still able to resist erosion from water droplets, particulates and manage the heat from friction. Same goes for any IR sensor.
The warhead and electronics are heat shielded internally to resist friction heating. Look at your home PC/Laptop …how long does that last without the fan running…now imagine a missile with friction heating it to many hundreds of degrees.
All of the above adds weight, which means bigger, heavier missiles which in turn need bigger and heavier rocket motors/ramjets/scramjets which mean bigger launch tubes.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the US hypersonic tests started at 45,000ft when launched from a B52. The test vehicles then gained altitude under rocket booster to at least 100,000ft. Where they then powered to sustained hypersonic speeds via RAMJET/SCRAMJET.

Depending on the atmospherics, design and the speed, will factor in how much of a plasma sheath is formed around the vehicle. If we are talking low hypersonic speeds of below Mach 7.5. The plasma is predominantly generated starting around the vehicle’s nose and leading edges. As the speed rises the plasma can form to cover the whole body of the vehicle, leaving a window in the tail.

So, it’s easy for the US to say they had no problems communicating with their test vehicle. As to qualify for hypersonics, you need to going faster than Mach 5. Plus if it was traveling less than Mach 7.5 it may have had enough of the body free of plasma to allow for for surface mounted antennas to communicate. Or using a rear facing antenna if going a lot faster. There’s a lot they didn’t say!

The PAC3 Patriot missile as per Aster, uses reaction jets for terminal maneuvering. However, I believe the PAC3 uses multiple one shot jets, whereas Aster uses four mid-body reaction jets that are multi-use. There is also recent evidence that suggests the PAC3 hit to kill missile, actually carries a small warhead. Though I haven’t seen any images of a proximity fuse, so it may be only impact activated.

I do know that a lot of the SCUDs that Iraq launched were successfully intercepted by Patriot. Terminally those that failed, was due to the proximity warhead timing. So the fragmentary warhead was detonated too late, allowing the SCUD to pass the debris cloud. This was solved on the later Patriots. Though it was felt that being kinetically intercepted by the whole missile added to the destruction of the target missile. Especially important when countering a nuclear warhead, as the shielding acts like armour.

“So, it’s easy for the US to say they had no problems communicating with their test vehicle.”

I was trying to find the original article to see if an actual speed was quoted(unlikely considering the sensitivity of the subject) but unfortunately I couldn’t find it. It’s important to note that the usaf, nasa, etc have been experimenting with hypersonics for decades and likely have loads of data when it comes to behavior of plasma at these speeds and I wouldn’t be surprised of they already had a good understanding of how to overcome a number of these technical challenges.

” There is also recent evidence that suggests the PAC3 hit to kill missile, actually carries a small warhead)

There are some older documentation that can be found that goes into some details about this. It my understanding that the lethality enhancer(warhead) of the pac3 mse is only activated when engaging an air breathing target. Also worth noting that the pac3 mse performance is severely limited by the current radar, some estimate by as much as 50%. They hope to resolved this with the hopefully soon to be operational LTAMDS radar.

The higher the speed a missile travels the more difficult it is to change its course. Hypersonic missiles may be agile to an extent but I doubt they could be more agile then a dedicated SAM like Patriot or indeed ASTER. Also we have not seen any Russian missiles hypersonic in their terminal phase – this could be a function of their need to turn – lots of turning slows the missile. We have also not seen this much vaunted agility from Russian missiles in Ukraine. You would think if they are trying to kill Patriot they would pull out all the stops… Russian performance so far has not been game changing and have NOT shown that theses Hypersonics are unstoppable. Also NATO now can study and adapt to the Russian missiles… this will speed the advent of even better defence.

“The higher the speed a missile travels the more difficult it is to change its course. Hypersonic missiles may be agile to an extent but I doubt they could be more agile then a dedicated SAM like Patriot or indeed ASTER”

That right there is what the hype is all about. They supposedly are able to outrun and out maneuver all current SAM systems in theory. According to the US military, they are no known counter to these weapons currently available.

Ok so if that is the case why are Russian Hypersonics being shot down with regularity in Ukraine? If they are unstoppable why are they being killed by SAMs.

As I have said they are mot hypersonic in lower atmosphere.

I suspect the reason they are being shot down with regularity is, like everyone seems to agree, the kinzhal is not a hypersonic weapon in the modern sense. Its just an Iskandar ballistic missile that they modified to be air launched and touted it as an all conquering hypersonic weapon.

Well we have seen nothing from Russia that is all conquering yet – I suspect we will not see anything like that used in Ukraine and as they are using everything the can in Ukraine (minus nukes), I would suspect that the oh so scary unstoppable super weapons are not ready for frontline service yet. Also there is the question of their ability to maintain such high technology programmes given sanctions and what will become an increasingly questionable wcconomy.

When the US say Hypersonics are Unstoppable they are oversimplifying for effect. They fail to point out the different phases the missile has and their characteristics. They also do not point out tge critical importance of the kill chain that is required for an attack. The real advantage of such weapons are their quick prosecution of targets and the unpredictability of their course. In the case of the RN at least in the short term they will face weapons of sub-hypersonic speeds in their terminal phases. I have no doubt that ASTER 30 block 1 and its later derivatives can counter such targets. The RN has already said the Type 45 replacement will be capable of countering hupersonics – so watch this space.

“When the US say Hypersonics are Unstoppable they are oversimplifying for effect.”

They have stated this on numerous occasions and while this might be technically true, it should be taken with a grain of salt and more as a plea for more funding. It also makes sense that the west should work to develop a counter for hypersonics considering the amount of resources that China is throwing at the issue, we should assume that it will be a real capability at some point.

“In the case of the RN at least in the short term they will face weapons of sub-hypersonic speeds in their terminal phases. I have no doubt that ASTER 30 block 1 and its later derivatives can counter such targets.”

I agree with this and would be shocked if this isn’t the case.