Babcock International has been awarded a two year contract with the Ministry of Defence, for continuation of in-service support to the Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS).
Phalanx CIWS is a rapid-fire, computer-controlled radar and 20mm Gatling gun system and is the Royal Navy’s primary defence for ships against the threat of anti-ship missiles.
According to the firm, the £15m agreement will see Babcock continue in-service support to the system from specialised facilities at the Devonport Royal Dockyard in Plymouth.
Babcock is responsible for technical support, upgrades, maintenance and ensuring operational availability of the Weapons Systems to the Royal Navy fleet on an Asset Availability Service basis.
Richard Drake, Managing Director, Babcock Defence Systems Technology, said:
“We are delighted to once again extend our role supplying in-service support that ensures the availability of the Royal Navy’s Phalanx weaponry. Using our global support capability and programme specific expertise built up over many years, we are well positioned to continue providing the Royal Navy with first class in-service support to its gunnery.”
Babcock has been a partner on the Phalanx CIWS programme since 2006, managing and executing all upkeep support activities, including a 24/7 helpdesk for the Royal Navy, as well as providing logistics support for spares and repairable units.
While in the scheme of things this is not a huge expense, it would be useful for more info to be published to see if these types of maintenance contracts are cost effective.
Navy Lookout estimates that the RN has 41 systems but as at Aug 20 only 19 were fitted for use. So the support contract works out at about £180K per system per year across all 41 or almost £400K per system per year if it only covers the 19 operational ones . The estimated cost for a new one is $5.6m. (One alternative might be to say lets just buy
I have no idea if the contract put the contractor at risk and it has to cover costs of all repairs/maintenance or is it a limited service deal and the MOD picks up any major cost overruns. I’ll confess to knowing nothing about the real costs of this deal but have a suspicion these types of deal are highly profitable for the contractor and not much risk gets passed on. Be interesting to hear from someone better informed if this appears good value or not.
Only two years?
I wonder, is it up to the task of shooting down the new generation of anti-ship missiles we are hearing much about these days, and also drone swarm attacks?
Nope, not really. Make a mess of a Somali pirates dhow though!
Why is it no use for drone swarms?
Relatively slow moving, compared to a missile?
Part of layering with the 30/40mm cannon which can BTW be fully linked to the ships CMS – open sourced from the manufacturers website! And the outer layer of Ceptor etc for high value targets.
Bear in mind that ships radar can ‘type’ a target by things like blade/impeller rotation rates so it will be able to auto – asses the target type / value / risk / response. The days of only seeing a blob on a screen and maybe velocity/altitude/vector information are a bit gone.
NCTR (Non Cooperative Target Recognition) has been around in fighter radars since the 80’s. Identifying aircraft types from it’s turbine blades basically at BVR ranges. Which is why S ducts in intake design has become so important.
Quite.
But it is now very, very sophisticated and able to look at other resultant interactions.
The point I was making is that a slow cheap drone will have been painted by a naval radar and identified / threat assessed / mitigation allocated way before it is near range of doing harm.
Completely agree. I wasn’t disputing your comment.
“Why is it no use for drone swarms?”
It depends on drone swarm. If they remain out of Phalanx short range lobbing small missiles there is nothing it can do.
Hi. I didn’t ask that question, somebody else did.
It can but depends on a lot of things like is it turned on, the direction it’s pointed in ect. I prefer the C-RAM though.
What????
Phalanx has a built in surveillance radar, tracking radar, THIM and target threat analysis system.
When it’s on its on and if in auto which it is in a no **tter war scenario it will shoot at anything that meets the threat scenarios.
Hence when in auto you tell everyone else to keep clear or they will have a really bad day.
In a high threat scenario you have man in the loop to stop firing, not initiate as to initiate is to slow.
For any other scenario such as surface or lower threat you can track and identify via the THIM and when needed rain death and destruction down via 20 mm sabot tungsten penetrators at a rate of 60 a second onto the target. It doesn’t take many to shred a target… A couple of second bust at most.
Expend Ammo? Quick reload via the on mount reload system in a couple of mins and carry on shooting.
I do wonder why we haven’t gone for C-RAM at least for the vessels that don’t have their own point defense missiles like the support / bays /albion etc.
The RN have some experience with SeaRAM,it was trialled on HMS York in 2001 but the System didn’t impress enough for it to be Fitted.
Yeah, but the question remains on why. Was the capability assessed as not a sufficient upgrade or did it come down to lack of funds.
Its hard to find a definitive answer on why it wasn’t taken forward ,the Trial was (a) Cut short as the System had to be returned before the expected length of the loan,and (b) No Missiles were actually Fired during the Trial – it seems that it was to have a Secondary Surface Attack mission on RN Ships ( like the Martlet/30mm combo) but its effectiveness was found to be marginal.Seeing as its not a Cheap System to Buy it might be the case that it didn’t offer enough advantage over the Phalanx Mount for the increased costs.
Perhaps the cold launch CAMM concept was already being considered as a future development with greater operational utility, i.e. 360° degree coverage, greater range and lower cost than SeaRAM. Its telling that the Canadian CSC is using CAMM for CIWS and not using either Phalanx or SeaRAM.
The thing is that almost every ship that has been attacked with an ASM that had a Phalanx, that Phalanx was not turned on for some reason. The other times the ship did not maneuver to position the gun to get a direct shot at the incoming missile. Those aren’t the fault of the gun system but the crews fault.
Jesus dan where there hell are you getting your examples from, fox news ? lol, well done Gunbuster really good to get a insight from a pro.
Realistically if an expensive system fails, you are going to try and pretend it didn’t, by giving such stories to the media. Its only when significant impacts are the failures occur (sinking of ships) and resulting public enquiries, when the real truth comes out.
The problem is speed related. The faster the attacker is travelling towards a defended vessel, the more debris will still hit and debris (perhaps an intact warhead) travelling at hypersonic speed is still going to do a lot of kinetic damage. Perhaps degrading mission capability.
Speed is not the only factor. Crossing rate, flight height are also huge variables.
I guess you can also trade off a bit. Taking out the missile close by is going to do some minor dmg caused by kinetics, but hopefully not going to take out the whole ship. Possible a worthwhile trade off for a CIWS which ultimately is meant to be the last resort.
These are self defence rather than fleet defence weapons… Do you have much crossing rate if you are the target?
When they ”won” how many credible competitors are there…?
It’s the last ditch defence not the primary defence!
Primary is taking out the launch platform at range before it launches. Secondary is the anti air missile systems to take out an incoming missile at a safe range. Anything phalanx takes out as a last resort still poses a threat from high speed debris hitting the ship, it might not sink the ship but if all the mast and deck mounted kit is shredded it might as well be sank for all the use it will be.
“it might not sink the ship but if all the mast and deck mounted kit is shredded it might as well be sank for all the use it will be.”
Yeah maybe but surely that would be less likely than having a hoofing big missile plough into the ship, wee bits here and there are more likely than ALL the wee bits doing the same damage as that big missile. Just sayin’.
True its better than losing the entire ship . The point is though it is not the primary defence as stated in the article. If you are at the stage of relying on phalanx you are in trouble.
I think we focusing on different points here Marked.
You seem to be taking umbrage that its called “primary defence” while I’m flagging up your example of a ship being “shredded” IF by some miracle all the wee bits of splattered missile ALL still seem to find their way to target. I find that scenario highly unlikely.
If you damage a ship you probably cause more disruption that sinking. Manpower used to fight fires, to treat injured, to evacuate the hull and possibly even tow to a port.
Same as a dead trooper is a dead trooper but an injured trooper takes 2 or more to recover and a whole medical division to treat.
This is something new to me?
And it’s so fast that the air pressure in front of the weapon forms a plasma cloud as it moves, absorbing radio waves and making it practically invisible to active radar systems.
One for DaveyB
https://www.military.com/equipment/weapons/why-russias-hypersonic-missiles-cant-be-seen-radar.html
As an object travels above Mach 5 (> Mach 7 generally) and depending on a number of variables such as humidity and air density, along with the body’s shape; the nose of the object will develop the plasma first, as it goes faster and faster, the boundary layer over the rest of the body is converted to a plasma. The plasma is caused by a combination of friction between the air and the body, along with the pressure shock waves generated by the body’s shape, as it tries to push through the air. The heat generated literally strips away an electron from a molecule. This generates a positive ionized “gas” which through molecular excitation is turned into a plasma. As the object travels faster still, the shockwave travels down the body, converting the air to a plasma, but as it now envelopes the body, this is called a plasma sheath.
The plasma will prevent any form of electromagnetic radiation from travelling through it, thus causing the “communications blackout”. However, if you can match the molecular excitation frequency with the electromagnetic frequency, It is possible for this to pass through the plasma. However, we are generally talking very high frequencies in the THz range and these are significantly attenuated by the atmosphere.
There is another way of allowing “radiowaves” to pass through a plasma. This is to use an electromagnetic force to create a window in the plasma. As the plasma is positively ionized, therefore a compelling negative force will attract it, whist conversely a positive force will repel it. This is what they basically do when trying to run nuclear fusion reactions in a tokamak. By manipulating the electromagnetic force you can contain and control the plasma, allowing it to reach temperatures of over 500,000 degrees C. The aim is to get to 1 million, as they believe this is the critical threshold temperature for creating an energy positive reaction, i.e. more energy out than put in. Not sure how that would be applied to a missile, let alone powered?
So for a missile, that relies on GPS guidance and radar tracking, plasma will be a major problem to overcome, especially at speeds well over Mach 5. The plasma sheath’s density is proportional to the air density, i.e. less air = thinner plasma sheath. Which is why the majority of hypersonic objects travel well above 100,000ft (the higher the better). A hypersonic cruise missile is a bit of a conundrum. If it flies quite low, it will be trying to punch through really dense air. Therefore it will generate excessive bow shock waves and the wave drag will be massive. Then there is the thermal heating being generated, which will need some form of active cooling or ablative thermal coating to protect it. Therefore, it will need a lot of power to get to and sustain Mach 5, which means it will quite literally be burning through fuel, thus cutting down on the effective range. Because the air is really dense, then the plasma sheath will also be very dense, meaning it will have next to no communications, unless the antenna is facing directly backwards. Thus GPS will be highly unlikely. Further, command guidance requires line of sight, so the parent aircraft, for example, will need to follow the missile to keep it on track. If there is a plasma sheath over the missile’s body, then there will also be plasma covering the nose. Thus the missile will be flying blind! So how do they do it?
Height is the key. The missile will fly a semi-ballistic path punching it up high where the air is thinner, as is the plasma generation. It will then drop down on the target and approach either in a steep dive or nap of the earth. Whichever is chosen, the velocity will need to drop, so that an onboard radar/ IR sensor can search for and track the target. If the target is fixed, then the missile’s inertial navigation system (INS) will guide it to a “near enough” hit. The speed may well still be above Mach 5, as the missile will be likely monitoring for plasma generation and control its speed appropriately.
There are a few things on the horizon regarding detecting hypersonic objects and making them go faster. The first is through selective radar frequency back scattering. This is where some radar frequencies are not 100% absorbed by the plasma and are scattered off it. It has been postulated that by using either a bi-static radar arrangement or a network of radars. The radar backscattering may be detectable by ground stations. We are talking about a very small percentage of energy being backscattered though, something like less than 10% (best case). So the receiver’s sensitivity will need to be very high. It has only been proven ion theory and has yet to be tested in a real World environment at least publicly. The second is through the use of lasers and microwave energy to heat up the air before it reaches the leading edges of a body as it travels through the air. By heating up the air you can prepare it for the body to pass through with less drag. It also cuts down on the amount of plasma generated. Works great in a lab, is proving to be difficult to apply to a real aircraft, as it uses a huge amount of energy to do this.
Many thanks for this detailed explanation, it’s beginning to make a little more sense to me now!
And here’s an article with a reference that discusses why plasma sheath might not be the issue for all hypersonic bodies, per your point “… along with the body’s shape”.
“The C-HGB [Common Hypersonic Glide Body], which was successfully test flown in 2011, 2017 and March 2020, has been able to communicate with ground stations, he says.” He in this case being Mike White, assistant director of hypersonics with the Pentagon.
https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/plasma-blackout-is-not-a-worry-for-usas-hypersonic-missiles-pentagon/138539.article
Hypersonic cruise missiles operating at lower altitudes might have more issues with plasma generation as you say. However, your key observation IMO is that a third party targeting system might communicate to the missile to update targeting via an antenna facing directly backwards, before we even need to get to more esoteric counter-plasma techniques.
Where would this third party sensor platform come from? Maybe a LEO satellite, maybe the stealth UAS platform that first located the target. Or more speculatively it might even be a daughter platform discarded from the main hypersonic body, similar to the FC/ASW Perseus concept, but in this case the daughter platform is just carrying sensors and comms.
The bottom line is that apart from China, Russia and India, the US, Japan and now Australia are all pursuing hypersonic attack missiles, both boost-glide and cruise, including against moving naval targets. This should tell us that enabling such missiles to hit moving targets is not an insurmountable issue.
Physics works both ways.
If plasma absorbs incoming radar then a missile cannot home with its own radar because that also gets absorbed by the plasma
If its transmitting then EW will hear it and warn you… Very loudly!
IR at high mach is iffy due to friction heating of the IR homing window.
Funnily enough nobody seems to worry about this as being an issue when they rant about the threat of Hypersonic…
AS6 Kingfish and AS4 Kipper which where and in the As 4s case still is, high Mach +4.5 missiles have been around since the 1960s. They are nothing new and most navies know the capabilities and how to neutralise them with soft and hard kill.
Thank you, that makes more sense!
I’ve grown tired of explaining this point, thanks for saving me the effort this time around Gunbuster 🙂 Also worth mentioning that AS6’s etc. Mach 4+ speed is at attitude. As they dive in on target that Mach number drops sharply. 1. because the air density (so drag) increases and 2. because the speed of sound is higher the denser air gets so Mach numbers drop simply due to the math. An AS6’s terminal phase is Mach 3, give or take. Zircon will be about the same. The other point I often mention is that Phalanx spits out huge amounts of tungsten with millimetre accuracy and one needs only graze an incoming missile to compromise it aerodynamically and sent it off in any direction, 50% of which is straight in the drink. I really don’t think they are as obsolete as many make out. The block 0’s would be yes but upgrades, upgrades, upgrades keep them in the game.
USN choose to not put it in their new frigate. I think that tells you something about its value.
The Dutch dropped Goalkeeper – much more powerful than Phalanx – and choose Oto 76mm with guided rounds and RAM.
30mm, 20mm . . at those kind of closing speeds, grazing will do, direct hits game over either way, especially with seekers being fantastically vulnerable. Don’t get me wrong, 40mm+ has its place but just be careful about counting out Phalanx just because on paper 20mm is less. I am also not convinced about these guided rounds, all it takes is an erratic approach trajectory to ruin a guided round’s hit probable. 20mm, the closer you get the less you can manoeuvre and eventually that absurd stream of tungsten will make contact. It’s been mentioned further up about layered defences. I wouldn’t like to rely on a slow (comparatively) rate of fire 40mm for that last .5 km.
Phalanx has an anti missile 1km range only, 40mm almost 3-4km , 76mm 7-8km
Precisely my point, that last .5km of 300km attack run Phalanx will defo have the edge.
What is the point of that edge? It i too late…
There is a reason USN is ditching it.
The problem for Phalanx is its range in relation to faster missiles. Your example of 0.5 km engagement is ~0.5 seconds out from the ship for a Mach 3 missile. Even at 1.5 km out from the ship any deviation caused by the impact of a round is likely to have minimal effect in changing the course of the missile, due to the latter’s inertia. If lucky enough to cause missile detonation at these close ranges, then the ship is likely to suffer a shotgun blast of very high speed debris. Better than sinking for sure, but we need to be fitting systems that provide the highest probability to preserve mission capability. Probably why there is a focus on energy weapons for CIWS, including using the main AESA radar to engage further out, to back up solutions like CAMM or higher performance missiles.
Phalanx is a better fit to counter slower sub-sonic cruise missiles. But that is also where solutions like CAMM in a CIWS role, that can simultaneously engage multiple targets further out, guided initially by an AESA radar that is a better counter to low observable missiles, would be better. Which is perhaps why the Canadian CSC is using CAMM for CIWS to back up ESSM and SM-2, no Phalanx or SeaRAM. Developments like DARPA’s MAD-FIRES for 57mm are also likely to be a good solution against slower missiles, again initially targeted by AESA radar. Significantly increasing T31’s defensive capability for example.
Interesting stuff. My two rands worth, read a American article ages ago claiming Phalanx would not cope with a sizeable swarm of small drones. Seems those evil commies are working on systems for drone swarms launched from submarines. Don’t know the truth in half of what we read on some sites but it could explain why it is not being thought about for future fitment.
I talked to an RA Major once about Rapiers difficulty in discriminating really small targets, maybe all radars have finite limits on improvement?
I have maintained Phalanx , Goalkeeper and 76mm Oto so I am well aware of the system capabilities.
Its not just the size of your calibre that matters …its how you use it…
Goalkeeper was a complex and heavy system with a huge below decks footprint, lots of cabinets and required a dedicated chilled water system. Lose one part….lose the system
Oto is also heavy plus you need a seperate tracker to follow the target and pass the information to the gun and course corrected shells. Again you are adding complexity.
Phalanx is all self contained on mount. It has a primary and secondary power supply on an auto changeover switch and you can run emergency cables if needs be. It needs sea water to cool it from the firemain. Lose that and you connect a fire hose or use a pump over the side .
So the USN is not putting it on a frigate …so what?
It has nothing to do with its capabilities as a system, its driven by the task evaluation of what the vessel will do. Dont be surprised if it does not appear in future.
“So the USN is not putting it on a frigate …so what?
It has nothing to do with its capabilities as a system, its driven by the task evaluation of what the vessel will do. Dont be surprised if it does not appear in future.”
Can you really say that with a straight face?
By by your facetious “complexity” argument no missiles should be put on ships.
I can say that with a straight face because I have the experience of working on
, using and knowing what various RN and some other nations systems are and for what and how they can be used.
So take your argument further… if Phalanx is an issue why has it not been removed from all current USN vessels or all of the other nations vessels who use it?
The reason is because it does a job as part of layered defence that may include long range, short range missiles soft kill decoys and CIWS. It is also in its current form very good for drones and swarming surface boats.
RAM homes in on heat and RF emissions in its latest guise. However if you have an inbound IR or TV guided missile with a low IR signature or a prop driven suicide drone you may well have issues engaging it. That’s why you may see Phalanx fitted later because of the growing use and proliferation of use of simple TV guided suicide drones… You may require a phalanx to neutralise them.
You could/may be able to use a laser eventually but currently they have there own issues regarding range, reliability and use in adverse weather.
After you have shot out the RAM auncher what then? You cannot readily reload it.
Phalanx has a deep ish magazine on mount. It’s now fairly easy and quick to get the first reload in which it wasn’t in earlier versions. It has radar guidance and THIM guidance and it does the Job the RN want it to do because its reliable and when there are issues and it’s all that you have left it will still do the job.
Here is a first hand example you can have for free because it’s no longer in RN use. For. Goalkeeper, if you lost chilled water you could battle override and use the system for maybe 20mins before you damaged the radar TWT beyond repair. It doesn’t matter if it had a 30mm round, and longer range… after 20mins without chilled water it was slagged.
Phalanx is all on mount uses 440v and seawater. That’s it. Everything else is on mount generated. No need for a dedicated chilled water system, no need for converted power supplies. No need for a gun bay. No need for an electronics room.
No need for external radars, EW or trackers.
Weapon systems are not top trumps. They need to work and perform across a number of parameters. You need to consider how they interact with other systems in use, how battle damage resilient they are, what ship supplies they require and how resieliant those supplies are.
I see the problem is much worse then, you can’t think non binary.
If someone criticize Phalanx as inferior to other systems for you it means it should be dropped from all ships it is on…
Don’t you see many legacy stuff till operating in civilian and military? I defy you to explain that…
Japan’s latest warship has Phalanx.
You really have no idea what you are talking about.
Have you any system engineering experience of working on or with weapon systems, radars, sonars, missile systems, gunnery systems EW or Comms?
If the answer is No I suggest you join the military as an engineer and get 30 + years experience on the systems , their performance and how they are used.
then you will be in a position to offer a valid point of view instead of looking it up on Wiki.
I am currently working on a USNS vessel that is over 40 years old…its all legacy.
Brilliant.
There is some brilliant comments on here from some some very knowledgeable people, i was just wondering why the type 31s will get the 40mm and not these and if that is seen as the way forward why is there no plan to to the 40mms on other ships.
Furthermore why couldn’t the type 31s not have both phalanx and 40mm
For other ships reason is money.
Phalanx is on way out so not put into Type 31.Besides they are not made by BAE…
“Furthermore why couldn’t the type 31s not have both phalanx and 40mm”
No space.
Plenty of space. Issue I suspect is more about cash v marginal utility given 2 x 40mm and CAMM (Canadians selected CAMM as point defence on their Type 26)
Where you would put them?
https://www.naval-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/10/T31-RN-Capability-Diagram_Unclassified-900×504.jpg
2 on wings staggered in front / behind funnels in similar configuration to t45 and original T26 concept or 1 adjacent to CAMM between radar mast and funnels. ….but I understand why they won’t value them given the patrol frigate role and, hopefully, a reasonable CAMM load out.
Behind funnel you are blocking stern 40 partial firing arc. You need also strength for 7 ton weight.Near CAMM you risk getting them burned by the missile. They will certainly fire to bow or stern via sides unless the target is high
I don’t think will not get more CAMM, unless there is some kind of war.
CAMM = Soft Launch. Burn risk mitigated.
in the 2 x unit option I did state on wings…look at T45 images.. . Not so sure the Arc comment is valid as there comes a point when you start shooting up funnel structures etc as well and you have 40mm options at Stern and Bow plus 57mm at Bow.
Anyway. Going pack to original point. Its not a space issue. The vessel is large for its planned fit out. The lack of Phalanx is not a space issue…its what fit out for the fixed price budget.
In terms of CAMM load out…by the time war starts it will be too late to quickly put the ship into dock for structural work to fit more silos.
Last public info / images I saw for RN version showed 12 CAMM but various people claim the firm number is different. One claimed the ‘firm’ was 8 while others imply its still to be settled somewhere between 24 and 36. Time will tell.
Have a great weekend
It’s 12. The comment saying 8 was a typo.
Cheers Ron
First firings of Sea Ceptor missiles at sea – HMS Argyll – Bing video
It just depend the flight profile for short range interception, but the soft launch looks good.
Ships move… When under attack you do not stop moving. You up revs and manouver hard, very hard… In a situation where you are under attack you prioritise weapon arcs. Ceptor doesn’t need arcs being a soft launch active homer which is a huge plus over other missile systems.
You will still need to open up the arcs for guns or soft kill. The battle management systems will provide the advice on that to the CO. The Capt will also considering his immediate tasking, his system states both mechanical and weapon, his Stealth profile and the threat he is facing. He will then direct what actions to take.
That depends on detection range and missile speed.
I’m sure where there is a will there will be a way and space would be found. To me phalanx on the t31 seems like a good match, since its low missile load is likely to be overwhelmed pretty quickly and having a backup that can cover the back half of the ship seems essential (i’m assuming its main guys can provide a degree of air defence for the frontal arc).
There’s been a model displayed by Babcock’s of the Type 31 with Phalanx. Two units were fitted on either side of the hangar roof. That arrangement is available for export orders.