Type 45 Destroyer HMS Duncan has recently undergone a series of rigorous exercises in preparation for potential future conflicts.
In a display of military cooperation and partnership, the British warship engaged in joint manoeuvres with its French and Italian counterparts, the FS Chevalier Paul and IS Luigi Rizzo, respectively.
The exercises served as a means to test the vessels’ interoperability and communication systems, which are crucial in modern warfare, where multinational forces often operate together.
@HMSDuncan has had a busy week preparing for battle with FS Chevalier Paul and IS Luigi Rizzo, proving that we can operate effectively with allies in a high intensity environment.#Orion23#Fighting45s pic.twitter.com/F5EVtmKR5H
— HMS Duncan (@HMSDuncan) February 25, 2023
During the joint exercises, the vessels were tasked with simulating a high-intensity combat environment, with crews from each ship collaborating to overcome a range of hypothetical scenarios.
The drills encompassed a variety of naval warfare tactics, such as anti-air and anti-submarine warfare, and were conducted with a high degree of professionalism and precision, proving the capability of the Type 45 destroyer to operate effectively alongside its allies.
The type 45 are going to be very useful ships in the coming years. With a propulsion fix and hopefully enough crews for all of them. Then seaceptor upgrade and changing the load out of aster.
I wonder if the next big refit will do anything major with the systems, radar etc.
I could be wrong, but don’t they need an additional radar surface to remove a blind spot to ballistic missiles? Not an issue currently as they aren’t tasked with providing an anti-ballistic missiles defence.
But that will change with the RN upgrading its Aster 30 Block 0 to Block 1, which can intercept anti-ship short-range ballistic missiles.
From my recollection, it’s not new hardware, but a change of software that redirects alternate sweeps of the radar upwards. Hopefully it’ll be able to swop from one mode to the other, depending on threat from ballistic missiles, as that reduces the sweeps per minute and therefore its powers of discrimination.
The plate is already angled slight back and if your tracking a ballistic missile it won’t be directly over head. The beam can also be electronically steered of the direct line of sight. If memory serves the T45 was out in the pacific quite a few years ago trying out the software updates to allow it to track ballistic missiles.
https://defense-update.com/20130307_british-destroyer-to-participate-in-u-s-missile-defense-trials.html
Yes as the system is an array some of the modules can be tasked for ABM work while others do normal AAW. There was talk of a Top plate but I do not think it is strictly necessary. There will also be a command and control upgrade to increase processing power and bandwidth in preparation for Sea Ceptor.
I agree – still, would love to have had Mk41 VLS fitted instead of Sea Ceptor but I will take it. Still can’t believe the Ceptors won’t be fitted until 2026! Why so long?
Because the Longcast and ships plot is made years in advance. It details deployments, maintenance periods, training slots, refits. Ok you could do it now but it would remove a T45 and its trained up crew from the availability plot so it wouldn’t be available at short notice to escort a Carrier etc. Its weapons/ammo would be removed and taken back to the Ammo Depot. That ammo may be planned in for Life Extension maintenance so doing it early reduces its overall life availability and thats if the Ammo Depot has the capacity in its long term plan to undertake… Read more »
Good explanation mate. Fleet management is planned years ahead, and changing things has many knock on consequences. Being a fleet planner must be nightmare of a job at times.
I hope any potential enemy has the decency to fit their actions around our plans.
And our enemies have the same headaches with fleet management and planning refits/maintenance period’s/upgrades and operational deployments as we do. Do you think they have multiple warships just sat around constantly war ready? they don’t. The RN does a very good job with warship availability and fleet planning.
Quite! 2010 will be a date to remember.
Thanks for this post. Very useful.
It should have been synchronised with PIP. This is all to slow.
Maybe they don’t have enough sea ceptor missiles, new tubes ready yet. As gun buster said it’s a difficult process.
Hopefully there will be no hot war requiring more than 48 missiles.
What would be even cooler is a full reload of seaceptor missiles underneath the new tubes. Might effect the gym facilities.
Excellent explanation; holy crap, there are a lot of Dominos in the chain. Often guilty of tunnel vision, in spite of an engineering background.
Pretty sure there were a few posts regards the 40mm cannon on here earlier on. Anyway what do people think of this based on the 40mm CT cannon:
And heres a nice little vid on the weapon sysytem
Is it substantially superior to Bofors 40mm. Also cost Vs Bofors?
Thing in the maritime environment isn’t that bothered about weight or ultimate compactness: which is where this scores.
However, the marine environment is very dependent on salt spray resistance and generally favours simpler systems.
Its been around since October 2022, I wonder what the RN thought of it?
A very useful piece of kit, Ukraine could make very good use of it as a land-based system to protect towns and cities.
LINK
Here is the battle plan of this exercise. It seem that all three frigates are on the red forces. 2 Horizons and 1 T45 should perform great in defending all the littoral..
https://assets.meretmarine.com/s3fs-public/styles/medium_lg/public/images/2023-02/orion.png?itok=_BR-x6yh
https://assets.meretmarine.com/s3fs-public/styles/medium_lg/public/images/2023-02/orion.png?itok=_BR-x6yh
Here is the battle plan of thid exercise. Seems that the 2 horizons and the T45 are in the red forces.
Interesting, thank you! I had a bit of a look, this is the set up for the scenario: The area covered has been renamed ‘Arnland’ (an imaginary territory), which is being attacked by an imaginary neighbour, Mercure. In this hypothetical scenario, Mercure is trying to re-establish its regional influence by financing a militia to destabilise the south of Arnland, deploy military forces, cut off communications, and send out a disinformation campaign. From this weakened position, Arnland will receive the support of France, which will deploy its ‘national joint emergency force’. So, basically, a bit of a replay of what’s happened… Read more »
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