The Ministry of Defence has struck a deal with BAE Systems to support the Royal Navy’s three main radar systems.
The contract, worth £270 million, spans 10 years and focuses on the Artisan, Sampson, and Long Range Radar (LRR) systems.
These radar systems are integral to the Royal Navy, as they are featured on every major ship including the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers and Type 45 destroyers. All of these systems are designed and built by BAE Systems.
This new contract consolidates several existing contracts into one, “delivering increased value for money and allowing greater investment in future technology development”.
Under this agreement, BAE Systems will maintain and upgrade the existing radars. There will also be a rollout of technology upgrades to both systems already in use and those to be installed on the Royal Navy’s new Type 26 frigates, currently being constructed by BAE Systems in Glasgow.
Furthermore, the MOD and BAE Systems will jointly invest an additional £50 million in developing the next generation of radar technology. This initiative is aimed at addressing emerging threats such as ballistic missiles and drones. The MOD is contributing £37.5 million, while BAE Systems is investing £12.5 million in research and development.
James Cartlidge, Minister for Defence Procurement, commented on the deal, “Equipping our Armed Forces with the latest technology to counter emerging threats is critical to ensuring the safety and effectiveness of our fleet and personnel. Securing hundreds of jobs across the UK, this contract is a boost for the UK Supply Chain and lets our adversaries know we are equipped, prepared and ready.”
Scott Jamieson, Managing Director at BAE Systems Maritime Services, described this as a critical juncture, saying, “This is a pivotal moment for UK radar technology development. This contract secures a decade of investment into a critical capability for the UK armed forces. It also allows us to evolve future radar technology with the MOD to sustain maritime air dominance and vital radar development skills and experience in the UK.”
The deal is set to secure approximately 400 highly-skilled jobs in various locations including Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth in Hampshire, Great Baddow in Essex, and Hillend near Edinburgh. Additionally, it will lead to the creation of new support roles in engineering and project management, and inject more funds into the UK supply chain involving SME and high-tech suppliers.
Better late than never, the article that is. Been many years since we’ve had an article on U.K. and other radar systems and trends. A good time for this in view of the US catching up with deployment of SPY6 on the IIIs.
Flight 3 have still got the illuminators fitted though
But that’s because they have to be backward compatible with huge stocks of Standard semi active missiles. SM6 and ESSM are very expensive and stocks are still relatively low. At least that’s my understanding
From what I understand the AB Flight 3s will be getting just the S-band part of the SPY-6 radar initially.. I have heard various reasons why the X-band part of the radar is not being included.
The majority of the legacy semi-active radar homing (SARH) missiles such as early ESSM and SM2 require the target to be constantly illuminated with a X-band continuous wave radar. ABs traditional use the AN/SPG-62 radar that’s been around for 40+ years. The X-band part of SPY-6 has a continuous wave mode for this reason.
Yeah, both Europe (Apar) and Australia (Ceafar) are ahead of the Americans on this
The X-band component of the SPY-6(V)1 AMDR is the rotating SPQ-9B radar and it only does surface search and periscope detection, not illumination. It’s not a new radar and is on several older Burkes as part of backfits, new Flight IIA Burkes starting with DDG 119, will be in all the Flight IIIs and is on many other ship classes like cruisers, aircraft carriers and amphibs.
“The AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) suite consists of an S-Band radar (AMDR-S), an X-band radar (via SPQ-9B starting with DDG 119), and a Radar Suite Controller (RSC). AMDR will provide multi-mission capabilities, simultaneously supporting both long range, exoatmospheric detection, tracking and discrimination of ballistic missiles, as well as Area and Self Defense against air and surface threats.”
For US ships that won’t have illuminators (like the Constellation class) only the newer active-seeker missiles will be used, like ESSM Block 2, SM-2 Block IIIC, and SM-6 (SM-6 will be added to the class later). The Constellation class will have a different X-band surface search radar, the Next Generation Surface Search Radar (NGSSR) and it won’t have an illumination function.
The future USN X-band radar (FXR) will be a modern, fixed face radar, but even that is depicted in diagrams as having no illumination function.
Yeah I heard the same in that the US Navy is delaying the AMDR-X installation. It plans to use the existing AN/SPQ-9B for the first dozen Arleigh Burke Flight III ships as a temporary solution. The delay is not a USN problem, but manufacturing.
AMDR-X is not a separate X-band radar. Raytheon will be building the radar modular assemblies (RMAs) that each contain 24 blade transmitter-receiver modules (TRMs) that contain the S and X band elements. Once the issues with the X-band radar are sorted out. The X-band will provide horizon search, precision tracking, and terminal illumination. This info is from both the USN projects office and Raytheon.
That would explain a LOT about several confusing near-term USN X-band developments. Thanks for the info!
While the USN actually does have quite a few SM-6 missiles in the inventory already, the other active-seeker versions of existing US missiles like ESSM Block 2 and SM-2 Block IIIC (that don’t require illumination) are still in short supply and existing stocks of older missiles will be around for a while. ESSM Block 2 production will ramp up nicely in the next year or two, while SM-2 Block IIIC still in initial rate production.
Just in Time for Type 83 perhaps?
Type 83 won’t be built until the mid 2030s.
This is good but it’s still trickle money to keep expertise in place. Probably need to start some serious investment in the next generation of radars for the type 83 If we are going to be building them for the 2030s.
Learning to read does help, especially if one reads before making blah blah blah comments.
ha ha what a funny little person you are. 😂🤣😂🤣😂.
ARTISAN is derived from SAMPSON so there was spending there on the naval radar family.
That then fed back into the last round of the SAMPSON upgrade program which is being applied to T45 as they pass through PiP (mostly) as that involves SAMPSON being craned off for the docking period.
This is, another round of upgrades, that smells like the full BMD version of SAMPSON and another generation of ARTISAN to me.
Yes is should provide secure for the sector as I believe up until now BAE have been doing a lot of self funded work around upgrades to ARTISAN ( they trailed an upgrade in the 2021 formidable shield).. it’s easy to forget ARTISAN was developed in the early mid 2000s and has been operational for a decade.
I was wondering what’s going to happen to a lot of the ARTISAN sets, the RN purchased 19, handed 1 to Brazil so they have 18 left, at 7 for the carriers and amphibians that’s 11 sets for escorts…8 into the type 26…so once all the 23s go that’s a spare 3 sets…be a shame to waste them.
I was reading the navy lookout piece on the type 83 and they did highlight the lack of investment in UK radar industry as a risk..so this is good news…will keep the expertise in place ready for whatever is developed for the 83.
the DE&S press release was a bit more detailed than the one from BAE ( which this article is cribbed)..it was very clear they were doing this to sustain the industry ready for the next generation radar systems “ensures the UK retains the highly-specialist skills required for a sovereign option in future radar development.”.
The other interesting bit is around the extra 50million for new threats…DE&S actually state that’s not new money, it’s savings from rolling a number of other contracts into this new single contract 270million contract…so I’m not actually sure how much of this 270 million is new money and how much is rolling others stuff already contracted together.
You can do an awful lot of R&D for £100m if you keep it laser focussed.
So much more if it is in software concepts….
The issue usually is that it gets very unfocused and The Good Ideas Club takes over.
Hi Jonathan, I think the FSS are getting Artisan so there’s the 3.
That makes sense, I missed that, good to see they will all get used.
Navylookout posted a picture on Instagram of Samsung next to a person and it really does show off the perspective, never realised how big it was.
Autocorrect?
Didn’t even notice.
A while back there was a proposal to upgrade Sampson to 4 panels, using 2 for conventional and 2 for ballistic threats, wonder if that will ever happen.
I would like to clarify that point. One of the number of proposals to improve the T45’s radar picture and coverage, was to add a third Sampson array to the two existing ones. Thereby there would be three arrays (on top of the mast) each with an azimuth field of view of 120 degrees. The forth array would be placed flat looking directly up.
Electronically steered arrays “generally” have a maximum field of view in azimuth of 120 degrees, or +/- 60 degrees of the boresight. In elevation this is normally 90 degrees, or +/- 45 degrees of the boresight. The boresight is the dead cent of the array. In simple terms this is due to how the magnetic and electrical fields interact. But also by how the beam is formed and steered.
If we consider Sampson up on the mast on the T45. Each of the two arrays will be fitted leaning back. If they were fitted so that the array’s boresight is parallel to the ground/sea. Then there will be a 45 degree arc above the radar that cannot be searched. If the arrays are fitted so that the boresight is now angled 30 degrees above the ground/sea. This reduces the “dead zone” to 15 degrees. But also means that the radar’s bottom view is now further away from the ship.
As the radar rotates it generates a 30 degree dead zone cone above the ship. By placing the radar array flat and pointing up, this removes the dead zone directly above the ship. You could also reduce the other arrays lean angle. To bring the bottom field of view back closer to the ship.
There are two trains of thought with the 3 azimuth arrays. One it to mechanically rotate them the other is to have them fixed. Fixing them removes the weight of the rotating assembly. But means there will be range compromises. This is due to the way arrays work my using mutual interference to amplify and steer the beam.
As the beam sweeps from center to say extreme right. The number of transmitter -receiver modules (TRMs) that make up the array and that can “interfere” with the beam (or push the beam over) gets less. So not only does the power drops off, but also the ability to steer the beam further. Traditionally arrays limit the beam to +/- 60 degrees, due to this drop off. You can steer it further, but power drops off dramatically and you start to introduce more problems, especially when receiving. This is one of the reasons most ships use four panel arrays instead of three.
The second train of thought is to mechanically rotate all three panels as per the dual array. However, the rotating assembly is going to have to be substantially beefed up, which adds more weight high up. The main benefit for the ship though is that the power and beam steering issues are better mitigated.
For a target of interest at extreme range, you can slow down the mechanical rotation speed or even stop it. So that the radar can boresight the target. Thereby making sure the maximum amount of radiated energy illuminates it. But because you have two other arrays, you can still sweep their sectors and keep an eye out for additional threats.
I do favour the second option. As you still have the radar horizon advantage. But crucially you can optimize the power for long range identification and tracking. Though I would also like to see the T45’s S1850-M get replaced with the SMART-L MM AESA radar.
Still no Royal Navy combatant with planar non moveable panels covering 360º simultaneously.
That every other relevant Navy already has.
USA, China, India, France , Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Australia and others.
That are all less capable than Sampson/Sea Viper combination.
While they are the future admittedly, there are advantages and disadvantages as things stand as has often been detailed. I certainly don’t think Sampson is out performed when you take all considerations together with its dual plane design, indeed the Americans seem to like having a T-45 around so you get the best of both Worlds. But next generation it’s likely that the balance will shift. Certainly by the way while those Countries do use flat panel radars some certainly don’t do so Exclusively, ie the Horizon (the T-45 equivalent) for example. Both radars Horizon and T-45 use electronically scanned panels that rotate and give near 360 degree coverage simultaneously so it’s not like old style rotating radars which because they rotate many seem to mistake them for.
I am not criticising the Horizon and T45. it was more than a decade ago their construction and even more their design. But the T26, T31.
Though the Horizon’s are using the EMPAR, which is an older generation PESA radar. From memory, EMPAR only has a single array unlike Sampson’s two back to back ones. So it has a longer rotating dead zone compared to Sampson.
Italy are replacing their EMPAR with the Leonardo Kronos (multi-functional radar active (MFRA)) radar. This is I believe a single sided mechanically rotated AESA. Therefore in essence, the Sampson will still outperform Kronos, as it’s instantaneous field of view is double, due to its two back to back arrays.
Both French and Italian Horizons have the Thales SMART-L radar. Though I have heard that Italy are looking at upgrading it to the MM AESA version.
The T45 will still have the longer radar horizon advantage over the Flight 3 ABs. As the SPY-6 is still mounted relatively low on the superstructure. Compared to Sampson up on the mast. Though the SPY-6 will be able to generate more effective radiated power due to its much larger area array. But the SMART-MM will have a similar if not longer detection range. Just need the RN to upgrade S1850M to MM.
It might be useful to explain how a mechanically rotated radar array does sweeps the beam in azimuth and elevation scanning, whilst conducting forwards and backwards scanning. Which increases the radar’s ability to “dwell” (keep a target illuminated) on a target. Which helps to mitigate the radar’s rotating blind spots. If there’s a need I can try to explain the concept in a not to technical way?
Disadvantage appears to be weight. Sampson can be mounted higher than the fixed versions which gives it increased horizon range and therefore in theory ability to spot targets further out. Whether in the era of supersonic and faster missiles that advantage out weights the lack of 360d coverage I have no idea. Someone good with maths could probably work it out, assuming the heights are known it wouldn’t be that difficult to work out at various speeds how many seconds or fraction of a second a missile could travel in the increased range and compare that time to the potential black holes as the radar spins
He in the case of US ships the Sampson is double the hight.
Assuming a sea skimming missile at 10m above the sea Sampson is about 45m above the sea that gives a detection range of 28km. A US plate radar is about half the hight of Sampson, say 23m against a sea skimmer at 10m that gives a detection range of 17km. I would rather be on the Type 45.
Assuming the incoming missile is just subsonic (340m/s) then that 11km difference would be covered in just over 30secs. Hypersonic is around 15x the speed of sound, so around 2secs. Subsonic I would rather sampson, hyper would rather fixed.
You have to be careful with Hypersonics as they are likely to be supersonic in their terminal phase say 2-4 the speed of sound. Also if you take humans out of the loop a system like Sea Viper will go from detection to engagement in just just seconds. So 30 seconds would allow for multiple engagements.
A radical thought why not have Sampson AND some plates as the second volume search radar.
Another point is that as Sampson can point its beams it has effectively got 360 cover at once (the difference is less than a second. Plus the ASTER missile finds its own target and does not need constant ship target information. So in the Sea Viper system having plates would be less effective than plates.
Good point. The human part to the puzzle is a key one. Even if the operator has complete control and doesn’t need authority to fire, 15-30secs could turn out to be critical
Also the ship will not be on its own. The radar picture will be fused with other platforms such a AEW aircraft, other ships etc. these assets can provide target information beyond the ships radar horizon. This can be done already with for example a Type 23 sending targets to a type 45 that are used for Sea Viper. We are talking networks of platforms, sensors and shooters.
Not really sure can rely on that anymorw, the navy is too small. In a major conflict ships are going to have to operate solo to provide escorts to the supply lines.
A major conflict would also be fought with allies not solo.
In theory yeah. In practice who knows, it all depends on if the war is in the allies interest or not. Although it’s hard to imagine a war in 2023 that would be in the UKs primary interest and us not just in a supporting role for the US, who really don’t actually need us to support them beyond making it look like a multinational thing from a PR perspective to the US voters.
Outside oil/gas imports our economy is almost exclusively invested in Europe and the US, the rest of the world adds a small percentage.
Although to be fair how many wars are actually about economics and how many are about polictics. It’s clear we only went to retake the Falklands because Maggy needed a win and gulf 2 was because Blair wanted a place in history books.
The big disadvantage is actually cooling. All that power produces wild heat that needs to be gotten rid off.
Getting chilled water up a T45 mast to the air blast chiller to keep the array cool was a. Major headache.
More AESA arrays need more electrical Power and a metric s**t tonne of cooling. If the cooling goes down the transmission capabilities of the radar can be measured in tens of minutes if you use the battle override before you slag it… And slag it you will. Secondary cooling supplies are a must
I’m interested in the long range radar. Is this the successor to the S1850M? What’s the history here? Why did we end up with BAES/Thales hybrid? Is this likely to be copied in the next version?
The S1850M has it’s own upgrade path, I think the Dutch have the updated version on their De Zeven Frigates and Italian’s on their Orrizonte’s.
The front end of the S1850M is a Thales SMART-L (L-band radar). This is a passive electronically scanned array(PESA) radar. However, from what I can gather BAe did most of the signal processing hardware and software.
During early trials of the T45 near Hawaii. The S1850M performed significantly better than expected. Having the ability to track and identify “incredibly high” targets. This information was fed back to Thales, who further improved the SMART-L, that gave it a dedicated ballistic missile search and track capability.
Thales further improved SMART-L with the MM (multi-mission) version. This is now an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. It pumps out a lot more power, whilst being more receiver sensitive. So it can search for and track low earth objects easily.
As far as I can tell S1850M has only had the back end upgraded. Through newer signal processing and software updates. To stay ahead of the game it needs replacing with the MM version of the SMART-L. Especially if the T45 is to take on an anti-ballistic missile role.