MBDA has been awarded a contract to equip the Polish Navy’s three new Miecznik-class frigates with the Sea Ceptor naval air defence system.
The system is designed to defend naval vessels against modern air and surface threats, including supersonic anti-ship missiles and unmanned surface vessels.
The contract is a continuation of the strategic agreements between MBDA and Poland around the CAMM (Common Anti-Air Modular Missile) family of air defence missiles. Poland plans to utilise its existing stockpiles of CAMM missiles, already procured for land and maritime domains, for the Miecznik frigates.
The Sea Ceptor system will incorporate a quad-packing solution in the Mk41 Vertical Launching System (VLS), enabling a high load-out and enhancing the frigates’ survivability.
MBDA is collaborating with PGZ (Polish Armaments Group) to develop a sovereign missile capability in Poland. This effort is part of the NAREW programme, which includes an unprecedented transfer of knowledge and technology from MBDA. The use of the CAMM family for various Polish defence programmes, including PILICA+, NAREW, and MIECZNIK, is expected to yield significant efficiencies, boost the Polish defence industry, and create high-skilled jobs, say MBDA.
Clearly the predictable choice all things considered. Wonder how many they will have as a load compared to our equivalents.
Not sure if the full spec has been given yet but i do see that Poland is getting rather serious about it’s defence…… Maybe they can advise the UK how to recruit crews….. 🙄
And how to secure our borders.
I think it may be time to recruit Poles again to help directly in our defence by filling gaps through numbers, did a damn good job last time after all. I say that in jest (mostly) but can see in the future with our growing direct military cooperation that it in many ways may materialise especially in terms of equipment and specialists anyway.
And how to invest in defence and take defence of the realm seriously and not sub contract our defence out to allies, who might not be that reliable.
Well we have T26 and T31 they have just these three so it is understandable they have loads of bells and whistles that go bang.
We can’t give you advice how to recruit sailors or any other military personnel as we have exactly same problem like British AF. Young people are not enthusiastic about joining the Polish Army, in my opinion only return of mandatory military service would change the situation.
Can you change the Mk41 quadpacking configuration according to the mission? I think the RN T31 will get 4×8 cell Mk41 modules, so 32 tubes. Just one 8 cell module would = 32 quad packed CAMM, right? This leaves 24 tubes for other uses. Quad packing Sea Ceptor in just half of the Mk41s would give 64 CAMM, very handy in the Red Sea right now
Here is a radical idea, instead of putting a mushroom farm on the Type-45’s as is currently planned, actually fit it with the Mark-41 VLS it has already been fit for and then quad pack CAMM in all sixteen tubes. Same missile but a massive increase in defensive munitions for a ship that is more than capable of using them efficiently.
As I understand it the quad pack is actually loaded into the VLS with the missiles already integrated so yeah, you can change it by mission. Don’t want all CAMM? Load half CAMM and half TLAM or LRASM.
Hi Iain, thx for the explanation on Mk41 quad pack inserts. Several folks have asked why are we not fitting Mk41 to T45. To be honest I don’t have an answer; seems like a good idea. I can only think that its been decided to prioritise the AAW and ABM role for T45 and to avoid ( the complexity of) a mix of Sylver and Mk41. We have committed to Aster Block 1 and maybe Block 1 NT eventually. If you load the Sylvers with 48 Aster 30 Block 1 you get defence against hypersonics and IRBM, leaving the new… Read more »
See, if we really were concentrating on AAW and ABM then it actually makes even more sense to fit the Mark-41 that the ships are already fit for. Quad pack it all with CAMM and that leaves the entire Sylver VLS free to be used for Aster-30 Block1/NT and still have room for the NSM racks because the mushroom farm is to go into the space reserved for the Mark-41. Fitting the mushroom farm (which is another VLS) will actually take more work because the fittings for it aren’t there and you will have to retrofit the Type-45 to fit… Read more »
While the Type 45’s were designed and built with the ability to fit the MK41 in mind ,i doubt if they were in any way ‘pre fitted’ for them, they only have the space reserved for them if required.Id bet the 24 Sea Ceptor upgrade was chosen because it was the much cheaper easier option.
Ah if that is the case then the government have once again managed to pull yet another fast one with the whole ‘Fit For But Not With’ line. You are implying that it should be ‘designed for but never actually going to happen so we didn’t bother with the fit.’
Look up/Google MK41 Gym,you will see pics of the space.
This has been said before. Having a gym between a magazine and missile silo is absolutely nuts. And what a waste space. Good opportunity to bulk the T45s with 2 MK41s, with quad CAMM and others or 2*3*6🍄 CAMM down the sides and 4*4 NSMs, two FFBNW if that’s too much. Might need to re-ballast the ship a bit. Hopefully the MOD is getting on with this upgrade as its needed now.
The fact that the Gym occupies that space is purely accidental,the T45 wasn’t designed specifically to have a Gym there,when it was decided to FFBNW the MK41 it became a handy place to put it.
Possibly a weight consideration too.
Of course budget was central to this.
Also timeline.
We only had Mk41 on order for T26 and now we’re are ordering for T31 there is limited production capability. So that would have delayed something…..
The mushroom farm can be made domestically.
That will feed into the reasoning.
Also fitting Mk41 is much more complex than Sea Ceptor.
Helpful points; thx. As they say, every day is a school day 🙂
Why a mushroom farm. My understanding is that this was a retrofit for a previous air defence missile.
CAMM missiles are packaged more densely in sky sabre and a small just big enough 24 cell launcher might make a lot of sense. The OPVs ought to have 24 anyway and I doubt that there is room for a type 41 cell on them.
Plus a shorter fit for purpose 24 cell will leave more room in the hull for things relocated for the power upgrade and other possibilities.
OPVs desperately do not need missiles.
If you fit missiles they look like a warship and in wartime they will be told to be warship.
Max upgrade to the OPV’s is a 40mm cannon.
So only deployable within range of defence from air atack by other vessels or land based systems? This isn’t the type of use OPVs are envisaged for. The potential threat has changed massively in the last two years. A gun might be able to track and hit a single slow flying drone. Hitting half a dozen operating with variable paths needs missiles capable of altering course to track the target. 40 mm cannon might be useful for some things but you need at least two to get 360 degree coverage. A drone only needs a small amount of explosive to… Read more »
The threat scape changed.
Hence T31 was ordered which deals with these issues. It looks exceptionally prescient that T31 has been ordered with a perfect load out, if you include NSM, for dealing with this.
I can see the Rivers being replaced by T32 or T31B2 for the reasons your outline above.
Rivers will have to go to crew T32 or T31B2.
Completely agree..don’t make the OPVs into some sort of budget patrol frigate or some idiot will send it into harms way. Also if you have CAMM you need the crew for the CAMM that eats into top weight range and cost per deployment..you end up with your cheap as chips long range constabulary vessel that cannot ever be deployed into harms way..becoming a less than cheap as chips, shorter range patrol frigate that may just be ( stupidly) sent into harms way. I do think the modern threat environment means that even a low tec non state actor could throw… Read more »
Also type 41 canisters are too heavy to reload at sea. A single CAMM missile is not a relatively simple hand operated and erected crane could relatively easily be reloaded at sea. Better to start each threat period with 24 missiles than start with 64 but only have 10 left after a week. The Aster 15 can cover the CAMM reload time until personal can be cleared to fire CAMM possibly only a few minutes and with slower drones enough they me to not need Aster at all even during reloading. Nelson won his fights partly by ensuring that his… Read more »
Look up Steve A Wenham on X,he has some great RN Warship pics,late last year he had one of HMS Somerset loading up a CAAM Canister Dockside by Crane,theres no way you can do this at Sea ,even though they are Smaller than Aster.
Paul T you are looking at the existing solution for CAMM retrospectively fitted to replace an earlier missile. Given the weight and dimensions and my experience of putting long thin poles up in the electricity industry I’m pretty sure that a CAMM missile canister could be fitted at sea even in relatively rough weather with a well designed lifting system. If you look around you can probably find street lights which are 5 meters tall which can be raised and lowered by hand to change the lamp. A similar system could be used up to the same maximum sea state… Read more »
The issue is the pendulum effect of the missile hanging on a crane or gantry.
The USN solution involves a rigid canister that goes from flat to vertical and the lowers the missile into the tube. Have a look on Navy Lookout NaB has posted a photo of it.
And the USN gave up on that because they decided even that was to risky.
Apologies the picture was put up by Navy Lookout,but to compare a Street Lamp with a Missile is illogical ,when you are dealing with very sensitive Electronics and Explosives you can’t take any chances with the Loading method.I’ll put the pick on another link.
Hi Paul, I was making the point that street lamps can be fixed firmly in the ground and still lowered for maintenance and then raised again. Doing the same to reload CAMM missiles on a vessel is quite feasible I don’t believe that the electronics and explosives in a missile are very sensitive Acceleration during launch is far higher than any experienced while the missile is in the launcher. A loading system fixed to the ship won’t apply any higher accelerations to the missile than that experienced while in the launcher, though they may be higher than a missile in… Read more »
Missiles explode…doing any complex evolution at sea is always risky..the ocean puts a load of dynamic forces on a vessel which means it moves randomly across multiple planes it has 6 different degrees of motion…if you suspend something above that deck..the deck itself can smash into the thing as it moves up and down (heaves), see sawing ( pitch ), swaying from to side ( pitch).. it will also move side ways ( sway)..suddenly shooting forward..(surge) statr twisting around ( yaw)…it will do all of these things at the same time completely randomly..depending on the dynamic forces of waves, wind… Read more »
I have many years experience working in the electricity industry and I did not suggest at any point suspending a missile above the deck. It is however possible for a person to walk around on a vessel during most weather conditions though not all, by holding onto something. It’s therefore possible to design a system where the container holding the missile is attached to the vessel at all times. A picture of an automated torpedo magazine was shown as part of a recent article I read I think on this site, if not it was a similar site. It is… Read more »
As yet CAMM cannot be reloaded at sea it’s still a 3.2m long missile ( full of fuel etc) that would need to be dangled vertically over a very small hole in the deck in which both the deck and missile will be moving……there is a reason no one has bothered trying to reload vertical launchers…even with a little missile like sea Wolf, that in its sextuple deck launched form could be reloaded ( type 22 carried 88missiles in total ) where as the vertical sea Wolf launcher in the T23 could not…the US did try to sort sea reloading… Read more »
CAMM could possibly be loaded using the ‘lamp post’ method. It is much lighter. – If it was in a lightweight cylinder – There were pivot points on the deck. – Erector stays – A hoist within the top of the cylinder At 99kg it is a totally different proposition to reloading a Mk41. In a Mk41 system the missiles are pre installed inside the inserts when loaded. So it is missile + insert. It weights a couple of tons all up. A full strike length package is long. So even if you were using the ‘lamp post’ method the… Read more »
Of course budget was central to this.
But also timeline.
We only had Mk41 on order for T26 and now we’re are ordering for T31 there is limited production capability. So that would have delayed something…..
This has to fit into insertion periods and those around PiP. Risk of perfection is that nothing ever happens. And T4( spends so long aside it does get regenerated in time to take strain as T23’s fall to bits.
The mushroom farm can be made domestically.
That will feed into the reasoning.
Also fitting Mk41 is much more complex than Sea Ceptor.
Makes far greater sense doesn’t it, so one presumes cost is the main barrier unless someone has a different explanation. Can we afford to have ships so relatively inflexible?
Sadly, yes it does. Even worse it would probably cost less than the cost overrun on those two ferries for CalMac that are almost a decade late.
Has mushroom farm layout been confirmed for T45 or are we all assuming that from Georges photoshop when CAMM integration was announced? I wonder if we’ll see a dense packed 24 cell on T45 with space spare for future integration of other silo’s (poss MK41) if required down the line?
It isn’t so simple.
Each VLS tube is hard wired to the controller cabinet and will have various bits sensors and effectors in/on the tube to communicate with and check what is going on with the missile.
So the short answer is that the config can be changed but that it can be a reasonable sized job.
It is perfectly possible to have excess controller cabinets onboard as they are not that large.
I think this takes us back to the entire FFBWN situation. Did they actually fit the ship out for the Mark-41 but not with it. If they did then it should be a relatively simple task to put these VLS into the space prepared for them. If however they were being disingenuous and the space was never fitted for the Mark-41 to go into then yes it is pretty much the same type work required to attach in a new set of CAMM Mushrooms. Except it would be twenty-four CAMM tubes to wire in or sixteen Mark-41 tubes. Theoretically that… Read more »
The space for Mk41 was created – it is a gym.
No other work was done other than providing services to the area.
No point in doing wiring as it is simplifying with each iteration as it becomes more network centric.
I remember hearing that there had been grumbling amongst the crews about losing the gym when the change was announced. If both solutions need completely wiring in then I am once again drawn to the question of why not the Mark-41. It isn’t as though we aren’t going to use the same missiles in both systems. Just more of them in the Mark-41 than the mushroom farm. I wonder if someone has submitted an freedom of information request to be told the difference in price between fitting the mushroom farms and fitting the Mark-41 It would be interesting to know… Read more »
May be more to do with getting 19 ship sets of Mk41 VLS in the timeframe.
That is a lot of production.
Because the Mk41 space was full length VLS the gym can remain with Sea Ceptor insertion.
Although with the odd press releases that suggest quad packed (which may be typos or copy paste errors) on T31 it could be that something different is envisaged now.
Threat levels are ramping up rapidly.
I suspect time line and budget decided it. Bird in the hand etc…
Yes, exactly, the UK can do exactly the same thing if it wanted to with its MK41s, even if as anoptional. Why is it so difficult? And especially if with the CAMM-MR is two per silo, at 16 per MK41, that’s a very useful load out of a longer range SAM.
Shared inventories for land and sea. How sensible.
Good choice , the polish government don’t mess about when it comes to Defence 🙂
It’s been a recent thing though…. a proper wake up call and now they are certainly reacting.
I think we all need to shake ourselves out of the presumption of American ‘cover’. You would think that American investment in Europe would keep them committed to mutual defence even if any sense of strategic responsibility faded, but seriously for the first time I just don’t presume that anymore if Trump or acolyte gets in. I can see the idea in Trumps mind as delusional as it seems, that he can do a deal with Russia to preserve US interests maybe increase them while selling out European ones. I guess Hungary has already taken that sort of personal view.… Read more »
You’re right, this is only recent wake up call in Poland. Since 1989 Polish AF have been gradually weakened and after joining NATO many fools thought that now we are going to have everlasting peace in Europe, the only two components of our military were kept in relatively good condition: first was our tank force, about 800 machines and second is Polish Special Forces. The rest was neglected for 3 decades and navy almost cease to exist.
That Polish tank force was mainly Soviet(russian empire) T72’s! Which are Not doing well on the battlefield of Ukraine!
The tank is tank my friend. T72 were only 1/3 of our inventory, rest was PT91 and Leopards.
If we had someone that close and that aggressive I would hope we would sort out our defence procurement too
We’ve had Russian & Chinese money trying to buy”influence”, both everyday attacking us online, stealing secrets, Russian hit squads spreading chemical agents around etc right here in mainland UK. Just how close is close enough to wake up our dystopian defence purchasing process?
We knew this was chosen.
This is just the order.
It is a shame we are not fitting 12
MK 41 to theT45 in their upgrades instead of the Sea Ceptor ‘mushroom farm’ with only 24 missiles. We could have had a more flexible VLS and quad packed Sea Ceptor. You could have had 48 Sea Ceptor, 48 ASTER 30 block 1. It looks like a missed opportunity to me. Also we could have had a mix of standard Sea Ceptor and the medium range offering.