SEA’s triple trainable Torpedo Launcher System (TLS) has been selected for a multi-million pound frigate programme in Latin America.
The contract further cements SEA’s weapon-agnostic launcher capability as the leading choice for the UK Royal Navy and other leading international navies in regions including North America and South-East Asia.
In service with the UK Royal Navy for more than 30 years, SEA’s TLS is weapon-agnostic, providing flexibility that has been a major draw for navies worldwide.
TLS is a close range and rapid-reaction system capable of firing a variety of NATO-compatible standard lightweight torpedoes, including the US Mk44, Mk46 and Mk54 torpedoes, UK Sting Ray, Italian A244S, French MU90 and the Korean Blue Shark.
Highly flexible due to its unique modular design, the system can also be configured to fit into containerised mission modules if required, and the ability to be configured to use other weapons on an individual basis.
This flexibility not only helps reduce the risk of capability obsolescence based on ammunition supply, but also ensures the system delivers long-term value for the end user.
Neil Herbert, Vice President Strategic Accounts – Latin America at SEA, said:
“This contract award represents a major step in our ambition to share the best of the industry’s technology with navies across the globe. It also proves the pedigree of our Torpedo Launcher System, and the value of weapon-agnostic defence capabilities to international navies.
The TLS will provide our end user with control of its ammunition supply chain and help future-proof the new frigates ahead of new weapon developments. We look forward to continuing to build on our strong relationship with our partners and customers across Latin America.”
Does this have any future on our ships? I presumed not.
Currently no, non of the new ships will have torpedo tubes.
I think though this is fine as vls launched torpedos have far higher range and therefore much more useful, since the attacking sub is going to have heavy weight torpedo that massively out range any of the option that fit into these tubes.
It feels like more and more they want on the type 26, the fewer of the weapon they can have in the limited silos it has.
The issue is that the VLS typically has a minimum range. It means a sub captain actually has a region of immunity within about 1000 yards of the escort. It’s also nice to have an analogue backup.
Finally if the ship carries a helo with torps anyway you are basically sacrificing nothing.
A possibility I sometimes see is launchers which can be broken down and fitted to the ships boats.
No but there is a RFI out for an ASW rocket, which is a better option for short range defence.
No, and I think this is a big mistake. Every other country still plans to install them. An attacking submarine is unlikely to want to target an escort and advertise its presence. It’s more likely to try to slip past the outer screen to attack the body of a CSG or amphibious group. It’s as it tries to so that a streaming towed body could catch a glimpse of it within range of a shipborne torpedo and it’s a very brave submarine commander that presses home his attack in the presence of a number of torpedoes in the water
neat and more compact than the type on our Tt23 frigates.
perhaps we can roll this kind of system onto the T31
perhaps we can roll this kind of system onto the T31 anybody know how Hugh above the waterlilies that ships mounted TL S in t6 old days of steam?
But without the ability to bring up weapons from the magazine and also serve the helo.
The T23 both the ASW and GP variants both have sonars and a TLS to fire Stingrays, the T26 has no TLS so has no backup if Merlin is down for any reason, the USN ASROC fired from the Mk41 VLS dates back to the 60’s and not in production, the USN planned a future stand-off ASW weapon to fire from the Mk41 but never funded it, the T31 as fitted out has zilch ASW capability as no sonar or TLS so think the RN classifying it a frigate is a bad joke, its an OPV (would note the parent design of the T31, the Iver Huitfeldt Danish frigate, has both hull mounted sonar and TLS).
Reeves says No to the RN 🙄
Without even being a Labour supporter, it infuriates me the way so many on this site so rapidly pivoted from shrugging their shoulders and saying ‘well I don’t think the economy can handle this, but we really need it’ to abruptly claiming it’s x ministers fault when there has been basically no change in funding. It really makes one lose respect.