The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued a Prior Information Notice designed to accelerate the development of the United Kingdom’s Hypersonic Strike Capability.
A Prior Information Notice, better known as a PIN, serves as a preliminary indication to suppliers regarding potential future procurement activities.
“As part of Team Hypersonics (UK)’s overall delivery strategy, it is the intention of the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) to establish a multi-supplier Hypersonic Technologies & Capability Development Framework Agreement. The primary aim of the Framework will be to accelerate development of the United Kingdom Hypersonic Strike Capability.
The Framework is to provide a route to market up to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 9 and to deliver future operational elements of a Hypersonic Strike capability, this will be a collaborative enterprise approach to accelerate the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) acquisition of an advanced Hypersonic Strike capability.”
A PIN like this is designed to drum up interest and potentially mould the tender based on feedback from potential suppliers.
Part of Team Hypersonics (UK)’s overarching delivery strategy, this PIN seeks to establish a multi-supplier agreement. As stated in the notice, “It is the intention of the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) to establish a multi-supplier Hypersonic Technologies & Capability Development Framework Agreement.”
The purpose is to create a route to market, delivering the operational elements of a Hypersonic Strike capability.
The framework, valued up to £1bn, is expected to cover a 7-year period. However, as the PIN points out, “The value advised within this PIN is an estimate at this stage and subject to ongoing programme development.”
Further, the PIN extends an invitation to suppliers for an Early Supplier Market Engagement Day to be held this summer. The notice mentions, “The day will allow suppliers to gain valuable insight and provide feedback on this process and ensure the success of the Hypersonics programme.”
UK Hypersonic Capability?
According to this excellent Parliamentary Briefing Paper, there is no universally accepted definition for the term ‘hypersonic missile’, however it is typically used to describe missiles that travel within the Earth’s atmosphere for sustained periods at speeds greater than five times the speed of sound, whilst being able to make significant manoeuvres that change the missile’s direction.
“Hypersonic missiles are being developed by several countries and have reportedly been deployed by Russia and China. The US also has multiple hypersonic weapons programmes and are conducting tests.”
The UK does not have a hypersonic missile capability, but the Ministry of Defence has announced a hypersonics programme to develop “future hypersonic concepts and technologies”.
Furthermore, in 2022, it was announced that Australia, the US and the UK would collaborate on the development of hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities via the AUKUS security partnership.
The type of missions that a hypersonic missile could be used for will depend on the missile type, as well as its range, speed, type of warhead, and launch platform. Potential applications might include rapidly striking high-value, time-sensitive or mobile assets; long-range precision strikes; and enhancing nuclear deterrents (although their potential effectiveness in this context is debated).
You can read more of the aforementioned briefing paper here.
Some of these American hypersonic missiles are $40m a shot! How many could we afford? How often could we justify firing them? Perhaps a stealthy, affordable, low supersonic missile is a better bet?
And will these fit into a MK41 or will they need something bigger!?
Can the Aster 30 be made into a Mach 5+ missile?
Well the Russians are turning at least two of their Soviet era missiles into ‘hypersonics’ but of course as the article says the term ‘hypersonic’, just like 6th Gen is a little nebulous. Making hypersonic missiles isn’t difficult, even Starstreak is over Mach 4, but these new style missiles are a lot more than just speed they are expected to be reasonably stealthy and above all manoeuvrable while being able to have sensors that can accurately determine their targets during at least vital portions of its trajectory. So a lot depends on just how sophisticated you want to make them,… Read more »
But we do have the Reaction Engines tech which is actually the critical bit which is to cool things down so that, more efficient, air breathing propulsion is possible. That is needed for range.
So we may have really rather a lot at the table.
The Russian approach is pure brute force, warmed up Soviet tech, complete with a ceramic nose cone. As we have now seen one disassembled, mid air, by Mr Zelensiki & Co
The UK has not only Reaction Engines, but additionally, other corporate and academic R&D to contribute to the hypersonic/counter-hypersonic initiative/programme w/in AUKUS Pillar 2. The £1B allotment over a 7 yr. period is frankly the minimum to support an R&D base to participate in this programme of the premier armaments and dual-role tech development coalition w/in the West. Virtually every industrialized country will be clamoring to join AUKUS Pillar 2, when they realize the potential eventual payoff. The key will be to include those countries which will have a net positive effect on programmes. Meanwhile, UK PLC will be earning… Read more »
I agree with all of that.
The only issue is UK’s lack of GDP growth. Held back by an insane lack of supply of labour (you know the boys and girls from Poland) we all told to go away and obligingly they did.
If we actually had useful labour migration, like we used to, with some added controls the wage spiral wouldn’t be going on.
Although inflation is going to start dropping fast now – shrinkflation is reversing. I hope no more rate rises, I don’t think they are needed, otherwise we are into recession.
Do feel compelled to re-mention the other side of issues raised by your 3rd point, though. Horticultural glasshouse crop production had existed here over many years, sustained for the most part by locals *. Many here will be aware of the clamour that when producers began stating * Brits were not prepared to carry out these jobs. Which came as a surprise to those who’d been doing so, frankly. I will fill in the missing part of that quote as it effected many, however:- Brits were not prepared to to carry out these jobs…..for the immediate significant reduction in income… Read more »
I agree.
The early waves of Eastern migrants were used as an excuse to pay badly by some.
However, Brit’s are not interested in the jobs I offer for £18:50/hr that invoke *hard manual work* – which I’m sorry is a *fact*….and I do think that is a very decent wage for manual work.
We have got to a level of fantasy wages now. Part of the issue being that it is no longer necessary to demonstrate sticking power or high skill levels for most jobs….
Does seem more or a ‘because you’re worth it’ attitude in evidence. Education system no better very often; with instances of low wage earners also looking to fund supplementary hours education for their kids due to lax discipline and increasing tribalism in schools. But I’m obviously not heading off down that……
Rgs
How can I upgrade my Audi A4 to supersonic? It could make my journey to Tescos much quicker – ‘Er indoors’ would appreciate that.
Probably not. In theory you add a third stage booster to it, which would likely push it past Mach 5.
However, the missile was never designed for hypersonic speeds. So its construction is unlikely to be strong enough. For example is the skin’s thickness too thin. Could it handle these elevated temperatures? Bearing in mind the leading edges will quickly reach 1000C at Mach 5+.
Nope.
The control surfaces behave totally differently at hypersonic speeds.
Just as sub -> trans -> super sonic was a big deal so is super -> hyper sonic.
That’s not strictly true. The flight control surfaces of the Aster are near the tail. Depending on the Mach number, these control surface may still be within the Mach cone and therefore provide control authority. However, Aster would have a bigger issue to contend with, which are its mid-body strakes. As an aircraft reaches hypersonic speeds, the boundary layer gets thicker and can merge with the shockwave cone. If your missile has discontinuities in the skin’s surfaces or protuberances that stick up into the shock wave. They themselves will create additional shockwaves, generating more drag etc. Bearing in mind that… Read more »
Probably bigger mk57 on the Zumwalt.
It depends on the required range. As an example, the Russian Zircon is over 9m long. The strike length Mk41 has a depth of 7.7m. Depending on the flight profile Zircon can have a range as little as 250km or nearly 1000km.
If you want it to go further, you’ll need to strap a significantly larger booster motor on to it.
No and Yes. If we want anything that resembles a decent range and payload.
$100 million is what’s predicted, what’s more survivable 1 hypersonic missile or 100 cruise missiles. I would put my money on the latter.
Big question is how much will an equivalent ‘new age’ non hypersonic missile cost I guess and/or how long can rather ancient but cheap existing missiles be effectively sustained. I presume the balance of those arguments in the direction you favour led to the US pretty much putting Hypersonic development on ice a decade ago. But in the next decade I think the debate will continue and the answer less clear perhaps.
Jim is of course correct. It all depends upon chances of successfully hitting a target. I a hypersonic missile costing say £10 million each has an 80-90% chance of successfully hitting a target and not being intercepted by a rail gun, direct energy weapon or hypersonic interceptor then it might be worth spending that sort of money on a single missile. If however 10 cruise missiles can be fired off for the same money and each carries a similar payload to the hypersonic and has a 25-35% chance of hitting the target then mathematically it is a better idea to… Read more »
That’s not how probably works. If the probability of a single missile hitting the target is 0.3 then the probability that none hit out of 10 fired it is 0.7^10 ≈ 0.028 so the probability that at least one hits is 1-0.028 = 0.972 Of course this doesn’t account for the fact that firing a greater number of missiles may saturate/ confuse the enemy air defence increasing the chance of each missile getting through. I do agree with you that it is possible that a higher number of cheaper cruise missiles will achieve the same or greater success rate than… Read more »
You also have to ask, how many cruise missiles will a ship carry? Is firing ten feasible for a single target, especially if you can’t reload without returning to base?
From what I can understand, the high temperatures reached by hypersonic missiles means it’s harder for missile sensors to function, and communications for end-course corrections also become more difficult. Are we sure that a hypersonic missile is actually more likely to hit? Reportedly, French wargaming simulations claim so, but we have no idea of the assumptions they used.
Definitely something that requires careful consideration. As others on here have said stealthy subsonic CM are still difficult to intercept and I can only imagine they would become very effective if a number of the were networked together along with some decoys. Presumably the development costs for such a missile would be much less than a hypersonic missile. On the other hand, as radars and air defence systems improve I can only see sub sonic missiles becoming more and more vulnerable where hypersonics aren’t so abandoning the idea just because current technology is “good enough” doesn’t seem to be a… Read more »
Another measure.
How many missiles do you put on your ships?
4-8 hypersonic missiles are better than 4-8 subsonic.
But we certainly can’t go all hypersonic, and that’s probably why the FC/ASW go for one high-speed missile (probably more high supersonic) and one low-speed missile.
It’s important to note that there is a distinction between what a cruise missile and a hypersonic weapon is designed to address. Yes there is overlap with targets but in theory a hypersonic weapon is for a high value, time sensitive target at range, which is currently very difficult to impossible with current strike weapons.
Good point and why I presume we are still studying producing both types of cruise missiles, be interesting to see what comes out of these various studies in the end but I think both have their place. Interesting to note based perhaps on Syrian experience some attacks by SS at high value targets are accompanied by US spoofing missiles to attract the air defence’s attention. Indeed I watched a video yesterday before reading this fact, which baffled me seeing air defence missiles firing off in one direction what looked away from the camera and then a SS coming in from… Read more »
As often as we need to unless you want to be ruled by Putin.
I can see in to the future. Each country will only be able to afford 1 plane, 1 ship, 1 missile and one super tank. We’ll all go to a big warzone and a war will be fought one on one with the winner taking it all
We spend a Billion on one destroyer,so yes that works out at 25 missiles. Apart from the fact.we can’t afford not to have them.
So seven years working out what we might do, another five dithering about which programme we like and fifteen years to produce one. No rush.
Scale up Meteor. Job done!
I am not particularly knowledgable on this subject sadly, but when it’s US somewhat inferior equivalent is at the heart of very effective NASAMS (I think) why did we develop CAMM as a new short range missile for air defence and now spend time and effort to extend its range. I did enough research to find out that Meteor has indeed been proposed in a ground based air defence role, but must say never got around to comparing their relative size, technical details, dimensions etc to see if that gives any indicators as to why so far anyway that it’s… Read more »
Ceptor, scaleable.
Different markets.
Yes, its primarily down to cost I believe. A standard CAMM is about 1/3 the price of a Meteor. Yet compared to earlier point defence weapons, such as Rapier, Crotale, Avenger etc, it has a dramatically better range. Where its range bridges the gap between short range air defence and medium. This is primarily down to the larger rocket motor CAMM uses, compared to say Sidewinder or a standard IRIS-T. The Army required a mobile missile air defence system that could replace Rapier. MBDA recognized that there was a gap in the market between short range air defence and local… Read more »
If a booster was fitted it would also need a turn over unit to flip the missile towards the correct future intercept point of the target. It was done for VL Sea Wolf so its possible I would think.
I guess that depends on whether you want it to have a point defence capability. Otherwise it will have a relatively long minimum engagement range as per ESSM, SM2 etc due to the ballistic arc that it has to travel. Bit of a winner with the CAMM design.
That’s sensible. We don’t get sensible, just jam tomorrow.
Mate, it’s the “pork” industry get in that period that’s the main thing! Sorry, cynical head on.
People keep asking “where does our budget go, in top 5 in the world”
Here is another example. Did I see 1 billion quoted?
Agree that’s a billion pounds with no outcome or defined output. I though the FC/ASW was the program that’s actually going to deliver on a future cruise missile as well as a future hypersonic weapon..so if the UK wants a hypersonic weapon put the cash in the programme that’s already funded to deliver.
Nope
The die is cast on FC/ASW and that programs should be left to mature.
This is something different.
Changing spec to that extent would be an army model procurement decision………
I was thinking..more along the lines of give it increased funding to increase the development speed tbh.
That was my thinking too, I assume the AUKUS study is presently to widen the possibilities longer term and conceptually to make sure we don’t miss out on what might develop into a far bigger ‘market place’ for this sort of technology longer term. Obviously no one can match the 30 odd years the US has studied this, especially when you take into account their even longer space plane experience, with present and past platforms, so if you can get even a minor insight, stake and even a minor involvement in that research and development you don’t turn it down… Read more »
You did see £1 billion, my friend. Gone off like a Guy Fawkes rocket. I read as always your comments on Carter. Very restrained I thought. I can’t add anything to them. I’m as angry as you are. One snippet which you may not know. 16th AAB, taken out of 1st Division during the 35th (?) restructuring plan is now going to be put back in apparently. Must be an awful lot of beer and sandwiches around that table.🍺🍔😉
Lol. Hi Geoffrey. I’m aware…16 AA Bde has been under “Field Troops” in FS, so that lasted a year or two, and now goes to 1 UK Division. Before that, Field Troops were “Force Troops” and before that “Theatre Troops” when 16AA sat in the “Reaction Force” with 3 Division. Confused yet? Typical army musical chairs and rebranding, and great fun keeping track of. I agree with the move. 1 UK Divisional HQ is also being uplifted so I hope the DCP improves the divisions brigades from mere Golf bags ( some of them) to some thing more. Hell, why… Read more »
You might remember that back in 2020/21 when submissions were sought for the defence paper I recommended something like Special Operations Division, almost doubling the Air Assault capability by bringing in extra Gurkha’s and improved command and logistical support. Silly me but I even thought about having the Herc dedicated to this force along with the helicopters. Hey Ho…what dreams we have. I’m not sure about the 7th though. They’ve been together a long time and probably know WHAT THEY’RE DOING so an early re organisation?
We agree. Brilliant. Will they?😏
yep £1 billion! Likely going to be squandered and handed over to the defence industry with no tangible outcome. Is this programme going to result in weapon systems being ordered at scale, in bulk and delivering manufacturing resilience here in the UK? If not then id rather the MOD spent £1 billion on purchasing 3 more, fully armed, type 31 frigates myself.
I agree. As so often, HMG prioritise UK industry over the military, with the MoD budget.
I may be wrong, and these weapons will be a must have that it is essential that the UK has a sovereign capability on.
And re reading, “up to 1 billion” over 7 years?
Or in more typical fashion it will result in not one single weapon entering service. Ever.
Directly or indirectly we will be using hypersonic missiles well before ‘ever’ comes around. They will be common in the thirties as prices come down substantially for the technology and it’s far better understood. Never would have taken seriously 15 years ago the idea of rockets landing on their tails in any useful manner let alone Starship so I see no reason to think in ten or so years hypersonic cruise missiles won’t be common even perhaps in our own forces. UK and France could easily do a Kinzhal equivalent by then but is that sort of relatively low tech… Read more »
They arent exactly available off the shelf and need a chunk of development work to do what we need them to!
£ 1 billion would buy 2 or three mote T31’s now or another 10 (?) F35’s. I know what I would rather have.
I’m all in favour of continous production of T31s or other low-mix frigates. However, from a military standpoint, the issue is how many can we afford to operate?
The rest can be sold off, mothballed for a reserve or whatever, but we are limited in how much military use we can make of them if we don’t have trained crews and maintenance capacity. Buying a platform isn’t the same as having a capability centred on it.
We’re planning to buy T32 anyway so presumably there are plans to crew them.
Is it worth spending a billion on this or would it be better spent else where?
Whatever comes out at the end has to be cheap enough to purchase or it’s pointless. The Americans seem to haven been going super duper expensive missiles although perhaps the multi service missile may get cheaper.
As I just replied above, people keep asking where the money goes.
Maybe that 1 billion spent on the RAF ATF instead? Keeping Hercs, and buying more Atlas and employing crews to fly them?
We could’ve just bought 1000 TLAM’s for that.
Or Astute boat number 8.
Or almost 2 more T26 (with batch efficiencies considered).
Wow.
Why not take the lot here… that’ll be in the next £4 billion handout! 😁 Good 📃!
This is one program that needs canceled, hypersonic weapons are a nonsense gimmick.
Point in case, Russian air defences are completely unable to shoot down either storm shadow or Poseidon.
Why waste our money on a gimmick like hypersonics to keep up with the Jones’s. If we really want to tick a box we can buy a few from the US and make it look good.
A long range stealthy cruise missile like FC/ASW is what’s needed with possibly a faster anti ship missile version but Mach 3 is plenty.
Russian air defences can deal with Storm Shadow – https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1676165504073859072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1676165504073859072%7Ctwgr%5E4f7fa442fd224dc80a1e354bc4def862e4998fbb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tanknet.org%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Ffront_ukrainian%2Fstatus%2F1676165504073859072
I am. It arguing you are totally wrong in your argument but let’s be clear. Years back SS was shot down when launched against Syrian targets. Now they have likely been tweaked since then but also though they have it seems been very effective in Ukraine which is a far better environment for them, as I stated elsewhere on this thread it’s been discovered at least on some missions US spoofing missiles have been used to confuse the air defences. So you have to factor in those assets too and launch platforms when you compare costs and complexity against say… Read more »
That 1 billion if properly spent could do a lot to get the Army’s armoured and artillery issues resolved.
Contradiction alert.
I can’t help thinking that if we were attacked tomorrow it would be by drones travelling at sub 300 mph. Short of bunch of kids on tall buildings with catapults we seem to have little to counter it which is not £1M a pop. We seem to be creating too much expensive kit in too smaller quantities. I’m sure this will be essential but I hope we are not ignoring a gap in our defences.
We’ve ignoring our defences for year’s Mark sadly 😟
CAMM is not £1M a pop.
SB the exact cost is irrelevant to the point. 😂We need something which is cheap and easy to mass produce (tens of thousands maybe) which can deal with the cheap drones which many potential enemies are either producing or are on the drawing board.
The point being: the software libraries and dynamics are developed.
It is perfectly possible to develop CAMM-lite with a cheap rocket motor, same software, cheap processors, lower rate actuators and cheap versions of sensors.
Absolutely. You would need to drive the costs down by putting it on a production line so there are challenges. Might be worth funding such a project to get some in stock and plug another hole in the defences.
Also another approach might be to fund a drone spitfire and literally just shoot them down the old fashioned way.
This is meant to mirror the CAMM approach that created a very successful set of systems and sub systems that have been modularised and are now being rolled out. The whole point was to get away from the bloated costs if Standard and RIM type efforts never mind PATRIOT. Why on Earth do people think US tech is better? Ok, during the ‘80’s due to having made some dud calls UK missile systems were going round in circles untitled Sea Wolf matured. Problem was that Peace Dividend appeared then and froze a lot of good research that had been done.… Read more »
Maybe because US tech has seen active service for donkeys years whilst ours rarely seems to get past concept phase despite eating up billions of £…
That’s not true really – the only missile systems cancelled due to budget cuts / operations calls for money was the joint anti-tank missile proposed with France in the late ’80s and Fire Shadow, AFAIR. Storm Shadow, Brimstone, ASRAAM/CAMM, Meteor, Starstreak/LMM, Aster 30/Sea Viper, Sea Venom have all made it to production, and are being spirally developed and exported, and FCASW is fully funded. Investment in British precision weapons that defeat our enemies defences (China, not just Russia) is the core of what we should be doing.
Exactly so.
I was going to post the same.
There is very good weapons tech now in UK service.
Sea cat, my dad and his mates had so much faith in sea cat..it was palatable. I honestly think they would have preferred a GPMG.
I was more referring to the later iterations of Sea Dart including the VLS development that were canned.
Sea Cat was….. properly useless……except maybe against a Sopwith Camel….
Sea Wolf was a really, really good system.
Sea Wolf was good later on, after it was given a decent targeting radar that didn’t switch off and re-boot in the middle of an air attack because the target had flown behind a hill……
True enough.
With an excellent pulse doppler radar it was very good indeed and a well respected system.
The blue screen of death was common on various missile systems, the US had many too, on one occasion when their destroyer was saved by a British missile in the Middle East.
Which destroyer was that? Seawolf initially had a major design error in its guidance system…..it worked solely on the basis that seawolf would only ever engage a target over open water, they forgot about land? Hence during an Air raid in the Flaklands in 1982, when attacking Argie A4s dived behind a hill seawolf couldn’t figure out where they had gone?
That was more an issue of how data was handed from radar to Sea Wolf and what the expectation and therefore outcomes were likely to be. The pulsed Doppler radar was superb but it didn’t deal well with dropped tracks. So the track end (last location tracked to) was repeatedly communicated at each refresh. This then meant that a multiplicity of targets were created, overloading and crashing the computer as it ran out of memory. The quick and dirty, and obvious, fix was to assign a maximum number of dropped tracks. There was a proper fix that I won’t go… Read more »
FM 1600 B ferrite core stores
Bootstrap switch flicking and knob turning to make the thing know it was a computer.
Paper tape ops programs.
Oh the joys of R 967, 910 trackers and CAAIS
SW R910 was i band and had a radar guidance system/ TV Guidance system and a handraulic TV guidance system. All worked. However pop up or very low targets couldnt be easily radar tracked as the radar tracker suffered with multipath effects at very low level hence the TV system was fitted. This was overcome on R911 trackers by fitting Blindfire Rapier K band to the tracker eliminating the need for TV guidance. If you had a good LH gunner on the console he would reset the engagement if you lost target or take it into TV straight away. Remember… Read more »
BSOD was pretty common in all defence systems.
Mostly memory overflow errors or inability to kill spiralling process loads when used in non standard regimes.
That was fixed with a software mod in early 83. I was on the trials ship, HMS Brilliant. Lots of Sea Wolf improvements made to software and systems. We trialed multiple attack profiles with attackers peeling off, 4.5 shell shoots, lots of very low level rushton tracking and a shoot and finally we eventually shot down an Exocet fired by HMS Jupiter. All trials where successful. Ok R910 still reset occasionally but not because of the reasons found in the Falklands. With R911 things got better but it still reset its self just because it could! I say Eventually…as HMS… Read more »
Yes like Seaslug it had posing value only.
Well at least sea snug could be lobbed at land targets so it do have a very minuscule value….it was also used to scare a dagger pilot….but all in all as an air defence missile it was a chocolate teapot.
It could be lobbed vaguely in the direction of a land mass.
If you expected it to hit anything specific you were bound to be disappointed.
In Corporate Glamorgan fired one, of what was supposed to be a salvo. It made a massive bang and may have taken out some sheep and rocks. Trouble was it hit the wrong mountain: nearly taking out an SF team.
Sea Slug and accuracy don’t belong in the same chapter.
It does make you wonder why they bothered…you have to think that in reality they thought in the end it would end up with a nuclear warhead and accuracy be buggered..they did seem to want to stick nuclear warheads on everything in the 1950s. but seriously the countries would have actually been better and more effective warships without the sea slug and another dual 4.5 gun turret added aft ( they would have been a lot cheaper as well) After all one of the primary roles of a county at that point was really have an ASuW engagement with the… Read more »
I could never understand the rationale behind why the Navy kept going with Sea Slug? When the competing Bloodhound was showing to be a better all round system. Trained on Sea Slug when I was at Plymouth Poly. Devonport FE had the tracking radar fitted to the roof as gift from the Navy. We used to track aircraft going into the airport. Plus a Sea Harrier on Navy days. The pilot was mightily pissed off apparently. As one of the lecturers came rushing in and pulled the power. Still remember getting belted when adjusting pots or changing valves. Who says… Read more »
The ships were built round the missile systems.
There was no realistic way of changing to anything else.
That killed the idea of Sea Slug -> Sea Dart on County as well as the DC issues.
T42 killed the idea of Sea Dart trainable -> VLS as it would require a new class of ships. It was mooted for T42B3 but the beam to the fore was too narrow. Anyway nobody had the heart to start that R&D project after the eye watering costs of Slug / Dart / Wolf. As it was B3 was stretched lengthways with mixed results.
Does make you wonder how much more effective the County Class would have been with Bloodhound, which became a semi active radar homing missile system. Mind you it wasn’t small!
There is a very good summary on here and it does touch on the crossover between the systems.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodhound_(missile)
I’m trying to find a more detailed version I stumbled across. The more surprising part was why Sea Slug wasn’t upgraded in a similar way to Bloodhound II…..
There was a proposal to launch Sea Dart directly from the intermediate position negating the need for a trainable launcher. It was never progressed. Just as well. Sea Dart mags where a nightmare at the best of times. Imagine launching from the intermediate position without trashing the mag below the flash doors. I have seen a missile that toppled off the end of the lane. That was fun trying to pull it back upright and back onto the lane. They then discovered a misalignment between the lane rails and the hoist of a couple of inches post Rosyth refit hence… Read more »
It was such a baroque system with so many moving parts.
When it worked it was a marvel to behold.
You compare it to a VLS where each cell is mechanically independent.
T22 Radar 967 radar room.
Hang a florescent tube up with tyewraps and it glowed!
With that and the incessant 3 tone drone from the 967 transmitter its a wonder I didnt go mad as a watchkeeper.
In latter years they eventually banned you from the radar room without ear defenders as the noise was outside the H& S exposure limits!
Sounds like there may have been faulty side lobe suppression. Foxhunter would do similar things. You knew there was problem as everyone started feeling quesy when working around an operating radar.
I’m not saying we did this. But you could get some amazing effects from a 555 timer and a spark plug (plus some other bits). Setting off all the speed cameras on the M25 at 70 used to be fun!
Did Sea Slug have posing value?
It was a terrifying system to work with.
Everyone was delighted when the wretched thing was safely off the rails.
You do have to wonder how they managed to develop such a complex and yet utterly shite air defence missile…everything about it was bonkers really.
I preferred an LMG …more accurate! ( Showing my age now!)
That said T21 Frigates Sea Cat system GWS 24 was very good but the missile once it left the launcher was the weak link.
I’m sorry but no one, probably even China has a fraction of what the US has done with hypersonic systems over many decades, a massive library of knowledge, it’s a blatant fact that we simply cannot replicate in a short period if ever. They have a military space plane that sits in orbit for often months that then returns to Earth as required, it in many ways replicates the technology required for hypersonic glide bodies, Space X is researching high temperature fairings for them based on its own experience. We have none of that real time experience, nor the autonomous… Read more »
New ships for the Navy plus missiles ,RAF F35s ,Tempest for the future ,Army ? at the moment surely if all this is needed we must go to 3% for defence 🤔 💰💰💰.
Looking at the seven year timescale, I’m wondering if this will follow up on the FC/ASW programme. If we get a high supersonic missile in FC/ASW, might this answer in 2030, where next?
I’m also conscious of the AUKUS Pillar 2 commitment to hypersonic. A billion quid seems like a lot of money to be gambling on a framework for just half of one of the seven technologies of Pillar 2. Will missiles travelling at Mach 5 get us that much more than ones travelling at Mach 3?
Must admit I wonder about the potential law of diminishing returns. Hypersonic is a buzz word but if Starstreak for example was that bit faster and broke mach 5 would it make it better? Certainly not in that case I reckon. But strike missiles does Mach 5 have great advantages over Mach 4 or even Mach 3. Is any slight potential advantage worth whatever cost and complexity to achieve it? Tough one to find that balance or inflection point I suspect at least until many active competing missiles can be assessed, probably in action indeed.
Sooner rather than later as we are late in joining this particular club.
I don’t think joining particular clubs is the way forward. That’s ‘wish list’ stuff. We can do that once we have provided our armed forces with the ‘must haves’. We have a long way to go on the latter and are wanting in so many areas.
Join the programme and save a few quid. I wonder how many “new” tanks and AFVs this could fund right now? REUTERS June 27, 2023 Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; editing by Richard Lough and Christina Fincher. France conducts maiden test of hypersonic glider “PARIS, June 27 (Reuters) – France has conducted a maiden test of a prototype hypersonic glider, the country’s defence procurement agency said, as it seeks to develop new missile technology capable of evading the most sophisticated air defences. The agency said a sounding rocket carrying a VMAX hypersonic glider launched on Monday from the Biscarosse missile test… Read more »
The theoretical advantage of hypersonic over long range ballistic missiles is their invulnerability to exo- atmospheric anti missile defences that try to intercept at mid course and high altitude. But since intercept systems are largely ineffective, there is little practical benefit.
For shorter range weapons, survival will probably be better achieved by stealth than very high speed, and crucially at much lower cost.
A further challenge is to develop guidance systems for Mach 5+ missiles that can cope with the high speeds and high temperatures they generate throughout their flight time though the atmosphere.
Agree, the ability to intercept an IRBM or ICBM is so marginal compared to nation’s abilities to deploy and deliver warheads makes it a bit marginal benefit..the US has probably sunk 100 billion into a missile defence system that on its very best day could may be manage to knock out say 1/5 of the UKs nuclear deterrent…no one else has any ability to intercept IRBMs or ICBMs at all. As you say for tactical ranges the west has alway going for low levels stealthy sun sonic cruise missiles for a reason and that’s because they are very hard to… Read more »
Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs) both operate in the atmosphere. A exoatmospheric missile such as SM£ does not as far as I’m aware have an endoatmospheric capability. The missiles that are being designed to combat HGVs are THAAD and SM6. Where the current maximum interception altitudes of 125,000ft is being extended to way above 150,000ft. A HCM flies at a much lower altitude than the HGV, as it still needs significant quantities of air to power the scramjet. for extended range and higher speeds they will be cruising above 100,000ft. Which puts them firmly in the… Read more »
Internally you also need lots of heat shielding for electronics, warheads( If fitted) That all adds weight, increases the missile motor or reduces range. Radar guidance needs a radome that can handle the temps, be radar transparent but also be hard enough to not errode when hit by rain drops and particulates at M5+. The materials that can do that are very exotic and not easily produced. Optical windows have the same issues with temps and erosion. There is No point having optical guidance in the IR spectrum if the surface temp of the window is in the+ 100s of… Read more »
Totally agree. I think people do forget how an aircraft/missile etc is required to cope with the heat generated by the hypersonic airflow. Especially if this is over a prolonged period of time. Hence why they generally fly above 100,000ft, where the air is significantly thinner. Optical sensors require transparent windows. That have a near perfect clarity. A lot of missiles use windows that are sapphire crystal based. If the sensor is mounted on a gimbal system, which allows them to search for a target, then the “window” needs to be spherical. To give perfect vision throughout the sensor’s field… Read more »
My usual analogy is this for missile electronics.
Your laptop will BSOD when the processor gets to around 75-80 Deg C if the fan stops running.
Now picture missile electronics with no fan in a metal case that is being heated up too many hundreds of degrees by friction and is experiencing massive G loading.
UK, Netherlands explore opportunities for future littoral strike platform 06 JULY 2023 “The UK and the Netherlands have agreed to explore options for a collaborative programme to develop a future littoral strike platform for their respective commando forces. Both countries are looking to replace a number of ships with a next-generation littoral strike ship over the next decade. In a statement of intent signed by UK Minister of State for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge and Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren on 30 June the two countries committed to working together to understand respective joint requirements and expected timelines for the… Read more »
This does seem like a steep price to pay. £1 billion for the R+D or demonstration and prototype stage. If we are going to be getting a meaningful weapon system or systems purchased in bulk with adequate spares and reserves and crucially manufacturing resilience here in the UK then fair enough. If we are going to spend £1 billion on a concept that is then not pursued and results in no tangible useful weapon system, which i can see is going to happen, then that is NOT good use of desperately needed public expenditure or our defence budget. £1 billion… Read more »
Mention a billion quid, hope we get something for that.
Although it seems a big chunk of money without a clear out come, these development studies are necessary. We did the same decades ago, and now we have Meteor, ASRAAM, StormShadow, Brimstone, Paveway 4, Sea Viper, ect. The tech doesn’t come out of thin air, and our enemies will be doing exactly the same. We have to think ahead, and not just look at the weapons we used to fight yesterday’s conflicts. 👍
Land Based ABM systems might be a better idea. UK has no long-range air defense against ballistic and cruise missile attacks.
The reports are that those in know are having doubts over the justification for the development and production costs of a non-nuclear hypersonic weapon. The reason for this is the evidence shown from the Ukraine War. So far Patriot has been 6:6 against so called hypersonic weapons. The Patriots that Ukraine have are not the latest version. So the cost benefit of SAM vs hypersonic air/surface to surface missile is heavily leaning in the SAM’s favour. Whereas, a semi-stealthy sub-sonic cruise missile, ie Storm Shadow has so far been 95% effective at hitting its targets. There has been one missile… Read more »
Wasn’t the Patriot battery the actual target of the Russian Missiles? I read the last one was taken out with 9 seconds to spare. A Patriot can only defend a small area. It may have little joy against a missile aimed at a target some distance from the battery. It’s hard to say. If the high value target is 1000 miles away, a subsonic CM will take almost 2 hours to reach it. That HQ, or AWACS, or warship having its VLS reloaded may have moved and gone to defensive posture. Less chance of doing that with a 20 minute… Read more »
Yes, the Russians wanted to make an example of Ukraine getting the Patriot battery. It was the primary target, unfortunately for them, it defeated all attacks. What is perhaps more surprising is from what I’ve heard, is that the Patriot system was the older PAC2 version, but equipped with the PAC3 missiles. Which is doubly impressive if true. Patriot is really a medium range air defence system, which is supposed to be networked with other batteries. However, for intercepting targets at higher altitudes, the US uses THAAD. As part of the protective umbrella THAADS, Patriot and NASAMS are all networked… Read more »
Time for the UK to play catch up. Again wasting money whilst the US will have a product available to export in half the time.
Still awaiting the F-35 to have full Meteor capability.
The USAF has spaffed a billion plus on its (” Super-Duper Missile ” –Prez Trump!) hypersonic air launched weapon and has now cancelled it.
And where did the £billion quid suddenly come from!? Out of an empty MK41? I thought money was tight?
One hypersonic arriving on target at the same time as four subsonic.
The hyper grabbing all of the attention.
Great.
How about an hypersonic cuas based on Reaction Engines Sabre technology?
A lot will depend on how scalable the pre-cooler and cooling system can be made. We all know that the pre-cooler can cool down an inlet air temperature of over 1000C in less than a second to below zero C. Which for both a ramjet and scramjet, would either dramatically increase fuel efficiency or power. Therefore giving the prospect of greater range or speed.
As storm shadows success in Ukraine has shown. Speed is not always the answer.
An unpredictable high stealth missile is a better, more cost effective option.
The economics of stealth are eye watering. Even now it is being proposed that a reuseable hypersonic delivery vehicle armed with conventional weapons is a better bet.
I would like to see more emphasis on the defence against stealth and Ballastic weapons .
So… BAE systems shareholders rubbing their grubby little hands together, at the prospect of yet another potential mega million £ deal with the MOD.
No doubt exciting times for them, however why not invest the billion £’s in the British Army, rather than the bean-counters latest wheeze, of cutting the size of the Army yet again?
Ironically, if the MOD had placed an order for there armoured vehicle requirements with BAE in the first place they wouldn’t be the mess they are now.
I would have thought the ability to intercept and destroy enemy hyper sonics would be more important with a limited budget!
With the French testing their hypersonic missile just a few weeks back I wonder if we’ll end up merging with their program.