Latest Type 45 hits the water

[Captain Seafort]

My hope is that they will make the 101 capable of carrying the Sea Skua - actually my hope is that the Skua gets a replacement anyway, it's an old missile these days. And that they stick Harpoons onto the T45s as they become available.

There are plans for Sea Skua's replacement, but it's not planned to enter service until 2016. Which probably means it'll turn up in about 2020, or later.

[Tyyr]

Part of the issue is that a pair of quad packs of Harpoons is a small investment in terms of... well everything. Space, tonnage, cost, everything. Not including them or something similar is just... stupid.

[Captain Seafort]

They're at least fitted for the Harpoons, along with a 6" gun and a few other things besides. The problem is the Treasury in general and our glorious leader in particular being tight-fisted, although I don't see why they couldn't install the packs from the decommissioned T23s

[sunnyside]

Subs are great ship killers.

But I don't think you can rely on them for a local coflict. The reason being that modern, yet cheap, fast missile boats, are probably indistiguishable from the thousands upon thousands of trawlers and other small craft.

In principle I suppose one could blow up everything withing a 200km radius, but I'm pretty sure none of us do that. I'm pretty sure I would have heard some whinging if our navies were shutting down shutting down the entire coastline of various countries as they went by.

That and they'd be doing a crappy job of shutting down everything with those stupid pirates attacking the French flagship a while back.

Point is the first we're likely to see of a threat is detecting the launched missile from what they thought was a trawler or something. Which of course is why a ship designed to defend the fleet from that is a great idea, but since they'll likely be the first to know about the target, it makes sense to give them the ability to counterattack.

[Angharrad]

I like it. Its pretty.













What?

[Graham Kennedy]

This article has some interesting things to say about the T-45s.

Essentially, as built they have a 4.5 inch gun and twin 30 mm cannon. For missiles they have 48 SAMs in a VLS that currently fires those SAMs and nothing else. That's it. They cost roughly £1 billion each.

The Korean KDXIII destroyers are almost identical in size. They carry a 5 inch cannon, a 30 mm CIWS, a lightweight SAM launcher, 16 antiship missiles, and six torpedo tubes. They mount 128 VLS Cells which can carry long range SAMs, tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and ASROC anti submarine missiles in any combination. Just for fun you can also quad pack the VLS with medium range ESSM SAMs, allowing the ship to carry up to 512 of them.

The KDXIII cost less than half the price of the Type 45.

And the KDXIII is not US-built. It was built in Korean shipyards, so doing something similar here wouldn't have cost any shipyards money or jobs. Indeed we could have afforded the original 8 at half price, so the shipyards would be happier if anything. And we could still have had the signature reduction, nice efficient engines, all that stuff.

And if you want to complain about buying from the US making us dependent on foreigners for our military... well the PAAMS air defence system is primarily French/Italian. How is that any different?

[sunnyside]

While I'm not willing to say that the Type 45 is the bestest thing ever, that isn't really a fair comparison.

The Type 45 is essentially a picket ship. Designed to get between a carrier and enemy cruise missiles. In that context, adding ever more missiles to the frame is simply lowering survivability. Additionally some of the "stealth" characteristics of the ship are due to removing the above deck weapon systems.

The ship also requires less crew, which is important when considering the loss of life with a destroyed ship as well as cost and availibility in a volunteer force.

And finally I believe that the KDX lacks a number of the countermeasure systems present on the Type 45 (and given the space given over to weapons and aircraft it may also have fewer not so sexy but important things like pumps and fire control).

The Koreans, however, do not have any carriers to protect, and as such their Destroyers have to provide their ground attack, surface, and ASW abilities.

My comment about adding some anti-ship capability wasn't meant to imply they take over that role from carriers. Rather it was that they should at least have the capability to rapidly respond to an unexpected attack from something like the increasingly popular fast missile boat. However a single quad launcher should do the trick there.

[Captain Seafort]

Essentially, as built they have a 4.5 inch gun and twin 30 mm cannon. For missiles they have 48 SAMs in a VLS that currently fires those SAMs and nothing else. That's it.

They're also fitted for a 6.1" gun, Harpoon, and Phalanx and various other toys.

The Korean KDXIII destroyers are almost identical in size.

Wrong - they're a full quarter bigger again than the T45s. 10,000 tons+ at full load, compared with a bit over 8000 tons for the T45.

The KDXIII cost less than half the price of the Type 45.

And there's the rub - as sunny says, what have they left out to keep the cost down?

[Graham Kennedy]

Essentially, as built they have a 4.5 inch gun and twin 30 mm cannon. For missiles they have 48 SAMs in a VLS that currently fires those SAMs and nothing else. That's it.

They're also fitted for a 6.1" gun, Harpoon, and Phalanx and various other toys.

Yes, they 45s seem to have a lot of "fitted for but not with" about them. But the question is, will the treasury ever open the purse strings and fit any of the stuff? Empty spaces on the hull do not win wars.

Wrong - they're a full quarter bigger again than the T45s. 10,000 tons+ at full load, compared with a bit over 8000 tons for the T45.

I'm finding lots of different figures for their displacement, starting from 7,700 and running upwards. But still, if it's a bigger hull on less money...

And there's the rub - as sunny says, what have they left out to keep the cost down?

Or is it another case of a European defence project that spent billions so that endless meetings could be held all over the place?

[sunnyside]

Or is it another case of a European defence project that spent billions so that endless meetings could be held all over the place?

Government projects, defence related in particular, are noted for that.

However that isn't anything against the 45. If that's the case, presumably you'd be overpaying as much if you made a craft like the Korean's ship.

[Captain Seafort]

Yes, they 45s seem to have a lot of "fitted for but not with" about them. But the question is, will the treasury ever open the purse strings and fit any of the stuff? Empty spaces on the hull do not win wars.

True, but missing all that kit and having nowhere to put it is even worse.

I'm finding lots of different figures for their displacement, starting from 7,700 and running upwards. But still, if it's a bigger hull on less money...

The numbers I can find show 7700 to be it's bare minimum, without stores, while 10k+ is full load. For the T45 full load is 8k.

And there's the rub - as sunny says, what have they left out to keep the cost down?

Or is it another case of a European defence project that spent billions so that endless meetings could be held all over the place?

The T45 isn't a European project - Sea Viper is, but the ship itself is a pure British design from after we pulled out of Horizon.

[Graham Kennedy]

Not necessarily. The hull would still be all British, but the missile system would be an off the shelf US Aegis system. That's a single nation product with a LOT of money behind it and a long proven track record.

The T45 isn't a European project - Sea Viper is, but the ship itself is a pure British design from after we pulled out of Horizon.

But that's exactly what I'm saying - if they'd gone the Korean route they'd still have a pure British ship design, exactly the same, but just with a well proven Aegis system in place, and apparently for less money.

[Captain Seafort]

The Korean design is, to all intents and purposes, a Batch IIA Arleigh Burke. I'd also like to know whether the Koreans got the full Aegis system, or a detuned version, the same way most of the world gets a detuned GPS. I can't see the Yanks selling the genuine article off - it took us enough bickering to get the source code for the F35, even given the strength of the alliance.

[sunnyside]

The Korean design is, to all intents and purposes, a Batch IIA Arleigh Burke. I'd also like to know whether the Koreans got the full Aegis system, or a detuned version, the same way most of the world gets a detuned GPS. I can't see the Yanks selling the genuine article off - it took us enough bickering to get the source code for the F35, even given the strength of the alliance.

The orgional Aegis is getting a little old. I could see giving a "full" version of that out.

[Deepcrush]

So, whats the short and sweet of this Type 45?