UK Defence Forum

benny14 wrote:
The Type 26 has mushrooms.

Ron5 wrote:
There's an article by Richard Scott in the current edition of Warship World which sheds a bit of light on this. It's a good read giving a potted history of Sea Ceptor.

Anyhow, yes to save money, the Sea Ceptor launch tube was inserted at a slight angle into existing Sea Wolf silos. Ceptor is a tad longer missile so the "top hat" or "mushroom stem" had to be added.

So if there’s no Sea Wolf why are there ‘mushrooms’? It seems improbable that BAE have fabricated new Sea Wolf VLS silos just to hold the Sea Ceptor silos upright, especially when there are much better ways of exploiting the tight packaging that cold-launch allows.

Simon82 wrote:So if there’s no Sea Wolf why are there ‘mushrooms’? It seems improbable that BAE have fabricated new Sea Wolf VLS silos just to hold the Sea Ceptor silos upright, especially when there are much better ways of exploiting the tight packaging that cold-launch allows.

Whatever the CAMM missiles are in, they will have the mushroom on top.

dmereifield wrote:I'd bet on one more Scottish City, and three more English (or maybe 2 more English and one Welsh)

My bet is one Scottish, HMS Edinburgh, then HMS Plymouth, HMS Liverpool and HMS Newcastle.

Manchester will be there for sure. Liverpool has to be in as well. Edinburgh is still a good bet, even though the simple fact that the SNP has a habit of claiming ownership of anything named for a Scotland something makes me want not to use it...

Simon82 wrote:

benny14 wrote:
The Type 26 has mushrooms.

Ron5 wrote:
There's an article by Richard Scott in the current edition of Warship World which sheds a bit of light on this. It's a good read giving a potted history of Sea Ceptor.

Anyhow, yes to save money, the Sea Ceptor launch tube was inserted at a slight angle into existing Sea Wolf silos. Ceptor is a tad longer missile so the "top hat" or "mushroom stem" had to be added.

So if there’s no Sea Wolf why are there ‘mushrooms’? It seems improbable that BAE have fabricated new Sea Wolf VLS silos just to hold the Sea Ceptor silos upright, especially when there are much better ways of exploiting the tight packaging that cold-launch allows.

In T23, "a CAMM tube with mushroom on top" is installed in SeaWolf tube. I guess T26 is carrying this CAMM tube, un-related to SeaWolf tube.

donald_of_tokyo wrote:In T23, "a CAMM tube with mushroom on top" is installed in SeaWolf tube. I guess T26 is carrying this CAMM tube, un-related to SeaWolf tube.

Presumably the Sea Ceptor ‘mushrooms’ will be much closer together on the Type 26 in that case, as the large vacant space between each silo on the refitted Type 23s is due to the no longer required plenum for containing and venting the hot-launch exhaust from Sea Wolf.
Even so, the individual Sea Ceptor ‘mushrooms’ seem a rather inefficient use of the space available compared to the closely packed Land Ceptor or stand alone ExLS systems.

Simon82 wrote:Presumably the Sea Ceptor ‘mushrooms’ will be much closer together on the Type 26 in that case, as the large vacant space between each silo on the refitted Type 23s is due to the no longer required plenum for containing and venting the hot-launch exhaust from Sea Wolf.

The Sea Wolf exhaust vents are integral to each launch tube.
https://youtu.be/EBF-0OxpW6Q

Phil R

Would it be a reasonable assumption that the uneven spacing (ie. not hugely compact) between the rows (1+2+1) was simply with a view to providing access, so that each tube is approachable without the need to step on top of another?

benny14 wrote:

Simon82 wrote:So if there’s no Sea Wolf why are there ‘mushrooms’? It seems improbable that BAE have fabricated new Sea Wolf VLS silos just to hold the Sea Ceptor silos upright, especially when there are much better ways of exploiting the tight packaging that cold-launch allows.

Whatever the CAMM missiles are in, they will have the mushroom on top.

:benny14:
Whilst I appreciate your reply I still don't understand why they need mushrooms, their is certainly enough depth on the T26 to fit them without these abominations. You seem very certain about this, can you give a link to any article supporting your claim.

Thanks,jonas.

Mushrooms are cheap, weather durable with few maintenance requirements.
Any dedicated launcher (Mk 41, Slyver, ExLS) is going to be more expensive, over engineered for CAMM and bring additional maintenance (cost) burdens.

Phil R

Phil R wrote:Mushrooms are cheap, weather durable with few maintenance requirements.
Any dedicated launcher (Mk 41, Slyver, ExLS) is going to be more expensive, over engineered for CAMM and bring additional maintenance (cost) burdens.

Phil R

Also unable to accept any other missile other than CAMM. Though my question was, has there been any formal announcement in regards to the fit and if so do we have a link.

I was hoping for names that were also associated with the Falklands (T42's), and while the earlier Exeter and Sheffield were both involved in the Atlantic Convey campaign, Coventry's involvement is less documented, if at all. Shame, so I would like to see, Exeter, Sheffield and Plymouth.

jonas wrote:has there been any formal announcement in regards to the fit and if so do we have a link.

I have had a good search online and have been unable to find anything official about City class Sea Ceptor silos besides the published imagery.

Phil R

Phil R wrote:Mushrooms are cheap, weather durable with few maintenance requirements.
Any dedicated launcher (Mk 41, Slyver, ExLS) is going to be more expensive, over engineered for CAMM and bring additional maintenance (cost) burdens.

Phil R

There was a picture the other day on twitter that showed one of the most recent Sea Ceptor installations without the Mushroom....it wasn't prior to installation either. I'll see if I can find it, but the general view was it had been discarded in the newest iteration.

Phil R wrote:

jonas wrote:has there been any formal announcement in regards to the fit and if so do we have a link.

I have had a good search online and have been unable to find anything official about City class Sea Ceptor silos besides the published imagery.

Phil R

Thanks for that, yes that is all I have ever seen on old CGI's hopefully due to lack of info on anything else.

Timmymagic wrote:

Phil R wrote:Mushrooms are cheap, weather durable with few maintenance requirements.
Any dedicated launcher (Mk 41, Slyver, ExLS) is going to be more expensive, over engineered for CAMM and bring additional maintenance (cost) burdens.

Phil R

There was a picture the other day on twitter that showed one of the most recent Sea Ceptor installations without the Mushroom....it wasn't prior to installation either. I'll see if I can find it, but the general view was it had been discarded in the newest iteration.

Hoping they have seen the light, fitting launchers restricted to a single missile type seems to me very short sighted. Would be appreciated if you could find the twitter picture. Thanks.

It's unlikely the navy would ever choose to go without its air defense missile, so a bunch of small cheap bespoke launchers as well as the Mk41 is a totally reasonable decision.

Does anyone know how long it would take to replace the cheap CAMM only launch tubes with Mk41, assuming the Mk41's were available for immediate insertion? I accept that there is the possibility that this might be the same as "how long is a piece of string". If it cannot be done fairly quickly, then the more versatile (eg Mk41) launch tubes need to be fitted from the start.

Scimitar54 wrote:Does anyone know how long it would take to replace the cheap CAMM only launch tubes with Mk41, assuming the Mk41's were available for immediate insertion? I accept that there is the possibility that this might be the same as "how long is a piece of string". If it cannot be done fairly quickly, then the more versatile (eg Mk41) launch tubes need to be fitted from the start.

Given the Hunter class has just that, presumably not very long. But it's not a "hotswap" mid-war or anything.

More Mk41 doesn't need to be fitted from the start. For the next 20+ years the T26 will always need CAMM, there is nothing to gain putting that inside a more expensive box.

jonas wrote:Hoping they have seen the light, fitting launchers restricted to a single missile type seems to me very short sighted. Would be appreciated if you could find the twitter picture. Thanks.

It wasn't a new launcher, I think the consensus was the same launcher minus the mushroom caps. Whether that was a permanent fit was a good question..

Scimitar54 wrote:Does anyone know how long it would take to replace the cheap CAMM only launch tubes with Mk41, assuming the Mk41's were available for immediate insertion? I accept that there is the possibility that this might be the same as "how long is a piece of string". If it cannot be done fairly quickly, then the more versatile (eg Mk41) launch tubes need to be fitted from the start.

Completely agree, apart from the cost it appears a logical decision. Quad pack CAMM into fewer tubes leaving tubes for various options. Might not need them all in normal conditions, but easier to aquire more missiles than having to do major dockyard work fitting Mk41's when time is of the essence.

Scimitar54 wrote:
Does anyone know how long it would take to replace the cheap CAMM only launch tubes with Mk41, assuming the Mk41's were available for immediate insertion?

I don’t think there would be sufficient depth to replace the amidships CAMM tubes with Mk-41. I’m not sure of the exact deck penetration of a CAMM launcher, although the ever reliable Wikipedia gives a canister length of 4.4 m. It is possible the shortest 209” (5.3m) version of the Mk-41 might fit, but I think that is limited to ESSM only anyway. This is presumably why the Australian Type 26 variant has no silos in this location. If the CAMM silos here were quad-packed, however, like a stand-alone ExLS system allows, all the CAMM silos could be removed from ahead of the bridge freeing up more space for Mk-41 silos, while allowing for no reduction in the number of SeaCeptors carried overall.

Anyway, this isn’t news. Merely idle speculation and dreaming.

But very important to get right nonetheless!

Simon82 wrote:

Scimitar54 wrote:
Does anyone know how long it would take to replace the cheap CAMM only launch tubes with Mk41, assuming the Mk41's were available for immediate insertion?

I don’t think there would be sufficient depth to replace the amidships CAMM tubes with Mk-41. I’m not sure of the exact deck penetration of a CAMM launcher, although the ever reliable Wikipedia gives a canister length of 4.4 m. It is possible the shortest 209” (5.3m) version of the Mk-41 might fit, but I think that is limited to ESSM only anyway. This is presumably why the Australian Type 26 variant has no silos in this location. If the CAMM silos here were quad-packed, however, like a stand-alone ExLS system allows, all the CAMM silos could be removed from ahead of the bridge freeing up more space for Mk-41 silos, while allowing for no reduction in the number of SeaCeptors carried overall.

Anyway, this isn’t news. Merely idle speculation and dreaming.

In regards to the quad packing the extra Mk41 silos and replacing the CAMM silos for'd of the bridge, they were my thoughts exactly. This could provide many more options, including replacing the midships silos with extra anti ship missiles such as tube launched LRASM.