Lord Jim wrote:.... I am also getting the feeling that all parties are more interested in defending our assets rather than taking out an opponent's so the T-31e is more likely to get CIWS and then CAMM before it gets a ASM.
Agreed, while I do think T45 and 26 shall have NSM/VL-JSM or LRASM.
Loss of Harpoon is not only HMG choice. HMG said they cannot fund replacement. RN selected to disband it. It is another salami slice. Why not decide to disband 1 T23GP then, to accept "18" escorts? It is just a selection of choice. (I'm sure disbanding 1 T23GP can amount more than 6+12 sets of SSMs, so more can be estimated, such as link.16 on Wildcat?).
RetroSicotte wrote:shark bait wrote:In most cases those super long range missiles are unusable without aircraft and/or satellites.
The UK doesn't have don't have those in place yet, so there is no point having the long ranged missiles until we do.
And the dozens upon dozens of nations who all regard them as critical
all do? That argument doesn't hold any water at all.
Plus the RN has been operating ship mounted ASMs for decades now. Did we just mount useless missiles for all that time? Course not. Not to mention that the Royal Navy is getting MORE capable for spotting for such things by the time the "gap" comes in, not less.
So, are you happy to cut 1 T23 GP NOW (in addition to 2 you need to save 1+1 LPDs, as I propose) to equip ASM on T45 and T26, as well as T31e?
T31e not having ASM has no problem. A Wildcat with 4 Sea Venom flying over the horizon can "disable" all missile crafts, and many of the corvettes worldwide. Since T31e is not required to fight against modern blue-water navies, this is enough = meets the requirement. Wildcat is the off-board systems to enable flexibility, and RN has already spent a lot on it. So, we must use it.
Note, I am not saying ASM is useless. Actually, it is relatively cheap stuff (if it is NSM) [*1], so adding them to T31e has not much problem. The only issue here is, I'm afraid RN needs to select between "12-24 CAMM" or "a CIWS and 4 ASMs", and I would like to select the former. If there is enough money to buy both, no objection. On the other hand, Floreal class takes another approach. Even though it does not even carry a CIWS, it carries 2 Exocet (older version). As a "presence ship", it is a reasonable choice = show influence around the ship. In T31e case, a Wildcat with 4 Sea Venom has long influence-range, and more effective than 2 Exocet = good choice for a presence ship. (note Floreal's helo is unarmed).
[*1] We shall note that modern ASM is not as cheap as it has been. Many of 3rd-world navies are still using Exocet and Harpoon (which can be disabled relatively easy with soft kill), and actually starting to go away from missile craft, opting for OPV.