AW159 Wildcat Helicopter (RN & AAC)

[RetroSicotte]

Bear in mind Sea Venom is three times the size of Brimstone in terms of warhead size and is not a directed shaped charge (which has a very thin, linear path) but a larger "boom" in a spherical manner.

Thats the only real thing I see standing it out.

[Gabriele]

I know, but it is still not considered a ship killer. And the range is, pardon me, ridiculous. Even flying very low, if the range is in the 20 km area, even accounting for some understatement, you have to enter the radar (and SAM) bubble of the warship. They'll see you before you can launch the missile, and you are going to make your way back to your ship swimming.

[RetroSicotte]

Exactly the same things I was saying in the complex weapons topic in my skepticism about this range announcement, yeah. Just I highly doubt Brimstone would be considered satisfactory for the kinda of "light ships" as opposed to "fast boats" that Sea Venom is after.

That said, I really wonder why an effort to pursue Spear Cap 3 wasn't considered, for example. It seems to match it all. That said, we do not yet know Spear Cap 3's warhead size. Given the missile is twice the weight of Brimstone, one could estimate, but then it's pretty well known that Spear Cap 3 is not likely to be a shaped charge warhead. So who knows what weight it'd be. At a guess, I'd hazard slightly smaller than Sea Venom's, but alrge enough that it could have been an alternative.

But then, Spear Cap 3 won't exist till the mid 2020's and at the time Sea Venom was signed to develop, was nothing more than an MBDA "idea", compared to the signed for weapon system it is now. So time may have been an issue.

[Ron5]

LMM is for dealing with swarm attacks by armed/suicidal speed boats. The Iran tactic.

Sea Venom is a Sea Skua replacement for handling small warships. Like the Iraqi navy that the Sea Skua's destroyed in a couple of afternoons.

Harpoon, Spearfish, Paveway IV & Spear are the big warship killers. In the future, the Storm Shadow replacement will have an anti-ship capability.

No overlap.

Range is hugely dependent on aircraft speed and altitude. 30 km from 10m altitude is enough for an over the radar horizon shot.

P.S. the new Spear requires a fast jet traveling at a hundreds of knots to launch. It would require a large/heavy booster for helo use.

[ArmChairCivvy]

P.S. the new Spear requires a fast jet traveling at a hundreds of knots to launch. It would require a large/heavy booster for helo use.

Not to mention launching from a vessel, which has also been promoted around here.

There's the rationale for Sea Venom.

As for putting Spear X (here we are talking about 3) into the big warship killer category, I would limit that to a mission kill mainly by killing enough sensors... this goes back to the categorising we were attempting on the complex weapons thread.

[jimthelad]

According to the MBDA website the SPEAR3 system is 'compatible with the cold launch system for CAMM', not travelling at hundreds of knots and no solid booster but cant find anything other than a YouTube video link which is no longer valid. Have e-mailed the company for confirmation but they are not always the best at getting back to you.

[ArmChairCivvy]

It was good that someone (RetroSicotte?) pointed out the nature of Spike Nlos warhead (not just its size). Reminded me of the reason why ROK wanted them on their Wildcats: the Navy (with their Marines) is tasked with defending the islands close to their northern neighbour. At least in the past the main threat has come from the North massing rocket launchers in well dug-in positions (counter-battery fire from K-9s has been ineffective in dealing with the threat, despite being a good system in general use).

So accuracy is key and for the nature of (each of) the targets the explosive effects will be enough (against somewhat armoured rocket launcher units).

[Ron5]

According to the MBDA website the SPEAR3 system is 'compatible with the cold launch system for CAMM', not travelling at hundreds of knots and no solid booster but cant find anything other than a YouTube video link which is no longer valid. Have e-mailed the company for confirmation but they are not always the best at getting back to you.

Spear 3 would require a booster & tip over to fire from a CAMM cell. Probably the same one that CAMM uses. Not the same one as ASRAAM.

In general, Helo's need bigger boosters than those on fast jet missiles.

[Aethulwulf]

"MBDA engineers believe the CAMM modularity model also can be applied to Spear 3. Wester says that with minor changes to the weapon's software and the addition of a booster rocket, Spear 3 could be turned into a Common Anti-Surface Modular Missile (CAsMM) that could provide ships with a precision land-attack and anti-small-ship capability. With a booster, a surface-launched Spear 3 could hit a target at least 70 km away, he notes."
http://m.aviationweek.com/awin/uk-advan ... initiative

[ArmChairCivvy]

With a booster, a surface-launched Spear 3 could hit a target at least 70 km away

So no need to have a GMLRS cassette on your deck, messing it up at launch time
- same range

[marktigger]

quite a few countries are using Maverick to.......now what did we do with the last stocks for harrier?

[LordJim]

Sea Venom will allow a one shot kill of a enemy FAC. Current FACs would in the past be rated as corvettes due to their increase in size. Its range is also outside the SAM capability of most FACs as well as their AAA. It has the same advantages against older but larger vessels, especially in littorial areas. The only other systems that is similar for helicopter use is the Italian Sea Marte and Norwegian Penguin. The NSM would also be an alternative but costs more and I am not sure if anyone has yet decided to mount is on a helicopter. Yes some nations fit the Exocet but that is in a different category. Hellfire equates to LMM and I think only Australia fitted Maverick to their Sea Sprites.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Current FACs would in the past be rated as corvettes due to their increase in size. Its range is also outside the SAM capability of most FACs as well as their AAA.

Quite agree and a point not to be forgotten as you can build five such for the cost of a frigate. As evidenced by a quote from defencetalk (ten year's old, but still a good proxy for best-of-breed FACs' capabilities):
"Finnish Hamina : how to fit a FFG in a 50 metre ship !

While most of the world's navies are moving gradually away from FACs to light frigates (ex Germany replacing 20+ FACs with 5 corvettes, Sweden doing the same, etc), Finland has developed an amazing ship :

> 51metre 270ton platform
> 8 cell VLS for Umkhonto SAMs with a range of 12km and Mach 2.4, ie comparable to France's Crotale, Italy's Aspide, the older Sea Sparrow, and more than the UK's Sea Wolf.
> EADS TRE-3D air search radar (normally embarked on FFGs !)
> 4 to 8 Saab RBS15SF SSMs, 150km range (again, a FFG wouldn't do better)
> a sonar system including hull sonar and towed array low frequency !! with A/S mortars and depth charges...
> all of this operated by only 21 officers and seamen..."

The NSM would also be an alternative but costs more

Even more importantly, fewer could be carried. So you would have to know the nature of targets (FACs do not normally operate as singletons) before the facts.

[jimthelad]

Sea Venom would cause a mission kill in all but the heaviest surface combatants. The original MO for Sea Skua and Lynx was to hover below the horizon , pop up and salvo fire, duck down, wait for partial transit and then provide terminal illumination. This was often accompanied by ship launched SSM.

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

Another sale possibly on the horizon: http://www.janes.com/article/66022/bang ... ter-tender

[CR4ZYHOR5E]

Reading the spec, is there anything that isn't Wiildcat that fulfills those requirements?

[ArmChairCivvy]

Dont forget bakseesh; saved a trip when it was made known beforehand that there was an "additional requirement".

[dmereifield]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/271m ... 00-uk-jobs

£271M Wildcat Helicopter support deal sustains 500 UK jobs

[RichardIC]

... aaaand now for the reality check

Future of Leonardo's Yeovil site hinges on Lynx Wildcat



Leonardo Helicopters must secure additional sales of the AW159 Lynx Wildcat if the long-term future of the company's Yeovil production facility in the United Kingdom is to be secured, a senior official said on 9 January.

Speaking at the site on the occasion of a UK government announcement of a five-year GBP271 million (USD329 million) Lynx Wildcat support contract for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Stefano Bortoli, sales and marketing senior vice president at Leonardo Helicopters said that of the three types being manufactured at Yeovil, it is the Lynx Wildcat that holds the key to the site's future.

"It is all about selling new AW159s," he said, adding, "We still have a number of AW101 orders to fulfil for the Norwegian SAR [search and rescue] and Italian Caesar contracts, and the AW189 for the UK SAR contract is now almost done."

Leonardo Helicopters delivered the last of the 28 Lynx Wildcat HMA2 and 34 Lynx Wildcat AH1 helicopters that the UK ordered for the Royal Navy and British Army respectively at the end of 2016, and fulfilled its contract for eight Lynx Wildcats for South Korea at around the same time. With these deliveries now complete, the company has just one other signed contract for the type with the Philippines. While details of this contract, announced in March 2016, have not been disclosed, the Philippine Department of National Defense revealed in 2014 that it was looking for just two new helicopters.

Bortoli declined to say where he thought that future Lynx Wildcat sales might come from, except to say that Leonardo Helicopters was currently involved "in a handful" of active campaigns, which might yield orders. He added that most of the interest is coming from prospective maritime operators, rather than those looking to field it in a battlefield role.

[RichardIC]

... and there's a reason "most of the interest is coming from prospective maritime operators, rather than those looking to field it in a battlefield role".

How many customers did naval Lynx get?
How many customers did battlefield Lynx get?

It infuriates me that the AAC is forced to field a helicopter it gets virtually nothing from - no lift, no firepower, no search capability that can't be done better and cheaper by a drone.

Stick it on a ship with the proper weapons and it's the dog's; stick it on a battlefield and it's sod all use compared to the alternatives available.

[dmereifield]

^^Bad news. What are the prospects for future orders do you (or anyone else) think?

[RichardIC]

Germany seems to be the big hope, although what the requirement will be and whether the production line can survive long enough is open to question.

Was there talk of a potential second tranche for South Korea?

[Little J]

With all the new aircraft (139,149,169,189) how comes not one is built in the UK? Second line in the US understandable but not a single clean sheet design built outside of Italy...

[marktigger]

It infuriates me that the AAC is forced to field a helicopter it gets virtually nothing from - no lift, no firepower, no search capability that can't be done better and cheaper by a drone.

Stick it on a ship with the proper weapons and it's the dog's; stick it on a battlefield and it's sod all use compared to the alternatives available

Actualy same could be said for the Royal Navy to. Stick missiles on merlin and there goes wildcats role (hence the reason this isn't happening) Navies like the Royal navy need much more capable helicopters than wildcat.

[shark bait]

Merlin costs twice as much to operate as Lynx did, that's why they go with a split fleet. Merlin is big and expensive, and wouldn't be much better at anti-surface warfare Wildcat.

Presumably Wildcat is cheap enough to offset the complications of a split fleet.

Still, cant help wonder if both would sided would have been better off with Seahawk/Blackhawk in place of both wildcat and Apache.