If you want to be pedantic we know the average cost of the mid life update of the Aster missile is aprox £1 million per missile No you don't because you don't know how the contract money will be spent. There will be a considerable portion of it spent on things other than upgrading missiles. For exa...

We know the contract for the mid life update of the near 1,000 Italian and UK Asters is 1.2 billion euros, approx £1 million each. Sigh. We certainly do not know that it costs one million per missile. Episode 86,301 in the continuing saga of dividing contract value by number of units. If you want t...

Is it just me, or does the 1000 missile number seem very low. Even if 60% are UK, this only gives one re load per T45? We know the contract for the mid life update of the near 1,000 Italian and UK Asters is 1.2 billion euros, approx £1 million each. The MoD budget for the T45 is £500 million and th...

Naval News 13 minute video released yesterday, from DEFEA 2021 - Athens, showing the contenders for the Greek frigate contract, including the Babcock Arrowhead 140.

9th July PR by Eurosam the Franco-Italian consortium producer of Asters - SAMP/T Mentions the half life upgrade for UK will be carried out at Defense Munitions, Gosport. The ASTER Block 1 NT (new technology) with a new seeker and a new computer capable of countering modern threats emerging. It will ...

As such, I do not think "ASW oriented" T26 will be as cheap of £500M. With 127mm gun replaced with 57 mm (not a big issue for ASW escort), and Mk.41 VLS reduced to 8-cell from 24, it will be more about a £600M figure. Donald-San, Mk41 VLS according to this FMS is about 20 million USD per ...

How long could a T31 keep a cloud of shrapnel in the air at 2000 yards with its 40mm and 57mm? Would guess the Pk in stopping a Mach 2 plus two ton BrahMos or equivalent anti-ship missile 2 seconds away from impacting on ship might be 1%? Why does it need to do this? I haven't seen the OA but I'd e...

4. Cost of upgrading aster 15's to Aster 30's: £0. It's the same missile with a different booster. Unless more boosters are acquired but that was not mentioned. Even making assumption that RN original buy of Asters and agreeing split of 15s and 30s they then went to the added expense of purchasing ...

From similar standing point, I rather go to different conclusion. Great summary Donald, I enjoyed reading that. Your list of priorities is valid and I agree that if money was no object they should all happen but I simply place up-arming the T31 higher up the priority list. One of the reasons for th...

 OCCAR-EA, Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation for European armament cooperation press release a few days ago, contract was signed early June, a few quotes IT & UK ASTER MID LIFE UPDATE PRODUCTION - SIGNATURE OF THE S&E CONTRACT AMENDMENT 8 On 05 July 2021, a ceremony was held in OCC...

Floence Parly, French Minister for the Armed Forces, tweeted they have successfully shot down a drone with a laser, no details given on size and speed of drone or at what range and weather conditions plus time taken to bring drone down. It has gone very quiet with no news for some time on progress w...

One reason given was that the Type 31's were more capable than the Iver Huitfelds so would be more expensive to build. Why do they think the T31's are more capable? Because they weigh more. I swear you must have written the report yourself. Ron reverting to your Mr Nasty mode again, upset because i...

Just for info - the FY2022 $1,087.9 includes $132m Plan Costs, main driver the establishment of the Constellation Land Based Engineering Site, LBES, to test the propulsion system, ordered by Congress after the disasters with both LCS classes, the balance of $23m for Change Orders to establish techn...

So yes the Fincantieri US shipyards who build the Constellation can compete on price with the Spanish yards, that should be no surprise as Fincantieri in the top tier of world ship builders, the Italian yards build cruise ships that sell world wide as well as navy ships, SD67 quoted Fincantieri FRE...

The crude metric often used to price ships is cost per ton and was used by PBO for the CSC Yes, and that lead them to conclude building a Type 31 to the exact same standard as the RN would cost 1 billion pounds each. Really good metric (eyes roll). Canada looks a horrendously expensive country to b...

On the Constellation class, from US Congress document Navy Constellation (FFG-62) Class Frigate Program: Background and Issues for Congress (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R44972.pdf) The Navy began procuring Constellation (FFG-62) class frigates (FFGs) in FY2020, and wants to procure a total of 2...

Wondering if Asters will be updated to Block 1NT which extends capability to intercept 1500 km ballistic missiles from the Block 1's 600 km capability, the French and Italians currently developing the Block 2 to further double the capability to intercept 3,000 km range ballistic missiles by increasi...

Perhaps one reason its expensive is its size, its a large ship, the former head of Irving Shipbuilding told the CBC that the CSC full load displacement is 9,400t, that's the same as USN Arleigh Burke Flight IIA destroyer. The new Spanish F110 frigate i compared it to above is 6,100t FLD, using the ...

Donald-san I do not claim T26 is 'vastly' expensive, but I think you will agree its an expensive ship and that was why Cameron in his 2015 presentation of the SDSR announced the cut of the T26 buy from thirteen to eight, he said a new warship would be "more affordable than the Type 26, which w...

NO NO NO There is no conceivable reason to fit SM2 or SM6 to a Royal Navy Vessel the missiles should be sourced from MBDA. Nick are you being paid by Raytheon/Lockheed Martin to continually run down UK/European technology? Or are you funded by a semiconductor company with a large GaN foundry? Tom i...

What puts me off a full fat multi-mission T26 with new gen radars etc is the cost, the Canadian PBO report in February estimated the build cost of the CSC, excluding development, at £2.3 billion per ship, hopefully would not cost as much in UK but still looks to be a very expensive ship so limiting...

We only have six T45, effectively five as one at Cammell Laird permanently having equivalent if open heart surgery for the next few years, do you consider a total fleet of six adequate, the original requirement was for twelve, would not T32 IH capabilities partially make up for the shortfall? IH li...

Think by far the best option would be an updated Iver Huitfeldt, the Danes got it's capabilities spot on, it should be the benchmark by which T32 specs judged by. To me a couple of stand out omissions from your list, one is area AA defence that IH has with its SM-2s, you covered CIWS and local area...

Think i must be a mystique as forecast above answer yesterday that MoD would hide behind the excuse that its 'commercially sensitive' in refusing to give any breakdown of the figures I think English may be your second language and I'd rather see the actual reply from NOA rather than accepting your ...

I still have the feeling the T-32 could be what the T-31 may turn out to be after being made more capable during refits, that would give the RN a class of ten Patrol Frigates able to be easily deployed forward, with saving made due to commonality between the two and so on. Having these plus the six...