I think the truth is in the middle we need to try and get the new destroyers down to a crew of 120 or so from the T-45's 190+ The Channel 5 2018 programme “Warship Life at Sea” on HMS Duncan in the Black Sea mentioned crew of approx. 300 if memory not wrong? The Iver Huitfeldt class run on crew of ...

I think the truth is in the middle we need to try and get the new destroyers down to a crew of 120 or so from the T-45's 190+ The Channel 5 2018 programme “Warship Life at Sea” on HMS Duncan in the Black Sea mentioned crew of approx. 300 if memory not wrong? The Iver Huitfeldt class run on crew of ...

One question is how would 4,000t T83 be able to take the top weight of a high end long range radar, the US Navy state that radar sensitivity scales as a cube of the size of the radar aperture e.g. the two new Japanese ASEV Aegis destroyers are said to be approx. 17,000t in part driven by need to mou...

Radar could be where we deviate, along the Aussie lines, ... Just a comment. SPY-7 is selected because it uses Fujitsu AESA node. Just a roumor, but may be true. Many thinks SPY-6 will be better considering the commonality with USN. Would note the Lockheed Martin SPY-7 is a AESA GaN dual-polarimetr...

Heck we haven't even fitted the 45s with CEC. Really do not understand why this isn’t a priority - it was part of argument by the Labour government why six T45s was ok. Thales Nederland going as far to say Collaborative Engagement Capabilities (CEC) is the future of Naval Warfare for them. CEC is a...

F-35 PEO USAF Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt warning Congress future upgrades at risk and a possible production shutdown due to concurrency problems with the TR-3/Block 4 upgrade intended to bring the F-35 up to FOC standard by ability to carry more weapons (incl. Meteor), better recognise targets, and im...

"ASC Shipbuilding (a BAE Systems Australia company) has contracted GEIE EUROTORP for the installation of the MU90 Torpedo Launch System (TLS) on board the first batch of three Hunter class frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)." https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/12/eurotorp...

"ASC Shipbuilding (a BAE Systems Australia company) has contracted GEIE EUROTORP for the installation of the MU90 Torpedo Launch System (TLS) on board the first batch of three Hunter class frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)." https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/12/eurotorp-...

Good comment. 57mm bofors muzzle speed is Mach 3.5. Of course it will slow down. But for near engagement, the high speed helps a lot. Also 57 mm gun provides 220 round per min (including ALaMo already fielded). There appears a massive amount of hype/misunderstanding talked about the Bofors 57mm wit...

The T31 gunnery felt at bit underwhelming when first announced, however the T31 now seems to have the most useable arrangement of guns in the Royal Navy. Not sure it's worth spending the money on the T23's, but the T45's deserve modern guns. Definitely would say T31 gunnery is underwhelming. The US...

Indeed, speaking as someone who has long been of the opinion that the T26 could be a good basis for the T83 The T26 is far too an expensive platform to form the for basis of a T83 if you want to fund more than a token number. So you know what the T83 budget is? Maybe this is the point at which I no...

Caribbean wrote: ↑10 Dec 2023, 23:10 Indeed, speaking as someone who has long been of the opinion that the T26 could be a good basis for the T83

The T26 is far too an expensive platform to form the for basis of a T83 if you want to fund more than a token number.

DARC At the second AUKUS Defence Ministers’ Meeting in California, PR 2nd Dec., it was stated that Australia, the United States and United Kingdom will collaborate on the Deep-space Advanced Radar Capability, DARC. Each of the three sites would house the bi-static radar, four to six parabolic anten...

Be good if it could take a couple of LMM or Starstreak! Would not disagree but EW is soft kill vs guns and missiles which are hard kill, have seen it said soft kill has been more effective to date in defending ships than hard kill. Re MEWP Increment 2 & 3 have seen no info on what EW capability...

DE&S press release reporting the critical design review (CDR) for the Maritime Electronic Warfare System Integrated Capability (MEWSIC) Increment 1A has been approved, can now proceed into manufacture, testing and acceptance. The £100 million, 13-year contract awarded in 2021 to Babcock with Elb...

Craig Lockhart of BAE Systems Australia "Lockhart conceded that adding the missiles will force them “to change aspects of our propulsion system,” which would “move it away from being ASW primary role to being destroyer-variant primary role.” At first glance it does not appear changing from T26 ...

Nov 8, Houthis Shoot Down U.S. MQ-9 Reaper Over Red Sea

If the Houthis are able to take down a Reaper its battleworthiness looks very limited if not non-existent.

https://news.usni.org/2023/11/08/houthi ... ore-106846

For the first time the Arrow 3 System (Germany recently placed a near 4 billion Euro contract in September for Arrow 3 System) intercepted a SRBM over the Red Sea and a F-35 shot down a cruise missile, presuming Iranian missiles fired by the Houthis from Yemen, a done also alleged to be fired from Y...

The November 7 "The Australian" view on the Hunter, some quotes Cancellation "It has been suggested that last year’s DSR thought that the entire Hunter project be scrapped but the government was scared to do anything that drastic and has instead passed the buck. The fact that minister...

Breaking Defense has a write up of the UK MOD PR on the UK MBDA brokered deal for a sub-contract to the Polish defence company PGZ for 1,000 CAMM-ER (the mainly MBDA Italy 40 km plus range missile) and over 100 iLaunchers for the Polish NAREW programme, total CAMM-ER programme valued at $4.9 billion...

IF the Australians cancel the Hunter which looks a possibility, with the recent precedent set by the Sept 2021 cancellation of the multi-billion deal for the 12 French submarines to be replaced by AUKUS, would think by far the strongest favourite to replace the Hunter would be the US Navy (Fincanti...

That happened with a Patriot during the Gulf War. Fired too late & it tracked the incoming Scud into the ground was the official line IIRC. They were having problems with the real-time clock drifting out of sync as well, which was causing problems with calculating the optimum intercept point ac...

IF the Australians cancel the Hunter which looks a possibility, with the recent precedent set by the Sept 2021 cancellation of the multi-billion deal for the 12 French submarines to be replaced by AUKUS, would think by far the strongest favourite to replace the Hunter would be the US Navy (Fincantie...

Shows launch of Iron Dome Tamir missile in Tel AViv and then doing a u turn to impact on the ground, not known if killed or injured anyone.

Japan to procure 12 new FFMs in just 5 years from 2024 to 2028, a very high build rate, the new FFM is a follow-on to the 12 Mogami class frigates, FLD will be approx. 6,900t which 25% larger than the Mogami's being built at a rate of 2 per year with the last being procured this year before the tran...