South Korea

[Jake1992]

I did want to post about how South Korea are now looking to builds new light carrier / LHD in the 30,000tn range and F35B capable but once again it wont let me upload the images with the info on.

The mods really need to look at this as it’s stopping people contributing to news and discussion.

[Qwerty]

Here you go.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... -35s-73351

[xav]

South Korea requests Mk 54 torpedoes for its future P-8A MPAs

The US State Department on August 27 green lighted a possible Foreign Military Sale to South Korea for Mk 54 lightweight torpedoes for an estimated cost of US$ 72 million.

South Korea plans to deploy the Mk 54 lightweight torpedoes on its fleet of P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft. The country’s P-8A procurement project was cleared by the US Department of State in Sept. 2018. The package for six aircraft and a range of mission systems, support and training is valued at $2.1 billion, then said the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency. South Korea currently operates a fleet of 16 P-3C MPAs.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/20 ... p-8a-mpas/

[Lord Jim]

At this rate, if we adopt the Mk54 for our P-8s and with the Stingray only to be used by our Merlins and Wildcat the UK could move totally to the Mk54 sooner rather than later, or at least when the latter require overhauling. I know the Stingray went through a mod programme a few years back but did that zero life the weapons. Now much life does the UK's inventory have left?

[Jake1992]

Just been watching naval new monthly update and saw that South Korea are going to build an arsenal ship just ram packed with missiles of all sort from AShM to Land strike.

Could we see this type of vessel start to become common place ?
In turn do we need to really look at similar and to start fitting a far greater number of SAMs to our AAW vessels ?

[cky7]

I kind of liked the Arsenal ship concept when the USN were talking about it 20-25 years ago. Since then though they seem to have moved on to SSGNs and in the future using the LUSV as a mobile missile battery. IMO these two are better options. Yes, SSGN are out of our league but some combination of greater capacity on our SSNs and all surface combatants (IMO our ships could all do with more VLS that are actually full too) and/or some sort USV or even UUV missile battery would be the much better spend for us too. Having said all this I do see the sense in the South Koreans going down this route. Like the Japanese they actually take making sure their ships have sufficient teeth to go into any top end fight more seriously than we do

[RetroSicotte]

This is a fairly different situation though.

Korea is going for an arsenal ship because it lets them have a non-stationary platform to bombard North Korea. Right now NK can analyse, locate, and target all their sites and launch areas. With a ship, that's not possible. Thats why Korea wants to shunt them onto a vessel.

Also note it's likely only going to be a large escort in size, not some carrier scale monster.

Good idea for them, but I wouldn't treat it as a worldwide shift. It's a situation that fits their quite specific needs.

[Jake1992]

This is a fairly different situation though.

Korea is going for an arsenal ship because it lets them have a non-stationary platform to bombard North Korea. Right now NK can analyse, locate, and target all their sites and launch areas. With a ship, that's not possible. Thats why Korea wants to shunt them onto a vessel.

Also note it's likely only going to be a large escort in size, not some carrier scale monster.

Good idea for them, but I wouldn't treat it as a worldwide shift. It's a situation that fits their quite specific needs.

I agree it’s come about from a unique requirement but will this in turn push other near by nations such as China and then in turn japan and so on to go down a similar route ?

If it does push these nations down a similar route would it be wise for -
1 - us to start to look at a small number of similar style vessels ?
2 - largely up scale the SAM capacity of our AAW assets and other vessels ?

[cky7]

Retro Sicotte,

Yeah sorry I probably didn’t write my post clearly. I was more trying to answer jakes point about whether we or others should look at the concept - which I’ll try and answer more clearly below as it appears I gave everyone the wrong impression - sorry! Also while on the topic ..... Whilst I know there was a lot of talk of massive Arsenal ships for the USN at the time I mentioned, there were lots of other ideas/concepts too (these were even more the case when others have talked about them). Whenever I google the term it’s near all the huge ships you mention but IMO at least the better and more likely ideas weren’t on that scale. The one I felt was best wouldn’t have gone anywhere near anywhere there was any chance of it being in any danger unless part of a battle group or task force with escorts to protect it from above, surface and below. Therefore there was no need for fancy radars, sonars and sensors. Crew was kept to an absolute minimum and comms fit was very basic and if there was a flight deck it was at most a deck and basic hangar with no facilities to do anything other than land and take off not necessarily operate and do serious naval tasks. So all the ship need be was big enough to cart how ever many VLS it was felt were best, along with how ever much the missiles themselves weighed and the engines etc the ship needed, whilst that’s enough to mean it’s never gonna be small, it’s far from carrier size. Who other than the USN would actually be able to fill more than 160 VLS cells on even a couple of ships? Even them, once you start filling really large numbers or even what I just said it would surely be too valuable an asset to go anywhere unless in a carrier style group. So IMO it shouldn’t be anything more than what I described.

Jake,

What I was try8ng to get at in my other post was that I think the South Koreans have gone this route because they’ve got the very unique set of requirements retro explained. This makes sense in their position but I don’t think it’s the right solution for us and virtually everyone else, IMO we’d be far better getting more cells into as many other surface combatant and subs as poss as for us having that number of missiles on one ship (in most cases virtually everything we got!) would be just too much of a risk for such a massive expense. Nowhere near safe enough risk/return ratio. Even if we do explore this route we’d be far better looking at what the USN are looking at with LUSV ghostfleet thing and getting more VLS onto as many of our current ships....

[ArmChairCivvy]

Good idea for them, but I wouldn't treat it as a worldwide shift. It's a situation that fits their quite specific needs.

Yep, not the thing for us.

Surprisingly (but not in the light of their doctrine) the closest parallel is the Russian navy, which for other than their subs force exists for supporting flanking movements: just look at what they have been putting on their new corvettes, lately!

[Jake1992]

Retro Sicotte,

Yeah sorry I probably didn’t write my post clearly. I was more trying to answer jakes point about whether we or others should look at the concept - which I’ll try and answer more clearly below as it appears I gave everyone the wrong impression - sorry! Also while on the topic ..... Whilst I know there was a lot of talk of massive Arsenal ships for the USN at the time I mentioned, there were lots of other ideas/concepts too (these were even more the case when others have talked about them). Whenever I google the term it’s near all the huge ships you mention but IMO at least the better and more likely ideas weren’t on that scale. The one I felt was best wouldn’t have gone anywhere near anywhere there was any chance of it being in any danger unless part of a battle group or task force with escorts to protect it from above, surface and below. Therefore there was no need for fancy radars, sonars and sensors. Crew was kept to an absolute minimum and comms fit was very basic and if there was a flight deck it was at most a deck and basic hangar with no facilities to do anything other than land and take off not necessarily operate and do serious naval tasks. So all the ship need be was big enough to cart how ever many VLS it was felt were best, along with how ever much the missiles themselves weighed and the engines etc the ship needed, whilst that’s enough to mean it’s never gonna be small, it’s far from carrier size. Who other than the USN would actually be able to fill more than 160 VLS cells on even a couple of ships? Even them, once you start filling really large numbers or even what I just said it would surely be too valuable an asset to go anywhere unless in a carrier style group. So IMO it shouldn’t be anything more than what I described.

Jake,

What I was try8ng to get at in my other post was that I think the South Koreans have gone this route because they’ve got the very unique set of requirements retro explained. This makes sense in their position but I don’t think it’s the right solution for us and virtually everyone else, IMO we’d be far better getting more cells into as many other surface combatant and subs as poss as for us having that number of missiles on one ship (in most cases virtually everything we got!) would be just too much of a risk for such a massive expense. Nowhere near safe enough risk/return ratio. Even if we do explore this route we’d be far better looking at what the USN are looking at with LUSV ghostfleet thing and getting more VLS onto as many of our current ships....

Oh I agree this has come about due to a unique position of SK but what it’s got me thinking is as with lots of new innovations will it push close by not friendly nations such as China to bring something similar forward which in turn could push others down a similar route.

I agree cost wise this is not for us now but if others go down this route from a defensive stand point a significant increase in VLS for SAMs would be need across the fleet.

[ArmChairCivvy]

will it push close by not friendly nations such as China to bring something similar forward

No, they would simply send a million men across the Yalu.
- hang on:a bit less it would have to be "The PLA has a ground force with 975,000 personnel"

[Lord Jim]

China doesn't need an Arsenal Ship, just look at the number of VLS on their latest Destroyer/Cruiser class!

[cky7]

I agree cost wise this is not for us now but if others go down this route from a defensive stand point a significant increase in VLS for SAMs would be need across the fleet.

I guess China could do but as Jim says above they’ve got a lot of cells on their new ships already and are building them at quite a rate so not sure if they’d need it. Seeing as the only ones I could see spending enough outside the US from the advanced western nations are japan and SK, where I see the concept making much more sense as largish unmanned or very lean manned and otherwise basic ship that acts as a battery to a battle group I can’t see it happening too much as a large, able to operate alone combatant. Even the SK one will depend on if it’s just for NK or poss used for China too whether it will not end up as the sort of thing the USN are looking at. I’m sure it will if they have any intention of using near China as otherwise the extra expense doesn’t make sense IMO.

[Jake1992]

Naval news are reporting that SK are now look at 2 new carriers designs one of 40,000t odd and the of 70,000t odd.

To me looks like the UK really need to up defence spending if they still want to be seen as anything more than a regional power.

[SW1]

And someone said they only cost $85m now........

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia ... f-35-jets/

South Korea will begin the second phase of its plan to acquire stealthy fighter jets, code-named F-X III, by acquiring 20 more F-35s, the country’s arms procurement agency has confirmed.

The Asian economic power had ordered 40 F-35As for Air Force operations under a 2014 deal worth about $6.4 billion, with the delivery of the fifth-generation fighters starting earlier this year.

“The government is preparing to launch the second phase of the F-X III in 2021 for the five years to come,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, or DAPA, said in a report to the National Assembly on Oct. 7. About $3.3 billion will go toward buying the additional Lockheed Martin-made aircraft, the report noted.

[RetroSicotte]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/these-a ... uth-korea/

Another twin island design.

[inch]

I do hope s Korea goes for the largest design ,even larger than qe class ,nice

[Jake1992]

I just don’t get why they’d need something that size though.

This makes 3 designs now, a 30,000t Dekdo for F35B use, a 40,000t that looks Cat and Trap and then a massive jump to something larger than a QE that looks Cat and Trap.
Now I can understand the first 2 even the Cat and Trap but why would they need something pushing close to a USN carrier ?

[RetroSicotte]

I just don’t get why they’d need something that size though.

This makes 3 designs now, a 30,000t Dekdo for F35B use, a 40,000t that looks Cat and Trap and then a massive jump to something larger than a QE that looks Cat and Trap.
Now I can understand the first 2 even the Cat and Trap but why would they need something pushing close to a USN carrier ?

When you want a carrier and you own possibly the largest shipbuilding industry in the world outside of China specialised in making massive vessels, I guess going large isn't so much an issue.

And it's not like South Korea's military lacks for manpower to crew them.

[Jake1992]

I just don’t get why they’d need something that size though.

This makes 3 designs now, a 30,000t Dekdo for F35B use, a 40,000t that looks Cat and Trap and then a massive jump to something larger than a QE that looks Cat and Trap.
Now I can understand the first 2 even the Cat and Trap but why would they need something pushing close to a USN carrier ?

When you want a carrier and you own possibly the largest shipbuilding industry in the world outside of China specialised in making massive vessels, I guess going large isn't so much an issue.

And it's not like South Korea's military lacks for manpower to crew them.

Oh I’m not saying they can’t do it I just don’t understand why they want or require one that large for their needs. We didn’t see them build the Dekdo class as large as the wasp class just because they could.

[inch]

Aye they should build 2 of those larger vessels and possibly another for India or share the plans for India to build it domestically more to India's liking ,shame Japan wouldn't build 2 ships of this size also and then folks there is getting a ring of huge carriers counteracting China's plans for building 6 or so , nevermind what the us can bring to bare in a potential bun fight

[SW1]

Makes it easier for us to sell them one of ours if they have a spec for a vessel of such size.

[RetroSicotte]

Makes it easier for us to sell them one of ours if they have a spec for a vessel of such size.

Very unlikely they buy a foreign design in Korea. They are very well entrenched in their knowhow about building big ships.

The more likely export though, is hoping for more MT30s to go out there. Korea already uses them.

[SW1]

Makes it easier for us to sell them one of ours if they have a spec for a vessel of such size.

Very unlikely they buy a foreign design in Korea. They are very well entrenched in their knowhow about building big ships.

The more likely export though, is hoping for more MT30s to go out there. Korea already uses them.

Well.. was thinking they may like a ready made one, than have to wait to build one.