UK Complex Weapons Thread

[The Armchair Soldier]

Footage of Brimstone being test fired from an Apache:

[shark bait]

air to air brimstone? that's a new capability for our Apache, interesting.

[ArmChairCivvy]

If ARMs were not the best way to do it, then they wouldn't still be being developed and utilised as the prime method by air forces with more experience than anyone else at doing it.

France and the UK got out of SEAD purely for money reasons. No other reason. Anything else and any "reasoning" is nothing short of spin and overly vague statements trying to save face and disguise a massive capability loss. Flying around within range of SAMs waiting for one of them to shoot at you so you can locate it to shoot at it is not a way to conduct SEAD against modern air networked denial systems.

Thankfully it's easy to get back into it. Buy some AGM-88E AARGM for the F-35B, which will be integrated with it by the US anyway. Just such a pity that a British based capability had to die for no reason.

Loved both this post and the Brimstone "one wunderwaffe for all seasons" vid
- though I believed only the first ref'fed piece

[shark bait]

Not agree. Floreal do not have CAMM, and CAMM is NOT cheap.

Do we know what the cost of CAMM is?

The french have managed to sell the much more complex Aster 15 many times over on board small cheap frigates.

I would say the much simpler CAMM is on the cheaper side of modern air defence missiles. Missile borrows heavily from ASRAMM, does not require a dedicated radar, does not need to consider exhaust gasses.

All that makes purchase and installation much simpler, meaning cheaper.

[The Armchair Soldier]

Sea Venom fitted to a French DGA Dauphin for tests:

[The Armchair Soldier]

Sea Venom/ANL development continues ahead of flight testing

MBDA will begin a series of guided firings of the Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile in early 2017, with the aim to qualify the missile by the end of 2018, the company has told IHS Jane's.

Sea Venom/ANL is being procured to meet the respective UK Future Anti-Surface Guided Weapon (Heavy) and French Anti-Navire Léger (ANL) requirements for a lightweight helicopter-launched anti-ship missile.

Read More: http://www.janes.com/article/64528/sea- ... ht-testing (subscription required)

[xav]

MBDA' Sea Venom/Anti-Navire Leger (ANL) Antiship Missile Testing Well On Track

Testing of Sea Venom/Anti-Navire Leger (ANL) anti-ship missile (a key UK-French program) is well on track, Navy Recognition learned from European missile company MBDA. The first jettison test of the missile from a DGA (French defense procurement agency) helicopter took place in December 2015 in Cazaux. We were told that the first live test firing should take place "in a few months" while full development of the missile is expected to be completed in 2018.

http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.ph ... ew&id=4434

[ArmChairCivvy]

to meet the respective UK Future Anti-Surface Guided Weapon (Heavy) and French Anti-Navire Léger (ANL) requirements for a lightweight helicopter-launched anti-ship missile

I know where the UK (Heavy) descriptor comes from - as we already have Light in the inventory, but in that quote "lightweight" clearly refers to the same missile (not the category of helicopter that can carry it)?
- will it be lighter than something in the current French inventory?

[RetroSicotte]

Probably in reference to Exocet on their jets.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Yes, I had in my mind that Exocet is not launched from helos. But why not think of naval air assets across the board... all that matters is the capability in the end.

Exocet and Spear3; I know which one I would take if there was only one shot available to try to (mission-) kill a ship.

[RetroSicotte]

I certainly am not too keen on the Exocet. Can't be carried internally, and it's so large and clunky that even the Rafale can only carry a single missile per plane. In that case it quite literally is "only one shot to take."

F-35's can easily fit 8 Spear3 inside their internal bays. Slightly shorter range, yes, but a hell of a lot more advanced and capable of getting to that range without detection much easier, while having a longer fuel range anyway. I doubt the "if there's only one shot" thing really comes up to much, given the number that can be carried.

[ArmChairCivvy]

A ripple launch would certainly get some through, but the whole missile only weighs 8o kg (The Exocet warhead is 165 kg).
- of course, from the 8 you can use some selectively against other target sets, whereas with the one Exocet you are "done" after launching it

[RetroSicotte]

MBDA's video on Sea Venom.

States a specific "20km range". Not "20+". Just "20".

That's quite disappointing. I'd been hoping it would at least extend beyond the range of short range SAMs.

This is actually shorter ranged than Sea Skua, btw.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Salvo launch, operator steering to adjust to countermeasures, land-attack capability...

[RetroSicotte]

Didn't say that's not good, but the range itself is worrying. Having to enter short SAM range to fire them is quite horrifically dangerous. Bear in mind that the horizon cover ends from 25km out. They will be visible to almost all ships they're firing at.

[ArmChairCivvy]

v true.

So, we already have the system that is useful against boghammers and patrol boats (up to corvette size).

Probably reading too much between the lines but this one is going to end up (at least 50%) as a shore bombardment system
- hmmm, we could have had that with Spike NLOS, as per what was delivered to S Korea (ROK) on Wildcats (??)
- but at the time of signing for the bilateral dfence co-operation it was good to find a lot of "bullet points" under the headline matter
... no matter that the French then withheld their funding share for many years (no Spike NLOS in service, you see) and politically it would have been too drastic a move to can this development contract - and undermie the broader intent - even though, effects wise, we could have deployed a MOTS solution ?(!)

[RetroSicotte]

I'm generally quite willing to expunge on the horrific partner that France has been in deals, but in this case I don't think Spike-NLOS would have helped much. It's longer ranged, very accurate, already made for Wildcat, but it wouldn't do anything against ships like Sea Venom could in terms of explosive scale. Spike-NLOS is still, at its core, just an ATGM/Brimstone type impact.

[ArmChairCivvy]

It's longer ranged, very accurate, already made for Wildcat, but it wouldn't do anything against ships like Sea Venom could in terms of explosive scale. Spike-NLOS is still, at its core, just an ATGM/Brimstone type impact.

I think you are right. Can you provide the comparison, like I did for the Exocet/ Spear 3, when we had a similar discussion. Good old American saying " no replacement for displacement" translates to the size of warhead... that explosive scale mentioned.

[RetroSicotte]

Well, exact warhead weights are hard to imply, but Spike-NLOS is a 70kg weapon with a shaped tandem charge. Those kinda of charges produce very precise effects, hence the anti-tank/precision target role on small groups that Exactor did too.

Sea Venom is a 110kg weapon of which 30kg of that is pure warhead. So almost half of the weight of the entire Spike missile itself, and not concentrated to a shaped directional twin-charge.

I wish I could find Spike's warhead weight but there's so many variants that it's rather difficult, I know a guy who might know though over at the Armoured Warfare forums who is outrageously into Israeli stuff. I'll see if he might know more.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Sea Venom is a 110kg weapon of which 30kg of that is pure warhead.

OK, that's "heavy" for helicopter delivery vs. what a jet can do, in the way of ship "killing":
"Launch weight, 670 kg. Warhead weight, 165 kg. " That's the old Excocet; the MM40 Block 3 has gone up in weight to 780 kg (no mention of warhead, probably all the extras have gone into manoeuvrability and land-attack - GPS targeting - improvements).

I would think that Spike ER and Hellfire are about on par as for "explosive scale"... both have been adopted for anti-ship use (but now we are talking about use against vessels coming close to shore; even a full-fat frigate would be stupid to do that, giving away some of its sphere of self protection).

[GibMariner]

UK to retire GWS60 Harpoon at end of 2018

The United Kingdom will withdraw the GWS60/Harpoon Block 1C anti-ship missile from Royal Navy (RN) service at the end of 2018 without replacement, IHS Jane's has learned.

The retirement of Harpoon will leave RN warships without a heavyweight surface-to-surface guided weapon (SSGW), opening up a gap in over-the-horizon anti-surface warfare capability. Furthermore, with the helicopter-launched Sea Skua missile going out of service (OSD) at the end of March 2017, the RN will be devoid of any anti-surface guided weapon for about two years pending the introduction of the Sea Venom/ANL lightweight anti-ship missile on the Wildcat HMA.2 helicopter in late 2020.

http://www.janes.com/article/65445/uk-t ... nd-of-2018

[whitelancer]

Must of missed it in the SDSR where it said it was no longer necessary for the Royal Navy to be able to sink ships.

[bobp]

So all the T23 and the 3 T45 will be devoid of anything capable of sinking another ship at range , that's sad news, but also shows how badly equipped our services are equipped.

[GibMariner]

From Jane's Europe Editor:



Sheds some light on the discussions we've had here in the last few months regarding at least two (that I can remember) escorts being deployed to the Med with only a half-load of Harpoons.

Wonder how much it's cost to equip the Type 45s with Harpoon for just a few years of service. If I'm not mistaken, HMS Duncan was the first Type 45 to deploy with Harpoon in 2015, meaning just over 3 years of service & doesn't seem very cost-efficient for an otherwise cash-strapped navy.

[bobp]

Not just cash strapped but desperate.