Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Contains threads on Royal Navy equipment of the past, present and future.
Jdam
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Jdam »

Is Sylver now dead in the royal navy? it doesn't sound like we have any plans for it after the type 45.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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Jdam wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 14:31 Is Sylver now dead in the royal navy? it doesn't sound like we have any plans for it after the type 45.
I thought Sylver was a medium / long area air defence (whereas CAMM is more of a short range air defence of individual ships).

With the way that RN has split the tasks with T45 for AAW and T23 / T26 for ASW, then next ship that might use Sylver could be T83.

Although it seems that RN is moving more towards the MK41 VLS and I am not sure if Sylver can be migrated to the Mk41 VLS - I doubt the French would pay for that.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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wargame_insomniac wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 15:47
Jdam wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 14:31 Is Sylver now dead in the royal navy? it doesn't sound like we have any plans for it after the type 45.
I thought Sylver was a medium / long area air defence (whereas CAMM is more of a short range air defence of individual ships).

With the way that RN has split the tasks with T45 for AAW and T23 / T26 for ASW, then next ship that might use Sylver could be T83.

Although it seems that RN is moving more towards the MK41 VLS and I am not sure if Sylver can be migrated to the Mk41 VLS - I doubt the French would pay for that.
firstly Sylver is a VL system it is used to launch Aster 15/30 missiles I would say Sylver is dead in RN service unless Aster can not be fitted to Mk-41
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Jdam »

If we can somehow adapt Aster for the MK41 goodbye Sylver

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Dahedd »

Scimitar54 rather than 3 more T45 I'd rather have the T32 project go ahead based on a full fat Iver Huitfeldt airdefence/multi role frigate.
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Scimitar54 »

I have considered that as a possibility in order to gain more AAW vessels in the water as of now, but the batch of 3 x T45 that I had in mind, would have been built before the T31 design had been developed and awarded to Babcock.
They would also have been built after the power problems of the earlier T45 had been discovered and improved power plants installed from the word go. The Glasgow shipyards would have been more profitably employed building additional (improved) T45, than the (good ships though they are) River B2s.
The benefits that would have been obtained by additional ships (of the same class) would be a
real help to the RN in improving it’s ability to deploy the T45. The disadvantages of having small numbers of ships of a vital class (AAW Escort) have been displayed yet again, for all to see!

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Tempest414 »

For me we need to place the follow on order for Batch 2 type 31 to be fitted with 1 x 127mm , 2 x 40mm , 32 VLS and we need to speed up type 26

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Jdam »

I don't think building more 45 was really an option after production had ended, you would need to start production up of limit run items (Sampson Radar for example) and we will also have learned lessons from the 45's that we could incorporate into the design. You start to add all that together and you will have an expensive couple of hulls.

Double the number of Type 26's, 1 per year in service starting from 2022, this will give you a ASW force with flexibility. (which is what I think we need for the Atlantic)
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Jensy »

Jdam wrote: 26 Feb 2022, 18:23 I don't think building more 45 was really an option after production had ended, you would need to start production up of limit run items (Sampson Radar for example) and we will also have learned lessons from the 45's that we could incorporate into the design. You start to add all that together and you will have an expensive couple of hulls.

Double the number of Type 26's, 1 per year in service starting from 2022, this will give you a ASW force with flexibility. (which is what I think we need for the Atlantic)
There was some very loose idea of an 'Interim Frigate Programme' of four Type 45 derivatives, which would presumably have replaced the B3 Type 22s. However they would have lacked Sampson and used a early concept of what became Artisan with only Aster-15. However it got lost in the early noughties, alongside the final two Type 45s, and replaced by the promise of bringing 'forward' Future Surface Combatant, which became Type 26. Fair to say we know that didn't exactly go to plan...

Restarting Sampson production would probably have been prohibitively expensive. Though we do still have a seventh set!

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by tomuk »

Jensy wrote: 26 Feb 2022, 19:29 Though we do still have a seventh set!
Is that on top of the ones at Portsdown and Cowes? On the propulsion side I understand that parts of Duncan's power systems came from the test bed at Whetstone.
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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tomuk wrote: 26 Feb 2022, 20:55
Jensy wrote: 26 Feb 2022, 19:29 Though we do still have a seventh set!
Is that on top of the ones at Portsdown and Cowes? On the propulsion side I understand that parts of Duncan's power systems came from the test bed at Whetstone.
I was thinking of the Portsdown Hill installation. Forgot that there was a prototype at Cowes too.

So that's two more, plus whatever havened to the test barge fitted with Sylver.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

SAMPSON shall better see upgrade. I think a GaN version of SAMPSON (say, SAMPSON2) must be developed. Most of the "radar capability" of AESA radar resides within the soft-ware. Replacing the front-end semiconductor modules can be seen in many AESA worldwide. Why not the same to SAMPSON?

I understand GaN can provide 3-times more power with same power consumption compared to GaAs modules. So, no additional cooling might be needed?

It is already 13 years from T45 1st-of-class ship commissioning, and mid-life upgrade will be there. I understand "addition of CAMM" and "PIP" are a kind of mid-life upgrade, processed gradually.

As shown in the written answer, T45 is looking forward to integrate Aster Blk.1 NT for BMD. It is a good time to replace the SAMPSON with GaN-SAPSON at the same time as introducing CAMM/AsterNT (and possible Mk.41 VLS).

At the same time, I would like to see the GaN-version of Artisan 3D radar (say Artisan2). In addition, "fixed-plate version of Artisan2" can also be considered. AESA technology can do this.

How about locating 4 panels of fixed-Artisan2 on T26 batch2? Surely the location will be lower (to avoid center of gravity issue).

Another option on T26B2, I propose, is to have an Artisan2 on top of the mast (as is, for early warning), and 6 panels of CEAFAR-2S (or 4 panels of fixed-Artisan2) at the bottom of the mast (to avoid center of gravity issue).

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by Jake1992 »

Wasn’t a light weight cone shape fix panel design being developed that would allow it to be placed high up like rotating designs while also give 360 coverage at all times.
The idea was that it’d have the benifits against sea skimmers a higher placed radar has aswell as the benifits of no blind spots fox panel radars have.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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donald_of_tokyo wrote: 27 Feb 2022, 03:52 SAMPSON shall better see upgrade. I think a GaN version of SAMPSON (say, SAMPSON2) must be developed. Most of the "radar capability" of AESA radar resides within the soft-ware. Replacing the front-end semiconductor modules can be seen in many AESA worldwide. Why not the same to SAMPSON?

I understand GaN can provide 3-times more power with same power consumption compared to GaAs modules. So, no additional cooling might be needed?

It is already 13 years from T45 1st-of-class ship commissioning, and mid-life upgrade will be there. I understand "addition of CAMM" and "PIP" are a kind of mid-life upgrade, processed gradually.

As shown in the written answer, T45 is looking forward to integrate Aster Blk.1 NT for BMD. It is a good time to replace the SAMPSON with GaN-SAPSON at the same time as introducing CAMM/AsterNT (and possible Mk.41 VLS).

At the same time, I would like to see the GaN-version of Artisan 3D radar (say Artisan2). In addition, "fixed-plate version of Artisan2" can also be considered. AESA technology can do this.

How about locating 4 panels of fixed-Artisan2 on T26 batch2? Surely the location will be lower (to avoid center of gravity issue).

Another option on T26B2, I propose, is to have an Artisan2 on top of the mast (as is, for early warning), and 6 panels of CEAFAR-2S (or 4 panels of fixed-Artisan2) at the bottom of the mast (to avoid center of gravity issue).
Radar tech has moved on since Sampson, eg GaN sensors which have seen quoted as able to deliver five times the RF power of the earlier generation silicon transistors, amongst others LM and Thales GaN radars now also using dual polarisation where antennas transmit in both horizontal and vertical planes, X and Y axes, which give much improved discrimination, some calling them 4D radars as opposed to 3D radars which normally only transmit horizontally in a single plane. Also using the new generation of powerful AI/ML processors for removing the noise that radar returns are full of and better at analysing the doppler shift of the targets from their profiles as they change in time so better at identifying if separate targets close together, some calling them 5D radars due to the time element, as when you look at how things change through time you learn even more.

Drawbacks include the expense, the large amount of extra power required from ships generators and due to the extra waste heat generated by GaN you need much more powerful chillers to cool the water used in cooling the antenna T/R modules.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by tomuk »

I'm having a bit of deja vu here but you are confusing different techniques. Thales 4D radars aren't dual polarisation they just concentrate their scans on the target and extract doppler shift ie speed info. The only 'unconfirmed' dual polrisation radar id the LMDR radar recentlt built by LM in Alaska.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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tomuk wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 02:55 I'm having a bit of deja vu here but you are confusing different techniques. Thales 4D radars aren't dual polarisation they just concentrate their scans on the target and extract doppler shift ie speed info. The only 'unconfirmed' dual polrisation radar id the LMDR radar recentlt built by LM in Alaska.
Must say totally disagree on sources have seen, maybe different interpretation, if you have other sources would appreciate references

Thales in promoting their new radars in late 2015 video describe them as dual beam axis multi-beam technology, simultaneously transmitting in azimuth and elevation (as used in the T31 with the Thales NS100 radar), that's good enough for me to classify it as a generic dual polarisation radar.



Thales now calling it a 4D radar here
https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/group/ma ... -believing

LRDR,
MDA approves preliminary design 'dual pol' tech for LRDR

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26410330

Breaking Defense write up, "New Missile Defense Radar Passes Key Stage: Lockheed LRDR

First of all, like many new radars, LRDR uses gallium nitride (GaN), which conducts high-voltage electricity much more efficiently than traditional materials. GaN makes it possible to generate a much more powerful radar beam: One industry executive said you can get 50 percent more range, search five times as large a volume, or improve discrimination.
Second, LRDR is “a dual-polarized, dual-range capability radar.” Marshall wouldn’t go into details, but the term “dual-polarized” is used in open literature to describe cutting-edge civilian weather radars, which are better at telling the difference between, say, rain, snow, and hail, and can even measure the size of the hailstones as they come down. A traditional radar sends out pulses of energy that are only polarized in one direction, horizontally. Imagine ripples expanding outward through a pond, only the ripples extend straight up into the air, like a moving wall. When such a horizontally polarized radar beam bounces off something, you only get a one-dimensional image of the target. But a dual-polarized radar sends out alternating pulses polarized at right angles to each other — one horizontal, then one vertical, then another horizontal — so you get a two-dimensional picture. By looking at both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions, the dual-polarized radar can tell apart objects that would look the same to a horizontal-only radar. While LRDR is presumably a rather more sophisticated implementation of this technology than a weather radar, the net effect is similar: the ability to tell objects apart — in this case warheads, not hailstones — at roughly twice the range"
PS would note the BMD LRDR comes with two massive arrays each 60' x 60', 3,600 sq ft

Would note LM PR on their radars including the SPY-7 used on the CSC T26 highlight "Polarization diversity"

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

NickC wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 11:31
tomuk wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 02:55 I'm having a bit of deja vu here but you are confusing different techniques. Thales 4D radars aren't dual polarisation they just concentrate their scans on the target and extract doppler shift ie speed info. The only 'unconfirmed' dual polrisation radar id the LMDR radar recentlt built by LM in Alaska.
Must say totally disagree on sources have seen, maybe different interpretation, if you have other sources would appreciate references

Thales in promoting their new radars in late 2015 video describe them as dual beam axis multi-beam technology, simultaneously transmitting in azimuth and elevation (as used in the T31 with the Thales NS100 radar),
Yes
that's good enough for me to classify it as a generic dual polarisation radar.
Why? I have no clue for it in the video?

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by NickC »

donald_of_tokyo wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 11:53
NickC wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 11:31
tomuk wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 02:55 I'm having a bit of deja vu here but you are confusing different techniques. Thales 4D radars aren't dual polarisation they just concentrate their scans on the target and extract doppler shift ie speed info. The only 'unconfirmed' dual polrisation radar id the LMDR radar recentlt built by LM in Alaska.
Must say totally disagree on sources have seen, maybe different interpretation, if you have other sources would appreciate references

Thales in promoting their new radars in late 2015 video describe them as dual beam axis multi-beam technology, simultaneously transmitting in azimuth and elevation (as used in the T31 with the Thales NS100 radar),
Yes
that's good enough for me to classify it as a generic dual polarisation radar.
Why? I have no clue for it in the video?
Watch video from 17 to 30 seconds - simultaneously transmitting multi-beams in both azimuth and elevation, I don't think there could be any clearer description of a dual polarisation 4D radar, a 3D radar system has its antennas arrayed horizontally whereas 4D radar has elements arrayed both horizontally and vertically, with Lockheed, Thales and others claiming much improved discrimination.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

NickC wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 13:28 Watch video from 17 to 30 seconds - simultaneously transmitting multi-beams in both azimuth and elevation, I don't think there could be any clearer description of a dual polarisation 4D radar, a 3D radar system has its antennas arrayed horizontally whereas 4D radar has elements arrayed both horizontally and vertically, with Lockheed, Thales and others claiming much improved discrimination.
That's just multi-beam. Not dual polarization. Dual polarization is very new technology, LM does claim its capability on SPY7. How about Thales?

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by NickC »

donald_of_tokyo wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 15:04
NickC wrote: 28 Feb 2022, 13:28 Watch video from 17 to 30 seconds - simultaneously transmitting multi-beams in both azimuth and elevation, I don't think there could be any clearer description of a dual polarisation 4D radar, a 3D radar system has its antennas arrayed horizontally whereas 4D radar has elements arrayed both horizontally and vertically, with Lockheed, Thales and others claiming much improved discrimination.
That's just multi-beam. Not dual polarization. Dual polarization is very new technology, LM does claim its capability on SPY7. How about Thales?
Dual polarisation is not a new tech, the first US weather radar using it the NEXRAD came out 30 years ago, 1992, used by US National Weather Service, FAA and USAF. Thales call their system 'Dual Axes' which my take is that its one and the same as what the Americans call 'dual polarization', would be good if Xav read the post and with his close contacts at Thales Nederland and could either confirm whether I'm correct or not with my interpretation.

Back to the question on current thread do the T45 radars need to be replaced with the new tech radars (with GaN, dual axes/dual pol, new processors which Leonardo say for the Tempest radar will collect and process 10,000 times more data than existing radars so as to reduce noise and improve doppler shift processing etc, etc) so with T45 new radars and ASTER 30 Block 1NT will be able to create a SRBM BMD system to protect the carriers from the Chinese ballistic DF-21 and DF-26 plus the Russian hypersonic Tsirkon/Zirkon etc. Expect both types of attacking missiles will be manoeuvrable as is the new US Army SRBM the anti-ship PrSM Spiral 1.

PS Last July the MDA/USN trails off Hawaii a Burke test fired four of the new SM-6 Dual II missiles against two ballistic target missiles, presuming an emulation of an attack on carrier by DF-21/26s, only one was intercepted, have seen no report on the failure to intercept second missile by the MDA whether due to failures of the SM-6, AWS or the SPY-1D radar, MDA has in the past given reasons for past test failures of missile interceptions.
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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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With regard to polarisation of radar waves please read the following....

https://www.radartutorial.eu/06.antenna ... on.en.html

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

Thanks. Actually, I found myself one of the user of dual-polarity weather radars.... Still not sure if NS100 is using it.

Anyway, I do NOT think it is critical. We do not know how the radar development is on-going in UK. My sole point is, replacing GaAs transmitters with GaN one was done in Japanese AESA radar, from JDS Hyuga to JDS Akizuki, significantly improving its capability. Similar things took place in other radars.

I understand a division of Leonardo in Edinburgh is producing GaN transmitters. It shall be relatively easy? (not sure).

RN shall move to GaN world. GaAs-based radar is no more a world top.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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donald_of_tokyo wrote: 01 Mar 2022, 14:37 Thanks. Actually, I found myself one of the user of dual-polarity weather radars.... Still not sure if NS100 is using it.

Anyway, I do NOT think it is critical. We do not know how the radar development is on-going in UK. My sole point is, replacing GaAs transmitters with GaN one was done in Japanese AESA radar, from JDS Hyuga to JDS Akizuki, significantly improving its capability. Similar things took place in other radars.

I understand a division of Leonardo in Edinburgh is producing GaN transmitters. It shall be relatively easy? (not sure).

RN shall move to GaN world. GaAs-based radar is no more a world top.
The only major problem with GaN is cost per element, which is much greater than GaAs, On the positive side they are many times more powerful.

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Re: Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

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donald_of_tokyo wrote: 01 Mar 2022, 14:37 Thanks. Actually, I found myself one of the user of dual-polarity weather radars.... Still not sure if NS100 is using it.

Anyway, I do NOT think it is critical. We do not know how the radar development is on-going in UK. My sole point is, replacing GaAs transmitters with GaN one was done in Japanese AESA radar, from JDS Hyuga to JDS Akizuki, significantly improving its capability. Similar things took place in other radars.

I understand a division of Leonardo in Edinburgh is producing GaN transmitters. It shall be relatively easy? (not sure).

RN shall move to GaN world. GaAs-based radar is no more a world top.
Think semi-similar story with as with the Japanese ships with the long range Thales SMAART-L fitted to T45s and carriers, question came up could they be upgraded to the new SMAART-L MM/N standard with GaN and Dual Axis Multibeam technology, if remembering correctly Xav said upgrading the SMAART-L would cost approx the same as buying a new SMAART-L MM/N so no point.

Re GaN used in the mobile phone industry so would expect a few options to procure, Raytheon built their own GaN factory assisted with $200 million grant from US Government whereas Lockheed outsourced, Fujitsu supplied them for some of Lockheed's early prototype GaN radars, would guess outsourcing has the advantage that with the multi $billions being poured into the phone industry expect the latest and best tech GaNs available whereas with military GaN market at only a small fraction of the commercial market so would be surprised if GaN tech moving at same speed, but you say that option appears not to have been takern by Leonardo who manufacture their own inhouse.

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