I'm increasingly curious about the FSC - I've got the 2010 RN review by Warships International in my hands and they're still talking 2014 at the latest for first steel cut with a three tier approach to replace the 23s the patrol boats and a mid size jobby similar to the LCS. Either they're buying abroad or have a design all nicely firmed up...

 

Ian

 

I think i read somewhere that initialgate of the FSC program was to be this year. Apparrently there have been news stories talking about a 2013 cutting of steel for the first ship, which i have to admit i find unlikely, though plausable if the design is ready (CVF blocks should be finished by then).

Worrying about FSC is certainly worth worrying about but that said one might worry a lot more about Type 45 as after a year in service HMS Daring does not have a working missile.  The British press is full of stories about unarmed 1.1 billion pound ships.  The stories are that perhaps when HMS Daring is on her 3rd captain that the missile system might work.

 

Labor promised 12 destroyers, then 8 and now it's 6 that don't work.  Labor retired all the Sea Harriers and has a "strike" carrier with no aircraft and operating now.  The notion that Labor is going to come up with and fund a program to replace all the Type 23's is not supported by the evidence.  This Labor government has done more to gut the RN than any enemy ever dreamed.

Not ideal but not quite as bad as it might sound. Labour have a patchy track record but they've at least followed the carriers through thus far. I am old enough to remember the Defence review by Knott which got us into the Falklands war by basically proposing to reduce the Navy to a fishery protection fleet so I'd hold that neither party have served the country well on occasion.

There's more information on the FSC released this month but nothing concrete.

Ian

Ian, I wish I could agree with you. However, the evidence from the latest testing failure suggests otherwise. Up until that test it appears the most stressing target engaged with the Aster missile was a Mach 1 target. That test was a stream raid of two targets and Sea Viper failed the test. 

Now, I'm not going to throw stones because SM-6 isn't fully tested yet either and hasn't had an at sea test as of yet. However, when you're replacing a proven system, scratch that a battle proven system like Sea Dart and you have limited numbers of surface combatants, you need to make sure your area air defense missile actually works. 

Aster has three successful test fires in Franco-Italian hands, plus one from the Saudi and one from the RN, which is fair odds. I'd sooner they'd shot more test rounds than that so far but you can't say the missile doesn't work from that.

The RN qualification test is one that was successfully performed by an Italian ship in 2007 (or appears very similar to the engagement described ) 

It's possible the failure was with some other area entirely the missile, and it's the reason you trial fire - to test the entire system, back to back.

Don't get me wrong, I'd sooner have the US silo and missile systems on board for all sorts of reasons but one test failure doesn't give us a solid picture.

Ian

You've access to the same information I have (the web) - how does the testing stack against the stuff done for the SM2/3 series then? 

Ian

We test every new ship during something called CSSQT. USS STERRETT fired 7 SM-2s during their CSSQT.  Another DDG I know of fired 5. I can only find 11 shipborne Aster missile tests. Only one of them vs a mach 1 target. I'm not saying that's all that is out there, but Aegis is tested every time a ship comes out of the builder's yard. 

In fact, we fired so many SM-2s over the years there was no point in continuing shooting missiles from legacy ships, we already knew how they perform against all threats. So the decision was made to concentrate testing from new ships to validate their combat systems suite.

As for SM-3, we've fired more SM-3s than I can find Aster 15/30 test shots. We've fired SM-3s and SM-2s together. We've fired SM-2 Sea Based Terminal against Ballistic Missile threats. 

And we engage vs threat representative targets, aka Vandal and Coyote. In 1997 the USN and FGN engaged Kormoran and Exocet missiles. 

Obviously, Aegis has a long history, but with three navies counting on Aster, you'd think more than a dozen or so tests against threat representative targets would have been performed. It looks, from an outsider's point of view, like they got a couple of successful tests and they claimed victory. 

However, that's by the by - we've got Sea Viper and so have at least three other users - and the testing runs something like 10-1 in terms of successful firings. I'd like bigger numbers and I'd definitely like proof against supersonic sea skimmers. Hopefully it'll come with time - but as I've said, the lack of missiles on the Daring's is contractual - or at least that's what Warship Review is reporting - and that was before the test fail so I've no reason to think otherwise.

Ian