Daring Class

The 5,200t Type 42 Sheffield Class destroyers were designed in the late 1960s to provide fleet area air-defense for Britain’s Royal Navy, after the proposed Type 82 air defense cruisers were canceled by the Labour Government in 1966. Britain built 14 of the Type 42s, but these old ships are reaching the limits of their operational lives and effectiveness.

To replace them, the Royal Navy planned to induct 12 Type 45 Daring Class destroyers. The Daring class would be built to deal with a new age of threats. Saturation attacks with supersonic ship-killing missiles, that fly from the ship’s radar horizon to ship impact in under 45 seconds. The reality of future threats from ballistic missiles, and WMD proliferation. Plus a proliferation of possible threats involving smaller, hard to detect enemies like UAVs. Overall, the Type 45s promise to be one of the world’s most capable air defense ships – but design choices have left the cost-to-value ratio uncertain, and limited the Type 45s in other key roles.

This feature will become a subscription-only DII FOCUS article in due course. Meanwhile, a reduced 6-ship program continues to move forward.

• The Type 45 Destroyer Program
  • The Daring Class
  • Type 45: Comparisons
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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AN/SPQ-9B radar

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. in Melville, NY makes the AN/SPQ-9B radar system. Its mission is to serve as a primary fire control or backup radar that can detect and track low-flying, high-speed, small radar cross-section anti-ship missile targets in heavy clutter environments. That’s especially useful amidst waves, or close to shore.

The SPQ-9 is not a new radar, though it has received a number of upgrades over the years. It was originally built to be the main air defense radar on several American destroyer and cruiser classes, but over time it has been relegated to a secondary role on advanced air defense ships to fill in coverage gaps, or a slot on some amphibious ship classes as a relatively inexpensive, medium-capability main radar. Orders continue…

• The AN/SPQ-9B
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
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Puma AE team

The mini-UAV market may lack the high individual price tags of vehicles like the RQ-4 Global Hawk, or the battlefield strike impact of an MQ-9 Reaper, but it does have 2 advantages. One is less concern about “deconfliction” with manned aircraft, as described in “Field Report on Raven, Shadow UAVs From the 101st.” Mini-UAVs usually fly below 1,000 feet, and a styrofoam-like body with a 5 foot wingspan is much less of a collision threat than larger and more solidly-built platforms like the man-sized RQ-7 Shadow, or the Cessna-sized MQ-1 Predator.

The other advantage is mini-UAVs’ suitability for special operations troops, who are being employed in numbers on the front lines around the world. “Raven UAVs Winning Gold in Afghanistan’s ‘Commando Olympics’” details the global scale of this interest – and in July 2008, a $200 million US SOCOM contract for a breakthrough mini-UAV underscored it again. Now AeroVironment’s S2AS/ RQ-20A Puma AE is moving beyond Special Operations, and into the regular force.

• Mini-UAVs: Evolution & Advantages
• Aerovironment’s Mini-Mes
• The Puma AE [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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Gowind Family

In October 2010, Malaysia’s Boustead received a letter of intent from their government for 6 “second-generation patrol vessels.” In January 2012, South Africa’s DefenceWeb reported that DCNS and its local submarine & surface ship partner, Boustead Naval Shipyard, had won a contract worth $2.8 billion to supply 6 Gowind family ships to Malaysia, which would have been the type’s 1st paid order.

To win, DCNS reportedly beat Dutch firm Damen, whose scalable SIGMA ships have been purchased by neighboring Indonesia; as well as TKMS of Germany, who supplied Malaysia’s 6 existing MEKO 100 Kedah Class OPVs and its 2 Kasturi Class light frigates. Now these Gowind ships’ exact configuration, and equipment set is more certain:

• The Gowind Family & Malaysia’s Choices [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
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• South Korea’s Daewoo continues to expand its military shipbuilding reach. Fresh off wins in Indonesia (Type 209 submarines) and Britain (MARS support ship/ oilers), it has signed an MoU with Peru for submarines and “multi-role support ships.” To turn that into a contract, they’ll have to clinch a final deal with the government, but the MoU gives them exclusive negotiating rights. Peru currently operates 6 old U209 submarines, and could use some support ships built after the 1980s.

• North Korea’s rocket went ka-boom... less than 12 minutes into its flight. What next?

• India’s new Talwar Class frigate, Teg, has completed sea trials, and is scheduled for handover at its Russian shipyard on April 27/12.

• India stood up its 3rd squadron of naval surveillance UAVs, made up of IAI Searcher and IAI Heron UAVs. The southern INAS 344 squadron is in Tamil Nadu, joining its fellow squadrons to the west (Gurajat) and East (Kerala).

• Research funded by the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) is using recently-improved friction-stir welding (FSW) techniques at the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing (NCAM) to see whether titanium could be used for shipbuilding. Using titanium instead of steel for ship hulls would reduce maintenance costs because you wouldn’t have to obsess about corrosion, and lower fuel costs – or allow bigger payloads – because titanium is lighter and stronger. But then that metal is much more expensive than steel and harder to work with. Titanium is used for piping in San Antonio class ships and that required the development of sophisticated welding techniques and craftsmanship too. Whether the Soviet Union was using titanium to build submarines during the Cold War kept CIA analysts busy in the 70s. Around the same time the ONR rebuilt its ALVIN submersible in titanium which allowed pretty deep dives.

• When you turn defense policy debates into arguments about who is creating most jobs, you end up with silly academic distractions.

• Admiral James Winnefeld, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at CSIS’ Global Security Forum 2012 yesterday. The topic of sequestration came up during the Q&A after his address [PDF]. Showing a position that’s in line with comments made by DoD Comptroller Robert Hale a few weeks ago, Winnefeld said:
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• Britain’s Type 45 air defense destroyers Dragon & Defender are finishing up 2nd trials. They share the PAAMS combat system and Aster-30 long-range air defense missiles with France’s Horizon Class, which just shot down a Coyote maneuvering supersonic target.

• The UK is restarting military sales to Indonesia.

• Japan Security Watch opines on how to resolve the Okinawa conundrum between the US and Japan.
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Fearless-75

ST Kinetics subsidiary Singapore Technologies Marine Ltd. has won a EUR 534.8 million (about USD $700 million) competitive contract from the Ministry of Defence of the Sultanate of Oman, to bolster that country’s inshore and mid-range patrol fleet. The 4 patrol vessels will based on ST Marine’s Fearless 75 Class of 75m ships, which are in turn derived from Singapore’s own fleet of 12 Fearless Class 55m boats. The project will begin immediately, with the first vessel expected to be delivered in Q2 2015 and the final vessel in Q3 2016.

ST Marine’s Fearless boats were once planned to have missile Fast Attack Craft capabilities, but Singapore’s smaller 500t boats ended up limited to an Oto Melara 76mm gun, torpedoes, and a Simbad twin-launcher for very short range Mistral air defense missiles. Oman’s larger vessels will add a landing pad for helicopters or UAVs, and could choose to introduce additional offensive capabilities like anti-ship missiles, which are explicitly specified [PDF] as options in the firm’s marketing materials. Neither party is talking about those choices, yet, or about the replacements for the Israeli equipment used in Singapore’s boats. Even without naval strike missiles, however, the new vessels will add punch to Oman’s presence guarding the tense Strait of Hormuz, the wider Persian Gulf, and/or to the country’s efforts against piracy around its Indian Ocean shores.

CVN-71, Indian Ocean

The USS Theodore Roosevelt [CVN 71] was built by Northrop Grumman’s Newport News sector. Commissioned on Oct 25/86, CVN 71 is expected to remain in service until 2036. As it approaches its mid-life stage, however, the wear begins to show. Instead of putting a ramp on its flight deck, buying it a nice red car, and pairing it with much younger ships, the US government has begun preparing for the refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) of the carrier and its reactor plants.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived at the Newport News shipyard in August 2009 to begin its RCOH, and Northrop Grumman has valued the planning phase alone at $558 million. So what exactly is a RCOH, and how expensive is it likely to get before all is said and done?

• The RCOH Process [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Reading and Sources
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AGS fires LRLAP

As costs rose and missions proliferated, it was easy to forget that the original rationale for the DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class centered around naval gunfire support for troops ashore. Heavily armored US battleships with massive 16-inch (406 mm) guns once performed extremely well in this role, as their volkswagen-weight shells gave enemies pause. While USS Iowa was brought back into service during the Reagan era, she was decommissioned again in 1990. That left America with a floating museum in Los Angeles, and a gap in its options.

While European manufacturers are fielding guided, long range adaptations of existing 127mm/54 and 76mm shells, the Zumwalt Class will be getting an entirely new Advanced Gun System that fires the same 155mm shells used by field artillery ashore. The goal was to combine the wide range of available 155mm shell options with extra-long range, GPS precision guidance, and rapid fire:

• The AGS/LRLAP System [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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Austal Team
Trimaran LCS Design
(click to enlarge)

Exploit simplicity, numbers, the pace of technology development in electronics and robotics, and fast reconfiguration. That was the US Navy’s idea for the low-end backbone of its future surface combatant fleet. Inspired by successful experiments like Denmark’s Standard Flex ships, the US Navy’s $35+ billion “Littoral Combat Ship” program was intended to create a new generation of affordable surface combatants that could operate in dangerous shallow and near-shore environments, while remaining affordable and capable throughout their lifetimes.

It hasn’t worked that way. In practice, what the Navy wanted, the capabilities needed to perform primary naval missions, and what could be delivered for the sums available, have proven nearly irreconcilable. The LCS program has changed its fundamental acquisition plan 4 times since 2005, and canceled contracts with both competing teams during this period, without escaping any of its fundamental issues. This public-access FOCUS article offer a wealth of research material, alongside looks at the LCS program’s designs, industry teams procurement plans, military controversies, budgets and contracts:

• LCS: Concept & Needs
  • LCS: Designs & Teams
  • LCS Solution = Standard Equipment + Mission Modules [updated]
• LCS: Controversies & Cautions
• The LCS Program
  • LCS Ship Roster
  • LCS: Export Potential?
• LCS: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• LCS Ancillaries: Mission Module & Weapon Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
• Appendix A: LCS’ Yo-Yoing Budgets and Program Structure [updated]
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