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Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ
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Spencer100
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FSTO
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Looks like a Klingon sex toy.
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Obligatory Sisters of the Space age clip for the 1970s version of that idea; (should go to about 2 minutes in).
Hilariously, RCN was better as social media type promotion before social media was a thing, the whole documentary is still pretty interesting.
As an MSE guy still can't believe they got rid of the throttles for speed with those stupid fragile joysticks. I'm glad I was on there when beer was cheap as I bought a few 24s for breaking the joysticks. Who thought putting a 2" tiny joystick on a 14 gauge wire to input speed to a heavily redundant militarized control system that was all shock, flood and blast proofed was a good idea I will never know.
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For the Aussies bit surprised they didn't go with supplementing the Hunter with a whack of smaller go fasts with a small complement of missiles, with limited crew and short(ish) endurance for coastal defence.
Thought the whole point of AEGIS was to be able to mesh different units together and coordinate defence/attack over Link or similar, so a few big expensive ships, a bunch of cheap small ships, ground units etc could all work together but maybe I'm missing something in the details.
That same kind of logic doesn't really work for Canada as much because it seems we assume our ships will be fighting far away from Canada(although some kind of shore based deployable missile batteries probably would help for continental defence), but for the Aussies a mix of blue and brown water ships makes much more sense.
I suppose this is all idle speculation anyway, Canada's public goals and the RCNs operational capability requirements are never backed up by adequate funding, resources or people. If we can't even keep ships up to basic commercial standards for cargo ships going between A and B, things like combatant ship recoverability are pretty aspirational. No worries though, that hole through a watertight bulkhead for some random cat 5 cable means that little Billy has wifi, so who cares about flooding, smoke propagation or structural integrity?
Thought the whole point of AEGIS was to be able to mesh different units together and coordinate defence/attack over Link or similar, so a few big expensive ships, a bunch of cheap small ships, ground units etc could all work together but maybe I'm missing something in the details.
That same kind of logic doesn't really work for Canada as much because it seems we assume our ships will be fighting far away from Canada(although some kind of shore based deployable missile batteries probably would help for continental defence), but for the Aussies a mix of blue and brown water ships makes much more sense.
I suppose this is all idle speculation anyway, Canada's public goals and the RCNs operational capability requirements are never backed up by adequate funding, resources or people. If we can't even keep ships up to basic commercial standards for cargo ships going between A and B, things like combatant ship recoverability are pretty aspirational. No worries though, that hole through a watertight bulkhead for some random cat 5 cable means that little Billy has wifi, so who cares about flooding, smoke propagation or structural integrity?
The Hunters will have 6 panel L-band AESA array for long range search, 6 panel S-band AESA array for short-medium range, and a 4 panel AESA array illuminator for fire control, along with AEGIS baseline 9 combat system (including cooperative engagement). How much more AAW capability do you think they need?
Spencer100
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They are building many of these.
Cape-class patrol boat - Wikipedia
ttps://www.naval-technology.com/news/australia-receives-its-sixth-evolved-cape-class-patrol-vessel/#:~:text=Austal%2C%20an%20Australian%20shipbuilding%20company,(RAN)%20on%2013%20October.
But are having teething problems with these.
So they can put the POD missiles on the back!
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An area air defence capability. That setup can do limited area air defence. Its optimized for point/self defence and local defence (crossing targets). Area air will have to rely on offboard sensors.
Can it participate in an area air role? Yes. Can it run the show? No.
Those subs won't be anywhere near Australia for a long time, the Hunter will be available much sooner, as such Australia need submarine defence. Also lets break this down for a minute.
- Does anyone actually think China is going to try and attack Australia? - unlikely, China wants to project power near to their shore based support
- If they are what naval units are most likely to be able to do that? - submarines are
- Does anyone actually think that ANY ship can survive inside the first island chain? - no one thinks this, even the US is planning a second island chain defence with projecting power into the first island chain
- Is Australia expecting to send expeditionary units into the South China sea and fight? - perhaps, but since no ship can survive why would you do that?
- Given this information what platform is more important? - I would argue a GP frigate is more important, particularly with UXV warfare becoming a thing
Not sure why you assume they're limited to point defence. CEAFAR with AEGIS Baseline 9 is a pretty potent combination, hence their load out including SM-2 and SM-6.
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Thanks, I missed that completely; makes sense I guess with how big their op area is to have a larger coastal patrol boat.They are building many of these.
Cape-class patrol boat - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
ttps://www.naval-technology.com/news/australia-receives-its-sixth-evolved-cape-class-patrol-vessel/#:~:text=Austal%2C%20an%20Australian%20shipbuilding%20company,(RAN)%20on%2013%20October.
But are having teething problems with these.
So they can put the POD missiles on the back!
In crowded areas like the Straights of Hormuz the speed boats make more sense, especially if you can operate them remotely and send a fire control solution to the missiles. Lot easier to target an area if you don't care about whoever is in the box and aren't worried about the wrong target.
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I didn't say that. I said point/self and local while contributing to area air defence.Not sure why you assume they're limited to point defence. CEAFAR with AEGIS Baseline 9 is a pretty potent combination, hence their load out including SM-2 and SM-6.
CEAFAR radars have never been integrated with Aegis before, - technical risk here
CEAFAR radars need to be able to reach out to 150nm to match a SPY system radar - L band can do it, but with that few emmitters can it get the power needed?
CEAFAR radars need to be able to volume search 150nm all the way out like SPY systems do - L band is supposed to do this (the UK, Dutch and Germans use L band for this), the L band is a new addition to the CEAFAR system. It remains to be seen if there is enough emmitters to do volume search and not miss things.
CEAFAR radars can't do BMD. - again relying on L band. The UK and Dutch use massive SMART L radars to do this, the US uses the SPY, which has so much power it's low in the ship. Again I don't see the CEAFAR being able to put out the power
If the CEAFAR was such an amazing system why haven't other countries bought it but instead choose to go with something else? No radar has better press than the CEAFAR and yet it only has a single user. Hell, the Germans sell more radars then the Aussies and yet somehow no one talks about the TRS-3D.
I'm not saying its bad, I'm saying its amazingness is overblown. Its a radar, like other radars, and has pros/cons depending on its design.
Public domain information indicates that AEGIS baseline 9 and SM-6 are both capable of terminal ABM defence.
The significant increase in displacement of the Hunter class over the RN Type 26 (and also the Canadian CSC) has often been publicly stated as being due to CEAFAR and its power and cooling requirements. It's certainly not a lightweight radar.
I agree with @Underway on this. CEAFAR and CEAFAR 2 are hugely hyped by Australian industry, (understandable - they are trying to create a domestic industry), but have not had any international sales success, which says something, surely. Being physically heavy because of cooling requirements does not indicate anything with regards to capability, other than the panels are probably not electrically efficient, which is not a good thing. Nothing I've read in the public domain would lead me to conclude that CEAFAR2 is a superior radar system. That does not mean it's a bad radar system. It's just not the cat's meow some make it out to be. I believe we chose well with SPY7 for CSC.
Colin Parkinson
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This might apply to the Aussie Hunter Class at some point
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What in the AF is that? When your ship upgrade is nicknamed 'Muffin Top' doesn't bode well for stability.
Colin Parkinson
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It's ready to give birth
Spencer100
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Its the EW upgrade. SLQ-32(V)7 (SEWIP Block 3)
I think a bunch of the ships are getting it.
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To do BMD you need to do the detect to engage sequence. This requires the following (very generalized) steps.
Detect, localize, identify (classify), track, target, engage, kill assessment.
You can see from this list that AEGIS and sensors are completely integrated with each other in every step. Detect, localize, identify, track are all very sensor dependant. AEGIS can only identify, track, target and kill assess what the sensor gives it. Now where the radar processing ends and AEGIS processing begins is pretty much trying to peel a peanut butter sandwitch apart after its made... but you get the idea. Engage is really the missiles job and then kill assessment is a sensor +AEGIS job again.
As far as public domain info, CEAFAR itself is a light radar. CEAFAR-2 I don't know. It's a lot more radar than the OG CEAFAR. The CEAFAR-2 might be really heavy and require a ton of cooling. If that's the case then its lost one of the things going for it (though might have gained some other stuff). The Aussies also put 8 more VLS onboard than Canada and the UK did. That's requiring more length, and all the dimensions scale up from there.
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Yep. Probably the most important upgrade the Burkes have ever gotten. Combined with the SPY-6 radar its going to keep them very relevent combat wise going forward for a while. I'm surprised its that big though.
