Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ

[STONEY]

Where does some of the info on the T-26 come from. I do not say its wrong just that it does not agree with what I have seen.
6000 tons not 8000. Will power plant be a disaster like the T-45 and its quoted speed is slower than the Halifax class . It does not have a Air defence version so what happened to the Iroquois class replacement, in fact the missile, what am I missing here.s its design shows are only half the range of the Halifax class. Will the design have to be completely changed to suit Canada it does not even have a anti surface missile.
What am I missing here.

Cheers 

 

[Lumber]

Where does some of the info on the T-26 come from. I do not say its wrong just that it does not agree with what I have seen.
6000 tons not 8000. Will power plant be a disaster like the T-45 and its quoted speed is slower than the Halifax class . It does not have a Air defence version so what happened to the Iroquois class replacement, in fact the missile, what am I missing here.s its design shows are only half the range of the Halifax class. Will the design have to be completely changed to suit Canada it does not even have a anti surface missile.
What am I missing here.

Cheers

What your missing is that this is all just speculation. Any ship that is chosen will have to fit the SOR as closely as possible.

 

[MikeKiloPapa]

By they time they finalize a design cut steel on the CSC, a ship like the FREMM will be a 15+ year old design.  They were given the go ahead in 2005 for that ship and I am sure there was something on the boards before then.  It is at this juncture a 12 year old design at the very least.

Yes....and the T26 design is, at best, a whopping 4 years newer.....hardly a generational quantum leap that is. With that line of thinking you will never get a new surface combatant. Even if you started on a brand new warship design today, it would still be more than a decade old by the time it is commissioned.

Australia seem to do fine with a 20 year old design, and the yanks soldier on with the 30 year old Burkes. In that context, claiming that the FREMMs and contemporary ships are obsolete is frankly absurd

 

[jollyjacktar]

Yes....and the T26 design is, at best, a whopping 4 years newer.....hardly a generational quantum leap that is. With that line of thinking you will never get a new surface combatant. Even if you started on a brand new warship design today, it would still be more than a decade old by the time it is commissioned.

Australia seem to do fine with a 20 year old design, and the yanks soldier on with the 30 year old Burkes. In that context, claiming that the FREMMs and contemporary ships are obsolete is frankly absurd

My friend, I work in the procurement side of the navy at present, and we all wonder if we'll ever see the new ship.  I know I shall be retired before they "probably" start even cutting steel.  You're preaching to the choir.  Now, as to the "O" word. I never once said they were obsolete or even suggested it.  I said that my boss stated they were 15-20 year old designs and the Type 26 was newer and more cutting edge.  I just happen to agree with him more than I agree with you.  But that's OK, it's a free world and we're all allowed to have an opinion.

As an aside, all navies sail with what they are given as long as they can, to the best of their ability.  Unlike you, I can't get out of my ship and walk back to my lines if the damn thing breaks down.  The nearest point of land at sea is about several miles beneath the keel and I have no desire to see it, thank you very much.  In most first world, tier 1 navies our present CPF would be considered very long in the tooth and would be looking at a well deserved retirement and a new ship coming to replace it in the not to far distant future.  One of the reasons we use these things as long as we can and it takes so long to pick and deliver a new ship is that they are no longer the "relatively" simple beasts they were 40 or 50 years ago.  Lots of more Buck Rodgers stuff that needs to be taken into account nowadays in the design and manufacture not to mention the spiralling costs of things like steel etc. Thrown in all the red tape that goes with a major commitment like this and its a damn wonder we get anything at all, quite frankly.

 

[MikeKiloPapa]

Where does some of the info on the T-26 come from. I do not say its wrong just that it does not agree with what I have seen.6000 tons not 8000.

Well BAE themselves quote the T-26 as being  6900 metric tonnes. I think the 6000 tonnes was for the previous design proposal which was a smaller vessel ~25 ft shorter than the current version.
Now the 8000 tonnes displacement number has not been officially confirmed by either BAE or the RN , but it is supposed to be the the end-of-life full load displacement (ie the design max).
The 6900 tonnes would then be the standard displacement as built. The T-26 being both long and very beamy, almost as big as a 8300 tonnes Flt 1 Arleigh Burke, those numbers seem plausible to me.

Will power plant be a disaster like the T-45

Unlikely....the T26 will have a conventional diesel-electric propulsion system, precisely because of all the problems with the Darings IEP plant.

and its quoted speed is slower than the Halifax class

+26 kts could just as well mean 30 kts......anyhow, its a design speed....we wont know how fast it really is before its sea trials/SATs

It does not have a Air defence version

I think you could make the case that the basic T26 with Sea Ceptor, Artisan radar, a 5 " Mk 45 mod4 and 24 cell Mk41 vls, is at least as AAW capable as the FELEX'ed Halifax class...so its not like it doesn't have any air defence capability at all....and to be fair, it is easier to add a decent Area Air Defence capability to an excellent ASW ship , than the other way around.

in fact the missile, what am I missing here.s its design shows are only half the range of the Halifax class.

An ESSM fired from a Halifax or any other vessel employing a rotating 3D radar in conjunction with a CW illuminator , has a much shorter effective range than an ESSM fired from a ship using command guidance to control the missiles ...meaning ships equipped with either SPY-1 or APAR.
So the public data on range should be taken with a huge bucket load of salt.....its very dependent on the version of missile and the launching platform.

Now Sea Ceptor i dont know the real range of, but its a lighter missile ,its "cold" launched and because it is an active missile it has a more efficient flight profile....so all in all, the difference in effective range between the two missiles likely isn't all that great. 

Will the design have to be completely changed to suit Canada it does not even have a anti surface missile.

I am sure you could find somewhere to bolt on a Harpoon launcher or 2....But as an anti-ship missile the Harpoon is nearing obsolescence anyway and the LRASM meant to replace it, is launched from a MK41 vls container.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

@MikeKiloPapa

I apologize as I'm no expert in missile or radar systems, but can you elaborate on the following as it seems counter intuitive.

"An ESSM fired from a Halifax or any other vessel employing a rotating 3D radar in conjunction with a CW illuminator , has a much shorter effective range than an ESSM fired from a ship using command guidance to control the missiles ...meaning ships equipped with either SPY-1 or APAR. "


Thanks in advance, Matthew. 

 

[NavyShooter]

Yes, please.

I read that and would like a better explanation of why there's a shorter effective range.

Please explain so that  Weapons Engineering CPO2 with a good grounding in SONAR, NAV, and CCS (now CMS) can understand it. 

Oh, and please be careful to use open-source info to backup your answers.  We don't want anything out that shouldn't be.

NS

 

[MikeKiloPapa]

My friend, I work in the procurement side of the navy at present, and we all wonder if we'll ever see the new ship.  I know I shall be retired before they "probably" start even cutting steel.  You're preaching to the choir.  Now, as to the "O" word. I never once said they were obsolete or even suggested it.

No you are right....my bad...it must have been the voices in my head  ;D

I said that my boss stated they were 15-20 year old designs and the Type 26 was newer and more cutting edge.

Its quite interesting that it has received a lot of criticism back in the UK for being too conventional and unambitious in its design. Aside from the ludicrously expensive automated loading system for the mk45 gun i must admit i too struggle to see the "cutting edge" in the Global Combat Ship platform design. The hull and superstructure is very conventional, almost indistinguishable  from its (older) european counterparts....its fancy "Mission Bay" is an unashamed rip-off of Danish, Dutch and German concepts and its general internal arrangement is also fairly standard. ...and although perhaps not terribly relevant to the RCN ....The T26s legacy weapons and sensors fitout is also decidedly modest (save perhaps for the 2087 sonar).

In terms of damage control features, electrical infrastructure, PMS and bridge systems, accommodation standards etc...i'm sure that the type 26 is taking advantage of the latest developments.....but so would a future FREMM , Huitfeldt or F125 based CSC .

I just happen to agree with him more than I agree with you.  But that's OK, it's a free world and we're all allowed to have an opinion.

Why thank you  ....though not all opinions carry equal weight.....in this case i'll admit, your position lends greater credence to yours.

As an aside, all navies sail with what they are given as long as they can, to the best of their ability. 

:nod: yes we do....its not like we have a lot of choice in the matter though.

Unlike you, I can't get out of my ship and walk back to my lines if the damn thing breaks down.

Ahh...you must be referring to my former occupation/career as a Tank mechanic.
Well this is what my "tank" looks like now :

  ;D,,,,6 months a year i'm a lot closer to Canada (and the ocean floor) than home.

  In most first world, tier 1 navies our present CPF would be considered very long in the tooth and would be looking at a well deserved retirement and a new ship coming to replace it in the not to far distant future.

I agree and i feel your "pain"....the Thetis class above has prowled the arctic and north atlantic for more than 25 years and will have to soldier on for a further 10-15 years before they are replaced. Canada is not the only first world nation with ancient ships 

One of the reasons we use these things as long as we can and it takes so long to pick and deliver a new ship is that they are no longer the "relatively" simple beasts they were 40 or 50 years ago.

  So very true, as a marine/naval engineer i know better than most....the ever increasing complexity of ships also requires much greater education, skill and know how of the naval personel involved in both design and construction of new warships.....and finding competent people with the right skill set can be a challenge.

Thrown in all the red tape that goes with a major commitment like this and its a damn wonder we get anything at all, quite frankly.

In your case the industrial considerations of the national shipbuilding strategy isn't making things any easier either....it seems to me that the interests of the naval/marine industry is sometimes at odds with those of the RCN.

 

[NavyShooter]

It was said in the past that the NSPS is not a project to get ships for the RCN.  It's a jobs project, with ships being a useful by-product. 

I tend to agree with that assessment.  If we consider that the primary reason for the NSPS appears to be to employ some Canadians and build our industry, then the NSPS will probably succeed with flying colours. 

NS

 

[MikeKiloPapa]

Yes, please.

I read that and would like a better explanation of why there's a shorter effective range.

Please explain so that  Weapons Engineering CPO2 with a good grounding in SONAR, NAV, and CCS (now CMS) can understand it. 

Oh, and please be careful to use open-source info to backup your answers.  We don't want anything out that shouldn't be.

NS

Alright i'll give it a shot....I'll admit when i first heard the claim from a USN officer on a cross-pol EX, i too was sceptical. But then i asked our own AAW experts (aboard HDMS Absalon) ...and they said the same thing. Later , on a visit to the Danish Navy's weapon center, they too confirmed it and the explanation i got was as follows :

On a surface combatant with a low update rotating radar ( like SMART-S mk2s maximum ~2s update rate ) , and no uplink capability to provide mid-course guidance ,....the fire control director (Ceros 200 for both RCN and RDN) has to illuminate the target from launch to impact. So after being launched to a predetermined point close to the ship the ESSM now needs the CW return signals bouncing of the target, to guide it towards that target.

Now of course the effective range is also affected by the bearing of the incoming threat..... on a head on target this guiding principle has less impact on range.
But against a crossing/ parallel moving target it means that the ESSM has to spend energy maneuvering all the way to impact, since it is just following the CW illuminator. This "curved" flight profile is what reduces range compared to an active or command guided missile which tends to fly in a straighter line to target.

An Arleigh Burke for instance, with its fixed faced arrays ...receives an almost instantaneous and continuous track of the targets bearing, speed and altitude and uses that information to generate what is called a PIP, predicted intercept point, ie the shortest route to impact. These coordinates are then fed to the ESSM via the S_band uplink and continuously updated based on the targets movements.(ie mid course guidance) On AEGIS equipped ships the version of the ESSM used also has an inbuilt s-band downlink to report its position back to the launch platform for better accuracy. Only a few seconds before it reaches the PIP it enters the terminal phase where it needs illumination from the AN/SPG-62 FCD.

The version used with APAR has an x-band uplink receiver but no downlink but otherwise the guiding principle is very similar. So in short,  in most cases, they achieve longer effective range because they travel in a shorter straight line to target and doesn't have to maneuver as much.

This explains it well :
http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/TD/td2804/Cole.pdf

Now in the real world its probably a lot more complicated and with a lot more variables affecting relative performance.....but the overall principle should still apply.

Ps: all the above information is readily available in open sources , so i'm not breaking OPSEC.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Ahh...you must be referring to my former occupation/career as a Tank mechanic.
Well this is what my "tank" looks like now :

  ;D,,,,6 months a year i'm a lot closer to Canada (and the ocean floor) than home.
I agree and i feel your "pain"....the Thetis class above has prowled the arctic and north atlantic for more than 25 years and will have to soldier on for a further 10-15 years before they are replaced. Canada is not the only first world nation with ancient ships 
  So very true, as a marine/naval engineer i know better than most....the ever increasing complexity of ships also requires much greater education, skill and know how of the naval personel involved in both design and construction of new warships.....and finding competent people with the right skill set can be a challenge.
In your case the industrial considerations of the national shipbuilding strategy isn't making things any easier either....it seems to me that the interests of the naval/marine industry is sometimes at odds with those of the RCN.

I had quite forgotten until after I posted that you're now a sailor, my apologies for thinking you're still a zipperhead.  :facepalm:  As we're both in the Marine Engineering world, I'm sure we more than understand each other's pain of keeping aging platforms afloat, moving and ready to fight. 

Money of course will always be the driver in what we get and use.  I know the project would love to be able to incorporate the new DC systems and gear that is really cutting edge on the Zumwalt class ships.  I understand the USN would love to retrofit it onto all of their platforms but the cost is prohibitive so they're going to get some of it on their Burkes.  Lucky bastards.

I do, btw, really like all of the ships in the running.  The European navies have fantastic ships.

 

[Karel Doorman]

Maybe old news for the experts here,but still wanted to post a bit of info between S-Band Radars and X-band radars.
In no way it's my knowledge,simply copied a piece placed on the dutch forum wich explained a bit,and why the X-band will be the common radar system.(It even seems that the Netherlands(Thales)is way ahead in this field,go fugure that small country.) ,post was by another,much more experienced than i am (as said i'm no expert)


Some more information:

X-band radar frequency which the APAR uses to designate targets. Until the Zumwaltklasse the Americans only did that with S-band (even though they had come to the conclusion that X-band actually is better).

ICWI is a technique from Thales in wich the active phased array' radar (APAR )  can send missiles simultaneously on multiple targets. It does this by switching rapidly between those goals without tangling the missiles in question. That was a trick the Americans did not know yet. It is now applied to the Zumwalts and the Japanese have it I believe licenced by Thales on their destroyers.

The rockets wich the Netherlands uses on the LCF (Standard and ESSM) were obviously allready adapted , otherwise they would never be able to shoot a missile with APAR

With the new dual-band data link (JUWL) All Standard missiles can easily be made adapteble for both systems (S- and X-band plus ICWI). That is a matter of replacing a circuit board or something like that.So now there's no need for two different versions of  missile to be kept in stock and is also convenient for export ...

Raytheon had JUWL in 2013 in Den Helder tested with APAR. See http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=irol-newsArticle&id=1794313

The test program with the US Navy can be found here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/budget/fy2016/navy-peds/0604366n_5_pb_2016.pdf

 

[NavyShooter]

Dammit that makes sense.

However, my understanding was the mid-course is something we can do.

Now I'm going to have to go talk to an engineer in FMF's AAW shop to settle my thoughts on this.  He'll probably expect coffee.

:crybaby:

Alright i'll give it a shot....I'll admit when i first heard the claim from a USN officer on a cross-pol EX, i too was sceptical. But then i asked our own AAW experts (aboard HDMS Absalon) ...and they said the same thing. Later , on a visit to the Danish Navy's weapon center, they too confirmed it and the explanation i got was as follows :

On a surface combatant with a low update rotating radar ( like SMART-S mk2s maximum ~2s update rate ) , and no uplink capability to provide mid-course guidance ,....the fire control director (Ceros 200 for both RCN and RDN) has to illuminate the target from launch to impact. So after being launched to a predetermined point close to the ship the ESSM now needs the CW return signals bouncing of the target, to guide it towards that target.

Now of course the effective range is also affected by the bearing of the incoming threat..... on a head on target this guiding principle has less impact on range.
But against a crossing/ parallel moving target it means that the ESSM has to spend energy maneuvering all the way to impact, since it is just following the CW illuminator. This "curved" flight profile is what reduces range compared to an active or command guided missile which tends to fly in a straighter line to target.

An Arleigh Burke for instance, with its fixed faced arrays ...receives an almost instantaneous and continuous track of the targets bearing, speed and altitude and uses that information to generate what is called a PIP, predicted intercept point, ie the shortest route to impact. These coordinates are then fed to the ESSM via the S_band uplink and continuously updated based on the targets movements.(ie mid course guidance) On AEGIS equipped ships the version of the ESSM used also has an inbuilt s-band downlink to report its position back to the launch platform for better accuracy. Only a few seconds before it reaches the PIP it enters the terminal phase where it needs illumination from the AN/SPG-62 FCD.

The version used with APAR has an x-band uplink receiver but no downlink but otherwise the guiding principle is very similar. So in short,  in most cases, they achieve longer effective range because they travel in a shorter straight line to target and doesn't have to maneuver as much.

This explains it well :
http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/TD/td2804/Cole.pdf

Now in the real world its probably a lot more complicated and with a lot more variables affecting relative performance.....but the overall principle should still apply.

Ps: all the above information is readily available in open sources , so i'm not breaking OPSEC.

 

[Underway]

On a surface combatant with a low update rotating radar ( like SMART-S mk2s maximum ~2s update rate ) , and no uplink capability to provide mid-course guidance ,....the fire control director (Ceros 200 for both RCN and RDN) has to illuminate the target from launch to impact. /snip

Really interesting.  So a ship with ESSM (or SM2) defending itself will not notice a range difference as the incoming target and the outgoing one are on reciprocal bearings, but shooting a crossing target would really reduce your range significantly. The mid-course uplink guidance seems to be the key from your article.  It's probably how the PAAMs system can work so well with a rotating radar.

This leads to the next question...

The difference between the AAW version and the GP version of the CSC is going to be...?  There certainly are different requirements.  Really from deck 1 down and aft of the stack its probably going to be near identical.  But the superstructure, sensors, and C4I might be completely different in the two ships.  I suppose the AAW sensors would be not as robust in the GP version for cost savings.  But if you build them all with the same sensors is it just the space for the Flag staff that changes them?  Or just the loadout in the VLS system?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Thanks for this discussion.    I love threads where I actually learn something. This sort of discussion is what makes Army.ca/Navy.ca/Milnet ... one of the very few of the best websites anywhere.

(Just think how much better it might be if a few more of us donated a few more dollars to help Mike keep the site "on the air.")​

 

[Colin Parkinson]

On the "modern" vs tried and tested. Considering the failure rate in "modern designs" like the Type 45 and the LCS, the more "elderly" designs are looking pretty good. We would be able twek those designs based on user feedback and experience as well. I doubt hull form principles have changed that much, more so software and installed combat systems are where the biggest changes are.

 

[Underway]

On the "modern" vs tried and tested. Considering the failure rate in "modern designs" like the Type 45 and the LCS, the more "elderly" designs are looking pretty good. We would be able to tweak those designs based on user feedback and experience as well. I doubt hull form principles have changed that much, more so software and installed combat systems are where the biggest changes are.

You can make a pretty good argument for the Type 26 as being a safe, low-risk design.  There seems to be little that is new and nothing revolutionary or controversial (F125...) in the ship.  Definitely an evolutionary design using other modern frigates and destroyers for inspiration.  It might be more of a case of bringing mature technologies together in a different way that the other bids (though it could be argued the Sea Ceptor is new).

Best site I could find on the Type 26 for your reading pleasure Colin P.  You keep championing the Danes and Dutch, I'll take the Type 26's corner....  :nod:

*edit for spelling*

 

[Karel Doorman]

You can make a pretty good argument for the Type 26 as being a safe, low-risk design.  There seems to be little that is new and nothing revolutionary or controversial (F125...) in the ship.  Definitely an evolutionary design using other modern frigates and destroyers for inspiration.  It might be more of a case of bringing mature technologies together in a different way that the other bids (though it could be argued the Sea Ceptor is new).

Best site I could find on the Type 26 for your reading pleasure Colin P.  You keep championing the Danes and Dutch, I'll take the Type 26's corner....  :nod:

*edit for spelling*

Well if i might,sorry Dutch. [

I'm sure that the Type-26 will be an awesome ASW(mainly)ship,but there are a few buts(as well as for the new dutch ships class which we cal in the Netherlands the vMFF,or replacement M-class,since there is no official name for it yet)
1-Applies to the T-26 and vMFF,they're still being designed,so there's risk(weaponsystems,radaroutfit,etc)
2-Price for the Type-26 will be high from what i read and hear,over a billion a piece,that's why the number is down from what it was and that's why the Type-31 is designed.

But for the rest i'm sure as said it will be an awesome ship(i think the vMFF will be awesome too,but i'm biased) :gottree:

 

[Navy_Pete]

Just got back from a deployment and we had the chance to work closely with both the Absalon as well as several variations of the FREMM class from both the French and Italian navies.  Both were really capable platforms and their sailors really enjoyed working on them. Absalon was particularly impressive; they did a lot of significant and completely different things well enough, and the modules they had for the command staff and extra mission staff all looked really comfortable. Great gym too, which was nice to see.

The modular approach for the combat systems is nice, and this way the powerplants could be common across all of them.  Doesn't really matter if it's full ISSC supported, standard support approach or something in between, common equipment will make logistic/engineering support and obsolescence management much simpler, as the MSE systems are really 95% of the kit on board, even if they don't have the same sex appeal as a missile system or a big gun.

Surprised they allowed the type 26 to be part of the bidding as it's an unproven design, but from talking to some RN guys in general sounds like they are sticking to proven methods (vice the type 45, which had some innovative ideas that didn't work out as well as planned), so should be pretty good once they get the initial bugs worked out.

As an aside, the ship building projects all fall under DGMPD (L&S) (Director general major project developments (land and sea) aka 'surf and turf') vice DGMEPM.  DGMEPM still provides technical support (design review, SOR input etc) but the actual PMOs fall under L&S and report to ADM(Mat).  There is a lot of work between the two but they are separate entities under the Mat umbrella.  The ISSCs will be fall under MEPM, so they had a lot of input into the RFP that went out for AOPs/JSS, as the PMO for that was pretty small (with input from the DMarP folks as well as PW and Industry Canada).  Not really sure what is the plan for any CSC ISSC, but guessing I'll find out in my next job back in the NCR in a few weeks.

It was interesting to see the perspectives between someone who just needs to deliver a product vice the folks that will have to support the product in the design phases.  Sometimes common sense prevailed, where you could justify an initial higher cost for a better product for a lower through life cost, but not all the time.  I think the sticker shock of including the through life costs for the procurement  was part of the political decision to split the two, but if you look at what is happening with the F35, where the different through life costs include all kinds of random things (pilots, fuel etc) makes it difficult to do in a meaningful way, unless you keep it at the system level for major pieces of equipment (ie DG sets, main propulsion engines, etc) vice doing it for everything.

 

[Scott]

So all are aware, I removed a post that linked to a reporter we do not host works of here. I felt that for context I had to bin two posts following. Sorry for any inconvenience.