- Reaction score
- 1,902
- Points
- 1,260
The British acknowledge this potential need for their current OPV:Jumping back to the topic at hand - the MCDVs.
If they are to be retired (which is certain - just a question of when) what will replace them?
Looking at the role they've been doing, it's been mostly constabulary, and showing of the flag, usually in pairs to provide redundancy and mutual support.
Can an AOPS do that? Yes. And with only a single hull rather than a pair.
Can an AOPS do wartime tasks such as convoy escort? Nope. Not armed, not equipped with the necessary sensors, and not designed for it. Not designed for the survivability of any missile or torpedo hits either.
In the 'cold war' the real threats to a convoy of ships were Soviet Naval Aviation and Soviet Submarines. An AOPS can defend against neither of those, and realistically, it wasn't designed to anyhow. Bolting on a solution won't work without a LOT of work. (Deconflicting RADAR antenna installations, installing the launchers, etc.)
In today's world, we face proliferation of drones, some armed, all potentially a threat.
I will observe that Russia has 'bolt on' drone defense systems for their tanks - it would honestly be foolish of the west not to implement some form of passive drone sensor, with a layer of active drone defense on all of our ships.
We used to bolt on the 4-Warn Chem/bio agent detector when we went on operations.
Having a bolt-on solution for anti-drone work would be a good idea.
I'll suggest that the active defense need not be kinetic - ie launchers/etc. An EW based solution makes a lot of sense in my mind. A ship can provide a heck of a lot more power than any tank or AFV simply due to the size of the onboard power plant.
I'm hoping that something is already in the works, and that it's a simple plug-in/bolt on solution that can be applied across the fleet.
"According to Forbes, in an emergency the Royal Navy might have to attach anti-ship missiles to its Batch 2 River-class patrol ships to make up for its lack of surface warfare frigates and destroyers, and additional upgrades could include attaching a Bofors 57 mm gun. However, no such weapons fit had yet been authorised for the River-class ships"
But they did have this foresight for the River class: "The Royal Navy ships are built to more stringent naval standards, with features such as magazine protection, improved hull integrity and fire safety modifications, as well as greater redundancy.