Naval missiles and launchers

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Great video of a US Navy F-18 Hornet following a Tactical Tomahawk fired from the USS Kidd as it attacks and hits a target ship designated by the F-18 at sea.


This is GREAT demonstration by the US Navy that all of those VLS cells on the Arleigh Burkes, the Ticonderogas, and US nuclear submarines are capable of attacking and hitting adversary ships with these long range tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles that carry various types of large warheads. Hugely damaging to ships.

My guess is that the laser head could easily be replaced by an intelligent targeting device in the future.

An excellent compliment to the LRASMs that will be coming soo.

Ah man, they really nailed those two poor pigeons good and proper! They had the whole target barge to aim for and they put the Tomahawk right under the feet of those poor pigeons, almost like they were aiming for them! :p

I don't buy the claim they survived!
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Yes but one add i don' t get an extended range vs ships for the SM-2 also a SAM, ballistic you mean ABM capacity he get for few years ?


What you mean, you jocke only o_O

I think he means that one would expect the AShM version of the SM6 to have a very different warhead to the air defence version, as a proximity fused fragmentation warhead is going to be of very little use against a warship, whereas a delayed fuzed penetration warhead is similarly ill suited for air targets.

As for the range discrepancy.

Well I think typically, they would expect the air defence version to engage air targets at a much higher altitude, and probably want to hold a much greater energy reserve to deal with enemy evasive manoeuvres, that gives the AShM version considerably more altitude and energy it could convert into greater range as it dives down towards a surface target (I seriously doubt the AShM version of the SM6 will be a sea skimmer, which might be what you are assuming in expecting worse range?).
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
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140923-N-MB306-007.jpg
USNI said:
The Littoral Combat Ship program is poised to make big strides this year in its strike capability, both with over-the-horizon missiles and the shorter-range Longbow Hellfire missile.

The Independence-variant USS Coronado (LCS-4) will deploy later this year with the
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, and engineering is underway to outfit USS Freedom (LCS-1) with the
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.

Program Executive Officer for Littoral Combat Ships Rear Adm. Brian Antonio told USNI News in a May 2 interview that the Harpoon system will be installed on Coronado within the next month, in time for an over-the-horizon missile demonstration at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2016 exercise in Hawaii this summer.

“It’s the beginning of how to incorporate OTH on LCSs,” he said.

The NSM effort is a bit farther behind, with the engineering not yet complete, but the missile system integration will be done in time for Freedom’s next deployment.

Antonio said the OTH missile effort falls into four categories: demonstrating the capability on Coronado and Freedom in the near term to “show that LCS is capable of having a long stick;” building a missile system into new LCSs; backfitting the systems into existing LCSs; and designing a missile into the frigate design.

The program office is looking at the last couple LCSs ahead of the transition to the frigate – the planned Fiscal Year 2017 ships – and investigating “are we able to capture with our FY 17 ships, actually starting it right from scratch and getting the shipbuilders to incorporate the right systems to be able to support OTH?” Building the systems into the frigate design will be somewhat easier, since there will be more freedom to install the system where it makes the most sense instead of where the LCS design allows for a missile launcher.

As for the backfit effort, once the PEO decides on which missile to use going forward, the program will look for opportunities during ships’ midlife availabilities, shorter maintenance availabilities and even post-delivery availabilities to insert the OTH missile system. The engineering being done on Freedom today will help inform the backfit effort, Antonio said.

Director of Surface Warfare Rear Adm. Pete Fanta previously told USNI News that this year’s OTH missile installation efforts
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with the ship’s combat system, whereas
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featured a less connected set-up.

In addition to the OTH strike capability, the Navy is also adding a short-range missile to the LCS surface warfare mission package to help address the fast inshore attack craft threat.

“Later this year we’ll also do some surface-to-surface missile shots of the Longbow Hellfire missile – I think it’s four more this year off of a guided test vehicle,” Antonio said in the interview. The
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– altered to fire vertically from the ship instead of horizontally from a helicopter – last year and will continue testing the missile from test platforms rather than from an LCS in the short term.

This is very good news.

An LCS deploying with the NSM is going to uparm her to be a capable combatant against peer adversaries in the surface combat role. The Independence with the Harpoon would be the same. My guess is that ultimately they will settle upon one of the two for both classes.
 

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Here is an interesting blog about the SM-3ⅡA.
It's rather a long breathed one but an interesting read never the less.

Strategic Capabilities of SM-3 Block IIA Interceptors (June 30, 2016)

In two previous posts, I made estimated projections forward in time of the
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and the
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.
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These projections reached two main conclusions: (1) The number of BMD capable ships would reach the upper seventies (77) by 2040; and (2) The number of SM-3 Block IIA interceptors (including possible more advanced version of the missile) would be in the hundreds, possibly 500-600 or more, by the mid-to-late 2030s.

Several developments since those posts were written illustrate the uncertain nature of such projections. In February 2016, it was revealed that the Navy had decided to upgrade three additional Flight IIA Aegis destroyers to the full advanced BMD capability (under the previous plan these three ships would have had no SM-3 BMD capability).
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In addition, it is still unclear how long the five Aegis BMD cruisers will remain in service, although this makes no difference to the longer term projections..


Later in February it was reported that the Navy was reducing the number of SM-3 Block IB missiles it would procure from FY 2017 to FY 2020 from 52 per year to about 35 per year in part due to ongoing problems with the missile’s third stage booster.
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However, the impact of this reduction is likely to be more than mitigated by recently announced plans to extend the service life of Block IA interceptors from eight years to twelve.
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More significantly, an April 2016 GAO report stated the United States planned to procure 351 SM-3 Block IIA missiles.
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This number is above my low projection of about 280 missiles, but also well below my medium projection of about 520 missiles. However, it is unclear what this 351 number really means, given that United States has apparently not yet even decided on how many Block IB interceptors it intends to buy.
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Nevertheless, it seems low, as it less than twice the 182 SM-3 Block IIA missiles the United States intends to buy just for the four ships and two Aegis Ashore sites in European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) system, leaving on average just 2 Block IIA missiles for the other 73 Aegis BMD ships currently requested by U.S. regional Combatant Commanders.
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Thus these recent developments do not significantly affect my long term projections: that by mid-to-late 1930s, the United States will likely have about 80 BMD capable ships and hundreds, possibly 500-600 or even more, of Block IIA (or more advanced) missiles.... to read more
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The information looks decent with some analytical thoughts injected into it. Don't know if all of it is true but I believe it a place you can start.
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
More powerful Main Surface Combattants

Yes, I think there will be a 052E, so we definitely see the 055's role differently. Even if there were not a 052E, I think still think the 055 would play a cruiser role in the PLAN giving the preponderance of 052X sized destroyers currently or projected to be in the fleet.

BTW, here is a little jewel for you:
View attachment 40316

Please note the slope of the trendline. Feel free to check my numbers. :)

Some notes for the graph:
1) I included only surface combatants, of 4kt+, with VLS +/- slant launcher tubes, so no carriers, amphibs, or subs even if they have VLS, and no ships using the old-style swing arm launchers.
2) I did not include ships with SRSAMs in the tallies, so no HHQ-10, etc.
3) Tube capacities reflect the intended design capacity, not the capacity as built due to money issues, so Daring, Horizon, FREMM, etc. all reflect the originally designed number of tubes.

Yeah
And Ticonderoga is the more armed in comparison with the size after Sejong the Great, KD-2 South Koreans in force ! and big Kirov really disapointing :D could we discover reasons : policy, arrangement or other o_O

Meantime
De Zeven Provinciën-class frigate 48 tubes

The Tico is definitely the most missile-dense warship in the last 40 years. KDX-2 and KDX-3 actually tie for second spot. Kirov's problem is its huge antiship missiles designed back in the 70s. Once the Admiral Nakhimov puts back into the water next year after her modernization we shall see what her VLS looks like. If the Russians replace the oversized Granits with the Klub/Kalibr missiles they could probably pack in >200 cells. As for the Dutch ship it is another of the designed-for-but-not-fitted-with 48 tubes.

Allow me

I precise
Daring 48 Aster + considering 8 harpoon in fact only 4 lots from retired Broadsword Batch 3 but all 6 can receive
Iver Huitfeldt 32 SM-2 + 2 x Mk-56 and/or max 16 Harpoons but can have all i consider 24 + 8 tubes total 64

Depending on the number of Harpoon launchers installed, up to 48
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and 32
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may be carried.
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Missile Tubes to Tonnage Comparison.jpg
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
The Tico is definitely the most missile-dense warship in the last 40 years. KDX-2 and KDX-3 actually tie for second spot. Kirov's problem is its huge antiship missiles designed back in the 70s. Once the Admiral Nakhimov puts back into the water next year after her modernization we shall see what her VLS looks like. If the Russians replace the oversized Granits with the Klub/Kalibr missiles they could probably pack in >200 cells. As for the Dutch ship it is another of the designed-for-but-not-fitted-with 48 tubes.

View attachment 40323
In this case if numbers of SAMs don' t change + 60 : 20 SS-N-19 replaced by 80 SS-N-26/27/30 normaly Zircon also so 304 tubes for the Nakhimov !!! and after Velikiy
 
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