Originally Posted by Heathrow Harry
TBH we don't need a 23 or a 45 to chase pirates - any ship that can carry an armed helicopter and a couple of dozen marines will do nicely
Can that ship deal with incoming aircraft and missiles, hunt for submarines, or control your own aircraft?
The T23 or T45 is for Operation
Kipion, the ongoing commitment in that part of the world. Counter piracy is a sideshow. See this part of a discussion
here.
We are doing anti-piracy in the Gulf area as an adjunct to the Op Kipion mission, rather than a dedicated tasking. The reason we're using "the £1Bn pound destroyer" that CDS is so upset about, is because that destroyer (or the T23 that is often on Kipion) needs to go into the Persian Gulf and contribute capability if it all kicks off there. Something that your corvette / sloop would be largely incapable of.
Unfortunately, the media chooses to describe East of Suez deployments as counter piracy. Portraying counter piracy as the RN's major role is similar to the school of though that suggests that as the Taliban has no air force, we should bin the Typhoon in favour of a cheaper aircraft without speed, agility, air to air capability, and complex avionics.
Another interesting discussion :
Similarly, "taking hits" isn't a good metric: the A-10 has the radar cross-section of a Routemaster bus covered in corner reflectors, a low top speed and very little excess power (especially in hot and high conditions like Afghanistan) which mean it is easily spotted, easily shot at, is a bugger to defend with ECM, and runs out of energy very quickly while trying to take evasive action. It's resistant to small-arms fire and light AAA, but any teen-series MANPADS will drive it up to 15,000' AGL if it wants to live. It's a specialist COIN airframe, and (once it gained better sensors) quite good at it, but it's dead meat against any sort of air defences.