Goalkeeper shoots further and faster. It has a much more sophisticated tracking system. It also weighs 5.9 tonnes.

At risk of taking this way too far...

GK (above decks) 7.9 tonnes
GK (below decks) 3.7 te

Exc ammo = 10.9te

Phalanx 1B inc RCS, LCP, ex Ammo = 6.97te

So nearly 8 te difference (ex ammo) for a shipset and as posted elsewhere, GK needs a below decks bulk loader....

Now then - who wants to guess why a fair bit of the superstructure is well known material about three times less dense than steel.......

A Falklands scenario becomes very interesting when a T45 is added. Two T45 positioned along the threat axis between Rio Grande, Rio Gallegos and Santa Cruz would make the transit from Argentina impossible without AAR (which is a rare commodity in Argentina today). Another T45 stationed of the northern coast of East Falklands could control all air movements in and out of Stanley and presumably a captured MPA. With ASaC support, you could achieve complete air dominance in an AOA even without fighter defence. I'm not suggesting that should be done of course, but it does mean that CVF's airgroup could be used for fleet defence and in an offensive mode against key military targets in Argentina supported by TacToms flying through certain windows in the Casa Rosada, airforce and Navy HQs in BA.

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As has already been pointed out, the priority should be stopping missiles as far off as possible.

The 57mm Mk 110, as recently selected by the USN, is a CIWS with a range of nine miles. And it's made by BAE S. And it can be fitted on hulls down to 150 tons.

Goalkeeper may have a longer range than Phalanx, but it still stops incoming far too close for comfort. Certainly close enough to leave mother within the debris field of something travelling at Mach 2.

You need a lot of Type 45s to give the same coverage as a naval air-defence fighter. - Admiral Sir Alan West, in this interview back in 2003.

I put a link to this one on the first page of the Sea Jet thread (a long, long time ago:bored::eek:).

I suspect the reason that they are fitting Phalanx instead of Goalkeeper is due to cost, and being able to use the systems taken from the Type 42s as they decommision.

Yes, he's absolutely right. However the T45 does give us capabilities that were pure science fiction 25 years ago. A massive step up in capability. I would love to see TacTom or even Naval Scalp installed but I'm not holding my breath.

I was looking for the post earlier on in which someone estimated the Sampson radar's line of sight to the horizon to be 16 miles ( was it ? ) versus 13 for SPY radar on A. Burkes.

What height above surface were you using for the two radars?

Also, can anyone estimate the diameter of the Sampson antenna? Or is that Double Plus Top Secret RN info?

And doing a bit of advanced math -- Mach 2 X 16 miles or X 13 miles -- how much time until impact does that leave either man/machine system to react?

The post you are probably looking for was by Naveleye on page 3 - I'll use his figures for mast height and missile speed for the calculations you requested.

Mach 3 at sea level is 2280 miles-per-hour (0.633 miles-per-second). A distance of 13 miles (Aegis) would be covered in 20 seconds and 16.6 miles (Sampson) would be covered in 26 seconds.

Assuming the 1.7 mile minimum engagement distance is the same for whatever system Aegis uses, this distance would be reached only 18/23 seconds after detection (Aegis/Sampson respectively) so either ship has precious little time to detect, react and respond, but the extra 5 seconds the T45 gets might make all the difference.

If you are dealing with a 'slower' mach-2 sea skimmer the Sampson equiped T45 gets 35 seconds before the missile gets into the CIWS range and the Aegis equiped ship gets 27 seconds.

If the last two T45s are ordered (considered to be crucial by the First Sea Lord) this should prevent our frigate/destroyer numbers falling below 25. Note that the opinion voiced by the Admirals is that this is too low, and we really need about thirty. The SDR said 32, after all.

From Janes:

UK navy chief fuels 'quality versus quantity' debate

The size of the RN's frigate/destroyer force has seen a significant decline over the past decade, falling from 35 ships in 1996 to 25 today. Admiral Sir Alan West, Adm Band's predecessor as Chief of Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, was public in his opinion that this level is too small to meet the full spectrum of taskings, noting that the figure of 25 was based on analysis of high-intensity warfighting tasks alone and did not address wider maritime security needs, or make any allowance for attrition.

Admiral West said this openly, both the media and to the Defence Select Commitee.

Perhaps the frigate/destroyer force could be augmented by cheaper, less sophisticated vessels geared towards maritime security operations and low intensity tasks? Like this perhaps?

Yet the MOD claims the RN is having a massive shipbuilding programme. Hmmm. :hmm:

It has a much more sophisticated tracking system.

Can you cite any data, evidence, or any specific features whatsoever of this Goalkeeper system to justify that pronouncment?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-i...issile_systems

The current trend in CIWS is to use missile systems instead of guns, because guns have certain limitations:

Short range: The maximum effective range of 30-mm gun systems is about 2000 m; systems with lighter projectiles have even shorter range. The expected real-world kill-distance of an incoming anti-ship missile is about 500 m or less, still close enough to possibly cause damage on the ship's sensor or communication arrays. Also the timeframe for interception is relatively short; for supersonic missiles moving at 1500 m/s it is approximately one-third of a second.

Limited kill probability: Even if the missile is hit and damaged, it may not be enough to destroy it or change its course enough, to prevent it or fragments of it from hitting its intended target (short interception distance, see above). This is especially true if the gun fires kinetic-energy-only projectiles (e.g., Phalanx with DU rounds).

They are only able to engage one target at a time and switching targets needs up to one second for training the gun. A coordinated salvo of missiles can easily overwhelm a gun-based CIWS.

For a gun hitting a target travelling at high speed, it has to predict its course and aim ahead of it since mid-course corrections of projectiles are not possible. Modern anti-ship missiles make erratic moves before impact, reducing the probability of being hit.
Because of their greater range, a missile-CIWS can also be dual-used as a short-ranged area-defense anti-air weapon, eliminating the need of a second mount for this role.


A RAM launcher of the German NavyAfter an inertial guidance phase CIWS missile relies on infra-red, passive radar/ESM or semi-active radar terminal guidance or a combination of these. The ESM-mode is particularly useful since most long-range anti-ship missiles use radar to home in on their targets. Some systems allow the launch platform to send course-correction commands to the missile in the inertial guidance phase.

Examples include:

Crotale-NG
RAM - Sea-RAM is a direct replacement for Phalanx, using Phalanx' sensors and mounts
Sadral, using a version of the Mistral missile
Sea-Sprint, using the ADATS missile
Modernized Sea Wolf
Sea Sparrow Block 1, Missile used by the Nimitz class carriers, and other USN ships, as a short to medium range anti-aircraft weapon.
Evolved Sea Sparrow missile, used aboard all Sea Sparrow-capable warships, plus other warships of the Netherlands, Canadian, Spanish, Japanese and Australian navies.
…

What about this Laser CIWS being talked off?

Going back to this comment by Navaleye:

A Falklands scenario becomes very interesting when a T45 is added. Two T45 positioned along the threat axis between Rio Grande, Rio Gallegos and Santa Cruz would make the transit from Argentina impossible without AAR (which is a rare commodity in Argentina today). Another T45 stationed of the northern coast of East Falklands could control all air movements in and out of Stanley and presumably a captured MPA. With ASaC support, you could achieve complete air dominance in an AOA even without fighter defence.

If a T45 is used for APT(S), thati s quite a deterrent. Of course, that also raises the issue of submarines threats, and (decent) sonar, helicopters (why not carry more than one?) and other equipment.

Having seen Phalanx operating in a real life/death situation on a regular basis in the past few months (admittedly not in a maritime situation) I am not briming with confidence at its ability to defend any ship against an attack. Perhaps the powers that be should be looking at the stats for the phalanx systems that the UK is actually operating in a "combat" scenario and figure out how many ships we can afford to lose because of it.

The missile's viewpoint
 

It will be interesting to see how effective Daring's stealth features are. I have my doubts. The link below shows just how big the RCS of the current generation of frigates is compared to merchant vessels. No wonder they make such good targets.

Here

Will have to keep the Lynx airborne with their sea skua's then... they did pretty well defending the US Battleship in the gulf

Naval Eye,

A completely meaningless table as it does not specify why type of frigate, what age, construction type, whether it is stealthy design or not and from which country.

Not sure what Frigate that is talking about but it isn't a Royal Naval one ( 103 M and only 2000 T ??? Far too small) Take it from me that the RCS of a T 23 is a lot smaller than the one suggested in that table.


Having another look at the table it has to be taling about USN Frigates as it talks about the RCS on the Bow and on the "Broadside"...whatever the broadside is..(I assume they mean the beam)

Broadside means looking at the ship side on.... the full length as seen by the incoming missile....

Great table!! LOL :E
... Data published 1978, biggest RCS on the quarter, ...
Let's hope our potential enemies use this type of information to design their weapon systems!:D

Another one on the way. See here.

Building sections of ship at different yards and then integrating them is a technique that will be vital for constructing CVF.

However, Daring's entry into service (ie with everything working) has been delayed. See this from Navy News.

Of course, if the Sea Harrier was still in service (see this discussion) then relying on the ageing Type 42 and the ageing Sea Dart system would be less of a concern.