UK warships to have less firepower than 19th century equivalents as missiles withdrawn Royal Navy warships will be less capable of fighting enemy vessels than they were in the 19th century as Britain’s Harpoon anti-ship missile will be withdrawn in two years – with no replacement in sight. The news that the elderly Harpoon Block 1C system will be withdrawn by 2018 was broken by military analyst publication IHS …
Ship killing has been performed by aircraft and submarines ever since Task Force Z in 1941. The warships are right to concentrate entirely on defence. It takes a lot of ordnance to fend off a mach 5 missile.
Playing devils advocate - why would you deploy a ship to the fleet if all it can do is defend itself? I get it in the case of the Air Defence Destroyers but Frigates are supposed to be general purpose aren't they?
"Ship killing has been performed by aircraft and submarines"
We have seven 'Fleet' submarines (ie attack subs), of which I doubt all seven will be operational at once, and no aircraft carriers or aircraft to go on them.
The whole point of warships being armed with anti-ship missiles was so that that they could go back to the ship killing they've not been doing since 1941, with the mach-5 missiles you mention.
Do these ships *always* operate within air coverage? Think about operating, say, just outside the coasts of Libya and being attacked by some surface units - what do yo do? Call airplanes from Cyprus or Malta? And in the Persian Gulf?
But maybe this another "littoral warfare" idea - the same that crippled the US Navy combat capability...
Ship killing has been performed by aircraft and submarines
Really? You need to find your hot air valve and deflate yourself a bit.
So the Israeli's INS Eliat never sunk right? Oh, that was a HMS once too, right? The battle of Latakia gulf never happened either, right? The battle of Baltim never happened, right? The battle of Tartus never happened, right? INS Hanit has never ever been hit by anything, right? And the whole development of Gabriel mark 1, 2, 3 and 4 was never ever justified.
That is the middle east. Shall we move a bit further and continue?
So, the Indian navy never ever sunk Khaibar (again, an ex-HMS). Never damaged any other Pakistani ships either, right?
Or let's look at good old Harpoon, right. It has MORE kills when launched from missile boats (because of Iran using it in the Iran/Iraq war) than from the air.
If anything, in terms of effectiveness and hit ratio ship-to-ship missiles when used have proved to be significantly more effective than air-to-ship ones. Their range nowdays is such that there is bugger all difference between them launched by ship or air - the stand-off distance is in the hundreds of miles.
So first we have aircraft carriers without aircraft, now we have combat warships without offensive weapons. We seem to be following a worrying trend here...
What next - broomsticks instead of guns for the army? Paper planes for the air force? A particularly detailed dictionary of harsh words and empty threats for the UK diplomatic corps?
What next - broomsticks instead of guns for the army? Paper planes for the air force?
I think we're already there. The RAF are having to fly strike (=bombing) missions with the Typhoon, exclusively designed as a fighter, there's no maritime patrol capability. The army have had all manner of equipment issues for year and years.
Returning to the RN, you have to remember this is only the latest part in a very long running saga where our "warships" are not only fewer and fewer in number, but for the most part carry fewer and fewer weapons. Your average RN frigate isn't a match for an Israeli gunboat that has the same displacement as an RN offshore patrol vessel, and that's before Harpoon is withdrawn.
We have an energy policy designed by Greenpeace, and now we have a defence policy designed by the Peace Pledge Union. There really needs to be a public enquiry into how our military have been shat on by successive governments, followed by the public drowning of the guilty (because we probably don't have enough bullets to shoot them).
Maybe because they are less relevant in modern warfare perhaps?
That depends on what you plan to do with them. Seems we have neither the quantity or quality to keep Russian submarines out of our territorial waters, nor any aircraft to assist.
"Perhaps that is one ship per Admiral?"
It's actually more than two admirals per ship!
At 25 rounds per minute and a 30k range that 4.5in gun more than outguns anything prior to the Korean war, including the battleships. Regardless, expect drones to replace long range fire and forget missiles for most heavy hitting needs; and if you really need to you can kill it with a tomahawk from forever away.
Um, no. A modern 4.5 inch gun or even the 5 inch guns on American ships definitely does not outgun or outrange a WW2 battleship. They are probably more than enough to deal with Somalian pirates or Iranian speedboats though.
This is kind of embarrassing. Not the same service or even the same reality, but the words of one of the space marines from "Aliens" comes to mind: "What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?"
Um, no. A modern 4.5 inch gun or even the 5 inch guns on American ships definitely does not outgun or outrange a WW2 battleship.
The guns on HMS Dreadnought topped out at 22km. And that's assuming they hit what they were aiming at.
A modern MkVIII will go from 28km.
Now, the 15-inchers on the Bismarck would do it (~36km), as would the RN's 14in MkVII (~33km), but the MkVIIs would only fire 2rounds per minute, and the Bismarck's 15-inch guns could do 2.5rpm.
The MkVIII will manage 25rpm.
So what we're looking at is low-rate-of-fire with old targeting tech and all defence provided by armour, compared with high-rate-of-fire, state-of-the-art radar and sophisticated defensive armaments to shoot down incoming shells. Funnily enough, this is why ships carry fewer guns these days!
In an extreme-range engagement I'd probably take my chances on the ship which can lay down 10 times more ordnance in the first couple of minutes and use it's defensive weaponry to eliminate the incoming, subsonic shells.
"The guns on HMS Dreadnought topped out at 22km. And that's assuming they hit what they were aiming at."
Whilst they might out gun a Dreadnought, I would not want to be anywhere near the target receiving the attention of a Dreadnought's 12-inch guns...
Personally, given the main role of the RN seems to be psychological power projection, it might better achieve it's intent by commissioning some new WWI warships - as they certainly looked menacing.
The problems starts when you get fired at with supersonic anti-ship missiles fired by other ships you can't target.
And who said WWII shells were subsonic? Just look at the speed of the 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun shells.
Actually the heavy guns and battle ships were made useless by planes fist and missiles later. In a gun-only fight.... also, rate of fire is nice, but depends on how many rounds you carry, and how much damage they do.
"Actually the heavy guns and battle ships were made useless by planes fist and missiles later"
ISTR a documentary from 25 years ago about battleships making that point.
That same documentary pointed out that going to high rates of fire meant that smaller guns (and therefore smaller ships) could be used and that had serious knock on effects with maneuverability, etc, meaning less armour was necessary (The size of these boats is more determined by their ammunition capacity than anything else), with missile defence forming active armour meaning even less static armour.
The same documentary ALSO pointed out that due to changing engagement modes since the end of WW2, the primary use of 4.5" autocannons is for onshore bombardment, not engaging other ships. Think of them as a howitzer with a _very_ large and versatile ammunition store and devastating accuracy thanks to their gyrostabilised mounts and not getting knocked off target by recoil.
(A related documentary went into machine gun development, pointing out that a single modern footsoldier has more firepower than an entire regiment of 200 years ago.)
Aircraft carriers and support groups have pretty much been rendered obsolete by landbased antishipping ballistic missiles coming in at mach10+ - China's DF21-D and DF-24s being a case in point. As with Battleships it will probably take 40 years before militaries notice.
"Aircraft carriers and support groups have pretty much been rendered obsolete by landbased antishipping ballistic missiles coming in at mach10+ - China's DF21-D and DF-24s being a case in point. As with Battleships it will probably take 40 years before militaries notice."
Seeing as these have never been tested or shown to have worked, I wouldn't be crapping my pants if I was you, these missiles are up there with their 5th generation fighter!
HMS Rodney, the ship that sank the Bismark, fired a broadside of over 8 Tonnes every 45 seconds at a range of 22 miles. The first Battleship fitted with Radio Direction and radar range finding, I think your type 45 would in for a whopin. Although it would be able to run away....
The Nelson class had only one serious defect, being hopellely too slow, but at 23knotts they were as fast as that white elephant of all white elephants HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Oh and Rodney had an operational aircraft, a Shagbat. Catapult launched no less.
More than the Queen Elizabeth can boast
Emmeran: At 25 rounds per minute and a 30k range that 4.5in gun more than outguns anything prior to the Korean war, including the battleships.
Seriously? Let me dust off the USS Iowa and see how your pea shooter fairs against nine 16-inch (406mm) guns with a range of 23.4 nautical miles (40 kilometers)....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship#/media/File:Uss_iowa_bb-61_pr.jpg
8" and above guns were made for gunfire support missions ('shore bombardment'); they are virtually useless for any sort of anti-ship mission. Range isn't relevant; they don't have the fire-control system for it. That 4.5" gun would be dropping sniper-shots into the bridge of that old dreadnaught while performing basic evasive maneuvers that would avoid any sort of targeting by the big guns.
@SeymourHolz:
"The large-caliber guns were designed to fire two different conventional 16-inch (406 mm) shells: the armor-piercing Mk. 8 round for anti-ship and anti-structure work, and the Mk. 13 high-explosive round designed for use against unarmored targets and shore bombardment."
"The Iowas carried ten twin enclosed base ring mounts supporting 5 in/38 caliber Mark 28 Mod 0 guns. [snip] The 5 in/38 cannon functioned as a dual purpose gun; that is, it was able to fire at both surface and air targets with a reasonable degree of success."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship#Armament
Not designed for anti-ship use? Ha! That Type 45 destroyer would get squashed like a bug before it ever got within range.
Warships of the late 19th century, such as the RN’s own Edgar-class cruisers ... typically mounted secondary batteries of ten or twelve 6” guns, along with primary batteries of two 9.2” heavy guns, meaning after 2018 the RN's frontline warships would be hopelessly outgunned by century-old designs.
As I recall, the 9.2" heavies and the 6-inchers had effective firing ranges of 9-13km, compared with the 27km range of the current Mk8 4.5inch gun. Moreover the current Frigates and Destroyers have significantly superior manoeuvrability and stand-off capability (with top speeds of 28-30kn compared to the 20kn of an Edgar-class).
Given the ability of modern radar to effectively direct that solitary gun and make every shot count, I'll quite happily take the modern ship over the old one every day and pop at them from 3 times their effective range. It's not the size that counts - it's how you use it.
I also find the comment from Douglas Chapman MP that "we now find that these warships will be left defenceless" to be rather curious. Surely the opposite is true - a plethora of defensive options, but only a couple of offensive options (big gun and a not-quite-ready heli-based missile system).
Seems to be a storm in a tea-cup. Harpoon will be extended or we'll get some refurbed Block II/II+. In any case, we're not going to have any carriers worth escorting until past 2020 anyway, so no rush! (Oh sure, we'll have carriers, but they're not much use without planes, so where would we escort them to?).
Given the ability of modern radar to effectively direct that solitary gun and make every shot count,
The gun is a bit of a side show in a proper war, which would be missile based. It is only useful for frightening drug smugglers and pirates, or plastering irregular forces in an onshore barrage. That's not a very big "use case", really. Even against (say) Iranian speed boats, the chances of hitting or damaging them at 27km with a 4.5 gun are next to nil, and even if you do, chances are they've already launched a sea skimmer at you.
Maybe they will buy and fit a Harpoon upgrade - but given the MoD record on planning and procurement, how much hope do you have of that? I have precisely zero confidence that MoD and government have a clue about ANYTHING. Can you name any government department that under this or the past two governments has shown any evidence of doing a good job, or of knowing its arse from its elbow?
The RN had a camera crew on-board a type 45 when in the Caribbean a few years back and managed to capture a drug runner. Since it was Trafalgar day they decided to blow away the presented floating target with the ships weapons. (after offloading the crew and some cargo as sample evidence)
From about 500 yards they missed it with about half a dozen 4.5" rounds, and failed to sink it with 30mm cannon fire and shots liberally sprayed from a minigun. It was sunk in the end by dragging it in closer, smashing holes in with a hatchet, and finally by just filling it with water from the fire hoses until it sank.
I'm not entirely sure why people think that modern weapons are a million times more effective than old ones, just because they are new. Chances are that at their extreme range they are going to have the same accuracy problems at an old gun at extreme range.
Mind you, while the new ships might have less throw weight in shells than a hundred year old ship, the hundred year old warships had problems of their own. Due to faulty fuses the shells were found to break up on contact without exploding in WW1!
Government spending on military projects does not have a great history.
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