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Mallard said:
Destroyer, air warfare frigate, same difference, point is that even much more up to date and capable frigates like Fremm ran into issues with magazines depth
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The FREMMs are limited by the non-quadpackable Sylver, a FREMM with 16 Mk 41 instead of A50 could carry 64 ESSMs.

And picking up on "often they were forced to use guns to compensate. No captain wants to use guns as their main line of defense when missiles are far more likely to guarantee a kill"; Hessen, with 56 AAW missiles, used its 76mm for its first kill and its CIWS for its second, while Alsace used not just Aster-30, but its 76mm, and even its 12.7mm. Guns are a viable weapon vs drones, they are less viable vs ASMs, and pretty much useless vs ASBMs. The target set matters.

johnpjones1775 said:
Did it require that, or is that all that anyone had available?
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Pretty sure that intercepting ASBMs required the best AAW ships out there.
 
DWG said:
The FREMMs are limited by the non-quadpackable Sylver, a FREMM with 16 Mk 41 instead of A50 could carry 64 ESSMs.

And picking up on "often they were forced to use guns to compensate. No captain wants to use guns as their main line of defense when missiles are far more likely to guarantee a kill"; Hessen, with 56 AAW missiles, used its 76mm for its first kill and its CIWS for its second, while Alsace used not just Aster-30, but its 76mm, and even its 12.7mm. Guns are a viable weapon vs drones, they are less viable vs ASMs, and pretty much useless vs ASBMs. The target set matters.


Pretty sure that intercepting ASBMs required the best AAW ships out there.
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The high end requirements were how they chose to run the operation, of staying in predesignated boxes and covering a wide area, but running actual escorts, with hand off points lowers the bar for entry into this mission space.

And yes, the modern level of slow drones in the threat equation is why I now advocate for guns, guns, guns (other than guns are always cooler than missiles)

A 57/76mm gun backed by a pair of 30/40mm guns with proximity fuzes that are tied into the ship’s main FCS, is a great combo to counter drones and subsonic ASMs and even lower end of super sonic.

Missiles are for upper end of the missile threat.
 
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johnpjones1775 said:
The high end requirements were how they chose to run the operation, of staying in predesignated boxes and covering a wide area, but running actual escorts, with hand off points lowers the bar for entry into this mission space.

And yes, the modern level of slow drones in the threat equation is why I now advocate for guns, guns, guns (other than guns are always cooler than missiles)

A 57/76mm gun backed by a pair of 30/40mm guns with proximity fuzes that are tied into the ship’s main FCS, is a great combo to counter drones and subsonic ASMs and even lower end of super sonic.

Missiles are for upper end of the missile threat.
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Except no one has enough ships to do dedicated escort for commercial ships.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The cost comparison is not the cost of the weapon used to stop the incoming, but the cost of the defended target.
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Only until you can no longer afford to defend the ship.
But again, why would or should we spend $1m+ using a missile to shoot down a $10k drone, when we can expend $5-15k of guided or proximity fuzed gun rounds?

Why would you drain your missile magazine to intercept munitions that can be intercepted by guns?
I’m not above overkill, but if that overkill leaves you more vulnerable sooner or forces you to withdraw to reload sooner then overkill isn’t a good option.
 
Mallard said:
Except no one has enough ships to do dedicated escort for commercial ships.
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We had Europeans doing escort, and if we had organized with our allies yes we would have had plenty of ships in the area to escorts especially if it were done as a relay rather than two or three ships escorting 1-4 ships in and out of the threat area.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
Only until you can no longer afford to defend the ship.
But again, why would or should we spend $1m+ using a missile to shoot down a $10k drone, when we can expend $5-15k of guided or proximity fuzed gun rounds?

Why would you drain your missile magazine to intercept munitions that can be intercepted by guns?
I’m not above overkill, but if that overkill leaves you more vulnerable sooner or forces you to withdraw to reload sooner then overkill isn’t a good option.
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Unless we increase the gun batterys of ships theres no guarantee a single gun can take down an entire wave of drones before they are able to reach the ship.
 
Mallard said:
Unless we increase the gun batterys of ships theres no guarantee a single gun can take down an entire wave of drones before they are able to reach the ship.
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mk.332 is a thing though?
 
johnpjones1775 said:
The high end requirements were how they chose to run the operation, of staying in predesignated boxes and covering a wide area, but running actual escorts, with hand off points lowers the bar for entry into this mission space.

And yes, the modern level of slow drones in the threat equation is why I now advocate for guns, guns, guns (other than guns are always cooler than missiles)

A 57/76mm gun backed by a pair of 30/40mm guns with proximity fuzes that are tied into the ship’s main FCS, is a great combo to counter drones and subsonic ASMs and even lower end of super sonic.

Missiles are for upper end of the missile threat.
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Escort is a fundamental part of the warship mission set. That means having the ability to reach out and touch passing targets headed for someone else. Guns are shorter ranged, they can only cover a limited area. 57mm effective range is 8.5km, which gives a protected area of 227km2. CAMM, with its acknowledged range of 25km, has a protected area of at least 1963km. Or roughly eight times as large. Move up to an actual area defence missile, such as Aster 30, acknowledged range 120km, and your protected area balloons to 45,239km. About 200 times the area a 57mm can influence.

Guns are much better at point defence than they used to be because of smart rounds, but their ability to provide air defence of escorted vessels remains severely limited by their range. And if it's outside your range, then it doesn't matter if it's a high end ASCM, or a low-end drone, because you can't reach out far enough to touch it.
 
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Ainen said:
mk.332 is a thing though?
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Mk 332, and the other guided projects, increases your chance of a kill by being a guided round, with all the expensive bells and whistles that requires. The various air-bursting rounds increase your chance of a kill by being smart rounds that throw out pre-formed fragment clouds at the optimum moment. All that needs is a programmable clock chip in the fuse and a programmer on the end of the barrel.

If fragment hits are adequate to kill a drone, then air-bursting rounds are both cheaper and more capable (because they don't have the firing-rate restriction of requiring control all the way to the target). These are the rounds you want versus drone swarms.

Guided rounds have the advantage of optimising the chance of a hit, and of delivering more damage, which is vital vs an ASCM, but overkill vs a drone, and restrict your engagement rate because of flight-time delays.

Vs say four drones, an air-bursting engagement can be burst, burst, burst, burst, look, re-engage. But engagement with guided rounds is shoot 1, guide for time of flight, shoot 1, guide for time of flight, shoot 1, guide for time of flight, shoot 1, guide for time of flight, look, re-engage and therefore inherently slower. (Obviously there's also slew time between engagements, but that applies equally with either kind of round)
 
Mallard said:
Unless we increase the gun batterys of ships theres no guarantee a single gun can take down an entire wave of drones before they are able to reach the ship.
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So far so good, but I am an advocate for more guns.

Personally I think DDGX needs forward and aft MK110s and a pair of mk38 mod4s per side as far as guns go.

The mk38 mod4 is actually a massive improvement for anti-drone work both surface and air.

Upgrade burkes from mod2/3 to 4 and they’ll be ok for drones between 5” mk38 and phalanx
 
DWG said:
Escort is a fundamental part of the warship mission set. That means having the ability to reach out and touch passing targets headed for someone else. Guns are shorter ranged, they can only cover a limited area. 57mm effective range is 8.5km, which gives a protected area of 227km2. CAMM, with its acknowledged range of 25km, has a protected area of at least 1963km. Or roughly eight times as large. Move up to an actual area defence missile, such as Aster 30, acknowledged range 120km, and your protected area balloons to 45,239km. About 200 times the area a 57mm can influence.

Guns are much better at point defence than they used to be because of smart rounds, but their ability to provide air defence of escorted vessels remains severely limited by their range. And if it's outside your range, then it doesn't matter if it's a high end ASCM, or a low-end drone, because you can't reach out far enough to touch it.
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I never said no missiles ever?

But if you’re escorting a ship or convoy, your responsibility is that ship or convoy, not any other ship.
 
Sylver has much in common with NASAMS. They both can empty their inventory on unique targets for each missile in under 20 seconds. (Mk41 can pack Mk25 ESSM quad modules, but only two can be fired in quick succesion.) This is why I believe if you are setting angled launchers on a deck, the NASAMS is a great option for USN and USCG, that is if their systems can integrate.

And you wouldn't have to put them all on one deck, they could be distributed acrossed several decks. It is quite an advanced capability that its a shame military branches have knee jerk NIH syndrome.

Edit: Some information how SYLVER is used. https://www.seaforces.org/wpnsys/SURFACE/DCNS-Sylver-vertical-launching-system.htm

The basic unit of Sylver VLS is an eight-cell module fitted with two rows of 22-inch missile cells surrounding the uptake for exhaust gas.

Models / Measures:
Sylver A-35 (lenght = 2,6 meters / width = 2,3 meters / height = 3,5 meters) VL MICA-M (RF or IR), Crotale VT1, or CAMM
Sylver A-43 (lenght = 2,6 meters / width = 2,3 meters / height = 4,3 meters) adds Aster 15 or CAMM-ER
Sylver A-50 (lenght = 2,6 meters / width = 2,3 meters / height = 5 meters) adds Aster 30
Sylver A-70 (lenght = 2,6 meters / width = 2,3 meters / height = 7 meters) adds Storm Shadow

source: https://defencehub.live/threads/naval-vls-solutions.5553/
 
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johnpjones1775 said:
I never said no missiles ever?

But if you’re escorting a ship or convoy, your responsibility is that ship or convoy, not any other ship.
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And if you have a straggler lagging 30km aft of the convoy? Or the attack is on the other side of the convoy? Gun range does not cover all the scenarios you can expect as an escorting vessel.
 
DWG said:
And if you have a straggler lagging 30km aft of the convoy? Or the attack is on the other side of the convoy? Gun range does not cover all the scenarios you can expect as an escorting vessel.
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Again, who said no missiles ever?

However if the attack comes from the other side of the convoy the escort on that side covers it.

If there’s a straggler that far back you either slow the the whole convoy or leave them behind. If it’s a convoy the convoy as a whole is your priority. If the straggler is of particular importance slow down briefly, send a JO or two over to command and speed the ship up. Once it’s back among the rest of the convoy speed everyone else back up.

These problems that you come up with aren’t hard to solve
 
A potential to the no serious SAM issue could also be to place a mk29 launcher on the aft deck instead of ASMs or containers.

It is still less than ideal to have one 8 missiles but it most certainly is better than nothing.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The cost comparison is not the cost of the weapon used to stop the incoming, but the cost of the defended target.
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The cost comparison affects how many threats the enemy can afford to throw at you in one swarm/salvo.
Mallard said:
Unless we increase the gun batterys of ships theres no guarantee a single gun can take down an entire wave of drones before they are able to reach the ship.
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Yeah, some guns have the range to filter the outer defence layers, and there needs to be sufficient 30mm-40mm guns to guarantee the leakers cant saturate or exhaust the inner layer.
DWG said:
Mk 332, and the other guided projects, increases your chance of a kill by being a guided round, with all the expensive bells and whistles that requires. The various air-bursting rounds increase your chance of a kill by being smart rounds that throw out pre-formed fragment clouds at the optimum moment. All that needs is a programmable clock chip in the fuse and a programmer on the end of the barrel.

If fragment hits are adequate to kill a drone, then air-bursting rounds are both cheaper and more capable (because they don't have the firing-rate restriction of requiring control all the way to the target). These are the rounds you want versus drone swarms.

Guided rounds have the advantage of optimising the chance of a hit, and of delivering more damage, which is vital vs an ASCM, but overkill vs a drone, and restrict your engagement rate because of flight-time delays.

Vs say four drones, an air-bursting engagement can be burst, burst, burst, burst, look, re-engage. But engagement with guided rounds is shoot 1, guide for time of flight, shoot 1, guide for time of flight, shoot 1, guide for time of flight, shoot 1, guide for time of flight, look, re-engage and therefore inherently slower. (Obviously there's also slew time between engagements, but that applies equally with either kind of round)
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But guided rounds can be accurate at maximum range, vs unguided smart rounds get more accurate as the target gets closer so dual feed guns to get the best of both worlds...
 
johnpjones1775 said:
Again, who said no missiles ever?
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No one, but guns are more restricted than you assume.

johnpjones1775 said:
However if the attack comes from the other side of the convoy the escort on that side covers it.
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That assumes you have one there, and that isn't an assumption you can make, because even if one was assigned it may be 30km away trying to help a straggler, engaging another threat, or a burning wreck and you need to be covering all of those contingencies.

johnpjones1775 said:
If there’s a straggler that far back you either slow the the whole convoy or leave them behind. If it’s a convoy the convoy as a whole is your priority. If the straggler is of particular importance slow down briefly, send a JO or two over to command and speed the ship up. Once it’s back among the rest of the convoy speed everyone else back up.
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You don't risk the entire convoy for a straggler, you do detach escorts to round stragglers up if they're available and the stragglers are important. I'd suggest reading some of the accounts from the Battle of the Atlantic and the Malta Convoys to get an understanding of how complex things can get, and how a couple of JOs don't magically fix a straggler's issues outside of the rare case of an idiot who thinks he's safer alone.

johnpjones1775 said:
These problems that you come up with aren’t hard to solve
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And yet they were shown to still be issues even when the RN had been doing convoy escort for 3 years. An individual escort can only be in one place at once, and sometimes you have more places you need escorts than actual escorts. The difference from WWII is that nowadays missiles will let you reach out to cover some of those empty places; guns not so much.
 
Circular, for the foreseeable future, we need both.

Layered defence and optimised attack for the role/target.

Being focussed on one or the other is a mistake.
 
DWG said:
No one, but guns are more restricted than you assume.



That assumes you have one there, and that isn't an assumption you can make, because even if one was assigned it may be 30km away trying to help a straggler, engaging another threat, or a burning wreck and you need to be covering all of those contingencies.


You don't risk the entire convoy for a straggler, you do detach escorts to round stragglers up if they're available and the stragglers are important. I'd suggest reading some of the accounts from the Battle of the Atlantic and the Malta Convoys to get an understanding of how complex things can get, and how a couple of JOs don't magically fix a straggler's issues outside of the rare case of an idiot who thinks he's safer alone.


And yet they were shown to still be issues even when the RN had been doing convoy escort for 3 years. An individual escort can only be in one place at once, and sometimes you have more places you need escorts than actual escorts. The difference from WWII is that nowadays missiles will let you reach out to cover some of those empty places; guns not so much.
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What assumptions about guns am I making exactly?
I’ve made no assumptions about guns.

People were criticizing what the first batch of FFX could have done in the Red Sea without dedicated VLS installed, all I and others have done was explain that RAM and mk110 was sufficient to engage the majority of threats that were present there during our operations.
 
DJB said:
The cost comparison affects how many threats the enemy can afford to throw at you in one swarm/salvo.
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Only in terms of how long it takes to build up the salvo before firing.

Your costs and the enemy's costs do not particularly intersect, let alone overlap.
 
When it comes to modern guns on US Navy ships there are quite a few. Here is a sample:

Bofors 57 mm (2.24") Mark 110 Mod 0 Naval Automatic Gun System (Bofors L/70) Mounting

DS30B Mark 74 Rapid Fire Cannon Mounting
twin 30 mm (1.2") Oerlikon KCB 30 mm cannon

DS30M Mark 2 Naval Automated Small Calibre Gun (ASCG) Mounting
25 mm (1") M242 Bushmaster Mark 38 Mod 2 Machine Gun System (MGS)
30 mm (1.2") Bushmaster II Mark 46 Mod 0/2/3 Gun Weapon System (GWS) (28,913 N)
40 mm (1.57") Bushmaster II Mark 46S Stretch (48,930 N)

Other USN cannon on unspecified test mounts
12.7 mm (.50") M2 Browning Heavy Machine Guns (HMG)
30 mm (1.2") M230 Chain Gun in the MAWS (Modular Advanced Weapon System)
35 mm (1.4") Bushmaster III
40 mm (1.57") Bushmaster IV (62,272 N)

Then add in that there are 50 mm (1.9") for the Bushmaster IV.
 
That's not an accurate list of small-caliber guns. What the USN actually has are:

Mk 38 Mod 1 -- 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Mk88 mount (unstabilized and manually aimed, this is not a modern gun, IMO, which is why it's being or has been replaced by the Mod 2/3)

Mk 38 Mod 2 -- 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Typhon mount

Mk 38 Mod 3 -- 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Typhon mount plus wide-angle surveillance optics

Mk 38 Mod 4 -- 30mm Bushmaster II Chain Gun, DS-30M mount. Not many of these.

Mk 46 -- 30mm Bushmaster II Chain Gun, AAAV turret. On LPD-17, LCS, and DDG-1000 only.

That 30mm M230 MAWS never got past a test installation on a single PC around 15 years ago, and the PCs are gone now.

No 35mm, 40mm, or 50mm have reached the fleet or are even seriously proposed right now.

Plenty of .50-cal M2s around, almost all on free-swinging pintle mounts. This was old tech on 1942, not modern at all by now, but almost completely unchanged aside from adding some optics.
 
TomS said:
That's not an accurate list of small-caliber guns. What the USN actually has are:

Mk 38 Mod 1 -- 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Mk88 mount (unstabilized and manually aimed, this is not a modern gun, IMO, which is why it's being or has been replaced by the Mod 2/3)

Mk 38 Mod 2 -- 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Typhon mount

Mk 38 Mod 3 -- 25mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, Typhon mount plus wide-angle surveillance optics

Mk 38 Mod 4 -- 30mm Bushmaster II Chain Gun, DS-30M mount. Not many of these.

Mk 46 -- 30mm Bushmaster II Chain Gun, AAAV turret. On LPD-17, LCS, and DDG-1000 only.

That 30mm M230 MAWS never got past a test installation on a single PC around 15 years ago, and the PCs are gone now.

No 35mm, 40mm, or 50mm have reached the fleet or are even seriously proposed right now.

Plenty of .50-cal M2s around, almost all on free-swinging pintle mounts. This was old tech on 1942, not modern at all by now, but almost completely unchanged aside from adding some optics.
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Don’t forget the 240s and mk19s

But the crew served could all be put into RWSes which would likely help increase accuracy noticeably if they had the pixel lock feature the mk38s mod2/3 have.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Only in terms of how long it takes to build up the salvo before firing.

Your costs and the enemy's costs do not particularly intersect, let alone overlap.
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It also has an upstream effect on how slow they are to build up inventory, how much inventory you are likely to keep in the arsenal, and how much it will drain your economy when you need more and more weapons.

I'm not sure if CMS software can automatically allocate slow targets to lower cost defences, but of course your enemy will try to throw cheap and fast drones (and decoys) at you to complicate your defence.
 
DJB said:
It also has an upstream effect on how slow they are to build up inventory,
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That was part of the salvo timing.


DJB said:
how much inventory you are likely to keep in the arsenal, and how much it will drain your economy when you need more and more weapons.
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Granted.


DJB said:
I'm not sure if CMS software can automatically allocate slow targets to lower cost defences, but of course your enemy will try to throw cheap and fast drones (and decoys) at you to complicate your defence.
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Not sure if "effector cost" is one of the variables, but "most effective use of onboard weapons stows" almost certainly is. Cheap weapons are likely the smallest and most available, since they're likely gun projectiles.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Hard to do, given how many jobs happen in various states.

Ignoring the fact that by Constitution, Congress approves the budgets.
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While I'm all for democracy as the next fellow, I'm also a realist... and the reality is that thanks to Russia letting out the memetic warfare genie out of the bottle, democracies are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

We need the military to be able to say 'hey, we need this' and tell Congress where to stuff it when it comes to procurement again.
 
FFG(X) should be literally like the Constellation class outfitting with better bones for future growth. I am sure we could have done better than to overload a FREMM design. FF(X) will never be anywhere near as capable and the only similarity with be both designations begin with FF.
 
cccgong said:
https://smawins.com/news/constellation-class-frigate-tragedy/
This confirms basically everything we've been saying about FFG(x) cancelation reasons and confirms why everything we've been saying about FF(x) being bad.
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Sounds like they think the navy had competing priorities and couldnt get everyone on the same page, then gave up due to lack of motivation. I wonder how much of it was political from cabinet level dramas, and how much was the navy just giving up without a plan.
 
GruntFox said:
We really need to start decoupling Congress with procurement in general...
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GruntFox said:
While I'm all for democracy as the next fellow, I'm also a realist... and the reality is that thanks to Russia letting out the memetic warfare genie out of the bottle, democracies are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

We need the military to be able to say 'hey, we need this' and tell Congress where to stuff it when it comes to procurement again.
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You may think you want that, but you don't.
 
Jimmo952 said:
You may think you want that, but you don't.
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The reality is that you're ignoring the history between the US military and Congress, which has even the worst abusers go DAMN!!! at. Skintflint is basically the nicest way to put it. New words have to be invented to describe the abuse, though.

The sad reality of memetic warfare is that it uses the very life-adjacent properties of information and culture, and it effectively 'hacks' the minds of people without them even knowing. Democracy can't operate under those conditions.

Also, after BuOrd was put behind the shed and put down by McNamara, his reforms, which gave the military more say in procurement matters, actually improved things. Congress took that away in the 1990s, and the US military has been suffering for it.
 
MadRat said:
FFG(X) should be literally like the Constellation class outfitting with better bones for future growth. I am sure we could have done better than to overload a FREMM design. FF(X) will never be anywhere near as capable and the only similarity with be both designations begin with FF.
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I mean, quite literally the difference is that FFGX would carry Standards for local area defense, and FFX will only have ESSMs.
 
GruntFox said:
The reality is that you're ignoring the history between the US military and Congress, which has even the worst abusers go DAMN!!! at. Skintflint is basically the nicest way to put it. New words have to be invented to describe the abuse, though.

The sad reality of memetic warfare is that it uses the very life-adjacent properties of information and culture, and it effectively 'hacks' the minds of people without them even knowing. Democracy can't operate under those conditions.

Also, after BuOrd was put behind the shed and put down by McNamara, his reforms, which gave the military more say in procurement matters, actually improved things. Congress took that away in the 1990s, and the US military has been suffering for it.
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Congressional involvement is a necessary evil. Congress has the power of the purse and responsibility for oversight.

That's not to say they always do their job well, but then neither does the Defense Department.

I wouldn't use the term skinflint myself. The US spends lavishly on it's military but that is not to say always efficiently.

Plenty of room for reform in defense acquisition but Congress has an important role to play.
 
Jimmo952 said:
I wouldn't use the term skinflint myself. The US spends lavishly on it's military but that is not to say always efficiently.

Plenty of room for reform in defense acquisition but Congress has an important role to play.
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There are dozens, if not hundreds of cases where Congress refused to pay for production after spending millions or billions (depending on when) in the development side. Seawolf, Zumwalts, M247 Sergeant York, ADATS, LOSAT, Liberty SAM (which became Crotale NG), ...
 
Scott Kenny said:
I mean, quite literally the difference is that FFGX would carry Standards for local area defense, and FFX will only have ESSMs.
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There's allot more than that. Number of missiles, BM capability, ASROC, radar, ASW quieting, ASW capability, cooperative engagement capability, future HEL to name a few.
Jimmo952 said:
Congressional involvement is a necessary evil. Congress has the power of the purse and responsibility for oversight.

That's not to say they always do their job well, but then neither does the Defense Department.

I wouldn't use the term skinflint myself. The US spends lavishly on it's military but that is not to say always efficiently.

Plenty of room for reform in defense acquisition but Congress has an important role to play.
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Western nations and the US in particular does have a coherent long term strategy due to election cycles/whims. The military at least has more of a long term vision due to the tenures of the generals. This causes flip flops and pork barreling that waste untold amounts of money and time and results in worse program performance (see the shuttle and Artemis being forced to use SRB).

Whether the generals vision is correct is another thing, but Congress is even worse equipped to judge that.
 
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