The NDP is very much about indicative designs to try and work out requirements for programmes, it isn't supposed to be the RN giving hints to manufacturers. If you put a low-poly radar panel on a 3D model it will turn out looking a lot like CEAFAR any way you put it.
Well, though I'm pessimistic, it's not confirmed yet, and so there's still a chance that this arrangement has nothing to do with the naval theatre. The BAE lobby is strong.
It depends. Objectively, SPY-6 - depending on the version- is a fantastic S band radar. CEAFAR2 uses X, S, and L bands to take average of their wavelength strengths. The relatively smaller panels means more can be placed around the mast, combining their capabilities and increase their search and tracking power from all angles. You're right about BAE and the UK moving too slowly. The whole country seems pretty dysfunctional for at least 10 years.
Don't be mistaken, they actually do a lot of technical and advisory work to flesh out those ideas. At the end of the day though, those concept pictures were approved by the RN and MoD for use and distribution from CNE 2026. It wasn't for lack of polygons that they turned out looking like a CEAFAR radar system... The pictures are plenty detailed enough to have a Type 26 in the background. It's because that's what they're hinting at delivering. The writing is on the wall.
Just look at the NDP FSSS concept and how much the design changed after it went to an open design competition. The BMT/Navantia design beat the much more similar looking BAE proposal. I know it's different for an AAW combatant for which the RN gets a lot more input on CMS and radar but using a well known, relatively generic foreign design as a placeholder seems reasonable to me.
Seems like the UK needs a loicense to grow their economy.
They kinda want to, but things for now move in the opposite direction.
It's too far ahead of the curve to be of much use currently.
The BAE alternative to CEAFAR or SPY-6 would be BAE's Next Generation Transmit Receive Module, which is scalable and wide band in the same way but is still under development.
Don't know why you'd bother looking at anyone besides RTX and Lockheed. Those other companies don't offer anything that competes with CEAFAR. And it's GaN by the way, and just because something uses that technology doesn't not immediately make them equal.
Is it just a module or have they actually built and tested a working system from it?
Yes, the chaps at Leonardo and Thales France dont have anything comparable to CEAFAR... Off course not... The chaps with the vastly bigger order books, vastly bigger budgets, vastly bigger engineering teams, who have actually sold their products to an ungodly number of foreign navies and have been doing so for the best part of a century, dont have anything comparable to... CEA technologies... Right.
I don't mean this in a patronising manner, but what does Australia actually offer to the UK in terms of nuclear submarine design and technology that the UK and BAE are not already capable of doing themselves? The UK already has pedigree in hull and hydrodynamic design, sensor design, propulsion design, et cetera.
The Next Generation Radar Generator (sorry, BAE are nearly as bad as CEA at naming radar) hasn't been built yet but testing has been done on NGTRM. It's not surprising BAE are behind in development, we're in a different phase of our build cycle from you and are just coming out of a massive slump in design work due to over a decade of doing basically nothing apart from the carriers and some OPVs.
The "BAE's Next Generation Transmit Receive Module" is just a module, the "working system" AKA "Next Generation Radar Demonstrator" is being built right now, should be finished next year.
CCV will enter service in the mid-2030s, and by then it should be around the same time.
That's because it is a modern western radar... By the way
The CEAFAR went quite high on the mast for the ANZACs, but the fact it could even work without having to mount the S-band arrays on the deckhouse (burke style) kind of shows the top weight was managable on such a small ship.
Okay.. so... How do I go about this?
No hubris here, I just understand how CEAFAR stacks up against world leading radars. And I don't use simple equations like you just did.
I can admit that CEA are terrible at naming. But these people are electrical engineers. Marketing is the furthest thing from their mind
It's true, we don't offer much in terms of nuclear submarine design, but when Aukus was born, our requirements for a submarine then had to be taken into consideration for the advanced work done on SSN-R. So there was a little bit of re-baselining the new Aukus boat. And because we use a lot of US systems, that's where the UK is getting that tech from to fill that requirement.
So you're Portuguese? Whoopty-do
Manageable by adding significant ballast to the Anzac, while Hunter grew significantly in beam and displacement to manage increased top weight from the parent T26 design.
I may be several years behind the times, but I was under the impression that the British SSN-AUKUS would use our own sensors and CMS, where at least in the former we are supposed to be very capable, while the Australians would use the US-derived one. Has that changed or is it all ambiguous?
'It was announced in March 2025 that the UK has accepted General Dynamics’ AN/BYG-1 submarine combat control system will be the core control element for SSN-AUKUS, effectively anchoring the future RN submarine combat system to a US-led architecture. Freedom to integrate predominantly European sensors and weapons will be retained. AN/BYG-1 is an open-architecture system already in service with the US Navy’s SSNs and the Royal Australian Navy’s Collins class SSKs.'
It literally says tri-national command system. We're all in this together now
As above, all three Aukus partners are settling on the AN/BYG-1. It makes it far less complicated. But the Australian and UK versions will integrate some European sensors, but our boats should be identical.
Is there any information indicating that it will be displayed in 2027？
Nah he's just having a guess
Well, given the USN and RAN already used AN/BYG-1, I expect the modifications will be British to accommodate British sonars and torpedoes.
No, he's correct according to reports from Janes in 2025.
Yeah, obviously the British will need their bits integrated, and we'll likely operate an AUKUS version, but we'll also get upgrades and updates that the yanks get as well.
I'm probably not being clear in what I'm saying, so I apologise for that.
Ah OK I was mistaking AN/BYG-1's system flexibility for freedom within the programme. Barring some very odd decision making S2176 it is then.
Indeed. The Anzac quarterdeck had to be enclosed because with the ballast the ships sat lower in the water, & speed dropped - & I wouldn't be surprised if range also did.
