UK and US naval SAM evolution

[uk 75]

A subject that comes up in various threads on this site is the difference between the UK and US approaches to surface to air missiles for their navies.
The US produces the family of T missiles (Talos, Terrier and Tartar) which evolves into the Standard missile family. The Typhon missile was similat even if its guidance and detection radars were radically different.
The UK produces Seaslug which is comparable with Terrier. It then develops the CF299/Seadart which is close to Standard in performance but unlike Standard cannot be retrofitted into Seaslug ships.
Less successful is the US approach to a point defence missile system. Forced to abandon the ambitious Mauler system by 1964 it moves to the BPDMS eight box launcher for the Sparrow missile. The effectiveness of this system has never been tested.
The UK starts off with a basic 4 round launcher to replace 40mm aa guns using a missile derived from the Australian Malkara anti tank missile called Seacat.
A Seacat 2 missile which could have matched BPDMS in capability is not followed up instead of which the GWS32 Seawolf is developed to counter Soviet air and sea launched missiles.
Seawolf like Seaslug and Seadart proves to be an effective weapon but is more cumbersome to mount on ships than the US systems.
The US and West German RAM (Rolling airframe missile) takes as long as Seawolf to develop and is only in service in the 90s.
With the benefit of hindsight it would have been better for NATO if the UK systems had been designed to use US launchers and more sharing had been possible.

 

[zen]

Wrongly worded for the conversation we were having that prompted this separate thread.

From the 50's onwards RN focused on the need to Intercept large Anti-ship Missiles ultimately carrying nuclear warheads.

Hence the transition from Popsy to Orange Nell. Calling in on a SAM version of the US Meteor AAM on the way called Mopsy.

USN took onboard the concept of lighter and more compact Missile System than Terrier and after a forey into the then unachievable master/servant distributed concept. Opted to develop Tartar for anti-aircraft SAM focused more on range and sacrificing the capability to defend effectively against Anti-ship Missiles.
RN appalled, tried to get funded Q-band guidance System integrated. As this could deliver.
Treasurer not funding yet another Missile or licensing.
RN went away and tightend up their thinking on what was needed. Orange Nell resulted and .....not funded.
But over the hill came a potential saviour in the form of writing NMBR.11 for a Tartar 'successor'.
This was what SIGS was developed for.
Then through the range increases potential from Bristol's ramjet propulsion.
But US only wanted to sell Tartar as is no changes.
While it spiralled off into Typhon....which was abandoned ultimately.

Worse was to come.
Modified Army SHORAD PT.428 dropped for funding Blue Water tactical nuclear missile and funds siphoned off for US Army SHORAD called Mauler.
Which was overambitious and ultimately cancelled.
Typhon died but Standard took elements onboard and the legacy of Typhon was realised by Aegis.

Mauler cancelled and a lashup of Sparrow Basic Point Defence Missile System was developed. Along with Sea Dragon which got no traction with the USN.

PT.428 legacy fed into Rapier and Sea Wolf......but failed to persuade the French who wanted higher performance and the Dutch who wanted simple and cheap.

RAM is post SHIELD which would've used SRAAM. But did offer better capability than Sea Dragon without the higher costs of improving Sea Sparrow.
These being ILWS inner layer weapons system

 

[uk 75]

Thank you Zen for explaining the sense of the UK approach to missiles and sensors.
But why does the RN keep saddling itself with such cumbersome launchers?
Seaslug can be forgiven to some extent. Terrier on a County would have been similarly large.
But the Seadart launcher and magazine compared with the single arm Standard launcher and VLS cannisters?
Seawolf gets a Seacat launcher version with 4 boxes but only after the T22s are forced to ship the six round launcher which is then all but impossible to fit on Leanders without removing the main armament. T21 is forced to soldier on with Seacat. It could at least have got a Phalanx turret instead.

 

[bobtdwarf]

A SeaDart capable of being stored horizontally makes a whole new world! Size wise she is so close to Seaslug in raw dimensions as not to matter a damn.. so a relatively easy and cheap conversion would be possible and some additional export sales might be possible. It would not be horribly difficult to make something like the rotary magazine of the terrier and that opens up so many conversion possibilities not the least of which would be the Seven Provinces after Peru bought her

 

[zen]

But why does the RN keep saddling itself with such cumbersome launchers?

Well....it's a fair question. But the answer seems to be either compromise on the missile or compromise on the launcher/magazine system.

The real question is why was the RN so hide bound on insisting on US style arm launchers, when the merits of VLS were obvious....
Sea Wolf was actually tested with a VL booster and it worked!

Sea Dart seems to had an intended nuclear warhead option and this might help explain things in part.
Another aspect is the RN had very high standards of safety for magazines and was less keen to compromise them.

Arguably Seaslug ought to have had vertical storage and magazine system. Which could have been transformative and liberating for next generation missiles.

 

[bobtdwarf]

But why does the RN keep saddling itself with such cumbersome launchers?

Well....it's a fair question. But the answer seems to be either compromise on the missile or compromise on the launcher/magazine system.

The real question is why was the RN so hide bound on insisting on US style arm launchers, when the merits of VLS were obvious....
Sea Wolf was actually tested with a VL booster and it worked!

Sea Dart seems to had an intended nuclear warhead option and this might help explain things in part.
Another aspect is the RN had very high standards of safety for magazines and was less keen to compromise them.

Arguably Seaslug ought to have had vertical storage and magazine system. Which could have been transformative and liberating for next generation missiles.

I wonder if the experience with the Hood/Bismarck "golden BB" is the foundation for that obsession with magazine safety? If it isn't I can see how it would add energy to it though.

 

[TomS]

I wonder if the experience with the Hood/Bismarck "golden BB" is the foundation for that obsession with magazine safety? If it isn't I can see how it would add energy to it though.

Think Jutland. Multiple RN ships were lost to magazine explosions, reportedly exacerbated by dangerous magazine safety practices brought about by the desire to speed reloading and win gunnery exercises.

 

[zen]

RN did their own testing of Ikara magazine. There is footage out there of it.
Cannot blame them really for being cautious, especially if you're going add in a few nuclear warhead armed options.....

Plus remember Sea Dart was expected to lead to other things and so a complex magazine system for selecting particular rounds seems highly logical. Also it's rooted in earlier NIGS concepts.

 

[bobtdwarf]

I wonder if the experience with the Hood/Bismarck "golden BB" is the foundation for that obsession with magazine safety? If it isn't I can see how it would add energy to it though.

Think Jutland. Multiple RN ships were lost to magazine explosions, reportedly exacerbated by dangerous magazine safety practices brought about by the desire to speed reloading and win gunnery exercises.

I had assumed that in my observation but did not reference it... so Hoods loss after all that effort would tend to drive greater behavior: You get burned in one major engagement and take steps to fix it, those steps were not enough to prevent another major loss in an engagement so now you are driven to borderline obsession.

 

[TomS]

I had assumed that in my observation but did not reference it... so Hoods loss after all that effort would tend to drive greater behavior: You get burned in one major engagement and take steps to fix it, those steps were not enough to prevent another major loss in an engagement so now you are driven to borderline obsession.

Oh, quite likely. Certainly Hood was not a sign that they could afford to slack off on magazine safety.

 

[uk 75]

Although I have been critical of the RN launchers compared with the US equivalents I agree wholeheartedly with the resilience points above.
The Seaslug for example served on 8 RN ships and no other European Navy deployed this number of Masurca or Terrier equipped vessels (France and Italy managed three each).
Seadart was probably a more effective system than Standard until the arrival of AEGIS.
The T45 was delayed by attempts to find a
utinational solution. Is is better than an AEGIS UK ship would have been (Spain and Norway show what could have been done), probably yes.
Seawolf gave T22 and converted Leanders the chance to survive in the critical N Atlantic which no other system of the period offered.
Ikara was focussed on killing Soviet SSNs and its protection and mountings reflected that. Budget rather than system factors limited its deployment. Unlike helicopters it could operate in the atrocious weather to be found in the Iceland gap.
Seacat was fitted to more RN ships than amy other system Ideally it should have been upgraded with Seacat 2 and later neen replaced with Phalanx. But money was short...

 

[CV12Hornet]

But why does the RN keep saddling itself with such cumbersome launchers?

Well....it's a fair question. But the answer seems to be either compromise on the missile or compromise on the launcher/magazine system.

The real question is why was the RN so hide bound on insisting on US style arm launchers, when the merits of VLS were obvious....
Sea Wolf was actually tested with a VL booster and it worked!

Sea Dart seems to had an intended nuclear warhead option and this might help explain things in part.
Another aspect is the RN had very high standards of safety for magazines and was less keen to compromise them.

Arguably Seaslug ought to have had vertical storage and magazine system. Which could have been transformative and liberating for next generation missiles.

In fairness to the Royal Navy, the merits of VLS weren't obvious when Sea Dart and Sea Wolf were being designed. While the fact that VL Sea Wolf was allowed to lapse is genuinely inexcusable, it's much more reasonable that Sea Dart was never vertically-launched, not least because I'm not sure it was even possible to vertically-launch it until Mod. 2.

 

[Hood]

I had assumed that in my observation but did not reference it... so Hoods loss after all that effort would tend to drive greater behavior: You get burned in one major engagement and take steps to fix it, those steps were not enough to prevent another major loss in an engagement so now you are driven to borderline obsession.

It wasn't just Hood, the Royal Navy in the 20th Century perhaps lost more capital ships to magazine explosions (through various causes) than any other Navy.
At the Falklands (82 not 14) the ships burned nicely but took a while before they exploded and some didn't explode at all.

 

[Dilandu]

The real question is why was the RN so hide bound on insisting on US style arm launchers, when the merits of VLS were obvious....
Sea Wolf was actually tested with a VL booster and it worked!

Mostly because rail launchers simplified the missile a lot. Vertical launch required a lot of efforts on missile side - like orienting it properly while in flight - which rail launchers took care on by themselves. The rail-launched missile therefore could be A - cheaper, B - simpler, C - more reliable.

 

[zen]

The rail-launched missile therefore could be A - cheaper, B - simpler, C - more reliable.

Not really even then.
The simple rule of thumb is, the more moving parts the more chance of failure.
For Sea Wolf, which is Command Guided the need such as SARH SAMs to be close to the TIR doesn't exist.

You'd have a better argument concerning dud rounds falling back onto the ship from VL launch.

 

[Dilandu]

For Sea Wolf, which is Command Guided the need such as SARH SAMs to be close to the TIR doesn't exist.

Actually, it pretty much exist, because the missile needed to be gathered into Type 901 FC radar field of view to be tracked.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

But why does the RN keep saddling itself with such cumbersome launchers?

Well....it's a fair question. But the answer seems to be either compromise on the missile or compromise on the launcher/magazine system.

The real question is why was the RN so hide bound on insisting on US style arm launchers, when the merits of VLS were obvious....
Sea Wolf was actually tested with a VL booster and it worked!

Sea Dart seems to had an intended nuclear warhead option and this might help explain things in part.
Another aspect is the RN had very high standards of safety for magazines and was less keen to compromise them.

Arguably Seaslug ought to have had vertical storage and magazine system. Which could have been transformative and liberating for next generation missiles.

In fairness to the Royal Navy, the merits of VLS weren't obvious when Sea Dart and Sea Wolf were being designed. While the fact that VL Sea Wolf was allowed to lapse is genuinely inexcusable, it's much more reasonable that Sea Dart was never vertically-launched, not least because I'm not sure it was even possible to vertically-launch it until Mod. 2.

My memory from talking to the guys that worked on Sea Dart and Sea Wolf at this time, the benefits of vertical launch were well understood by the engineers in the late 60’s. Indeed by way of technology demo a Sea Wolf was vertical launched and TVC flipped onto the target bearing in the very late 60’s… 69-70.

The problems were the technical risk, together with the cost, and the senior Royal Navy officer who were fixated on copying what the USN were doing.

VL Sea Dart was studied but Mod 2 was still rail launched with the TVC giving greater close in arc coverage. From memory the problem with VL Sea Dart was they wanted to redesign the ship with the launch cells at the stern, so it all got a bit more complicated from an overall project perspective.

Then the Falklands War, with ships being left defenseless due to the failure of a single prox sensor on a blast door, convinced everyone that VL was the way to go. I wonder if this also convinced, maybe just reinforced the USN understanding as well.

Of course by this point the Sea Dart as a development route had ended, much to the annoyance of the guys in the project team.

Also a nuke for Sea Dart was studied in the early project phase but didn’t get that far.

 

[zen]

From memory the problem with VL Sea Dart was they wanted to redesign the ship with the launch cells at the stern, so it all got a bit more complicated from an overall project perspective.

That is a classic and completely believable!

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Zen
I’m not making this up.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Mostly because rail launchers simplified the missile a lot. Vertical launch required a lot of efforts on missile side - like orienting it properly while in flight - which rail launchers took care on by themselves. The rail-launched missile therefore could be A - cheaper, B - simpler, C - more reliable.

Agree with all except “more reliable”, it’s actually more exposed, and then needs numerous bits to function in the nasty environment, which is incompatible.

 

[Dilandu]

Agree with all except “more reliable”, it’s actually more exposed, and then needs numerous bits to function in the nasty environment, which is incompatible.

I meant the missile, not the launcher.