Stewart Fraser examines in detail the Royal Navy’s plans for a daring class Air Defence destroyer. the TYPE 45, replacing the type 42, will be seen in service in 2007.
The Type 45 is to be a replacement for the UK’s existing fleet of ageing Type 42s
The product of one of the most critical ship procurement programmes that is currently planned for the Royal Navy, the Type 45, or Daring-class air defence destroyer is due to enter service from 2007. Intended as a replacement for the existing fleet of ageing Type 42 destroyers, the Type 45 will be the largest general purpose surface warship, aside from carriers and amphibious vessels, constructed in the UK since World War II.
The Type 42, was built around the BAE Dynamics GWS-30 Sea Dart SAM and has been the Fleet’s principal AAW destroyer since the late 1970s. A total of 14 were built for the Royal Navy including two of the class HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry lost during the Falklands war. As an area air defence weapon, the Sea Dart is approaching obsolescence. The ramjet-powered Sea Dart, with a range of 40km/21.5nm and an engagement envelope of 100-18,300m/328-60,042ft, was designed in the 1960s primarily to defend blue water task forces against aircraft and possibly, large Soviet anti-shipping missiles.
A projected MK2 version was cancelled in the 1981 defence review. While some reliability and performance enhancements were made to the original weapons, a new type of system is required to deal with the range of threats likely to be faced under littoral warfare conditions and in open ocean areas.
The Type 45 is the UK’s national successor to the common new generation frigate (CNGF) or project horizon-class a tripartite venture with Italy and France and itself a replacement for the abortive early 1990s NATO NFR-90 frigate programme.
Britain withdrew from the CNGF venture in April 1999 due to dissatisfaction with the management and industrial structure of the programme but remains committed to the associated principal anti-air missile system (PAAMS), which has been selected as the main armament of the Type 45.
Prime contractorship of the 12 ship programme was awarded by the DPA to Marconi Electronic Systems in November 1999, shortly before the company’s merger with British Aerospace, Marconi having previously been involved with the Horizon International Joint Venture Company.
As prime contractor, BAE systems is responsible for running all ship equipment competitions (with the exception of PAAM which is the subject of a separate MOD procurement process) while Vosper Thornycroft and BAE Systems Marine are jointly developing a single design. On 10 July 2001 the Defence Secretary announced that, as part of a revised procurement strategy, orders would be placed within the next few months for the second three ships of the class three years earlier than expected. The work is to be shared between BAE Systems Marine yards at Barrow-in-Furness and on the Clyde and Vosper Thornycroft at Southampton, securing an estimated 900, 1,200 and 650 jobs respectively.
Yarrow at Scotstoun will be responsible for assembling the first ship, with units two to six assigned to Barrow. Steelwork and sub-unit outfitting will take place at Yarrow, the Govan facility on the Clyde and Vosper Thornycroft. It is estimated that the first six ships will cost £4.3bn.
Under Smart Procurement, four initiatives are planned for the Type 45. These include modular construction, with sections of the ship to be built at different sites across the country prior to final assembly in one location and inclusion of a substantial growth margin for future equipment (the Type 42’s were notoriously ‘tight’ designs) under incremental acquisition. An initial batch will also be ordered, rather than the previous approach of ordering a single first of class, and substantial through-life cost reductions should be achieved by using integrated electric propulsion.
The Type 45 will have a displacement of around 5,800 tonnes light/7,200 tonnes deep load, a length of 151m and a beam of 20m. The complement will be approximately 190 plus austere accommodation for up to 60 Royal Marine Commandos or special forces personnel, reflecting the increased emphasis placed on littoral expeditionary warfare.
Using two 25MW WR-21 advanced cycle gas turbines, supplied by Northrop Grumman and Rolls Royce, the maximum speed will be around 29 knots, and the range 7,000nm at 18knots. The WR-21 employs intercooler and recuperator (ICR) heat exchange technology, which recovers energy from exhaust gases, resulting in space and fuel savings. Integrated electric propulsion systems including 20MW advanced induction motors, alternators, diesel generators and transformers are also to be supplied by ALSTOM power conversion and a Litton Marine Systems/Rockwell Automation team is intended to provide the platform management system.
The combat management system is to be supplied by BAE Systems combat and radar systems and Alenia Marconi Systems. This will use a mixture of new hardware and operating systems and existing Type 23 and Type 42 command and action data automation system applications. The full integrated communication system will be supplied by Thales in a teaming arrangement with BAE Systems and Raytheon and the latter has also been contracted to provide the navigation system.
PAAMS, the Type 45’s main armament, was originally intended to equip the CNGF and in spite of early difficulties, due in part to differing national requirements, it has survived, to meet the UK national and ongoing Franco-Italian Horizon requirements. Prime contractorship of the PAAMS programme is under the control of a joint venture company, two-thirds owned by Eurosam, an amalgam of Aerospatiale Matra, Thales and Alenia Marconi Systems, and one third by UKAMS, a subsidiary of Matra BAE Dynamics.
The system is built around the Aster 15 and Aster 30 SAMs, launched from a 48 cell DCN Sylver vertical launch system. Aster 30 is a Mach 4, 80km range weapon, with an active Doppler J-band radar seeker, inertial datalink, 62G manoeuvre capability and a 15kg warhead, while the Aster 15 has around half that range. As yet there has been no confirmation as to whether the Royal Navy will use both versions or only the longer ranged Aster 30.
The UK version of PAAMS uses the E/F band BAE Systems Sampson multi-function active array radar, in preference to the Empar G-band system, selected for the Italian and French horizon-class ships but deemed unsuitable for the Royal Navy’s more demanding requirements. Sampson has an output of 25Kw and using digital adaptive beam-forming, is highly resistant to ECM. For wide-area long-range search, a D-band Alenia Marconi Systems S1850M radar is employed.
In comparison to Sea Dart, PAAMS will provide multiple target engagement capability and much greater performance in the local area fleet defence role, especially against the new generation of supersonic, stealthy and highly agile anti-ship missiles. It will also have a significant overland capability, providing air defence for amphibious landings and operations ashore. The powerful radar and C4I facilities also give the Type 45 the ability to co-ordinate all task force AAW and local aircraft operations. A TMD capability could potentially be added at a later date and is currently being developed for land-based Aster SAMP/T missiles. However, this is not part of the Type 45 requirement at present.
The Sylver VLS is an Aster-specific system that is not currently capable of launching a wider variety of missiles, such as TLAM. However, the Type 45 has been designed to accommodate an extended Sylver system for which a ship-launched version of the Apache/Scalp cruise missile is under development or a retrofitted MK41 at a future date. For the moment there is no operational requirement for the ship to carry land-attack cruise missiles. Horizon/CNGF was also to have been fitted with a short-range point defence or inner layer missile system. Initial plans for the Type 45 do not include the ILMS but it could be fitted in future.
Aside from PAAMS the weapon fit aboard early units of the class would appear to be somewhat sparse, especially for a ship of this size. The standard medium calibre gun, at least in the early ships of the class, will be the BAE Systems MK 8 MOD 1 4.5 inch 55-calibre weapon. This has a range of around 3.5nm against air targets or 15nm with high explosive extended range rounds in the anti-surface role and a rate of fire of up to 25 rounds per minute.
However, the Royal Navy has a requirement for a new five inch weapon capable of firing extended range ammunition up to 75 miles in support of littoral operations and this may be fitted to later production ships in addition to the planned future surface combatant. It is not yet clear what, if any, other guns would be fitted, but some form of CIWS is likely especially in the absence of the ILMS and a pair of 20mm and/or 30mm general purpose weapons is a standard aboard Royal Navy escorts.
Space and weight has been reserved for a surface-to-surface guided weapon (SSGW) system and ASW torpedo launchers though neither is initially to be fitted to the lead batch of ships, probably as a cost saving measure. All ships will however, be fitted with a surface ship torpedo defence system.
The Type 45 will carry a Lynx HMA Mark 8 or Merlin HM Mark 1 helicopter with Stingray ASW torpedoes and in the case of the Lynx Sea Skua SSMs and later, whatever missile system is adopted for the future air surface guided weapon (FASGW) requirement.
The procurement of ESM systems, self-defence sonar, IFF and electro-optical gun control systems is currently in progress.
