Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship AOPS

[Underway]

Not sure where to place this question but this seemed a reasonable place. Please move if it has a more appropriate thread.

Instead of "land basing" any new radar technology (SPY7 etc) would it not be feasible to have them on purpose built ships? It may require a couple more systems to deal with scheduled maintenance of the ships but they would be mobile and less susceptible to stagnant installations, observation, and targeting. It might mean a class 2 or better hull for winter but 6 or seven hulls should provide continued surveillance. Just a thought....

Not really the best idea. Mainly because of availability rate. Geography doesn't change, we know what areas we need to cover with radar. So having a radar available all the time, no worry about the ship breaking down etc... is a better idea. You can also have a lot more power for that radar, both processing and detection. And you can run a land line to other establishments for communication to integrate all that information from all the sensors (sattelite, ships, aircraft, other ground based detectors).

There is merit in having a mobile system to do overlaping coverage, but in Canada our plan is to use aircraft (AEW or AWAC) for that purpose.